Towse: views from the hill

July 26, 2006

[URL][WRITING] TileZ: Book trends, data, and insight … easy, fast, affordable

Filed under: URL,writing — Towse @ 5:00 am

TileZ is still in beta and FREE! but plans to start charging a teensy weensy tiny almost infinitesimal price once they go live.

Here is their description:

TitleZ provides:

* Data: Instantly retrieve historic and current sales rankings from Amazon and create printable reports with 7-, 30-, 90-day and lifetime averages
* Trends: Easily see how topics or titles perform over time; measure the competition; understand what’s hot
* Insight: Improve decision-making; know what to publish and when

How it works:

“TitleZ makes it easy to see how a book or group of books has performed over time, relative to other books on the market. Simply enter a search phrase, book title, or author, and TitleZ returns a comprehensive listing of books from Amazon along with our historical sales rank data.”

Info is ripped from amazon.com data.

Sounds boring and marketing and all, doesn’t it?

But NO! TileZ is where you can compare how your book is doing against how your archenemy’s book is doing and it’s where you can peek and see where your ex-husband’s latest book is ranked on Amazon — 2,678,954 hahahahaha.

Here’s your chance. It’s free! Did I mention?

Register and tap in.

e.g.
Search: Keyword Title Author Publisher
Let’s pop in Po Bronson, our local boy who showed up in an article I was reading today. His oeuvre includes

What Should I Do With My Life (pub Dec 2003) ranked 4,799.
Why Do I Love These People (pub Nov 2005) ranked 22,363
Bombardiers (pub Mar 1996) ranked 246,242
The Nudist on the Late Shift (which is in the driver’s side pocket of my Mini Cooper for when I get stuck somewhere and need something entertaining to read) ranked 394,549

Hm.

I popped in Sue Hough’s name (Susan E. Hough) because she has her entertaining book about Richter coming out in five months or so, but the only item listed is “Writing on the walls.”(Macroscope; petroglyphs): An article from: American Scientist which was published in July 2004. The article is available for $5.95, TileZ sez, and is ranked 3,696,548.

What happened to Sue’s books?

So I popped /hough/ into the app and found out that Sue is listed as “Susan Elizabeth Hough”.

Oh.

So I popped /susan elizabeth hough/ in and pulled up her records with all four books she currently has in the running.

EARTHSHAKING SCIENCE (pub Mar 2004) is doing best with a rank of 155,458, but her Richter book (est Dec 2006) is not doing so shabby at 619,160.

Fun.

Pop in some author names, titles you know. Click on the green arrow next to the name and you’ll get a sales rank history including best rank, worst rank, 7-day average, 30-day average, 90-day average, lifetime average, with a line graph showing ranking and everything.

Save your searches to return at a later date with MyTitleZ.

Compare titles.

I popped /diet/ in as a key word and then asked to compare the top five sales-ranked titles. Here’s the result. (I think you’ll need to be registered and logged in to see results.)

Fun! Go!

Really!

[found the link at Joe Wikert’s blog]

July 15, 2006

[WRITING] Stephen King on Imagery

Filed under: writing — Towse @ 12:29 am

Wordplay, mentioned in the immediate past post, has an article by Stephen King: IMAGERY AND THE THIRD EYE which begins thusly

Some critics have accused me — and it always comes out sounding like an accusation — of writing for the movies. It’s not true, but I suppose there’s some justification for the idea; all of my novels to date have been sold to the movies. The assumption seems to be that you can’t do that sort of thing without trying, but as some of you out there will testify, it’s the sort of thing you very rarely can do by consciously trying.

So, you’re saying, why is this guy talking about movies when he’s supposed to be talking about writing? I’ll tell you why. I’m talking about movies because the most important thing that film and fiction share is an interest in the image — the bright picture that glows in the physical eye or in the mind’s eye. I’m suggesting that my novels have sold to the movies not because they were written for the movies, but simply because they contain elements of vivid image that appeal to those who make films — to those for whom it is often more important to see than it is to think.

Novels are more than imagery — they are thought, plot, style, tone, characterization, and a score of other things — but it is the imagery that makes the book “stand out” somehow; to come alive; to glow with its own light. I’m fond of telling my writing classes that all the sophistries of fiction must follow story, that simple caveman invention (“I was walking through the forest when the tiger leaped down on me…”) that held his audience spellbound around a fire at night — and perhaps he even got an extra piece of meat for his efforts if the story was a good one, the first writer’s royalty! But I also believe that story springs from image: that vividness of place and time and texture. And here the writer is always two steps ahead of the film director, who may have to wait for the right weather, the right shadows, or the right lens (and when the real world gives way, as it so often does in my books, he must then turn to the special effects man).

Where does good imagery come from?

Good question.

King answers in his inimitable style.

[URL] [WRITING] Wordplay for writers

Filed under: URL,writing — Towse @ 12:27 am

Wordplay is a site not only for screenwriters but also for writers who don’t necessarily write screenplays. Loads of information on both the creative process and the nuts and bolts.

July 14, 2006

[WRITING] Library of Congress, National Book Fests, and author Webcasts

Filed under: writing — Towse @ 3:58 am

The LOC has over 300 thirty-minute Webcasts of authors who gave talks at the National Book Fest in past years.

E.L. Doctorow
Marcia Muller
John Irving
George RR Martin
Neil Gaiman

150 hours-worth. … have fun.

April 13, 2006

[WRITING] Taddle Creek Magazine Submission Guidelines

Filed under: writing,writing-market — Towse @ 2:11 am

The Taddle Creek Magazine Submission Guidelines

If you don’t live in Toronto, they don’t want your writings, but you might like to check out their guidelines, nonetheless.


7. Taddle Creek accepts stuff it likes. Yes, it’s just that simple. The magazine prefers submissions that are humorous or show a sense of humour about their subject. The magazine does not restrict itself to this type of submission however, and often accepts “serious” submissions, provided they are entertaining. However, please note:

7-1. If you have/have had problems with your parents (what the magazine calls “daddy issues”) and feel the need to express them in the form of prose or poetry in a way that is weepy or heavy-handed, there are many magazines that will accept your work. Taddle Creek is not one of them. If you can express your problems in a funny or entertaining way however, do send your work along.

7-2. The magazine is fully aware of the absurdity of organized religion. If you have religion issues and can present them in a way you feel the magazine’s readers would enjoy, by all means do so. Earnest religious works will not be accepted.

7-3. The magazine does not care to read any more stories written from the point of view of unborn foetuses.

7-4. Three words: no shaped poetry.

7-5. Most importantly: Under no circumstances leave two spaces after terminal periods. There is absolutely no reason to do this, despite the fact it is still, bizarrely, taught in school. Any work submitted with two spaces after the period will be sent back to have the extra spaces removed before it is even read. Authors may then sit at the grown-up table.

April 12, 2006

[WRITING] SFF story prompt

Filed under: writing — Towse @ 12:01 am

  Posted by Picasa

I finally had my camera with me as I passed this business. This sign is on the door of a building on Grant across from Washington Mutual Bank. There’s another, bigger sign on the side of the building at the corner of Grant and Pacific, on Pacific. I’ve wondered since the day I first saw the signs, what if the owners really do mean Golden ‘Time Travel’?

Hm?

[SFX] Twilight Zone theme

December 17, 2005

Wendy Strothman at The Strothman Agency, LLC

Filed under: writing,writing-market — Towse @ 12:30 am

For those who keep finding this blog by searching for /”Wendy Strothman”/ and reaching this post from back in July 2004, may I provide you with some better links:

Update: “The Strothman Agency is moving. As of July 28th, [2008] we will be located at 6 Beacon Street, Suite 810, Boston, MA 02108. This will also be our new mailing address.”

July 28, 2004

Strothman Agency

Filed under: writing,writing-market — Towse @ 5:39 pm

Wendy Strothman, formerly with Houghton Mifflin and, before that, head of Beacon Press, has her agent shingle hung out in Boston. How do I know? Because someone (not me) in this household gets a copy of the Brown Alumni Magazine and was reading bits of the magazine to me over dinner last night. Strothman was Brown, class of 1972.

Strothman left HM in June 2002 to agent. She works with affiliate agent John Ryden and Dan O’Connell as senior publicity director. According to Publishers Weekly, the agency “specializes in narrative nonfiction — memoir, history, science and nature — and selected fiction.”

Have something along those lines?

The Strothman Agency
1 Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Third Floor
Boston, MA 02109

Update: More information on Wendy Strothman and the Strothman Agency

Update: “The Strothman Agency is moving. As of July 28th, [2008] we will be located at 6 Beacon Street, Suite 810, Boston, MA 02108. This will also be our new mailing address.”

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