how did it get to be July?

[rivkat]

I am looking for people who have experience as nonfiction e-book formatters and cover designers. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Covert Affairs: stepping up the “shit”s now, hunh? Also I approve in general of Annie challenging the CIA’s sexism, though the obvious ironies of fucking for your country are obvious. And of course I approve of pretending to be married, because who doesn’t love that plot?

Slate on an extortion ring preying on gay men in the 1960s. Read until the end. American life is nothing but second acts.

Making money on YouTube: "A history of the entertainment business could be framed as a series of experts asking, 'Who the hell wants to watch that?' When the answer is 'more people than you think,' the definition of profitable entertainment changes."

Meowbify: Add cats to any internet site. I tried it on AO3, which seemed perfectly appropriate.

Kim Newman, Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles: Newman was doing the pastiche/reboot before Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, etc., and he’s good at it. Basher Moran, a racist, sexist thug, is Moriarty’s right-hand man, and this is his account of some of their more interesting adventures. I liked the War of the Worlds parody best, but I suspect many Sherlock Holmes fans would enjoy the reversals of Watson’s recorded adventures, which of course include references to other unreported cases and internal inconsistencies in the same was that the original Holmes stories do.

Sharon Shinn, Angel-Seeker: It’s been a while since I read a Samaria novel; they’re het wingfic romances set in a world where winged angels can call down intercessions from Jovah (actually a big computer/spaceship, but the average Samarian thinks it’s God). This one deals with the highly repressive and misogynistic trading culture, the Jansai, that doesn’t have much use for the angels’ governance but is important to Samaria’s economy; specificially, the head angel sends the angel Obadiah to negotiate with them, but he also happens to fall in love with Rebekah, a Jansai woman, which is decidedly not supposed to happen. Another plot involves Elizabeth, an angel-seeker who hopes to get pregnant with an angel’s child and thus gain respect and love but slowly learns that she’s worth more than that as a person. The Jansai were basically exotic desert people whose treatment of women made everyone else’s menfolk look better, though Shinn did suggest why it was hard for Rebekah, and the women around her, to reject their culture wholesale—the only option on offer. Elizabeth’s journey made a thematically satisfying contrast (change in the self in a culture that supports that versus change in a culture that tries to crush it), but I think I might be done with romances in a world where everyone apparently has a heterosexual soulmate out there, waiting to be found.

Comments

[giandujakiss]

I noticed all the "shit" on USA a few seasons ago, with Saving Grace. And now it's even on Lifetime - someone called someone an asshole. Basic cable is breaking free! -

No, I'm confused - "shit" was on TNT with Saving Grace - and then again on USA with Common Law. And asshole I think was also USA - Rizzoli and Isles.

Same point, though - clearly basic cable is rebelling.

[elf]

I have no direct experience with nonfic ebook formatting (although that's mostly not different from fiction formatting) or covers, but Joel Friedlander's blog, The Book Designer, gives out advice and has a monthly contest for ebook covers, which means he points out what works and what doesn't. (What doesn't: scripty fonts, extra text that would show up fine in print but only serves to clutter a 200x300 pixel display.)

[rivkat]

Thanks!

[mecurtin]

I am tracking this post (both sides) because I am v. interested in the answers to your first question, too.

[wendelah1]

Me, too.

[sorrel]

I actually thought one of the greatest moments in the Samaria series was the one when Alleya confronted the ship for the first time: and the moment that she was told that the whole soulmate thing was, in fact, just a computer who could track genetic trends breeding for traits in a population. It sort of turned the thing around for me, because it raises an interesting question: if you believe truly that this person is supposed to be your soulmate, and there are admirable things about them, wouldn't you fall in love? Even if you wouldn't have ever if the Kiss didn't tell you that you would? Except one of the big themes of the romances in that series was about choice, choosing above and beyond destiny after destiny stopped being a factor. And the entire "destined mate" thing was contrasted by the Edori, who didn't even have formalized marriages. I can't really disagree with your assessment of the trope, though; I just think we got different things out of it.

Although Elizabeth's story *was* the better of the two in that book. Not my favorite, probably Jovah's Angel gets that honor, but still interesting. I can't remember, have you read any of Shinn's other series/standalones? She's been one of my favorite authors for years, but her new novel, a foray into urban fantasy, I couldn't even finish.

[rivkat]

FWIW, there's a list you can get from Smashwords--you send an email and they automatically send the list back--with various people who do this, many of whom post samples. But I like word of mouth.

[rivkat]

Yeah, as long as people don't know that it's a computer planning things for them, it just seemed like compulsory heterosexuality taken to the next level to me.

I read most of Shinn's earlier work, but not recent stuff.

[jenrose]

I've been involved with multiple nonfic book cover designs.

[rivkat]

Thanks! Do you have any samples I could see?

[jenrose]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/1890446084/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_0?ie=UTF8&index=0&isremote=0
(they're on to a new edition in the 8 years since I left, that's the largest I can find quickly.)

http://www.midwiferytoday.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MT&Product_Code=96TT2&Category_Code=MTBK
These are part of a series with a specific style that I helped set... our goal was clear, clean, and eye-catching.

[rivkat]

Thanks!