Links of Interest

MARKETS: Part 3 of Jim Hines' survey on how authors made their first sale. This looks at what these authors did to improve their odds of being published.

http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/novel-survey-results-part-iii/

WORLDBUILDING: Making the world more specific for your story needs.

http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/03/world-building-week-building-out-rooms.html

Making each scene specific according to your worldbuilding.

http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/03/world-building-week-painting.html

Keeping the characters and plot in the front of your neat new world.

http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/03/world-building-week-showing-it-off.html

MARKETS: How to give a winning verbal pitch to an agent or editor.

http://www.alanrinzler.com/blog/2010/03/29/insider-tips-for-preparing-and-delivering-a-winning-pitch/

CRAFT/QUERIES: Using the query to figure out what your book is about before you write it.

http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/03/testingtestingis-this-query-on.html

MARKET: Anthology seeking urban fantasy set during the Roaring Twenties.

http://twelfthplanet.livejournal.com/11064.html

FIRST SALE DATA: Jim Hines has put up the complete data about novel first sales.

http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/survey-results/

CRAFT AND MARKET: Learning through helping others learn. (As a teacher, I really agree with this.)

http://www.ninc.com/blog/index.php/archives/doing-the-other-guys-job

THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING: An article on where big publishing should go and why it won't. Really smart and thought provoking.

http://www.idealog.com/blog/my-advice-is-not-alwayseasy-to-follow-but-sometimes-it-proves-right-anyway

HISTORICAL RESOURCES: Slavery records, court records

http://library.uncg.edu/slavery