Monday News: On writing, publishing, and transcribing
Missing Hong Kong booksellers ‘working on book on Xi’s love life’ – Five Hong Kong publishing colleagues reportedly working on a book focused on the President of China’s former girlfriend have disappeared, prompting democratic legislator Albert Ho to allege that the men have been kidnapped for political purposes – specifically to suppress publication of the reported book. This publisher has released books criticizing the Chinese government and was allegedly warned not to release the reported book in question. Despite nominal freedom of speech in Hong Kong, the disappearance has generated suspicion and public protest in the hopes of prompting Hong Kong authorities to investigate.
A Hong Kong lawmaker said Sunday he believes Chinese security officers kidnapped five publishing company employees who have gone missing in the city, possibly because of a planned book about the former love life of President Xi Jinping. . . .
Small groups of protesters marched through central Hong Kong Sunday, while activists expressed shock at the case that saw employee Lee Bo disappear last week.
Four of his colleagues from the Mighty Current publishing house went missing in October. – Yahoo News
‘Game of Thrones’ Author George R.R. Martin Says Next Book Not Finished Yet – Despite Martin’s hope that he would be finished with The Winds of Winter in time for the April 2016 premiere of Game of Thrones, season six, he finally made his public declaration that he is not done with the novel. Martin indicated that he has to finish his initial writing and then undertake the extensive rewriting that characterizes his creative process. In part, the pressure of a deadline may have contributed to current situation:
“Look, I have always had problems with deadlines,” he said. “For whatever reason, I don’t respond well to them. … I wrote my first novel, ‘Dying of the Light,’ without a contract and without a deadline. No one even knew I was writing a novel until I sent the completed book to Kirby to sell. I wrote ‘Fevre Dream’ the same way. I wrote ‘The Armageddon Rag’ the same way. No contracts, no deadlines, no one waiting. Write at my own pace and deliver when I’m done. That’s really how I am most comfortable, even now.” – ABC News
Please, Read My Book (Unless You’re a Friend of My Sons’) – How many Romance authors can relate to Jacy Sutton’s blog post on writing a “racy novel” when your family, friends, work colleagues, book club, kids, and kids’ friends know you’re doing so. Sutton hoped that her book would not release until her son was safely out of high school and off to college, but her road to publication was speedier than she thought, and now her book will release while her son is still in school. And despite her pride in what she has accomplished, it has certainly led to some awkward moments:
As I worked to find an agent or publisher I entered a lot of Twitter contests. You get 140 characters, including the contest hashtag, to pitch your opus. I got a text from my younger son, 19. His friend had told him, “I think your Mom’s Twitter was hacked.” He had to explain that I was indeed the author of those racy tweets. My older son’s roommates were even more intrigued. They followed me after they read my tweets and offered themselves as beta readers. – New York Times
Shakespeare’s World – Read a lot of handwritten primary sources? Then this project might be for you. It’s a very cool initiative sponsored by the Folger Library, Zooniverse.org, and the OED, and it relies on the public to transcribe documents from 1564-1616 – resources that might shed light on who Shakespeare was and how he lived:
Transcribe handwritten documents by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and help us understand his life and times. Along the way you’ll find words that have yet to be recorded in the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary, and which will eventually be added to this important resource. – Shakespeare’s World
Good grief! You’d think we still write 1850, with Victorians clothing their pianos’ legs in lace, rather than an age when barely 18 year old girls consider prostitution or porn acting a perfectly fine career choice.
Yay. Great links as usual. Glad to see this feature continue in 2016.
I survived this first weekend without my daily DA fix, although I freely admit I panicked–Where is everyone? Was there a DDoS?–before remembering you were cutting back. Thanks for the links.
@cleo and @Darlynne: I’m going to try to keep the news going on a daily basis, although it may not always be four stories (sometimes I’m scavenging for posts). Feel free to submit links, as well, because we all read in different corners of the Internet.
Maybe I’m too jaded, but Jacy Sutton’s column sounds like part of her promo and marketing push. It’s not as if her son’s situation was going to be magically transformed when he graduated high school. Presumably he’s like other teens and is on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc., so the news of his mother’s “dirty book” (her words, not mine) would spread as quickly as people choose to share the news.
She could have used a pseudonym. She could have done all kinds of things if she wanted to keep people from finding out easily. She definitely didn’t need to write about it in the NYT.
Her publisher is Booktrope, which is some kind of hybrid publisher. Not exactly a digital-first small publisher, but definitely not a trad publisher either. Nate wrote about them earlier this year.
@Sunita: My first thought after reading that bit was ‘pseudonym’, also; though I’m not sure how much privacy that ensures.
@Sunita: Oh, it’s clearly promo; I rarely read anything by authors these days that I don’t assume is promo. I also figured she wasn’t being traditionally published given the accelerated publication timeline. It didn’t strike me, though, as if she didn’t want people to know she wrote the book. And I appreciate that she’s not all red-faced, nattering shame. Maybe I’m giving her too much credit, but I saw the dilemma as this: how to be a woman writing erotic fiction without a) having to hide behind a pseudonym, b) having boys/young men who know her sons, and who may or may not be of age, following her on Twitter and making what are — of course — completely mature and sincere offers to beta read, or c) how to negotiate situations that could become awkward, like discussions with male co-workers (I could see some weird sexual harassment scenarios arising here).
OK, so a (very) little internet sleuthing turns up the info that “Jacy Sutton” is almost certainly a pseudonym. The author is not very concerned about keeping her personal and author social media accounts separated, so it’s no wonder people she knows learned about her book. That of course assumes that she didn’t tell them herself, which I think is a big assumption.
Robin, I agree that there are interesting questions raised, ones that women who write romance and erotica have been grappling with for years. I just don’t think she is a good example of the dilemma. I think this is using “hey friends, don’t buy my book, tee-hee, because it has sex in it!” as a publicity/marketing ploy.
I have mixed feelings about George R. R. Martin’s angst. On the one hand, I thought the observation that he doesn’t respond well to deadlines was an interesting one. On the other hand, he signed contracts with his publisher and sold the rights to his series to HBO. He has also profited from the resulting fandom. We should all be so lucky as to have the headache he has now.