Month: April 2012

Business kleptocracy

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by Doctor Science A kleptocracy is when the government is run for the personal gain of the ruling class, without regard to what is good for the governed or the state as a whole. What do you call it when a business or other corporation is run for the personal gain of the high-level managers, … Read more

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

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by liberal japonicus The title is from Hunter Thompson, chosen because Dr. Science's recent post struck me in a bit of an oblique way, in that temps were raised because the doctor made the argument that some might summarize (mistakenly, I think) as "editors are no longer professional". The title is not to suggest that … Read more

Parentcam

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by Doctor Science

Spring is here, and that means it’s time to watch birds. The clearest view of any nestcam I know is Cornell’s Red-Tailed Hawk cam. Mom “Big Red” and dad “Ezra” have three eggs this year. One got out of the egg yesterday:

Cornell-RTH-fuzzface

Who could resist that *faaaaaaaaaace*?!?! Screencapture from gumbercules.

despite the fact that this is what the nest looked like Sunday night:

RTHinsnow

Screencap by Veronica Knapp

— yes, there’s a hawk there.

I’ve embedded the hawkcam feed under the cut. Today already when Big Red was off the nest for a few minutes (getting some more nesting material, she’s been acting as though the spruce needles were poking her) I saw the hatched chick and got a good look at the second egg, which has a gap big enough so you can see the chick (technically, the eyas) inside, chipping away. The third egg has a few chips out of it, but it takes over 48 hours for an eyas to get itself out — the parents don’t help.

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Ebooks and professionalism in the publishing industry: The Case of John Barth on Kindle. UPDATED

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by Doctor Science I see in the comments to the previous post that I really poked some nerves by saying “the profession of editing had become distinctly unprofessional.” Perhaps I should have said, “people with pro editing jobs were no longer able to consistently edit in a professional manner.” The root cause was succinctly stated … Read more

50 Shades of Fandom: Writing. Part IIa

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by Doctor Science

The copyright page for Fifty Shades of Grey says:

The author published an earlier serialized version of this story online with different characters as “Master of the Universe” under the pseudonym Snowqueen’s Icedragon.

I’m pretty sure this is the first time a best-selling work of fiction has explicitly acknowledged that it’s derived from a fanfic; at least I’ve never seen anything like this statement before.

In itself, the fact that FSoG started as Twilight fanfic isn’t any kind of publishing revolution: derivative, imitative, and parodic stories have piggybacked their way to success for hundreds if not thousands of years. What makes FSoG revolutionary, IMHO, is how fandom worked to perform most of the traditional functions of the publishing industry, functions which — as we saw in Part I — the pros have let fall by the wayside.

I’ve passed 1500 words again, so I’m splitting Part II into halves: IIA, this one, is about how fandom functioned to help James with writing the book, IIB will be about how fandom helped her with publishing it.

Constable-EdgeofHeath

The edge of a heath by moonlight, by John Constable. A very simple oil sketch. I guess it was a quick, preparatory work, Constable working out forms and basic light, but the result is that it looks very much like Impressionism, half a century early.

I chose the pictures for this post by search Wikipaintings for “twilight”.

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50 Shades of Publishing, Part I

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by Doctor Science

By now you’ve probably heard of Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. To recap: independently e-published romance featuring explicit BDSM comes out of nowhere to massive e-sales, mainstream publishers fight for hard-copy rights to the tune of 7 figures, movie rights start bidding up, everyone and her supposedly-staid mother is talking about it.

Even before I finish reading, I can tell you this: Fifty Shades of Grey is the end of the publishing industry as we know it. The fat lady is singing, the tipping point is in the rear-view mirror.

Cut for length —

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