Publishing links round-up: October 19, 2011

Since I’m hard at work writing and editing this week, with little time to blog, here’s some links to interesting articles about various recent happenings in the publishing arena:

The big one that has people talking: Amazon to begin publishing original books, starting with a fall slate of 122 titles. This move cuts out publishers entirely, but how can they respond when they’re so dependant on Amazon?

Also getting a lot of buzz: the National Book Award’s initial goof and subsequent bungling with Lauren Myracle’s SHINE. Vanity Fair has a fantastic interview with Lauren about the whole incident which is worth a read.

In the manga arena: Viz Media is taking their weekly Shonen Jump magazine to a purely digital format, a move that has some people celebrating (as a step towards getting an already-online audience into the habit of paying for their digital content) and others concerned. Chris Butcher has a pretty insightful commentary on why the Shonen Jump digital move is possibly bad, not just for comic shops but for the industry as a whole.

From Little Island Comics, a great list of five kid-friendly Halloween comic titles, just in time for the spooky season! Little Island Comics will be running some special events over the Halloween weekend (Oct 29-30), including how-to comic workshops with local creator Tory Woolcott and free comics for costumed kiddies. They’re also selling special packs of Halloween give-away comics – our house has been giving out comics along with candy for a few years now, and it makes us the most popular trick-or-treat stop on the block!

And for writers: some fabulous advice from Ali Luke about How to Finish What You Start. Personally, I am prone to #1 (starting new projects while others remain incomplete) and #5 (not setting enough milestones during a project to keep me on track) – what about you?