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Writer's Blog | Search this Site | Subscribe **Self-publishing Section Don't miss our Self-publishing resource. With articles, features and links, this section will help you find out the information you need to self-publish. We've also got an entire section on book promotion to help you get the word out about your new book. Let Us Publish Your Book! Self publish your work with Instantpublisher.com! Our quick, online book publishing service allows you to have your books in as few as 7 to 10 days. We offer affordable prices, professional color printing and various binding options. Our excellent customer service and step-by-step instructions make self publishing your book simple and easy. Visit Instantpublisher.com and get started today! New Ebook DRM Technology Changes Words in Ebooks Wired reports that German developers have created a new ebook DRM technology that changes the text and punctuation of ebooks so that each ebook sold is slightly different. The technology is called SiDiM, which means "secure documents by individual marking." Wired says SiDiM makes very minor changes. Wired gives the example of some text in a book being changed from "very disturbing" to "not disturbing." This is actually a significant change because something that the author meant to be very disturbing is suddenly no longer disturbing at all. This could be a bad example as the SiDiM examples were translated from German into English. If the new technology becomes widely used it means no one will have exactly the same copy of an ebook. Because every ebook is slightly different a pirated copy could be tracked to the original purchaser. The goal behind the technology is to frighten the owner of an ebook from wanting to illegally share their copy. An obvious downside to the technology is people may read the ebooks in ways the author did not intend. Even changes intended to be minor could impact the books by changing meaning or making them harder to read by interrupting the author's intended rhythm. Another downside to this technology is that an owner of an ebook could get hacked and their copy could get stolen and shared illegally. Publishers may then blame the original purchaser of the book for illegally sharing their copy even though it was the hacker that pirated the ebook. Posted on June 19, 2013 Permalink  | Comments (View) |  Tweet Your Ad Could Be Here! Get your message out with a text advertorial. Text Advertorials consist of 50 words of text, a graphic and link to your website. Click here to request our rate card! Journalist and Author Michael Hastings Dead at 33 Journalist and author Michael Hastings died early this morning in a single car crash in Los Angeles. He was only 33, and is survived by his wife, Elise Jordan. Hastings write the infamous Rolling Stone interview piece with General Stanley McChrystal, who was the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan. The candid nature of McChrystal's comments led to him being relieved of his command. Hastings wrote two books: The Operators, which was an expose of the U.S.' war in Afghanistan, and I Lost My Love In Baghdad about the death of his fiance in and his experiences as a war correspondent in Iraq. In 2012 Hastings moved to BuzzFeed to cover the presidential election. BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith said in a statement: "We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone. Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians. He wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten, and without him there are great stories that will go untold. Michael was also a wonderful, generous colleague and a joy to work with." Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana wrote Hasting's obituary in which he discussed Hastings' reporting style: "Great reporters exude a certain kind of electricity, the sense that there are stories burning inside them, and that there's no higher calling or greater way to live life than to be always relentlessly trying to find and tell those stories. I'm sad that I'll never get to publish all the great stories that he was going to write, and sad that he won't be stopping by my office for any more short visits which would stretch for two or three completely engrossing hours." You can read Rolling Stone's full obituary here. Posted on June 18, 2013 Permalink  | Comments (View) |  Tweet How To Make It As A Songwriter Mary Dawson's book, How to Get Somewhere in the Music Business from Nowhere with Nothing, gives you the inside scoop on how to make it in the music business as a songwriter. Mary teaches you all you need to know to make your songwriting dreams a reality. Click here to learn more. Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Elton John and Bernie Taupin Honored at Songwriting Hall of Fame Ceremony The Songwriters Hall of Fame honored its 2013 inductees last night at the Mariott Marquis in New York City. Tony Hatch, Mick Jones & Lou Gramm of Foreigner, Holly Knight, JD Souther, and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry are the newest members. Elton John and Bernie Taupin won the Mercer Award for their long collaboration and Sam Cooke won the Towering Song Award for "A Change Is Gonna Come." Cooke's granddaughter accepted the award on his behalf. Songwriters Hall of Fame Chairman Jimmy Webb said in a statement, "Each of our 2013 inductees has been responsible for captivating the world with their creativity for decades, serving up a rich variety of songs for our global soundtrack. We are looking forward to celebrating their contributions at our Annual Awards Gala." There were a number of special honorees: Berry Gordy received the Pioneer Award. Gordy currently has a musical about Motown playing on Broadway. Songwriter and producer Benny Blanco receiving the Hal David Starlight Award. Blanco is only 25 and has co-written number one hits for Kesha, Katy Perry and Maroon 5. As is tradition, the hits penned by the inductees were performed at the event. Sting, Foreigner, Aerosmith and Petula Clark all took the stage. Take a look: Posted on June 14, 2013 Permalink  | Comments (View) |  Tweet Your Ad Could Be Here! Get your message out with a text advertorial. Text Advertorials consist of 50 words of text, a graphic and link to your website. Click here to request our rate card! American Library Association, ABFFE, and Tor Join Coalition to Stop NSA Surveillance Program The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, which was founded to fight book censorship and runs Banned Book Week, and the American Library Association are the latest signatories to a open letter a letter to the U.S. Congress about the newly revealed ongoing surveillance of Americans by the NSA. The letter to Congress says the spying on innocent Americans is illegal under the Constitution: "This type of blanket data collection by the government strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. This dragnet surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens’ right to speak and associate anonymously and guard against unreasonable searches and seizures that protect their right to privacy." The ABFFE is part of a bipartisan coalition of 86 civil liberties groups and Internet groups/organizations which has banded together to stop the surveillance of Americans' communications. Signatories to the letter include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, reddit, Mozilla, FreedomWorks, the American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association, BoingbBoing, Center for Media and Democracy, Center for Media Justice, Freedom of the Press Foundation, reddit, the World Wide Web Foundation, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Greenpeace USA, Tor and many others. It's not every day that you see Tea Party groups and Daily Kos signing the petition. The group is asking Congress to immediately halt the surveillance and "provide a full public accounting of the NSA's and the FBI's data collection programs." You can read the letter to Congress and see who has joined the coalition so far here. Posted on June 13, 2013 Permalink  | Comments (View) |  Tweet U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey Gets Second Term Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed Natasha Trethewey to serve a second term as U.S. Poet Laureate. Her second term will begin in September. She joins other multiyear laureates including Kay Ryan, Ted Kooser, and Billy Collins. Trethewey is also serving as the Poet Laureate of Mississippi, which holds a four-year term, and will continue in both positions next year. During her first term as the 19th Poet Laureate Trethewey kept "Office Hours" where she met with the general public in the Library's Poetry Room. This is a tradition established by her predecessors in the post from 1937 to 1986. During her second term she will undertake a signature project, which will involve regular features on the PBS NewsHour Poetry Series. Trethewey will join NewsHour Senior Correspondent Jeffrey Brown for a series of on-location reports in U.S. cities to explore societal issues through a poetic lens. She will draw on her own life experiences as a guide and will visit places she feels a personal connection. These include places such as a domestic violence center, an inner-city school, a prison or juvenile detention center, a nursing home, or places that have suffered natural or man-made disasters. The specific locations have not yet been revealed. Trethewey's latest poetry collection, Thrall: Poems, was published in August, 2012 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It is a follow-up volume to her 2007 Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, Native Guard. Photo: Matt Valentine/Library of Congress Posted on June 11, 2013 Permalink  | Comments (View) |  Tweet

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