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The BookBanter Column covers just about anything to do with books, writing, authors, publishing . . . and all that that entails, depending on what I decide to do my column about. That's the fun thing about the BookBanter Column: you never know what you're going to get; but I guarantee it'll be interesting!
Column #1: Zombie is the New UndeadThe premiere column is a good long one featuring quotes from the likes of Mira Grant, John Joseph Adams, S. G. Browne, and Jonathan Maberry all on the subject of zombies! You sit in your favorite chair, in your favorite room of the house: the library. Your legs are comfort- ably crossed, the temperature is just right: warm and cozy. You’re reading your favorite book on your Ipad, swiping your finger rapidly across the screen to turn the page and continue with the gripping story. You’ve tuned out the world, focused on the captivating story with the unstoppable heroine who is fighting to save the day; you know she will triumph, but you still read for the inevitable surprise. As you begin a new chapter, you finally here a scratching at the door. But you have no pets; who could it be? The scratching continues, as if whatever is on the other side is trying to claw their way through the door. It is then that you hear the deep, inhuman groaning. You put down your Ipad, fear crawling its way up your spine, as you hesitantly walk towards the door. Building up your courage – kidding yourself that it’s just your little brother playing around, but you secretly know better – you fling open the door and scream as the zombie reaches out for you . . . Continue reading . . . |
Column #2: Doing What's RightIn this column I take on the doomed YA anthology that was to be called Wicked Pretty Things, but when the editor told the author of a particular story that she wasn’t going to publish it because of the gay characters, things went downhill from there. If information is power, we live in an age where that power travels at the speed of light, or in the case of the Internet, the speed of a T1 line and a fiber optic cable. The information superhighway has become sort of a misnomer when applied to the worldwide web, as the information conveyed now travels so much faster than an automobile traveling at eighty, ninety or a hundred miles an hour, along with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and the many thousands of blogs out there updating every minute and hour of every day. So when a bad decision is made by an editor and then a publisher, not all the apologies and changes of heart in the world can affect the outcome once the author has made her decision, pulled her story, and blogged about it on the Internet. Continue reading . . . |
Column #3: Too Much of a Good ThingIn this column I take on the subject of the Young Adult Dystopia genre that has been borne with the publication and runaway success of the Hunger Games trilogy. If there’s one thing that readers, writers and the publishing world have all learned from the likes of the Harry Potter and Twilight series, it is that children’s publishing seems to be going through a series of cycling genres right now. With the worldwide success of J. K. Rowling’s then relatively unique series, the children’s and young adult fantasy genre exploded with a glut of fantasy books -- I should know, I was submitting my own YA fantasy manuscript to agents at the time and received nothing but rejections; this was in part due to the sheer number of YA fantasy manuscripts that agents and editors were receiving at that point, as well as possibly because my manuscript may not have been the work of pure, original genius I deemed it to be; but we won’t talk about that here – that still continues in the current time, partially because many of these YA fantasy books were the first in a series. Continue reading . . . |
Column #4: Thank You BordersIn this column I address the end of the Borders franchise and ask a number of authors on what they think about the end of this historic bookstore chain. I started working for Borders in October of 2005; last October I had my fifth-year anniversary working for the company; by the beginning of October this year Borders Books, Music and More will no longer exist. It is estimated that around 10,700 people will lose their jobs when Borders closes its doors for good. The original Borders bookstore opened in 1971 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. At its height in 2003, Borders had 1,249 stores; five years later it announced its intention to sell. Two years of doubt and uncertainty followed, mainly for the Borders employees, knowing that the end would come and it was merely a case of when. A revolving door of CEOs and constant changes to upper management couldn’t stem or slow the tide of inevitability. Continue reading . . . |
Column #5: November is National Novel Writing MonthIn this column I talk about NaNoWriMo, because November is National Novel Writing Month. If you're not familiar about NaNoWriMo, or interested in a free NaNoWriMo Word Count Chart, read the colum. NaNoWriMo. Say it with me now: Nano-wri-mo; you can say it either “nano-ree-mo” or “nano-rye-mo.” And what exactly does this mean, you might ask? Well, it’s National Novel Writing Month, which takes place every November. The goal is a simple one: to write at least 50,000 words of a novel between November 1st and November 30th. While 50,000 words isn’t necessarily that long of a book, it is still a grand accomplishment once you put down that 50,000th word. Some popular novels that are this length include The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Brave New World, and The Great Gatsby.
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Column #6: In an MMO Far Far AwayIn this column I address the use of MMOs in a growing number of popular books, creating its own sub-genre within science fiction. There are many people on this planet who know what an MMO and/or an MMORPG is, but by the same token – like so many things in life – there are also many people who don’t what those acronyms mean. MMO stands for Massive Multiplayer Online, and MMORPG stands for Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Some examples of these MMOs include EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, and the forthcoming and constantly-growing-in-popularity Star Wars: The Old Republic, which is still in beta and scheduled to be fully released December 20. Continue reading . . . |
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