m. c. de marco

SFScope reports that Pyr Books is expanding its line to about 30 books a year.

Via an unnamed source: The New York Times reports on The Greatest Mystery: Making a Best Seller.

Most in the industry seem to see consumer taste as a mystery that is inevitable and even appealing, akin to the uncontrollable highs and lows of falling in love or gambling. Publishing employees tend to be liberal arts graduates who enter the field with a starting salary around $30,000. Compensation is not tied to sales performance.

John Scalzi posted recently about his Science Fiction Income, breaking it up into advances, royalties, foreign sales, etc.

Dean Wesley Smith also posts frequently about how much writing income there is to be made out there, and how it accrues by the word.

Via a mailing list: SFWA posted a brief obituary for Jim Baen. David Drake has the authorized version.

If you like Miss Snark, you’ll love Evil Editor.

As regulars know, we’re currently looking at query letters authors have sent, or were considering sending. Evil Editor’s goal is to get more editors to request more manuscripts, thus increasing the income of the U.S. Postal Service, thus delaying the inevitable raising of the price of a stamp to 41 cents.

If you haven’t seen her yet, Miss Snark, the literary agent is an educational and humorous Dear Abby for the publishing world. For example, in response to a reader who’d received contradictory comments on a simultaneous submission to two different agents, Miss Snark responded:

We do this on purpose. We’re alerted by your post office (all agents pay an annual fee to the post office for this service) that you’ve sent chapters to two or more agents. Once alerted we put your chapters aside for our weekly meetings on “Make the Authors Crazy” night. We draw random comments from the hat and put them in our rejection letters. Then we mail them back to you. This is also the night we burn SASEs to light cigars and cherries jubilee. It’s really a lot of fun, and pretty much the reason I became an agent.

Here’s that link to romance novel parody covers that’s making the rounds: Longmire does Romance Novels.

I followed a link from there to these Romance Cover Contest Winners. Each year has a winner for worst cover, along with hilarious analysis of the runners-up. For your convenience, here are the direct links:

• Worst of 1999
• Worst of 2000
• Worst of 2001