Open Thread

Good morning! Today is Open Thread Day. This is your chance to ask any questions or talk about what you've seen in publishing news recently. You know the rules: no politics and no in-your-face posts.

The floor is now yours. Have fun!

Open Floor

Sorry, guys, but I've been sick all weekend and don't have a post to go up today. So I'm throwing the door open and letting you play. You know the rules -- no politics, play nice and have fun.

If you haven't had your fill of the Borders debacle, you can check out what I had to say about it all week at The Naked Truth.

I'll be back later. Right now, I'm going back to bed. Have fun!

Boxing Day

It's the day after Christmas and all through my house, people are stirring....

Hopefully, everyone has had a wonderful Christmas holiday so far. Due to a number of circumstances, some foreseen and other unforeseen, I haven't had time to pull together a post for today. I need to get ready for the next wave of Christmas guests, present opening and my third major Christmas dinner needs to be cooked. One turkey so far has been completely demolished. One ham has seen its better days -- fortunately, there's enough left for sandwiches. Tonight is the pork loin unless I find enough energy to do the Yorkshire pudding for the roast beast (which ain't gonna happen).

So, to end the year, let's throw open the door and give you the floor. You can toss out ideas for upcoming posts. You can ask questions. You can comment on trends in the publishing field you've seen. I promise to wander through, probably in a haze of exhaustion, later on to add a few comments of my own.

Open Thread:

Hi, everyone. I have been in Jury Duty all week (trial finished today), so I don't have a post prepared. Please feel free to post anything you like on an open thread.

All the Best!!

Chris McMahon

Father's Day Open Floor

Let me start by wishing all the fathers out there a Happy Father's Day. May there be lots of hugs and pampering for you today and not too many ugly ties and shirts you'd never be caught dead in but for the fact your darling daughter or son gave it to you.

Now for the blog, or the lack of a blog, today. I swear when folks talk about computer viruses, they don't know the half of it. Somehow, I've caught whatever Sarah has had...and that's hard since there are whole states between where she lives and where I do. Of course, she says she caught it from Dave and we won't begin to count how many states, an ocean and countries separate the two of them. Any way, I'm sick and have been all weekend. So I'm going to open the floor to you guys. Any writing related questions you have, toss them into the comments section and we'll do our best to answer. If you want to post the first paragraph of a work in progress for critique, do it -- but one paragraph only and NOT the paragraph you are submitting for yesterday's challenge. Next week, I'll get back to the news around the internet. But for now, I'm crawling back into bed to sleep some more. Maybe then I'll feel human.

Update: I just found this story in one of the local papers and want to post it as a cautionary tale for everyone who might be considering the self-publication road. It hit all my hot buttons because kids are involved. Basically, a group of kids at a local middle school wrote a book and, with the help of their teacher, school and parents, raised the $2,000 needed to print the book. This included securing the ISBN for the book as well. I'll let you read the article, but it doesn't have a happy ending. These creative kids and all who supported them were taken. Your thoughts?

The floor is yours. Have fun!