I’ve always maintained that ebooks and digital publishing will bring the short story back to the mainstream. For over half a century now, short fiction has taken a back seat to novels.

There used to be a time when writers could make a living writing short stories that they sold to magazines (who paid a healthy sum for quality work). F. Scott Fitzgerald financed his novels by writing short fiction, as have other writers.

Today, I think it’d be nearly impossible for a writer to make a living solely on short fiction. But with ebooks now in the mainstream, it’s a lot easier for writers to publish their short stories and for readers to consume them. And publishers are taking notice.

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Friday Link Love has become a regular feature here at Brad’s Reader since  late 2007. Every week I post links to other blog posts and articles that I find interesting and/or helpful, that I want to share with the rest of you. I always look forward to compiling each week’s Link Love feature.

However, lately I’ve been feeling like I’m posting links from the same sources over and over again. In other words, things are getting stale. The blog posts and articles I link to are still great, I just need some “new blood.” Also, searching out links from new sources is very time consuming, making it very difficult most weeks.

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Yesterday I had the great pleasure of appearing as a guest on Cyrus Webb’s Conversations LIVE! radio show. It was a panel discussion of the business of books. You can still listen to the podcast The Business of Books. The panel also included 2 authors and 2 book publishers. A great hour-long discussion and worth your time to listen to, especially if you’re a writer looking to get published.

I’m going to leave it at that so you can enjoy the links for this week. As always, have a happy and safe weekend!

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Author Matt Bell is taking writing to a whole new level by making it a performance art. He is writing a story live online, so viewers can see every keystroke he makes, every correction and eventually watch a rough draft turn into the final draft. I stumbled upon this fascinating story on Mediabistro’s eBookNewser blog.

Writing is a lonely endeavor. Writers don’t sell out Madison Square Garden or have young women throwing their bras at them while on stage. The closest thing writers get to being in front of a crowd is on the book tour and panel discussions. As cool as those things are, readers only see the finished, polished product after a writer has done all the dirty work.

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I just wanted to post a quick announcement that I will be a guest on the show Conversations LIVE! with Cyrus Webb tonight at 8pm EST. The topic will be ‘The Business of Books.”

Other guests on tonight’s program include authors Zetta Elliot and Christopher Hertz, Todd Rutherford of Yorkshire Publishing and book reviewer Joe Pinkney. This is a great lineup of guests from across the publishing world and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.

You can also join the conversation through chat by following this link The Business of Books, or by calling in at 347.426.3645.

And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for updates, interesting links and more.

Amazon has announced a new publishing imprint called AmazonCrossing. The goal of this imprint is to publish foreign titles that will be translated into English. Readers in the US have a history of being weary of translated titles, which make up only a small percentage of overall book sales in this country.

The online retailer began its first imprint, AmazonEncore, as a way to give exposure to great writers who are more-than-worthy of being published. AmazonCrossing has the same goal, only at the international level. Jeff Belle, VP of Books, says in an Amazon press release:

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Look closely at the cover of this book that is listed on Amazon.com. Does anything strike you as odd? Yes, the “iStockPhoto” watermark is still on the cover image. This is a good example of why authors and publishers need to pay attention to detail, especially on the front cover! I’d say leaving the watermark on the cover image is a pretty big detail.

Having the watermark still on the cover image means that either A) They didn’t pay for the image, or B) They paid for the image but didn’t swap out the sample image for the paid one – the image without the watermark. Either way, it’s still a book cover fail!

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One habit I’ve retained since my early childhood is reading in bed before going to sleep. My parents instilled this habit in me, both by encouragement and example. I’m now at the point where if I don’t read before going to sleep I feel “off”, like my day has been skewed. The main benefit of reading right before bed is that it relaxes the mind without overstimulating like television does.

A good example of how reading relaxes the mind is that when I’m up late at night, I often listen to music while I work. The music gets me going and helps me stay awake. In other words, the music acts as a stimulant. Then, when I got to bed and read, I become more calm. I’m ready for sleep. No matter what I’m reading; action/adventure, literary fiction, mystery, science fiction – the effect is still the same.

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This week has been rather uneventful. I’m currently reading The Lovely Bones (aff link) by Alice Sebold for my book club, which I’m finding is a great book. My wife has been urging me to read it for a while, so I finally took her advice (I like to give credit where it’s due). One aspect of the book I love is how Alice Sebold uses the dead daughter, looking down from heaven, as the narrator. A very unique perspective, to say the least.

I have also been working on my newest short story project. The writing is going very fast and the story seems to be writing itself. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but at least I’ll have a good jumping off point for future editing.

I have another short story that is as complete and revised as I can make it. However, before releasing it into the wild, I need at least one more pair of eyes to read and give feedback. While I’m happy with how this story has turned out, it’s still missing something that I can’t put my finger on.  Ah the joys of writing fiction!

As always, have a happy and safe weekend!

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If you’re a Kindle 2 or a Kindle DX owner, then you can look forward to Amazon pushing out the Kindle firmware 2.5 very soon, and all of its new features. It’s unclear exactly when the update will be available, Amazon is hinting around the end of May. Regardless, the new features coming to a Kindle near you are bound to make you giddy with excitement.

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