Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, July 22, 2012

BUSY Sunday! That’s good. Off we go.

• Gotta start by returning a favor and giving out a big THANK YOU to Harvey Stanbrough (@hstanbrough) who, while Taking a Little Break today put these Great Stuff posts at the very top of his list of resources for writers, even ahead of his own web site and editing, cover design, and e-publishing services. Wowsers! Thanks, Harvey. (I should note that he also posted a correction to the original post regarding the pricing of his services. If you plan on using them–and I do, soon–then this is something you’ll want to be clear on.)

• While we’re on the subject of resources, Joel Friedman’s (@jfbookman) This Week in the Blogson The Book Designer has five excellent posts, including:
  • Dianne Greenlay’s (@DianneGreenlay) Show Me the Money…(in ten steps or less), which, among other things reiterates something Harvey says today about a company called iUniverse, and
  • Dan Blank’s (@DanBlank) Is “Platform” Saturated?, in which he examines how the concept of platform won’t change, even when the term does.

• Seeming to stay in the general area of e-publishing, James Scott Bell’s (@jamesscottbell) piece It’s No Longer an Either/Or Publishing World and Other Notes from ThrillerFest on The Kill Zone has some terrific stuff on the craft side, more so than the e-pub side. There’s this keeper from super-agent Donald Maass (@donmaass): “Backstory is not just for plot motivation, but deep character need.” Then there’s Jamie Raab’s list of “game-changer” thrillers and her or Jim’s discussion of why they were: in short, they did something “more” than thrillers before them had done. What were the books, and what “more” did they do? You’ll have to go read the post to find out. 😉

• Sticking with craft, K. M. Weiland (@KMWeiland) asks, What’s the Purpose of Your Scene? on her WORDplay blog. For my tastes, her method of figuring out the answer is a bit mechanistic, but what she’s aiming for is just right.

• Lastly, we’ll head over to @ProBlogger for Matthew Turner’s (@turndog_million) 10 Rules of Social Media Engagement. The rules aren’t new, and they’re not iron-clad rules, but this is certainly a list of smart practices.

And with that, I’ve completed my 100th post! A milestone reached.