Booklife

Go buy Booklife by Jeff VanderMeer. Buy it as soon as you can.

I'll be the first to admit that there are better books written about private booklife, or the art of being a writer. Laura Mixon gave a terrific lecture at Viable Paradise, about feeding the beast that I wish I could share with you. That lecture, to me, seems closer to the mark.

However, if you're reading this article as a writer on the internet, if you journal or blog on a regular basis, if you feel responsible for your own image, branding, and in part your self-promotion, you need to read Booklife.

I think Booklife will speak to you in ways that other books about writers haven't yet. It is full of interesting ruminations about technological mediums, writer connectivity, and industry and writer interface. Booklife seems to be the first book that talks about the rhetoric of electronic life for genre writers.

Of course, Booklife will be dated, eventually. Technology and expectations change. Future volumes of the book need to address that, and I'm sure they will.

Still, it's a sound examination of the life of the author in an age of new communication alternatives, and what that means in regard to interaction. As an online artist, you (yes, you!) should read it.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.