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The New Writer’s Ruse: The Bemused Will Not Work for Hire

The bane of any hopeful professional author — one who writes for money to feed a family and a future fortunate — is the old “Work for Hire” kludge-as-cudgel and it is wielded against unwitting amateur authors, and even published, working, authors, by publishing houses as a “proper payment system” that is both fair to each side and an early warning windfall for the writer.  Unfortunately, none of that is true.

Publishers love to force writers into Work for Hire contracts because the benefit is all on their side of the dyad, and while initial risks are shared, the goal of good fortune tomorrow is not.

I warned of this impending trend way back on September 7, 2007 in my article: “Work For Hire is a Bad Idea” —

If you get royalties you are in partnership with your publisher.  If you are “Work For Hire” you’re used up when you’re done writing.

Publishers live to exploit that hungry author desire for fast money now — and in the process of the “Work For Hire” hiring — the author not only loses a potential profit bonanza, but also sells out their self-respect, self-worth, and fellow authors.

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The Written, Rising, Art: On Writing Writing Prompts

A great joy of teaching is when your students surprise you with something unexpected.  One good way to find out what students are thinking is to ask them to respond to a writing prompt.  My favorite writing prompt for Playwriting students is to ask them to write a dramatic scene that begins with this line: “I’m going to kill you!”  30% of students will immediately write, as a second line, “Just kidding!” — but for those students who believe in the threat first line, the rest of the story tears off.

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Self-Publish and Prosper or Mainstream Publish and Perish?

Getting your writing published in book form has long been the penultimate goal of authors across the world.  I’ve made my fair share of money in the publishing marketplace and one thing I can confirm is how much the industry has changed over the last 20 years.

Fifteen years or so ago, you could easily get a $15,000.00USD book royalty advance from a major computer book publisher.  You knew going into the job that, at the end of 90 days, you’d be fifteen large richer.  It was a great way to earn a quick living.  Once you had a book or two, the major computer magazine publishers would come calling, and you could write a 10,000 word essay and make $5,000.00USD for that weekend effort.  It was a rich and rewarding life, but then the chain came off the sprocket with the rise of the interwebs, the internets, the web.  Many book publishers were consolidated with other houses, or entirely demolished in bankruptcy, and all the great computer magazines are as dead now as the tree pulp they were printed on.

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Reflecting on of Banned Books Week

A young boy sits in the corner of a schoolroom, a coat on his lap. He looks under it intently. He looks periodically toward the door and sighs contently when he sees it remains shut. His quiet is soon interrupted when a teacher loudly opens the door and, seeing him sit there, comes over and taps him on the shoulder. “Young man,” he says, “What are you doing in here?” “Nothing, sir,” he says, his voice trailing off. “Is that right?”

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The True Blood Review: Adapting Books for Television

Although the HBO television show True Blood premiered in September of 2008, my wife and I didn’t start watching it until shortly before the summer of 2010, when she was pregnant with Chaim Yosef and we had an awesome roommate named Chad. Chad convinced me to read the books on which the show is based and so I did. I noticed that there were some differences between the books and the show, some of which I will explain now so if you are looking to avoid any show or book spoilers you should probably skip this article.

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Books by David W. Boles: Rewarding the Thief and Punishing Honest Labor

I use Google search a lot to help me sort through my day.  I find Google especially helpful when I’m looking to link an article published in one of 14 blogs in the Boles Blogs Network.  I can usually remember a few keywords from a previously published article I want to find, but I can’t always recall the blog in which I published the article. Google can usually suss that out for me without much interactive prodding.  Yesterday, when I was invoking The Google, I did a search for “david w boles books” and I was surprised there were 141,000 available search results and also that there was an Advertisement at the top of the returns for “Books By David W. Boles” with my hotlinked name.

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Favorites of 2010

This was a spectacular year for me, all things considered. While I didn’t particularly watch a lot of television, or see too many films, it was definitely one of the best years of my life if not the best year thusfar. Let’s see why — starting with my favorite things of the year and then moving onto why I really loved the year.

Movies and Television
I didn’t go out to the movie theater too many times this year. It wasn’t a matter of not having any interest in the films being played, but rather of having my time being taken up by actual living, so to speak. When I did get to the theater, it was only for a couple of films that I really wanted to see. A bit of a contrast with, say, the summer of 2004 when Elizabeth and I somehow managed to see practically every movie playing in the theaters.

The two films that I distinctly remember seeing in theaters were the Woody Allen film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Toy Story 3. I particularly liked You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger though, predictably, it was panned by many critics. Was it a film of tremendous substance? It certainly was not — even the film admits it in a roundabout way as it opens, referencing Macbeth who said that life was “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…” Nevertheless, this tale was a fun one to watch.

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The Jersey Shore Bookshelf

I understand book publishers are happy when books they publish sell many copies. I wish that this fiscal success did not have to come at the cost of the integrity of American society. Let us look at some forthcoming titles and ask ourselves how we got to the point that it has been acceptable to allow books by reality television stars to appear in book stores next to decent books. First, there is the news that Mike “The Situation” Sorentino has signed a book deal worth six figures.  This was followed shortly by news that Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi has a book deal. We have to wonder, how did these barely literate people get book deals? The answer has to lay in the money, of course — the money that the book publishers are expecting to make.

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Why I Read on the Subway

When you take a forty-five minute to one hour train ride twice a day as I do, it is good to have something to occupy your time so that you don’t end up staring at the ground or looking at the passengers around you — this is particularly a good idea in a city where the wrong stare can get you attacked.

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Finding Reality at Easy Street Records

A thin man — maybe it was a woman (honestly was hard to tell in my tired state) was looking through one of the several bins of used records in front of Easy Street Records in West Seattle. I was walking to a friend’s apartment to take a short nap and my wife and I thought we saw our friend walk into the store.

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