Author | Joseph L. Selby

Thoughts

The journal and sometimes blog of author, Joseph L. Selby.

  • August Wilson

    If your education was anything like mine, the only plays you were exposed to in high school were the Shakespeare you read in English class (Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, maybe King Leer or Macbeth) and whatever your school performed for the yearly musical (Guys and Dolls again?). Maybe around senior year you got yourself a…

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  • Why Oh Why? Oh Me. Oh My! (…times seven)

    It’s hard to keep track of topics when you’re on a variety of soap boxes. I’ve written in two different live journals, hosted a podcast, and now how this blog/journal. Sometimes you think you’ve written about a topic when you haven’t. Or, you think you’ve written about it in one place when really it was…

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  • Customized Google

    Once upon a time in the early days of the intertubes, like last year, you and I could Google the same phrase and get the same results. As we continue down the path of Minority Report where every advertisement ever is customized for our interests and needs of that moment, Google is not so simple…

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  • The Good, the Bad, and the Stuffing

    So I have decided that rejections that offer praise first actually sting more than just flat rejection. “This is a great story with strong writing, but I didn’t fall in love with it” says to me “Damn you were close, but it just didn’t click with me” which stings SO MUCH MORE than just a…

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  • Anti-Social Socializing

    I am not anti-social. In fact, I love being the center of attention. I have wanted to be the storyteller since I was five, lying about the size of the frog I caught1. The trick is, there are a lot of social situations where I cannot be the center of attention, and in those cases…

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  • A New Game

    My wife created a new game last night, one I found to be fun and a great exercise in creativity. (Of course, the pressure of making her laugh mounted as the game went on). It’s simple. One person names an animal or fish. The other person chooses what activity that animal likes best to participate…

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  • Meme: Blog of DOOOOOOMMMM!!!!

    Ted Cross (of Ted Cross fame) passed along a blog award called the BLOG OF DOOM!!!! While normally I shy away from blog awards, this one is full of DOOM! How could I pass that up? The Rules: 1. When you receive the Blog Award of DOOM your task is to post a short selection…

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  • Visual Aid

    Yesterday’s comments inspired a visual aid that I think best communicates one’s goal of publishing and the routes available to you via traditional publishers and self-publishing. Traditional Publishing Self-Publishing

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  • Splitting the Hairs

    Previously I had posted about reconsidering self-publishing as a viable strategy. This was not, as is so often the case, a response to a query rejection. It was prompted by a strategic decision made by my company (a publisher). This was hard to accept for a couple of reasons. 1) Traditional publishing had been my…

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  • A Little Binger to Brighten Up Your Day

    I never truly appreciated Jim Davis’ genius until I read Garfield Minus Garfield where another (much smarter) artist removed Garfield from his own comic and revealed Jon Arbuckle to be the wholly psychotic person that he is. Following in that line, some other genius has taken classic Peanuts frames and replaced the text with actual…

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  • PATV

    My friend Luke introduced me to Penny Arcade many years ago and it didn’t click. I didn’t have an X-Box and my Playstation 1 was gathering dust. I didn’t get any of their jokes. But one day in 2005 we’re hanging out in his room and his screensaver is a composite of his favorite PA…

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  • SEO What

    It’s never too early to start. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. You may see a lot of ads around the internets for SEO companies that will help you game the system. They understand the value of links to and from your content to work your way through Google’s algorithm. Once upon a time it…

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  • The Destruction of the Cloud

    I have been a long-time Twitter follower of GalleyCat (an arm of Media Bistro that focuses on publishing) until they posted this article on Monday. Now, as GalleyCat expands its number of contributors, I have found the quality has become more circumspect. This is always a risk with expansion. But said article pushed me over…

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