Writerland » iPad

18 Holiday Gifts for Writers

Meghan Ward — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:04:48 +0000

Yes! It’s that time of year. Time for the Writerland 2011 Gifts for Writers Buying Guide! In addition to the usual case of wine, Moleskine notebook, nice pen, and day-at-the-spa gifts that all writers love, here are 17 other great ideas:

1. Come On All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder
I work with Matthew, and he is one damn talented poet whose book was chosen as one of the New York Times 100 notable books of 2011. Matthew’s poetry rocks. And he’s a ridiculously nice guy. And every writer needs more poetry in his/her life. It’s inspirational, it’s thought-provoking, it takes us out of the daily grind of fiction and memoir writing (not to mention day jobs and housework.) Buy this book!

2. A Grotto class
The Grotto doesn’t offer gift certificates YET, but you can buy someone a Grotto class. This winter we will be offering a book proposal writing workshop with a real live agent as well as a performance workshop in addition to the usual novel, memoir, and nonfiction workshops, the social media class that I teach, blogging for journalists, and many more. (I want to take the performance workshop, in case you want to buy me a gift.)

3. A subscription to Poets & Writers, Writer’s Digest, or a literary journal like Zyzzyva or Tin House.
Poets & Writers and Writer’s Digest are both great publications full of author interviews, advice for budding writers, MFA program listings, writing contests, etc. Zyzzyva and Tin House are fabulous literary journals and a great way to support your favorite writers as well as give them gifts!

4. Tin House Writer’s Series
For $49.95 you can get the complete Tin House Writer’s Series, including Plotto, The Writer’s Notbook, The Story About The Story, and The World Within. It’s an MFA in a box! (Well, almost.)

5. Rumpus mugs
If your writer doesn’t have a “Writer Like a Motherfucker” mug, he needs one! Or if your writer is too prude for a motherfucker mug, you can buy him one of these other awesome Rumpus mugs.

6. Little Thinker Literary Plush Dolls
Ever wanted to sit down for tea with Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and Shakespeare all at once? Now you can with these literary plush dolls and finger puppets. UPDATE: Also check out these fabulous handmade literary dolls on Etsy.

7. Book Bags and Kindle and iPad cases
These are no ordinary book bags. These are hand bags made from recycled hardcover books, and they are gorgeous (I want one!). You can even custom order the book cover of your choice. Also available: iPad and Kindle cases!

8. Book Journals
Along the same line, book journals made from recycled hardcover books. Love these, too!

9. Boxed Set of Books
If you’re rich enough to buy your writer a $2000 gift, you may be interested in this boxed set of books at Anthopologie.

10. Angry Writer T-Shirts
I listed these T-shirts last year, but they’re still awesome. I like “Beware the Plot Bunny” – reminds me of Monte Python’s Holy Grail. “It’s just a harmless little bunny isn’t it?”

11. Rory’s Story Cubes
Now available as an iPhone app! This game looks super fun. I want to play it.

12. Literati
This game looks super difficult. I’m intimidated to play it.

13. A subscription to the New Yorker
If you have a love/hate relationship with your writer, (s)he will soon love/hate you, too. (S)he will love you for the fantabulous stories and articles in the New Yorker, and (s)he will hate you for the anxiety the weekly delivery causes as issues stack up unread while (s)he tries to finish his/her novel/memoir/short story collection. It’s a win/lose situation.

14. An Amazon or Apple iTunes gift card
If your writer reads e-books on a Kindle or an iPad, this is one of the best gifts you can give her.

15. Kindle, Kindle Touch, or Kindle Fire
At $79, everyone should own a Kindle! Even if you already have an iPad! That way you can read your Kindle e-books both at night and in bright sunlight.

16. Scrivener 2.2
If your writer has Scrivener already, upgrade her to Scrivener 2.2! Scrivener is an indispensable software application for writers working on book-length projects.

17. Other awesome books
Steve Jobs, IQ84, and 11/22/63 are my top pics for this holiday season. Running a close second: The Marriage Plot for Jeffrey Eugenides. All books that you should buy me the writer in your life this holiday season.

18. Writes of Passage This last one comes to us courtesy of Karen Elliott, who commented below. Huge board game fan that I am, I had to include it.

What about you? What are your favorite gift ideas for writers? What books do you want someone to buy you?

10 Ways To Save Publishing

Meghan Ward — Tue, 17 May 2011 07:42:45 +0000

1. Buy a book from an independent bookstore
I know it’s hard to pay $27 for a hardcover when you can get the same book on Amazon for $17. But it’ll be sad when all the independent bookstores are gone, when we won’t be able to walk down the street and browse the latest fiction and nonfiction releases. You don’t have to buy all your books there, but buy one at least every quarter. And if you use an e-reader, you can now buy Google Ebooks at these independent bookstores.

2. Buy a book from any bookstore
Buy at least one book per month, whether it be from an independent bookstore, a chain bookstore, a big box store, or an online e-bookstore. Every dime you invest in the publishing industry will make a difference.

3. Frequent your local library
Libraries have to buy books, too, and the more often those books are checked out, the more often they have to be replaced. So while I encourage you to buy at least one book a month, using your local library, too, will help keep publishing alive.

4. Give e-books a try
Whether you like it or not, e-books are the way of the future, so why not give them a try? I hear so many people say they can’t imagine reading a book on a screen, but you know what? I couldn’t either. And now I have an iPad and I love it. I love curling up in bed with the lights off and reading into the night like a kid under the covers with my flashlight. I love being able to read on a plane, on a train, and while I’m driving (kidding!) And if I had a smart phone, I’d be reading standing in line at the post office and at the supermarket, where I don’t carry my e-reader. You don’t have to give up buying paper books, and I hope you won’t. But give e-books a try, too. Test one out on your iPhone or borrow someone’s e-reader for an hour (or test out the color nook at your local a B&N). They’re pretty fun.

5. Read for 10 minutes every night
Author Sean Cummings started a Facebook Page encouraging everyone to read for ten minutes before bedtime. Then he designed a website called Save Publishingto match. Like the page, then get offline and read for ten minutes before you go to bed.

6. Give someone a book
The next time you need to buy a gift for someone, make it a book. If you’re not sure which book to buy, get a gift card from a bookstore (not an Amazon gift card; that could be used to buy diapers!)

7. Join Good Reads, Shelfari, Library Thing, or all three
Spread the word about the books you are reading. This will others ideas for good books to buy, and it will make them feel guilty that they’re not reading more books. Good! They should feel guilty! Put the peer pressure on.(You can post what you’re reading on Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In, too.)

8. Create a book list
Add a list to your website or blog of all the books you have read this year. Include comments if you have time, or rate each book. Like joining a social networking site for reading, this will a) Give others ideas of good books to read and b) Make them feel the need to read more books than you. That’s what we want. We want people to read.

9. Join a book club
If you can’t find a book club to join, start one. This will force you to read at least one book per month, to discuss it with other people, and hopefully to recommend it to others. By the way, here’s a pop trivia question for you: What book was Juliet’s book club discussing on Lost when Oceanic Flight 815 crashed? No fair googling it! Put your answer in comments.

10. Read to your kids
Rather than letting your kids watch TV, read to them. And when they are old enough to read for themselves, encourage them to read. Take them to the library; buy them books; set an example by reading in front of them. And if all else fails, require them to read for at least twenty minutes each night before they go to bed. We’ll breed a whole new generation of book lovers, and that will keep the publishing industry alive.

What ideas do you have for saving the publishing industry?

iPad Case Reviews

Meghan Ward — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 05:59:06 +0000

If you’re in the market for an iPad case, I demonstrate three of them here, and discuss a fourth. The video is on the long side and, yes, I know the top of my head is chopped off. I’m still new at this VLOG thing!

What about you? Have you tested any iPad cases? Which is your favorite?

Library E-books

Meghan Ward — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:23:52 +0000

I love my iPad, and I’m reading more books now that I can download them instantly and read them in bed at night with the lights off, but one of the downsides (besides the difficulty of reading in bright sunlight of buying ebooks is that you can’t resell them, buy them used, or lend them to friends (unless you use the B&N (nook) eReader, in which case you can lend them to someone else with a B&N e-reader for two weeks.)

But you CAN borrow e-books—from your local library. First I checked out the Berkeley Public Library, which has a huge downtown branch and several satellite branches, but all they have are Safari Tech Books Online, no literature. Then I went to the San Francisco Public Library and signed up for a library card. It turns out that you need to apply in person for a library card, so you can’t, for example, use the New York Public Library e-book system unless you go to New York, show them your New York ID, and get a New York Public Library card. In California, you don’t have to live in the city of the library, just in the state. So even though I live in Berkeley, I got myself a San Francisco library card. There I found three databases of e-books: Safari Tech Books again, NetLibrary Books, and Overdrive eBooks. Someone on staff (a librarian perhaps?) said Overdrive works best with iPads, so that’s where I began. If you’re interested, you can watch the tutorial here.

First I found a page that says I can listen to audio library books on my iPad but cannot read e-library books from Overdrive because it doesn’t support the ePub format. Here is a list of compatible devices, including the B&N nook, the Sony Reader, and the Kobo eReader. I haven’t gotten a clear feel yet for what books are available. Through Overdrive, when I click on “Most Popular,” I get a list of authors/books that begin with Stephanie Meyer, Stieg Larsson, Dan Brown, and page after page of romance novels. Since none of these books will work on my iPad, I lost interest in searching through the database. I’m working on finding out if library e-books will eventually work on the iPad or whether, thanks for Apple’s proprietary measures, I’ll be stuck paying $9.99 for every book forever. (Does anyone know the answer to this? I’ve queried Overdrive and am waiting for an answer.)

Meanwhile, what about you? Have you ever read a library e-books on your e-reader? Which database did you use? What was the selection like? And how easy/pleasant was the experience?

By the way, for those of you who look forward to Link Love on Fridays, I am headed off on my third camping trip in five weeks today (with a toddler and an infant) and have yet to pack, so I’ll be posting links next week. In the meantime, be sure to check out Nathan Bransford and Sierra Godfrey, who always have great roundups of links on Fridays.

An in case you wonder how I spend my free time, yesterday it was learning about the different Caterpillar trucks after my toddler saw a bunch doing construction on a Berkeley street. After perusing the website, I found this one pretty cool. I know it’s not environmentally friendly, but look at the way it slices and gathers trees! Now I understand why kids get excited about trucks.

Have a great weekend!

One Reason to Buy a Kindle

Meghan Ward — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:00:58 +0000

This is me reading a book on the iPad at the beach. It was an overcast day, and I did discover that if I tilted it at the right angle, I could read without the towel over my head, but still, a Kindle would have been nice. Would I rather have a Kindle than an iPad? Hell now. Would I like one of each? Hell yes. At $139 for the new 6-inch Kindle, and with the ability to read Kindle books on both devices, it would be really awesome to have both.

Blogging Blues

Meghan Ward — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:05:38 +0000

I keep not wanting to write the “why I’m not blogging” post, but here goes. I am CRAZY tired lately! My 10-month-old is going through some kind of growth spurt or teething or revenge-on-Mommy for not letting her have unlimited Cheerios and is getting up two to three times a night. Last night she was up at 1 a.m. (and then I was awake until 2) and then back up from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. If I had fed her the second time, she would have gone right back to sleep, but I decided to re-sleep train her instead, which entailed rocking and singing and frantically purchasing the White Noise Baby app from iTunes and oh-shit it won’t download to the iPad for some reason and oh-shit my husband’s credit card information needs to be updated so it won’t download to his iPhone either and “Haven’t you typed in that credit card yet??!!” at 5 a.m. while she was screaming her head off. It’s been like this for the past couple of weeks, and it’s killing me. During the day, my toddler is taking naps only about 50 percent of the time, and when he does it’s a huge fight and he never sleeps at the same time as my baby, so I get NO break. (Friday once he was quiet and I thought he had fallen asleep, I peeked into his room to find him sitting in his T-shirt and underwear with half a jar of Cetaphil cream all over his body, clothes, and bed. It was in his mouth and on his face and globbed all over the sheets. “Snow cream!” he said, rubbing a handful into the wooden bed frame.)

My only time to blog is the two days we have a babysitter, during which time I also have to go to doctor appointments, tour preschools, get haircuts, pay bills, do laundry, edit books, write, etc. etc. And in order not to go totally insane with sleep deprivation, I’ve been going to bed by 9 the past few nights (except last night was Mad Men, so I had to stick some toothpicks in my eyelids and stay up until 11. No, we don’t have TIVO), which nixes the idea of writing in the evening.

I miss my blog friends. I miss blogging, and I miss reading blogs and posting links. I have a backlog of posts half-written in my head, but until my munchkin starts sleeping better, I’ll have to settle for squeezing one or two out per week.

iPad Update

Meghan Ward — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:00:05 +0000

So now that I’ve had a little more time to read books on the iPad, here are some thoughts:

Pros

It’s VERY easy to buy a book. It’s easier through iBooks, but it’s not difficult through Amazon either. I haven’t tried the B&N app yet. Just one click and you own it. And you’re reading. Right there in the palm of your hand.

It’s great at night. If you’re in bed and don’t want to turn the light on because a baby is sleeping or your husband is sleeping or you’re in a tent and it’s really not comfortable to read with the battery pack of a headlamp behind your head, it’s fantastic.

Full color photos! I bought a cookbook through iBooks (you can’t do this with Amazon or B&N) and it has all the same graphics and color photos that the real book does.

Cons

It’s VERY easy to buy a book. Just one click and you own it. And you can’t return it. And it’s charged to your credit card. And you can’t pass it on afterward. I bought two books that I probably shouldn’t have. One I already owned in the paperback version but wanted to be able to read at night with the lights out. The other was a cookbook I wanted to take traveling without packing it in my suitcase. I used both for about five minutes each. It’s just too easy to make impulse purchases, and $10 here, $5 there, and $15 over there add up fast.

It’s great that there are so many things the iPad can do, but the drawback is that only one person can use it at a time. When I was on a four-hour plane ride and gave my iPad to my toddler to play games and watch Kipper to keep him from screaming and kicking the seat in front of him all flight, it was a godsend. Except that I couldn’t read any of my books. Fortunately, my 10-month-old was too busy jumping on my lap to let me read anyway. Still, on the return flight, I took a paperback along.

A lot of books aren’t available through iBooks yet, so you have to get them through Amazon. Which isn’t a bad thing, but the interface isn’t as nice (no color and the page doesn’t look like a real page.)

As much as I love my iPad, I still kinda prefer reading real books. Something about the feel, something about knowing what page I’m on, something about looking at the spine to see how far along I am in the book, I just love. I’ll keep reading iBooks, but I’ll keep reading real books as well.

What about you? Do you have an iPad? How do you like the e-reader function?

Cons

Link Love

Meghan Ward — Mon, 31 May 2010 08:24:52 +0000

It’s been three weeks since I posted links! So here we go …

In random tech/social media news: Here are 10 Tips for being awesome online, a post on how to get more Twitter followers, and the best book editors on Twitter.

In all things iPad: From the New York Review of books, the iPad vs the Kindle. From Fast Company,10 essential iPad tips. For people who have an iPad and use Dropbox (like moi), DropBox has come to iPad. And from this past weekend’s Hacks/Hackers Unite Conference, a list of iPad media app ideas.

From SF Gate, three Bay Area authors use the Internet to get their books out.

In other news, agent Janet Reid foresees a publishing revolution in the arrival of the enhanced e-book.

Alan Rinzler hypes the benefits of creating an iPad app for your book.

Nathan Bransford had a great post on voice a while back and another on how to write a one-sentence pitch. Also, if you missed it, the one sentence, one paragraph, and two paragraph pitch.

Samuel Park sings the praises of wrieaders and answers the question we blogger writers ask ourselves every day: Does blogging help?

Intern deconstructs the novel.

Eric at Pimp My Novel says you don’t need an MFA to write literary fiction.

Agent Kristen Nelson answers the question, does age matter when you’re trying to get published?

Guest blogger for Rants & Ramblings, Mary DeMuth says writers must be three Ts in order to succeed: tenacious, talkative, teachable.

And in case you missed Betty White on SNL on May 8, you can see
here.

Happy Memorial Day to everyone!

Contest Winner and Link Love

Meghan Ward — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 07:30:11 +0000

The winner of this month’s Writerland contest is …

KRISTAN!

Kristan, e-mail me your address and to whom you’d like the book addressed (Kristan, Kristan the Magnificent, etc.) to meghan (at) meghanward (dot) com. Then, whenever you’re ready, send me 20 pages of your manuscript or a short story, and I will critique it and send it back to you within a week.

And now for a few links. My list is going to be short for the next few weeks because I have DEADLINES.

Alan Rinzler has a great post on shelf wars at bookstores, including an interview with agent and former owner of Cody’s bookstore, Andy Ross.

Chris at Upstart Crow reminds writers to have patience, which I blogged about not long ago, but I think some of us need more patience than others!

Via Shelly at Market My Words, a post from Bubble Cow on how to find and keep your readers.

According to Kristin at Pub Rants, there’s a rumor that several of the six big publishers are coming out with new boiler plate contracts soon.

Anne over at Piedmont Writer discusses the drawbacks of having too many followers.

Sierra has a fabulous story about the word fortitude.

You can save the earth by changing your font.

And last but never least, from Galley Cat, how to make an iPad cover out of an old book, the Library of Congress is going to store ALL tweets, and a cat who loves his iPad:

Happy Weekend!

Link Love

Meghan Ward — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:00:20 +0000

Agent Kirsty McLaughlan, guest blogging for Strictly Writing, gives seven tips for getting an agent.

From the Guardian via Elizabeth at Fog City Writer, is crowfunding the way of the future?

Also from the Guardian, is your reading suffering from multimedia overload?

Agent Rachelle Gardner warns writers to think hard before self-publishing while editor Alan Rinzler gives four reasons self-published books get picked up by traditional publishers.

From Galley Cat, the National Book Critic Circle Award Winners, which were handed out last night.

Also from Galley Cat, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood is writing the score for the movie adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood.

And a glimpse at Apple’s iBooks store.

Guide to Literary Agents guest blogger Peta Jinnath Andersen has a post on what to do once you’ve set up your writers’ blog.

Intern puts out a call for guest bloggers. This is your chance to MOCK Intern while garnering tons of new followers. Get on it!

And before I disappear for the weekend, what were your favorite links these past couple of weeks? Any one in particular?