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Blogs by James R Musgrave
My Tech Story Getting Published? 7/9/2006 10:35:38 AM
Just a few musings about a big publication acceptance of my research story about recent developments in technology. A new and sharp-looking general interest magazine out of Chicago, "Stone Magazine," has accepted my 1,900 word feature on the most recent development in digital technology. I call it, "Riding the New Digital Waves of the Technological Hurricane." I cover developments in consumer electronics, employment devices and in education, so it's a pretty comprehensive and general interest feature. I enjoyed researching it and writing it. This pub has a circulation of over 350,000 readers, so I'll also get a "plug" on my secret passion, my novels, so I am very stoked! This is an expression from my surfer high school days (I am an alumnus of Huntington Beach Marina), and I am wondering if modern surfers even say "stoked" anymore? Funny how one can keep up with modern technology by using this miraculous Internet, but we can't keep up with jargon! I hope I can sell some of my self-published books through this "back door" arrangement, but I immediately sent out another feature query based on my recent experience with Lightningsource.com, my present digital POD printer. I'm not going into detail (read the article!) but, suffice it to say, it had to do with screwing the poor writer. I had thought once we writers were (at long last) gaining some control over our literary and creative pursuits that we could call the shots, but there are many sharks out there still who must be watched. My article will focus on how to tell the sharks from the whales in the churning sea of print-on-demand and digital publishing. My dream is to be able to cut back on the number of classes I teach and do more writing!
On that note, I have also proposed a rather novel serialization opportunity to the Civil War News (one of the oldest and most respected monthly CW afficionado newspapers in the U. S.). I just completed my Civil War novel (that took four years to complete!), IRON MAIDEN, and I proposed to CWN that they print it as a serial in their newspaper. I got the idea from Harper's Magazine, which recently published the novel of J. Robert Lennon, HAPPYLAND (his first novel, POST OFFICE, was great!). I also read the recent NY Times article about how advertizers can "wag the tail of the dog" by using niche marketing. A serialization of my novel to my most interested audience is wagging the dog to a tee! Combine that with a "virtual book lanch" the way the author of THE LONG TAIL did http://www.longtail.com and I will be in modern tech happyland of mine own!
Thanks for letting me share (as we say in the Program), and thanks for this new day of sobriety. It's true. As they told me, it just keeps getting better every day!
