Booklifenow.com Goes Live: Supporting Sustainable Creativity and Careers

(Thanks to John Coulthart for the great cover.)This morning Booklifenow.com went live with a welcome message and a breakdown of the book's table of contents. Please drop by and "sign" the first post with a comment if you're so inclined. We'll be offering new content every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Initially, most of it will come from the book or expand on themes from the book, but we'll also have guests like Colleen Lindsay dropping by. Every Friday my partner on Booklifenow.com, Matt Staggs, will post a Top 10 links for the week, focusing on sustainable creativity and sustainable careers. These links lists will reward the best and brightest out there for clarity of thought, factual accuracy, and innovation.Anyway, go check it out! This first week, to celebrate the launch, there will be content every day, not just M-W-F, including posts on book covers, the pillars of your Public Booklife, the pillars of your Private Booklife, and a fresh look at the lifecycle of a book. Content always posts early in the morning.Thanks to Luis Rodrigues for creating the great site, and to Publishers Weekly for being amenable to the idea of co-existence with their Booklife portal site, and for, in general, fostering a real sense of community through their web presence and blogs.Booklife: Strategies & Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer is now available online and through most bookstores. Please feel free to post an Amazon review, and to spread the booklifenow.com link around. This is a true start-up and word of mouth works wonders.To my surprise and delight, the first Amazon review is from one of my Clarion mentors, James Patrick Kelly. Really an honor.

This is the first time I have ever reviewed a book on Amazon. I have been teaching writing for almost twenty years and have been collecting books about writing for much, much longer. Booklife has easily leapt into my top five and is probably one of my top two recommendations for writing books. Some of what you will read here is advice I myself have given in the past, the rest is stuff I wish I'd had the perspicacity to say. But I don't need to now. I'll just tell people to buy Jeff VanderMeer's new book.

Below the cut, you'll find thank you's to everyone who contributed to the book. In many ways, large sections of Booklife provide ample evidence of the great discussions about writing we've had here at Ecstatic Days. So, thanks. Above all else, a huge thanks to my wife Ann, not just for contributing significantly to the book but for being there and helping out so much in so many ways during the writing of this book.BOOKLIFE THANKS TO...Matt Staggs contributed significant ideas to the Public Booklife sections. Tessa Kum and Dan Read contributed significant ideas and text within the Personal Booklife sections. Juliet Ulman's development edit involved drawing out and strengthening many of the sections. In addition, the following contributed their expertise in the form of articles and essay for the appendices: Nathan Ballingrud, Matthew Cheney, James Crossley, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Colleen Lindsay, Cat Rambo, Jill Roberts, Marly Youmans. (A nod of thanks as well to these agents for participating in the exhaustive round-robin interview in the appendices: Stephen Barbara, Shana Cohen, Diana Fox, Sally Harding, and Howard Morhaim.)Last but not least, the following writers and blog readers contributed their ideas through quotes in the book. Thanks to each of you, and I hope I haven’t missed anyone. This list will only grow with the second edition.Alan ThomasAlex CarnegieAlistair MatherAndy [last name unknown]Bill EctricBrendan ConnellCatherine CheekCatherynne M. ValenteCharlie HillsChris BillettDesirina BoskovichGraham StorrsGrant StoneJ.T. GloverJay LakeJess NevinsJim HinesJohn McCarthyJonathan WoodJuliet UlmanKameron HurleyKelly BarnhillMichael PhillipsMichele LeeMur LaffertyNatania BarronNick SummitSandra RuttanSeth MerloSteve BuchheitTerry WeynaTia NevittTobias BuckellVictoria BlakeWill HindmarchZsetrek(And thanks to Angela Slatter for copy-editing/review and J.T. Glover for further testing.)