World events keep pulling our attention outward, necessities of survival keep it close. When it comes to publishing, there’s good reading this week about how novelists will fare in the new world, ebooks, building your writer platform, selling in the Kindle Store and a marvelous treatise on typography. Go for it.

Jane Friedman on There Are No Rules
The Future of the Novelist
“Tension between traditional and indie communities is ever visible in my Twitter & Facebook conversation streams. Some are adamant that 99% of self-published work is total crap. Others are adamant that traditional publishing has become a total crap game that no longer serves a need.”

Simon Owens in TNW Media
The Economics of Self-Publishing an Ebook
“The ebook also allows authors to skip over other hurdles, including the very cold reality that most offline retailers won’t stock a self-published book on their shelves. Though online retailers like the Kindle and Nook stores can still give preferential treatment for major publishers, they’re able to provide a wide swath of inventory from the long tail.”

Joan Y. Edwards on Never Give Up
Your Writer’s Platform: What is it? How to Create It Using Websites and Blogs
“Publishers want to know your Marketing Platform – Writer’s Platform. They want to know who is going to buy your book. Who is going to entrust their money to purchase what you have written.”

M. Louisa Locke on The Henderson Files
7 Tips on how to sell books on Kindle
“When I started, I had no particular expertise and no fan base, but I did have access to a world of advice being put out daily on blogs and websites hosted by indie authors, designers, editors, and marketers. I found that when I put their advice to work, was patient, and persistent, it paid off. Here are some of my tips distilled from what I learned from others and my own experience.”

David Jonathan Ross on I Love Typography
Through Thick and Thin
“While stroke and gesture are interesting subjects, what fascinates me is how any thick/thin relationship can define the vocabulary of shapes in a typeface, and how those shapes can in turn produce unexpected textures and rhythms of black and white.”

Photo by silvercharmer_16