Been trying to get my days more structured, which includes reading RSS first thing in the morning and writing blog posts. So rest assured that I do have an ISBW waiting for editing and posting, and it will go up today, but for now I am posting some interesting things I’ve found on the web.

Our guardian angel at Writer Beware, Victoria Strauss, investigated the US Copyright Registry email scam:

A few minutes on hold, and then he returned to tell me the good news–US Copyright Registry could indeed register copyright on my website! If I signed up today, I’d receive my certificate of registration from the Library of Congress within 6 to 8 weeks.

“Wait a sec,” I said. “Library of Congress? Your email said the US Patent and Trademark Office.”

“Oh,” he said, flustered, “well, you know, it’s both of them.”

“Both of them? You mean they both issue a certificate?”

“Uh, no, it’s just one certificate. But it comes from both offices.”

I decided not to torture him further. “So how much will registration cost me?”

“Based on your website’s size”–which he had no way of assessing, considering that all he’d done was access my Whois information–”it’ll be a total of $350.”

Read the full report at the Writer Beware blog.

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Locus Online reports that Minister Faust, a favorite interview here at ISBW, received a “special citation” for his book FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF DR. BRAIN for the Philip K. Dick award. Congrats Minister!

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And our other guardian angel at Writer Beware, AC Crispin, writes a curmudgeonly (her word, not mine) opinion on query letters and how you shouldn’t seek considerable help to make you punch up your query letter, since if you can’t write a good query letter, you probably can’t write a good novel. Because if your query letter shines but your novel sucks, you’re still not going to get published. I don’t think it’s a curmudgeonly look at all, I think it’s logical and a good point.

When I see a query letter written by someone who obviously never researched how to write one, rife with typos and grammatical errors, full of inappropriate personal ramblings, warnings that the work has been “copywrited,” (so don’t even think about stealing it, Mr/Ms Agent!), one that’s 2 or even 3 single spaced pages long, what’s the point of fixing it for the writer? The overwhelming odds are that the book the query letter is touting is every bit as depressingly bad.

Exit saint, enter curmudgeon. And I’m not going to apologize for it.

With all the information out there on the internet and in various writing guides, every writer who has the skills to write a publishable book should be able to produce a decent query letter. I can understand workshopping it with your writing workshop, or critique group. Or your beta readers. But to post the thing on a board full of strangers, some of whom are kind enough to just rewrite the thing in order to be helpful…well, it’s not doing the writer any favors.