When I got my first royalty check from Amazon, I went to my boss at the bar and was like, “Mike, I quit, dude,” and he was like why, and I was like “Look at this check, man,” and he said, “I’d quit too.”

This is what I’m doing now. My three stories that are out have now sold in excess of 93,000 copies, and I have another Kindle Single that I’m working on for later this year, and hopefully working on a book.

Don't you love knowing how much money people make? This is actually really admirable that the Kindle Singles folks are encouraging writers to [...]

Let’s say that after a certain amount of time, probably more than a year (and possibly more than a few), you’ve finished your novel and want to find a publisher; or perhaps at the other extreme, five hours ago you started a high-traffic Tumblr, which people are telling you needs to be made into a printed book. Either way, chances are you’re going to need an agent. Agents are the gatekeepers of publishing, which may seem kind of pointless and inefficient until you understand that these days, agents not only negotiate contracts but often also do the lion’s share of the editorial heavy lifting (leaving actual “editors” more [...]

Hellzapoppin' in the world of intellectual property rights these days. Lawsuits, corporate flim-flamming, the claims of far-sighted academics and developers, furious authors and artists and the conflicting demands of a sprawling Internet culture have created a gargantuan, multi-directional tug-of-war that will inevitably affect what and how we will be able to read online in the future. Recent developments indicate, amazingly, that there are grounds for hope that the public will in time benefit from the results of this epic tussle.

In 2002, Google began scanning the world's 130 million or so books in preparation for the "secret 'books' project" that eventually became Google Books. In 2004, they began offering [...]

If you didn't get enough of author Sam Lipsyte when he made pork buns here on Cooking the Books, he will be appearing live, starting circa 3 p.m. at, oddly enough, insane sports website Deadspin. Deadspin editor "AJ Daulerio" is promising "stars" for all incoming "Awl commenters." (I don't know what that means!)

When food blogger Monica Gaudio complained to editor Judith Griggs of Cooks Source magazine about the theft of her online article about apple pie, she asked for an apology and a small donation to the Columbia School of Journalism in lieu of payment. The incident never would have made national headlines had Griggs not condescendingly countered that Gaudio should pay her for cleaning up her article. "But honestly Monica," she wrote, in what has turned into a widely mocked meme, "the web is considered 'public domain' and you should be happy we didn’t just 'lift' your whole article and put someone else’s name on it!"

While Griggs' [...]

Oh, so this is what falling in love is like. Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians, which I am now going to buy and read during Tropical Storm Danny this weekend: "There was also a whole chapter about a dragon that I cut out. I didn't cut it out; my editor did. I was like, 'What makes you think the novel is going to be better with less dragons in it?' I guess it didn't advance the plot or some other thing."