Getting Published with Mark Leslie

The Writing Show is a wonderful podcast which covers issues of writing, creative, fictional, non-fictional, from the quest for ideas to the end product including publicizing and making money from the pen. I cannot keep up with all of the issues and in addition there is this fabulous backlog, but I want to keep posting from time to time about this great podcast. One of the most exciting rubrics is the 'reality show'; every now and then host Paula Berinstein speaks with writers Jean Tennant and Mark Leslie about their slippery and meandering road into getting published.

Last week, February 7th, Mark Leslie was on again. Mark is in the process of writing his novel A Canadian werewolf in New York, which once started out as a short story, but is now developed to a full novel taking the narrative further and deeper where the short story left off. Just as the other reality show writer Jean Tennant, Mark has been distracted by other projects in the past months. He has received a rejection regarding another product of his and on the podcast he analyzes the wording of the rejection, trying the various interpretations. Is the included praise a token phrase or a genuine encouragement?

Mark works in a book store and as a result has a more than average understanding of the publishing industry. In this interview he explains the concept of remaindering. (Dutch: ramsj) The bottom-line is, this is a scheme which makes money for book stores, cleans up storage room for publishers and if the writer doesn't make money, at least he may win more following. Apart from these side steps, there is a lot of attention to the comments Mark received on A Canadian werewolf in New York from a listener to the podcast.

More Writing Show on this blog:
Psychological Aspects of Writing,
Getting published with Jean Tennant,
Self-publishing,
The art of coherence,
Book design.

Byzantine Sources

The legendary podcast 12 Byzantine Rulers has already come to its end. After the end there has been a conclusion and though I thought it was done then, we have just received a four minute epilogue (mp3) delivering recommendation for reading. And more.

Lars Brownworth, as opposed to my fears, may have given up on teaching and taken up writing, he is not done podcasting. Sources on the net say he left as a high school history teacher top purchase a career as a writer, but we now find out what this means. He is writing a book on Byzantium. He has found a publisher and is probably going to get a head start on sales because of his amazing podcasting audience, Publisher's Weekly reports.

He also announces he is going to do yet another podcast. What is that going to be about? I sent mail and hope to get the answer soon. If you want to keep track of the answer; I am going to post it here and in the comments. So here is how you will be able to get the update: post a comment to this post and check the 'E-mail follow-up comments' box (see picture). You will receive mail, when the information gets through.

EDIT:
I just received a mail from Anders Brownworth (brother of ...):

Hey Anne,

Thanks for all the posts you've been doing. So yes, there will be another podcast on another topic but the project we're working on right now is also on the Byzantines. We went to Istanbul and shot an HD video called "A Walking Tour of Old Constantinople". It will probably show up as a companion video podcast to 12 Byzantine Rulers. Additionally we just released a reading suggestions list to 12 Byzantine rulers and are thinking about releasing an interview with Lars as well. So there might be one or two more additions to 12 Byzantine Rulers yet!

As to the topic of the next real podcast, we can't say just yet. (I can let you know as we get closer though) We will be making that announcement to the members of the 12 Byzantine Rulers email list so people should sign up there. Sign up at the bottom of:
http://www.anders.com/lectures/lars_brownworth/12_byzantine_rulers/

Thanks Anne,

-Anders

More:
Byzantine Conclusion,
The Byzantine Empire on Podcast,
Byzantine Podcast,
The Making of Europe in 1453,
Holy Sepulchre,
The Nicene Creed.

Podcast reviews in the coming hours and days

Within 12 hours: 12 Byzantine Rulers
Hey,
you thought this podcast was finished? So did I. But it threw yet another conclusion at us. AND the news: Lars is writing a book based on 12 Byzantine Rulers (to be published in 2009) AND he will start a new podcast series!

Within 24 hours: The Writing Show (Getting Published with Mark Leslie)

In the coming days:
- Simek interviews Lucie Stepanova
- Philosophy Bites (Free Riders)
- Open Source (After the Empire: Must Reading from Parag Khanna)
- UChannel Podcast (one of three: A Conversation with Alan Johnston; The Encounter of Islam with Europe; The Economics of Climate Change: Risk, Ethics, and a Global Deal.
Do you readers have a preference? Comment or send mail...)

This month: A new podcast directory to be added, Geography Podcasts.

New podcasts on trial:
Historypod
Chronicles Radio Dispatches
Distillations
The Biography Podcast
Africa Past and Present

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18th Century Warfare - Historyzine

The Historyzine podcast is presented in a very enthusiastic manner, so much so, it becomes contagious. Had I never given the War of the Spanish Succession a second thought before, Historyzine has effectively made me start to do so. As a nice addition, the latest edition of the podcast has given a plug to this blog of podcast reviews.

Apart from attention to the Spanish Succession War, Historyzine offers reviews of other history podcasts, of relevant websites and in principle also an excursion into the history of a certain word or phrase. In the latest edition this has been omitted though. Host Jim Mowatt has his standards and he was not sufficiently satisfied with the projected item and chose to leave it out.

As to the main subject, he leaves the narrative of the war and makes a side step to discuss warfare in the eighteenth century. He explains how the technological developments till that era had affected warfare such that the scale and the price had gone up considerably. Consequently the character of warfare changed dramatically and Mowatt even tries to make a point this is where modern warfare begins as opposed to in the Napoleonic era. Great content, great analysis and effectively illustrated. This is a history podcast that is here to stay.

More references to Historyzine:
Spanish Succession and History Podcasts,
Librivox - History of Holland,
Quick History Podcasts,
TPN - Napoleon 1O1.

Humanism - Philosophy Bites

David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton invited on their podcast Richard Norman to speak about Humanism. As usual, and it never ceases to amaze me, they manage to get so much clearly explained in ten minutes.

Humanism is defined as the 'belief (?) of living a good life without religion' and this would gather atheists together with agnostics. The human and human values are set to measure the good life. Good meaning rewarding as well as moral. Norman is very effective in showing the various angles of this starting point. David Edmonds's excellent questioning adds to the experience.

A great question Edmonds poses is about the strength of religious traditions to deal with key moments in life such as birth, marriage and death. Norman presents a personal example, to show how humanists offer the same an possibly more personally meaningful. However, he doesn't side with the ardent atheists such as Richard Dawkins . The problem with ideological atheists in Norman's mind are the necessary element of respect in the discourse, even if it is hard to have respect for believers, because respect is essential to dialog. In addition, one cannot lump all the believers together as if there is no significant difference between the Islamist suicide bomber or the naive Christian creationist and the many intelligent and sincere believers who try to put their beliefs into practice in order to serve humanity and make the world a better place.

More Philosophy Bites:
Is war innate?
Wittgenstein,
Friendship,
Egalitarianism,
Skepticism.

More podcast reviews in the making

Within 12 hours: Philosophy Bites (Humanism)

Within 24 hours: Historyzine 006 with among others a comment about Anne is a Man:

a site simply jammed full of history podcast reviews

In the coming days:
- Simek interviews Lucie Stepanova
- Philosophy Bites (Free Riders)
- The Writing Show (getting Published with Mark Leslie)

This month: A new podcast directory to be added, Geography Podcasts.

New podcasts on trial:
Historypod
Chronicles Radio Dispatches
Distillations
The Biography Podcast
Africa Past and Present

Subscribe in a reader

Paste the link
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Anne_Is_A_Man
into the RSS reader of your preference.

You can let your preferences know by commenting on the blog or sending mail to The Man Called Anne at: annefriddevries AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk