Friday Links

Science

Did Tyrannosaurus rex have feathers?

I'm not sure whether a fluffy T. rex would be more or less scary than a scaly one, but this is a fascinating article.

Badger cull

The planned badger cull in England has zero scientific basis and is entirely designed to placate one of the Conservative's vested interest groups.

Young blood really is the key to youth

This is how vampires began.

Writing and publishing

Amazon Author Rankings and Who They Actually Benefit

John Scalzi on Amazon's new ranking of authors by sales.

The Seven Stages of Publishing Grief (or Hello Darkness, My Old Friend)
Robin LaFevers spins off from the new Amazon rankings to talk about 'the soul sucking land of Major Disappointment' of publishing. Brilliant, and well worth reading for any writer.

Guest Post: Dear Agent -- Write the Letter That Sells Your Book
A guest post by Nicola Morgan over on Writer Beware about how to create a great query letter for your novel.

The 11 Ingredients of a Sizzling Book Description
In a similar vein, from a couple of weeks back, Mark Edwards has a guest post on Catherine, Caffeinated on writing a book description.

Best Practices For Amazon Ebook Sales
While we're on the topic, have this one as well. I don't agree 100% with it, but it's all worth thinking about when you're putting your book description together.

A helping of just too cute...

ATE team rescue another baby elephant from a well
Video of the Amboseli Team for Elephants rescuing a baby elephant that had fallen into a well. A mixture of 'Was that really the best way you could think to rescue it?', cheering the triumph, and a complete tear-jerker of an ending. Watch it.

Friday Links

So, I could write a new blog post, or I could just SHARE THE TOTAL AWESOME that other people have written or created.

Oh, okay, you've convinced me. Let's do the latter.

Writing and books

Author Event Tips: THE READING (of dooooom!) - Jennifer Laughran

Tips on how to handle your author reading without coming off as a complete fool.

JK Rowling: 'The worst that can happen is that everyone says, That's shockingly bad'
A few weeks old, this one, but still a really interesting interview with JK Rowling about writing, her life, and her new book.

BristolCon
The one day science fiction and fantasy convention is on Saturday week (October 20th). Steph and I will both be there.

The (literary) heroes who saved me - Booktrust blog
Stephanie Burgis writes a powerful and personal guest blog entry on how heroes in books helped her through a very difficult period in her life.

Tools

Cropp.me

If you ever upload images to your website or blog, it's a good idea to crop them to size first. You can do this on your computer, using something like a photoshop or whatever photo utility you use, but cropp.me makes it way easier to do it in the browser, while you're doing your blog post. It's free.

Gumroad

Need to sell books, ebooks, or pretty much anything else through your website but don't want to go to the effort and expense of setting up your own shop? Gumroad will allow you do to this. They charge a small commission, and handle the payments, gathering of delivery address, and hosting of ebooks. I've bought through them, and it worked well.

Payhip

Only need to sell ebooks and don't want to pay any commission? Payhip lets you upload and sell ebooks and they don't take a penny of your money. You still have to pay whatever charges PayPal makes when they transfer your money, but that's all. They seem to intend to make money by offering premium, charged services, but the ebook side (they say) will always be free. This is a new service. I've not used it, so I can't vouch for it.

Science

The Drugs Don't Work: a modern medical scandal - Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre explains how pharmaceutical companies distort medical trials and hide results they don't like. It's pretty scandalous, and worrying if you rely on medication.

Space science stamps

If you're in the UK, you'll be able to send letters to space. Actually, no you won't. But these space-themed stamps are gorgeous and very cool.

Web and Design

The Venn Diagram of Design

So true! If you want any design work done (book/web/whatever) this let's you know your options. (Humor!)