Friday's Interesting Links

I was gone most of this week, so I'm posting the links late to give me time to gather up something fascinating. Hope you enjoy or learn something...or both.

Reading

Analysis of the impact of ebooks and ereaders, something of interest even more now that I buckled down and got a Sony ereader.
http://www.idealog.com/blog/ebook-growth-explosive-serious-disruptions-around-the-corner

Promotion

Just what is author branding? Here are some answers.
http://1stturningpoint.com/?p=1389

Some tips about writing a bio whether for your publications, your social sites, or the "about me" page of your website. It's a little more oriented to business than writing, but still it's a good start:
http://www.copylicious.com/2009/07/16-questions-to-help-you-write-a-douche-free-bio/

This has a lot more to it than just promoting, but I had to file it somewhere. Top 10 mistakes of solo businesses:
http://christinekane.com/blog/the-top-ten-mistakes-solo-preneurs-make-in-business/

Science

What interests me in this article is not so much the discovery as the methodology for making it. But fun reading anyway:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17604-earliest-fired-knives-improved-stone-age-tool-kit.html

Writing

I've put up publishing terms dictionaries before, but this is a solid, clear one that even included a couple terms I didn't know.
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/08/book-publishing-glossary.html

On the OWW listserv we've been discussing how much you can get away with that's pure fiction without grounding. This is a good breakdown for science fiction in specific. In my mind, as long as it doesn't feel like a new, unexplained gadget/culture/natural phenomena shows up every time the characters are stuck, I'll keep reading.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness

A solid approach to emotional writer's block.
http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/index.php/site/cures_for_writers_block_some_preventatives/

And that's it folks. Maybe I'll get around to writing up some book reviews for next week.