I finally got around to booking my holiday yesterday. I shall be going to Amsterdam in late January for five nights, right in the middle of the museum district (I’m probably not Holland’s typical English tourist…) in a cute little hotel with free wifi and lots of stairs. I speak no Dutch whatsoever, which I will attempt to rectifying before I go, at least to the extent that I will be able to pronounce place names. I’m hoping for lots of opportunities to get some writing done; the two hour wait in the airports at each end before I can board flights should help (I have to leave the hotel at 6:45am on the Saturday morning to get home!).

Anyway, that’s some months off yet. Today involved a protracted search for a repro sword. Good ol’ day job.

Publishing: The BBC discusses whether editing standards in publishing have slipped in the last few decades. The comments are cherry picked, but look fairly representational for a discussion like this. Interesting to see the movement of editors between houses being brought up as well, rather than just the idea that publishers have started churning out books like a production line. Honestly, like that hasn’t been the model since Fleet Street got its hands on Gutenberg’s baby anyway.

Meanwhile, Dear Author starts a debate on geographical restrictions (who has more powers over publishers, readers or authors? It gets a little fractious in those comments) and Courtney Milan makes some very good points in her own blog. Though it is an contractual issue, I don’t think most authors have much control over it – you can’t force a publisher to buy rights they don’t want, and in a lot of cases you can’t force a publisher to use rights they have bought. Sure, it makes no sense to buy rights and not use them, but we are talking about publishing here, and as one commenter points out a lot of what we’re seeing now is fallout from books contracted before ebooks took off. The discussion has also spawn a new website-to-be, where readers will be able to log any books which geographical restrictions have prevented them from buying, to show publishers the impact on sales these restrictions actually have.

Interest-Piquing: Build your own anthology. Select from a range of public domain stories, contributions from other users (they ask they be previously published, though I’m not sure how they police that), or upload your own. It’s not going to make anyone famous, and it’s defintiely not going to make anyone rich, but it could make a cute Christmas gift.

InsPiring: Protected Planet. Search for protected land anywhere in the world, and find out it’s conservation status and points of interest. It’s the most comprehensive global data set of protected areas in the world.

Procrastination: Customers Suck. For anyone who’s ever worked in customer service.