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Regina Cannot Explain It All

I'm Regina Small. I'm a writer and editor in NYC. I have a lot of opinions.

Interests include: sci-fi/fantasy, literature, summertime daydrinking, trying to be a better person, fancy manicures, philosophy, pictures for sad children, and the role of irony in the modern world. And fandom, of course.

I have another blog dedicated exclusively to science fiction/fantasy. Read it here.

Recent Tweets @reginasmall

What’s that giant sucking sound?

choire:

6h057:

ninety9:

The air being let out of a thousand tumblr-to-book blogs.

That you’re writing from a poorly-handled Gawker item is probably assisting you in making this false assertion. Actually, Amason + Blakeley’s was the only book-to-blog thingie HarperStudio had going. The only other Tumblr-related blog book was Natasha’s Mad Men book, the book version of which was written and researched, not just lifted from her ongoing Tumblr project. Mine and Ken Layne’s are both reported books; that we both own websites is incidental and the content unrelated. Similarly for Merlin Mann. I can’t speak for 50 Cent or Gary Vaynerchuk or Anna Bernasek or Erica Jong or Mark Twain and their Tumblrs. But thanks for the good wishes!

Why would anyone assume that the publisher’s departure equals HarperCollins deciding to ignore the Internet or abandon existing book deals? The only real factor re: the future of blog-to-book deals will be how much they produce, and there is no basis — in any of the articles Gawker links to — to believe they’re going to abandon or restructure the imprint. This is a non-story and it feels like pre-emptive schadenfreude.

(And “as far as we can tell, Harper is proceeding with existing books”? Well, yes. Contracts and lawyers are funny like that.)