Links

History/Current Affairs

Atlas Obscura – reporting on the oddities you can find in hidden corners of the world and the history behind them

The Atlantic – a rare island of clear-headed analysis of current affairs

Foreign Policy Magazine – in another life, I think I would have been a diplomatic wonk

History Hit – a new history channel from one of my favourite presenters, Dan Snow

Strange Company – daily links about the wilder side of history, with an emphasis on true crime stories


Reading

Project Gutenberg – a great place to find old-timey (that’s the technical term) books to read for free

Avalinah’s Books – friend of the blog, book blogger and home of #NewBloggers101, with great tips for those learning the ropes to book blogging


Writing

Anne R. Allen and Ruth Harris – industry vets who mainly blog about publishing, but I discovered them through this excellent post on eliminating “filter words” from your writing

Maryville University – this school’s English program has good advice and links about embarking on writing careers

Suzenyms – author and editor Susan McGregor blogs frequently about the do’s and don’ts of writing learned from the slush pile


Publishing

David Gaughran – author of Let’s Get Digital, an all-in-one primer on writing and self-publishing a novel

Hugh Howey – bestselling sci-fi author (the Wool series) and self-publishing advocate

Jane Friedman – a publishing industry veteran with advice on the latest development in digital publishing

Just Publishing Advice – from author Derek Haines, an invaluable resource for technical and financial advice relating to self-publishing

Shopify Print-on-Demand – for non-Amazonians, this e-commerce site provides many options for print-on-demand products, including self-publishing, partnering on an e-publishing app with Lulu (I haven’t used Lulu personally, but there’s more info at the link if you’re interested)


Marketing

Nicholas Erik – an urban fantasy author who’s done a lot of detailed analysis on what marketing techniques have worked for him and especially how to use Amazon algorithms to your advantage

Write Hacked – The Official Self-Published Marketing Plan [links to PDF] – I’m not following this plan precisely, but by laying out the steps with a timeframe, this is an invaluable resource for my own plan

Your Writer Platform – another great Canadian blog that has plenty of posts laying out practical steps you can take to market your book

WebsiteSetup – Blogging is a big part of author marketing, and this website collects a lot of advice on the technical aspects of getting your blog up and running


Other “Go To” Websites

Five Thirty Eight – Nate Silver is my analytics god

The Onion A.V. Club – I go here after watching prestige TV shows to decide how I felt about it

The Ringer – from the ashes of Grantland, an intersection of sports and pop culture

Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place – one of my favourite movie reviewers and a connoisseur of terrible movies