Read, Eat, Drink: Food Rules, Better Sandwiches, and a Ginger Caipirinha

by Maria

Read:

Aaron Carroll Food Rules

We all want to eat healthy, and we all want to eat delicious food. Which is why we all tend to have  our own, sometimes quirky, ideas about how to do just that.  Paleo, raw, vegan, vegetarian, Atkins, pescatarian–they’re all ways to help us put order to the sometimes random process of getting edible things into our pieholes. (And making sure we’re not eating too much pie!)

So here are 7 rules I agree with from Aaron Carroll of The Upshot, for your reading pleasure. I like that they’re sane, fairly unrestrictive, and very cognizant of the fact that having a cocktail and a hoagie once in awhile isn’t going to do you in. (More on that below.)

My favorite one?

7. Eat with other people, especially people you care about, as often as possible. This has benefits even outside those of nutrition. It will make you more likely to cook. It will most likely make you eat more slowly. It will also make you happy.

Good food, just like a good book, should make you feel good. Some things are that simple.

Eat:

The Sandwich Bar Primi

It is one of life’s nagging mysteries: Why is a sandwich you order at a restaurant so invariably and intensely better than a sandwich you make at home?

These are the questions that keep me up at night. It’s a universally felt pain that sandwiches made by someone else are, and will always be, superior to that mash of bread and deli and refrigerator scraps you threw together last night.

Read More

Why Twitter Might Not Be Right For You as an Author

by Maria

Twitter for authors

In the past few weeks, I’ve been getting a lot of questions from aspiring authors about Twitter. Everyone seems to want to know if they should be on it, why I like it so much, and whether they should focus more of their own book marketing efforts on it.

Well, like everything else in this age of digital marketing, the answers to those questions are a bit complex. So I’ll just go ahead and tell you why I love Twitter, and why I think it’s not right for all authors.

Many of my readers are nonfiction writers/bloggers rather than fiction writers. And there’s an important distinction there: practical nonfiction is often highly illustrated (with four-color photos), while fiction is almost always straight narrative (with black-and-white text). Why does this matter when it comes to social media? Am I just being picky for fun? Are all literary agents out to befuddle writers and make social media even more confusing?

I hope you’re thinking no to those questions. Right? Right?

Right! So the format of your future book really does matter when it comes to social media. For practical nonfiction writers/bloggers, your aesthetic is your brand. The design of your online properties, the images you include in your posts, and the images you curate and share on social media are all part of your brand. Practical nonfiction is inherently image-driven, and therefore, it’s best suited for image-driven platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. (I’ll write more about the distinctions between these platforms next week.)

Read More

Read, Eat, Drink: A Land Library, Pancake Muffins, and a Book on Bourbon

by Maria

Read:

Rocky Mountain Land Library

Two things I love: books and nature. You too? Then you’ll get as excited as I did over hearing about The Rocky Mountain Land Library, which was profiled in the New York Times yesterday. As the reporter writes:

The project is striking in its ambition: a sprawling research institution situated on a ranch at 10,000 feet above sea level, outfitted with 32,000 volumes, many of them about the Rocky Mountain region, plus artists’ studios, dormitories and a dining hall — a place for academics, birders, hikers and others to study and savor the West.

It is the sort of endeavor undertaken by a deep-pocketed politician or chief executive, perhaps a Bloomberg or a Buffett. But the project, called the Rocky Mountain Land Library, has instead two booksellers as its founders.

I love the idea of residential libraries—who wouldn’t want a getaway that involves long walks, long reading sessions, and wide views? Read more about the project here!

Eat:

Pancake Muffins

It was Jarrett’s birthday this past weekend, and he got spoiled big-time with this breakfast tray of mini breakfast sandwich sliders (with homemade turkey sausage patties!) and pancake muffins.

Read More

Read, Eat, Drink: What No One Tells You About Publishing, Pesto Bread in a Jar, Dealer’s Choice Cocktails

by Maria

Read:

If you haven’t already seen Curtis Sittenfeld’s list 24 Things No One Tells You About Publishing, scurry on over there and soak it up. Every single item on the list is absolutely, 100% true. And even better, it spurred Scott Berkun to write his own list of the 28 (Better) Things No One Tells You About Publishing, which is a bit more focused on the act of publishing rather than the craft of writing.

Between those two lists, you have 52 nuggets of truth about the way publishing really works!

Eat:

Oh boy, do I have a good one for you today. Do you like easy, delicious, impressive, and simple recipes? Of course you do. We all do. Unless you’re Martha. In that case, try this recipe for a five-layer pastel cake that takes over 3 hours.

The rest of us: let’s enjoy this delicious Pesto Bread in a Jar recipe from Sweet Paul Magazine.

Pesto-Bread-in-a-Jar-3 Read More