Looking on the business side

Ken had a headache this afternoon, so we threw on a silly movie (one I’d snagged from Netflix to watch in NY or on the flight home when we needed something mindless). I grabbed Afalwen so I could catch up on some online reading, since I really didn’t have to pay attention to the movie.

I’m lucky to know some damn amazing pro writers, and one of the things that makes them amazing is the way they pay it forward. Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith’s are both essentially writing books, chapter-by-chapter, on their blogs, that are essential to understanding freelancing and a writer’s career.

• Kris is writing the Freelancer Writer’s Survival Guide. She’s covering everything from things to consider when you’re thinking about quitting your day job, to settle schedules to how to keep your morale up, to handling jealousy (yours and others’), to negotiations, to…
• Dean has written a great series on motivation and goals for the new year, and is now busting myths about agents left, right, and center in a series called Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing. The discussions in the comments are worth their weight in gold, with other pros such as Laura Anne Gilman chiming in.
• I don’t know Laura Anne personally, but her blog is also a wealth of information. She used to be an editor, and now she’s a full-time, prolific writer—so she’s able to look at things from both sides of the business.
• A blog I’m just getting into now is NINC (Novelists, Inc.). A whole bunch of pros chiming in on a regular basis…how can any writer pass up a wealth of information like that?
• I also like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books for their take on what’s going on in publishing news.

So, those are my current reading suggestions for writers wanting to learn more about the business side of things. What are your go-to blogs and sites?