The Writing Center

Yep, that’s the latest from various tech news reports, as well as the Sony Web site:

If you want to read preliminary reviews, check out Engadget and Gizmodo.

Will I get it? Six months ago I would not have thought twice. But now there appears to be some competitive devices to consider, including one from Panasonic.

So I might not be an early adopter, but I do think I will end up getting one — and I truly believe these portable readers are going to revolutionize publishing.

While the Sobol Award (see previous entry) may have raised the hopes of unpublished, unagented writers, it is also raising great ire among agents and publishers. W.W. Norton executive editor Robert Weil told Reuters yesterday, “I feel extremely sorry for the thousands of eager writers who will pay $85 in the hopes it might get them started on a successful career…I do not think this is a serious way of getting published.”

In the same article, agent Gary Morris, of the David Black Literary Agency in New York, compared the contest to a lottery and pointed out that it would behoove writers to find an agent who is actually known to editors. As I pointed out in my previous blog, the Sobol Literary Agency has no known clients or sales — something that should raise a red flag for any writer seeking representation.

My favorite response to the contest comes from Miss Snark, an anonymous New York literary agent whose blog on agenting gives the Sobol Award no mercy. For all you writers out there who are thinking of submitting to the Sobol Award, I’d suggest reading Miss Snark’s blog first. She may be a little cranky about this particular award, but she does know her stuff … and maybe you’ll decide you have better places to spend your $85. And if not, at least you’ll be submitting with your eyes wide open.

The Sobol Award, a new award for unagented and unpublished writers, opens tomorrow, offering the winning novelist a $100,000 prize and representation by The Sobol Literary Agency. Unlike most contests, it also offers all entrants a reader’s report on the strengths and weaknesses of their manuscripts (which helps explain the hefty $85 entry fee). The award also offers representation and cash to the top 10 finalists.

The unusual thing about this contest, aside from the high fee and amazingly high amount of prize money, is that it’s being held by a literary agency rather than a magazine, nonprofit, or small press. Most other contests pay much less to the winners (closer to the neighborhood of $1,000 than $100,000), but they do publish winning manuscripts. In this case, writers get representation (and, ostensibly, far more money than they would likely earn as an advance on a first novel) — but no promise of publication.

Of course, as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Generally speaking, literary agencies taking reading fees from writers goes against the Association of Authors’ Representatives’ canon of ethics. (The Sobol Literary Agency is not an AAR member, as far as we can tell, and it seems to have been created for the sole purpose of representing the winners and finalists of the award; it offers no information about other clients.) Writers may also recall the infamous Zoo Press fiction award, for which the press collected hundreds of entry fees without awarding any prizes.

The Sobol Award was founded by a self-published technology entrepreneur, and its management team and panel of judges comprise former television and publishing executives. And it will either comfort or alarm writers to know that the Sobol Award is represented by an attorney, F. Robert Stein, who previously turned down the job, telling the Associated Press that he thought the award “sounded terribly suspicious” and that “I thought it would destroy my reputation.” But, he continued, “I laid out conditions for the contest, including that winners are not bound forever to being represented by the Sobol agency … I have been over every word on the website and every word of the promotional material. I have been absolutely satisfied.”

It’s tempting for any writer to jump at a chance to win what the Sobol Award is offering, and we hesitate to discourage anyone from entering what could turn out to be the contest of the year. But there is a reason contests like this don’t come up every day — and as with contest or agent search, writers should proceed with caution.

The cast of eBook players continues to grow as Engadget reports that Amazon is going to launch its own brand of eBook reader — the Kindle, shown here:

I must say that the Sony Reader appears more polished.

But then, where is the Sony Reader?

A writer for Make Magazine has a Reader in his hands right now and will be reporting on its performance. He suspects that Sony will have the device ready for the holiday season.

But now that we have devices expected from Amazon, Sony, Philips, and possibly even Apple, how great will demand be for the Sony Reader when it finally does ship? These past six months would have been the perfect opportunity for Sony to get out into the market and become synonymous with eBook readers, much the way the iPod is synonymous with MP3 players.

But there is still time and, based on what I’ve seen so far, the Sony Reader is still the best device out there. Apple remains a wild card still and could very well take another year to get to market (if at all) as it is now focused heavily on video.

So I’m still anxious to get at that Sony Reader. Project Gutenberg has provided a host of excellent (and free) books for loading and reading. And I still need a device to assist my poor vision.