Everything, Everything Will Be in Every, Every Theater

The thought-provoking novel Everything, Everything has been snagged by MGM to make the book about a 17 year old who is allergic to everything into a movie.

J. Mills Goodloe, who wrote the script for the Blake Lively starrer Age of Adaline, will adapt the book for the big screen.

Nicola Yoon‘s debut novel, which will hit shelves Sept. 1 via Random House’s Delacorte, follows Maddy, a teen who has severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a rare disease that causes her to be allergic to practically everything. She’s spent 17 years hiding out in her home, only seeing her mother and her nurse, Carla. But when a boy named Olly moves in next door, Maddy begins to fall in love.

The book, which has been compared to the popular and charming YA books Eleanor and Park and The Fault in Our Stars, reveals Maddy and Olly’s story through vignettes, diary entries, texts, charts, lists, illustrations and more.

Oh boy.  I haven’t read the book, but it seems like a tearjerker to me.

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Kickstarter Book Becomes Movie

If you like underdog stories, perhaps this one about the Kickstarter book project, titled Fall of Gods, will catch your interest.

Film studio 20th Century Fox will be bringing an illustrated fantasy book that began on Kickstarter to the big screen.

After more than doubling its fundraising goal of $40,000, the creators of “Fall of Gods” will see their Norse fantasy come to life under Wes Ball, who directed “The Maze Runner,” reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Created by Denmark-based Mood Studios, “Fall of Gods” centers on warrior Vali, who is forced out of retirement when his wife is mysteriously kidnapped.

After years of living peaceably, Vali must confront his past demons and transgressions.

“Suddenly, the man he thought he had buried deep down inside has risen to the surface once more…and he comes seeking vengeance,” reads the Kickstarter description.

The images are breathtaking and definitely full of inspiration for a movie.

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Mariah Carey Writes Children’s Book???

In our WTF celebrity news of the week, Mariah Carey has decided to brainwash our children into being amazing singers by making them read her book.  JK.  I think it’s about Christmas or something.

Carey will transform her popular holiday song “All I Want For Christmas is You” into a picture book.

Carey gave this statement in the press release: “When I wrote ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ it was my dream for it to become a classic Christmas song. I am so proud of the song’s impact as it continues to create memories for fans each year. I am thrilled to be able to bring the story of the song to new generations of families with the picture book.”

The story stars a young girl who wants to receive a puppy for Christmas. The publisher has brought on Colleen Madden to create the illustrations for this project. The release date has been set for November 10.

So basically, all she did was take an old song and give it to someone to illustrate for her?  Guys, I can write a song!  All you have to do is gimme some money for it!

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Jet Blue Starts Up “Soar With Reading”

Jet Blue has proved that you can give back to your community in new and interesting ways this week, as it launched its “Soar With Reading” initiative.

JetBlue wants to get books in the hands of children who have difficulty accessing these learning materials.

The airline has placed three book vending machines in South East Washington, D.C. so that kids can pick up free books near their homes. There are currently 16,000 books in circulation and the airline plans to donate 84,000 more. ABC News has more:

The program has many fans at Matthews Memorial Baptist Church.

“We’re reading books that are in the vending machine, so now they can take that book home and read it over and over again … and it’s just wonderful,” Shelley Hudson, the church’s first lady, said.

Awesomesauce.  I would really love to see this spread to other areas in need.  Good job, Jet Blue.

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Smashwords and Flipkart To End Distribution Deal

Bad news for authors who want to use someone other than Amazon to get their books over to India.  You’re out of luck now, as Smashwords founder Mark Coker explains:

My decision to put Flipkart on notice was not an easy one, and followed months of good-faith effort on Smashwords’ part to help Flipkart improve their systems.  To Flipkart’s credit, they tried in good faith to meet our demands but in the end acknowledged they’re not yet prepared to handle a dynamic catalog of our scale.

To be clear, the termination of our agreement with Flipkart is not Amazon’s fault.  However, Amazon was a catalyst because the harm they’re causing our shared authors made it impossible for us to give Flipkart the runway they needed to improve their systems.

Although Flipkart is a small ebook retailer and the financial impact on Smashwords authors will be negligible, I’m more concerned by what this signals for the future of ebook retailing around the world.

Basically what happened was that Flipkart had ebooks that were currently enrolled in Kindle Select (which demands exclusivity only to Amazon).  Amazon contacted the authors, reminding them that KDPS books caught being sold on other websites could have their entire library taken down, so the authors got in a panic and tried to contact Smashwords and Flipkart to get the books off.  Flipkart doesn’t have enough employees to remove that many books in a timely manner, so Coker decided that rather than piss off his authors, he would have to let the company go.  As he points out, if Amazon had even a modicum of flexibility this would not be an issue.

In recent weeks I’ve heard from authors who received threatening emails from Amazon regarding their status in KDP Select due to Flipkart in India failing to remove their books in a timely manner.  The authors tell me that Amazon is threatening to kick their books out of KDP-S worldwide simply because this tiny Indian retailer is having difficulty removing titles in a timely manner.

The message you’re sending authors is that they risk the wrath and punishment of Amazon if they allow Amazon’s competitors to carry their books. Maybe that’s the point. If so, your plan is brilliant. But the plan has one fundamental flaw – you’re building resentment in the author community.  People will bend to coercion and intimidation if they feel they have no choice.  But if given a choice in the future, they will turn on you.

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#QueryKombat Co-host Has Been Kicked To The Curb

When #WriteInclusively Founder SC_Write posted this tweet on August 25, twitter quickly took notice:

From his blog, an explanation:

About three years ago, I ran the “Become an Agent” contest, and it went successfully. Mike, seeing that I had run a contest, then approached me with an amazing idea: Query Kombat. I was on board, and excited, and we thought we needed another person to co-host. I was friends with Michelle before this, and so I invited her to be our third co-host. From this, Michelle has gone on to do truly amazing things as a contest host and has built a huge platform in the online writing world.

I also want to present their reasoning for removing me from the team. It is crucial that we understand why this happened, and also to realize that understanding does not mean acceptance.

In their words, my “passion for the Write Inclusively campaign may be unsettling or uncomfortable for people who don’t write from the POV of ethnic characters, or who don’t portray ethnic characters as ‘honestly’ as you would like.”

TLDR: he has been removed from co-hosting the contest because it might make people uncomfortable. What in the HECK does it have to do with the #QueryKombat contest???

By “passion”, Mike and Michelle were probably referring to my zeal on Twitter and even on this blog around the issues of police brutality, tokenization within literature and the We Need Diverse Books campaign, cultural appropriation, white supremacy, the difference in reaction between a white terrorist and a brown terrorist, and more.

My removal is for a purpose. It is to protect feelings.

When Mike and Michelle talk about “people who don’t write from the POV of ethnic characters, or who don’t portray ethnic characters as ‘honestly’ as you would like,” they have used a long euphemistic phrase for white people.

The Write Inclusively campaign is a campaign for, among other marginalized identities, the advancement of writers of color and white writers who do research on race to write about people of color more honestly.

The frustration SC feels is palpable, because really, being a co-host has nothing to do with his need to promote diversity in books.  And the moral cowardice of bending to the supposed ephemeral few who would object to SC continuing as a co-host for a contest HE HELPED FOUND IN THE FIRST PLACE, is simply staggering.

Update as of the 28th:

Wow. Wow wow wow. I never expected to get the amount of support that I did. #WriteInclusively trended on Twitter. I gained hundreds of Twitter followers (which included many editors and agents that I’ve loved/respected for years :O), and it was being discussed all over the online writing community. I got emails from agents, from editors wanting to help in any way they could. So many Twitter DMs, Tweets, caring for me, supporting me.

I am so eternally thankful. THANK YOU for listening! #WriteInclusively has gotten some institutional protection. That is so, so powerful.

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Some Comic Book Authors Take Rejection Badly

Nothing like being a female editor in a world filled with idiot fanboys who take rejection like children denied candy at the grocery store.  Let the tantrum throwing begin:

After Elements Anthology editor Taneka Stotts told an applying comic creatorthat she wasn’t interested in seeing his completed book, Stotts received this email:

So, yeah, that was super professional, huh?  I mean, comic editors all over the industry must just be DYING to get their hands on this guy’s work.  He must be such a delight to work with every time he doesn’t get his way.

Stott’s comments on the subject:

I knew that creating Elements would open myself up to comments and criticism, but I still found this surprising. After all, I’m just an indie publisher who likes to promote and showcase voices besides my own.

Let’s hope this fellow gets the industry reception he really deserves.

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Interesting Links

Artists Create Digital Maps of Literary Places (this is mind-blowing)