Ah, I love the feeling of a new blog—all shiny and full of possibility. I’m excited to be making a contribution to this blog, along with my regular Carolrhoda blogging, from which I am adapting this post:

I wrote about trailblazing YA author John Green’s great post on advances and royalties late last week and now I find this excellent piece about sales terms on the Harper Studio blog by Association of Booksellers for Children exec Kristen McLean. Put these two together, and things start to look pretty interesting for the publishing business model on both ends. It’s supremely encouraging to see this kind of thinking coming out of children’s books. (Quite appropriate, when you think about it.)

Before the Monday was out, though, there were more exciting developments. Pioneering blogger, inveterate innovator and copyfighter Cory Doctorow and his publisher, Tor, are releasing Doctorow’s new YA novel online in an intriguing illustrated serial format–for free, naturally. I disagree with Doctorow’s position on copyright, but I’m glad he’s out there doing his thing.

When I initially critiqued Green’s proposal, my concern was that change couldn’t focus exclusively on a single relationship (author publisher) in the chain of relationships that makes up the bookmaking and bookselling processes. If you put all of the above developments and proposals together, though, you’re well on your way to covering all of the relationships. Exciting stuff.