kt literary » techy stuff

Web Monkey is on the job!

Kate — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:14:16 +0000

Also, if you come to this site regularly, you may have noticed things look a little funky right now. Rest assured, my genius Web Monkey is on the case, and things should be back to normal shortly. Especially now that we’ve both finished playing Mass Effect 3. (Don’t get me started.)

Technical Difficulties

Kate — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 02:34:47 +0000

Just a quick note for those of my followers who may not have seen my recent tweets: I’m doing my best to stay up-to-date on my query responses, but because I’ve done so many lately, several of your email providers seem to have the mistaken assumption that I’m spam. If you’re waiting to hear back on a query you sent from a comcast.net, yahoo.com, or aol.com query sent in the last two weeks or so, I have responded, but you may not have received my response yet. I believe Comcast fixed my block, so I’m going to try to resend those recent responses that got bounced back. The others I’m still working on.

In the meantime, a quick poll!

poll by twiigs.com

All Abuzz

Kate — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:46:18 +0000

So the publishing world is all abuzz today with news of Apple’s iPad, although — period jokes aside — I’m not yet seeing that this is THE THING that will change publishing as we know it. I’m certainly not ready to give up my Kindle, and since I’m not on AT&T, nor do I wish to be, I’m not chucking my Blackberry any time soon either. I wouldn’t have minded an announcement that the iPhone was going to be available to Verizon customers, but I guess that’s a rant for another day.

In any case, I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve talked tech here on the Daphne blog, so I thought I’d throw out a few questions to you. What devices can’t you live without: Blackberry, iPhone, Palm, iPod, netbook, laptop, Kindle, Sony Reader, camera, rotary phone, typewriter… What’s your toy? And what do you think about the iPad?

Also, late breaking news — I’m going to be participating in fellow agent Colleen Lindsay‘s AskAgent tweet chat TONIGHT at 10pm Eastern, 8pm Mountain. Follow us on #askagent.

And this is why I shouldn’t blog when sick…

Kate — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:18:54 +0000

We’re experiencing technical problems on the clients page. Please stand by…
UPDATE: And we’re back. I think the rash of exclamation marks and worried notes, emails, texts, and tells to my web monkey may have been a little excessive.

A Halloween Treat!

Kate — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:25:41 +0000

It’s another one of my favorite holidays around here, and real quick, before I put on my pirate shoes, purple wig, and run over to Trixie’s school for her Halloween party — I come bearing butterfly wings and homemade cupcakes! — I wanted to share my latest excitement:
New laptop!!
It’s super shiny, and the keys make an awesome clicking noise when I type — but beyond that, I’ve spent the entire day so far making sure all my settings are as near as I can make them to how things were on my old laptop, restoring files, moving stuff around, and reinstalling programs. It’s keeping me busy, in a good way. And I’m sure will continue to do so all weekend as I keep playing around with it — I mean, making sure all of the options are to my specifications.
But I’m curious. When you get a new computer, how much do you play around with the new programs that are on there, and stuff that’s new to you, and how much to you stick to what you know, even if that means getting rid of the factory settings? Sing out in the comments, and don’t forget, you have until MONDAY to leave me a comment here with the question you think I should ask all the editors I’m meeting with in NYC next week!

Kt literary goes SUPER high-tech!

Kate — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:01:27 +0000

Rexroth, superb web-monkey and all around awesome husband, just gave me a Kindle as a wedding present. Squee!!
Now, it should be noted that I am not typically an early-adopter of new technology. I like to wait, hear about other people’s experiences with stuff, wait for the price to drop, and then make my decision. In this case? Rexroth took all the pesky deliberating out of my hands, and instead just provided me with a fantastic new way to read manuscripts.
Sure, Amazon will keep touting the Kindle as a great way to read books, and I may very well use it for books at some point in the future, when I’ve gone through all the unread lovelies waiting patiently on my bookshelves to be read. For me, the device is a way to be disconnected from my desk — to read manuscripts from the comfort of anywhere!
I have to go through a little forwarded rigamarole to get the documents onto the Kindle — there is an easy way, but it costs 10 cents a shot, and I am nothing if not frugal. Because of that, I’m not going to be reading EVERYTHING on the Kindle — queries will still get read in my email, but once we get to chapter stage, and particularly full manuscripts — I’ll be doing my part to save trees and read them all on my little Kindle.
In fact, I’m heading to Seattle on Friday for the SCBWI conference, and I’m looking forward to bringing my Kindle along for downtime on the flights and between sessions. More soon!

Ask Daphne! About email formatting

Kate — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:05:39 +0000

Jean writes

I have an email formatting question for your blog. Many agents want writers to send writing samples (synopsis, first few chapters) along with their query. Seeing as there are a variety of different email programs out there that see things like tabs and italics differently, is there a ‘standard’ or some advice that you can give for those of us who want to have our samples come out looking lovely (and readable) on the agent’s end? For example, should I use italics? Should I use tabs at the beginning of my paragraphs, or is there something that I can do that is guaranteed to come out right on the other end, will look good and make sense to the agent?

Jean, I really should turn this question over to Rexroth, who’s my go-to guy for technical questions. But as he’s temporarily unavailable, I’d say you’re safest not using ANY formatting.
Now, this goes for materials included within the email itself, not speaking of attachments. For those, go crazy, go nuts! (Ok, not too nuts.) But within an email, you never known what someone’s system is going to do. I use Gmail for most of my emails, and there’s a simple button to use “plain formatting” rather than rich text. I think Outlook has something similar.
It won’t look as pretty as you might wish, but it won’t look bizarre either.

AFK, but not entirely

Kate — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:31:10 +0000

Spent much of the day running around to various meetings and errands to get stuff done before I temporarily close up the Colorado office and return to the New York office. I’ll be back in the Big Apple from Thursday, March 27th through Monday, April 7th. And after that? A week off we like to refer to around here as “gettin’ married!”
But before I go off and do all that, I’ve been thinking about my time AFK — Away From Keyboard, for those of you not up on your l33tspeak. Now granted, with one computer down here in my office, and another one upstairs in Rexroth’s office, it’s not too often that I’m all that far away from a keyboard. But occasionally, yes, it happens.
And when it does, I depend on my little silver Motorola Q. You can keep your blackberries, blueberries, and palms. I like my Q. First of all — its name reminds me of the guy from the Bond movies who makes all the nifty gadgets for 007. Phone + camera + internet browser + music player? Yes, please! If only it also served martinis. What it does let me do, though, is check my email while I’m waiting in line. Browse news feeds while sitting in the passenger seat of the Implausible-mobile. And hear about exciting awards being given to my clients (details when I can release them).
And when I’m running off to lunch with an editor next week in New York, it lets me map the restaurant where we’re meeting and find the closest subway.
Genius, I tell you, genius.
Besides your computer, what other high-tech devices help you keep your life in order? What do you swoon for, and what can’t you live without?

Technical note

Kate — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 04:54:09 +0000

It’s come to our attention that this site is a little wonky,albeit still readable, under IE 6.0. It works just fine in Firefox (the official browser of ktliterary.com and Daphne Unfeasible!) and in IE 7.0. Sorry for any snafus that may develop.

To do…

Kate — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:36:46 +0000

~~Update the comments template.~~
~~Add photos and jackets for clients.~~
~~Links to author websites.~~
~~Writer-tips links page.~~
~~News template needs ‘category only’ includes.~~
~~Main template needs ‘most recent’ excerpt.~~