Tweets, text messages, blog posts, and missives left on forums, in comments and on social networks have become a rich mother lode of raw personal material to mine for authors who are writing memoirs. It’s the way we communicate now It’s how we express and absorb information and emotion, in quick short takes, from the [...]

When Amanda Hocking, the 26-year-old poster girl for self-publishing, revealed her $2 million book contract with St. Martin’s Press, she defended the deal on her own blog to legions of fans and militant, mystified indie authors. “I only want to be a writer,” Hocking said. “I do not want to spend 40 hours a week [...]