Writers' Roundup: March 5

Happy Friday!

Some weekend reading for y’all:

• Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book, from the New York Times. Just how much does it actually cost to produce a printed book versus a digital one?

• At True/Slant, a great list of the Best Journalism of 2009. A few of Conor Friedersdorf’s categories: exceptional storytelling, short essays and travel.

• The best advice for writers? Read. Solid post from The Guardian’s book blog about how reading improves your writing.

• Literary agent Rachelle Gardner explains why she doesn’t ask for memoirs about overcoming adversity: “Lots of people have a story similar to yours; only a few will be able to write it in such a way that it could become a bestselling memoir.” There’s also an interesting conversation in the comments of Rachelle’s post, Does the query system work?

• Editorial Ass offers a helpful explanation of how multiple book deal advances are divided up. It’s good to know because we’re all going to get multiple book deals, right?

• Resources for journalists using Twitter. A great list from Steve Buttry.

• For fun: Big Africa Cycle. This guy is biking through the continent. It’s so fun to read his posts and see his photos, partly because I’ve been to some of the places he has visited recently.

It’s almost spring! Enjoy your weekend.