Kara Robart

Kara Robart
App Watch: A look at what publishers are launching in the mobile space.

If you thought global atlas apps began and ended with Google Earth, now there's Atlas by Collins. Drawing on the HarperCollins UK imprint's rich history in map publishing, Atlas by Collins takes a different approach to geographic exploration. While not as granular as Google Earth and its grainy, stitched-together satellite images, Atlas by Collins focuses on beautiful, well-organized globes, all with full swipe and zoom functionality and arranged under three thematic headings: atlas essentials, people and power, and living earth.

So Long, But Not Goodbye

It’s my last day here at NAPCO. My internship is ending, my classes have wrapped up, my off-campus experience is over. Next week, I am leaving Philadelphia and heading back home to Michigan.

It’s bittersweet.

On one hand, I’m exited to get back to the friends, the family and the homemade cranberry sauce that await me this holiday season.* On the other hand, I’m sad to be saying goodbye to this office, these people and this city that I’ve called home for the past four months. I’ll be trading in the gray of the city for the white (at least, if Mother Nature gets her act together) of the rural area from which I hail. Leaving Philadelphia will be weird, and it’s weird that it’s weird. You know?

I Did It! I FINISHED My WriMo!

Done. Finished. 50,000 words in the bank.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2013 officially wraps up today and I have formally validated my novel in all of its 50,000-word glory.

*Insert obnoxious happy dance here*

Please excuse my shameless bragging, but I just can’t help it. I wrote a novel. I am a novelist. Just writing the words brings a giddy smile to my face. In fact, I am only about two levels of happy away from unashamedly shouting my victory at random strangers on the street. My friends, professors, parents and colleagues have showered even more congratulations on me than I deserve, and I can proudly say that I did it. Thirty days, and 50,000 words. I did it.

Confessions of a first-time Wrimo

As an intern here at NAPCO (the parent company of Book Business and Publishing Executive), I am constantly exposed to new, exciting things happening in the publishing industry. Two weeks ago, I wrote an article celebrating the kickoff of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). In that article, I challenged all you publishers to one month of literary abandon in which you (yes, you!) could become authors yourselves. I wanted to take a minute to check in on your progress, and to share my own NaNoWriMo experience with you. That’s right, you are currently reading the words of another first-time Wrimo.

On Your Mark, Get Set, NaNoWriMo!

Why let your authors have all the fun? If you’ve been sitting on an idea for a novel, now is the time to do something about it—and fast. November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, during which thousands of people will push themselves toward completing what seems, to some, an entirely unattainable goal. The premise is simple: write one 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

Back in 2000, its year of inception, the event had just 21 participants and a measly 6 “winners”—those who reach the goal of committing 50,000 words to paper. Since then, NaNoWriMo has exploded; by the time 2011 rolled around, there were more than 250,000 participants and roughly 37,000 winners. NaNoWriMo has no judges, no prizes and nobody necessarily even reads the finished novels; in order to be a winner, you just have to get 50,000 words of fiction out of your brain and into a document. According to the rules, you are allowed to outline your novel as much as you want prior to November 1, as long as you don’t write anything that ends up in the novel itself.*