Book Review: The Ultimate HTML Reference

If you've ventured at all into web sites, blogging, and social media, you find yourself running into HTML. Visual editor tools are fine for getting the effects you want into writing, but that is slow and limited. For the greatest flexibility in formatting text, creating tables and lists, inserting pictures, and many other tasks, a knowledge of HTML is handy. The Ultimate HTML Reference by Ian Lloyd is a reference book that should be close by a dictionary, thesaurus, or volume on English usage.

I've found myself frequently reaching for it when trying to remember how to control a table layout in a blog entry or double-checking how to get a link to open in a new window. The material is complete so far as I can tell, and the organization, including TOC and index, is strong and lets me easily find what I need. At $45 it isn't a cheap volume, but could easily save you its cost in time efficiency in your first time or two of using it.

Michelle Vranizan Rafter's Best Blogs for Writers

Michelle Rafter ran a list of best blogs for writers on her blog, WordCount. Ignoring for a moment her inclusion of my blog, there's a great list of resources, from the mechanics of writing and editing to the freelance business and corporate writing. It's worth putting on your list.

Reference Sites for Publishing Law

It's good to have some places to learn about publishing law, as that is a vital part of running your writing business. I've just added a couple of links to my "Other Other Sites":

• Ivan Hoffman Hoffman has been in publishing and entertainment law for decades and has a great collection of articles on aspects of contracts, rights, coypright, and doing business. I periodically go in and see what new articles he has listed and catch up on my reading.


• PublishLawyer.com This is another site by an attorney, Daniel N. Steven. It has more of a tutorial feel to it and also has features like the Quick Guide to Book Contract Trouble Spots.

If you're serious about running your writing business, you should be learning as much as you can about contract and publishing law. You don't have to become a lawyer to start improving the way you look after your own interests.