Thursday, January 22, 2015

Number Crunching


Another week of hot weather and crunching numbers... here in my house. 
I’m doing budgets for our National Conference and pulling my hair out over funding requirements. 

Over on the other side of the world Publishers and Commentators are kicking through the snow and crunching numbers trying to make sense of the latest Neilson figures to get a snapshot of the health of the Publishing industry.

So far this week I’ve seen statements like Adult Fiction is dead. Ebooks are dead. YA is being read by Adults. Children’s publishing is growing. Where is fiction for Grown Ups?
Depending on where you live inside the publishing world... You are in a time of great opportunity or 
famine or change or growth or decline or flux or... business as usual.

After the Digital Book World conference last week, where the Neilson figures were discussed, people are still trying to figure out whether they should be happy or sad.
Porter Anderson takes a close look at the figures for print and ebook and what sells... and a nice surprising figure came out... the growth of Juvenile Non Fiction (print). Makes recent NZ publishing house closures look premature.

Publishing Technology breaks down some Neilson figures and finds that ebook success and adult fiction success are intertwined.

Philip Jones of The Bookseller compares the UK and US figures and looks at the main conclusions, one of which is that the book industry is not dependent on the e-reader being sold at Christmas, it is now an everyday item... not a game changer.

Moving away from number crunching these great posts caught my eye.

Rachelle Gardner on the Imposter Syndrome- yes every writer suffers this.

Why writers don’t write sometimes... This post highlights the writer’s life now.

Publishers Weekly has a breakdown on Self Publishing success in 2015 (I thinks this makes Self Publishers legit now.)

Porter Anderson takes a look at the annual author survey DBW always releases at their conference. Last year was full of controversy...this year was all about Author ROI (Return On Investment) Is it worth it? (great comments!)

Joanna Penn has another brilliant interview and learns a great tip for Email lists and newsletters.

Over on Copyblogger Johnny and Sean do a quick breakdown of a publishing funnel (Get their Book!)


12 x 12 is open (1 month only) for all those people interested in writing Picture Books. Such is the popularity that Julie's site broke after the first day... Every year I say to myself I must have a go... alas I’m still trying to take back 2014.

In the Craft Section,






In the Marketing Section,






Website Of The Week.
The One Hundred Best Websites for Writers has been announced.
Regular readers will see many sites that I often refer to...Congratulations to Janice and Katherine and Rachelle and Dean and Joanna and Elizabeth and Debi and Jami and James and Angela and Becca and Jane and Joanna and Kristen and Casey and Michael and Joel and Chuck and....


To Finish,

Chuck has a new ramble about making Art in 2015 (definitely comes with warnings...) It strikes a chord with me as I wrestle with conference timetables and budgets. Every two years we get a chance to throw ourselves wholesale into this creative art business, try to understand it, up skill in it and get inspired at our National Conference. I’m doing my best to make it worthwhile coming to.

maureen

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Many premature decisions in the NZ publishing industry have gone by without any scrutiny. Spending 6 million to promote our wares at Frankfurt, while decisions were being made behind the scenes to close companies is the most serious error of judgement so far. That 6 million would have saved our industry and given a platform for the resurgence of print books. Creative NZ's funding decisions have also contributed to an early and unnecessary death of commercial publishing in NZ.

Unknown said...

I can highly recommend the 12x12 Picture book challenge. I did it last year to get myself motivated and it worked. I now have 12 manuscripts completed - which is 12 more than I would have had. Cheers, Vanessa

Maureen said...

The hardest writing is PB writing. The skills you learn are invaluable… Great to hear how successful it was for you Vanessa! I've been thinking about it … and thinking I should do it when i can clear the decks around here. This is the 4th or 5th year 12x12 has been running. Next year may be the year!

Jami Gold said...

Aww, thanks, Maureen! It's because of people like you that I try so hard to deliver. :)

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