Author Rewards- Can You Afford An Elephant?

This week around the publishing blogosphere the chat was around author business.
Nate Hoffelder flagged that the new Amazon publishing dashboard has added a projected royalty earnings button. Things must be on the up. Markus Dohle CEO of Penguin Random seems to think so. Talk this industry up he says... 

Every writer has struggled with rejection. Writing is subjective. Not everyone will love what you write. In fact, as a writer, you regularly go through rejection of your own words. Anne R Allen has a fabulous post on rejection and why it feels so awful... 
Writer Unboxed came at rejection from another angle- Are you making writing harder than it needs to be? 

Joanna Penn has been on fire recently with great podcasts that this blog post is in danger of becoming an exclusive ode to The Creative Penn. If you have yet to watch/ listen to a podcast you are missing out on one of the most valuable sources of knowledge about Indie publishing around. Joanna also transcribes her podcasts... so you can read all the great information. So check out Why you need to treat your writing like a business and Joanna’s great interview with Frances Caballo on Pinterest and Instagram. And if you look carefully there are two more links in Craft and Marketing – both Bookmarked!

Understanding metadata and SEO is important in marketing. Miral Satter besides being CEO of Bibliocrunch is also savvy on SEO. (Search Engine Optimisation.) Miral has a must-read post on ways to nail author SEO.

I often wish for a nice team of elves to take over social media marketing and asking for reviews. It is so hard as I hate to bother anyone... Ingram has got a great post on how to build a community and get a team of elves together. Penny Sansevieri has a good post on how to get review recommendations.

Have you often wondered if there was a secret writers club that the big players are members of? There is, it’s called NINC.  They have amembers only newsletter but I recently came across a link to their article on crowdfunding for authors. This put me in mind of Kris Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smiths Crowdfunding campaign that is breaking all sorts of goals. If you donate even a little bit of money you get author workshops... books...courses... Seriously, seriously good prizes and there are only a few hours left...

In a Writer Beware moment – I often come across new writers in writing groups plaintively asking about publishers who want to publish their work if they would pay some money in first. Now there are Hybrid publishers who do a good job for authors and then there are the scammers who don’t. Here is a great article that lays out what you should be looking for to tell the difference. Pass it around- the more everybody knows the better for our industry.

In The Craft Section,

How to write with emotional truth- Bang2write- Bookmark

B speaks for A dialogue tricks- Stephen Pressfield

Using writing sprints- Paul Bonea- Bookmark

How to love self-editing - Hayley Milliman- Bookmark

Flawed characters= Great fiction – Kristen Lamb

9 weird ways to beat writer's block

In The Marketing Section,

How to make the most of Goodreads- Joy Rancantore- Bookmark

Author entrepreneur ethos- Jarie Bolander- Bookmark

Testing Bookbub ads- Bookbub- Bookmark

Choosing a publicist- Jane Friedman

3 simple mistakes to avoid in marketing- Jeff Bullas

Book Hooks and Blurbs- Sacha Black

To Finish,

This little video of A Day In The Life Of An Author popped across my Twitter feed today. I was intrigued by the elephants in the garden... every author has them.
They will be first on the list when I make my millions in royalties... LOL.

Maureen
@craicer

My monthly newsletter is where I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes. I always appreciate virtual coffee love. If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons William Warby – Elephants at Whipsnade Zoo

The Greatest Author Fears

Authors on the Pronoun distributor website were left scrambling this week. A notice appeared on the Pronoun website saying Goodbye. There was a flurry of comment around the publishing blogosphere. The sages were out in force.

Macmillan’s eBook distribution model of gave a great deal to authors but they were not making any money. If it looks too good to be true it’s about to go belly up!

Meanwhile Draft2Digital (A rival distributor of eBooks) stepped into the breach announcing a deal with Amazon. 

Sighs of relief all round.

Did/Do you read pulp writers? They were the prolific writers of the early part of the Twentieth Century. Zane Grey, Doc Savage, Leslie Charteris, Louis L’Amour. They were machines for story and they were paid by the word. James Scott Bell takes a look at what made the pulp writers so good.

Chris Syme has a great post on Anne R Allen’s blog TamingThe Social Media Beast. If you are looking at your social media engagement and saying too hard... drop in and read  this excellent article. Don’t forget to read the comments too.

Last week I linked to a post from Maggie Stiefvater on how book piracy was threatening her. This week The Guardian talked to some other authors about their experiences... sobering stuff.

Susan Spann has a post about bad contracts... as she is a publishing lawyer as well as a published author she knows whereof she speaks, Don’t be afraid to walk away from a publishing deal.

I came across this great post today on what you should do if you fail NaNoWriMo. It is one of those sensible posts that put things into perspective and is a nice little island among the treacherous weeds of NaNo uncertainty.

Backlinko has an amazingly in depth post on SEO. Now before you immediately dismiss this article as being in the too hard basket... Take a look. They explain how Google are using new search algorithms and what that means for content... key words... Titles... etc etc.

LitHub talked to 150 writers and asked their advice. And then they compiled that advice into one comprehensive article of 8 important pieces of author knowhow.

In The Craft Section,

Character turning points- Mary Kole- Bookmark

Hinting at emotional wounds- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

What is a high concept- Danielle Burby

Movie Scene by Scene breakdown- Go In To The Story- Scriptwriter Bookmark

The most important rule of backstory- Andrea Lungren- Bookmark

How to use track changes

Masterful Character description- CS Lakin- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Where to start with Social Media

Facebook ads in 2018- CK Syme- Bookmark

Book marketing content ideas for November and Know your fans- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

How to write a Query Letter- Reedsy- Bookmark

Using Twitter to grow your email list- Jesper Schmidt

To Finish,

The 7 greatest fears of Horror Writers explores not just fears of Horror writers but the fears of all writers who have faced these situations.

Are you guilty of writing purple prose? Is there a place for purple prose in your writing? Do you need a purple prose self help group? K MWeiland has all the answers.

My monthly newsletter is due soon. *Hi new subscribers* I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. NaNo is killing me- not to mention my presentation-If you want to feed my caffeine habit feel free to hit the coffee tab. I’m living on fumes this month!
 

Maureen

@craicer

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons- Newtown Grafitti- Purple prose

Gazing into 2015

The sun has been beating down and we have been traveling through the North Island on our annual family pilgrimage. I tried hard not to think of all the projects I wanted to start/complete this year (they are all from last years Annus Interrumpi.) My family thought I was taking a complete wellness break... I was sleeping ... honestly! So now I’m back with first post of the year.

As 2015 rolls in... writers take stock of where they are and where they want to be next year and what the publishing world is going to throw at them. Everyone who has spent any time in this business knows that change is constant!

Over the last five years I have read Bob Mayer’s New Year predictions and he usually is on the money. So here is his take for 2015.

Mark Coker of Smashwords is taking a similar line and getting quoted all over the place in the last week.

With book publishing stats for last year being digested and comments about the drop in e-book sales from publishers... does this spell the beginning of the end of the e-book phenomenon. NO. Killzone notes the sky is not falling and Hugh Howey is busy gazing into the sky of 2015.

Chuck Wendig takes his usual hilarious (profane) ramble on 2015 writing resolutions and what he would like to see happening in publishing in 2015. Chuck cautions everyone about subscription models like Kindle Unlimited. It might be good for the reader...but.

This week Oyster enrolled the Macmillan group into their model, which means they have a significant number of the top ten publishers. Subscription wars may be about to start.

The Digital Book World conference is happening as I write. (#DBW15) They kicked off the conference looking at Children’s Publishing. Jane Friedman has links to all the slide presentations and a nifty infographic about the demands on children’s reading time. Porter Anderson looks at Children’s Publishing figures... 25% of all print publishing and the growing take up of e- books in this sector. Where to next?

Writer Beware takes a close look at Publishing contracts- Are you sabotaging yourself?

Are we all over crowdfunding publishing or is there a better way… Futurebook chat roundup makes interesting reading.

If you need a lie down after all those resolutions Writer Unboxed has a post on Tolerating Uncertainty.

In the Craft Section,

5 ways to reveal backstory

Working with multiple POV’s and timelines- Janice Hardy

6 ways to make characters stand out- Jody Hedlund

Painting characters into corners

Writing poverty in YA

When the narrator knows as much as God

Most common writing mistakes- K M Weiland

The Smelling Post- or writing about this sense...

Graphic post on whether your main character can survivemultiple assailants (definitely for thriller writers!)

Bob Mayer’s video on conflict lock

Hooks, Lines and Stinkers

In the Marketing Section

3 simple ebook marketing tips.

Understanding Search Engine Optimization-  (SEO)

27 royalty free stock image sites

Planning marketing with a content calendar

Finding the right critique partners

Website of the Week

Agent Janet Reid has a great site where she answers authors questions about agents... here she looks at what happens when an agent quits the business but still wants to rep you.

To Finish,

If you have teenagers in the house... chances are you have heard a lot of Taylor Swift. Have you ever noticed how her songs are plots of YA novels....

Maureen

Pic from Flickr/Creative Commons Su Bo An