Who Owns Your Rights?

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

The EU accessibility act came into force this week. This is aimed at publishers who are selling into the European Union. All books need to be accessible. This doesn’t mean that they have to be widely available although that might help. They have to be accessible to the disabled community. Dan Holloway has a quick rundown on what that means for authors and publishers.

 

Publishing Perspectives reports on the recent court decision over book banning in favour of the parents and how this might impact the freedom to read going forward in the United States of America.

 

Publishers Weekly reports on the American Library Association conference and what the main topics of conversation were. AI and its biases. There was a lot of chat about the impact of new tech trends on libraries and on hand were child sized robots that helped children with finding and checking out books. (It is almost the age of the Jetsons- where is my flying car?)

 

This week Mark Williams looked at two news items that expose the current publishing models shortcomings. First was the news that the Bond franchise had been bought by Amazon who are bringing out modern James Bond books to tie in with their new game. So where does that leave the original publisher? Following right on the heels of this is the Romantasy juggernaut Sarah J Maass who has licensed her brand into a global marketplace and left her traditional publishers out of the mix. 

When I am asked what is the most important subject to learn in publishing, I always answer intellectual property and contracts. These two articles highlight the importance of intellectual property and who owns it. For decades publishers have been asking for sweeping contract rights and then not doing anything with them. Savvy agents and authors keeping these rights back have discovered other entertainment companies value these licenses. Will Publishers double down on rights demands? Remember authors, you can put time limits on rights in the contract and always put a rights reversal time clause in. 

 

Victoria Strauss has a great article for Writer Unboxed on bankruptcies and why the bankruptcy clause in your contract might not protect you. This is a timely article after recent publisher bankruptcies.

 

Richard Charkin muses on globalization and the publishing trade. Printers are now global, as are Newspapers. I wonder when rights by country will fall by the wayside. 

 

John Green has a nifty little video which breaks down What the #1 New York Times Bestseller List Actually Means. Sometimes it doesn’t take much for a book to make the list.

 

Gabriela Pereira has a great article on How to deal with Failure and Rejection. You need a writer angst jar. This is a great tool to get you over the hump.

 

Joanna Penn has an interesting interview with Betsy Lerner this week. Betsy has decades of experience in the publishing world doing pretty much every job in it. She talks about finding your voice across the medium and loving book marketing.

 

Writer Unboxed has a new contributor (Gen Z ) Kit Aldridge who has an article on AI – The Big Bad Wolf or Quiet Assistant for Writers. All the comments are interesting, especially from the big names in the community. The article is generally not in favour.

If you are on the fence about this technology. You are not alone. However, the changes are so rapid that you may find that some knowledge is better than none at all. Joanna Penn’s recent Interview with Thomas Umstattd on Book Discoverability in the age of AI shows another side of this technology.  

 

It’s July and you may be looking at your goals for the year and wondering what happened. Robin Blakely has a great article on redirecting yourself and your goals.

If it is all too much check out the Frustrated Writers Colouring In Book

 

In the Craft Section,

Building believable alternate histories- Daniel Ottalini

When your draft is a mess- Stuart Wakefield- Bookmark

The playbook for antagonists- Becca Puglisi

The secret to writing witty characters- K M Weiland- Bookmark

Ending apostrophe abuse- Debbie Burke- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

TikTok marketing demographics for authors- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

Writing an author bio (with AI)- Kindlepreneur

How to publish a children’s book- Reedsy and Karen Inglis- Bookmark

Creative hooks drive more ad clicks- Bookbub- Bookmark

Joanna Penn interviewed Simon Patrick about Eleven labs and Producing AI narrated audiobooks. This is an interesting insight into how Eleven labs works, and how authors can use them. 

 

To Finish,

Do you remember the Readers Digest books? Condensed versions of four novels bound in hardback and available mail order on a monthly subscription. Loads of homes had them. Folio Editions borrowed a similar concept but went the opposite way into high end productions. Publishers Weekly looks at how they have reinvented themselves starting with Public Domain books and are now into licensing Folio editions of in print books. It is all about Intellectual Property and what you do with it.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Free Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

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Can We Get Off The Roller Coaster?

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

It’s been a tricky old week if you have been watching the tariff brinkmanship going on and wondering what this will do to the global economy. Closer to home writers and publishers are wondering what it will mean for the book industry. If you are in the USA and get your books printed in China, you may be lucky as so far books have been exempt from tariffs, unfortunately paper and ink imported into the USA from China is not. Kathleen Schmidt has a quick run down on what the American Booksellers Association is saying about tariffs.

 

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair has just wrapped up and interesting articles have come out of the presentations at the fair. Publisher’s Weekly reports on the panel discussion with audio publishers at the fair. There is an emphasis from audio publishers to snap up all audio rights so they can be in control when new formats arrive in this space. If you aren’t sure what I mean, think AI audio books, AI translated audiobooks etc.

Publisher’s Weekly also had an informative article on what everyone was buying at Bologna, the trends in children’s books, Romantasy might be over, and what everyone is doing about middle grade books. If you write in this space, it’s a must read.

 

In wider publishing news, last week I wrote that the staff of The Institute of Museum and Library Services – the body that oversees funding for libraries have been placed on administrative leave. This week the American Library Association has gone into bat for them with a court case suing The President, the DOGE executive, and the directors of the Institute. 

 

The American Publishers Association co-hosted a day long forum to look at the threat of AI on creative license. This is to tie in with the recently introduced bill – The TRAIN act, or Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks. Your creativity rights are in the constitution. (Looking from outside the USA, I wonder for how long…)

 

The Guardian has written an article looking at book banning and who are actually behind the majority of the book bans, and it is not individual concerned parents but interest groups. 

 

Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware does a fantastic job of keeping up with the scam artists out there. In her latest article she turns the spotlight on a new scam that uses identity theft to impersonate editors and agents with pre-paid commissions and contracts that have been copied from Penguin Random House. This is a must read for all writers. You might feel that you know enough about what is happening to spot a scam, but many writers don’t. If they do a cursory search to see if the editor is legit, it looks like it… then the fish hooks start happening. At the very least you will be able to tell a newbie writer what to look for in this new scam.

 

Dan Holloway of The Alliance of Independent Authors talks about a new feature being rolled out by Amazon for the Kindle, ReCaps… where an AI will tell you what’s happened in the story so far, if you are following a series. I can’t see anything problematic here at all….

 

Cassie Manns Murray a book publicist has an interesting opinion piece about Publishers Weekly’s new move to charge a $25 submission fee for a potential review. It is not guaranteed. If they do this will others follow? This is a good piece on how hard it is juggle publicity around publishing dates.

 

A writer recently asked me if was programming another writers conference what topics would be on my must have list. Contracts, Understanding Intellectual Property, and Literary Estates. This century so far has seen huge changes to each of these three important facets of the writing and publishing life. This week Madeleine L’Engle’s literary executor, her granddaughter, has an interesting article covering these topics in a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog. Planning for the life of your work (even if you are not famous yet.)

 

In The Craft Section,

Humanity over AI- your difference – Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

The importance of flaws- Beem Weeks

What is play by play in writing- September Fawkes – Bookmark

Search Out The Unexpected- Kathleen McCleary-

3 Writing aspects you should never mess with- Julie Glover- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Parts of a book – a primer- Fictionary

Step by step to profitable ads- Bookbub- Bookmark

3 unconventional ways to market- Savannah Cordova- Bookmark

Why Quality Counts- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

How to grow your list with giveaways- Thomas Umstattd- Bookmark

 

To Finish

If you have been feeling battered by this week’s news and the constant churn of the news cycle which never has any good news. Chuck Wendig has a post on his blog that you can read that explains your feelings- What it feels like right now- It’s hard to hope.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

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Listen Up

 

In Publishing News this week.

 

Spare a thought for the publishing community on the American Continent. With the new tariffs kicking in this week, the publishing community has been looking at their supply chains and wincing. They can’t print in China, the tariffs will hit them. They can print in America, but the bulk of their paper supply comes from Canada. If you want a Spanish language book- it comes from Mexico. Publishers Weekly takes a look at what else is going to hit hard for the publishing and writing community.

 

The London Book Fair is next week, and the International Publishing Associations president will be talking about sustainability and the importance of books for today’s issues. Publishing Perspectives has a great article on the president who knows first hand how books are important in a repressed society. “Our weapon is our knowledge.”

 

In the audiobook world- The Audies (awards for audiobooks) have just been awarded. If you check the list, they have awards in all sorts of fields. Many actors are featured as narrators. 

 

While the dream of a full cast of characters with famous actors might be beyond the purse strings of many authors, the AI voiced audiobook is getting more attention. Eleven Labs has launched an app that publishes audiobooks on their own site. It’s almost a one stop shop. Also making waves is their new deal with Spotify which offers 100% royalties to the author. 

Eleven Labs has a voice cloning service which might be useful to think about. Clone your voice and then publish your audio books. It could be a good option if you can’t pay for studio time to narrate yourself.

 

If you have ever wondered how to get a look inside preview on your website, this article from The New Publishing Standard will be of interest. Bowker has partnered with Indie Commerce – the commerce arm of the American Booksellers Association to make Book2look widely available.

 

Have you spent long hours in the university library trying to track down source material for your professor? Spare a thought for those institutions whose job it is to provide you the wide-ranging collection of sources. Academic libraries are being hit with huge subscription fees to access research from publishers. Publisher’s Weekly reports that the move is destabilizing the library and university press market.

This new move is punishing…right when we need access to knowledge. Sadly, the altruistic reasons for the internet - where you would be able to access the worlds knowledge wherever you are - is now paywalled behind data bases who are charging $25,000 for access.

 

Are writers uniquely vulnerable to getting scammed? Victoria Strauss gets asked this question a lot. She has been writing about writer scams for over twenty five years and there is always something new. We are not alone but we may be an easier target.

 

When you are eyeball deep in your manuscript it can be difficult to figure out where you should put breaks in the story. You don’t want to confuse the reader but ramping up tension is better if you leave the reader hanging. What to do? Reavis Wortham recently tackled this dilemma, with the article Give Me a Break on the Killzone blog.

 

Katie Weiland has a great craft article on your character’s three choices. They must have a fundamental choice, a primary choice, and a secondary choice. This is a print out and study article for learning about crafting characters.

 

In The Craft Section,

The top 20 developmental mistakes- Jenn Windrow- Bookmark

Deep POV checklist- Lisa Hall Wilson- Bookmark

Scars tell a story- Sue Coletta

Section breaks and how to use them- Kathy Steinemann

Best ways to pace your story- Lisa Poisso- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

What to do with one star reviews- Sandra Beckwith-Bookmark

Bookmarketing planning and strategy- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Social Media for authors- Evergreen Authors

How to write an Author Bio- Penny Sansevieri

Marketing for introverts- Laura Gallier

 

To Finish,

Bands have discovered that playing live and selling merch is almost the only way they can make a living in these streaming times. Writers are now seeing the benefits of selling extra physical products, but you need to be discerning. You don’t want your brand on a crappy product. Check out this comprehensive article from the Alliance of Independent Authors about Author Merchandise. It can be a nice sideline along with audiobooks and writer’s special edition formats. It’s your IP. If it wasn’t important there wouldn’t be a clause in the standard publishing contract about it. 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

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Snacking On Publishers

 

 

In Publishing News this week

It’s a tough old time if you are a writer down under. You may have had some hope of placing a book with one of the independent presses that still operate, but last week saw another of them gobbled up by Penguin Random House. Our regional voices are disappearing said a Guardian article. While Aussie authors are wincing- Kiwi authors have been there. Most of our publisher’s head offices are in Australia and we are lucky if they publish 1 NZ book a year.

 

In Davos the world economic forum got underway. How does this relate to publishing? Well, one of the key presentations is the future of jobs report. Dan Holloway took a look and found key indicators for publishers and writers. Reading is down…but creative thinking is up. Can we work with this information?

 

Publisher’s Weekly reports on a new imprint being started by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. It’s all about science. In this world of misinformation, any increase in science publishing is a good thing.

 

When it’s award season the critics choices are always highlighted but if you look at the bestseller lists, they often don’t show up. However, bestsellers have awards too. It is based on number of sales. Spot the children’s books. Julia Donaldson has topped the UK bestseller lists for the 5^th straight year. She is a critics’ choice and a bestselling author. Gotta love children’s authors, they keep publishing houses afloat.

 

Bookshop.org is turning 5. This great independent initiative linked independent booksellers together and created another way to order books instead of always heading to Amazon. Now they are about to add eBooks into the platform.

 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica was the last word in authoritative knowledge when I was growing up. They are still around and having gone online early they are now embracing AI. This is a fascinating example of a publishing pivot. Mark Williams takes an in depth look at what they are doing. I don’t know about you but if I have to get information from an AI bot, I would prefer it to come from a trusted verified source, not a scraped chat forum.

 

Angela Ackerman has an interesting article on How Authors Thrive In A World Of AI-Generated Books. She has some great points to think about. Being human is your point of difference. As ever, she is a must read.

Meanwhile, Dale Roberts is talking about live video being the key to author visibility in 2025.

In The New Publishing Standard, Mark Williams shines a light on a publishing topic not much talked about, the three words ‘adjusted for inflation.’ Why don’t publishers show the real figures? 

 

Victoria Strauss does great work on Writer Beware and lately she has been looking at ghostwriting scams. She has a list of websites that are fronts for a scam publishing company.

 

Ah procrastination, what is stopping you from writing that novel? Barbara O’Neal has an interesting article on Writer Unboxed about the three things that cause procrastination. This is a must read if you want to conquer this insidious problem. Read It Now!

 

In The Craft Section,

How to make themes work together- Jami Gold- Bookmark

How to write dark fantasy- Stephanie Wytovich

How to stay focused on your central conflict- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

World building lessons from Myst- Gabriela Pereira-Bookmark

5 wellness hacks to boost your writing- Colleen Story

 

In The Marketing Section,

Planning a book launch party- Tama Hela

 2 great posts from Sandra Beckwith- 3 Author marketing mistakes to avoid in 2025 and

Using AI as your author assistant - Bookmark

Is Facebook still worth it for writers- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

How to budget for your book- Written Word Media- Bookmark

 

To Finish

It’s been a rough old week in politics for the USA. For those of us looking on from afar we do feel for the people caught up in the middle. In this age of instant news and opinion it can feel overwhelming. “In war, truth is the first casualty” said Aeschylus in 500BC. When the world is wondering whether Mein Kampf, published in 1925 is being dusted off 100 years later to the detriment of another empire, it is courageous to stand up to your government and demand that they do better. One such person was the Bishop Mariann Budde who asked the new president point blank if he would protect the meek and helpless. Her words resonated around the world and now her book How We Learn To Be Brave, published in 2023 is being rushed into a second printing and is climbing the bestseller ranks. 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

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Writing Good Stuff

 

 

In Publishing News This Week,

 

This week Publishers Weekly reported on the state of publishing in 2023 now that the numbers are in. The sales figures were slightly up on last year but only because of a strong showing in religious books. The other numbers were down slightly. Life is good if you are a theological university publisher. 

 

Publishing Perspectives looks at the 2023 Canadian book buying trends showing a snapshot of key buying trends. Are book buyers buying from physical stores or online? Are they embracing digital or print only? Are Canadian buying habits reflected around the world?

 

Mark Williams reports that on the other side of the world, Thailand is about to have its first rights fair. Publishing is a global business and often people forget that Asia and the Middle East have over half the world’s population. The western centric book fairs don’t reflect this huge demographic and a lot of them want English language books. Are publishers missing a market here?

 

Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware has a list of the agents, editors and publishers who are being impersonated at the moment. This kind of scam is on the rise so if you get a nibble from someone check out if its legit before celebrating.

 

The writing business can be a lonely one. Where would we be without our writer friends. If you are new or trying to figure out how to find your literary community read this great guest article on Jane Friedman’s blog from Star Wuerdemann.

 

Joanna Penn interviewed Matthew Holmes this week on how to advertise on Meta. (Facebook) Matthew shares what is working now and tips on Going Direct. 

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors had a well-attended panel event at the London Book Fair on the future of publishing and it was filmed. Check out the video if you want a little slice of bookfair hustle along with some great commentary.

 

Writer Unboxed has their craft guru Ray Rhamey examining first pages and wondering if they would be an instant buy. 

 

Suzanne Lakin has a great writing craft blog. Her latest excellent post,  How can you get a character to self describe themselves without it sounding like a shopping list. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Why rough drafts should never be perfect- E S Foster

How to build powerful character relationships- Angela Ackerman

Best books for editors- Bookmark

Using beat sheets for memoir- Lisa Cooper Ellison -Bookmark

9 types of personalities writers can use for characters- Ken Miyamoto- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

How to promote a self published book- Derek Haines

Indie book marketing plan- PublishDrive

Tips for growing a worldwide audience- Mark Lefebvre- Bookmark

8 best book marketing strategies- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Visual Branding- James Scott Bell - Bookmark

 

To Finish

 

Give a writer a long weekend and they will invariably be thinking about their Work In Progress and how to carve some time to work on the craft of writing. The letters W.I.P. act just like the homonym to lash the back of the writer. Get some proper words down! (All that is missing is the H word.) James Scott Bell is a great writing craft teacher. In this article he takes a first page and edits it explaining what he is doing. This may be the Help you need to get stuck into your own craft learning.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

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Out There Doing The Business

 

 

In Publishing News This Week,

 

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair is on this week and the hot topic this year is AI and children’s books. Porter Anderson has a great overview of the various keynotes around this topic. He nails the constant chatter around AI as a chicken little syndrome. Remember when everyone thought publishing was doomed with Virtual Reality, enhanced eBooks and Kindle?

 

Penguin Random House is re-organising. This is a little shakeup which sees imprints spun off or repurposed and staff moving all over the place. Publishers Weekly has the details.

 

Bookshop.org picked up steam during the Covid lockdowns by providing a place where bookshops could link in their shops and sell books online. They started offering eBooks last week. Now they are offering print books and beginning to publish. It all feels like the early days of Amazon.

 

Meanwhile, Small Press Distributors a 50 year old distributor specializing in Indie Publishers has inked a deal with Ingram and will be offering their 400 clients Print On Demand, warehousing, and international printing. However, they need some money to transition all their warehouses to Ingram so they have a Go Fund Me campaign running.

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors is running an author income survey. If you spent 50% of your time writing and publishing they want to hear from you. Apparently, the data so far is amazing. You only have a few days to participate. 

 

Mark Leslie Lefebvre has a great post on the Insights blog 10 tips for growing a global audience of readers. I’ve had this open on my computer for a few days as I mull over the excellent tips in here. 

 

Book Riot has collected what they think are the 25 iconic covers of all time. Do You Agree?

 

Ruth Harris has an interesting post on charisma and how too much could be psychopathic. Are you writing a psychopathic hero?

 

Victoria Strauss has a great article on Writer Unboxed about red flags in contracts. Do you know how to spot one? Where to look? The cluses that are most problematic. She shows examples of real contracts that she has seen. Ouch!

 

Grace Bialecki has an interesting post on the Acknowledgments page. How often do you look at it? It is actually full of great information… from editors who worked on the book and agents that repped it to writing awards and residences you might not have heard off. Grace shows how to put this information to good use. 

 

Kris Rusch has a super post on AI Audio and what she is finding out as she delves into whether AI Audio is worth pursuing. It is all about formats. Audio is expanding so much it will soon look like print.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when you say you are a writer someone will always reply, I’ve always wanted to write a book. Angela Ackerman has a great post that you can share around – 13 Tips On How To Write A Book From Start to Finish.

 

In The Craft Section,

A great article on reader anticipation- Donald Maass

How to edit- StoryGrid- BOOKMARK

Tips on How to write a mystery-K M Weiland

The 5 turning points of the character arc- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

How to amp up your conflict- Angela Ackerman

 

In The Marketing Section,

A step by step guide to using Booktok

Bad book marketing advice- Shayla Raquel

2 Great posts from Penny Sansevieri-

The definitive guide to creating a reader magnet and 

How to get more Goodreads reviews- Bookmark both

Bookfunnels explained- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

The Guardian has an article on the rise of older female writers with recent hits by debut authors over 70. And the authors are not writing cozy stories. They are edgy and angry. There are some great quotes in this article. More power to them I say.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here.

This blog is fueled by coffee. If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate all virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

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