Showing posts with label writng craft tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writng craft tips. Show all posts

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Buying the Bestsellers



This is the week of the Buy.
Amazon bought Souk. Why should the average writer care? Souk is to the Middle East what Amazon is to the West. Digital books are only 1% of the market. They only have to go into China to get total world domination...

Kobo, the Canadian digital device and bookseller has bought Shelfi. Why? For the tech developers apparently, ( or is it because they have a perfect understanding of buyer’s reading habits.)

Microsoft unveils a digital bookstore. Why? Because everybody else has one... (I wanna bookstore... Google and Apple have one and Amazon has a big one....) Meanwhile a savvy bibliophile wandered into an Amazon bookstore and saw that they don’t sell books like other booksellers. They group them differently.

How is your reading this year? Elizabeth S Craig decided to put a reading plan into action this meant having another identity on Goodreads.

The Writers Guild Association home of script and screenwriters looks like it is gearing up for another strike. Negotiations have broken down between the studios again on what they pay the writers. Why are the content creators the last in line to get paid?

There are rumblings in the universities. Should academics publish their own textbooks? There was an interesting panel debate at London Book Fair on this.  Is the traditional academic publishing world finally getting the shake up of self publishing. The days of the $400 text book may be numbered.

Bologna is on! Bologna is the world’s biggest children’s book fair. At this time all the children’s writers get a case of travel and book envy. Publishers Weekly has a quick run down on what everyone is looking for.

James Scott Bell has a great article in Writer Unboxed asking is your writing big enough? You know those sweeping sentences that go on for half a page and your eyes and attention remain riveted to the page, even while you subconsciously know that no editor these days would let a writer ramble on but the writing is soo good and you just can’t help reading on. I have shelves full of writers that were sparing with a full stop but they could sure tell a story. They were prolific and belonged to the pulp school of writing. Anne R Allen wonders if the constant pressure to write and repeat is a good idea. What about those writers who write slowly?

In The Craft Section,





Creating a strong moral premise- Jeff Lyons- Bookmark





In The Marketing Section,




Author bio’s a help or hindrance- Anne R Allen - Bookmark

Amazon keywords to double your readers- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark



To Finish,

This week Marie Force wrote a fantastic article on chasing the best seller lists and how she realised that she needed to change her focus. Kris Rusch talked about the bestseller lists and who you are writing for. It is a fabulous article and a must read.

Maureen
@craicer

My monthly newsletter is going out soon. If you want to get a collection of the best of my bookmarked links plus other goodies in your inbox you can subscribe here.If you want to shout me a cup of coffee hit the Kofi button. Thanks to all those who have fed my caffeine habit.



Thursday, January 15, 2015

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,







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

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




In the Marketing Section





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
Related Posts with Thumbnails