Believe It

April rolled in and the weather is stunning! New Zealand’s capital city perched on steep hills overlooking an almost circular harbour gets a lot of wind. We are used to it. A force 5 gale to everyone else is a gentle zepher for us... except in Autumn. 

We have no wind. Everything is calm. The sky is that perfect autumn blue. The sea is sparkling. The temperatures are balmy...and no one believes us when we say this!

This week around the publishing blogosphere... It is the season of Book Fairs with many agents hopping from Bologna to London. Mary Hoffman writes what it was like to be a children’s author at Bologna. Interesting to get the UK authors perspective on this book fair. (After you stop feeling jealous.)

Porter Anderson looks at some of the issues likely to be talked about at The London Book Fair happening next week.  It’s all about the numbers...again. He also has an Ether column looking at whether publishers are ready to have important discussions on the future of the industry. Some believe they already are...

Charlotte Jones has a post on 7 things I heard at a book festival, which has some interesting takeouts for authors.

Mashable has a must read post on when your blog is hacked and what to do. Read. Believe. Do.

Writer Beware is the blog of Victoria Strauss and she does an excellent job of shining a spotlight on unsavory practices and scams. As I was reading this one I found myself questioning whether I had read it before...it was starting to sound so familiar. And that is the problem. It is now so common for this kind of scam to take everybody in. Writer starts a hot new publishing house, everything sound fine, then things get hard, everything falls apart, founder disappears...

An interesting article caught my eye this week. Why self publishing is so good for literary culture. I think there are a lot of good points in it but you may not believe me.

Chuck has a hard time believing a pirates explanation for why he has pirated Chucks work. Take some time out to read this as it shows two points of view of a very controversial situation in digital publishing. Do you believe it’s all about 1’s and 0’s?

In the Craft Section,

How to take all the fun out of writing and end up with something soulless and soul crushing

When it’s time to walk away from your writing.

Story Themes – What is your world view?

Getting Quiet and Letting Go of Expectations.

Weasel words you should always look out for.

What is Speculative Fiction?

What’s Love got to do with it (believe me, a brilliant article!)

In the Marketing Section,

Kris Rusch continues her remarkable series on Discoverability this week with two posts. Publicity Campaigns and Surprise.

Darcy Pattison continues her Build An Author Website from scratch series.

Digital Book World...has collected together a comprehensive list of resources for authors

Joanna Penn - On Building a literary community

Public speaking for Introverts

A Free Screenwriting App

To Finish,

To succeed you must set some writer goals or you can believe everything this writer advises you...(with tongue firmly in cheek.)

maureen

What You Should Be Doing

Bologna trends: people want middle grade. They want funny middle grade. MIDDLE GRADE IS BACK. #bbf14
— Ginger Clark (@Ginger_Clark) March 24, 2014

This week in the publishing blogosphere the news has been about what everyone should be doing...

because the publishing world has shifted again,

because the next big thing is right around the corner,

because the Bologna Book Fair is on,

because the world has changed.

In my Twitter feed this morning was an announcement that Diesel e-books was shutting down after 10 years of indie publishing however new startups are happening all the time and another to hit the starting blocks tomorrow is this new subscription model.

While this is happening Digital Book World is talking up that Apple is now the second largest book store...what does that mean in reality?

Passive Guy shares a rant that got everyone talking this week about what Penguin Random (or Random Penguin) isn’t doing and what they should be...Read the comments they are all entertaining.

Mike Shatzkin followed this up with his very pointed summary of what the Big Publishers should be doing and aren’t (this could be helpful with your own promotion...once you get over the comment of don’t read the book to find the metadata tags...)

This must read post from Elisabeth Spann Craig looks at her experiments with hybrid publishing and the very real questions she has about continuing down that road. Elisabeth has been blogging about her journey over the last year and it is a very honest look at the realities of publishing now for a writer with a traditional back list.

That happy block quote at the top came from Agent Ginger Clark who hit the Bologna ground running, her appointment book already full before she got there.

Publishers Weekly gives the low down on what are the biggest sellers... requests...talk ups at the Worlds largest Children’s Book Fair.

Book Fairs are tricky beasts for authors... It is all about deals...principally foreign rights and authors don’t usually negotiate these...here is where Agents earn their money. However if you were thinking about translating...Susan Kaye Quinn has just done it in an interesting Indie move and she has a great post about how she did it.

Jody Hedlund looks at the value of agents and the difficulties of hunting for a new one.

Because the world is changing and writers have to hang in there,

Bob Mayer has an article on the true grit you need to be a writer and K M Weiland has one on the five motivations of the writer.

Chuck has a rant on his answers to common writing questions... (pro writers will laugh)- usual warnings apply.

Meg Rosoff also has a heartfelt post on what keeps you from writing, which can also fuel you... (especially good post for those of you who juggle many things before writing.)

The wonderful Catherine Ryan Howard has a rant about contact details on writer’s websites...coz she just may have a deal for you and how can she get hold of you...(this reminds me to check my writing email inbox.) and Fastcompany shares the best PR advice, which writers should think about.

In the Craft section, you should be doing...

Y A High Fantasy – How to do it (only if it’s your thing) and How to create names for it.

Road trips – How to take readers on one and How to write active settings (great post!)

Author Voice – How you can find it and How you can use it to keep your readers up all night

Writing fast – How you can do it faster and The tools you need to help you get there. (great post on Scrivener)

Writing Short Stories to help you learn stuff.

In the Marketing Section, You should be....

Building a personal network

Making strong covers

Not making these 10 mistakes

Following these 6 steps to be successful

Keeping your marketing lean and focused

Learning from the worlds best marketers...(great post!)

To Finish,

In the end all the writer has is their own creativity and a willingness to get out there and just create, so here is the 18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently because that’s what writers do.