From The Book To The Merch Empire

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

The Australian government is about to introduce legislation that would change the copyright law to allow AI companies to use any authors work without a license to train AI models anywhere in the world. The Authors Guild is promoting a global effort to stop this legislation.

 

Audiobooks are still continuing to do well in sales. Storytel, the Swedish competitor to Spotify has posted a strong third quarter of sales according to Publishing Perspectives. It seems that their Europe base is not succumbing to Spotify. Meanwhile, Spotify is allowing authors up to 1000 free codes per audio book to use as giveaway promotions. 

 

Victoria Strauss has an up to date article on the Anthropic court cases and how other AI companies are using what they have learned to limit their own court cases exposure.

 

Publishers Weekly has an article on Apateon Press who are helping authors who have regained their rights to out of print books and don’t know how to navigate the self publishing system to keep their books in print.

 

There are literary prizes and then there is the new literary prize for an AI co written book. The Prix Pascal de Littérature IA is open for submission is French. The Guardian reports on how this prize came to be.

 

If you follow the Romantasy genre you will be aware that Sarah J Maass has released another hotly anticipated book. Publishers Weekly takes a look at Sarah J Maass Inc. How has one author gone from being an indie creator merch darling into a behemoth  merch franchise entity.

 

Creating a global empire from your writing could be a writers dream but how to make it a reality. What does Hollywood actually want? Publishing Perspectives has the latest report from Rightscenter; Book to Screen Marketplace Insights highlighting all the trends that are hot right now.

 

Meanwhile Kristine Rusch has an interesting essay on navigating the complex issues of rights deals and options with Hollywood agents. This area is ripe with scammers so she has a detailed breakdown of what to look for and beware of.

 

Dale Roberts writes about the recent scare that Amazon put some authors through when they refused to price match books. Apparently, this is all fixed now. Dale talks about the uses of the perma-free model in marketing. 

 

Indie Author Mag has an interview with Evan Gow of Story Origin. The company started as a way of managing all the marketing outreach to readers. He has worked on his newsletter strategy and gives some great tips for connecting with newsletter readers.

 

Darcy Pattison is writing a series of articles on business plans for publishing children’s books. This week she tackles the marketing problem. She know her books aren’t written for general sale so she has a focus on schools and libraries where the marketing is very different.

 

As Novel November is about to start don’t forget to drop into Storybundle for a great package of craft books. Good luck to all who are giving thios a go. Remember even if you don’t hit the target you can still get words down and challenge yourself. Also short stories and other writing counts to the 50,000 word total. You might just surprise yourself.

 

In The Craft Section,

Keeping track of your characters- Craig Martelle- Bookmark

Checking your point of view- Janice Hardy

7 main types of character conflicts- Ellen Buikema- Bookmark

How to write subplots- K M Weiland- Bookmark

Crafting nuanced emotional states- Kim Bullock

 

In The Marketing Section,

The Book Launch planner- Ines Johnson

Amazon A+ Content- Sandra Beckwith

One chapter six mirrors of marketing- R J Redden- Bookmark

Crafting great Book ads- Bookbub- Bookmark

How writers can embrace video- Dan Blank

 

To Finish

 

When you tell people that you have a book out, one of the first things they will do when they get home is do a search on you and your book. Do you have anything for them to find? Rachel Thompson has a great article on what every author should understand, that Book PR and Social Media are different beasts and they should be treated in different ways. If you can get all the component parts working together your book marketing will be easier and opportunities to expand your franchise empire may just fall into your lap.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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Writers-Are You The Problem?

In Publishing News this week,

Publishers Weekly reports that Catapult publishers is to close at the end of the month. As you read the article you wonder why this is happening, on paper it looks successful. But there are a few paragraphs in the news report that offer a clue according to industry gossip. The staff decided to unionize. What was their billionaire owner to do?

 

On the other side of the publishing desk, two authors unhappy with the way their children’s book on Palestinian history was being edited decided to pull their book from Random House just as it was ready to go to print. Publishers Weekly details the authors concerns.

 

Amazon have announced they are changing the name of Kindle Unlimited to Kindle+. In their press release they are adding audiobooks into the subscription and they promise that audiobook royalties will be by the page. With the heavy competition for audiobook ears, it seems this was a match waiting to happen. 

 

The Authors Guild has written a set of guidelines for publishers around AI best practice in dealing with authors. They hope that it will give authors and publishers a starting point to understand how much and what kind of AI should be acceptable.

 

The Wall Street journal writes about YouTube looking to officially expand into audiobooks. Unofficially, authors have been putting their audiobooks onto YouTube and getting lucrative advertising money. 

 

The next big court case has been filed with 300 authors filing copyright infringement claims against Meta. What is interesting is that this is not a class action. That’s 300 individual claims. This is just the first group reported on. Lawyers interviewed by Publishers Weekly indicate that another 2000 are in the pipeline and they are asking $150,000 per claim.

Over in Korea, Mark Williams reports on the Korean Publishers Society launching an appeal to their government to pursue compensation from Anthropic for illegally copying their authors work. Other countries are preparing their own cases.

 

Publishing Perspectives reports that due to the dire state of reading and closing of bookshops Poland’s Ministry of Culture and Heritage is debating whether to make fixed price book laws. The rest of Europe is waiting to see whether it is a good idea.

 

Over the years I have linked to articles that explain IP (Intellectual Property) and why keeping control of it is a good idea. Publishers Weekly reports on two ex Amazon Executives who also think IP is a good idea and they have formed a company to help authors exploit their own IP in book packaging deals. 

 

Ines Johnson has a great essay on how to create your own author mastermind group. 

It doesn’t need to be in person but the idea of looking over another writer’s shoulder to get motivated and learn can be beneficial to everyone in the group.

 

Claire Taylor has an interesting essay on calendaring. What happens when calendaring your life isn’t working? Are you stuck in the constantly planning phase and not getting any further forward in your creative project? Claire explains that your ego might be the problem.

 

Mark Leslie Lefebvre has a thoughtful essay on pre rejection. This is the essay for you if you are feeling imposter syndrome. Mark writes about wearing two hats, one hat is well known in the industry and gets all the attention which he wishes the other hat would get.

 

Jenny Hansen writes this week on the difference between Fear and Fine. Each word is an acronym for a state of mind that can halt the writer in their tracks. A must read.

 

Kris Rusch has an interesting essay on Craft and the writer. Have you stopped learning?

She is a big advocate of the writer constantly learning about craft. You may think that you know all the basics but are you writing the same story over and over again?  

 

In The Craft Section,

Grammar errors you may be making- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Using Character Tropes effectively- Angerla Ackerman- Bookmark

Author blind spots- Jenn Windrow- Bookmark

When is it ok to quit a story- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

The many ways to bookend a novel- CS Laking- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

November holiday Book Promotion ideas- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

Are low content books dead- Dale Evans

Should writers pay to have their book edited- Jill Boehme

Interview with Spoken founder Phil Marshall-Indie Author- Interesting

Why Writers need multiple practical marketing strategies- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

 

To Finish

It’s nearly Novel November and you’ve obsessively planned out your story. (See last weeks post for links) Got all the craft books you need and are ready to go…and stop. You have run out of momentum before you even start the project. Or you may have had a project rejected that has been one rejection too many. Natalie Hart has the essay for you. The Big List of Momentum Recovery Activities. You need to reframe the feelings that you have to go forward.

Among the quotes Natalie shared, this one got me thinking about new beginnings. 

The phoenix must burn to emerge- Janet Fitch.

 

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.

 

Photo by Patrick von der Wehd on Unsplash