Panning For Gold

 

In Publishing News this week,

Last week I updated my post as the news that Amazon was changing its AI policies started filtering out. So this week to expand on this is Mark Williams - exactly what does it say at the surface level on the website. 

For a more in depth discussion go to Joanna Penn’s podcast and listen to the first 15 minutes. Joanna breaks it down and looks at all the sub pages and why they are there for uploading an AI assisted book. (Stay to listen to the super interesting talk about audio drama) 

Remember Grammarly is an AI. Gmail uses AI. All those chat bots are AI. AI is a tool. Amazon wants to know how much the AI tool is being used. If it generates the whole story and has an AI generated cover then it might fall in the scam bucket. Especially if it rips off name author styles. At the beginning of the year there were howls of dismay over AI…now many big author societies are holding workshops on how to use it and Shutterstock and Adobe are adding it to their design services. It’s great that the biggest marketplace for books is doing something proactive about AI books.

 

Meanwhile, another group of authors are suing AI. In the end the courts will decide. So far they haven’t been ruling in the authors favour.

 

While the TV writers are on strike - TV is getting annoyed that it is taking so long to fix, so they are going ahead without the writers. This did not have good consequences for the host of the National Book Awards, who was dumped after her TV show evicted fans who wore strike buttons.

 

A few months ago the court ruling came out against the Internet Archive and its attempt to digitise back list copies of books. Libraries are in a bind when they cannot offer digital copies to patrons of books in print. What To Do. The New York Public Library may have the answer. An interesting twist that could be a win/win for everybody.

 

Where have all those YA books gone laments one YA author in Publishers Weekly. Have the teens stopped buying books or can’t they afford them? What happened to mass market books first? Is it only adults that can afford the glossy big hardbacks with the bevelled edges and spot colour illustrations being marketed today? Today I saw a new YA book series released with different glossy treatments for each country, along with bevelled pages, foil and spot illos. The writer has a good point!

 

How many social media platforms are you on? With the disintegration of Twitter by the owner there is a rush to find the next best thing. But where should you spend your time? Where are the writers hanging out now? Kris Rusch is struggling with whether Social Media is worth it anymore. 

 

Insecure Writers has a timely reminder on those little scams that can become big ones. Things like identity theft and book promotion scams. Colleen Story has a post on 4 reasons a writing business will fail.

 

Daniella Levy has a great post on How to Take Criticism and Turn it into Growth. If you have been critiqued lately and it has left some bruises- this is a good reminder. Sometimes the harshest critic can be yourself- so read this post.

 

The super amazing Katie Weiland has a knock it out of the park post on plotting that got me thinking. Where should you begin to plot your story? Sometimes it is not clear. Stories springboard in different ways. There is no gold star for starting at the beginning. Brilliant post.

 

In The Craft Section,

Use and abuse of lampshading- Jami Gold- Bookmark (and also read the companion piece.)

Mastering foreshadowing- Jerry Jenkins- Bookmark

How to write a grump readers will love- Sharon Peterson- Bookmark

10 tips on sexual tension- Lucy Hay- Bookmark

The role of failure and conflict in a character arc- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

 

 

In The Marketing Section,

Author marketing 3 best practices- Draft2Digital

Maximising your author website with blogging- J Alexander Greenwood- Bookmark

5 unique bookmarketing ideas- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

How to choose the best kindle ebook categories- updated – Dave Chesson- Bookmark

Email market glossary for authors- Sandra Beckwith

 

To Finish,

I often link to Joanna Penn’s podcast because it is informative and interesting. There are other great podcasts that I listen to and recommend. SPA Girls- Great weekly writing craft show. Sacha Black, ALLI podcasts etc. They are great for when you are doing mindless chores.  Recently the dream team Angela and Becca posted their must have writing craft books. If you are looking for that early NaNoWriMo gift for yourself check out the list.

 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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(Arrowtown in NZ where you can still do this.)