This week in Publishing News.
Oh Scholastic, it hasn’t been a good month for your public relations. Today the publishing professionals that work at Scholastic Head Office walked out and started picketing over the un-living wages they were getting from a billion dollar company.
In the Wow-they-finally-did-it-stakes, Amazon’s publishing arm KDP announced they were beta testing eBook to audio narration using AI Voices. These will be sold through Audible. Cue jaw drops as they were adamant they weren’t getting into the AI voice game… but Google has already been in this space for a while so it was always on the cards.
Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard has some pithy observations regarding Amazon’s quarterly report- one mention of books vs 33 mentions of AI.
Amazon is back in court – this time taking scammers the down. Yay. Staying on the scammy front Victoria Strauss has a Writer Beware post on impersonation scamming which is on the increase. She shows how it is done and breaks down how to spot the warning flags in her real scam examples. A week doesn’t go by now without coming across some impersonation scam or an author checking in with others to ask if the email they have just got is legit.
Today I saw advice that recommended sending a screenshot to the agency in question and just checking if it is legit. – Good advice.
Written Word Media has been making news with its promo stack partners. They have been busy signing up other ebook reader sites to create big promotion stack opportunities for marketing for authors. Their latest press release has them adding another heavy hitter to the fold.
November is the month of NaNoWriMo. Good luck to all those who are attempting to write 50,000 words in a month. The idea behind it was to create a writing habit so even if you make a practice of just showing up every day, you are winning. Roz Morris has a good post on how to get through the month.
There are various ways to win at NaNowriMo. You can record your word count for everything you write in November or do the ALT NaNoWriMo challenge.
Jane Friedman has two guest writers on her blog with two very different approaches to writing and marketing. Check out How do you turn an essay into a book deal and an interesting post on How to earn six figures as a writer with one weird trick.
Ruth Harris has an excellent post on radical revision- When the going gets tough get your radical creativity muse on. This is a print out and post it on the wall post.
The Alliance of Independent Authors has a comprehensive guide post on producing audiobooks. This covers pretty much everything you need to know to get started.
Katie Weiland has a knock it out of the park post on despair in fiction. This is one of those craft posts that inspire authors to the next level of writing- A Must Read.
In The Craft Section,
Protagonists and points of view- Draft2Digital
Mastering character evolution-Laurie Schnebly Campbell- Bookmark
The enemy within- crafting powerful inner conflict- C S Lakin- Bookmark!
I broke Elmore Leonard’s Rules- P J Parrish
3 ways to structure a chapter- Anne Brown-Bookmark
In The Marketing Section,
Subgenres and comp books- Kris Maze
Ways book marketers use social media to promote pre-orders- Bookbub- Bookmark
5 unique book marketing ideas- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark
How to create fun freebies for your newsletter- Colleen Story- Bookmark
Podcasting magic bullet- Alliance of Independent Authors podcast /transcript
Marketing resources- Foothills Writers group
To Finish,
Recently Joanna Penn spoke with Tracy Cooper-Posy on managing your author business long term. It was a fascinating long look at what is worthwhile to invest in and how to manage discouragement. This is one of those posts where you nod and start to make notes and think about stepping sideways of the hamster wheel.
It’s hard to focus on your writing business when you feel that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. This overwhelm can be energy sapping and creativity stalling.
Do what you can and give yourself time to breathe.
Maureen
@craicer
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