Knocking Over Those Productive Writing Goals

In Publishing News This Week

 

The Commonwealth short story prize was awarded last week and already the knives are out as people study the story and conclude that AI must have been seriously used to write it. The author isn’t commenting but The Guardian has plenty to say after prestigious magazine Granta published the winning story.

 

James Pattison rides to the rescue of children’s literature with a new institute dedicated to early adolescent reading skills, reports Publishers Weekly. James has pledged $10 million dollars to the cause. He has a philanthropy history of growing readers through programs targeting reading, libraries, and bookshops. All power to him! 

 

Once upon a time, when a printer had made a serious snafu on a print book, the copies would be pulled and the print run replaced. Not so at Minotaur. They recently had a special print run for independent bookshops of the hotly anticipated thriller The Last Mandarin. Then something went wrong. Publishers Weekly reports that the bookshops have been told that 6 pages are missing and to direct customers to a QR code to read the missing pages. You can imagine the reaction.

 

Publishing Perspectives reports that the Anthropic settlement has gone through its final fairness hearing. At the hearing, objectors were allowed 2 whole minutes to explain why they objected to the settlement and the objectors have good points. It is US centric, it leaves out other countries, and there is no compensation for authors whose publishers never filed copyright. How is that fair? In my recent article on Literary Estates I commented on the amount of money that publishers have missed out on by not filing copyright.

 

After a period of consolidation, Storytel are back out acquiring audio book sites. Publishing Perspectives reports on their latest acquisition, the Dutch publishing company Overamstel. And they are paying cash…so they have some serious money to spend in Europe.

 

Are you looking for royalty software? Publishing Perspectives reports on a new venture that will do everything for the publisher regarding rights, royalties, workflows and liaising with authors. Crealo is a one stop shop. They aren’t saying it’s AI but….

 

Mark Williams likes to point out where AI might be of benefit to the publishing community. He reports on the new  president of the Korean Publishing Association and their conceptual shift of seeing AI as a reader. It’s an interesting article which examines how we might go forward in licensing content.

 

Tanya Anne Crosby, the CEO of Oliver Heber Books, recently wrote an article on what she is seeing with the changes over at Amazon. She writes about being hopeful that the changes are going to benefit the reader. She has great advice for how you can jazz up your marketing on Amazon and get those eyeballs.

 

If you are writing romance and need some high-level workshop learning check out the Writing Romance Mastery Summit says Alexa Bigwharfe. She breaks down what is on offer, 25 sessions over 5 days. It’s free but only if you show up. So those outside the US set your alarms. 

 

For some reason Anne R Allens inbox is the place to be for a scamming email. Anne has seen it all, often every day. her article Writers- Don’t Let Yourself be Groomed By Book Publicity Scammers is a must read for what to look out for.

 

Katie Weiland has a thoughtful post on How The Marketplace Is Shaping The Stories We Tell. She examines the role of the storyteller and offers some great advice for balancing the commercial with the creative.

 

Jenn Windrow has written a fantastic article on voice. Your Voice Is The Point – Stop Toning It Down. Writers often second guess themselves and edit out the very thing that makes their writing unique. Embrace your authenticity.

 

In The Craft Section,

Showing or telling- Tiffany Yates Martin-Bookmark

A great weird editing habit to get into-Alison Hammer-Bookmark

Round vs flat characters-Rapid Reads Press

The art of withholding information-Michelle Barker - Bookmark

Defeating the next book willies- James Scott Bell

 

In The Marketing Section

Mating signals on your bookshelf- Mark Lefebvre

Trade Book Reviews- Sandra Beckwith

Author Case Study – Kindlepreneur- Bookmark

How to turn your readers into your marketers- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

What happens after your KDP account gets terminated- Useful information!

 

To Finish.

 

Don’t look now but it’s nearly the middle of the year. Aaargh. If you have been thinking you have plenty of time left, you may need to revisit your publishing calendar, reprioritize your goals, or have an existential crisis. Dan Blank has a great essay on mid-year creative goals using clarity cards. He has a made the clarity card visual process available as a free PDF to help you. 

Liz Talley also looks at the mid-year blues. She shows how you can use business goals to help you get organized for the next half of the year.

 

Go forth with renewed purpose and crush those productive blocks!

 

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.

 

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Are We Thinking Of The Children Yet?

  This Week In Publishing News

 

In a sector desperate for some good news, there was a ray of sunshine.  The Authors Guild successfully showed a federal judge in America that the canceling of grants for libraries was a direct violation of the constitution. As a result, the judge has issued a permanent injunction against National Endowment of Humanities and Department of Government Efficiency reports Publishers Weekly.

 

Hachette is partnering with Studiocanal to launch a Book to Screen venture. Mark Williams takes a look at the advantages. This is where publishing companies realise all the IP they have and think we can make films of our books and become huge multimedia companies. 

 

An author with experience in the film and TV world has decided that what that sector needs is a platform to tell them what books to adapt into film or TV. It’s a monthly subscription. But how is she going to choose what to include? Publishers Weekly asked her some pointed questions.

 

I always keep one eye on academic publishing, so I was interested and dismayed at the new report launched at the 9^th World Congress on Research Integrity. The report documented instances of research manipulation from institutions and governments showing a real attack on scientific integrity that is measurable. Lack of trust erodes confidence which has a flow on effect, leading to situations like increasing measles cases. Promote Scientific Truth, people.

 

Children’s Non fiction is the preferred target of Book Banners says a new PEN America report. Publishing Perspectives takes a look at the political and cultural attack underway in United States Schools.

 

Mac Barnett, children’s literature ambassador in the US caused a literary riot with his essay on the amount of bad writing in children’s literature, reported Publishers Weekly. 

Nobody is denying what he said. It’s the made up statistics he used to illustrate it and their implication to the wider world. It could have been reverse psychology… at least we are talking about children’s books.

 

Recently Vicky Weber wrote an interesting essay – Middle Grade Is Dead And I Think That’s Good News. Provocative title. It is a great essay which explains a lot about how we writers in the middle grade trenches are feeling. Vicky writes there is hope! 

 

The fabulous Claire Taylor is an expert in the Enneagram, a personality test which helps understand your way of working. She has done a lot of work on how it applies to writers. Recently she did an excellent series of webinars on how writers can identify and use their Enneagram strengths in their writing. When she got to my number I thought she was right inside my head. (Highly recommend checking this out)

 

Randy Susan Myers asks What Kind Of Writer Are You? This is the horrible question that tongue ties you at parties. Uhhh. Do you have an answer? Great essay.

 

Diana Stout has been looking at the science of habits and she has some advice for creating a writing habit.

 

Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s new Fear Thesaurus is available everywhere now. Check out their links for extra goodies.

 

Alexa Bigwharfe has a great article on Marketing in 2026. AI Is Now A Discovery Engine. Marketing is changing because of AI search. She offers advice that will help you get found by the new search engines.

 

Gabriela Pereira has an interesting article on DIYMFA on the FLOW framework. This framework is helpful to get the most out of your creative life. If you need to reset or sharpen skills, this is the article for you. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Heroines Journey - Susan Watts– Bookmark

Verb your enthusiasm- Podcast Sarah Kaufman and Joanna Penn- Bookmark

Micro tension in writing – CS Lakin- Excellent

Nailing omniscient POV- Heather Garbo- Bookmark

Subtext- September Fawkes- Excellent.

 

In The Marketing Section,

Book launch timelines- Sandra Beckwith

Do you want extra fries?- Mark Lefebvre- Bookmark!

Query Letters- Jane Friedman- Bookmark

Please disappoint your fans- Becca Syme- Bookmark

25 ways to find middle grade readers- J J Johnson

 

To Finish

Writing is a very personal activity. *Paul Gallico wrote in 1946 “It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little that you establish contact with your reader.” 

Rachel Toalson wrote a great essay -How Much Of Myself Should I put In A Book on Writer Unboxed this week. Sometimes that bleeding is too much. Rachel has some ideas on how to control how much of yourself you are giving to the world.

 

(*Paul Gallico wrote The Snow Goose which regularly held me enthralled on Radio Storytime when I was a child. Here is Sir Laurence Olivier performing the story. Get Tissues.)

 

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 Charlein Gracia on Unsplash

The Writer Roller Coaster

In Publishing News This Week

 

Oh Meta, we know what you have done and now the courts know it too. 

The next AI scraping court case gets underway. Rumours are swirling that Mark Zuckerberg knew that they were using stolen files to train their AI. This court case is wider in scope than the Anthropic case. Publishing Perspectives has an overview of this case. There are now over 100 court cases pending on AI training irregularities.

 

This week children’s publisher Chronicle opens their submission box for un-agented submissions. One week only. You only have a few days, so check it out fast if you have something good. 

Publishing Perspectives reports that The Children’s Booker Award is open for submissions. This is the first time that the Children’s Booker prize will be awarded. And it has the same amount of prize money. We are finally legit, said every children’s writer. 

 

Staying with children’s writing, Recent news has highlighted the downturn in reading for pleasure amongst children. This could be because of screens, or it could be the undermining of reading by spending too much time on literacy achievements in school. Speaking as a teacher- My favourite times were reading to classes. When I speak with young teachers now, they say they are under so much pressure that they have stopped reading to their class. Mark Williams weighs in with his latest essay, Harper Collins and the Reading Crisis. 

 

Children’s writers have to maintain a squeaky clean persona so it was with real dismay that we learned down under of a children’s writer who has pled guilty to child exploitation. The violated trust is sending shock waves through the community. In the midst of all this are the books that have been enjoyed by countless children. How do you explain to children that their favourite author has been so nasty?  It’s enough to turn them off reading.

 

Publishers Weekly has an essay on How Chic Lit lost its footing. This looks at how ‘Chic Lit’ inspired films and has morphed into contemporary women’s fiction. 

Every time I see the patronising term ‘Chic Lit’ I remember a pithy comment from a writer friend that all those male gaze thrillers were just ‘Dick Lit.’ But of course, they would never be marketed as such would they?

 

Rise -The International Bookselling Conference was recently held in Verona and under discussion was the role Booksellers are playing in an increasingly dangerous world of attacks on free speech. Some of these booksellers were putting their lives on the line to stay open and create safe places for readers and writers.

 

Kathleen Schmidt has an interesting essay, Is Substack The New Book Tour. Kathleen is a book publicist, and she comments on the new trends that she sees in Book Promotion. Lately Substack has been talked about because of Lena Dunham’s memoir being featured quite heavily on book review pages.

 

After the roller coaster of emotions from this publishing news roundup you can be forgiven for feeling a little fragile. Katie Weiland has written about The Emotional Toll On Writers In The Modern Landscape. She has five ways to cope with the oversaturation of being constantly available.

 

Liz Adams has a fun essay on Anne R Allen’s blog about Writing Page Turners. It all has to do with secrets and who knows what secret each character is keeping. 

Sssh Don’t Tell Anyone but this is a really good advice! 

 

 

In The Craft Section,

Restarting old projects- Joe Lallo

Seeing your work clearly when editing- Susan Odev- Bookmark

Fear, phobias, and your characters- Angela Ackerman

Transitions- how often are you asking your readers to jump- Seth Harwood- Bookmark

Crafting deep scenes- Donald Maass- Bookmark

 

In the Marketing Section,

Author fairs – The hidden benefits- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Fiction Lead magnet ideas- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

Nicholas Erik on Facebook ads- Video. (Sign up for his excellent newsletter.) Bookmark

How Indie authors can build anthologies- Wendy Van Camp

Publishing in German- Joanna Penn interview with Skye Mackinnon- Excellent

 

To Finish

This is the last week that you can get the Storybundle of writing books. Kris Rusch asked the contributors in January if they had updated their popular books on craft and marketing in light of recent developments in publishing. The whole collection are updated exclusives to this Storybundle collection. I bought my first writing Storybundle about seven years ago and I remember devouring some of these books on a road trip. The beauty of Storybundle is that you get the digital files immediately and you can read them on any device- They are yours to keep. The authors get paid immediately and a percentage of your donation goes to charity. You can choose just to get 3 books for a modest charge or donate more money to get the whole lot. Check it out and share it among your writer friends. You don’t want to miss out.

 

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.

 

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Hard Learned Lessons

In Publishing News This Week

 

If you have been anywhere on publishing social media this week you will have seen the news that Hachette employees are attempting to unionise. Publishers Weekly writes why they have taken this step.

 

Book manufacturing is in for a shake up according to a report from The Book Manufacturers Institute. The increasing uncertainty of getting books printed in China into the Northern Hemisphere market in time for release dates have publishers looking at alternatives. Is this the end of offset printing? 

 

Has anyone ever looked at small press sales and wondered if they are sitting on quiet goldmines? One HarperCollins exec did, left HC and set up a website dashboard to track sales. Publishers Weekly interviewed Jim Hanas and asked why? The answers are interesting if you are thinking of setting up a small press.

 

Publishing Perspectives dives into the Book Industry Study Groups Survey on AI in Publishing. The survey highlighted significant areas of concern – the list makes grim reading. Now that the publishing industry has been exposed as the Authors Guild pointed out, (covered in last weeks blog) will anything change?

 

Penguin Random House are pushing the boat out with books from three different imprints to take advantage of a new tv series. This is what authors dream of when they sign their rights away. The Publishing House has all these rights and never uses them. PRH is doing some significant world building and expecting a cash cow from Baldur’s Gate.

 

Michael Cairns has written an interesting essay on Publishing Perspectives about the changing power dynamic that AI is forcing on publishers. I was looking for a quote to explain the essay but there are so many I think you should read it instead. It should be required reading for publishers.

 

Reedsy have discovered an elaborate scam where the scammers went to the trouble to copy their website. Being Reedsy they show exactly what happened in a 10 minute video from their founder who attempted to contact the scammers. 

 

Literary Agent, Erin Niumata, has also been dealing with scammers impersonating her and other Lit Agents. Among other warning signs she reiterates that reputable agents will never charge reading fees. Always check the website emails. Always ring and talk to the company is my advice. Although if you check the Reedsy video- you could be talking with a scammer so don’t use the phone number from their website. Find another way.

 

Richard Curtis writes about the role Literary agents play in the emotional support of the writer on his latest Inside Agenting blog. He recounts a twenty five year old story (that has echoes to a story last month) with tragic consequences to the writer involved.

 

Rachel Thompson has an essay on the ten lessons her cat taught her about writing. They are really lessons about life as well as the craft of writing.

 

Katie Weiland is running her annual matchup with a writing buddy over on Helping Writers Become Authors. 

Don’t forget about Storybundle if you want exclusive writing craft books for a low price. (In last weeks blog.)

 

Have you thought about writing your story for a different audience? Yasmin Agoe thought writing monsters for Young Adults would be just like her writing for adults. How wrong she was. It taught her to write better, she says on Writing Unboxed.

 

 

In The Craft Section,

Why stories need both the hero and the heroine’s journey- Susan Watts- Bookmark

Writing Good Prose- The Alliance of independent authors – Updated.

Guide to keeping conflict on the page-Jeanne Kisacky- Bookmark

Write authentic emotion- Angela Ackermnan- Bookmark

Writing slice of life with the Kishotenketsu method- September Fawkes

 

In The Marketing Section,

Where should I sell my book?- Sandra Beckwith

Kindlepreneur adds a Kindle page count royalty calculator on their Tools page. Bookmark this for all the free tools!

Preparing to leave Social Media- Interesting essay from Claire Taylor

Kevin Tumlinson on building a direct sales shop - video

The 3 frameworks of successful bookmarketing-Author Gold- Bookmark

 

To Finish

Mark Lefebvre has written an essay in praise of Indie bookstores. As an ex-bookseller he knows the importance of repeat customers. How are you supporting your local bookstore? Do they know you? Are you only there to talk about your books. Do you support them in other ways? This is a thoughtful post to celebrate Indie Bookstore day… which should be every day.

 

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 Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

The More Things Change…

18 years...  

In Publishing News this week,

 

Publisher’s Weekly reports on The Authors Guild statement condemning publishers indiscriminate use of AI. Editors have been loading manuscripts and author personal information into AI with no security guardrails and compromising authors. Hopefully they will address the concerns. (I won’t hold my breath.) This issue highlights something I have been thinking about. Writers and Illustrators work has been scraped to train AI so when a publisher checks whether AI has been used and the answer comes back yes how can you trust the answer? Kathleen Schmidt has written about this - Can We Trust Book Publishing To Tell Us The Truth?

 

Meanwhile, there is an update on the Anthropic Court Case for people following this. The payout numbers are fluctuating, and everyone is waiting on the hearing in May.

 

Penguin Random House likes to get spot new talent and every year they have a competition for cover designers to reimagine a couple of their classic titles. They have just announced their 2026 winners. An interesting view of changing styles in cover design.

 

Mark Williams has an eye on publishing news across the world. He reports on the first Indigenous Literary Congress and Book Fair. It is about to get underway in May run by the Dayak People of Indonesia. 

 

Publisher’s Weekly reports on the findings from the 150 page report, Books in Translation: Trends and Transformations in the European Publishing Market. With the rise in adoption of AI translation what does it mean for translators today? This is an interesting article and a guide on what will separate out the best from the rest.

 

The case of the new fees at Draft2Digital continues to rage and now Barnes and Noble have instituted a minimum low price on print books being sold on their platform. These are all ways to combat an onslaught of AI written sludge from scammers. Rachel Morton offers another perspective of why you should be happy with the new fees. Food for thought here.

 

Richard Curtis explains the role of Royalty Managers in Publishing and how this role developed. This is also the area where the biggest frauds against authors happen and once you read how royalties work you will understand why. It all has to do with Book Returns. (This is a contentious subject. Publishers created this system in the depression to keep bookstores open. So do we need a 100 year old model which encourages unsustainable printing practices in 2026?)

 

Jane Friedman has an interesting essay on Librarians and how they may be seen as ‘arbiters of reality’ in the future. Already they are the most trusted humans. In this age of fake and AI, we need these important people. Share this essay around!

 

Joanna Penn has been mining her vast collection of author interviews and has another deep dive information article, this time on Kickstarters. If you have been wondering how to go about planning a Kickstarter campaign, check out this comprehensive article.

 

Tasmina Perry has an interesting blog on creativity. This week she was looking at lessons from the past and how we can reframe them to boost our creativity now.

Emilie Noelle Provost has an essay on Writer Unboxed on four ways you can recharge your creativity. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Why your story is important- Jenny Hansen- Bookmark

Fear or the fatal flaw- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

Give your characters serious challenges- Jonelle Patrick- Bookmark

How to write when it feels hard- Jill Boehme- Bookmark

Turning point vs Plot Point- September Fawkes- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section

The sales conundrum- Kathleen Schmidt- Great Essay

The introverts guide to quiet marketing- Kristina God

Substack vs Blogs- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

2 great articles from Penny Sansevieri- Updated Goodreads for Authors and Book Promotion ideas–- Bookmark

 

To Finish

Today is World Book Day and if you want a quick history of the book check out Kay DiBianca from the Killzone blog who has a great list article on the evolution of the book.

 

Kristine Rusch has curated a new Writing Craft Book Bundle. She contacted all the authors and asked if they wanted to produce updated versions of their writing craft books based on the challenges facing writers today. An excellent collection and exclusive to Storybundle so grab the bargains and feel good about paying the authors directly and supporting a great charity as well.

 

This week The Craicer Blog turns 18. That's 18 years of watching this crazy industry and trying to understand it. The view from my desk is that the more you can show that you are human and worth listening to, or reading, the more you will appear authentic in this age of AI. 

I would like to thank all the people who have been reading the weekly blog from the beginning- yes that’s my Kidlit people in New Zealand, who know me in person, but also readers from around the world who have only met me through the blog or by email. In the beginning publishing news and ideas took 18 months to filter down as change in the New Zealand publishing scene. Now it’s less than a month and change is felt everywhere. But my corner remains unchanged over here in the publishing blogosphere. 

Thank you for continuing to drop into the blog and sharing it with your friends. I’ll continue to shine a light into the jungle of publishing, older and greyer but still interested in this crazy industry.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

If you want to celebrate with me on 18 years you can donate to my coffee fund here. I appreciate all coffee blog love. Thank you.

 

It will soon be newsletter time so if so 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.

Thanks.

 

Eyes Wide Open.

  

In Publishing News This Week

 

The Bologna Book Fair is on. This is the annual international bookfair for children’s books. Publishers Weekly caught up with agents at the fair to talk about trends that they see coming in children’s books. Publishers Weekly also reported on disquiet over the prevalence of AI. There were a number of panels on the subject with great advice for illustrators and writers about showing development and transparency. The last paragraph was interesting. There is more pushback against AI from younger members of publishing teams.  

 

Also in Bookfair news, Frankfurt Bookfair is carving out permanent space for comics with the introduction of a Comics Business Centre for everything comic book related at the fair. Mark Williams reports that on what Frankfurt is planning. With webtoons and anime becoming big business Frankfurt is following the trend.

 

Bookfair season always worries newer authors who wonder whether they should be attending them. Mark Lefebvre has the answer. NO. However he also explains why and what book events you should be thinking about attending. It’s all about what you want and need for your own author journey. Great Advice from Mark.

 

Amazon announced they would be discontinuing support for a number of Kindle devices reports Dan Holloway of The Alliance of Independent Authors. This has caught readers out. Will they be able to access their books? Well ,there is the Kindle App. And everybody is reading on their phones now aren’t they? 

Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware has an update on The Bartz Vs Anthropic class action court case. If you are following this you can get up to date with all the machinations, like the move to exclude publishers from the payout and whether the judge will let new people into the class action and just when will we see any money?

 

Penguin Random House is calling on US politicians to reject a proposed bill on banning books. Of course it is never called a book ban it’s protecting the children from knowledge they do not need to know. Riiiight. 

Meanwhile, authors who have had books banned are facing threats and harassment. PEN America has created a US Author Safety Programme and is raising money for resources, workshops and training for authors who need help. Some high profile authors are auctioning off character names in forthcoming books to support the cause.

 

Kirsten Bell has a cautionary tale on Jane Friedman’s blog, about paying for social media exposure and what not to do. This is a lesson on doing due diligence for everything. Jane adds her own advice as well, if you are really tempted by using an influencer to promote your book.

 

Darcy Pattison has an updated roundup of the best tech to create children’s books. She looks at all the software available and what is best to use. Very useful information.

 

Reedsy has been playing with new tech solutions for writing and organizing your manuscript. Check out Reedsy Studio. It’s free for the basic set up which looks pretty nifty.

 

Alexa Bigwarfe has a great post on avoiding procrastination because the weather is warmer and you should be outside. She has advice for how to trick your brain into writing when you really don’t want to.

 

The dream team, Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have launched their latest Thesaurus, The Fear Thesaurus. At the moment, it is available only on their website store before they launch it on all the other stores. Their books are great reference tools used by writers around the world. If you haven’t seen one, check out their website. The Fear Thesaurus is their 11^th book. They also have a great article on How fear plays into the Character Arc.

 

In The Craft Section,

Want stronger writing? Write Less- Janice Hardy - Bookmark

How to create compelling hooks for chapters- Jenn Windrow- 

Bookmark

Microtension by degrees- C S Lakin- Bookmark

4 ways specificity drives your story forward- Kathryn Craft- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

How Author Visibility Drives Book Marketing- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Stalled book marketing and what to do about it- Sandra 

Beckwith- Bookmark

Bookstagrammers – What you should know- Ann Marie Nieves

Finding the right book positioning- Penny Sansevieri

Your About page matters more than you think- Dan Blank- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

Draft2Digitals new press release on charging fees dropped into inboxes causing all kinds of comments in the Indie Writing community today. Their reasoning is that they are swamped with AI titles and scammers so they figure charging for new accounts and annual fees if you earn less than $100 annually might get over this problem. The debate is raging online. 

While you are weighing up pros and cons of publishing aggregators, Dale Evans has written the comprehensive deep dive into all things Amazon and the pros and cons of publishing with them.

 

AI books and scam operators are changing the playing field. Go into publishing with eyes wide open and test your results. Be skeptical. Do your research. What works in one genre may not work in another. Find successful authors in your genre and watch what they are doing. 

Let’s be careful out there.

 

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 Colin Lloyd on Unsplash