Getting Caught In The Rush To Publish

 

In Publishing News this week…

The news of the layoffs at Penguin Random House have hit the industry hard. It seems no one is safe, with Pulitzer Prize winning editors suddenly finding themselves without a job.

PRH is not the only house laying off… Publishers Weekly report key editors at other publications are also being shown the exit door.

 

The Guardian recently wrote about the mental health crisis of new writers not being supported by the publishing industry, but the very people who are supposed to be doing the supporting are on shaky ground themselves. They are trying to hang on to their jobs. And what about the people who haven’t been laid off? They get to do double the work – I bet they won’t get double the pay.

 

In the AI section, the Writers Guild of the UK has released a policy statement on how they see AI impacting writers. The AI tools are out there but they are only as good as the data set they are trained on. This is where another big campaign is being waged as thousands of authors urge the AI companies to stop using their work to train AI’s without permission. 

AI is out of the box. The best thing writers can do is work out how to use it and protect their creative process. I recently listened to Orna Ross and Joanna Penn discussing this and I recommend their podcast on the topic.

 

I seem to be writing about a court case every week. This week it's Amazon taking issue with the EU calling them a Very Large Online Platform. They think they are not. At issue is the new strict rules on transparency, content moderation and risk management. Amazon recently upset their advertisers with the new rule change based around this. Account owners will be identified as the advertiser in any ad they run on Amazon. This has Authors in a bind as they can’t hide behind a pseudonym and be an advertiser. 

 

TikTok’s publishing arm is starting to approach authors directly about signing up on their platform. One author relates what they are offering and it doesn’t look like a good deal. 

 

Anne R Allen has an excellent post on learning to be a writer. You don’t really need to get into debt for that MFA.

Dani Abernathy has a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog about The Forgotten Element of Story – The Author. How much of you are you putting in the story. 

 

Kris Rusch continues her niche marketing series with an interesting look at how different books in your writing catalogue lend themselves to very different approaches to marketing them. One marketing size does not fit all.

 

Angela Ackerman asks if writers are breaking the cardinal rule. This is a good wakeup call. You don’t need to rush. Take your time. Get all your writing and publishing goals in a line.

 

Now Novel has a great post on what to think about when you are planning a series of novels.

 

 

In The Craft Section,

The difference between author tone and author voice- Laurel Osterkamp- Bookmark

How to write fight scenes- Glen Strathy- Bookmark

Creating believable characters- Ane Mulligan

Why cinematic technique in fiction is important – C S Lakin- Bookmark

Rising Action definition and examples – NowNovel- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section.

How to promote with a press release- Penny Sansevieri

2 interesting posts from Draft to Digital- Selling with promo stacking and Choosing a title to hook your reader- Bookmark both

How to write a prologue- Bookbaby

How to find your book marketing niche- Colleen Story- Bookmark

 

To Finish

Writers need readers. We could just write for ourselves but there is a special thrill of knowing someone has read your story and liked it. We need to be promoting readers and reading wherever we can. New Zealand has a new reading ambassador. A children’s librarian who is passionate about reading. A child who reads will be an adult who reads and buys our work. Alan Dingley has a great post on this that you might like to share around.

 

I recently came across a company making Short Story Dispensers. You can get free short stories printed out on a receipt style role. Just right for libraries and learning institutions. You can load them up with local short stories or a wider selection. You just need an account, and a dispenser. I didn’t see a way of protecting author copyright and compensation. But that’s an easy fix isn’t it? 

 

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 like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

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The Book Brand

 

In Publishing News this week,

Recently there have been calls for the publishing industry to start using more sustainable practices. Taylor Francis Publishing have opted to send out their journals with paper wrapping instead of shrink wrapping. Read how they found the experience.

 

If you have been wondering if the subscription model will kill publishing you must be living in the United States. Mark Williams takes a look at the rising figures of subscription and wonders how long it will take for book publishers to change their tune.

 

Another day, another AI lawsuit. Google has been hit with a lawsuit filed by the same firm that filed against Open AI. They are alleging that Google ‘scraped everything ever created and shared on its platform’ to train its AI bot. DUH!

Meanwhile, Shutterstock, having embraced the Open AI model on its website, is now expanding its AI tools. When you can’t beat them, be at the forefront of the new technology.

 

If you are still wondering about copyright and AI check out Kelly Way’s recent article.

 

Publishers Weekly reports that book sales are down in the first half of the year. Backlist is propping up everyone’s bottom lines. 

Goodereader has an article on the massive cost of book piracy. Latest figures have the cost to publishers topping $300 million.

 

Berritt Koehler publishers recently published an article on the 10 awful truths about book publishing. While their 10 awful truths are awful they have at least shown how you can manage and market in this challenging industry with some good strategies.

 

It’s half way through the year and Colleen Story thinks this is a perfect time to stop – and look at your writing and publishing goals, are they on track? Do you need to change things?

 

Kris Rusch has some advice to consider. Think small. In the next interesting instalment of her niche marketing series she examines how small is big in the niche world. 

 

How much attention do you pay to the file formats you write in? Do you have the source files of your published books? What happens when your publisher disappears? David Wogahn writes an interesting article on Jane Friedman’s blog about protecting the files that make your books.

 

How easily are you distracted from your writing? Daphne Gray Grant has an article that helps you figure out how to be distraction free and productive in your writing time. First – halve your goals…

 

In The Craft Section,

9 Common Dialogue problems- Anne R Allen- Bookmark

Discover what your character fears- K M Weiland- Bookmark

5 common problems with background characters- Mythcreants-Bookmark

How to figure out which writing advice suits you best- Trisha Loehr- Bookmark

How I zero drafted a novel in 6 weeks- Kelsey Allagood- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Best practice for selling more books - Elizabeth Craig- Bookmark

When is the best time to release a book- Sue Coletta- Bookmark

How to get a more successful launch- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

How to get your book into libraries- Roland Denzel and Mark Lefebvre

How to write a book description- Bookbub

 

To Finish

It has to happen. The world needs another cute digital reading device that will be the next must have item. Introducing immersive reading in virtual reality… with a pair of sunglasses?

 

While authors are wondering if they can get their book published, publishers are embracing the merch opportunities to influence the influencers. The influencers can have their pick of totes, caps, journals, bags, sweaters, mugs, limited edition prints… and on and on. Do they get the book too? Will we see Book Branded Merch shows on TikTok?

Maureen

@craicer

 

 It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter. If you want the best of my bookmarked links you can subscribe here to join our happy band. (Yes, I'm running late I have a good excuse... honest!)

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic Photo by Joao Tzanno on Unsplash

Standing Up

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

The death of the Ukranian writer Victoria Amelina stopped the publishing world for a moment. Everyone reflected on the life of courage and commitment to the truth this writer embodied in her professional life. Victoria had just come back from Norway where she had accepted an award on behalf of another friend, children’s author Volodymyr Vakulenko, tortured and killed by the Russians occupiers. Victoria was using her writing skills to document war crimes. She had just finished a day of presenting at the Kiev Bookfair when the restaurant she was meeting other writers in suffered a missile attack. R.I.P.

 

Publishing Perspectives reports on the opening keynote by Hugo Setzer at the Contec Mexico publishing conference. This conference is dedicated to sustainability, translation, and audio publishing. There were some heated challenges to the wider publishing industry about the need to walk the talk on sustainability practice in publishing.

 

AI is back in the dock again this week with the news of a class action against Open AI from authors whose work was recognisably scraped by AI. 

Mark Williams from The New Publishing Standard looks at the arguments in this case and draws some pithy conclusions. Is the demise of the author a valid argument in this case?

 

While the courts are looking at AI- news is breaking that Amazon is using AI to summarise product reviews. So far this hasn’t extended to book reviews but it can only be a matter of time. Will you be able to trust a book review in future?

Meanwhile, Amazon is going to have to do something about the proliferation of AI written books in the bestseller lists. Somehow the bots got in and gamed the system. Amazon did crack down, but not fast enough. To add to their woes Amazon is in court for unfair practice surrounding their Prime subscription model. Their defence lawyers will have to do an amazing job as their client even named their dubious practice after the story of the trojan horse.

 

Joanna Penn revisited AI and the Author in another great podcast session with Nick Thacker this week. This is a great discussion on using AI as a marketing tool. Nick and Joanna talk about how important it is to have a human be the creative brain behind the words.

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors has a deep dive into the seven processes of publishing. This week they are looking at marketing. This is a comprehensive article about mindset and the differences between promotion and marketing books.

 

Kris Rusch continues her excellent series on Niche Marketing. This week she examines what niche really means to the writer and how you can benefit from it.

 

Lithub traces the evolution of the celebrity memoir. 

Now Novel has a great article on using story planners to get the bones of your story down. 

Kathy Steinemann has a nifty redundancy quiz- Can you identify the redundant words in the sentences? A good craft quiz for warm ups.

 

Donald Maass has another cracker of an article on Writer Unboxed. What are your promise words? He takes a dive into the words used in the opening chapter that should signal what the story is promising the reader.

 

 

In The Craft Section,

2 Great posts from K M Weiland How to trim your word count and

Think about the lie your character believes- Bookmark

Turn the tables on popular tropes in fiction- Liz Kerin - Bookmark

A guide to writing Romance- Now Novel-Comprehensive!

Subterfuge in dialogue- Becca Puglisi

Can a novelist write like a screenwriter- Anne R Allen- Bookmark

 

 

In The Marketing Section,

How to write a good book description- IngramSpark

2 interesting posts from Penny Sansevieri- Quiz your book marketing knowledge and How the current tsunami of books reshapes book publicity- Bookmark

10 tips to get a Bookbub featured deal- Draft2Digital- Bookmark

Author newsletter data- Bookbub- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

Recently the BBC publicised another author getting a first publishing deal in her 70’s. What is interesting is this author has been signed for a 5 book deal and she is 77. Writing is for every age group and it is never too late to start. The only pre-requisite is that you have an entertaining story to tell.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter. If you want the best of my bookmarked links you can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: The poster for the Kyiv Book Fair

 

Garbage In. Garbage Out.

 

In Publishing News this week,

Around the world governments are trying to get to grips with laws that will regulate AI. The European Union is trying to draft a law reported by the New York Times as being the most far reaching attempt to regulate AI. The EU is particularly concerned over data that is being used to train AI and the intrusive nature of facial recognition software.

Meanwhile, in Japan they have stated that AI can only be used for educational purposes. No commercial use is allowed. At a recent copyright workshop I attended, New Zealand’s position is if you prompted the AI in some way to produce the work you may copyright it. 

 

Media Voices has a new report on Practical AI for publishers- They recently published an extract on how to get started with AI. Their advice is to start small and automate one thing at a time. 

 

Storytel, the Scandinavian audiobook company which has been expanding through Europe  and the rest of the world in the last few years has partnered with an AI voices lab specialising in multinational audio dubbing. Choose an audiobook in English and then ask the AI to read it to you in another language using the original voice. No problem.

 

In the courts it is déjà vu time. Amazon and the big five publishers are back in court over price fixing. A decade ago this was a hot topic and the publishers lost. Why did they think they could do it all again?

 

Germany is rolling out it Kulturpass card to eighteen year olds. They get 200 euro to spend and booksellers are lining up to take their money.

 

School Librarians in the US are sick of the book banning culture they have to navigate. Their national organisations are now forming rapid response strike teams to support beleaguered librarians. Among the most challenged books are graphic novels- it only takes one drawn panel and one overzealous parent to ban the book. Apparently the librarians specialist degree in the field has to give way to uninformed opinion.

 

Joanna Penn has a great interview with Thomas Umstattd on novel marketing and Christian publishing.

Kris Rusch explores the history of discoverability in publishing and how it's changing now.

 

Jane Friedman has a great guest column from an editor showing the reasons why a manuscript which has been edited and workshopped by professionals still can’t get picked up.

Some hard but necessary lessons to learn here.

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors has a deep dive article on using calls to action in the backs of books on website in emails…. This is a must read article for marketing.

 

Two great articles from Writer Unboxed caught my eye this week- Kathryn Craft on how cliché’s can help your writing and from Densie Webb to agent or not to agent – that is the question.

 

In The Craft Section,

2 great posts from September Fawkes- How to write strong characters and 100 questions to help evaluate your story- Bookmark Both

Eight ways not to start a novel- Anne R Allen – Bookmark

Know your 5w’s and 1H- Jami Gold – Bookmark

8 laws for foreshadowing- NowNovel- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Business cards and Job titles- John Gilstrap

The latest changes to book categories- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Promoting a new book- Bookbub- Bookmark

Creative and cost effective marketing for authors- Indiereader

3 Amazon review reader myths- Sandra Beckwith

Selling books- a booksellers perspective- Bookbaby - Bookmark 

 

To Finish,

If you are a content writer you may be sympathetic with Litreactor’s latest column ChatGPT is a menace. They take issue with the amount of people that think getting ChatGPT to write a children’s story is the holy grail to earning passive income. As a children’s writer it shrivels my soul. Why does everybody think that writing a children’s book is so easy any celebrity can do it or just get an AI to write something – the kids will never know? 

We take pride in our work and we work hard at it. An adult reader will let you have a couple of pages of story introduction, a child maybe one paragraph, two at most, and it had better be using the child’s worldview and entertaining. The shorter the story the more important every word is. The younger the reader the more important the story craft is. 

AI is a tool that you can use but it is not human and can never replace human wisdom and experience. It can only regurgitate the data it has scraped. 

Garbage in. Garbage Out 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

If you want the best of my bookmarked links in a monthly newsletter you can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

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Where Will You Find Your Next Read?

This Week In Publishing News,

 

Authors behaving badly can be a career killer. This week an author called out a reviewer for only giving her 4 stars. The backlash over the author's vitriolic comments to a hapless newbie reviewer had a slew of 1 stars being attached to the book. Then the publisher dropped her.

Note to all authors- Never comment on reviews. It’s the safer way. Read Anne R Allen’s excellent article from a few years back for a refresher on not taking reviews personally.

Anne’s latest post is on readers pet peeves- They are not the same as writers pet peeves. You shouldn’t ignore them.

 

Publishing Perspectives had an exclusive article this week. Elsevier’s director of sustainability, Rachel Martin, recently spoke at an international congress on sustainability and announced that within a few years all mainstream printed books would be displaying labels specifying their environmental credentials. 

 

The Audio Publishers Association in America reported that their annual earnings were up by 10% to $1.8 Billion. More than half of the population had listened to an audiobook. 

This fits in well with the report from Publishers Weekly over the latest trends in children’s publishing. Audio is the hot trend across all age groups. Paper is driving midgrade and everyone is looking for graphic novels and Webtoon stories.

 

Business Insider reports that tropes are where its at if you want to go viral on TikTok. This speaks to the importance of knowing and using tropes in your books. (It’s how you use or twist the tropes that make you stand out.)

 

Grace Bialecki has a guest post on Jane Friedman’s site about when an author needs a website. These days a website can be many different things and on many different platforms.

 

Two big AI articles came out this week.

Publishers Weekly had a widely read post on how AI is about to turn the publishing world upside down. This huge post from Thad McIlroy talks about whose jobs are under threat.  Thad also takes a positive view that being human will be the biggest advantage. 

“You can only understand the perils surrounding a new technology after you fully appreciate the opportunities that it affords.”

 

The other big AI article comes from Peter Houston and the way AI search is set to upend online publishers who rely on ad sales on their websites to generate income. AI is just going to scrape the content and not refer the user to a website. This could be problematic if you rely on your website to sell books.

 

Katie Weiland is always a must read for me. She usually puts her finger on what might be troubling me writing craft wise. This week however she took a different tack and looked at Imposter Syndrome. This is a stand out post on how writers can deal with that inner critic. A must read.

 

Joanna Penn recently Interviewed John Fox on crafting the linchpin moments of your novel. This is a deep dive into why we need these plot points to work and how to strengthen scenes.

 

In the Craft Section,

2 Great posts from Sue Coletta- How critical distance improves writing and Why readers love anti-heroes. Bookmark Both

The nemesis as the protagonists shadow- Scott Myers – Bookmark

Connection Love Loss Hope- Donald Maass- Bookmark

7 ways to ensure you reach your writing goals- Jordan Kantey

 

In The Marketing Section,

Choosing a title that hooks your reader- Draft2Digital- Bookmark

8 ways to market your book- Brian Feinblum

Using drip marketing- Thomas Umstattd- Bookmark

Working effectively with your book designer- Andrea Reider- Bookmark

5 things I tell authors that really annoy them- Sandra Beckwith

Successful self promotion- Penny Sansevieri

 

To Finish,

This week Kris Rusch talks about curation and how over the years the places and people you used to be able to rely upon to tell you what to read or listen to have changed. Combined with this recent article from the UK Booktrust on how many parents feel they lack the skill to help their children to read, I asked my teen how she discovers books and music. Spotify was her answer to the music one but she surprised me when she said the School Library. With all the published angst about book influencers on TikTok – the humble school library is still in there. This makes the survival of the school library so important. They are shaping readers of today and tomorrow- if we don’t support them we won’t have a publishing industry.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

If you want the best of my bookmarked links in a monthly newsletter you can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic:

Photo by Shunya Koide on Unsplash

Holding On To Your Own Creativity

In Publishing News this week…

Amazon is raising their subscription price for Kindle Unlimited by $2. This comes on the heels of the lowest page read payout to date. Today writers using Amazon Print were informed that the cost to print would be going up. 

 

Recently The Association of American Publishers had their AGM and the big event of the night was the CEO Maria Pallente addressing the issue of AI and publishing. Porter Anderson  has a full report of her speech. If you are keeping an eye on AI you will know that this week the CEO of Open AI has been asking for a regulatory framework from US lawmakers to control AI going into the future.

 

Pearson Textbooks has taken issue with the use of their IP content to train AI’s. They have started sending cease and desist letters and taking legal action. This is because they have plans to train their own AI on their own content so they can expand their business.

 

Scholastic are finally embracing digital publishing. Apparently paper mills see no extra value in making book pages. Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard has some pithy words for the publishing industry as the head of Scholastic points out just how shaky the print arm of publishing is.

Mark also shines a spotlight on HarperCollins India and their search for a realistic AI Indian voice to change the face of audio narration in India.

 

Bookriot reports on PEN America and Penguin Random House taking a school district to court over book banning. This is a warning shot in the battle for freedom to read. How many school districts can take on these giants and win?

 

If you live with anyone whose profession is the subject of TV dramas you will be used to the constant comments about unrealistic work portrayals. Melodie Campbell takes a look at unrealistic portrayals of crime scenes.

 

Katie Weiland has a great article on Why There Is No Such Thing As ‘Just A Story.’ 

Suzanne Bennett has a great article on what to do with abandoned manuscripts… you don’t have to junk them. 

 

In The Craft Section,

How to write organic themes- K M Weiland- Bookmark

Setting and sense of place- Joanna Penn

Does your story make sense-Susan DeFreitas

5 ways to avoid white room syndrome- Linnea Gradin- Bookmark

Ignite with the inciting incident- Lynette Burrows- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Infographic 7 tips to grow your social media platform- Barb Drozowich

Get reader reviews- Sandra Beckwith

Data on author newsletters- Written Word Media- Bookmark

Booklinker article on Bookmarketing- Bookmark

Tips to improve newsletter design- Sue Coletta – Bookmark

The Rebel Author Podcast -advanced marketing strategies (great episode)

 

To Finish,

What are you doing to fill your creative well? This is a question I often asked my teaching colleagues. You can’t keep giving out creatively to others if you don’t fill your well. Kris Rusch has been musing on the nature of cross training for your brain. This is a good article to mull over at the change of seasons. Are you stretching your writing brain by doing something else?

 

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 like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: Photo by Amritanshu Sikdar on Unsplash

 

Under The Skin

 

In Publishing News this week,

Many writers muttered Hallelujah when Ingram Spark announced they were making print file uploads of Print On Demand books free along with free revisions for the first 60 days. There was general joy all around the publishing socials. They wouldn’t have changed their policy because every other print POD service is free would it?

 

Business Insider reports that Tiktok has registered a publishing press trademark. I wonder how they are going to advertise their books to readers or reviewers or even how they will go about getting books to publish? Now all they need is a buy button…

 

The Writers Guild of America called their TV writer members out on strike. This last happened about 16 years ago… and suddenly there was lots of Reality TV popping up. The writers have been screwed by streaming. The New Yorker lays out the case.

 

The arrest of a Taiwan publisher visiting relatives in China is making the Asian book industry nervous. The disappearance of the writer and publisher is being highlighted by news agencies around the world, reports The Guardian.

 

The UK Publishing Association reports that they had a bumper year last year with physical book sales up. Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard points out that their reported numbers have huge million dollar holes. What happened to their digital book industry?

Mark also points out the double standard over Storytel Norway being accused of favouring their own brand on their own platform. Who knew that was unethical? *coughAmazoncough*

 

Kris Rusch writes this week on the gradual breakdown of favourable terms for writers from Amazon. She has been an advocate of going wide for years. This is her last heads up blog post on the danger of putting all your sales eggs into one basket. All the signs are warning of an iceberg ahead.

 

Ruth Harris has an interesting post on Outlines, AI, and Stormy Daniels. Ruth tries her hand at using AI to write a blog post and concludes that the prose is very boring. Then she thought about a biography of Stormy Daniels….

 

Lit Reactor has a great article on books with a lack of character development and concludes it is not a problem. Do we really need to see the characters grow and change? Sometimes the fact that they don’t is comforting. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Assuaging the pain of punctuation- Tiffany Yates Martin - Bookmark

5 things to know about writing for teens- Jennifer De Leon

The difference between character archetypes and tropes- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

What is a psycological thriller- Cailean Steed- Bookmark

What we can learn from reading bad fiction- Richard Thomas

 

In The Marketing Section,

7 tips for strategic pricing- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Critique sites- Kathy Steinemann

Should you pay an influencer- Sandra Beckwith

What goes on the copyright page- Darcy Pattison- Bookmark

Readerscout- new free tech from Kindlepreneur- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

The 122 page book, Death Of An Author has been making small waves after it was recently published by Seth Godin’s press Pushkin Industries. 95% of this murder mystery is written by AI. The New York Times reviews it fairly. Some will like it. Some will hate it. 

Creativity is not under threat- yet. 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

 It’s time for my monthly newsletter? If you want the best of my bookmarked links and other extras why not subscribe and join our merry band.

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

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