Is it Good Literature?

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

If you are a comic book publisher by now you must be suffering severe stress at the uncertainty of the Diamond Comics distributor woes. They have a buyer. They haven’t a buyer. Their potential buyer is now suing them. Publishers Weekly tries to keep everyone up to date.

 

Also suffering is the Children’s Publishing community with the news that Albert Whitman and Co is in bankruptcy after 106 years of trading. After a series of disastrous moves and the failure to pay people, usually the first sign of a sinking publishing ship, the company has closed. But will anyone get their money back?

 

The money is being handed out by Spotify - $100 million this year already. Mark Williams looks at the symbiotic nature of podcasting and audio books and speculates what else Spotify might be doing with the spoken word.

 

This week Canada had a national election that highlighted what happens when another countries president tells you how to vote. Amongst the first laws that Canadian authors want fixed is the poorly worded copyright law that is hurting the creative community in Canada.

 

The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) had their annual meeting in New York. The theme – Move Fast and Fix Things. Publishing Perspectives reports on the outcomes from the study group that identifies pain points in publishing and how to fix them.

 

Back in court are five well known authors challenging the legality of the book banning in Florida. Several states are waiting on the outcome as it will set a precedent on whether their book bans are lawful. It is slow going but the outcome is important. Luckily these authors have the financial resources to see it through.

 

Dan Holloway reports on moves to make AI generated films eligible for The Oscars. While you are pondering this, check out Wiley (Academic publishers) guidelines for using AI in book and journal writing. My thought is that by the end of the year most publishers will have specific guidelines like these. After all, if they are using it in their offices can they really demand others don’t?However, be very transparent in your AI dealings. Publishers won’t back you up if there is a court case. You are on your own, and they may just sue you to make the point.

Use AI as a tool to help creativity. Your author voice is original, and an AI is not. An algorithm can’t feel like a human can. 

 

Amy Bernstein has a great post on Jane Friedman’s blog about using fiction techniques to make your nonfiction book better. Borrow From Fictions Toolbox to Elevate Your Nonfiction Book.

 

Andrea Grigg has an interesting post on Writers in the Storm about Emerging from Writers Block. When you have tried everything and beaten yourself up for having writers block it might be the permission to quit that frees you. Everyone’s creativity is different. 

 

Two excellent craft articles caught my eye this week. Becca Puglisi’s Build Character Growth Milestones into your story and Katie Weiland’s impressive take on the Corrupt Character Arc. These are two outstanding posts on the craft of writing compelling characters. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Trigger questions for world building- Jaime Buckley- Bookmark

Genres of writing – Storygrid- Comprehensive!

Building scenes with beats- C S Lakin- Bookmark

The 5-4-3-2-1 of scene setting- Diana Giovinazzo

Why you should avoid bored protagonists -September Fawkes- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

3 author mistakes when marketing- Sandra Beckwith

10 strategies to grow your author newsletter -Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Where to find readers- Fussy Librarian

Is Kindle Unlimited right for you – Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Approaches to marketing – Story Empire- Bookmark

 

To Finish

 

A long time ago before we had children… my husband and I used to hold Port and Poetry nights for our friends. It was our version of a literary salon. Friends would arrive with Port… or something else and their favourite poems and we would read them out loud. Sometimes there would be a theme, or we would just gossip about world events. When the kids came along we didn’t hold so many, but they were allowed to read out their favourite poems when we did. The Guardian recently wrote about the new literary salons being held. Funny, Sexy, and a bit Weird- how the young are doing literary salons now. Take an odd venue, stuff it full of people- bring a DJ, and read anything you like. 

Literature, always in fashion!

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 Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash

Creating Assets in 2025

 

 

And we’re back…Hello 2025.

So down under - it’s supposed to be Summer but we have been getting cold snaps. Summer taunts us by appearing on different single days. Meanwhile, in the Northern hemisphere its Winter and California has been hit by devasting wildfires. I think we can agree that the climate has changed. Publishers Weekly has an article on how the publishing industry is helping out in California. There is some good advice for small publishers in there about prepping for disasters, business wise.

The Christmas/New Year break saw a bankruptcy filing that alarmed a lot of people in the publishing industry. Diamond Comics filed for bankruptcy. The news rocked the comics publishing world as they are one of the big distributors of comics to bookstores. One commentator has described it as the make or break moment for the comics industry.

Comics are big business. While Diamond owes PRH $9 million which helped to trigger the bankruptcy, other companies are full steam ahead in publishing comic book versions of their intellectual property. Mattel are doing big deals for manga versions of their hot properties Barbie and Hot Wheels. Mark Williams talks about the new deal and its implications.

 

Publishing Perspectives has the follow-up article on the Created by Humans business which has officially started with some big author names backing it. This is a marketplace to sell licenses to AI to use your creative work, amongst other ideas. 

Remember, if you create it, you own the copyright. If someone copies your work without paying for it, it is theft. There is a huge market for Intellectual Property assets. Publishers are valued, bought, and sold on the size of their IP assets which is why publishers want as many rights from the creator as they can get. It is all valuable and on the asset side of the ledger. Even if they never use those e-book rights, or special edition, or audiobook rights in Spanish. Whoever holds the IP has the potential to make money. With AI doing some underhanded scraping last year – this is an attempt to control the playing field.

 

If you have been reading the blog for a time and following the news in the publishing industry you might have forgotten that eBooks are still new in some countries. The New Publishing Standard reports that Greece is about to take the plunge with eBooks.

 

We are a quarter of the way through the current century, and it’s been a wild ride in publishing. However, there are still questions from new writers about how to publish. Writers in the Storm contributor Gale Leach has expanded Jane Friedman’s article of the different ways to publish by looking at the keywords Responsibility and Control. How much of each do you want to give up?

 

In the UK the Society of Authors is protesting against the BBC’s new move to discontinue audio drama. This is a blow for authors and a boon for audio book publishers they say. Audio drama is another format to interest and publicise books to a new audience. Here in New Zealand, we have a similar argument happening with our state broadcaster who is not even reviewing New Zealand books, let alone making dramatic readings of them. Our Society of Authors published a stinging criticism of what is happening. No one is holding their breath to see if it will get covered by other news media. After all, how does a country define its culture…, music, art, stories… or, if you are a broadcaster, news and sport. We have made huge movements in covering women’s sport in the last five years, wouldn’t it be great if there was a cultural segment as well?

 

A first roundup of publishing news and interesting craft and marketing information wouldn’t be complete without a predictions for 2025. Written Word Media pulled out their crystal ball and found 10 trends and predictions for the publishing industry . I agree with every one of them. They also have a great article on how to grow your author business in 2025 without losing your mind.

 

Elizabeth Rynecki has a guest article on Jane Friedman’s blog on avoiding creative slumps by changing your writing and publishing medium. If you are looking for a new project this might tick your creative buttons.

 

The Dream Team of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi are back in 2025 with their great website and blog full of resources but I have discovered that they are venturing into video. Check out this great little episode on inciting incidents by Becca. 

 

In the Craft Section,

The role of narration in storytelling- Gabriela Pereira- Bookmark

In search of the well crafted sentence – C S Lakin- Bookmark

Look to the past for your writing future- Eldrid Bird

StoryGrid- Resource page- full of goodies!

What happens when there is no plot- September Fawkes- Bookmark

 

In the Marketing Section,

Authors and Bookclubs- Sandra Beckwith

Broad vs Niche keywords (2025)- Dave Chesson - Bookmark

Social media for authors in 2025-Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

How to make an author website – Bookbaby

Selling books from your own website- Morgana Best- Bookmark

 

To Finish

 

I’m a fan of podcasts and I have a few that are regular listens. While I am on my summer break, I try to stay off the computer and focus only on being present with my family. Even if it’s reading a paper book in the same room. So, this week as I walked back into my study, I stopped to check out a couple of my favourite podcasts. The Spa Girls have a super interview with Ines Johnson on direct selling and special editions. Joanna Penn always has an interesting goal setting podcast show for the beginning of the new year. 

 

It’s time to get cracking and creating!

 

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 Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash

Is It A Lemon?

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

The unleashing of the AI monsters have many in publishing concerned. Two stories caught my eye and left me feeling faintly sick. It was predicted but seeing these things blatantly promoted is confronting. 

A publishing startup/ tech company has decided to disrupt publishing (why?) by using AI to help edit, polish, and sell books. Spines reckon they could publish 8000 books a year with this model. If you give them $5000 you will get their personal attention. 

If you have $5000 – pay for a decent editor and cover and do it yourself.

Following on from this was the wonderful idea of taking out of print classics and getting AI to write new forwards and repackage them for sale. Slate has an in depth article exposing one Get Rich Quick scheme to teach you how to do this. This is problematic if you don’t check where the AI is scraping its content from. You could be breaching all sorts of copyright with university presses or believing the outright lies that AI likes to spin. (N.B. AI is not a super intelligent version of an encyclopedia which has been vetted for veracity.) 

Get Rich Quick publishing schemes have been around forever and using AI is just the latest twist of lemon in the publishing cocktail. Often these schemes are a front for a scam or are morally dubious. 

If you care about producing quality work with your name on it, stay away from them.

 

In audio publishing news, Spotify announced a deal with Bloomsbury. It looks like Spotify are approaching traditional publishers and gobbling up direct deals. Amazon has quickly moved to offer more audio choice. Spotify want to be all things audible… can Amazon compete with this? Mark Williams takes a look at the seismic shift happening with Spotify.

 

The New York University’s Advanced Publishing Institute 5 day conference is open for registration. If you have a spare $5000 you can attend in January. Publishing Perspectives has a quick overview of one of the talks that will be given by Penguin Random House on Shifting Consumer Tastes in Social Media. They hope to give tangible advice on this and other thorny problems to the attendees. For that amount of money it will have to be gold plated!

 

Publishers Weekly is releasing some of the talks from Frankfurt. This interesting article caught my eye by Ed Nawotka on the explosion of AI startups dedicated to the publishing industry.

 

If you follow Taylor Swift you might have heard that she has a book coming out based around her Era’s tour. If you are in publishing you might be surprised that she has not partnered with any publisher. She has the money and the clout and the fan base to be successful without a publisher backing her. However, not all celebrity books do well. The Atlantic looks at how she might upend the model and will there be room for a traditional publishing partnership down the trail.

 

The biggest author publishing conference happened in Las Vegas this month. Written Word Media put together a takeaways article about the trends and issues that were discussed at Vegas. Collaboration is King. 

Derek Murphy ( Creativ Indie) shares his slide show presentation and talks about Authentic Creativity As A Response To Artificial Intelligence.

Back in the day when Twitter was young and had no inkling of what a new owner might do, the publishing world flocked to the social media site. Then things changed. Publishing industry folks left for other pastures and it became harder to get back the tribe you used to have. Bluesky has spent the last week adding almost a million users a day and the publishing industry people started to flock together. Rachel Thompson takes a look at whether Bluesky will work for writers. 

 

Darcy Pattison has put together an excellent article on how to take a rights released book from Traditional Publishing and give it a whole new lease of life. Those books that didn’t get their series finished or didn’t find their audience don’t have to be consigned to the dustbin.

If you are struggling with NaNoWriMo this month you are not alone. Elinor Florence writes on Jane Friedman’s blog about how she got through the train wreck of her own NaNoWriMo project.  

In The Craft Section,

Going deeper with characterization- Lisa Hall Wilson- Bookmark

Balancing your cast of characters- September Fawkes

Don’t tie your story up in a neat bow- P J Parrish- Bookmark

How to write great dialogue- C S Lakin- Bookmark

What is your characters wounding event- Sue Coletta

 

In the Marketing Section,

Is your target readership meaningful to agents and publishers- Jane Friedman- Bookmark

5 essential steps to maximise your books success-Written Word Media- Bookmark

Social Media engagement- a how to from Hootsuite- Comprehensive

What to do when book sales start slipping- Thomas Umstattd- Bookmark

Turbocharging book sales with preorders- Mark Coker

 

To Finish

It’s Black Friday this week and there are deals galore for writers out there. You can check out Dave Chesson’s huge list of deals. 

If you are thinking about  Christmas/ Holiday gifts check out Sandra Beckwith’s big list of goodies designed for writers.

Infostack have their big bundle of writer resources on sale again.

Yes, It’s that time of the year already. The Credit Card Crunch!

 

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 Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic Photo by Tirza van Dijk on Unsplash

Reading The Small Print

 

 

In Publishing News this week

 

Lately there has been much discussion online about students arriving in University to study who have never been assigned a whole book to read at their high school. When questioned by professors they hear that students have been assigned excerpts or handouts to read and mark up but never a whole book. You might dismiss this as a socioeconomic problem if the Atlantic hadn’t canvassed professors at elite universities to find that their students lack the reading stamina to complete one course novel in humanities. An open letter from authors and teachers to the UK Prime Minister is being circulated in the UK to highlight this problem. 

 

Many authors have websites powered by Wordpress which is the most popular website builder and host of author websites.  Lately there have been some problems with their websites and it is all because of a stoush between the founders of Wordpress and WP Engine which hosts the websites. Techcrunch explains the drama.

 

The Frankfurt Book Fair is fast approaching and Publishing Perspectives has an interview with the Director on all the reasons Frankfurt Book Fair wants to stay out of international politics.

Richard Charkin writes in his monthly column about preparing for Frankfurt and why he thinks the Frankfurt Book Fair is the best.

 

Publishers Weekly has an article on whether POC representation in publishing is going down in real terms. After the push to highlight that lack of diversity in Publishing and efforts to rectify this in recent times, has anything changed?

 

Mark Williams highlights an article in The Hollywood reporter on AI being the new darling of the film industry. After the writer’s strike you would think they would be pushing it away with a big stick. Not So.

 

Joanna Penn has a great interview with Dave Cohen on writing humour. Can you make them laugh? Where is the line between comedy and offense and how careful should you be when crafting humour.

 

 A few years ago, publishing pundits wondered if print books would become collectable items as the world embraced digital editions of books. I couldn’t help but think this as I read the news that Macmillan Publishers have launched a new imprint. Think finely crafted handmade papers, limited numbered editions, full colour illustrations etc. Yes, they are a trade publisher. 

 

Robin Henry has a guest post on Jane Friedmans blog about structure. She takes a deep dive into Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. After 250 years what makes her novels stand the test of time? A great read.

 

Katie Weiland continues her great series on structure this week she looks at the beginning of the third act with the third plot point that builds the story to the climax. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Character ideas- Fictionary- Bookmark

Crafting a killer motivation- Laurel Osterkamp

Writing flawed characters- Angela Ackerman

Using tropes- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

How to use setting to reveal character- C S Lakin- Bookmark

Write fight scenes the comic way- Carla Hoch- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

November Book Promo ideas- Sandra Beckwith

Author newsletter data- Infographic

Getting more reader reviews- AJ Yee- Bookmark

Amazon Central Author pages- Clayton Noblit

How to optimize wide digital sales- Kelley Mc Daniel- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

A cautionary tale from Donald Maass who aside from writing great craft articles is also the founder of a well known Literary Agency. He writes about a WFH (Work For Hire) contract that set all the red flags flying. This is an article all writers should read. WFH contracts are increasingly being offered to tie up multimedia deals for streaming. Donald even references Rock Bands asking for WFH book tie ins. Do you know the flags to look for? Do you even know that your WFH is not yours even if they make a movie and franchise out of it? Always be clear on who owns your IP. Is it you?

Maureen

@craicer

 

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

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Creativity With A Side Of Madness

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

The Internet Archive is back in the news again with the appeals court handing down their verdict. The archive wanted to scan eBooks and make print copies of them. They didn’t see a problem with it because they were nonprofit. This week the appeals court upheld the decision against Internet Archive. Four years in the courts and now we have the definitive ruling on Fair Use (Don’t publish in another format- when you aren’t the publisher of record.)

 

Also in the courts, writers, students, and teachers protesting the book banning law passed in Florida. High profile Young Adult writers have joined this action claiming censorship is happening in schools. 

 

NaNoWriMo.org has found itself in hot water over their stance on AI. Many writers have been vitriolic about their stance that denying the use of AI tools is Classist and Abelist. The Verge looks at the arguments.

 

Mark Williams looks at Wiley’s windfall of $44mill and their claim of operating in the best interests of their authors by seeking AI deals. It’s all about the money.

 

Draft2Digital is dipping its toes in the AI ocean but before they make any big decisions they are asking their authors to fill out a survey on AI. Dan Holloway of the Alliance of Independent Authors has the lowdown on what they want to know. 

 

Publishers Weekly reports that the team behind the successful Black List, film screenplay market place, are looking at expanding to novels. If you think your novel would make a great film but you don’t know where to start- The Black List could be the solution.

 

Don’t Forget to check into Writer Beware every now and then to find out the latest scams. Lately there has been a proliferation of fake literary agencies.

 

A few years ago, I gave a speech on what may be coming down the track for authors. I mentioned blockchain. Hardly anyone understood it and many have confused it with bitcoin but blockchain is still around. In these days of trying to track down what AI is scraping your work, blockchain could be the answer. The founder of Raddish thinks so and has set up a company with over $80 million in the pot to prove it. 

 

Rob Hart wrote an interesting blog post on his successful writing career and what happened when his publisher dropped him because his book didn’t sell amazingly, just pretty good. This is an honest look at being a writer in the publishing industry. Those amazing deals aren’t always wonderful for the writer.

 

What do you do if you lose track changes? Kelley Segroi has a great article on Women On Writing’s nifty little blog with handy tips on managing your documents.

 

KimBoo York has an interesting article on Jane Friedman’s blog about Creative Intuition. She mentions that Creative Intuition is knowing the trope and subverting it. It’s a great article with helpful tips on developing this super power.

 

Donald Maass has a super post over at Writer Unboxed about character and character driven stories. This is a must read on what propels your character to action. 

 

 

In The Craft Section,

The missing link in 3 act structure- Lisa Poisso- Bookmark

Story Structure Midpoint- K M Weiland – Bookmark

Hook lines and stinkers- P J Parrish- Bookmark

Common POV violations- C S Lakin- Bookmark

Tips for writing physical comedy- Charles Yallowitz

 

In The Marketing Section,

Building a website- Bookbub- Bookmark

5 reasons for book endorsements- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

10 ways to market a book- Rachel Thompson

3 free marketing strategies- Draft2Digital

How to write an awesome personalized query letter- Tiffany Hawk- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

I try to keep up with my podcast listening but sometimes when life gets super busy I end up skipping episodes. I did this with Joanna Penn’s podcast a few weeks back and then I heard that the episode was getting a lot of attention so I hunted down the transcript (Thanks Joanna for always doing a transcript) to A Touch of Madness- Joanna Penn talking to film maker Larry Kasanoff. What a standout episode! This touches on creativity and taking chances and is so inspiring. If you need a creative pick me up or even if you don’t… take a chance and listen/read this. Our best work comes from being in touch with our creative madness.

 

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 Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Pic: Photo by laura adai on Unsplash

Talking Down to Readers

 

 

In Publishing News this week.

 

Last week I mentioned that Booktopia in Australia had found a buyer, this week Simon and Schuster (Australia) has been shopping and they have bought Affirm Press. They want to expand their markets in Australia and New Zealand apparently. 

 

The numbers are in and PenguinRandomHouse has made some money.  Publishers Weekly reports the good news. It might have something to do with all that restructuring they have been doing.

 

Apple Books has started laying off workers, GoodEReader reports. Apple haven’t really been focused on its book platform for a while. This may be a sign of the coming times.

 

Just when you thought all that crazy book censoring was happening in one very large western country the UK woke up to discover it’s happening in their school libraries too.

In contrast, there are schools wanting to embrace PRH’s Book Vending machines. PenguinRandomHouse has provided a book vending machine to showcase its Lit in Colour series. The machine is stocked with books written by diverse authors of colour. 

 

Every few years some bright spark in publishing looks at the huge secondhand book market and wonders… How can I get a piece of that? Bookshop.org is the latest to try with secondhand books worth credits in the Bookshop.org store. But is anyone really going to send their books off?

 

Written Word Media have a detailed look at the new KDP author verification requirements and breaks down what is important. A must read if you publish on this platform.

 

On Jane Friedman’s popular blog, Amy Bernstein writes- What you can learn from a serial submitter to literary magazines. When you have assimilated all the good advice then hop over to curiosityneverkilledthewriter.com and look at the 67 submission opportunities for September.

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors has another in depth article- this one on creating nonfiction courses to complement your nonfiction book.

 

I’ve just finished reading a story that had some masterful backstory slid into it. Then I came across this great article from Lisa Hall Wilson explaining just how to do this kind of deep point of view backstory layering.

 

In The Craft Section,

How to strengthen a lean manuscript- Lisa Fellinger- Bookmark

Story structure as a fractal- September Fawkes- Bookmark

Should you abandon your novel- James Scott Bell

Steadfast arcs- September Fawkes

10 editing tips- C S Lakin- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

4 Facebook features

The matter of titles-Barbara Linn Probst- Bookmark

Comp titles- PenguinRandomhouse blog

Making your website friendlier- Debbie Burke- Bookmark

Getting into the Goodreads author program-podcast- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

Every few years around this time in the Northern Hemisphere news cycle the same click baity headline somehow gets recycled. Are Romance Novels Literature? The latest to ask this is Time- with its 50 best romances list. Mark Williams of the New Publishing Standard vents on this. 

A literature novel can have a romance in it. (Test: If you took out the romance would it still stand as a novel?) Romance as a genre should have the romance as the driving force in the story. The question “Is (fill in your own genre) literature?” sets up an argument of snobbery with ‘literature’ seen as more highbrow. 

Literature is a genre.

It is not a genre with huge sales compared to other genres. It has cemented itself into creative writing faculties across the world so that its authors can make a living.

You never see the headline – Are crime thrillers literature? It is always Romance that is picked on. Is it the covers? The perceived readership? The sales? The jealousy of the author paycheck, that makes this genre a target? Stop going for the tired old click bait headline. We should be encouraging and celebrating reading- regardless of genre. I wince every time a child tells me, apologetically that they read graphic novels as if it was some sort of shame.* 

There is no shame in reading. We need all the readers we can get.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter to go out. If 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 Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

*I tell them my favourite graphic novels and then we have a discussion on illustration styles and pictures as shorthand for setting.

pic Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash