This week in publishing news…
The court case over whether Penguin Random House can buy Simon and Schuster has become a compulsive watch spectacle for many in the publishing industry. The CEO of Penguin Random House gave testimony along with agents and other heavy hitters in the respective companies. However, the words the CEO was saying had people scratching their heads wondering if he knows what actually happens in publishing below his executive floor.
Publishers Weekly are updating a list of articles they have published over the last week on the utterances in court. You can follow live tweeting of the issues being discussed.
Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard has some hard-hitting comments on the way the CEO of PRH has been hurling numbers around without checking if they make sense. PRH is the biggest publisher and wants to get bigger. The CEO believes they are the only knight standing between the reading public and Amazon's unlimited digital subscription models for books, which is why they need to get bigger. But there are other publishers out there too. Surely five knights are better than one knight. Swallowing up other publishers reduces the competition. Isn’t this court case about publishing monopolies?
In other news, The Authors Guild pulled off a win against Netflix on behalf of screenwriters in court. The writers have not been paid against the negotiated standard. The court found in favour and now Netflix has to pay 42 million dollars in back pay to writers. It pays to belong to a writers union.
Jane Friedman has a guest post from two agents on how books get picked up to be adapted for the screen. With so many streaming services looking for content the word is shopping agreements for a limited time.
Cory Doctorow has a huge post on copyright laws and how much things have changed over the last 20 years. First, it hit the music industry with sampling, mix tapes, Napster- these events changed the way people understood copyright and now practices that began in the music industry are moving into print publishing.
Litreactor has an interesting post on why great opening lines work. They have analyzed 10 examples to find what makes them stand out.
In The Craft Section,
2 Great posts from K M Weiland 13 rules to be a better Beta Reader and
Misconceptions about In Media Res. Bookmark Both.
How many scenes does it take to tell a story- Sarah Hamer
How to tell if your story is a Mystery or Thriller- Lucy Hay
Dialogue tags- Kellie McGann
The art of colour coding a manuscript.- Cathy Hall- Bookmark
In The Marketing Section,
10 tips for more author blog traffic- Anne R Allen- Bookmark
5 reasons your ads aren’t working-Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark
9 tips to build your following- Lucy Hay- Bookmark
How to tell if you’ve found your marketing niche- Colleen Story
Republish vs update- Dave Chesson
To Finish,
Every now and then I drop into Dean Wesley Smith’s blog for his interesting take on the writer business. This week he has been writing about all the ways to freely advertise your book. He started listing ideas, and over two blog posts people added their best advertising strategies. So read all the comments for some great book marketing plans to try out.
With PRH telling the court all their authors get large marketing plans and many of their writers wonder how and why they missed out on the marketing largess… the only way is to learn the author's hustle.
Maureen
@craicer
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PIC Photo by Corina Rainer on Unsplash
