Show Me The Money

In Publishing News this week 

 

Publishers Weekly reports on the latest Trump court case. He is suing Penguin Random House and The New York Times for $15 Billion. Penguin Random House published a book by New York Times journalists called Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Fathers Fortune and Created The Illusion Of Success. I think the sub title spells out the problem. In other news- another U S late night talk show host has been taken off air. And DJT threatened an Australian reporter with an unfavourable outcome for Australia for asking if it was legal to make money off the office of president. 

 

Publishing Perspectives has an interesting article on the upcoming Shanghai Children’s Book Fair. Shanghai is adding new programmes to the fair and they expect over 50,000 visitors including over 20,000 publishing industry professionals from 35 countries. To make it even easier the fair is free for publishing industry people and they are allowing free 240 hour transit visas for attendees. 

 

Amazon is following the EU mandate to have books be accessible. Publishers Weekly reports that Amazon has begun asking for accessibility information as part of a books metadata. Meanwhile, Rachel Thompson has an article on KDP’s new rule changes. If you haven’t been on the Kindle platform lately there have been a few changes.

 

James Patterson has been offering authors money. If you are one of his lucky 12 – you will get $50,000 for a year to write your book. Lit Hub makes a case for being a recipient.

 

Kathleen Schmidt writes about Literary Criticism vs Book Consumerism and how one is not fueling the other. How are you finding books to read? Book consumerism is about fandom and emotional TikTok videos. Literary Criticism is rapidly being lost as Book reviews become harder to find in mainstream publications. Do you have a trusted source for reviews and recommendations?

 

A while ago I mentioned a podcast on AI that Joanna Penn and Thomas Umstattd had recorded that I thought authors should listen too. Joanna and Thomas recently recorded another podcast on The Authors Guide to AI. You can read the podcast transcript to see how authors can use the tools AI provides to help with the author business. 

 

Darcy Pattison has launched her big book on publishing children’s books on Kickstarter. This has been a few years in the making and Darcy reached her goal in the first day. If you want to get early access to a book written for children’s authors and publishers check it out.

 

Lucy Hay has an excellent post on the fear of never getting published. First you need to identify your fear and then you need to figure out what getting published means for you.

 

Colleen Story has a great post on Jane Friedman’s blog about Book Marketing and procrastination. Why do you fear book marketing? Is there another way to reframe it?

 

I have a bookcase filled with P G Wodehouse, so I was interested to see this article about poetry book publishing where the author Laura LeHew advocates printing out your poems, sticking them on a wall, reading the poem out loud and finding the theme. This is exactly what Plum (PGW) would do. He looked at each typewritten page in isolation. The higher on the wall the page, the less it needed work. He only sent the finished manuscript off when all the pages were up near the ceiling.

 

Katie Weiland has another knockout post on how a character’s personality shapes their voice and goals. She has a very comprehensive article on personalities to explain her points.

 

In The Craft Section

How to polish your first five pages- Jenn Windrow- Bookmark

Mapping your career path- David Farland

Writing for children- Sue Coletta

The role of food in building character- Karmen Spiljak- Bookmark

How to show repressed emotions- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section

Building a quick website for a pen name- Alessandra Torre- Bookmark

Build a Book publicity media list- Sandra Beckwith

5 ways to become a better speaker- John Kramer

How authors can ask smarter questions- Brian Jud

Publishing in creative ways- Heather Webb- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

You all know the one. The book everybody seems to be talking about. The viral sensation. But how do you get a viral sensation? Harshini Fernando wrote an interesting article for Written Word Media on what makes a book go viral. It starts with a good story and accessibility. 

Once it’s viral then obviously the movie deals and best seller lists follow along. Sometimes the book becomes viral long after it was published. Or when there is a big court case suing the publishers and the money is a bludgeon or a carrot. (See the Anthropic court case.)

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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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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Is It A Trend?

 

 

In Publishing News this week.

 

The Anthropic court case news was everywhere.

A quick rundown of the case so far. Anthropic (Claude AI) were taken to court in a class action on unlawfully training their AI on pirated copyrighted works. The judge indicated fair use was the issue and they could have bought a copy of each book for training. However, they used stolen work- so there was a case. Anthropic settled out of court for $1 Billion. (less than 1% of their recent venture capital fundraising) Each author stands to get $3000 if they or their publisher had registered the book with the US copyright office. Authors discover their publishers haven’t copyrighted their books. The judge comes back and says hang on this settlement is not fair. Who knows what will happen next.

 

While Apple was celebrating their latest iPhone, in court news they are being sued by authors for copyright infringement and yes… they used a pirate site to train their AI.

 

Media Voices has an article about a new AI on the block that publishers can use to find places where their content has been reused or pirated without compensation. 

 

Elsewhere, Spotify is teaming up with Booktok to launch Booktok Hub a dedicated site to get Booktok recommended audiobooks through Spotify. They will use the viral power of Booktok to sell books to you.

 

This week International Literacy Day was not celebrated with joy. A report out from the World Literacy Foundation laments that literacy is going backwards. An estimated 2 Billion people cannot read a simple sentence. This is appalling. Bring back the old days when rich people funded libraries and lifted literacy. 

 

Bologna Children’s Book Fair and Shanghai Book fair have got together to produce a fair dedicated to illustration and pop culture. This looks like an exciting event to go to. Publishing Perspectives reports what’s on offer in November. 

 

With the huge interest in K Pop stories, a new publishing company has been set up to bring more of these stories into the English language. Publishers Weekly details the rise of the webcomic publisher Crossed Hearts.

 

Publishers Weekly also has an in-depth article with Agents on Middle Grade fiction and the trials of bringing these books to market in the current restricted publishing atmosphere. Despite all the hurdles they remain optimistic.

 

Darcy Pattison has an excellent article on publishing children’s books. She lays out the different models and talks about what you might want from your career. Your goals will determine your business model. 

 

Jami Gold has an excellent article on Angela and Becca’s blog about How to Differentiate Stories from AI Slop. What do you bring to the table in your writing that an AI can’t. This is a must read for reasons not to let AI do the creative work for you.

 

In the Craft Section,

It’s what’s up front that counts-James Preston

How to write stories that matter- Lynette Burrows – Excellent!

Foreshadowing in writing- Tammy Burke- Bookmark

Does my Character have to arc our of their want- September Fawkes - Bookmark

Make yourself the most useful critiquer- Lisa Poisso- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Bookbub Ads- easy to create- Bookbub- Bookmark

How to use geniuslink to sell books- Rachel Thompson -Bookmark

Podcasts and authors- Sandra Beckwith

How to have multiple identities- Alliance of Independent Authors

Surviving author photos- Randy Susan Meyers- Bookmark

 

To Finish 

A writer just can’t help it. They have to find out what everyone is writing. Chasing Trends is always the hot topic at writer’s gatherings. Can you get in on the ground floor of a trend? Ellen Buikema has a great article on spotting trend cycles and when to just leave them alone and write your own unique story.

You might just start a trend!

 

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.

 

Pic  Photo by 愚木混株 Yumu 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

Where Is The Money?

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

A few weeks ago Spotify announced they were trialing audiobook access within the Spotify premium subscription with 15 hours a month free access in the UK and Australia. It must have worked as they announced this week, they are rolling it out to the United States.

 

Kobo is rolling out new devices for the Indian market. They are hoping to scoop up readers, but Mark Williams points out Kobo are falling into the same trap Amazon did with their initial Amazon India rollout. 

 

Publishing Perspectives reports that PRH India is committed to 100% recycled paper for its books. After a few years of the publishing community talking about being sustainable this is the first big publisher to walk the talk. Hopefully the rest of PRH will follow. After all if the biggest publisher does it… .

 

Penguin Random House has issued their first ever diversity report on the makeup of their non warehouse employees in the US. As you will have guessed the employees are mostly white, but they are changing and are happy that they employ above average diversity than other publishing houses. 

 

The Sharjah Publishing City Free Zone has unveiled a nice exclusive package of business deals for publishers wanting to do business in Publishing City, reports The New Publishing Standard. I never thought about publishers navigating their way around local laws etc until I saw this package. Sweet deal.

 

The Wall Street Journal has dropped its best seller lists. With best seller lists falling by the wayside or being dubious about how they count book sales are there any lists we can trust anymore? 

 

Many in the industry are waiting to see what the courts say about various lawsuits involving the provenance of Artificial Intelligence and creativity. Three artists were disappointed when the judge handed down the verdict that AI wasn’t infringing on their rights. 

 

Goodreads are asking their users to help combat review bombing. Finally, they do something about this. It couldn’t be because of the bad publicity they got when review bombing hit Elizabeth Gilberts new book before it had been released. This caused the author to pull the book with many critics crying shame on Goodreads. 

 

Darcy Pattison has a must read post on author income accounting. There are good tools out there to help you integrate all your sales and expenses. You don’t have to stick with the back of an envelope.

 

Kay DiBianca has an excellent post on project planning. This is a helpful list to think about all the tasks you need to do when you write and publish a book. Do you have a checklist?

 

Jan Sikes has an interesting post on going back and revising an old novel. Should you? In positive spin she learned it’s a great lesson for seeing how far you have come as a writer. 

 

How invested in your book is your reader? Are your stakes high enough? A great article from Suzanne Dunlap on keeping your readers turning the pages.

 

Anne R Allen has a great post on tone in writing. This goes hand in hand with voice. You can make the gruesome funny with the tone of your writing. It is all in the word choice. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Should you revise as you go – Jessica Strawser

What are antagonist proxies- K M Weiland – Bookmark

Breaking writer rules- September Fawkes

Story pacing- Florida writers- Bookmark

8 qualities of a great book editor- C S Lakin- Bookmark

Plotting with Michael Hauge’s 6 stages- Janice Hardy -Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Lead magnets for authors- Inkerscon- Bookmark

How to write a powerful about page- Sandra Beckwith

Make a good impression with cover design- Lexi Greene

Unexpected things your author platform can do for you- Colleen Story -Bookmark

Head shots- Terry Odell- Bookmark

Pinterest for book marketing- Joann Penn interview with Trona Freeman- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

Writing is a business. It’s entertainment. It’s escapism. It’s knowledge. It is a business. Hopefully money is flowing to the writer. That is a helpful tip if you get a publishing deal. Are you paying for it? Reputable publishers/agents don’t charge you. 

With the recent surveys on author income and the sad reality that many writers can’t make a living The Alliance of Independent Authors has a comprehensive blog post on embracing a positive money mindset. Money is not a dirty word if you need it to pay the bills. Every writer would like to not worry about money. So, look at the article. Cultivate that mindset, and money might begin to flow into your author bank account.

 

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 shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

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As The World Turns

In Publishing News this week,

 

Last week I wrote that Storytel is partnering with Eleven Labs, an AI audio specialist for audiobook dubbing in different languages. This week Goodereader has an interesting article on Eleven labs and just what they are capable of- including voice cloning. You give them a sample of your voice, they clone it and then your voice clone reads the audiobook. I had a play with their regular AI voices and it’s amazing.

So if you clone your voice is it still really you or an AI? The benefits are no more voice strain when you are recording your books- also no more studio fees or production costs.

 

For the first time since 2019, Beijing has held their International Bookfair. Attendance was good and there were over 2500 exhibitors.

 

Pundits are still talking about Elizabeth Gilbert’s decision to pull her book because of Ukrainian backlash. Is it a publicity stunt or a genuine reason. Is it all politics?

 

Publishing Perspectives has an article by Richard Charkin on the megatrends in international marketing. He asked Chatgpt for help and then he corrected the resulting article.

 

Publishers Weekly takes a deep dive into the shifting Middle Grade market. Once it held up the book sales stats but lately it’s been falling. How can writers stay relevant in this important market.

 

Darcy Pattison has a great article on getting photo permissions. There are different levels of copyrights with photos so do your homework if you are using them in your work.

 

Draft2Digital has an interesting article on how to stay productive and using time management skills to keep your writing on track.

 

Do you need an author assistant? What do they do? If you have wondered whether you need to get help in your author business, this article is for you.

 

Colleen Story has a great article on the 5 things a writer can’t control- This is a good pointer for what to let go of for your mental health.

 

Sue Coletta has written about how she parted ways with her Traditional publisher and why. This is a story I have heard from other authors. It starts off well and then production values drop, editors stop editing and then the relationship fails.

 

Kris Rusch has a new series looking at niche marketing. Do you know your niche market? (Do you know how to pronounce the word niche properly?*) Many writers are still following old publishing ways of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Sometimes a smaller focussed approach is better. 

 

Tiffany Yates Martin explores whether writing in deep 3^rd person is actually a point of view or just really layered writing. Do you even know when you are writing in it?

 

In The Craft Section,

Using crisis to reveal character- September Fawkes- Bookmark

How good is your writing-Allison Williams- Bookmark

How to hurt your characters- Liz Generally

Coming up with the perfect character name- Emmanuel Natif

How you can be a better author with the snowflake method- Written Word Media- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

How to talk publicly about writing- James Preston- Bookmark

Do pre orders affect release day sales?- Jackie Karneth

Using blogger book reviews- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

Creative ideas for book events- Penny Sansevieri

How authors can use Bookfunnel- Joanna Penn Interview with Damon Courtney- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

The Winter/Summer Solstice is this week and many traditions use this time to reflect and plan or celebrate the turning of the seasons. If you want to give yourself a gift over Solstice check out these two amazing bundles of writing craft goodies.

The Info Stack of writing resources has a super abundance of high quality courses with lifetime access’, books, K-lytics reports etc for a one time fee of $49-Limited time only.

 

The Storybundle of writing craft books, available for two weeks with a great selection of books on writing, productivity, short stories… curated by Kris Rusch. These bundles are always great value.

 

Happy Solstice.

 

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 Selvan B on Unsplash

 

(* There are two different ways to say it depending on where you come from.)

Looking Back

This week in publishing news…

Publishers Weekly had a long form article asking is the publishing industry broken? Every few years there is a variation on this theme that has everyone looking deeply into their coffee cups and pronouncing the end of print, or reading, or too much entertainment competition. This article looks at the plight of young publishing professionals and the less than sympathetic reactions of their bosses. Something has got to change. Will it be publishing culture? With an overwhelming monocultural workforce and the increasing consolidation of publishing houses, there is a real worry that the breadth of views and discourse is being lost. 

 

Meanwhile, Bertelsmann, the parent company of Penguin Random House, released their 6 month report for 2022. It was scanned extensively by the rest of the publishing world for the trends and directions which have affected the world’s biggest publisher. Backlist is king! Everything is OK.

Sort of. 

Supply challenges and currency exchange problems have hurt but audio is continuing strongly. Publishing Perspectives respectfully reports on Marcus Dohle’s rousing speeches to the imprint CEO’s. 

Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard brings his own more astringent view on the how the world’s biggest publisher is conducting business.

 

There are whispers of a new serialization app being developed that will bring together everyone’s backlist and be the solution that everyone has been waiting for, even if you didn’t know you were waiting for it. Publishing Perspectives has the scoop from the app developers involved.

 

The SPA girls podcast is appointment listening for me and this week the team were talking amongst themselves about how to find out what works for you. This is a great pep talk about not trying everything in writing, editing, and publishing.

Staying with the SPA girls – they recently interviewed Emilia Rose on how she is managing to be a 6 figure author through serialization. This is a fascinating dive into a different world of publishing where the young people are changing the game. 

 

Tom Bentley is guest posting on Jane Friedman’s blog about being persistent as a writer. Even if you are weary and feeling like you are creeping through treacle, just showing up for 100 words can add up to a book. 

 

Anne R Allen has a great article on short stories using advice from C S Lewis. This is an excellent article that got me thinking about the craft of the short form. 

 

In The Craft Section,

The conflict box- Jennie Crusie- Bookmark

5 similarities between your hero and villain- Sue Coletta

5 must-haves for a great ending- Gilbert Bassey- Bookmark

How to world build on the page- GoldenMay editing - Bookmark

One stop for writers resources- Angela Ackerman

 

In The Marketing Section,

Two great posts from Penny Sansevieri- 8 Essential recommendations for book launches and 7 reasons your book isn’t selling on Amazon- Bookmark

Twitter communities- Sandra Beckwith

5 reasons to use Amazon preorders- Dale Roberts_ Bookmark

Titles that sell have keywords and metadata- Darcy Pattison

 

To Finish,

Today is my 700^th post on the Craicer blog. I couldn’t have imagined my blog hitting this anniversary when I started posting weekly in 2008. Along the way I have published 10 books, run two national conferences, delivered speeches, judged the National Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, won The Betty Gilderdale Award for outstanding service to NZ children’s literature, been syndicated, learned and learned and learned about publishing and the international publishing world from my little corner down under. I am in constant awe of the many people who give their time freely to talk about this crazy addictive world of publishing. I don’t have much money but I have time and passion and interest in sharing what I’m learning every week. If you have been with me from the beginning I salute you. 

Let’s Eat CAKE.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed with marketing notes as a thank you. 

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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