In the children’s publishing world Bologna Children’s Book
Fair is the big date on the annual calendar. It is just finishing as I write so
all the commentaries about the fair will be out during the week. However
Publishers Weekly has a day one impressions piece. In other Children’s Book
News, today the brilliant Meg Rosoff won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for her career achievements.
This week Hugh Howey gave an interview for DBW where he set
out in his forthright way what the publishers should be doing now and into the
future.
Mike Shatzkin, who programmes the DBW conference, then
replied in his forthright way where he thought Hugh was right and where he thought Hugh was completely wrong.
Both of these articles are good reads. As always read the
comments where you get a fuller sense of the conversations around both points of
view.
Two people who have much to say on publishing and writing
are Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. They both keep a sharp eye on
the industry and have tremendous business smarts.
Kris is starting a new Business Musings series on Contracts and specifically deal breakers in contracts. Kris starts out by saying she was
hoping that contracts would have improved in the three years since she wrote
her book on Contracts but sadly they haven’t. With Author Societies calling for
fairer contracts in the US and UK, writers need to keep these posts in their
must read list.
Dean has a tremendous work ethic and works hard at
explaining the writing business. He doesn’t suffer fools and has nothing to
prove to anyone. This week he was a little taken aback when he was accused of devaluing the novel art-form because he wrote a novel in a week. Riiiiight.
Joel Friedlander is another publishing practitioner who has
a must read blog. This week he looks at what Self Publishers can do when they find their books have been pirated.
Nathan Bransford still has interesting things to say about
the publishing business. This week he comments on a New York Times article about focus groups being asked to read unpublished novels and mark where they
stopped reading so the publishers can figure out how much money to spend on
marketing.
In the Craft Section,
Making your plot less episodic- The Editors Blog-Bookmark
Making a series outline- Better Novel Project-Bookmark
Dramatic momentum or End of Chapter buttons-Writers in the
Storm-Bookmark
How to write an epilogue that works- KM Weiland
In the Marketing Section,
Lindsay Buroker on finding more categories for your keywords
Promote a new release by marketing a series-Megg Jensen
-
Bookmark
BadRedheadMarketing AKA Rachel Thompson on her top author marketing tips
To Finish,
This coming week Beverley Cleary turns 100 years old. Her
books have touched the lives of millions of children around the world. We all
love Henry and Ribsy, Beezus and Ramona and a whole cast of characters from
neighbourhoods just like ours. She has had a remarkable publishing career which
started when one little boy marched up to her library desk and asked 'where are
the stories about kids like me.'
Maureen
@craicer
Pic: Beverley Cleary Born 12 April 1916
