Productive Creativity

 

 In Publishing News This Week

 

The power of unions to advocate for their members is a benefit that the publishing workforce is seeing. Penguin Random House has raised base salaries. Where they lead others, hopefully, will follow, reports Publishers Weekly.

 

This week international booksellers and publishers are loud in their dismay over the arrest of two booksellers in Hong Kong. Freedom to read is often taken for granted, but there are some places where it can be a risky business.

 

Earlier this year we were lamenting the demise of the mass market paperback. Simon and Schuster have pivoted their Pocketbook, (mass market) brand to be the acquiring home of bestselling indie authors.

 

Publishers Weekly profiled a reading social platform for kids. This is a social media platform only for readers, aimed at school children, curated by their schools, but with world wide reach. Sounds amazing. Is there a catch?

 

Publishing Perspective has been following the Bologna Children’s Bookfair outreach programme. They have been building cross media partnerships everywhere. Expect animation to be a bigger part of the fair, after their recent trip to the International Animation festival.

 

The UK Publishers Licensing Service has been working with the Copyright Licensing Agency to make a collective agreement for licensing content for AI. This means publishers can get money. Over 250 publishers have signed up apparently. If you are a UK author, you can sign up too.

 

Written Word Media have the results of their mid-year author survey. They break down the results across all the author tiers, and it makes interesting reading. What works, what doesn’t, and what everyone should be doing.

 

Writer Beware has an informative article on scam email addresses. There are quick ways you can check if the email is legit. The scammers are sneaky and Victoria outlines how to spot them just in their email address. Reversed letters caught me by surprise in this comprehensive article, which is a must read!

 

I read this essay by Jaime Buckley- The Real Reason You’re Afraid To Publish and felt seen. This is one of those essays that nail the nagging feeling you have that something is wrong, but you don’t know what. 

 

Ines Johnson writes great articles on the Indie writer life. This week she is tackling the back list. Should you Update Your Backlist For Amazon’s A11 Changes? Yes… the Zon is changing again, so rumour has it. 

 

There is a great essay on Jane Friedman’s blog – Your Creative Team Wants You To Stop Formatting And Just Write The Darn Book. The authors, Sandra Wendel and Paul Nylander are speaking every typesetters pain here. Staying with writing software- Julie Artz has a great primer on Scrivener. Authors who try Scrivener quickly become evangelists for the software. Take a look at Julies article if you want to know why people rave about it.

 

Where does your creative flow come from? Gabriela Pereira has a great article on the four pillars of creative flow. How is your balance of mind work cycle, skill based learning, practice, and community? Do you need to rebalance your creativity?

 

In The Craft Section,

2 Great posts from Janice Hardy 5 ways to make your character hate you and Describing character emotions in first person –- Bookmark- Both

Write strong plots for character driven stories- September Fawkes- Bookmark

Twisting the office romance conflict- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

Sustainable writing routine- Brian Hicks- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Launching a book with confidence- Rachel Warmath- Bookmark

Manage your expectations- Sandra Beckwith

Broad vs Niche keywords- Kindlepreneur- Bookmark

Seven promotional steps- Alliance of Independent Authors- Bookmark

What’s working in podcast publicity- Jane Friedman – Bookmark

 

To Finish

All the horror writers I know are fantastic humans. Mark Leslie Lefebvre is one of those people. He is so supportive of the publishing industry and has done practically every job in it. He’s now working with Draft2Digital but he has a great blog on writing and creativity that always has a fresh perspective on writing. This week’s essay, The Trees and I,The Rooted, Yet Restless Writer just resonated on all levels. Take a moment to stop and read the essay and maybe make a date with your favourite nature view.

Creativity and a writing boost awaits.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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Photo by Bree S on Unsplash

Help In Publishing Land.

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

Good News for libraries in the United States of America this week, the appeal against the defunding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services was withdrawn. Librarians may still have jobs. Libraries may stay open, life might get back to normal in schools and institutions across the country. However, while librarians and their supporters were celebrating a watchdog agency was noting that far right book banning groups are using AI to scan books for detailed take down notices to libraries and schools. It’s a case of constant vigilance!

 

Publishers Weekly published an Op Ed Politicians should not be choosing what our children read. Danny Caine points out that this is the same argument used by both sides but the government is about to do just that with a new law being introduced in the US House of Representatives this week for debate.

 

Reuters reported that the Judge in the Bartz vs Anthropic case has frowned upon the $300 million fee to lawyers administering the settlement. And to general cheering by everyone the lawyers have agreed to reduce the fee substantially. They still pocket a lot though. 

 

I was interested to see in the Around The Book World news roundup from Publishing Perspectives about a Japanese Manga publisher beginning to publish weekly episodes of their novels in nine languages. They also want to move into publishing their novels in English. At the recent London Book Fair there was handwringing from publishers about the rise of other countries publishing their books in English instead of going through English publishers. If we can AI translate into another language, so can they. In the end it will be the marketing of these books that will make the financial difference to the publisher bottom line.

 

Next week – all eyes will be on BookCon in New York. Will it be successful? Will America finally get a national book fair again? 2 days, 250 exhibitors. Publishers Weekly wants to predict smiles all round.

 

At the same time as BookCon, Bologna Children’s Book fair will be celebrating 63 years of existence with the guest of honour- Norway. (It could have been us except our NZ politicians dropped the ball and own goaled to the derision of the children’s book community in NZ, but we don’t hold a grudge. *CoughNovemberelectionCough*) The fair is chock full of events celebrating and discussing children’s literature and literacy and what to do about AI. 

 

Last week I mentioned Harlequin partnering with an AI studio to produce microdramas. LitHub published an essay from Maris Kreizman Dear Harlequin: Nobody Asked For Your Weird New AI Video ‘Microdramas’. Maris doesn’t hold back. She mentions all the things they should be doing. Ouch! 

Mark Williams takes a different view of the news. He points out that microdramas are an $11 Billion market in Asia. Romance is just the first genre to embrace it. Genre publishers will be looking and wondering if it is a goldmine for them. 

 

Ossandra White has a thoughtful essay on what might be stopping you from creating. She runs through the usual physical discomfits and then into mental mindsets.

 

Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone was a sentence that resonated with me in the Writer Unboxed essay from Allison Winn Scotch. Five Things I Didn’t Know About Publishing Five Years Ago. Tackling a scary project could be just what you need to grow as a writer.

 

Dan Blank has a great essay on how to talk about your writing. We’ve all been there. That moment when someone asks you Have you written anything I’ve read? Aside from the clueless question- how would I know what you read… you demur and fail to mention anything you have written. Dan has some tips to turn the conversation around.

 

In The Craft Section,

How to keep the flow with Dialogue tags- Ellen Buikema

Writing Book 2- Ines Johnson- Bookmark

Seven common story problems- Collen Story- Bookmark

Internal Conflict vs External conflict- K M Weiland- Bookmark!

What Noir can teach any writer- Ruth Knafo Setton- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section

Author Photos- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

How to read your story aloud to an audience- Lynette Burrows

Plan your Marketing Quarter- Ines Johnson-Bookmark!

Substack as a marketing tool- Podcast and transcript Orna Ross- Bookmark

Crafting marketing emails- Pine State Publicity

 

To Finish,

Mark Lefebvre wrote recently about a question from a newbie writer asking for anyplace that had non-judgmental instructional resources for new writers who are worried that they were going about publishing all wrong. 

This is a fast changing behemoth business and anyone trying to dip a toe in the water of publishing is bound to flail in the water while learning not to drown. 

Mark kindly points them in the right directions from his vast experience of doing practically every job in publishing. You Don’t Have To Figure This Out On Your Own. This is a pin on the wall post to use when you get a plaintive wail from a newbie writer. ‘But what do I do?’ Answer: You read this post from Mark LeFebvre and maybe check out Maureen Crisp’s Craicer blog. *SMILE*

 

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.

 

Photo by Jude Mack on Unsplash