Showing posts with label Lithub. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lithub. Show all posts

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Are We Really Scoring?

 


In Publishing News this week...


The fall out from the Hugo Award controversy has continued (see last week) and now members of the committee have been pushed out the airlock. Locus Magazine has the news release on who and why the award committee members have got the chop.

 

Gobbling up smaller publishers is still a menu item. Publishers Weekly reports Greenleaf partnering with Wonderwell. Partnering implies equal status … No. If you read between the lines they’ve dumped everyone, kept the name and boss to ‘run’ the imprint and terminated the authors. 

 

Goodereader has an interesting article on Spotify paying tens of millions to audiobook publishers. Everybody is waiting for someone to announce they got paid from Spotify streaming their audiobooks. Any numbers? Is it worth it? Mark Williams has his usual acerbic take on whether Spotify is good for publishing- If it takes chunks out of Audible he is all for it. Meanwhile, Audible and Storytel are tightening belts.

 

Lithub comes out on the side of Lana Bastašić who had a blistering response to a German Literary Festival dropping her letting over comments about the war in Gaza. They reprint the letters in full. Ouch!

 

Simon and Schuster are celebrating 100 years in the business. In 1924 they started with a crossword puzzle book to take advantage of the puzzle craze sweeping the world. They are profiling the most influential books they have published in 100 years. (Their founder, Richard Simon also gave the world Carly Simon - So they can be vain this once.)

 

Debbie Burke reminds us there is always more to learn about publishing, right when you think you know it all. Elizabeth Craig has a great article on Keeping up with Writing and Business. You can’t have one without the other so figure out how to use your time. She has great tips.

Sue Coletta has a great article on Mindset- writing is like turning an elephant… 

 

Ruth Harris has an interesting article on Sex. When should it be used? Is it overused?  Should you just leave the door closed? 

 

In The Craft Section,

How to write Fantasy Characters- Krystal Craiker- Bookmark


Picture Book Critique questions- Mindy Weiss


Characterize with clothing choices- Becca Puglisi


How to generate powerful story conflict- Angel Ackerman- Bookmark


How to show emotion in characters who hide their feelings- Eldred Bird- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Improve your book rank by updating book descriptions- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark


5 key areas to check to boost sales- Top Author


7 simple steps to start building your brand- Chase Neely


Book marketing overwhelm- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark


Back cover copy formula – Sue Coletta - Bookmark

 

To Finish,

Recently Draft2Digital hosted a heavy hitters podcast looking at the publishing world of 2023 and forward into 2024. Mark Coker, Orna Ross, Jane Friedman, Joanna Penn and Dale Roberts all shared their thoughts about the big things to think about in publishing and the changes occurring. Joanna termed 2024 as Year Zero. It’s a great podcast to get you thinking about your writing and publishing career going forward.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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Pic Photo by Joppe Spaa on Unsplash

Thursday, September 15, 2016

On The Journey


It must be the season for figuring out how to get people reading again. Here in NZ our Book Council published a report that said Kiwi’s weren’t reading their own fiction. Why aren’t they? Everybody has opinions. Maybe it’s because they can’t find the books in bookstores.

Hugh Howey talks about the dismal earning reports of B&N and then goes into detail about how Indie bookstores are changing the face of bookselling. This is a fantastic read and for extra reading credit check out what Hugh would do if he owned a bookstore... highly likely in the future.

So what are Bookstores selling? The Guardian wrote about The Secret DNA behind Bestsellers and talked with the writers of an algorithm that attempted to find out. They have published their findings in a ... Book.

To make the bestseller... you need word of mouth... marketing... advertising budget.. etcetc or you can just get some pods. Jane Friedman has a fascinating guest post about street teams/ mini marketing brigades of fans

What about the contracts of all those people helping you to get published. Kris Rusch winds up her deal breakers series with a comprehensive list of who and how to deal with foreign rights requests.

And that brings us right to the beginning.... The writing.
Rebecca Solnit has Ten Tips On How To Be  A Writer. They are all good.

In The Craft Section,


Giving your characters backstory- K M Weiland Bookmark

Inciting incidents – Stephen Pressfield- Bookmark

How to self edit- Now Novel-Bookmark

The pantzer outlining method – Molly Greene- Bookmark




In the Marketing Section,

Self publishing vs Traditional- Joanna Penn- Bookmark



Do writers need a FB page- Kirsten Lamb- Bookmark

How much does a book cost – Digital Book World

Social Media Care- Frances Caballo- Bookmark

To Finish,
While we are figuring out how to get our book out there... it’s a fact of a writers life that they will be spending time alone trying to figure stuff out. Daphne Grey Grant has a great post on how to work alone. Self care tips for the stressed writer. I’m off to find a warm drink... chocolate...

Maureen
@craicer


Pic : Flickr/Creative Commons /Jogendra Joshi

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