Sustaining The Words

This week was 'the after week' of one of Indie Publishings biggest conferences, 20 Books Vegas. Nearly 1000 indie authors and publishers  got together to look at best practice and share thoughts about publishing. Already the plan is to significantly ramp up the conference for  November 2020 with news today that it will expand to 1500 attendees. After 20 Books, attendees go home heads stuffed with learning and plans, they share their thoughts and takeaways on social media. To give you a little sample- here is a link to Dean Wesley Smith's keynote on having a sustainable writing career. Absolutely must watch!

The Returns system is often called flawed because it can encourage waste of epic proportions. Publishers are locked into big publishing runs and then Booksellers get locked into taking huge amounts of books, which they can’t sell so they get returned for a credit at the publishers. Often those books are in such a poor state they need to be dumped or pulped... a scheme ripe for graft as one enterprising bookseller, now in court, found out.

If by lucky chance the books are returned in good condition they can be on sold quietly to Big Bad Wolf- A book retailer in Asia known for the huge discount booksales fairs. BBW have just celebrated 10 years in the business with the startling prediction that in the next 5 years they WILL be selling 1 billion books.

The New Publishing Standard have been trying to find out just how big the book market is in China. All indications are that the market is seriously underrated. If you take Amazon and their bookselling dominance and then look at Alibaba- the eastern equivalent- they must sell books as well. The fact that Alibaba recently clocked up 1 billion dollars in sales in 68 seconds-( yes, that is not a typo,) indicates that if the book market was proportionally as big as Amazon’s then it must be huge!

It’s the middle of November and NaNo WriMo is getting serious. If you have the mid month writing blues check out these prompts. 

Or gamify your sprints with 4thewords- and slay some monsters while adding more words to your daily total.

Or read this inspiring article on the secret of writing success by Diana Wink.

The secret life of an audiobook narrator was an interesting read. Nobody prepares you for the fact that you can’t read the words you have written. It’s harder than you think-says Bill Bryson.

Are you a push writer or a pull writer? This is a thoughtful read about motivation and getting the words down.

In The Craft Section,

How to add dimension to your story- September Fawkes Bookmark

What micro tension is and how to master it – C S Lakin- Bookmark

6 tips to descibe place- Now Novel

How to overcome fear as a writer- K M Weiland

Writing a series, 7 Do’s and Don’ts-  Kassandra Lamb- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Do you know what book awards are out there you can enter?- Bookbub

How to write a blog post people read- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

How to DIY an audiobook- Renee Conoulty and Sacha Black- Bookmark

Prerequisites of author marketing success- Joanna Penn

Email sign up forms- Blogging wizard

To Finish,

A Reedsy rep emailed me, this week, to tell me about a new plot generator that they had developed. 

So much fun!  When you are in the middle of NaNo WriMo and you need some inspiration to crack on with the final 20,000 words...check it out for inspiration or even just your next project!

Don’t Forget the Storybundle NaNo collection of Writing craft books- only available until the end of November.

Maureen

@craicer

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter. If you want the best of my bookmarked links every month, you can subscribe and you will also get a nifty mini book crammed full 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. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Promoting Books? Get Reading!

In Publishing News this week...

Publishers Weekly reports that Amazon is reducing it’s buy in from publishers to make space in its warehouses. Should publishers be concerned? It’s only going into the busiest weeks of the year for sales...

Staying with Amazon, they have launched a new marketplace for teachers resources. Now all those nifty resources that you make for your classroom can be sold online to other teachers.

The Macmillan CEO came out to defend their library embargo to librarians. Publishers Weekly reports librarians wern’t impressed. Read the article and think about how someone in the publishing industry could get it so wrong.

On the other side of the world Sharjah International Book Fair has just wrapped up. TNPS reports that they broke their record and had over 2 million people attend. Meanwhile down the road The Algiers Bookfair, on at the same time, reported declining numbers. They only had just over 1 million. TNPS are doing a fantastic job of showing how many potential readers are out there.  

It’s been a busy week around here as another child prepares to spread her wings and fly to the other side of the world. More of my family will be overseas than at home for the next few months. I have swapped writer duties for mother/lifecoach/cheerleader/travel organiser mode. Juggling life has shot my November writing goals out of the water. Oh for a bit of silence I thought so I was interested to read this article about writers and silence that might not be golden. Do you crave silence to write or is it a trek down to the local coffee shop?

Should writers be perfectionists? Kelsey Engen has 10 ways perfectionism kills the writer and 10 ways it doesn’t (Which side of the fence are you on?)

Recently the Guardian had an opinion piece from a crime writer who was taken to task by a concerned citizen about the content of his novels. Writing crime meant he condoned it.  Hmmm. Where does the line stop between the writing and the author?

What makes readers give an unknown author a chance? Barbara Probst posed this question to a whole range of reader groups and reported her findings in an interesting article on Jane Friedman’s site. Yes, the book is judged by the cover but that wasn’t all.

Are you setting goals for 2020? (I’m ducking for cover as I can hear the screams that we’ve only just got into November...) Stephen Spatz makes a case for planning your reading goals early. You do read don’t you?

In The Craft Section,

Character descriptions- Avoid the boring stuff- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

Surprise your reader in every scene- September Fawkes - Bookmark

Identifying your characters fatal flaw- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

5 Misunderstandings that keep writers from Plotting- Mary Buckham

What really drives your characters- Jim Dempsey

In The Marketing Section,

Cover reveal checklist-Bookbub- Bookmark

Finding competing book titles- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

The amazon super url and how it can kill your reviews

Copywriting formulas- Blogging wizard- Bookmark

Free tools for podcasting

To Finish

Penny Sansevieri has a great post on using video for book promotion ideas. It doesn’t have to be hard she says. There are some nifty sites out there who can help put together something fun. Bookmark this article and play with Book Promo for 2020.

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 full 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. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons- Kimba Howard

Writing- Ready or Not

It is nearly the witching hour. The time when the clock ticks forward into a new month. The month where writers around the world glance feverishly at their word counts and cheer or despair as the count climbs closer to the goal of 50,000 words. NaNoWriMo has begun.

So for those of you about to launch into the month of writing madness you might like Quick and Dirty Writing Tips from Melissa Donovan. Janice Hardy also has updated her post about ten things to remember if you want to be published.
And if you need any productivity or craft book help don’t forget to check out the Storybundle of great craft books especially for NaNoWriMo.

Everyone else.... Normal Transmission Will Resume Shortly.

This week The New Publishing Standard (TNPS) highlighted a couple of interesting developments. First was the launch of a new subscription service for Harry Potter fans. How can this be a new development you ask. Well back in the day, J K Rowling didn’t sell her ebook rights. And then went on to create a whole website experience around them. It was groundbreaking at the time in terms of fan engagement but also a lesson in how to really market your IP. The subscription service takes it up another notch and TNPS thinks this may become the future for books... 
Second, from TNPS was the news that Publishers Weekly was getting into the paid review game. Regardless of what you think about the ethics of paid reviews, there are some high-end book review sites that do this. Kirkus charges steeply to have a review. TNPS has some interesting comments to make about value for money.

There are some big writing conferences coming up. Kris Rusch, this week, looked at the bane of the writer – Giving Speeches. How do you manage public speaking events? How do you know you are any good? When is the writer off stage in public... (hint: Never.)
Check out her good advice. 

Ruth Harris has a great post on backlist. Have you given a thought to your backlist? Have you shown it some love? This week I reprinted my first book in The Circus Quest Series and took the chance to update the series page in the back of the manuscript. I have been noticing that Traditional Publishers are combing backlists more. They are discovering there is money to be made by slapping them up as ebooks. If they can do this why don’t you? Time to check your contracts.

The Alliance of Independent Authors has a great blog you should drop into. Recently, John Doppler, their contract watchdog posted about the ten most common contractual pitfalls he has seen.  The title of the blog is a great rule of thumb to assess a contract- Who does your publishing contract protect?

In The Craft Section,

Elements of plot development- NowNovel- Bookmark

Creating an Interesting character

On The Nose Dialogue- K M Weiland- Bookmark
2 Great posts from Janice Hardy The science of pacing and Busting Outline Myths – Bookmark Both.

In The Marketing Section,

Content marketing for Fiction and Non Fiction- Alli Blog-Bookmark

Bookbub ads for design inspiration

Improve author website search engine optimisation – The Creative Penn

Free Book Marketing tools- WrittenWord Media

Book marketing tips-1976write

How to promote your book on a shoestring- Prowriting aid- Bookmark

To Finish,

It’s the last day of October and if you are wracking your brains on where to start with NaNoWriMo about to begin, check out Bang To Write’s comprehensive post with loads of graphics about all the ways you can structure your story. Pick one and get started. I’m cheering you on!

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 full 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. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons –  Erik Drost 

Feed your Mind

This week in the publishing blogosphere The New Publishing Standard was looking at the Beijing Book Fair which kicks off next week. It is looking bigger than any other book fair at the moment. This is a really interesting read. Book sales are on the up in China, with the English language now being taught in state schools. The next decade promises interesting book publishing times outside of America. 
Edit: Late addition, the impact the America China trade war on publishing from Publishing Perspectives

Leapfrog nations are also embracing reading- on mobile phones. Cape Verde shows what the future hold for Book Publishers. The world is moving a lot faster than your print technology.

Somebody poked Google and it woke up. With everyone wondering if any of the other big tech companies would take on Amazon Publishing… Google decided to join the party and fix its royalty rates for Google Play. (However, if they really wanted to play big… as Jim Kukral from The Sell More Books Podcast says... Google needs to offer 100% royalties for a while – That will be the game changer!)

Google might be too late to take on Amazon. The Atlantic published an essay this week on how Amazon wants to conquer the world of publishing. It’s all about subscriptions… and how much they can tie you into their marketplace.

Meanwhile, Wattpad and Penguin Random House have been talking. Wattpad Books has inked a publishing deal with PRH. Their books are due to hit next month. Out of the gate first, are Young Adult titles.

Cory Doctorow has an interesting article on whether James Daunt can turn around Barnes and Noble. First, treat your stores like Indies… (How about giving the workers a living wage?)

Kris Rusch continues her look at licensing and this week’s post is another great one on mindset. Do we as writers expect success or rejection? Our mindset will control whether we take advantage of new learning or we don’t. This is a must-read post.

The fabulous Anne R Allen has a guest post from Sue McGinty about Book Marketing at home. How are you making sure that the people in your home town know about your books? As always, read the comments for some more great ideas for bookselling at home.

In The Craft Section,

The three-act sequence- Shaunta Grimes- Bookmark

What is external conflict?- Kristen Kieffer

4 ways to write a better novel- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

Masterful Character description – C S Lakin

How to cure mid-novel sag- James Scott Bell

Conflict- taking advice from the wrong person- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

Editing tips- The Write Life- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Two great posts from The Creative Penn Blog- How to sell more at author events and 5 ways to stand out as an author on social media – Bookmark Both!

Two great posts from Bookbub Insights- Book launch checklist and Promote your book before it’s published- Bookmark Both!

17 Book marketing tips- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

A simple trick to find your target audience- Writers Digest

To Finish,

When you are bootstrapping your author business – you always have an eye out for tips and tricks that might save you time and money. Written Word Media, besides operating some nifty book promo lists, have also got a list of free tools that you might want to check out. I use some of these… especially Canva. 
If you write for children you should dip into the SCBWI Conference blog. The big LA gathering finished this week and they live blog their conference. Run your eye down the list of keynotes and panels on the right-hand side to feast your brain on.

Maureen
@craicer

My monthly newsletter is coming soon, where I round up the best of the best links.
When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed full 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. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Pic: Foodista- Berries

Conquering The Mountain

A couple of news items caught my eye this week in publishing. 
First, a shot across the Audible bows from the big four publishers over Audibles new speech to text captions on its audiobooks. Audible is claiming it's an AI message service. The publishers are saying it is equivalent to ebook publishing. So how does Amazon, who owns Audible see this? They tried something similar in 2009 and backed down from the publisher's wrath back then... but ten years on and who is the biggest player in town?

Last weekend I hosted a day-long mini-conference on publishing and one of the sessions I programmed was collaboration. This is becoming more of a thing in the Indie world and anything that encourages groups of people to work together must be a good thing... Publish Drive has just launched a new service that helps collaborators. Abacus. It splits the money at source and so one person doesn’t get lumbered with all the tricky maths on royalty payments to a group. 

Mike Shatzkin took a look at the last ten years of the book publishing industry and notes the major turning points on the way. Ipads... Borders... and the growth of Amazon from 5th in book sales to over 50% of the book sales.

While the publishing eyes focussed on the West it is wise to keep an eye out on the East. This is where The New Publishing Standard is so valuable. Who knew there was such a book hungry market out there... not the regular publishers. The latest figures out say that Nigeria has eclipsed Japan to be the 6th largest online nation. Paper books have always been the standard in Nigeria, I wonder what will happen when they find out they can read on their phones. TNPS is launching a new newsletter just looking at the rise of African readers. While they are doing that they are also examining the subscription model. They only see good things ahead for subscription. It’s all about discovery.

Jane Friedman has a guest post from David Woghan on why self-publishers should consider their own imprint. I like to use the term Indie publishers. If you are contracting editors, cover designers, proofreaders, etc then you are acting like a traditional publisher. You are managing the production process. Traditional Publishers outsource much of their editing and design work so you can find the exact same people that traditional publishers use.  Maybe you should be thinking about imprints a lot earlier on. David talks a lot about Bowker rules. 
(If you are in NZ you can get free ISBN’s and you should.)

Anne R Allen has a great post this week on the 8 reasons why your manuscripts are getting rejected. It is not personal. You may be guilty of presenting a manuscript with a few of these errors. 

In The Craft Section,

Why editing matters- WriterUnboxed

Letting your antagonist drive the plot- Writers Digest- Bookmark

Layering characters for believable fiction- Victoria Mixon- Bookmark

On Core Story- Donna Macmeans- Bookmark

3 reasons to use timestamps in your novel

5 popular tropes writers struggle with – Mythcreants- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

3 secrets to effective landing pages- Nate Hoffelder- Bookmark

2 great posts from Penny Sansevieri 10 Bookcover rules- and Securing Amazon Reviews- Bookmark

Custom books cards- Bookbrush- Bookmark

Booklaunch for maximum sales- Bookbub- Bookmark

To Finish

Elizabeth Spann Craig always brings a note of sanity to the publishing process. It must be because she is a cozy mystery writer. This week she has a great post on author overwhelm. What can you do when your To-Do List looks and feels like a mountain. How do you tackle the writing life then? Break it down. A mountain is only climbed one step at a time. 

Maureen
@craicer

Hmm, I thought I would get the newsletter out this week… This weekend for sure! So if you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter Go on and Subscribe. You will also get a nifty mini book crammed full 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. I appreciate virtual coffee love. 

Or you can head over to Smashwords and pick up my books which are on sale at the moment. Just go to my books website. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons – Paxson Woelber

Where’s The Money?

In the publishing blogosphere this week...

The New Publishing Standard (TNPS) keeps an eye on the global news of publishing. Sometimes we forget that there is a whole world out there in publishing not just the UK or the US. This week they highlighted that many EU countries are dropping the high VAT taxes on ebooks. Good news for authors and readers. However, there is always a holdout. (Quick, guess who?) 
TNPS also reports that Big Bad Wolf has set up their tenth market in South Korea with 2 million English language books in an 11-day sale. (If you haven’t caught up with BBW they sell remaindered books from publishers, often reported as pulped.) 

A bookstore owner in New York wrote a plaintive open letter to the New York City Hall asking for assistance to stay in business. It is in the cities best interests to have bookstores because of the value to the community... therefore the city should subsidise them? Agree? Disagree? 

Meanwhile, over in the UK, the Guardian reports that print sales are down...but Audio Books are a runaway success. Of course, publishers are ready and able to take advantage of the new surge in the popularity of audio. (cue contract rights grabs...)

Anne R Allen has been blogging for ten years. Yes, it was a surprise to me too. Her fabulous blog is always a must read. She shares her ten takeaways over ten years. 
Colleen Story has an interesting blog. Recently she took a look at imposter syndrome. Do you feel you are a real writer?
I’m a regular listener of podcasts, Rose Ernst has rounded up the 29 best Indie publishing episodes of all time. All my favourite podcasts are in there and a few new ones I must check out. *Waves to the SPA girls- NZ’s popular publishing podcast who made the list!*

Kris Rusch continues her series of blog posts examining all the opportunities for authors at the recent licensing expo. This blog post is a must-read for authors. Please read it and think about the implications. I remember many years ago hearing a romance writer explain to me that she was in the entertainment industry. This blog post absolutely explains how writers have never understood what assets they actually have.

Kathleen McCleary often bases her characters on real people. Many writers shy away from doing this. Kathleen shares how you can do this successfully with her blog post-  Be Careful or You’ll End Up In My Novel.

In The Craft Section,

The most common mistakes- Nathan Bransford

Six mistakes that can kill a plot-Mythcreants- Bookmark

What does plot reveal character mean? Jami Gold Bookmark

Briefing your beta readers

Writing characters with personality- Writer Unboxed

Subplots – Scott Myers - Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

5 ways to increase sales with Instagram

How to conquer Linkedin- Frances Caballo

Author websites with stellar designs- Bookbub- Bookmark for ideas!

How I helped this author grow her platform from scratch- Dan Blank

Bookmarketing- nonstore events- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

To Finish,

The Creative Penn is always a resource of interesting ideas. Lately, Joanna has been turning her blog over to some great guest posters. This weeks guest post is all about creative writing tools... and no it is not the fancy pen.
Another must-look-at tool is the Beginners guide to Indie jargon for Book Marketing. This is not just a glossary but is a fabulous link list to the best articles explaining what each jargon term means. If you have always wondered what a CTA is... 

Maureen
@craicer

My monthly newsletter got delayed. I promise it is coming! If you want to get the best of my bookmarked links you can subscribe here. You will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you.
If you’re feeling generous and you like the blog, shout me a coffee by hitting the coffee button up top.
Thanks.

New Lamps for Old

This week as the news of Barnes and Nobles purchase dribbled out, there was a taking stock over whether their saving was a good thing. On the whole, it was seen as positive but pundits are still taking a wait and see approach. The news that Waterstones staff felt their wages were too low even in the face of their CEO saying they got a ‘stimulating job’ to make up for it went over as well as you could expect.

News of another screw-over arrived from the Digital Reader. Libraries are smarting. Publishers have been changing the terms of access to ebooks by libraries. In the past six months, three publishers have changed access from perpetual access (at way over hardback prices) to access for two years (at way over hardback prices.) One way to kill ebook lending.

Remember when Audible annoyed the romance writers over the horrible terms of their subscription offering and writers left the service in droves. After all, getting pennies when it had cost you thousands to record an audiobook wasn’t very fair. We’ll do better said Audible. They relaunched their audio subscription with a new name... but it could be the same old... 

The New Publishing Standard is expanding its offering. They are backed by Streetlib who operate out of Italy. Streetlib are keen to open up the rest of the world to digital publishing.  They have committed to Africa where they see the next big market for books. (Just remember all the Commonwealth countries in there...) So a dedicated newsletter for the African publishing market is about to be launched.

Marketing is always a tricky subject for authors. It is hard to put on your marketing hat when you’ve just spent ages with the creative hat on. Two interesting blog posts caught my eye this week for authors wrestling with email marketing. How to improve your email marketing and 14 content ideas for emails. Go forth and improve.

I try to get up and move around every half hour or so when I’m writing. But when you are in the flow sometimes you can forget to do this. Here is a timely reminder from one writer about what could happen if you don’t pay attention. Read it, it could save your life!

How often do you think outside the book? Are you thinking print, ebook, hardback, audio, gaming, movie, voice search, streaming, podcast... If your eyebrows lifted, check out Kris Rusch’s blog post on the licensing expo she has just attended. Joanna Penn’s guest, Makoto Takudome, shows how easy it is to get Amazon Polly to make your book into a podcast. 
Voice search and audio content are here to stay. How can authors use them to tell stories? There’s a new outfit making bite-sized stories for Alexa to read out. They need writers. 

In The Craft Section,

10 writing blogs to check out

Writing the anti-villain- Reedsy- Bookmark

Conflicts and goals in romance- Jami Gold- Bookmark

Goal orientated storytelling tension- Chris Winkle

5 ways to keep readers glued-  H R D’Costa- Bookmark

Two punctuation blunders – Anne R Allen- Upskill Here!

In The Marketing Section

How to get easy author publicity-Rachel Thompson

Getting paid to talk- Events after publication -Emma Darwin

Ten business models for Indie authors- Orna Ross

5 Book marketing strategies- Barbara Freethy- Bookmark!

7 ways to Make more money from your books- Leslie Millar- Bookmark

To Finish,

Jillyanne Hamilton has put together 20 super writing and publishing resources to help you make your book shine. Some of the resources will be familiar to you as I mention some people frequently but there are some new ones in the mix you might like to check out. 
Collaboration is the way of the future. Think artists collectives, Indie publishing houses, or just getting some like-minded friends together to take on the world. 

Maureen
@craicer

My monthly newsletter will be going out soon. If you want to get the best of my bookmarked links why don’t you subscribe? You will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you.
If you like the blog, you can shout me a coffee by hitting the coffee button up top.
This blog runs on coffee and love so I really appreciate all the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Literary Citizens - Thinking Beyond Borders

This has been a terrible week. 
For my international readers, NZ had a terrorist attack perpetrated by a white supremacist from another country. 50 citizens and visitors to our country were killed along with 50 wounded. For a country of nearly 5 million people, with about 2 degrees of separation, the scale of the tragedy is like 4000 people killed in the United States of America. Today our government made it illegal to own a semi-automatic military-style weapon or magazine, effective immediately.

As a nation, we have been forced to look at ourselves in the mirror. Could we have done more to call out hate speech and racism? As we all reflect on some harsh truths, our leaders have been quick to act, to demand that we not say the name of the attacker or anything he espoused. To make funds available for flights and funeral costs to victims families. To extend visas to people caught up in the tragedy of Christchurch. As messages poured in from around the world we were reminded that the world is smaller due to Social Media. 

Social Media brought out the best of our global citizenry with donations, food, flights, and vigils all being quickly organised. But Social Media companies were shown to be the worst global citizens when they failed to stop the hate message video that was live streamed by the terrorist despite trumpeting how good they were at policing their sites.
Many NZ companies have withdrawn advertising from the big social media accounts who failed us on Friday. Many Kiwi’s are closing their FB accounts disgusted with the non-appearance of Mark Zuckerberg to explain why FB failed to stop the video being shared around the world. 

I have been thinking about Global Citizenry a lot this week. In the publishing blogosphere, we can become very Western focussed in our publishing thinking. There is a huge market of readers out there in the rest of the world. I follow The New Publishing Standard and Mark Williams, the editor, recently got in touch to comment on my blog post of two weeks ago with some updated figures which he graciously said I could put in todays blog post.

"In fact our StreetLib author & publisher portal roll-out is at 75 countries this week and will top 100 in April. We hope to have the entire world enfranchised with a publishing portal later this year.’ 
(The underline is mine.) Mark went on to add...

"Globally there are over 4 billion people online but only 11% of them are in the US and UK. The global book market is worth over $143 billion and 70% of that is outside the USA. The global book markets are incredibly exciting right now, and growing fast. By one estimate that $143 billion valuation for 2017 could be $356 billion by 2022.

Globally TNPS tracked over 50 million people attending book fairs last year outside the US/UK, and came nowhere near covering all.

This past week the Big Bad Wolf book sale ended in Jakarta, Indonesia. It's the world's biggest book sale. 5.5 million books on sale 24/7 for eleven days. I don't have this year's final numbers yet but in 2018 750,000 visitors crammed in to buy books. 4.5 million of those 5.5 million books were in English. Such was the demand that BBW had to make two more trips to Indonesia in 2018.
Big Bad Wolf last year shipped over 30 million English language books to countries like Thailand, Sri  Lanka, Taiwan, Dubai, Indonesia, Philippines and this year is aiming at 60 million. Earlier this year BBW took 1 million English-language books to Myanmar (Burma)."

Mark sent me many more facts and figures and they make eye-popping reading. But to give you a hint check out one of his latest articles on what Streelib is doing in Africa.

For those people wondering about where Big Bad Wolf sources their books... they are remaindered copies onsold by the publisher. If you are a Trad published writer this will leave a bitter taste in your mouth as authors receive no money for remaindered books. 

As I am a children’s book writer I’m always interested in what trends are on the watch list at Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy. 

Jane Friedman has an interesting post on Beta Readers. They come in all shapes and sizes.

In The Craft Section,

Writing the first draft- Go Into The Story

Goal oriented storytelling- Chris Winkle- Bookmark

Pet the dog signpost scene- DIYMFA- Bookmark

Finding the perfect title for your book- Alli Blog- Bookmark

Coming up with Scene ideas

In The Marketing Section,

Book Marketing assets and processes- Orna Ross

4 Facebook ad techniques- Luke Heinecke

Book sales description- Joanna Penn- Bookmark

Successful Self-publishing- Creatif writing- Bookmark

Social Media Hashtags for Authors

A few things to know about blurbs- Pub Crawl

To Finish,

Michael Seidlinger from Melville House wrote in a blog post this week about literary citizenship and giving back to the literary community. One of our exemplary literary citizens is Joanna Penn. She has just celebrated ten years of podcasting. This is a phenomenal achievement. Her anniversary podcast is great listening and she announces that she is adding a new podcast on The Creative Penn on books and travel. Congratulations Joanna!! 

Maureen
@craicer

In my monthly newsletter, due this weekend,  I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. If you want to shout me a coffee hit the Kofi button up top. Thanks. I appreciate virtual coffee love.

Pic: The NZ iconic silver fern, which is a real plant, was redrawn this week by Pat Cambell in the Canberra Times as Muslims going to prayer. (Heart Broken.)

It’s all about language...

This week in the publishing blogosphere... I was struck by how many times I was reading important articles about language. 

Language as a weapon against bias.

Language as a priviledge.

Language in education.

Which is better- Short capsules of meaning or long explanatory paragraphs? 

The ability to use language correctly is a touchstone for the writer.

This week Chuck Wendig was fired from his writing job with Marvel and Star Wars. The reason... they had finally discovered he uses colourful language on Twitter. It has nothing to do with the ongoing Twitter rage and abuse felt by a section of the community over Chuck introducing an LBGTQ character in his Star Wars books apparently.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Publishing Perspectives interviewed Pieter Swinkel from Kobo about the rise of book serialisation and subscription models in Europe. Are they creating readers? What about binge culture?

Kris Rusch always has an eye to the future and her lengthy time in all facets of publishing gives her the ability to clearly see and articulate what is happening and likely to happen. This week she looks at Barnes and Noble. Are we about to see the end of the chain bookstore model?

The New Publishing Standard is fast becoming a must read. They focus on the global publishing industry and are not UK/US centric. The rise in AI translators has been rapid. This week they report a Chinese language book has been translated by an AI with 95% accuracy. Stop and think of the implications to publishing. (Last weeks blog had a very interesting post on whether translators should be seen as original writers.)

Dave Kudler was thrilled to be referenced in a recent podcast with Dave Chesson and Joanna Penn. He has done some in depth study on keywords. If you are studying or working with keywords and ads for marketing books this article is a must read. It expands some ideas in the podcast which is a must listen/read. 

The fabuous Katie Weiland has a magical post about the power of language to expand and illuminate ideas. How to Cherish Language. This is a fantastic post.

Joanna Penn has a great interview with Bec Evans on how to be a prolific writer. There are some great ideas and tips in this interview.

In The Craft Section,

How can you tell if your idea is worth it?- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

4 Common copyediting issues to watch for- Julie Glover

11 tips on how to scare your readers- Litreactor

3 tricks to instantly increase your writing speed- Self Publishing Formula

Creating Villain Motivations- Now Novel- Bookmark

How to outline without killing the fun of writing- Roz Morris- Bookmark

Capturing Complex Emotion- Tamar Sloan- Bookmark

When abandoning your novel makes sense

Why does learning writing take so long?- Writers in the storm-Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Two interesting posts from the Ingram Spark blog- How to market your book with Author Speaking and What Authors can learn from Youtube stars.

Preorder Strategies- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

How to perform not just read your book- Writer Unboxed

A marketing exercise for critique groups- WomenOnWriting- Bookmark!

Do Bookbub members buy at full price?

What you are doing wrong on Twitter - Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

To Finish,

Shannon Hale is an award winning author of a popular series of books – Princess Academy. Here she writes in the Washington Post about the way books are presented to boys and how we unintentionally stop them from reading with the way we introduce books to them. Are we guilty of unconscious gender bias? Changing the language we use around boys and reading could be the magic trick that encourages life long readers. 

Maureen

@craicer

In my monthly newsletter I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. 

Pic Flicker Creative Commons- Yandle