Catching Up

Jet lag...
Until you experience it you never can quite understand what it means. 
I now know what it means! 
Apparently flying from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere is worse. 
 I am just beginning to feel normal, four days after landing...and that is with pushing my body to get into the right time zone...drinking water and exercising etc etc. 
While I was away, mostly out of wifi reach, (using the travelsim on my phone was a nightmare.) stirring events were taking place in the world of publishing. 

So To Catch Up 

The news that Random House and Penguin were merging...took every one by surprise at the end of October. The implications of this are fairly staggering. THE BIG 6 and AMAZON are now down to the BIG 5 or is it 4? 

I caught up with current thinking about implications of this merger with The NY Times...who think they merged to fight Amazon on size (they increase market share to a quarter of all books sold.) 
The Guardian thought that this could signal the rise of the Indies and so all is not lost. 
These are two interesting articles and perspectives of what BIG 6 mergers mean to the industry...however as I was catching up with this news, yesterday rumours were beginning to surface of a merger between HarperCollins and Simon and Schuster. The WSJ has crunched the numbers on this one...so we may be seeing the cassandra prophecies of the NY Times come true. (eek) 

Mike Shatzkin all round publishing futurist and guru has commented on a few things he learned at a librarians conference and the implications thereof. The impact of apps on non fiction publishing and how Non Fiction writers had better have the App ready. 

Vertical Publishing has long been advocated by Mike and The Bookseller Blog written by the Chief Executive of Osprey Publishing takes a look at what they are doing to enhance their imprint impact. (For those of you who are interested, like me, in author collectives join the dots....) 

James Scott Bell relates his encounter with a reader in Starbucks...which highlights the real world effect of the above two links. (read read read) 

Anne R Allen puts writing into perspective when you feel you are running very fast just to stay in the same place. This blog post has resonated everywhere with writers. 

 Roz Morris has reposted her how to get a tax number from the IRS blog article updated... 

Writer Beware has a guest post on when to let a contract go...some very good advice here on how some contracts will harm you. 

Tim Ferris (the four hour guru) has had his Amazon published book banned by B and N stores. Porter Anderson takes a look at the implications of this...is it clever marketing...or does it herald a disturbing move by book stores against authors who are published by competitors...The usual chewy read from Porter.

In Marketing, 
Goodreads want to introduce a new section for authors called the premium author programme...check out what it means for you. 

Elisabeth S Craig explains how she gets a free promotion of her books without having to sign up to the KDP programme. A cunning plan!  

In the last gasp up to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, Amazon have introduced Amazon Pages where you get a customised storefront just for you on the Amazon site...hmmm think about the implications on your business of that! 

 In the Craft Section, 
The fine art of Story Resonance. This is a great article on adding depth to your story. 

Seven reasons agents stop reading your first chapter. This article tells what happened when an actress started reading out random first chapters to a panel of agents...interesting!!! 

To finish,
Tools of Change from the O’Reilly group and Publishers Weekly have posted their Author Revolution Manifesto. Take a look, do you agree....would you sign up to the revolution? 

 It is Thanksgiving day and Jill Monroe has posted her sweet potatoe casserole recipe on line to acclaim...Kiwi’s would you be able to do this to a Kumara?

maureen

pic is the interior of our local city airport. The city is hosting the world premier of a certain movie in 6 days time. Richard Taylor and his team had just finished putting this up when we arrived to fly out.

Thinking Marketing Links

I’m out and about visiting the other hemisphere...while I’m away from my usual haunts I thought you might like to take a look at good links on different subjects.

Ten links to get you thinking on MARKETING YOUR BOOK

http://www.passiveincomeauthor.com/5-clever-tactics-to-get-more-ebook-sales-per-reader/

http://www.passiveincomeauthor.com/the-uncommon-truth-about-marketing-your-books/

http://www.lindsayburoker.com/book-marketing/how-to-improve-your-ebook-sales-at-barnes-noble-

smashwords-and-itunes/

http://www.alanrinzler.com/blog/2012/03/29/book-marketing-publicity-advice-from-three-experts

http://www.authormedia.com/2012/01/16/89-book-marketing-ideas-that-will-change-your-life/

http://www.thewriterslens.com/2012/01/five-ways-to-market-indie-books.html#comment-form

http://www.writersfunzone.com/blog/2012/01/25/how-to-write-the-perfect-pitch-to-sell-your-novel-in-person/

http://blog.bookbaby.com/2012/06/promote-your-book-on-a-budget/

http://www.originalimpulse.com/blog/write-book-manifesto/

http://www.lindsayburoker.com/book-marketing/book-promotion-roundup-useful-articles-for-new-authors/

Hot of the press links for you

Craft Writing a quick first draft

Margaret Atwood is writing serial fiction

Enjoy,

Maureen

The Quest For Quality Content

There has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about ‘indie’ publishing and how many wannabe authors have jumped on the bandwagon and are happily uploading eBooks by the score. The books are badly formatted with sloppy editing and containing spelling and grammar mistakes in the hundreds. 

This plethora of dross overwhelms the Reader, who is searching for a quality read. 

The Author who has worked hard on editing, formatting and laying out a quality read, is buried in the slush. 

What To Do....

The Reader starts to look for quality filters...word of mouth...book clubs and others to make navigating to the quality content easier.

The Author is stuck in the bind of having to market and promote like crazy, to get their name out there enough, so it stays in the readers consciousness long enough for the reader to click the buy button...while trying to write more quality content.

This month the Craic book project has stalled...due to unforseen family circumstances and so I have done no marketing on Craic. I have just checked the Google search on Craic and found some new bars have opened up in New Zealand with the name of my fictional rock band...hmm wonder where they got that name from.... 

What I should be doing...

How authors can effectively use Goodreads...and doing it.

Making sure I don’t commit any of the 7 worst mistakes of the indie author.

Checking out pet peeves of marketing and vowing to get better...

Have I mastered the secret handshake of successful digital publishing.

When I find time to write more quality content I should be looking carefully at my word choice...(warning this is a Chuck post...great... but his word images are not for the faint of heart.)

I should be reading quality craft books and practising finding my 'Aha' moment. (just bought two of James Scott Bells and am preparing to throw myself into the work as I have two manuscripts to rework, one to finish and one to start...I need more quality content to follow up Craic you see...)

In my quest for quality content to read and learn from I need to look at what others have done and how they have had the stars fall into line...

Grammar Girl springs to mind, along with this TED talk by Andrew Stanton on Storytelling. (the guy who wrote Toy Story and Finding Nemo...)

A couple of agents examine middle grade fiction and what they think authors need to be aware of.

Joel the book designer has a handy post on designing your book yourself... Lets not be sloppy out there!

The Horn Book (that august filter of quality work) has turned its sights on the picture book app and has a check list of what is a quality app and what is not!

I should be checking my author platform... finding where I should be, and BEING THERE.

Somehow I need to fit this in and stay sane enough to cope with the chaos of my home at the moment. So...if I am a little distracted beer/bear/bare/ with me and I will hopefully get it all together sometime soon when I find my Wonder Woman cape and magic bracelets.

By the way Craic is available on...

 Amazon

 Barns and Noble

 iTunes

 Kobo

and Smashwords for ePub

It is a quality read....hehehe.

maureen

get your wonder woman costume here

Book Trailers - It's All Marketing

Part 3 of The Craic project: Book Trailers.

The part where Maureen becomes a movie producer....

Book trailers are the visual commercial for your book.

They have their detractors...why bother to film a commercial for the book, people will just want the movie.

They can cost mega mega dollars... if you want a good one you have to hire a proper movie producer and actors etc etc.

They have to be art forms eg Maggie Stiefvaters book trailers (all created by Maggie) and how many of us can do that?

In my talks with school librarians they tell me that if a book has a book trailer it instantly makes it marketable to kids. Librarians use the book trailer on the library website... and kids being visual beings...well you know the rest.

Start by having a look at other book trailers to see what others have done and to get some ideas. Some book trailers are all static images, some have short snippets of video...some are animated...Some are the pictures from the book itself with audio sound bites.

A book trailer does not and should not condense the whole book to 2 minutes of visuals. 

It does not need to be acted out...or filmed in a big budget way.

Entice people... Entice...Think of how you get an editor interested in your project.

Look at your back cover blurb and loglines...this is a handy start to storyboarding your book trailer. Define the images you need to convey the message you want, atmosphere, main characters, compelling plot point. But don’t tell the whole story you want to entice the reader....Repeat after me... entice... entice.

For my storyboard, I turned three pages on their side drew up a grid pattern and worked through the images and the text I wanted. I started with a little bit about character motivation...and the opening conflict point...then I added images which represented different factors...the rock stars... the security and I finished on an image that was a running gag through the story. So hopefully the book trailer would still be relevant after the reader had finished the story.

Then I imagined the finished project as if I had lots of money and I was in a darkened theatre.

I realised that I liked the image of words appearing on a screen as that fit with the whole fake online identity of one of my characters. My teen then pointed out that our computer could record text as it is written in power point. So all I had to do was type reasonably fast with no mistakes. (yeah right!)

Now you have your list of must haves and your story board sheets, it’s time to check out photo stock libraries.

This is where it costs. Can you find a cheaper image that conveys the same message? Is it a must have image?

After you have selected your images. Download them to your movie making software and play around to get the whole thing looking just right. Check the length of time you want each frame to stay on screen and how you transition from frame to frame. My movie making software took my text recordings as short videos. Don’t forget to have images of your book in the trailer, as well as where you can find out how to buy it. After all that’s why you are doing this...

Music is an important part of the book trailer. It conveys atmosphere and tension and brings a whole professional edge to the project. Finding the right music is important.

Warning! Listening to royalty free music sites is a tremendous time suck! (but oh so enjoyable... I thought about writing books to soundtracks...dubfunkreggaesoul book anyone?)

I was looking for some hard driving rock (because of the rock band motif...) but with a soft beginning...

I checked out the wonderful Kevin MacLeods Incompetech site but found the music that fit the project the best at 300 Monks. They aren’t a donation site but $27 for the perfect track isn’t too much to pay I thought.

I arranged the images and text videos and dropped the music track on to it. Then I checked the highpoints in the music track were matching the right images. (This is fairly easy to do with Apple iMovie, however I had a teen sitting next to me fixing up any mistakes I made. Tip: Have a handy teen around if you aren't familiar with the software.) 

I sorted out a credits end shot, tweaked a little, uploaded it on to YouTube and voila! It was done.

If you click on the Craic book site at the top of the sidebar you can go straight to the Craic website and view the trailer ... or skip on down to the bottom of the link roundup and have a look there...

Ah the Link Round Up...the reason I spend so much time on social media...hehehe.

This week has been the jump on Franzen week for making us all feel bad about having an ebook. Monkeysee puts the gripes into perspective.

Compelling Characters...Do you have one? Or are you kidding yourself? Check out this post from the writepractice to see if you need to up the ante. 

And what kind of hero are they? There are three to choose from now.

Character names...how do you choose the right one. Here is a great post on naming characters or yourself if you need to.

Now that you have the name and the character arc... Are you falling into a stereotype? Fantasyfiction has a great article on Alpha’s, Beta’s and Losers and wonders if the upsurge in Beta’s is because of the upsurge in woman editors...(Do women want Alpha males anymore?)

Last week I gave you a link to Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s Sell Sheet. Brian has part two up. What to do with one after you have made it...This is good solid information. (Thanks Brian)

Kristen talks about R.E.S.P.E.C.T. and the word Free as part of your marketing bag of tricks.

The writerlens has 5 ways to market indie books. 

This is expanded on in a huge way by Author Media with 89 ways to market your book.

Yup it’s all about the marketing!

So check out this book trailer for this great book! You can even go to the website and read the first chapter...(2.99 on Amazon and Smashwords.)

Serving Up Link Dinner

The first day of December and officially Summer in the Southern Hemisphere and suddenly the weather remembers that it is supposed to be hot and sunny.

Of course being the first day of December the shops go mad with Christmas decorations, Christmas music and the Christmas count down.

Every Christmas I get frustrated by the lack of Summer Christmas celebration music and decorations in the town. My kids are singing Frosty The Snowman and the mall is decorated in ice sculptures for Santa...say what?

The temperature is climbing and any snowman here wouldn't last long....

I think it is time we shed the Northern Hemisphere winter solstice type celebrations and start making an effort with the uniqueness of Christmas in the Pacific...that's Christmas day BBQ's and beach cricket...or lying outside trying to get a tan while digesting Christmas dinner.

What interesting tidbits and yummy treats can I serve you up as appetizers for a Christmas dinner of links this week?

NaNoWriMo has finished and now the big edit begins. If you are scratching your head looking at your opus and wondering how you can make it better check out these writing craft links.

From The Editors Blog- no perfect characters needed.

From Bob Mayer's store of great advice- conflict the fuel of your story.

From the team at Adventures in Children's Publishing-stimulus and response.

If you are sitting down and need to dine on more substantial fare....

Publishers Weekly looks at the Amazon library mess and asks where do traditional public libraries fit in all this?

YA Highway has a thought provoking post on why Authors disappear...

The Passive Guy has a meaty post looking at the horrible clause, no compete, that is making its way into book contracts. You need to read this and digest it! 

Have a serving of 30 quick tips for speakers.

Seth Godin looks back at the year of the domino project and says what next...

Dessert, if you can fit it in....

Channelship ponders the future of book marketing

The wonderful people behind Writers Knowledge Base launched new novel writing software yesterday called Hiveword.

Jane Friedman warns writers that they are overlooking a vital skill.

For the after dinner mints...Kate Arms-Smith explores what you might need in a creative space and SCBWI has a fancy graphic on the lifecycle of the book.

Loosen your belt, stretch back and muse about all the goodies you have received....

Next week I will be away from my blog as I travel down to the South Island... this will give you time to digest your meal so you will be ready for the last serving of links for 2011. 

Learning to Play With New Toys

This week has been one of huge technological change in our house. My camera failed during my column assignment and I had to get a new one, learn how to use it and reshoot the subjects in a very short space of time.

In this disposable age the shelf life of some technology is over before you take it out of the box so it pays to do as much research as you can and buy the best you can for the long haul. Our old camera had done a great job and was pretty nifty when we bought it six years ago…and we borrowed money to buy it. The camera’s available today almost make you a coffee as well…and all manuals are online…this is tricky if you are also learning to use a new computer. Talk about a steep learning curve with a three hour deadline.

The new computer was essential as the old one had the screen constantly failing and the keyboard wearing out. (Oh joy…) Researching for big buys are essential and also giving yourself time to learn to navigate the new toys...it really saves on stress.

This week there has been stress bouncing around the blogosphere as authors get a good look at the Amazon lending programme and don’t like what they see.

We all like to support libraries but Amazon may have taken this a bit far with their one buy, lend 1000 times, no due back date, model…the authors miss out on revenue and it is their livelihood.

Independent authors have been called names and traditional path authors have been pointing fingers, sometimes in rude ways.

This diatribe, which I won’t link to, caused a lot of anger in the indie author community. It follows on from a conversation I linked to last week about when to successfully go it alone as a self pubbed author. Bob Mayer has an excellent response to the diatribe and I urge you to read the comments to get the fuller picture.   

The Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators have taken issue with the publishing industry in an open letter addressing the response length of time. This issue is dear to my heart as I have been caught by publishers hanging on to my manuscript for up to a year and then sending it back with a positive rejection. Unfortunately with one particular manuscript it has happened five times…It’s a great story, we nearly published it…Ah well I’ll publish it myself and move on!

The Book Designer recently addressed a conference about how to take the self publishing route and has posted some of his slides up in a helpful bite sized way.

Jane Friedman has a new feature on her popular blog…Ask Jane. First up a brilliant article on how to spend money wisely on book promotion. Frankly following Jane is the best move you could make!

Jody Hedlund takes it a step further with her great article on how to prolong your books exposure and if you are really getting into book promo mode check out Hubspots  3 characteristics of successful press releases.

The wonderful Elisabeth Spann Craig has a great article on talking to readers. She has a huge list of questions readers ask which you can build talks around. This is really helpful when you are put on the spot to do a presentation.

It is half way through NaNoWriMo and there are heaps of tips out there on writing for those who are hitting the keyboards. Media Bistro has a link to a cliché calculator. 
Victoria Mixon is guest blogging on Jami Golds blog with a killer post on story climax. This is a wonderful two for one deal with two great guru’s in the one place.

For a change of pace check out Christopher Hitchens advice to an 8 year old…(hmmm) and for a creative jolt in the arm Lateral Action’s video’s and website.  

To finish,

I was roaming around the library the other day and saw a pile of books in the YA section that had adult authors by lines on them…yes writing YA is the new trend for those established authors looking to jump on the YA sales bandwagon. The Boston Globe has just confirmed my suspicion.

maureen
On steep learning curve with new computer.... 

       

Brain Gymnastics...

This week the weather in New Zealand has been extreme. 

A polar blast hit the country bringing with it major dumps of snow to places that don’t see snow in fifty to one hundred years. At the same time it is the last planning week for Wellington Storylines. The 3 day weather chaos resulted in cancelled meetings due to extreme weather conditions and ongoing worry about how family members were going to make it home with cancelled trains and buses, disrupted school and power cuts. My week has been a busy, fractured, distracted, topsy turvey, COLD exercise in adaption to unforeseen circumstance.

So...This week’s blog post will be a short look at what caught my eye amongst all the drama of other events.

Jane Friedman talked with Amy Stolls on how book marketing had changed since 2005 when Amy brought out her first book and now. Amy has some interesting things to say on how her publisher guided her on marketing then and now. Now it is essential to generate word of mouth. Check out Amy’s journey and then compare it to what her publishers told her in 2005.

Justine Musk has written a marvellous blog post on compelling branding. In it she details what the author should be doing...It all boils down to your secret word...

Forbes explores who the world’s highest paid authors are and why and looks at the rise of ebook sales which have tipped the scales in this years income.

Mike Shatzkin has written two very compelling posts this week. The first looks at the irony of being a publisher today. He explores the agency pricing model and examines the implications of Apples move into publishing and how it will impact on the big 6 publishers and Amazon the 7th and biggest player.

The second post this week from Mike is the analysis of Tim Ferriss and his Hardcover deal with Amazon which was announced yesterday. The game changes...along with Amazon giving a seven figure advance to Tim for a non fiction book. Mike has done the math and Tim Ferriss stands to make 105% royalties....This has serious implications for the rest of the publishing industry...Can they compete?

Writeoncon 2011 has been sucking my eyes these last two days (when it has been freezing.) This is a free online writing conference for children’s writers. It is global... it is brilliant... and there are many great things to take away. If you are registered you can take part in the live chat events with agents editors etc. Or you can lurk and suck up heaps of knowledge. Sometimes the time difference works for us...and sometimes not...but as the transcripts from all sessions stay up in the forums set aside some uninterrupted time and be prepared to stretch your brain to take in all the learning you will be doing.

To finish,

A nice roundup of the ten commandments for the happy writer....and a plug for a huge event that a dedicated team of Children’s Literature enthusiasts have spent months preparing.

Storylines National Festival kicks off this Sunday in Wellington at the Town Hall. This is a free family event celebrating literacy with some of New Zealand’s finest writers and illustrators. There will be live performances of loved books, crafts to make, talks by celebrated authors, book demonstrations (we have chefs and gardeners getting hands on...) and how to draw comics with some of NZ’s finest graphic novelists. It’s a mad crazy day and we love it.

Every year the festival seems touch more places in New Zealand so check out the website to see where your nearest full day event is happening. Chris Morphew, of Zac Power and Phoenix Files fame, is our international guest and he will be speaking at an evening event on Tuesday in Wellington. All details on the Storylines website.

See you there.  

 maureen

Banging The Drum...

This week there has been a lot of interest and discussion around the internet on author self promotion.

Writers always struggle with self promotion. If your typical writer is an introvert type then your typical marketer is an extrovert type. As writers we are encouraged to have an online presence and be Google searchable. We must be actively promoting our books as publishing companies are not going to do this unless you are a 6 figure income author.

Increasingly the word around the web is that the big names get promoted, the midlist has to do their own promotion and debut authors have only the one book to make an impact. Bob Mayer had an excellent post which I linked to last week on what to do about this.

Children’s writers have a harder struggle with self promotion. Who do they promote to? Their readers are not the buyers of the books. If you have an online presence who is it being aimed at? Most children’s writers stick to a static web page with biographical information for children’s book reports and information about their books. Some writers develop teacher pages with teaching notes to support their books. This is a sort of ‘build-it-and-they-will-come’ mentality. However many writers are finding this is not enough and they have to engage with the community...and we’re back to who is the community the children’s writer has to engage with?

Janice Hardy has an excellent article addressing this for mid grade writers. If you are a children’s writer this is a must read. Janice has identified the ‘Influencers’ that a children’s writer must be aware of and cater to.

Nathan Bransford has been struggling with the self promotion part of being a children’s writer now that he has crossed over to the other side of the desk. Nathan has a very popular blog and his community (his readers) is made up of writers from all over the writing spectrum. 

Nathan tried to promote his book on his blog and found that it was not the success he had hoped for. This led Laura Pauling to write a wonderful article on Nathan’s problem and what he could do better. The comments are especially good as the top children’s writer bloggers have all weighed in to discuss the tricky art of self promotion.

Jody Hedlund has a great article on author marketing and who it is for...not the author.

CopyBlogger takes a hard hitting approach to online marketing...some tips in there for writers and Tony Eldridge has gathered a list of his top ten marketing posts for authors.

The wonderful Writer Unboxed has a list of the 5 Must Do Book Publicity tips...starting from 6 months out...

In the craft section,

Julie Musil takes a look at why Jodi Piccoult is a best seller (news today from Publishers Weekly Jodi is writing a YA with her daughter.)

Taleist takes a look at mind mapping and how Authors can use this tool and Passwordincorrect has a nifty new way to make ebook covers. 

Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on

Supporting Indie Bookstores WinWin...( this is a great article, go here if the button is broken)

26 Tips for Using Images To Engage...tips for websites and fan pages

12 Easy Tips for Making A Viral Video Trailer (takes the hard work out of researching)

Google ebooks Lands Pottermore

To finish,

Self publishing coach has a top ten list of blogs to follow for authors...these are all related to marketing in some way...whether it is Joe Konrath talking about why to do it to Bookbuzzr telling you how to do it...

If you are wondering whether all the above relates to the principles of marketing... David Meerman Scott has taken a close look at the 4 P’s of marketing and discovered that in this new digital age...they are broken.

The FaBo team are still going strong and letting the current genre (Horror) have a few weeks more because of the holidays...In the sidebar there is a nifty little note to the kids about new books from the team that they might be interested in...a subtle kind of marketing...

I’d love to be able to scream buy my new book (long story)...but I’ll have to settle for Buy The FaBo Teams New Books -  they will be very good and Christmas is coming up... 

maureen

Quick...It's Thursday...

The day started with the realization that it was Thursday. I’m still on holiday, now in another city from last week. Things are much busier here, more distractions. Then I also realized that I had not touched a computer since I got here.

What was the blog post going to be about? Still being on holiday? How wrinkly a child can get when water sliding? The Tennis on TV?

So a quick look into Twitter…to look for items of interest.

Rachelle has tale of woe about what happens when a publisher has a preconceived notion of a book and before reading it plans the marketing of it.

If you are looking for a chewy article to help you understand new media and how our habits are changing around the web and what it means to you, the author, read this article, The Web Is A Customer Service Medium.

Bookbuzzr is posting a great series of articles about book marketing mistakes. This one is on Tag lines. This is a very good article.

Publishers Weekly has an article up on whether We Have Reached The Tipping Point Where Self Publishing Is Better Than A Book Deal.

Still on this topic….

Richard Curtis has been looking at Whether Authors Make Good Publishers…

Richard and JA Konrath are going head to head over this…go on be a spectator and read the comments on this article. This is probably going to be a big issue of 2011. Publish yourself or stay with the traditional model…..

If you are thinking about book trailers this year here is a YouTube resource list for you.

I'll be back home next week...Keep an eye on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) for new content.

Off to watch the Tennis....
maureen

Ah...Predictions....

With the beginning of a New Year many writers take the time to reflect on the year just passed and vow to do better.
Over the last two weeks it has been interesting to read the future plans of others and admire their confidence about letting the world know their future plans too.
Some of this confidence springs from verbalising and internalising goals. If you can say the goals out loud (or write them in a blog post) they are achievable. You will be held to account. Someone could say in September ‘I thought you were going to....’ There is nothing like having to think of an excuse, about why you didn’t follow through, to apply the whip of persistence to your back.

So... I’m still plugging away on Mars...and I want to finish it and get going on another cool idea.
I’m still intrigued and interested in podcasting.
I am excited about the opportunity to participate in FaBo again.
I would love it...(fall down in a faint...) if my current MS, doing the rounds, was picked up.

Now that I have that out of the way, onto some great round ups from others for you to get inspiration from.

The Kidslit team produced a good round up of writer’s tools to start the New Year off well. I have covered a few of them previously but it never hurts to have a reminder about what is out there to help writers. I notice that a few of my friends are now using Write or Die which is in this comprehensive list. (Write or Die has a new tool Edit Minion...yes you can have it edit your MS and highlight stuff to work on.)

Publishing Perspectives has gathered together a great list of book marketing articles. This list covers author entrepreneurship to case studies on translations woes.

Bob Mayer of Write It Forward has put up his list of predictions for authors and publishers for 2011.
This is an interesting list and gives the author a few things to think about. Bob got into trouble when he announced his predictions for 2010. Events then proved him right...so you should check out his 2011 predictions.

On predictions...this will be the year that New Zealand discovers ebooks. I predict that not only will we see sales figures for ebooks in New Zealand but that more New Zealand authors will publish ebooks, and that New Zealand publishing houses will begin to experiment with marketing an ebook list. After all they are seriously changing contracts to reflect the growing importance of this market. If you doubt me just think about this...how many people do you know with an iPad or ebook reader? I know two people who got them for Christmas....

For the authors contemplating the new novel, I have a couple of links that remind us of the business of plot and structure. First a timely revisit of the Hero’s Journey and second (thanks Helen) a link to Storyboard plotting...a feast of movable post-it notes.

If you are looking at your web page and scratching your head, check out this article on the importance of a Bio Page.

Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on

Microsoft’s Predictions For ebooks In The Year 2010 - Made In The Year 2000

Gail Carson Levine - On Writing Serials...(learn from the master)

An Agent On Giving Feedback...(understandable but sad)

Future of Reading –article by the LA Times about publishers shrinking role...

Dean Wesley Smith on Scams and Why You Should Be Your Own Publisher...(thought provoking stuff.)

10 Creative’s to Watch in 2011...This is a look at some amazing illustrators

13 Writing Cliches That Will Kick Your Ass (read read read)

Daily Newspapers for Kids In France....(How do they make It work?)

Finally Dark Angel has come up the most comprehensive list of resources to find Baby Names on the web...including Pirate Names and Name Generators...I predict you will find a great name for your MC....

enjoy,
maureen....still on holiday in the sweltering sub tropics...

RIP Dick King Smith...Celebrated Children’s Author Died Yesterday aged 88...