Contingency Planning

This week New Zealand was rocked by a 7.8 earthquake. As luck would have it, it struck two minutes after midnight on Monday morning. After we picked ourselves up we spent the night on a hill waiting for the Tsunami.

New Zealand is known as the shaky isles and we have had our fair share of big earthquakes recently. In the back of our mind we think we are prepared for just such an emergency. But when you are sitting on the side of a hill in the middle of the night waiting for the all clear it occurs to you that better planning would have meant you ate chocolate instead of the cough drops from the bottom of your coat pocket.

In publishing this week Roz Morris has been on a panel lately looking at the convergence of Self Publishing and Traditional Publishing. Roz wrote a great article looking at the spectrum of publishing.

(Read the comments.)

Publishers Weekly has an article on Horror Writers and the growing rise of Self Publishing in that genre.

This week Amazon allowed paid advertising on Amazon.com for ebooks. Previously you had to jump through several hoops and make sacrifices but now it seems straight forward.

Publishing Perspectives has an interesting article on the Danish Book Fair. They like to mix it up and this year had some interesting new things. They must be on to a good thing as they break records for attendence.

Lawyer and Author Susan Spann does a great Wednesday Pub Law tweet stream. This week she has been looking at spreadsheets and author finances. While we are on things legal take a look at copyright rules for settings

Keeping one eye on children’s publishing trends. Reedsy talked with an illustrator from Finland who had an idea... and went looking for a writer... and then Kickstarted a business.

If you are hankering to write your own children’s book, Writer Unboxed has a good article on the midgrade voice.

In The Craft Section,

3 tips to strengthen our voice- Libby Heily

Writing vivid descriptions- Mythicscribes

Using archetypes to develop novel concepts- C S Lakin- Bookmark

Ten steps to developing the practice novel- Writer Unboxed- Bookmark

What is the theme?- Writingforward

What is head hopping?- Bryn Donovan

10 keys to plot structure-Michael Hauge- Bookmark

What English to use. American... British...- Roz Morris

Using multiple Points Of View- Jane Friedman- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Does paid marketing work? -Alli Chat

Fiction email lists- Joanna Penn- Bookmark

4 step plan to sell more in less time on Social Media- Chris Syme

Respectful Book Reviews

11 ways to quote from your book- and 7 signs your book is professionally published - Book Designer

Using Facebook groups to build Book Buzz- Bookbub- Bookmark

Book Layout basics- Bookmark

KDP – The rules roundup now-

To Finish

Is your plan for success I just want to write my books? Judith Briles wrote a kick in the pants article for The Book Designer today. In this modern time of publishing it is not enough to just write your books. You need to plan before, during and after the book.

And this is true for Earthquakes and other natural disasters....

Always know where the chocolate is!

Maureen

@craicer

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Pic from  Kaikoura Coast near the epicentre of the earthquake. - TVNZ

Rocking

Over the last week I have been wandering up and down the country avoiding the earthquakes in my home city...they were waiting for me when I came back...another three today...It’s like being on a moored boat every now and then the floor rocks.

Rocking the publishing blogosphere is some Amazon bashing that is going over the top...Melville House engages in some strong rhetoric that had the blogosphere shaking heads. Passive Guy takes a look at the impassioned argument from Melville House in Breaking News: Amazon declares war on the Book Industry and discusses what it may mean...someone needs to have a lie down.

Here in New Zealand the keynote speaker, Sandy Grant, at our local Publishers Association Awards...painted a disquieting picture echoing some of the passion from Melville House as well as looking at copyright issues and government efforts to break this. Authors are left scratching their heads...um where are we in all this?

Jami Gold has discovered new and horrible ways that authors are being pirated...and scraped by lowlifes and you will need to hang on to a table while you read this. It involves mash ups...fan fiction...scraping and Amazon...actually mixing that lot up and it could be some sort of new adult stuff which is the target of pirates at the moment. Wouldn’t it be simpler to write your own book?

Every now and again there is a publishing blogosphere story that won’t lie down...and the RandomPenguin washing of Author Solutions is one of them...Porter devoted a whole Ether post to it last week...I flagged it for you in my last post but since then it has got bigger and murkier....

Finally some happier news...after all how many shocks can you take...(last count over 1900 this week)

The fab Literary Agent Jennifer Laughren, from whom I shared a tweet with you a couple of weeks ago, had a Reddit community question time when you got to ask her anything on the agenting business. It is a great little read and explains why she is one of the top agents specializing in Kids Lit.

And Smashwords has a preorder button...Media Bistro tells all about it.

In Craft,

Chuck - Ten Thoughts On Story...by now you should be used to the warnings on content.

James Scott Bell from the great Killzone blog on creating conflict in fiction.

Elisabeth S Craig on creating back stories for characters.

The League of Extraordinary Writers have their top craftbooks list...and I’m pleased to say I have about half of them...and JOLLY GOOD they are too. I’m working on acquiring another couple.

Writers In The Storm have a great post on figuring out turning points in your story...

In Marketing,

Joel Friedman has copyright disclaimers that you can use in your book

Getting the most out of Facebook

Selfpublishing advice talks to Bob Mayer on How He Did It....which echoes Kobowritinglife’s advice on how to promote on Kobo...

Bestsellerlabs has the second part of their navigating the book marketing maze...full of helpful tips.

Darla has another list of self publishing tips...

To Finish,

If you think you would like to try doing the audiobook yourself... Joanna Penn has a nifty little article for you about what it entails.

Since I started writing this...we had another three quakes...mostly they are little but every now and again Mother Earth likes to wake us up...which is why you need Resilience if you are a writer (Rachel Gardner) or just live in an earthquake zone....

maureen

Scrambling For The Books

It’s been nine days since the Christchurch earthquake. 

We are still in a state of emergency but now the NZ media are including in their bulletins other news from around the country and the world. 

Daily life in the rest of the country is getting back to normal but the pain is still there under the surface. The people you meet on the street this week don’t look as if someone has kicked out their stomach.

The whole country has rallied around various fund raising efforts as the death toll rises higher and the tally of buildings that are, or need to be, demolished grows. We are all more aware of the ground beneath us, the power and randomness of Nature and the need to acknowledge that, there by the grace of God, you have been spared the worst.

Wellington, where I am based, sits on two fault lines and we get rumblings beneath our feet all the time. We had a nice little (4.5) jolt on Tuesday night to get the heart racing. We would like to think we are prepared at all times for a disaster but in truth we are probably not. Around Wellington the conversations this week are on where to put the disaster kit and what to have in it. The supermarkets have been running low on batteries and torches as everyone pulls out and updates their kits.

I have been mulling over this question, If you had only ten minutes to rescue your possessions from your house, what would you take? In my mad scurry...it would be antique books, photographs, documents and the computer.

I have lots of pottery...I never thought about saving that...the books came first on the list... What does that say about me.....hehehehehe (finding the antique books would be a challenge tho...) 

Books....they divert, educate, elucidate, console, challenge, terrify and come in handy as tables and deportment aids.

Hmm can’t see ebooks helping out as a deportment aid however they are increasing their presence in our lives. Bookbee has collected quotes and stats about the uptake of ebooks (women between the ages of 35-55 are the biggest users....I would never have guessed that.)

Piotr Kowalczyk has compiled an interesting look at 40 years of ebooks...no that wasn’t a typo!

If you are struggling with what to put in your book, you might want to check out these links.

Lynette Labelle has an awesome post on creating tension in single character scenes.

Advanced Fiction Writing looks at juggling multiple storylines

James Killick has a great post on the confusion of Plot and Story and how to fix the problem.

Two weeks ago I posted a link to the Writers Knowledge Base...here it is in action... everything you wanted to know about Transitions

Irene Watson of Selling Books has an interesting article on working with a Co Author...she is looking at only one co author tho....The FaBo team have nine...hmmm nine times the fun....

Jody Hedlund has taken a look at first books...Are they usually garbage? and Heather McCorkle is looking at the pitch...in 25 words or less (this could be a good resource for all those going to Spinning Tales in April.)

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

Ten Tips To Effective Book Covers (a must read)

Grief (making sense of it)

Changing Times, Changing Book Design,

A fun look at Deadlines and what they do to us.

Productivity for Creatives...this is an excellent guest post by Charlie Gilkey on Jonathan Fields Blog.

This week the children’s writing community here in New Zealand were in awe of American YA writer Maureen Johnson who organised a fundraising effort for Christchurch Earthquake victims that quickly went viral. Our eyes get a little misty when we think of the generous spirits all around the world who write for children.

To finish, here is a little pick me up from Slushpile Hell....and Some Dancing Books.

enjoy,

maureen