In Publishing News this week,
The EU accessibility act came into force this week. This is aimed at publishers who are selling into the European Union. All books need to be accessible. This doesn’t mean that they have to be widely available although that might help. They have to be accessible to the disabled community. Dan Holloway has a quick rundown on what that means for authors and publishers.
Publishing Perspectives reports on the recent court decision over book banning in favour of the parents and how this might impact the freedom to read going forward in the United States of America.
Publishers Weekly reports on the American Library Association conference and what the main topics of conversation were. AI and its biases. There was a lot of chat about the impact of new tech trends on libraries and on hand were child sized robots that helped children with finding and checking out books. (It is almost the age of the Jetsons- where is my flying car?)
This week Mark Williams looked at two news items that expose the current publishing models shortcomings. First was the news that the Bond franchise had been bought by Amazon who are bringing out modern James Bond books to tie in with their new game. So where does that leave the original publisher? Following right on the heels of this is the Romantasy juggernaut Sarah J Maass who has licensed her brand into a global marketplace and left her traditional publishers out of the mix.
When I am asked what is the most important subject to learn in publishing, I always answer intellectual property and contracts. These two articles highlight the importance of intellectual property and who owns it. For decades publishers have been asking for sweeping contract rights and then not doing anything with them. Savvy agents and authors keeping these rights back have discovered other entertainment companies value these licenses. Will Publishers double down on rights demands? Remember authors, you can put time limits on rights in the contract and always put a rights reversal time clause in.
Victoria Strauss has a great article for Writer Unboxed on bankruptcies and why the bankruptcy clause in your contract might not protect you. This is a timely article after recent publisher bankruptcies.
Richard Charkin muses on globalization and the publishing trade. Printers are now global, as are Newspapers. I wonder when rights by country will fall by the wayside.
John Green has a nifty little video which breaks down What the #1 New York Times Bestseller List Actually Means. Sometimes it doesn’t take much for a book to make the list.
Gabriela Pereira has a great article on How to deal with Failure and Rejection. You need a writer angst jar. This is a great tool to get you over the hump.
Joanna Penn has an interesting interview with Betsy Lerner this week. Betsy has decades of experience in the publishing world doing pretty much every job in it. She talks about finding your voice across the medium and loving book marketing.
Writer Unboxed has a new contributor (Gen Z ) Kit Aldridge who has an article on AI – The Big Bad Wolf or Quiet Assistant for Writers. All the comments are interesting, especially from the big names in the community. The article is generally not in favour.
If you are on the fence about this technology. You are not alone. However, the changes are so rapid that you may find that some knowledge is better than none at all. Joanna Penn’s recent Interview with Thomas Umstattd on Book Discoverability in the age of AI shows another side of this technology.
It’s July and you may be looking at your goals for the year and wondering what happened. Robin Blakely has a great article on redirecting yourself and your goals.
If it is all too much check out the Frustrated Writers Colouring In Book
In the Craft Section,
Building believable alternate histories- Daniel Ottalini
When your draft is a mess- Stuart Wakefield- Bookmark
The playbook for antagonists- Becca Puglisi
The secret to writing witty characters- K M Weiland- Bookmark
Ending apostrophe abuse- Debbie Burke- Bookmark
In The Marketing Section,
TikTok marketing demographics for authors- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark
Writing an author bio (with AI)- Kindlepreneur
How to publish a children’s book- Reedsy and Karen Inglis- Bookmark
Creative hooks drive more ad clicks- Bookbub- Bookmark
Joanna Penn interviewed Simon Patrick about Eleven labs and Producing AI narrated audiobooks. This is an interesting insight into how Eleven labs works, and how authors can use them.
To Finish,
Do you remember the Readers Digest books? Condensed versions of four novels bound in hardback and available mail order on a monthly subscription. Loads of homes had them. Folio Editions borrowed a similar concept but went the opposite way into high end productions. Publishers Weekly looks at how they have reinvented themselves starting with Public Domain books and are now into licensing Folio editions of in print books. It is all about Intellectual Property and what you do with it.
Maureen
@craicer
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