Trolls and Turtles

Reviews...fake...nasty...and contained has been the topic around the Blogosphere this week.

Goodreads moved to ‘set the appropriate tone’ of reviews on their site this week.  But some cried foul as they saw it as censorship.

As I have said before, if you don’t like the book don’t review it...or say why you don’t like the book and back it up....

Goodreads new policy is to try to stop the bullying reviews and personal attacks of authors on the site. The freedom of anonymity, while you are sitting at home, to write on the internet a corrosive review of a book or author because you can...and no one will call you out to your face for your behaviour...brings out the troll in some people. And trolls seem to seek affirmation of their troll behaviour from other trolls.  Any writer putting their head above the parapet to call out troll behaviour gets targeted. Hugh Howey talks about this and how he was guilty of ducking it until this week...A great article from Hugh.

Being the geek I am, I read PopSci and this week PopSci looked at a scientific study of negative reviews on science stories and found that constant negative reviews which are emotive, skewed the perceptions of the readers to put aside the facts of the science article.

PopSci pulled the plug on comments on their articles on their website...there are still ways to comment...FB, Twitter.... but not on their website. 

If you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch.

Self-publishing advice has an article which tells you about the subculture of Amazon Reviewers...yes they talk to each other...

Porter Anderson spends a lot of his Ether just looking at the articles flying about reviewersthis week and there are many... So take a long break and maybe reach for alcohol.

The Frankfurt Bookfair is about to kick off and as usual there are lots of side events looking at the state of publishing. Publishing Perspectives takes a look at one aspect that will be big news at the fair... Self Publishing : the industry implications and impact.

Another must read is Kris Rusch. This week’s stand out article is the stages of an Indie writer. This is being tweeted around the blogosphere...

Elisabeth S Craig also has a nice little post on being a Hybrid Writer.

Chuck has always been Mr Nice when talking about traditional publishers, after all he may cuss but he is not a hypocrite.  (Unlike a certain author who is getting roundly dissed for his hypocrisy all over the web.) Chuck traditionally publishes but doesn’t diss Indies or Amazon or anyone that plays fair... until today when he came out in Chuck mode in an open letter... Dear Publishers.

In Craft,

Star Wars...and the 8 things it can teach us about writing.

Simple Writing  has one of the best explanations ofVoice I have read in a while.

In Marketing,

Julie Muesil looks at the brilliant way that Hugh Howey markets.

MediaBistro takes a look at how to do book covers with public domain pictures.

DigitalBookWorld looks at 5 ways that authors can handle bad reviews.

Website to go look at,

This is an author run co-op with some illustrious members...making waves in the indie publishing world. Check out how they got together and how they publish their work. I keep saying this is the way of the future...

To Finish,

SCBWI has introduced a new award for non traditionally published books...and Katherine Applegate (Animorphs) has been signed by HarperCollins for a new series on the strength of 3 sentences...

The green trolls of jealousy should be gathering to pull her down about now. 

More Power to Katherine’s Arm. 

I saw in my Twitter feed today a nice reminder....

If you think your idea is too weird to fly... just remember these four words. 

Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles.

Feel free to comment....

maureen

Pic courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons/ Frankensteinnn

R.I.P Rights, Readers and Elmore

Today the news came through that writing legend Elmore Leonard died. He was a popular crime and thriller writer getting his start in pulp fiction. He had 10 rules for writing that have become a popular meme around the blogosphere but Leonard often broke his own rules. Here is a link to the interview where Elmore Leonard explains when to break the rules.

If you are looking for a cheat sheet in the game of life...Lifehacker has 10 infographics and cheat sheets to help you.

Last week I was immersed in WriteOnCon...and this week it’s Romance (a family member is staying here to attend the Romance Writers conference.)  Romance Writers are a savvy bunch often way ahead of other genres in marketing and trends. Here is a collection of great writing articles for Romance writers but they could easily apply right across all the genres.

However if mid grade is your specialty (and it’s mine) here is Peter Lerangis on writing for this age group.

Read this through carefully.

By posting your content on the Sites, you expressly grant Random House a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid-up worldwide, fully sub-licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, perform and display such content and your name, voice, and/or likeness as contained in your User Submission, in whole or in part, and in any form throughout the world in any media or technology, whether now known or hereafter discovered, including all promotion, advertising, marketing, merchandising, publicity and any other ancillary uses thereof, and including the unfettered right to sublicense such rights, in perpetuity throughout the universe.

Are you shaking your head and wondering why anyone would sign a contract with this in?

Well lots of writers have....it could be in .4 in your latest contract. However this little excerpt comes from a Random House contract where they invite writers to contribute blog posts to their online blogging universe. FOR FREE.

Read all about this latest devious way to screw the content creator from the world’s largest publisher.

In the blogosphere this week...Barnes and Nobel and Simon and Schuster have made up. Great news for the writers left out in the cold... However Barnes and Nobel are not having a good week with reaction to their quarterly earnings out yesterday bringing out the doom sayers. Mike Shatzkin takes a look at the bookstore that wants to compete on all fronts. 

Another bookstore getting a mention is our local proudly independent Children’s Book Shop...check out this article on what a bookstore should be doing by British author Mal Peet who graced our city with his presence in the first part of the year.

Passive Guy asks Do You know What Your Rights Are Worth? This is a good run down on different rights in your contract.

Galleycat has a list of what agents have on their wishlists.

In Craft,

There is a swag of very good articles today.

Elisabeth S Craig on Outlining...This is very good.

Bookshelfmuse on sagging middles...Excellent

Justine Larbalesteir on rewriting...Just Brilliant!

Kristen Lamb on Editing...Excellent

Jim Mercurio on beating exposition...very good

Jami Gold is calling all pantser’s and if you are not sure what type of writer that is you need to check out the article from the very clever Ms Gold.

In Marketing,

The Indie 50 best sites...this is a mix of craft and marketing...

Should you do your own Audiobooks?

Twitter lists and how to use them...a great how to guide.

Website to check out,

The Oatmeal....comics on grammar...

To Finish,

Publishers Weekly has been looking at where our audience has gone...The latest YouTube meetup had nearly 7000 vloggers...with teens to the forefront. Some of these teens have over 2 million subscribers to their channels....Where are the publishers? Can authors tap into this underground movement... or are we a dying artform...

Maureen

pic: Flickr Creative Commons /Eddie

A Two Day Package Of Awesome

Around the blogosphere this week...WriteOnCon.

 The seriously brilliant initiative of some savvy KidLit authors is in its 4^th year of awesomeness. A free online conference for Kid Lit authors who can’t get to a conference...and believe me when you are on the other side of the world, in a small country, you salivate at the conference schedules. WriteOnCon has just wrapped up and you can go onto the site and see some of the keynotes and videos. I got lost today in watching the live pitch hangout, which wasn’t live for me but had heaps of information in it. I will be dipping into all the archived sessions for the next few weeks and I confidently predict that the keynotes will continue to be blogged about all year, like last years WriteOnCon.

While I was otherwise focused...Mike Shatzkin was pointing out Losing Bookstores is a Big Problem for Publishers. Now you might be thinking, duh heard it all before, but Mike highlights some important points for publishers of children’s books and books that are outside the straight fiction narrative.

Porter Anderson covers the other top watercooler topic...The Bowker Annual Report just out and if you want the complete report which many publishers subscribe to, hand over $799 or take a look at the articles Porter highlights, where they break down and explain the significance of the figures.  In-store awareness is slowly giving way to increased importance of author Web sites, product placement on a e-reader or tablet app and review and recommendations.

Who is buying what, and this may surprise you, men bought more hardback format last year. Porter gives a comprehensive run down on all the discussions happening as a result of the report.

Kristine Rusch, as usual, delivers a comprehensive article on the publishing industry now. This week she looks at markers of success for writers. Kris has a wealth of experience and lays it out for writers...and then she talks about Indie publishing and how success markers here may be quite different.

Passive Guy has a great article on protecting your film rights and Victoria Mixon on 21 things writers know that non writers don’t.

Elisabeth S Craig has been writing about her journey to hybrid author and she shares some home truths about juggling the two strands ofher career.

In Craft,

The 35 questions Proust asked his characters.

Killzone on how to write a novel readers won’t put down.

Jody Hedlund on when to show character emotions.

The Bookshelf Muse on writing an authentic fight scene. (My Dad commented a couple of days ago to me about a fight scene written by a women that was really bad. ‘Men don’t stop and analyse what the next punch will be...’)

10 tips from Billy Wilder on how to write a good screenplay...useful for novels.

Why every writer needs to hire an editor.

In Marketing,

Joel Friedlander on book layouts and page margins.

What literary agents want to see when they Google your name and they do Google it.

Passive Guy links to 5 successful marketing strategies.

To Finish,

Chuck has a guest post on his blog. 25 steps to being a traditionally published author –lazy bastard edition. You will laugh... you will wince... Yes, other people write in Chucks style...be warned and entertained.

I'm off to drop back into WriteOnCon...

maureen

. 

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

Burning Up The Charts

Nothing happens quickly in publishing.... This used to be the mantra. Today the Department of Justice released some of their documents from the Agency Pricing lawsuit against Trad Publishers. An economics  professor did some helpful charts. My Goodness the publishers involved moved at the speed of light!

Across the blogosphere and looking at another lawsuit...Porter Anderson takes a close look at the reporting around the Author Solutions lawsuit...or lack of it. In a case where the number of authors who may have been burnt by the various imprints of this *helpful* publishing company run up past 150,000 how is it that this case is not being widely reported in mainstream media or even in some specialist publishing journals.

Interestingly the same judge is presiding over both cases...wonder if she’ll write a book about her experiences.

What saddens me is how little research is done by potential authors to find out the state of play in publishing right now. 

1. It’s hard to get a traditional deal. 

2. Agents are becoming de facto publishers. 

3. Authors are having some success in self publishing. 

4. Self publishing is a lot of work and you need to know what you are doing. 

5. You will not get rich as a writer.

This is reality. 

In all of the above a publishing firm that tells you that they can dissolve all those barriers... just hand over your credit card...is one to run away from! So many people go into this with their eyes shut...following the dream...which can turn into an ugly nightmare.

Elisabeth Naughton has written about her publishing journey from Trad to Indie and it makes interesting reading. It is a very honest and reflective piece, which mirrors the journey that publishing itself has taken in the last five years.

In April, just before the London Book Fair, the Guardian published an opinion piece on how the rise of self publishing has changed the book world and the implications for traditional publishers.

Russel Blake (suspense writer) has written the definitive post on How To Sell Loads Of Books.

In one post he sets out a career plan and an implementation schedule. (must read post)

Aussie writer Scott Gardner talks about finding an international voice if you live in far flung countries. Interesting comments on this guest piece for Publishing Perspectives.

In Craft,

Elisabeth Spann Craig on the What If method of generating ideas...(this is my preferred method)

Ava Jae on writing inmultiple POVs (Very good advice!)

Darcy Pattison on 7 reasons your manuscript might be rejected.

Angela Ackerman talks about Donald Maass (uber agent) and his ideas on cultivating the reader...its all about emotional layering....

Layering information in your story...Info with Attitude from the Killzone team.

In Marketing,

Livehacked has got The Marketing Plan...This is long, so set aside some time for this one. It is the guide to marketing self published books.

17 Steps To A Reader Grabbing Title.

13 Timeless Lessons On Marketing from the father of advertising, David Ogilvy. You will never look at an ad the same way again.

To Finish,

Neil Gaimen’s Make Great Art, book of the sensational speech from last year, is out and I have held one in my hands. It is a thing of beauty. Brainpickings has Neil's 8 Rules for Writing, which you can follow and have chart topping success like Neil.

To write...

you 

have

to

put

one

word

after

another.

maureen 

Pic fromFlickr/Jorel....so geeky.  (hehehehe... a pie chart)

Feeling The Emotion

ANZAC day* is always emotional. Whether you are braving the chilly dawn for the memorial service or later in the day at a full civic ceremony...there is always the tear in the eye, the tight feeling in your throat. On this day I think of all the members of my family who served in their different wars and are still serving. The one who didn’t come back in 1916, age 23 with no known grave...his brother, my grandfather who did. My husband’s grandfather, one of less than 200 that survived Gallipoli and the Western Front. ANZAC day is always harder when one of our family is overseas serving as a Peacekeeper.

When we were overseas last year, we met a Turk on a train in Italy. It was a special moment as we both talked about the war that forged our two nations. Each of us had a story to tell about visiting Gallipoli and crying. He talked about seeing a fused piece of metal, the result of 25 bullets that all hit together at once.

What a hell it must have been!

In the blogosphere this week a different kind of war was happening as reaction to Barry Eisler’s keynote address to the Pikes Peak writer’s conference was furiously debated on Twitter. Agents and Publishers taking exception to Barry’s comments that Legacy publishing was a lottery and their only value was for print distribution deals. Once the hot comments were out of the way and agents and publishers climbed down off the ceiling...debate was more constructive. Read the comments people...but give yourself some time...

In the last year very successful indie e-publishers have begun partnering with big publishers for print only deals and agents are becoming publishers on the side, organising editing, covers and marketing of eBooks or POD...it is pretty easy to see Barry Eisler’s point.

The London Book Fair has just wrapped up and there was lively debate around the changing nature of agents. So do you want a manager, a partner, a business coach...or a deal maker? And No an Agent is not necessarily going to do all of that.

Joanna Penn was also thrilled to be at the Fair. She has a huge blog post filled with video interviews and comments about the 2013 Fair, which had the most writers attend ever. Take some time over this one.

Joel Friedlander talks about his war on Word...how Word won...and what he is doing about it. Check it out and get a great deal on his solution!

Seven Steps To The Perfect Story is one of those amazing graphics that you really want to print out, stick on your wall and gaze at for a long time.

Myths about Query letters to Agents...don’t get too worried.

Elizabeth Spann Craig has been looking at Audio books and ACX. This is a feel good post telling you how to use ACX.

In Craft, It is all about Character Emotion...

3 Tips For Realistic Character Emotion

Real Life Diagnostics- Hooking The Reader- Janice Hardy dissects a submission.

Susan Sipal dissects your favourite Harry Potter Character Emotion Arc’s

4 Things You Need To Understand About Character Emotion...great roundup here.

Dropping into the Emotion Thesaurus, it’s all about sarcasm....

To Finish,

Roz Morris talks about Obituaries and why they are so important for writers...

maureen

*ANZAC Australian and New Zealand Army Corps remember their fallen soldiers on 25^th April the date of the landing of the Corps at Gallipoli in Turkey 1915. New Zealand lost ¼ of their men and more than ½ were severely wounded. The Turks lost twice as many allied casualties and their leader Ataturk Kemal became the Father of Modern Turkey. After a disastrous nine months the Allies left the peninsular in the dead of night leaving behind more than 44000 dead to lie with 87000 dead Turks. New Zealand suffered the largest casualties relative to their population of any Allied Nation and the campaign changed forever both Turkey, who won, and Australia and New Zealand, who lost but found and forged their own national identities away from Britain.

I saw Dire Straits perform this live when I was 21...it never fails to remind me of the loss and weariness of war and the need for Peace.

Talking About The Revolution

This week has seen wide ranging discussions on where authors and publishing are positioning themselves.

Hugh Howey kicked it off with a piece in Salon where he said None of this is meant to say that everyone who self-publishes — even those who study the craft, take their work seriously, and produce a constant stream of material — will find material success. There is also luck involved and the fickle tastes of readers. But what is becoming more apparent with every passing day is that you have a better chance of paying a bill or two through self-publishing than you do through any other means of publication.

Chuck Wendig countered with a piece on his blog warning readers that only going down the self publishing route was courting disaster. I traditionally-publish. I do pretty well at that, too, I think, and actually over the last two years have well-eclipsed anything I made self-publishing. Just the same, I don’t think one is better than the other.

Both make important points which have been debated all over the blogosphere this week. Hugh agrees with Chuck...and compared with diatribes from last year on these different perspectives of Publishing Now, these guys are politeness personified (yes, I said that about Chuck...)

Susan Kaye Quin, an Indie midgrade writer, has also been engaging in this topical debate and she has some good points to make. She looks at both positions coming down firmly on the Indie side...as she would. Take the time to read the debate. Mostly everyone agrees Hybrid is the way to go if you can and different types of publishing for separate projects.

However what everyone is saying on both sides is that quality of content matters. You cannot knock off an ebook in a weekend and make thousands of dollars. This week I was invited to speak to a tertiary Creative Writing Programme. I was blunt because sugar coating reality helps no one. However one very important point I hoped they got was they are already on the right track, by being in a course that will teach them to write to their best ability. There after, it is as Chuck says,...’Art Harder’.

Jane Friedman in her new role as VQR guru brought together a high powered think tank to look at where digital is going in literary publishing. Get a big cup of coffee, the ideas fly thick and fast in the middle with multi media, freelancing and earning income. Porter Anderson, covering the HUGE Writers Digest conference last week, also looks at these ideas including the move of agents to become managers. This is an interesting idea and a way forward for agents.

Another big topic getting lots of talk time is Author’s Guild president Scott Turow’s opinion piece on Amazon buying Goodreads. Unfortunately Scott’s anti digital tirade did not go down well in the blogosphere. Dave Gaughren talks about what went wrong for Scott. He is mostly polite (not like other tirades.) In my humble opinion someone who slams Amazon as much as Scott shouldn’t have his books for sale on it.

Futurebook is asking Can Publishers Disintermediate Amazon...should publishers become retailers...so then....(Check out the article, discuss amongst yourselves.)

Elizabeth Spann Craig has a great blog and this week she is looking at making your comtent work harder for you...I know how she is feeling and have been doing my own investigations down this route...

Anne R Allen says there is a time and place to blog your book...Have you got the right time and place?

PaidContent has looked at Flipboard’s new moves and warns...publishers have not seen this coming and maybe they should be a little bit afraid....The video will knock your socks off (This is a must read!) Your own magazine in 30 seconds...

And to help you with graphics content, new kid on the block, Imgembed, which is revolutionising image capture for blogs, websites etc...no more dodgy steals...and it looks great from the photographers side too. That’s where the blog pic came from.

In Craft,

Stronger verbs and how to get them....

Jami Gold on Revising for Stronger Themes.

Creative writing Prompts: Digging Deep Into Character

When there is no time...How do you write on the GO

In Marketing,

Joanna Penn on Keywords Metadata and Discoverability and Paid Promotion - is it worth it?

Video Book Trailers...putting one together.

Book Signings that WOW (great ideas from Bookshelf Muse blog)

Author Platform - Are You Being Cautious or Lazy (Catherine Ryan Howard takes you to task.)

 To Finish,

In our biggest daily paper was a great article on a Pacific Writer, Lani Wendt-Young who looked at the gap in pacific islands fiction and started writing a Spec Fic series which has taken off among her target audience, Pacific Island youth and then into the wider world. It is a great project and shows what you can do when you stop talking and just write.

maureen

Being A Hybrid

The Digital Book World conference is over and attendees are digesting the big issues. 

Their comments and ongoing discussions about where publishing is heading in 2013 range from ‘we are over the worst of the transition...things are settling down’...to Batten down the hatches... this ride is only just beginning!

It does behoove* the author to keep an eye on what is happening in the wider world.

First up for comment...this from inside the conference, What Authors Want.... It seems that a third of authors want to self publish their next book...

Porter Anderson dives into Ether for Authors looking at the big issues from DBW

including What authors want...Hugh Howey...and Hybrid** is your new model.

More authors are being offered Wool like deals! News filtering through Twitter today. (oh joy...maybe this will be the big happy news for authors this year.)

To take advantage of publishing's current state of flux...authors are thinking Hybrid is the way to go. (A mix of Traditional and Self/Indie publishing.)

Dean Wesley Smith has been saying it all along...Dean wraps up a series of blog posts looking at crunching the numbers of the new Hybrid world and how you should approach the business of writing. As always check out the 97 comments!!

The next big talking point was Why online book discovery is broken and how to fix it...This article from PaidContent has many people quoting, dissing, upholding...but no one is ignoring it. I have been seeing it quoted all over the publishing blogosphere along with Brett Sandusky’s Elephants In The Room post that I linked to last week. Lots of other juicy posts in last week's blog are still being chewed over.

Also being hotly discussed...the Tools of Change conference coming up and a keynote issue  Piracy, Does It Really Harm The Author?

Publishing Perspectives has 5 Trends to watch for in trade publishing...

Roberto Calas has an in depth look at how to work/write/live Kindle Serials on Lyndsay Buroker’s blog...Boy oh Boy...this is a post that will have your head spinning...but incredible A++ for effort! Dickens followed this model of publishing...(I think he may have been a hybrid...) so maybe we're just going back to the good old days of 200 years ago...

Agent Sarah La Polla has a look at Literary vs Commercial and the reasons for figuring out where your MS lies.

In Craft,

Alan Rinzler takes a look at Character...when you walk in their shoes you write with authenticity.

Elisabeth Spann Craig also wants you have characters that surprise ...

If you are in the synopsis business...check out this great how to do it...one of the best I have seen.

In Marketing,

Maximising the potential of your Facebook Author Page...some very interesting strategies here.

Catherine Ryan Howard looks at Book Distribution and how she has made an important discovery...Hybrids take note!

To finish,

Two posts that rocked me today...You can decide whether I was Buoyed up*** or Aghast****

The numbers proving that print still matters in discovering books

and The New Yorker on Slicing and Dicing The Content of Books...The new model of discoverability....coming soon to a Search Engine near you.

Oh and if you want a nifty little post to bookmark...try this one 5 other online dictionaries...***** effort!

*To be necessary or proper for: It behooves you at least to try.

**Something of mixed origin or composition.

***become more cheerful

****Struck by shock, terror, or amazement.

maureen

Pic: This is a Hybrid Plumeria...Isn’t it beautiful. Image courtsey of

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheepbackcabin/7578181360/