In Publishing News this week,
This week the courts were hearing counter arguments in ongoing court cases that the publishing world is keeping an eye on.
Arstechnica reported that Open AI is disputing author claims that they used derivative work to make Chat GPT.
Publishers Weekly reports that a Texas Judge has blocked the roll out of the new law that demands books have ratings on them – but no one knows what the ratings are. Disputes are ongoing.
Reuters reports that the US Appeals court has ruled that the mandatory book deposit policy of the copyright office is unconstitutional. This could save authors and publishers a lot of money.
In another corner of the publishing internet, Lincoln Michel took issue with the viral reporting of the 12 book sales fallacy which is going around the internet. If most books only sell 12 copies how does publishing survive. Lincoln has the numbers.
Meanwhile, Publishers Weekly takes a look at the costs of doing business as a big publisher and how the profit margins are getting squeezed at the moment. They have the numbers too.
That venerable institution, NYU has pulled together a superstar line up of speakers for their inaugural Advanced Publishing Institute programme in January. Oh to be a fly on the wall at this very expensive conference. This is aimed at the midlevel to senior executives in publishing. (With publishing salaries as they are, can they afford this conference in New York? Early bird sales are on now.)
In AI news, Kickstarter has drawn a line and announced their new AI policy. They want everyone to be transparent over how much AI is being used in each project on their site.
Reuters is trialling a new tool that will embed verifying data into all their photographs so that they can control the spread of fake images. The data will be linked into a blockchain. This technology has been talked about for a few years. In this era of AI and fakes, being authentic is the new information currency.
Publishing Perspectives reports on the Frankfurt Rights Meeting seminar on The Impact of AI on the Rights Business: An Outlook. The word mediocrity was used several times.
Anne R Allen has a great post on terrible advice that author should ignore. This advice pops up again and again. There is a reason to ignore it. It stops you growing as an author.
Vulture has an interesting article on the fanfic trend of romance fiction. Do you know how many books got their start as popular fanfictions? Now editors are starting to trawl the sites and pick up stories. Just change the setting and you could be the next hot author.
John Sundman has a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog about 23 years as a self publishing novelist and the lessons he has learned along the way. This is a great post to get you thinking about being an author now.
Caitlin Shetterly has an interesting take on the author photograph. She has been struggling with the problem of the getting a new author photograph and wondering whether she should be truthful and acknowledge her age.
Phillip Kinsher has an interesting article on Bookbaby’s website about choosing round characters instead of flat ones. But how do you know your characters are round? He explores the differences.
In The Craft Section,
Conflict – prolonging the agony- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark
9 ways to reclaim your groove- Now Novel
Making multiple storylines work in your novel- Tiffany Yates Martin- Bookmark
How to get the most out of hiring an editor- Linnea Gradin
Tim Grahl on top 19 mistakes writers make and how to fix them-Bookmark/Watch
In The Marketing Section,
Why one star reviews aren’t bad- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark
7 tips to boost your homepage- Camilla Monk- Bookmark
Successful book marketing- Emily Enger
How to publish a short story- Bookbaby
Book Launch tips- Kathy Steinemann- Bookmark
To Finish,
Last week there was a lot of chat around Social Media on the acquisition of a short story by a respected SFF magazine, from a writer with a problematic back history. The resulting dumpster fire of opinion took over the publishing social media channels. The owner of the magazine was conspicuously absent in defence of the beleaguered editor. Kris Rusch explores the backstory of the people involved and how magazines are run. She speaks from wide and personal experience of the issues, the people, and as a former editor of the magazine. A Must Read.
If you want to hide your past - choose a good pseudonym. That’s why they were invented.
Maureen
@craicer
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Pic: Photo by John Noonan on Unsplash
