In Publishing News This Week
The power of unions to advocate for their members is a benefit that the publishing workforce is seeing. Penguin Random House has raised base salaries. Where they lead others, hopefully, will follow, reports Publishers Weekly.
This week international booksellers and publishers are loud in their dismay over the arrest of two booksellers in Hong Kong. Freedom to read is often taken for granted, but there are some places where it can be a risky business.
Earlier this year we were lamenting the demise of the mass market paperback. Simon and Schuster have pivoted their Pocketbook, (mass market) brand to be the acquiring home of bestselling indie authors.
Publishers Weekly profiled a reading social platform for kids. This is a social media platform only for readers, aimed at school children, curated by their schools, but with world wide reach. Sounds amazing. Is there a catch?
Publishing Perspective has been following the Bologna Children’s Bookfair outreach programme. They have been building cross media partnerships everywhere. Expect animation to be a bigger part of the fair, after their recent trip to the International Animation festival.
The UK Publishers Licensing Service has been working with the Copyright Licensing Agency to make a collective agreement for licensing content for AI. This means publishers can get money. Over 250 publishers have signed up apparently. If you are a UK author, you can sign up too.
Written Word Media have the results of their mid-year author survey. They break down the results across all the author tiers, and it makes interesting reading. What works, what doesn’t, and what everyone should be doing.
Writer Beware has an informative article on scam email addresses. There are quick ways you can check if the email is legit. The scammers are sneaky and Victoria outlines how to spot them just in their email address. Reversed letters caught me by surprise in this comprehensive article, which is a must read!
I read this essay by Jaime Buckley- The Real Reason You’re Afraid To Publish and felt seen. This is one of those essays that nail the nagging feeling you have that something is wrong, but you don’t know what.
Ines Johnson writes great articles on the Indie writer life. This week she is tackling the back list. Should you Update Your Backlist For Amazon’s A11 Changes? Yes… the Zon is changing again, so rumour has it.
There is a great essay on Jane Friedman’s blog – Your Creative Team Wants You To Stop Formatting And Just Write The Darn Book. The authors, Sandra Wendel and Paul Nylander are speaking every typesetters pain here. Staying with writing software- Julie Artz has a great primer on Scrivener. Authors who try Scrivener quickly become evangelists for the software. Take a look at Julies article if you want to know why people rave about it.
Where does your creative flow come from? Gabriela Pereira has a great article on the four pillars of creative flow. How is your balance of mind work cycle, skill based learning, practice, and community? Do you need to rebalance your creativity?
In The Craft Section,
2 Great posts from Janice Hardy 5 ways to make your character hate you and Describing character emotions in first person –- Bookmark- Both
Write strong plots for character driven stories- September Fawkes- Bookmark
Twisting the office romance conflict- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark
Sustainable writing routine- Brian Hicks- Bookmark
In The Marketing Section,
Launching a book with confidence- Rachel Warmath- Bookmark
Manage your expectations- Sandra Beckwith
Broad vs Niche keywords- Kindlepreneur- Bookmark
Seven promotional steps- Alliance of Independent Authors- Bookmark
What’s working in podcast publicity- Jane Friedman – Bookmark
To Finish
All the horror writers I know are fantastic humans. Mark Leslie Lefebvre is one of those people. He is so supportive of the publishing industry and has done practically every job in it. He’s now working with Draft2Digital but he has a great blog on writing and creativity that always has a fresh perspective on writing. This week’s essay, The Trees and I,The Rooted, Yet Restless Writer just resonated on all levels. Take a moment to stop and read the essay and maybe make a date with your favourite nature view.
Creativity and a writing boost awaits.
Maureen
@craicer
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