Finding The Sweet Spot

In Publishing News this week,

 

What happens when a TikTok influencer tries to find a book that impacted them as a child? Publisher’s Weekly talks to the publisher of a 40 year old vocab book having another outing in the sunshine of book sales.

 

What is the biggest event this summer in the northern Hemisphere… Could be FIFA world cup… or a Swift wedding. Publisher’s Weekly reports that publisher GP Putnam have created an anthology of YA love stories based on 13 Taylor Swift songs. Swoon all the way to the bank.

 

Publishers Weekly took a walk through last week’s Beijing’s International Book Fair and noted down some of the trends that are top of mind in one of the world’s biggest countries. It’s worth noting that the government has pivoted towards a reading oriented society. An interesting article.

 

With the demise of library distributors, publishers have been trying to figure out how to help libraries get their books. Penguin Random House is working with Ingram to mine their backlist and produce Print On Demand Hard Covers of 200 PRH authors. This is interesting because back before eBooks and POD, a publishing contract could revert back to the author if the copies were out of print. Now with eBooks and POD hardbacks this means the book is never ‘out of print.’ (Authors who have large print and hardback are very library friendly. Don’t forget every format needs its own ISBN.)

 

One of the side effects of war is the destruction of a nations culture and literature. Publishing Perspectives has an interesting article on a literary movement that is trying to save the Palestinian culture. 

 

Chelle Honniker has an interesting article on where AI and copyright now stands. With various law suits underway or finished, copyright on works using AI is still fluid. It has been established that AI cannot be an author. But what about using it as a tool? 

 

Meanwhile the Book Industry Study Group is surveying the book industry in North America to see how much they are using AI. The survey is anonymous so people should be honest. This is the second year they have run this survey. I will be surprised if the the numbers haven’t increased.

 

Earlier this month I highlighted an article from James Blatch on how AI was affecting search and what it means for authors. Edie Melson has an article on how GEO and AEO affect how our websites get found by AI search engines. If you are closing your eyes and covering your ears, relax. Edie’s article is very easy to understand. (It is an important topic so don’t leave it too long before coming to grips with the subject.)

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors has a great essay asking what type of author you are? This is an article on author values and the way you can structure your author business. Great Reading.

 

Tawny Lara has a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog on Finding your voice as a writer in the age of AI. Voice is the one thing that distinguishes you from every other writer out there and is the one thing that AI can’t really do as the algorithm smooths out writing until it is bland. Mine your own experience.

 

In The Craft Section,

How to write Found Family tropes- Rhea Dionne

Differences between anti-hero and anti-villain- Joe Yamulla- Bookmark

Tell don’t show- P J Parrish- Bookmark

Mastering microtension- CS Lakin

11 chapter endings to keep readers turning pages- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

AI prompts for Book Marketing – Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

Generating Buzz for your Book- Bookbaby

Simple Sample Strategy- Bookfunnel- Bookmark

The Access Marketing Funnel- Video - Alliance of Independent Authors - Bookmark

 

To Finish

I was reading Lisa Cohen’s article on Existential Dread – The Kickstarter edition and nodding away at some of the fears she expressed. The thought of telling anyone I have a book out and they might like it or God forbid asking people to back a Kickstarter, sparks a queasy feeling. Lisa talks about the need to market if you want your books read and how she survived doing a Kickstarter project even though she was way out of her comfort zone.

Marketing a book is where the hard work really is. However, there are a few lifelines out there. Check out Cassie Mannes Murray on 40 alternatives to the book event that is not a reading or conversation.

You never know you might sell a book as well.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the free Substack version.

 

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

 

Photo by Ulysse Pointcheval on Unsplash

Trying New Things

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

The biggest indie author conference in Europe wrapped up this week in London.

For a roundup of topics discussed and great little ideas check out the YouTube video of one of founders of the Self Publishing Show and its podcast talking about the show…at the show.

 

Publishing Perspectives highlights a new tool for publishers created by the Green Book Alliance, a group dedicated to advancing sustainability in the publishing industry. The new tool helps publishers to calculate their carbon footprint. This could be a marketing win if used the right way.

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors has an in-depth article about Draft2Digitals new fees and what it means for authors. If you have been on the fence this might help. (I’ve just paid my fee, as a wide author I appreciate their global reach.)

 

What do you do when you have a big backlist? You make a portion of it available for film and television people to find new projects. Simon and Schuster have just put over 6000 projects onto the Blacklist search engine for screenplays according to Publishers Weekly. Placing books on this list is only a recent development.

 

A new court case hit the news this week. This time it's academic publishers going after a sketchy outfit which ‘publishes’ access to literary and scientific journals. Of course you can draw a direct line to skull and crossbones flag. The publishers are on a roll as they have already won a court victory against other pirates.

 

Javier Celaya has an opinion piece in Publishing Perspectives about going back to school to learn about AI. He is adamant that publishing professionals need to understand at a structural level what AI can and cannot do. It should be a requirement at management level he says.

 

Jak Bazino went down the rabbit hole into a Nigerian run Book Club Scam. It starts off very slowly and what looks legit then starts to unravel. This is play by play story of how these scams operate.

Meanwhile, over on Killzone blog Debbie Burke has the ABC’s of avoiding scammers. Required reading.

 

Lucy V Hay has a great article on Angela and Becca’s writing blog about overwhelm. Sometimes this writing business can get you down and when that happens your headspace can get screwed up. She has some helpful advice for getting you out of your own head. Overwhelm can also hit your inbox so check out Lisa Normans essay on managing the inbox deluge.

 

Agent Richard Curtis has some hard advice for writers who are dreaming about writing full time. Be very careful about what you are giving up and what you expect the life to be like. This is a dose of straight talking about the writing life.

  

The Publishing Industry’s Habit of Selling and Packaging Youth, and Its Wider Impact.

If you blinked when you read that line, you need to read the essay from Faridah Àbíke Íyímídé. She writes from personal experience.

Ines Johnson has written a great marketing essay in praise of libraries. But what is even better she writes it to her book fans and tells them that she loves it if they take her book out of the library. This is marketing by acknowledging that times are tough and books are expensive. There is another way!

 

In The Craft Section,

When your characters begin to breathe- Sarah Hamer- Bookmark

How to write mythic fiction- K M Weiland

Write stronger characters for a plot driven story- September Fawkes -Bookmark

Rediscovering Creative Joy- Podcast Joanna Penn and Austin Kleon

Writing the opening scene- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

If you are uncomfortable with book marketing- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

Building Local Reader Engagement- Written Word Media-Bookmark

How to check on KDP account health- Written Word Media- Bookmark

The scrapbook of publicity- Cassie Mannes Murray- Interesting essay

Learning about Book trailers- Linda Sienkiewicz

 

To Finish,

It was great to get out of the house this week and celebrate a local author at a book launch. It was a chance to catch up with my writing friends and find out what everyone is doing. 

Getting together with other writers can inspire collaborative projects that you wouldn’t do on your own. Dale Ivan Smith has a great article on Anthologies and contests. I’ve heard about fundraising anthologies and genre anthologies. Submissions to a poetry anthology are being asked for in my writing circle. I can’t write poetry for toffee but a project like this can be a low-risk way of stretching your writing or trying out a new genre. 

Dip your toe in.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the free Substack version.

 

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash

Searching For A Market

This week in Publishing News,

 

This week Techcrunch published an article on how publishers will be able to opt out of AI searches due to new laws in the UK. The law states that AI search engines must offer a way to opt out, but with everyone using Chat GPT for search now, is that a good thing?

 

The recent US Book show examined the big movers in publishing, AI and Audio. Publishing Perspectives reports on some of the discussions and the importance of data when making decisions.

 

Publisher’s Weekly reports on an Author Guild survey on why author incomes are in decline. It’s all subscriptions fault, and libraries. People are still reading. So how do we get people to pay us for our stories?

 

Reading is a social activity. That’s the latest trend. (I can hear introverts screaming right now.) Publisher’s Weekly reports on a Frankfurt Bookfair virtual event discussing the global trend of reader social engagement that is bypassing publishers.

 

Kobo’s CEO Michael Tamblyn has a feature article on Publishing Perspectives about the office discussions on whether they would publish AI books. As he writes “This AI moment… is revealing a lot about what we believe to be important.” This is an inside look at what publishing companies are wrestling with.

 

If you want to lure a kid into the library, give them Manga. That’s the popular opinion of librarians according to Publishers Weekly who went out and surveyed them. From being very niche, it is now mainstream. It’s all down to librarians who nurtured those weird kids, giving them space to read, and now Manga is for the cool kids. 

 

Mark Williams calls out the hypocrisy from publishers as they publicly bemoan the use of AI while using it in their offices. I have some sympathy for the argument. He rightly calls out the double standard and how people are losing their jobs because of AI. It’s not, our office is more efficient as our staff are using AI tools. It’s our office replacement for staff are AI tools. 

 

Which type of Social Media is best? If you have been struggling with this question the latest article from the Alliance of Independent Authors is for you. Some social media brands work better for different genres. 

 

Alexa Bigwarfe has an interesting article on writing for AI search engines. How Is Your Next Reader Finding You? The Economist is already writing articles just for search engines. She explains about new marketing search and how authors can make their book findable in all the search noise.

 

Rachel Thompson has a great article on marketing. The Absolute Best Time To Market A Book Is Before It Exists. If you are scratching your head over that, you need to read the article. Do you want your readers to remember you?

 

The Indie Author magazine has an interesting interview with Deborah Wilde about the transition from screenwriter to books, navigating the publishing world, and reinventing yourself. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Meeting reader expectations- Jami Gold- Bookmark

Do you know Why?- Kathleen McCleary- Bookmark

How to choose the right character arc- K M Weiland -Bookmark

Writing the best twist- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

Interiority vs Visceral reactions-Susan Watts- Indepth article

 

In the Marketing Section,

Sending merch with ARC’s- Sandra Beckwith

A pitch is not a strategy- Kathleen Schmidt

Three leaks that are costing you- Alexa Bigwarfe- Bookmark

10 tips for setting up Direct Sales- Indie Author Mag- Bookmark

Give readers a clear way into your writing- Dan Blank- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

The shortlist for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children’s and Young Adults is out. I’ve judged these awards and it’s always a thrill to see what my peers have been up to and how creative our industry is. I’m especially noting how many great books are in the Te Reo section. Ka pai. It’s going to be another tough call picking the winners!

 

I’ve been thinking about the many hats that Writers wear. We can be cheerleaders for others, marketing apprentices with our own products, researchers of obscure things, and the biggest imposter syndrome badge holders. And we write as if we are separate from all those other identities. Recently I read Mark Leslie Lefebvres essay on trying to reconnect the different sides of his author life at Stoker Con. He writes so well about our dual lives and how sometimes one life takes over and crushes the other life. Food for thought. 

May you crush all your writing demons this week!

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter. If you want the best of my bookmarked links and other tidbits, you can subscribe here to join our happy band.

 

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox, subscribe to the free Substack version.

 

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Photo by Marten Newhall on Unsplash

Looking For A Life Ring.

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

Just after I published last week’s blog news broke about Meta forcing a book take down. I published a note about it in my Substack blog version. The Streisand Effect is in full flight as many are picking up the book to see what the fuss is about. A tell all about the Meta company by an ex -employee. The author is barred from talking about the book. Kathleen Schmidt has the details. The Kiwi author was due to be interviewed on our state radio last Friday but the take down went into effect forcing the termination of the interview.

 

The London Bookfair is over for another year and Publishing Perspectives talks about their impressions of the fair. It looks like the new venue isn’t wonderful, but the deal hall is getting bigger. What happens when you sacrifice comfort for turnout at a bookfair? 

 

While the UK had a seven week consulting period on AI and copyright, the US has just had a three week consultation period on the same issue. Publishing Perspectives looks at publishers viewpoints on this and their warning over the fair use defense. US publishers were scrambling to put in a submission. This is a comprehensive article, and they draw on responses from the Associations of American Publishers. They quote from the American government AI action plan.

The American “AI Action Plan” is not as detailed and structured an approach as the British proposal is. Instead, the US plan—described in the current administration’s fondness for comparative bravura—”will define priority policy actions to enhance America’s position as an AI powerhouse and prevent unnecessarily burdensome requirements from hindering private sector innovation. With the right governmental policies, continued US artificial intelligence leadership will promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.”

 

Publishers Weekly has an interesting article on a survey of Spanish language publishing professionals 75% of whom believe that the adoption of AI is unavoidable. Diving into the article there is a sort of cost benefit analysis. It is a great tool, but it could threaten jobs. Is there an upside?

 

Mark Williams points out that the robot rebellion is underway with an AI refusing to do the work of a coder. Mark also looks at lessons for book publishers learned from watching television morph into streaming. He says that publishing history is active resistance, passive acceptance, and eventual embrace. 

 

Bloomsbury is expanding its imprints. Harry Potter may have saved them, but Sarah J Mass is keeping them going and now they are acknowledging this by having a dedicated imprint for Science Fiction and Fantasy. It only took them 25 years.

 

Spotify is expanding its audiobook platform to include short form audiobooks from Indie publishers. Dan Holloway writes about this latest move and who will benefit from it.

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors has an interview with Ricardo Fayet of Reedsy on Marketing and what he sees as important for 2025.

 

Darcy Pattison has in interesting article on using AI to do preliminary copy editing. This is how she saves herself time but while she uses these and other tools she does go through a human editor as well.

 

P J Parrish has a great article on giving your secondary characters some love. Do they even have a growth arc in your story? 

 

Oliver Fox has a guest article on Katie Weilands blog which explores an alternative narrative structure. This is thought provoking stuff. We all have a favourite book that seems to break the rules of classic storytelling structure. This approach maybe the structure that resonates with you.

 

In The Craft Section,

2 fantastic articles from September Fawkes on Structuring scenes and Alternative views of basic story structure- Bookmark Both!

How to master the passage of time- C S Lakin

How to write a likable character- Lucy Hay- Bookmark

The 5 leaf clover structure of story genre- Storygrid- Bookmark

 

In the Marketing Section,

How to create email press releases to journalists- Sandra Beckwith

SEO for authors in 2025- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Pricing strategies to sell more books- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

10 tips for public appearances- Kathryn Craft- Bookmark

What do you do when the book reviewer says yes- Karen Cioffi

 

To Finish,

Who are you online? Michelle Cutler writing on Jane Friedman’s blog has a warning. If you don’t define and present yourself online, others will. How do you define yourself? Has it changed from the first time you put up a website?

 

With all the future talk of AI now becoming present talk, and in your face AI, it is worth dropping into Joanna Penn’s website to checking out all the articles and interviews she has done on the future of publishing. She offers ways to approach the changes that are now here and how to use them. Joanna advocates for using AI as a tool and doubling down on human experiences for your readers. 

We are in another publishing revolution. It might be time to hunt down a life ring for comfort and safety. 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter. If you want the best of my bookmarked links you can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Buying the Bestsellers

This is the week of the Buy.

Amazon bought Souk. Why should the average writer care? Souk is to the Middle East what Amazon is to the West. Digital books are only 1% of the market. They only have to go into China to get total world domination...

Kobo, the Canadian digital device and bookseller has bought Shelfi. Why? For the tech developers apparently, ( or is it because they have a perfect understanding of buyer’s reading habits.)

Microsoft unveils a digital bookstore. Why? Because everybody else has one... (I wanna bookstore... Google and Apple have one and Amazon has a big one....) Meanwhile a savvy bibliophile wandered into an Amazon bookstore and saw that they don’t sell books like other booksellers. They group them differently.

How is your reading this year? Elizabeth S Craig decided to put a reading plan into action this meant having another identity on Goodreads.

The Writers Guild Association home of script and screenwriters looks like it is gearing up for another strike. Negotiations have broken down between the studios again on what they pay the writers. Why are the content creators the last in line to get paid?

There are rumblings in the universities. Should academics publish their own textbooks? There was an interesting panel debate at London Book Fair on this.  Is the traditional academic publishing world finally getting the shake up of self publishing. The days of the $400 text book may be numbered.

Bologna is on! Bologna is the world’s biggest children’s book fair. At this time all the children’s writers get a case of travel and book envy. Publishers Weekly has a quick run down on what everyone is looking for.

James Scott Bell has a great article in Writer Unboxed asking is your writing big enough? You know those sweeping sentences that go on for half a page and your eyes and attention remain riveted to the page, even while you subconsciously know that no editor these days would let a writer ramble on but the writing is soo good and you just can’t help reading on. I have shelves full of writers that were sparing with a full stop but they could sure tell a story. They were prolific and belonged to the pulp school of writing. Anne R Allen wonders if the constant pressure to write and repeat is a good idea. What about those writers who write slowly?

In The Craft Section,

5 underused settings in Spec Fic

Story structure purpose for readers- Jami Gold - Bookmark

Let’s talk verbs

How to edit your story

Creating a strong moral premise- Jeff Lyons- Bookmark

Theme examples from literature- Now Novel

3 steps to engaging readers

10 things to remember about sequels- Janice Hardy

Red flags in editing why your MS gets rejected- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

3 Book marketing skills -C K Syme

9 things authors need on their landing pages- Bookthority-Bookmark

50 ways to market your book without going crazy

Author bio’s a help or hindrance- Anne R Allen - Bookmark

Amazon keywords to double your readers- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Book description A/B tests Bookmark

An old world concept made new

To Finish,

This week Marie Force wrote a fantastic article on chasing the best seller lists and how she realised that she needed to change her focus. Kris Rusch talked about the bestseller lists and who you are writing for. It is a fabulous article and a must read.

Maureen

@craicer

My monthly newsletter is going out soon. If you want to get a collection of the best of my bookmarked links plus other goodies in your inbox you can subscribe here.If you want to shout me a cup of coffee hit the Kofi button. Thanks to all those who have fed my caffeine habit.

Pic Flickr Creative Commons / Moyan Brenn /Tuscany Market

Is It Goodwill?

This week in the international childrens publishing community everyone was talking about the genre slap that we took when Kent University (UK) decided that Childrens Writing was not literary enough to teach seriously... this followed the sacking of the Times Children’s Book reviewer, in a budget cut. The children’s writing community in the UK wrote a letter signed by 425 writers and librarians to the Times expressing their outrage at this. Childrens writers around the world are facing the continual disparagement of what they do so there was lots of agreement when Keren David wrote this blog piece. There is a beautifully put comment on it from New Zealand’s Maria Gill who summed up our feelings here pretty well.

As the fallout continues over Learning Media and the sales of back lists etc etc, anybody who has got an email with new contract terms in it please check in with NZ Society of Authors before you sign anything.

Be aware that increasingly publishing contracts are now including tricky little phrases such as ‘all rights in perpetuity’ and ‘Worldwide’ and last month Writer Beware commented on a contract that had ‘Universe wide.’ Check over this handy book contract clause explain-all.

Bob Mayer has been looking at the traits of sucessful writers these days and it comes down to the fact that they are ‘Outliers.’ This is a really interesting article.

Continuing in this vein is a great post by C J Lyons who is probably the most sucessful Hybrid author out there. How has she juggled her writing career stradling both sides of the fence...she went and built a new paddock.

Bibliocrunch has some tips if you want to look into self publishing.

Phillip Jones of FutureBook has been looking at the slap dealt to the science publishing community from a Nobel Prize winner about the elitist nature of publishing journals... The Open Access of scholarly work is the big talking point in the academic community at the moment.

DigitalBookWorld is hosting a webinar on Rights Marketing and Management. Check it out.

Author newsletters...How do you do them and what use are they. This is a nifty bookmark worthy post giving you the low down.

Publishing Perspectives is taking issue with The Best Of 2013 Book lists...which are appearing all over the web at the moment. One ofthe more comprehensive book lists I’ve seen is BookRiot’s. At least I have heard of some of the books.

In the Craft section,

Susan Kaye Quinn on Brainstorming Your Book. This is a bookmark it post.

Jodie Renner has pro tips on character description.

Writersinthestorm has a How to write like the wind...

Kirsten Lamb on character duality traits.

Sarah Juckes has discovered a nifty website to help youuntangle your plot.

There are three stellar articles from Jami Gold.

4 tips that solve 99% of your writing problems

Subtext when your characters are liars

Fix 4 common problems with The Emotion Thesaurus (Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s amazing book)

In the Marketing section,

Joel  Friedman has a nifty template for anyone wanting to do a dust jacket.

Julie Hedlund has been doing a kick starter for her picture book which became funded yesterday. Take a look at how she broke it down and what she offered.

6 books every marketer needs to read. I have read some of them and they are very interesting even if you are not a marketer.

To Finish,

‘Tis the season to get gifts for yourself  (or the writer in your life...) Here we have Chuck’s Ten gifts for writers updated from when he asked people to kidnap Neil Gaiman.

K M Weiland has the top 10 gifts for writers...(not as extreme...) and

Writer Unboxed has bypassed the gift list and gone straight to New Years resolutions for writers...

Spread the Goodwill!

maureen

Pic from Amazon (5* book on visual fantasy writing)

Do We Have A Roadmap?

So the first week of NaNoWriMo is over and strangely the publishing blogosphere is mostly quiet...

There are a few conversations happening over Mike Shatzkin’s analysis of Amazon and where they are heading to now...will they lose interest in the book business altogether? This is a great article which gives a good snapshot of what is happening now and where we may be heading in the next couple of years. This is worth a read for anyone in the book business!

One of the other discussion pieces is a report released this week that 98 UK publishers went out of business in 2012, a huge increase from the year before. However independent booksellers may be making a comeback... Do they have a secret map?

Rachel Gardner talks about privacy...and being off the map. Do you seriously think you can have privacy if you are a writer?

FutureBook talks to Peter Hudson of BitLit who is inventing a map for readers to bundle print and ebooks... with a cell phone picture.

Publishers Weekly has an interesting article on the changes to digital printing in offset books and how this is changing how publishers manage their stock which previously would be out of print. They are redrawing their map.

Great articles abound in Craft for writers struggling with NaNoWriMo 

The seven deadly sins of novel writers

How to mix genres and create heroes

A great article from Jami Gold on writing with rhythm

Janice Hardy has guest author, Michael Kinn, blogging on Genre Angst

KM Weiland on common mistakes

There are four different kinds of authors...

In Marketing... for when the novel is finished

Price pulsing and increasing visibility (a very interesting article)

Direct marketing books pro’s and cons (A Forbes article)

The Book Designer has the 10 commandments....

Bibliocrunch has the 5 obstacles to crowdfundingstorytelling

Dan Blank on how to create word of mouth marketing for your books

Don’t discount freebies

Website to check out...

TheWriteLife ... a great little site with some very handy tips

To Finish,

Chuck Wendig on NaNoWriMo... the first week... Be Warned!

maureen

Pic is a map from 1624 by Jens Munck