Underneath The Covers

Recently the #PublishingPaidMe hashtag trend on Twitter exposed the historical underpaying of black authors in the publishing world. One of the ideas it highlighted was the lack of diversity in publisher lists with publishers limiting themselves to one representative of each ethnicity and claiming they were diverse. Publishers Weekly looks at other negative trends that were exposed with the hashtag trend call out.

How good are you at spotting publishing scams? Unfortunately, even people who have been bitten once are being bitten again. Even when you think that the publisher is looking legit, check, check, and check again. And don’t take an agent's word for it. They have been bitten as well.

Kobo Plus is like Kindle select but without the demand for exclusivity. However, it was limited to just a few countries. But in great news this week Kobo Plus is expanding… YAY.

How do you keep your backups safe? Do you even have backups? Jami Gold looks at all the different ways you can save yourself giant headaches.

Netgalley has been offering their review service for quite a while. Recently they decided to expand their service to audiobooks. With the rise and rise of audiobook sales, this is a welcome move for publishers.

Can authors use A I to help them write a better story? Writers Digest has an interesting article looking at using a tool called Marlowe that analyses your manuscript and points out the flaws and plot holes to fix up. Take a look at Marlowe – you can try it out for free.

As a teacher, I was very keen to encourage my younger colleagues to have some sort of creative life outside of teaching. You need to put creativity into the well because teaching drains so much from you. For me, it was escaping into writing. But as writers, are we draining the creative well and not putting anything back in? This article looks at the importance of having hobbies away from writing.

Bob Mayer and Jennifer Crusie are both big names in their respective genres. Together they have written 3 great thriller romances. They collaborated on a website where they discuss different aspects of the writing craft from their own points of view. Check out their conversation on developing character arcs. Excellent stuff. (Also, their writing is superb!!!)

In The Craft Section,

Character building – how much planning should you do? - Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

Beginning Screenwriters Start Here- Scott Myers

How to start a novel - 8 steps to the perfect opening scene- Reedsy- Bookmark

Writing emotion- Iris Marsh

The emotional rollercoaster all writers experience- Martha Alderson- Bookmark

Building a bold narrators voice- Now Novel- Bookmark

In the Marketing Section,

Two great articles from Rachel Thompson - How to improve your email newsletters right now and How to build an engaged following- Bookmark

Using video marketing- Frances Caballo

Why you need a template for your newsletter- Nate Hoffelder

Amazon Editorial Reviews -Are you using them- Dave Chesson- Bookmark

5 Simple website upgrades- Penny Sansevieri - Bookmark

To Finish,

Brandon Sanderson has been running a Kickstarter for a leather-bound hardback edition of one of his best-selling books to celebrate the 10^th anniversary. He modestly asked for $250K because that was what he figured he would need. So far, he’s passed $5 million. Kris Rusch takes a look at Kickstarter for authors and how building a community and stakeholder engagement is a winning formula for writers wanting to try this form of income building.

It’s all part of building up multiple income streams for authors.

Maureen

@craicer

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter?  When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you. 

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons- Steven Johnson

Looking After Ourselves

This week after a long time away Author Earnings came back with a roar. They have sharpened up their spider bots and have delved deep into the data and have found more interesting things about all things publishing with Amazon... and they are sharing some interesting data finds with authors.

Because they are so much better at combing the data, Passive Guy was moved to sound a warning that they have to be careful as they know more about the industry of publishing than some big publishers do and this might open themselves up for lawsuits.

Mike Shatzkin has also been looking at the publishing business and he checked in with Data Guy about some key things in the book selling industry. Data Guy backs up most of what Mike has been pointing out over the last few years. There are some interesting points about Romance books and bestseller lists. (If you want a sneak preview about where we all might be heading with retail stores check out Amazon Go – Its newest bricks and mortar store.)

Agent Laurie McClean has been crystal ball gazing about what is going to be hot around the publishing offices. (If you want to get a quick glance at what agents are calling for type #MSWL in theTwitter search bar.)

Have you checked out the sexism in children’s books lately? The Guardian has and made a special study of it too. I was surprised to see such high figures of gender imbalance. Did you know that most main character animals are male?

Publishers Weekly has a great post by Jane Friedman on the value of free content... no, it’s not valueless, It is all in how you use it.

The book industry got together recently in Tunisia to look at finally doing something about piracy. Publishing Perspectives reports on the conference and the piracy discussion. It might be a case of too late...

WriteOnCon is back! The free online 3 day children’s writing conference starts in a few  weeks. Check out the schedule and book some time to soak up the great posts on your calendar. (If you write for children you really should check it out!)

Are you a healthy writer? I’m not at the moment. Moving anywhere in this heat wave is exhausting. However over the years I have been looking at standing desks and dictation. I finally got my computer to accept dictation... Unfortunately that computer is heading problems with my excellent stop it doesn’t speak clearly- (Translation; Unfortunately the computer is having problems with my accent. It doesn’t speak kiwi.) Joanna Penn has a great excerpt from her latest book on the healthy writer on dictation.

Joanna has also interviewed Alex Anders on writing diverse characters. Are you doing this correctly or are they all cardboard cutout cliches...?

In The Craft Section,

How to build suspense- Peter Rey

Writing a Novella- Mythic Scribes- Bookmark

How to choose character names-

7 steps to plotting a novel- Martha Alderson- Bookmark

Learn How to write as you read- Now Novel - Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Best way to publish print books

Book Promotion tips – The Book Designer- Bookmark

How to rock a free day promotion- Jane Friedman- Bookmark

11 tips for the most effective AMS ads- Bookmark

The complete guide to eBook distribution-Reedsy

Facebook changes their news feed... what does it means for authors? A must read on how the changes affect you.

To Finish,

With all the planning for the year underway... Writers need to take care of themselves too. Sometimes we find it hard and we wonder why. Lauren Sapala has a great article on mental attitudes that trip us up, and how we can trick our brains out of sabotaging us.

Maureen

@craicer

In my monthly newsletter I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. If you want to shout me a coffee just hit the hit the coffee button. I’m nose deep in iced coffee to cope with the heatwave...Thanks.

Pic: Flicker Creative Commons/ Ben Dalton

Your True Self

Brand seems to be the flavour of the month.

Everywhere I look I see a reference to author brand.... Some writers think that branding is a dirty word. (A marketing term that they shouldn’t sully themselves with.) But there are some astute writers who are taking a second look at author branding.

Kris Rusch is dedicating a series of articles to it and the importance in a writers life of getting the branding right.

Anne R Allen has a great guest article from Carmen Amato on 3 mini strategies to jumpstart your career. Branding is at the top of the list. This is a must read. Do you know your one true reader?

How do you know when you are getting the wrong advice? Jami Gold has a great post on how to recognise advice you should ignore.

Susan Spann takes this a step further in her guest post looking at publishing contracts. Do you know when to walk away from a publishing deal?

Recently Becca Puglisi (one half of The Emotion Thesaurus Team) wrote a guest blog on a writers business plan. I found it really interesting as I am trying to organise my thoughts around what I want for my own writing. Take a look at this excellent article.

Chuck Wendig has the perfect brand of wise advice wrapped up in irreverent and word vomit humor. Once you get used to his style of wordplay you can focus on the message and see the gems at the core of the molten lava facade. Here are his thoughts on the business of writing.

This week The Guardian decided to look at the rise of Indie writers and how they are starting to be noticed by the movie studios. The Indie brand – cool... fresh... exciting... new...

Of course that is how all of us see ourselves. Or Not. William Kenower talks about a writers worst fear.

Penny Sansevieri has a great post on Amazon keywords. How do you find the right keywords for your metadata... and should you use keyword strings?

This week I read an interesting article about reading being something that now happens on phones. Surely not I thought. I didn’t make the connection to myself until I realised that I had just read a podcast transcript on my phone.  Prerna Gupta, one of the founders of Hooked, talks about how she got ten million teens to read on their phones. This is a fascinating look into a reading future near you.

In The Craft Section,

Treating your novel like a screenplay

A cheats guide to writing a synopsis- Sarah Juckes- Bookmark

How to use cause and effect in stories- Martha Alderson- Bookmark

Fiction Critique checklist- C S Lakin- Bookmark

Pulling weeds from the writing garden- Laural Zimmerman

When to listen to your critique group-Roz Morris- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

2 interesting posts from the Bookbug blog- Reasons books are rejected from Bookbub and Ideas for more Bookbub followers.

How to get endorsements for your book- Shelly Hitz

Marketing with your next book- Janice Hardy

A recipe for a non traditional marketing plan- Writer Unboxed

Creating a box set bundle- Joanna Penn

Getting book reviews- Reedsy - Bookmark

How authors can work together for promotion- Bookmark

How to build your author brand from scratch- The Book Designer- Bookmark

To Finish,

Once in a while you come across someone who has such a passion for life that you stand back in awe of their energy and drive. They live a life of not compromising on what they love. Every meeting is a joy of laughter, robust opinions and new ideas. When you think their name, scenes from past meetings fill your mind and you find yourself grinning.

One of the champions of the New Zealand Children’s Writing Community left us last night. We are all feeling a little lost today. Barbara lived a life filled with story. She wrote, she reviewed, she assessed, she collected children’s books. Her knowledge of books and writers careers was second to none. A librarian, a mentor, a lover of children’s books, to the very last month of a life, well lived. 

R.I.P. Barbara Murison.

x

Maureen

@craicer

Pic: From Barbara's blog. A treasure trove of book reviews and events.

Author Education

It seems that every month we are mourning a creative genius who made an impact across the world. This week the creative dynamo Prince unexpectedly died at age 57. But the big tragedy as Kristine Rusch writes today in her Business Musings post was that he had no will. 

Kris started her Contract Deal Breakers series with a post on understanding what rights are last week and I had planned to link to that excellent post first when her latest post just slipped into my inbox. Both of these posts are must reads for authors as they highlight the very specific problems that authors face as their estates live long after the author is dead and what to do about it.

In another interesting pairing of posts, Wendy Sparrow writes about how writing romance is seen as easy to do when it is anything but... and Harlequin announced that they are dropping one of their most popular lines. Their letter announcing this is a wonderful example of corporate speak.

Janet Reid this week was asked about Agent contacts and what should be in them. She writes a fairly detailed letter outlining the sorts of things that you should see in a contact. If it says anything else be very careful.

This week Ruth Harris wrote about how to protect yourself from the University of Hard Knocks- or how to protect yourself from the scammers out there. She lists a comprehensive go to list for checking out offers you think might be your pot of gold... or your crock of s....

Publishing Perspectives talked to two pundits at the London Book Fair on publishing trends on both sides of the Atlantic. This is an interesting read. What sells in New York is not what London might pick.

Jane Friedman has a great guest post on her website on ways to generate Online Book Publicity. 

If you are dipping your toe into podcasts there are a few to choose from with book or publishing themes. The Bookseller has a collection of ten different podcasts that you might like to browse. I often link to the Creative Penn podcasts but I have dropped into a few others on this list and they are all good.

(I contribute to a monthly podcast at Writers Island. In the latest episode is a feature on NZ On Air and how writers might be able to access this funding.)

In the Craft Section,

Martha Alderson on using a plot planner-Bookmark

Joanna Penn on writing across genres-  Bookmark

Two great posts from Angela Ackerman on Character failures create a recipe for character growth and Sharing protagonists deep feelings makes for reader engagement.

Marcy Kennedy on ways to evoke emotion. Bookmark

Two great posts from K M Weiland on Choosing the protagonist and How to write strong characters.

E J Wenstrom on How to tap into the writing mode anywhere

Ann Kroeker on ways to manage your energy.

Ash Krafton on Engineering your series.

In the Marketing Section,

How to price your self published book

Five comparisons NOT to make for your book in a query.

Rachel Thompson on branding 101 for authors- Bookmark

Molly Greene on the new way to go free on Amazon (This is a 
How To on the new Amazon rules) Bookmark!

7 must have features on Author websites

Ten author websites examined.

To Finish,

If you want to get inspired or educated just check into a TEDx talk. This week The UK’s top agent Jonny Geller gave a talk on What makes a bestseller. Food for thought...

Maureen

@craicer

Pic from Flickr/ Creative Commons/ Shimer College