Being Kind

This week I sent out my monthly newsletter just before New Zealand began to prepare for a four-week lockdown. We are entering an uncertain time. I get to share my working space with my family for four weeks solid. This could be challenging. Here are some of the ideas I shared in my newsletter for writers coping in this brave new world.

Clean up all your computer files.

Back up all your documents.

Shelve your books alphabetically, or by colour… or practice book structure sculpture.

Write a book review and post it online every day for Book Karma.

Study a good film for plot points and emotional payoffs- Do it as a group activity (family time?)

Check-in with your loved ones and your colleagues. This is about physical distancing not social distancing. 

Be Kind To Yourself

The calm good sense of K M Weiland on the power of hopeful stories when the world seems a bit mad is a nice reminder that the world needs storytellers. 

Joanna Penn has a great article on productivity from guest writer, Tiffany Joy. If your productivity has gone out the window it is alright to regroup and try again.

Nate Hoffelder has a great post on how to look at your author business and move forward with a new plan for when we come out on the other side. Very sensible, also his 6 stages of grief are right on target.

Anne R Allen has been looking at Amazon’s review policy and yes, they have changed it again. Now you have to be careful of ARC team reviews. But as Anne says there are other places you can leave reviews.

New Zealand was going to be hosting the WorldCon this year and now the whole country is in lockdown. As a nice pivot Worldcon will be virtual. 

Meanwhile, BEA is still attempting to go ahead despite the withdrawals of 3 big publishers.

Kris Rusch has dug out an old post on setting priorities if you are new to working from home. This is absolutely the best advice as we figure out how to work in this brave new world of coronavirus lockdown. She then continued her current thinking about black swan events and what might be coming down the track for author business.

In The Craft Section,

5 ingredients for story subtext- K M Weiland- Bookmark

Peer critique versus Professional editing- Jane Friedman

Creative Writing Prompts and Writing Exercises from Reedsy- Bookmark Both

How to format dialogue – Jami Gold - Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Social Media Marketing

5 reasons to consider translating your work- Angela Ackerman

How to get publicity- Tom Corson Knowles- Bookmark

April - unique content ideas- Penny Sansevieri – Bookmark

Publish Drive expands its business to include print and audio- News!

To Finish,

Last week was I was writing about creativity. The Oatmeal blog came up with an awesome comic on creativity. 

Here in New Zealand we are lucky to have a brilliant microbiologist and a cartoonist join forces to write creative, entertaining and factual daily articles that are now being shared globally.

Be Kind. Stay strong.

Maureen

@craicer

Day One of New Zealand Lockdown

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.

Getting Creative

Last week I was urging people to look for the silver lining. A lot can happen in a week. 

Sadly, I am seeing many people in the arts industry who have had their jobs disappear, launches canceled, speaking gigs (that pay the rent) postponed or stopped. Then I saw booksellers struggling and the layoffs of staff have begun.

Some great booksellers are keeping their staff on full pay and giving them vacation time. Others are coming up with innovative ways to stay relevant in the community. A friend who does a regular storytime in a children’s bookshop is now doing an online version for the store. (They also have a mobile EFTPOS machine so they can go out to cars with your phone in order.) Other bookshops have started a delivery service. 

Now is the time to get creative to weather the Covid 19 storm. 

With the canceling of so many festivals, some kid’s authors got together to hold an online book festival for kids. Check out how they are doing it and share the idea around.

Penguin Random House, Scholastic, and others are relaxing their licenses so teachers can use their books and crafts in videos for children who are unable to go to school. Authors who have their own licenses for this may be able to offer something similar. 

Librarians overseas, are arguing that now is the time to relax the fair use rules on copyright. This is tricky as authors should still be paid for their work. It is their livelihood.

Amazon is priority shipping- anything not a priority for Covid 19 is getting delayed. Unfortunately, books are not seen as a priority. However, that doesn’t apply to KDP print and ebooks. (silver lining)

In the middle of all this Macmillan ended its library embargo. Everyone told them you don’t mess with librarians, but they had to find out the hard way.

Kristine Rusch talks about Black Swan events and how the world and business change forever at these times. This is an interesting read and something to ponder on as we look at our author business. Dean and Kris are also offering big discounts on all their courses for authors who are stuck inside. 

Nate Hoffelder is noting that most of the Book Fairs are talking postponement. He has a blog post on what to take if you are planning to go to a fair as soon as everything gets back to the new normal.

Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors has a very useful article on how Indie Publishing might be able to weather the Covid 19 storm.

In The Craft Section,

4 tips for creating Villains- Sacha Black - Bookmark

5 tips for writing therapy scenes- Jennifer Lane

4 reasons why sprinting is the new writing- Sacha Black

Ways to add depth to settings- Jordan Dane- Bookmark

Taking the first step towards writing- Shanna Swendson- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

How to make your book marketing more effective- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Packaging your book- Keywords, metadata, and selling points- Nicolas Erik- Bookmark!

New free epub creation tool- Yay.

Increasing discoverability- Facebook Goodreads Twitter- Ingram blog

Change your author blog into a website- Nate Hoffelder- Bookmark

To Finish

In this time of uncertainty with the news constantly changing around us it can be tempting to lock ourselves away and go back to comfort food, books, etc etc. If you know anyone contemplating plans to write that picture book, ‘because it’s easy to write a kids book’ send them over to read Melinda Szymanik’s blog- The picture book gospel. 

Now is the time to be kind and to think outside of the box, to get the word out about books and reading. Write reviews, talk on social media about favourite books, share your process, invent words games, social distancing doesn’t mean social isolation. Writers are already ahead of the rest of the world in these skills. It’s time to show them off.

Maureen

@craicer

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter of the best of the months' bookmarked links.

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 – Bill Smith- Girl Scout cookies 

The Grapes Of Wrath

Another week in publishing… another meltdown in publishing. Hopefully this is not a sign of a new normal for 2020.

So what is it this time? 

The novel American Dirt got rave reviews pre-publication. The book was compared to a modern Grapes Of Wrath and so it has come to pass that wrath has been visited upon the author for writing a story of Latin immigration - without being Latin.

The furore has been public and vitriolic. The author has disappeared. The publisher has tried to calm the waters, not sure if he just poured petrol on the fire with this press release.

Publishers Weekly is reporting the cancellation of the book tour in favour of Town Hall style meetings about the book. Is all publicity really good? (Can’t help thinking this would be the classic author nightmare.)

* Just edited to add in this great post from Jami Gold -What Do the Calls For Diversity Mean For Our Writing

Meanwhile in other publishing threats, The White House is trying to pull a book because of revealed national secrets that may be in it. Anybody who is close to National government has to have their manuscripts approved for release. Apparently this one was… weeks ago…

Also in a banning frame of mind is Digital Book World. They have banned Macmillan from attending the Digital Book World conference because of the way they are treating libraries. Is this a publicity stunt, a highlighting of the Macmillan/ Library issue or the building of barricades for the revolution…

This week Lee and Low published their annual baseline survey on diversity in publishing. Is the publishing world hiring a more representative band of people?

Writer Beware has a new collection of scams hitting the newbies and its Pay To Play or in this case pay to get profiles on magazines… sadly Publishers Weekly may also be in this camp.

Jane Friedman has updated her guide to Writers Conferences so if you are thinking about attending one this year – take a look.

I came across two great posts on plotting this week. An oldie but a goodie from Chuck Wendig and Story Arcs from Write Practice.

In The Craft Section,

Creating believable characters

Story Structure – Heroes Journey- Karen Woodward- Bookmark

15 keys to writing dialogue – Ruth Harris – Bookmark 

7 rules to cliffhangers- Anne R Allen- Bookmark

How to write a mystery novel- Huge collection of links- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Unique content ideas for February- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Nates big list of promotion websites- Nate Hoffelder- Bookmark lots!!

Jacketed case printing – Ingram Spark’s new shiny 2020 goodie!!

To Finish,

As I come across interesting publishing links during the week I pass them on to people who are working at the coalface of any issue currently of concern. Our NZ Society of Authors is having a battle over what copyright means with government advisors. This week Joanna Penn had an interview with Rebecca Giblin on the importance of contracts and what to watch out for in publishing clauses. The interview is well worth a listen for the breaking news that an AI has been granted copyright. 

2020 is going to be an interesting year.

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: Henry Fonda

Conquering The Mountain

A couple of news items caught my eye this week in publishing. 
First, a shot across the Audible bows from the big four publishers over Audibles new speech to text captions on its audiobooks. Audible is claiming it's an AI message service. The publishers are saying it is equivalent to ebook publishing. So how does Amazon, who owns Audible see this? They tried something similar in 2009 and backed down from the publisher's wrath back then... but ten years on and who is the biggest player in town?

Last weekend I hosted a day-long mini-conference on publishing and one of the sessions I programmed was collaboration. This is becoming more of a thing in the Indie world and anything that encourages groups of people to work together must be a good thing... Publish Drive has just launched a new service that helps collaborators. Abacus. It splits the money at source and so one person doesn’t get lumbered with all the tricky maths on royalty payments to a group. 

Mike Shatzkin took a look at the last ten years of the book publishing industry and notes the major turning points on the way. Ipads... Borders... and the growth of Amazon from 5th in book sales to over 50% of the book sales.

While the publishing eyes focussed on the West it is wise to keep an eye out on the East. This is where The New Publishing Standard is so valuable. Who knew there was such a book hungry market out there... not the regular publishers. The latest figures out say that Nigeria has eclipsed Japan to be the 6th largest online nation. Paper books have always been the standard in Nigeria, I wonder what will happen when they find out they can read on their phones. TNPS is launching a new newsletter just looking at the rise of African readers. While they are doing that they are also examining the subscription model. They only see good things ahead for subscription. It’s all about discovery.

Jane Friedman has a guest post from David Woghan on why self-publishers should consider their own imprint. I like to use the term Indie publishers. If you are contracting editors, cover designers, proofreaders, etc then you are acting like a traditional publisher. You are managing the production process. Traditional Publishers outsource much of their editing and design work so you can find the exact same people that traditional publishers use.  Maybe you should be thinking about imprints a lot earlier on. David talks a lot about Bowker rules. 
(If you are in NZ you can get free ISBN’s and you should.)

Anne R Allen has a great post this week on the 8 reasons why your manuscripts are getting rejected. It is not personal. You may be guilty of presenting a manuscript with a few of these errors. 

In The Craft Section,

Why editing matters- WriterUnboxed

Letting your antagonist drive the plot- Writers Digest- Bookmark

Layering characters for believable fiction- Victoria Mixon- Bookmark

On Core Story- Donna Macmeans- Bookmark

3 reasons to use timestamps in your novel

5 popular tropes writers struggle with – Mythcreants- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

3 secrets to effective landing pages- Nate Hoffelder- Bookmark

2 great posts from Penny Sansevieri 10 Bookcover rules- and Securing Amazon Reviews- Bookmark

Custom books cards- Bookbrush- Bookmark

Booklaunch for maximum sales- Bookbub- Bookmark

To Finish

Elizabeth Spann Craig always brings a note of sanity to the publishing process. It must be because she is a cozy mystery writer. This week she has a great post on author overwhelm. What can you do when your To-Do List looks and feels like a mountain. How do you tackle the writing life then? Break it down. A mountain is only climbed one step at a time. 

Maureen
@craicer

Hmm, I thought I would get the newsletter out this week… This weekend for sure! So if you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter Go on and 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 virtual coffee love. 

Or you can head over to Smashwords and pick up my books which are on sale at the moment. Just go to my books website. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons – Paxson Woelber

Saving Money

This week seems to be all about saving money. It started with the fantastic article by Anne R Allen on Self Publishing money wasters. This is a great article and a real heads up on what not to spend your money on. As always with articles like this read the comments because there are a few more tips in the conversations.

Saving money seems to be the theme with the publishers. This week The Guardian reported that Pearson is switching to a Netflix style rental option for its academic textbooks. Is this a good idea? I saw one horror story, this week where a parent copped a $3000 fine for a student's overdue textbook.

Every week I try to drop in on the Twitter chat that Rachel Thompson hosts around Book Marketing. Often her fellow co-host is an Author Virtual Assistant- The Rural VA.  This is not an AI but a real human person whom authors can employ to do tedious work for you. Here is a guest article about working with an author assistant.

Last month I mentioned that libraries were being stung by the new policies around library copies of ebooks that the publishers were imposing. Libraries pay for very expensive digital copies that have kill codes embedded in them, which activate after so many borrows. Some publishers are now changing the terms and it’s biting libraries and their wallets. Publishers Weekly explores that brick wall that libraries are up against. This week a librarian about to retire decided to vent her feeling about the disenfranchisement that these lending policies are causing communities.

The DIYMFA ( Do it Yourself Master of Fine Arts) site has loads of great articles. Have a trawl around the site. There is an article for every writer there. One recent article from Helen Darling was on Indie publishing budgets. How to think about them and prepare yourself for business. 

This week Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware rounded up the seven publishers that she has the most complaints about. It’s a sad list as their ads are everywhere and they make themselves look so legit. Please take the time to look at the list so you can advise newbies to stay away from their fishing hooks. 

Kris Rusch is on week four of her licensing journey. This week she talks about inventory. Do you have a comprehensive master sheet of your inventory anywhere? Most of us don’t. A few files in various hard drives or filing cabinets. This is an important and overlooked document. There is money in knowing what you own, what rights you haven’t signed away.

In the Craft Section,

In search of a moral compass- Writer Unboxed- READ THIS! Bookmark

Character descriptions, avoid boring stuff- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

4 tips to get unstuck with hard emotion- Lisa Hall Wilson

Story Climax- The Write Practice

Exploring nonlinear narrative- Art of Narrative

In The Marketing Section,

4 dirty secrets about author social media marketing- Frances Caballo

Ten business models for Indie Authors – Orna Ross

Mailchimp or Mailerlite -which one for budget-conscious authors- Rachel McCollin

10 reasons you aren’t getting book reviews and how to fix this- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

How to write good jacket copy – Nathan Bransford- Bookmark

12 SEO tips to drive traffic and sell books – The Book Designer- Bookmark

To Finish

Saving money is what the lean Indie Publisher is all about, so with that in mind, Nate Hoffelder has a list of ten free online graphic and image manipulation tools. This is a BOOKMARK resource. Take a look at all that is possible for ... ZERO dollars. 

Maureen
@craicer

My newsletter is due out soon so if you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter Why not subscribe and 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 – Got Credit

New Lamps for Old

This week as the news of Barnes and Nobles purchase dribbled out, there was a taking stock over whether their saving was a good thing. On the whole, it was seen as positive but pundits are still taking a wait and see approach. The news that Waterstones staff felt their wages were too low even in the face of their CEO saying they got a ‘stimulating job’ to make up for it went over as well as you could expect.

News of another screw-over arrived from the Digital Reader. Libraries are smarting. Publishers have been changing the terms of access to ebooks by libraries. In the past six months, three publishers have changed access from perpetual access (at way over hardback prices) to access for two years (at way over hardback prices.) One way to kill ebook lending.

Remember when Audible annoyed the romance writers over the horrible terms of their subscription offering and writers left the service in droves. After all, getting pennies when it had cost you thousands to record an audiobook wasn’t very fair. We’ll do better said Audible. They relaunched their audio subscription with a new name... but it could be the same old... 

The New Publishing Standard is expanding its offering. They are backed by Streetlib who operate out of Italy. Streetlib are keen to open up the rest of the world to digital publishing.  They have committed to Africa where they see the next big market for books. (Just remember all the Commonwealth countries in there...) So a dedicated newsletter for the African publishing market is about to be launched.

Marketing is always a tricky subject for authors. It is hard to put on your marketing hat when you’ve just spent ages with the creative hat on. Two interesting blog posts caught my eye this week for authors wrestling with email marketing. How to improve your email marketing and 14 content ideas for emails. Go forth and improve.

I try to get up and move around every half hour or so when I’m writing. But when you are in the flow sometimes you can forget to do this. Here is a timely reminder from one writer about what could happen if you don’t pay attention. Read it, it could save your life!

How often do you think outside the book? Are you thinking print, ebook, hardback, audio, gaming, movie, voice search, streaming, podcast... If your eyebrows lifted, check out Kris Rusch’s blog post on the licensing expo she has just attended. Joanna Penn’s guest, Makoto Takudome, shows how easy it is to get Amazon Polly to make your book into a podcast. 
Voice search and audio content are here to stay. How can authors use them to tell stories? There’s a new outfit making bite-sized stories for Alexa to read out. They need writers. 

In The Craft Section,

10 writing blogs to check out

Writing the anti-villain- Reedsy- Bookmark

Conflicts and goals in romance- Jami Gold- Bookmark

Goal orientated storytelling tension- Chris Winkle

5 ways to keep readers glued-  H R D’Costa- Bookmark

Two punctuation blunders – Anne R Allen- Upskill Here!

In The Marketing Section

How to get easy author publicity-Rachel Thompson

Getting paid to talk- Events after publication -Emma Darwin

Ten business models for Indie authors- Orna Ross

5 Book marketing strategies- Barbara Freethy- Bookmark!

7 ways to Make more money from your books- Leslie Millar- Bookmark

To Finish,

Jillyanne Hamilton has put together 20 super writing and publishing resources to help you make your book shine. Some of the resources will be familiar to you as I mention some people frequently but there are some new ones in the mix you might like to check out. 
Collaboration is the way of the future. Think artists collectives, Indie publishing houses, or just getting some like-minded friends together to take on the world. 

Maureen
@craicer

My monthly newsletter will be going out soon. If you want to get the best of my bookmarked links why don’t you subscribe? You will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you.
If you like the blog, you can shout me a coffee by hitting the coffee button up top.
This blog runs on coffee and love so I really appreciate all the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Author Rewards- Can You Afford An Elephant?

This week around the publishing blogosphere the chat was around author business.
Nate Hoffelder flagged that the new Amazon publishing dashboard has added a projected royalty earnings button. Things must be on the up. Markus Dohle CEO of Penguin Random seems to think so. Talk this industry up he says... 

Every writer has struggled with rejection. Writing is subjective. Not everyone will love what you write. In fact, as a writer, you regularly go through rejection of your own words. Anne R Allen has a fabulous post on rejection and why it feels so awful... 
Writer Unboxed came at rejection from another angle- Are you making writing harder than it needs to be? 

Joanna Penn has been on fire recently with great podcasts that this blog post is in danger of becoming an exclusive ode to The Creative Penn. If you have yet to watch/ listen to a podcast you are missing out on one of the most valuable sources of knowledge about Indie publishing around. Joanna also transcribes her podcasts... so you can read all the great information. So check out Why you need to treat your writing like a business and Joanna’s great interview with Frances Caballo on Pinterest and Instagram. And if you look carefully there are two more links in Craft and Marketing – both Bookmarked!

Understanding metadata and SEO is important in marketing. Miral Satter besides being CEO of Bibliocrunch is also savvy on SEO. (Search Engine Optimisation.) Miral has a must-read post on ways to nail author SEO.

I often wish for a nice team of elves to take over social media marketing and asking for reviews. It is so hard as I hate to bother anyone... Ingram has got a great post on how to build a community and get a team of elves together. Penny Sansevieri has a good post on how to get review recommendations.

Have you often wondered if there was a secret writers club that the big players are members of? There is, it’s called NINC.  They have amembers only newsletter but I recently came across a link to their article on crowdfunding for authors. This put me in mind of Kris Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smiths Crowdfunding campaign that is breaking all sorts of goals. If you donate even a little bit of money you get author workshops... books...courses... Seriously, seriously good prizes and there are only a few hours left...

In a Writer Beware moment – I often come across new writers in writing groups plaintively asking about publishers who want to publish their work if they would pay some money in first. Now there are Hybrid publishers who do a good job for authors and then there are the scammers who don’t. Here is a great article that lays out what you should be looking for to tell the difference. Pass it around- the more everybody knows the better for our industry.

In The Craft Section,

How to write with emotional truth- Bang2write- Bookmark

B speaks for A dialogue tricks- Stephen Pressfield

Using writing sprints- Paul Bonea- Bookmark

How to love self-editing - Hayley Milliman- Bookmark

Flawed characters= Great fiction – Kristen Lamb

9 weird ways to beat writer's block

In The Marketing Section,

How to make the most of Goodreads- Joy Rancantore- Bookmark

Author entrepreneur ethos- Jarie Bolander- Bookmark

Testing Bookbub ads- Bookbub- Bookmark

Choosing a publicist- Jane Friedman

3 simple mistakes to avoid in marketing- Jeff Bullas

Book Hooks and Blurbs- Sacha Black

To Finish,

This little video of A Day In The Life Of An Author popped across my Twitter feed today. I was intrigued by the elephants in the garden... every author has them.
They will be first on the list when I make my millions in royalties... LOL.

Maureen
@craicer

My monthly newsletter is where 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 mini book crammed full with marketing notes. I always appreciate virtual coffee love. If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons William Warby – Elephants at Whipsnade Zoo

The Same But Different

Another New Year... Another set of Writing Relating Goals and Publishing Predictions... reach for the last of the New Year’s party wine. 

Last year predictions were that Audio would start to take off. – This year continues that prediction- we haven’t seen the end of the beginning of the explosion in audiobook sales...  AI technology is ramping up. Chuck in publishers making audio-only deals and everyone in publishing is starting to take note of the gold in them thar hills....

Mark Coker always has an interesting perspective on what the new publishing year might bring. He’s more often right than wrong so take a look at what he considers to be the big issues going forward.

Joanna Penn dashed down under to catch up with family but still had time to make sure that her great podcasts were ticking over. Two recent ones that are well worth checking out are Creative Goal setting trends for 2019 and a great interview on 21st-century lessons for a creative mindset with Mark McGuiness.

Agent Laurie Mclean has also dipped her toe into the prediction pond for this year. Her big message – people reading (and finishing) a book is declining... we must encourage the eco system of books if we want publishing to survive. 

Kris Rusch and her husband Dean Wesley Smith have seen too many new publishing years to count. Kris is doing a great series on planning for the New Year. The longer I have been watching this industry (coming up to 11 years soon) the more I value Kris and her insights into what is going on. Start with her Boxing day post – The Current State Of Disruption... follow up with Part Two- Sales ... Part Three - on libraries and Part Four- Audio

Over The Christmas Break...when everyone was recovering from Christmas dinner Amazon changed tack again. Gone are product display ads... and in are Lockscreen ads. As everyone is commenting it’s a pay to play world out there.

Also in the news was the highlighting of a new trolling behaviour that is targeting successful sellers on Amazon.  They target the reviews and tell Amazon that you paid for 5-star reviews... The Zon comes down with their big sledgehammer... meanwhile the originator of the false claim reaps rewards... It’s a long process to get back to square one.

If one of your New Year’s Resolutions was to get a handle on Social Media you are not alone, Fae Rowan writes about the pain she feels when she contemplates Social Media marketing. Drop into the Writers In The Storm Blog to join in the conversation.

Penny Sansevieri has decided that 2019 should be the year of the vlog. Writers need to get a handle on using digital media as search becomes increasing image driven. And it is so easy, says Penny....

Anne R Allen highlighted a tidy list of ... new writer scams for 2019. They don’t stop trolling for newbies as we hit another new year. If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know who to avoid and where to go to find out more... don’t forget to tell the newbies out there that there is heaps of information if they just search for it. Google is your friend. Typing ‘to-good-to-be -true-offer and scam in a search bar is the first thing they should do. Remember anyone who wants you to pay them to publish your book... tread really really carefully!

Keren David over at an awfully big blog adventure ( children’s writer's blog) throws down the gauntlet to publishers about diversity... getting out of London and seeing what’s happening in the smaller centers etc etc. She has a list of great things she thinks they should do this year... after all, it is 2019. Has anyone in publishing heard of Skype? 

In The Craft Section.

How to get emotion on the page- Lisa Cron-Bookmark
The different types of editing- Writer Unboxed
Resources for writers- June Takey- This is an all you can eat blog post Bookmark!
8 writing tools to get the words flowing
Setting up a kanban board to reach writing goals in 90 days. Organise and win at writing...

In The Marketing Section,

What to include in your marketing strategy
Follow these steps when you publish your first book
Bookbub ads- David Gaughran- Bookmark
Using Pinterest to market children’s books- Jane Friedman- Bookmark
Amazon Advertising for KDP authors in 2019- Chris McMullen

To Finish,

Over my summer break, I had some fun trying different dictation solutions. Google came out the clear winner with almost 100% accuracy... except for the lag in voice capture which meant I lost the beginning of every sentence. All the words it caught were 100% accurate tho. At the huge Consumer Electronics Show (CES) The big tech giants were showing off their snazzy voice everything applications... including translations.
In 2019 will we be able to dictate content and have it automatically translated including social media posts to become a truly global publishing consumer and provider... 
Fasten your seatbelts...  

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

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons- Davity Dave

The Epic Roundup of 2018…

This will be my last post for 2018.
I’m having a few weeks off over Christmas. And it’s a day late too…. So what exciting things can I draw your attention to…
I thought I’d look back over the year and see what happened…

In January everyone was processing all the changes of 2017 and making predictions for 2018. Let’s see how they did. Joanna Penn had a list of coming tech trends for authors. Imposter syndrome- (Warning it’s from Chuck) and layoffs at Createspace had authors wondering what’s up?
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles 
The eyes have it- A fascinating look at how people view the Amazon buy page 
Katie Weiland’s fabulous infographic on Storytelling nuts and bolts.

In February
Scandal in the Children’s Lit community, Apple and Google playing with their book store fronts and the first inklings of how big Audio was going to get this year. Author Solutions has been pinged for predatory practices on newbie authors so much that their other name is shark. But did you know how many aliases they operate under?  
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles 
Killing Writer Perfectionism and Reverse Engineering Your Editorial Calendar

March was the month of… Death. With the deaths of Stephen Hawking, Ursula Le Guin and the news about Harper Lee’s estate… How prepared is your literary estate for after your death?
Findaway voices offer serious competition to Audible and writing podcasts – a source of information and creation for the modern writer., with serial novels. Don’t forget to stretch at your writing desk.
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles 
Seven strategies and Ninety-four tools to find readers 
Anne R Allen- Plot holes and Pot Holes

April had…my eleventh-year blogversary. Reviews disappearing left, right and center around the internet. The rise and rise of AI- Get Siri or Alexa to buy the books and then read them to your child. (I wouldn’t have predicted that eleven years ago!)
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles from 
Larry Brooks- Everything you need to know about story structure and 
David Gaughran- Canva- the author Go To for graphics.

In May   
Literary Embezzlement, the demise of Kindle worlds and implications thereof and GDPR and what it means for authors were the huge talking points in May. Take control of your author business and sell direct. Responsible use of mailing lists is a must.
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles from
Jami Gold - Why head hopping is lazy writing
SFF Marketing podcast- Cultivating a rabid fan base.

June followed up with Book Stuffing scandals and the implications for writers regarding copyright that Cockygate is highlighting. Patricia Cornwall jumps to Amazon and Writers and learned helplessness. Audio publishing- The next big thing!
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles from
Jane Friedman’s guests this month.
What does it mean to write a scene that works and The psychology of Author Marketing

July… When agents are found to be crooked.#daniellesmith and other predators in publishing. Why the literature Nobel was not awarded. Author income surveys and Wattpad the new go-to source for publishers to find the next big thing.
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles 
Sell your books, not your soul
Procrastinating productively

In August Walmart and Kobo teemed up… Is there serious competition ahead for Amazon? Createspace was shut by Amazon in favour of Kindle Print – (They are still ironing out the problems of this move.) Audible, owned by Amazon, changed their contracts… not for the better. And remember Cockygate?
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles from
Anne R Allen-Troubled Characters and their personality problems
Roz Morris- Building readership – a quiet rebellion

In September Bookstores were bought and sold. 
Contracts were contested and explored and Amazon put up the price of their Ads.. catching everyone on the hop. How will Brexit affect publishing? The days of nice booksellers are on the wane.
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles from
Bookbub- The biggest Ad mistakes
Go Into The Story- Protagonist vs Nemesis

October saw… a global and future focus with the Future Book conference. Publishers are looking at Asia as their next big markets to tackle and you should be too. Blockchain in publishing was talked about as the next big change to negotiate. And everyone everywhere is looking into book serialisation either Audio or subscription streaming. October is also the month where you plan for NaNoWriMo.
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles from
Katie Weiland has a magical post about the power of language
Joanna Penn Interviewed Dave Chesson about keywords for Amazon ads.

November, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo…. Craft articles were the flavour of the month. In publishing news- Amazon changed their systems and glitched a whole lot of writers. Now you really need to advertise as the organic discovery writers used to be able to do has disappeared. Viral sensation The Scottish Granny elevated a children’s book from 7-year-old obscurity to marketing sensation. And China is hunting for children’s books. 
Standout Craft and Marketing Articles 
I guest posted over on Jami Gold’s blog on leveling up your craft learning.
70 plot twists and examples – Reedsy
Bookcover Zone - seriously addictive

And now we get to this week in December 
Publishers Weekly had an article on Hybrid publishers and how authors are redefining success and failure in publishing.
Nate Hoffelder comments on how often Publishing hit USA Today’s list of big job layoff’s in the last decade.
Bookmark worthy posts
Make your own book video trailers for free... 
Writing intuitively - September Fawkes
Writing beats and meaningful actions- Women on Writing

As I’ve rolled through the year’s blog posts I discovered that 2018 was the year of the book cover for me. I bought six and commissioned three. I finished Book Three in my Starlight series and discovered that I have to add another book to that series.  I launched the first two books in The Circus Quest Series. (On sale over Christmas if you need some great books for your child's new Tablet /eReader.) and I was part of the Judging team for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. (Waves Hi to the current crop of judges who will have their first onslaught of books about now!) It’s been a full 2018.

Have a safe and relaxing Christmas break filled with love, laughter, and great writerly thoughts.
I’ll see you back in mid-January 2019 with all those goal planning posts.

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 like the blog and want to shout me a Christmas coffee, hit the coffee button up top or Buy a Circus Quest Book for the creative quirky kid in your life.   

pic: Flickr Creative Commons Lindsaye Eyink