Learning to Play With New Toys

This week has been one of huge technological change in our house. My camera failed during my column assignment and I had to get a new one, learn how to use it and reshoot the subjects in a very short space of time.

In this disposable age the shelf life of some technology is over before you take it out of the box so it pays to do as much research as you can and buy the best you can for the long haul. Our old camera had done a great job and was pretty nifty when we bought it six years ago…and we borrowed money to buy it. The camera’s available today almost make you a coffee as well…and all manuals are online…this is tricky if you are also learning to use a new computer. Talk about a steep learning curve with a three hour deadline.

The new computer was essential as the old one had the screen constantly failing and the keyboard wearing out. (Oh joy…) Researching for big buys are essential and also giving yourself time to learn to navigate the new toys...it really saves on stress.

This week there has been stress bouncing around the blogosphere as authors get a good look at the Amazon lending programme and don’t like what they see.

We all like to support libraries but Amazon may have taken this a bit far with their one buy, lend 1000 times, no due back date, model…the authors miss out on revenue and it is their livelihood.

Independent authors have been called names and traditional path authors have been pointing fingers, sometimes in rude ways.

This diatribe, which I won’t link to, caused a lot of anger in the indie author community. It follows on from a conversation I linked to last week about when to successfully go it alone as a self pubbed author. Bob Mayer has an excellent response to the diatribe and I urge you to read the comments to get the fuller picture.   

The Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators have taken issue with the publishing industry in an open letter addressing the response length of time. This issue is dear to my heart as I have been caught by publishers hanging on to my manuscript for up to a year and then sending it back with a positive rejection. Unfortunately with one particular manuscript it has happened five times…It’s a great story, we nearly published it…Ah well I’ll publish it myself and move on!

The Book Designer recently addressed a conference about how to take the self publishing route and has posted some of his slides up in a helpful bite sized way.

Jane Friedman has a new feature on her popular blog…Ask Jane. First up a brilliant article on how to spend money wisely on book promotion. Frankly following Jane is the best move you could make!

Jody Hedlund takes it a step further with her great article on how to prolong your books exposure and if you are really getting into book promo mode check out Hubspots  3 characteristics of successful press releases.

The wonderful Elisabeth Spann Craig has a great article on talking to readers. She has a huge list of questions readers ask which you can build talks around. This is really helpful when you are put on the spot to do a presentation.

It is half way through NaNoWriMo and there are heaps of tips out there on writing for those who are hitting the keyboards. Media Bistro has a link to a cliché calculator. 
Victoria Mixon is guest blogging on Jami Golds blog with a killer post on story climax. This is a wonderful two for one deal with two great guru’s in the one place.

For a change of pace check out Christopher Hitchens advice to an 8 year old…(hmmm) and for a creative jolt in the arm Lateral Action’s video’s and website.  

To finish,

I was roaming around the library the other day and saw a pile of books in the YA section that had adult authors by lines on them…yes writing YA is the new trend for those established authors looking to jump on the YA sales bandwagon. The Boston Globe has just confirmed my suspicion.

maureen
On steep learning curve with new computer.... 

       

Committed To Publishing

Last night as I was racing to a friends book launch I was thinking about the commitment my friend had made to following a dream and the hard work and sacrifices it entailed. 

My friend has been around the publishing industry in one way or another all her working life. She is married to a book designer. As a reviewer and writer she knows how hard it is to get a book in print and that is the easy job compared to getting marketing, reviews and ultimately sales for that book. 

Last night John McIntyre of The Children’s Bookshop correctly stated that all those present at the book launch must become the publicists for the wonderful book Johanna and Walter have created. The Fly Trap Snaps. (book one)

The book is beautifully produced as befits a couple of very hands on creative types and is very funny. It rockets along with the hero, Spencer Fogle, outwitting wrestlers and wrestling with genetically engineered carnivorous plants, feckless parents and a Mr Nice Guy former child star who is not very nice at all. The illustrations Sabrina Malcolm has provided sprinkled throughout the book add the finishing touch to a mystery thriller just right for confident readers 8 thru to 12.

I take my hat off to The Hinterland Press Team, Johanna and Walter, for their courage and tenacity in following their dream to bring us a new midgrade hero...(heroes...Dion the talking Venus Fly Trap has my vote as well.) I wish them well and may they have many sales!

Roni Loren has written a great list of ten things she would do differently (and why) if she was starting out to build an author platform now.

Joel Friedlander has written an interesting post about authors getting into video blogging.  He has some compelling arguments about why we should and lays out step by step how to do it. It opens up a whole new world for the children’s writer....I was recently talking with a school librarian who told me that Book Trailers were one of the biggest selling points for a books popularity in her school library...just let your mind dwell on that for a moment and then go read what Joel has to say.

Jami Gold has written another thought provoking post on whether children’s books should have a rating system. I sit on the fence mostly on this one. However there are some books that eight year olds, no matter how advanced their reading is, should not be delving into because they lack the life experience to make sense of what they read....and usually they find this out pretty quickly. I wish parents would think about this before they encourage their very bright reader to tackle a young adult book because they can read it!

The Great Jane has another good post looking at ebooks. 5 things beginners need to know about epublishing. Jane has written a quick overview of terms and how to’s.

The SCBWI LA conference has wrapped up and again the conference bloggers did a marvelous job of blogging the whole conference. For a wonderful conference experience drop over to their conference blog go down to the bottom and work your way up. If you are an illustrator make sure you look at all the illustration links....there are some superb illo’s and interviews with the best in the business. If you are a writer, check out the in depth interviews.

A  key note speech I wish I had been there for was the great Bruce Colville...Check out this wonderful report where Bruce talks about the Ha Waah Yikes method of story crafting and what makes a good story.

Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on

Agents As Publishers- Mike Shatzkin has taken a close look at this issue....he says they have no choice....

5 Simple Steps To Create An Audio Book...this is a great resource.

Building Conflict One Cruelty at A Time- Chuck Wendig....this is a great list of how to’s (Warning...Content but you knew that when I said Chuck...) 

4 Steps To Unlocking Your Creativity...Step one unplug yourself....

In the Craft Corner,

Bob Mayer asks the question, I will do whatever it takes to be a writer, except don’t ask me to do...?

Time to examine your fears people....

To Finish,

Helen Lowe is having a Thornspell contest on her website. You get to suggest one of her characters and why they should have a stand alone story written about them...three judges get to pick the best one...and she has to write it. Winners get a copy of Thornspell...It’s a great book too...think sleeping beauty then tell it from the princes point of view but add some twists!

Helen is living through the constant earthquakes in Christchurch and although times are tough down there she is hanging in there writing and publishing from the very shaky city....That’s commitment!

Down The Rabbit Hole...

The Chinese Year Of The Rabbit is supposed to herald a period of tranquillity and calm. After the changes in the publishing world over the last two years we could all do with a bit of calm but I don’t think we are going to get it as the shaking up of the publishing industry continues.

It hasn’t been a year since the launch of the ipad and the explosion in the sales of ebooks. Publishers are very cagey about telling authors what their ebook sales are but just for your information, In the month of November 2010, the ebook sales, reported by the Association of American Publishers, were 14.5% higher than for the month of October and growth in ebook sales over the year (Nov09-Nov10) was 165% . This is a conservative estimate.

The implications of  readers moving to digital books have not been lost on Authors in the blogosphere. Getting an agent and getting a book deal is hard work, not for the faint hearted and with publishers insisting that authors must promote their books the Author is left looking hard at ebooks and self publishing. The books are cheaper to produce, there are no warehousing issues with POD and they are already promoting their work aren’t they?

The biggest hurdle to leap over is marketing. Who wants to spend all that precious writing time marketing? How can the reader find good books to read in the digital age, when a quick look on itunes shows more than 50,000 book apps available?( I’m probably missing a few zeros.)

Who will be the digital ebook reviewers we trust?

Who will help the new authors negotiate the quicksand of publishing in the now?

One person who has been doing a bit of thinking around this is Kristen Lamb. She has brainstormed a possible new publishing model that looks like a win/win from everyone’s perspective. Have a read and see what you think!

From the publishing marketing trenches to the how-do-I-just-get-on-the-ladder reality...Jody Hedlund posted an article on her blog last month about her agent receiving 10,000 queries in a year and accepting 0. Jody looks at what an author can do to change the numbers around.

If you are contemplating having a sales page on your website Victoria Mixon has got a great guest  post for you from Joanna Penn. These two blogging diva’s have swopped over and are guesting on each others blog.

For those looking for a bit of help before the hard grind of submitting your manuscript, here are three sites worth a good look.

Adventures in Children’s Publishing has a detailed presubmission checklist.

Writetodone with manuscript productivity tips

Bookendslitagency with an Agents perspective on revisions.

Over On Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on,

Extreme Book Design...blowtorches knives and spiders...

Is Speculative Fiction Poised To Break Into Literary Canon? (Guardian Article on the Man Booker.)

Rick Riorden’s experience with the effects of Ritalin on his family.

List of Most Commonly Used Cliches in YA (everyone’s checking their MS now)

6 Personality Types Who Will Fail As Writers. (laughing while you say ouch)

To finish, 

Alice Pope has a great list of SCBWI Winter conference roundups on her blog. Over 1100 people attended the winter conference in New York...that’s almost as many who attend the summer conference.

Justus Stone has written a detailed post about writing software and how they have changed his life.

Zoe Winters has the last word...(One of these characters could be a NZ Politician...)


enjoy,
maureen

Sticking Your Neck Out....

It has been a clear-the-decks week. 

Empty out a room. Paint it. Put it back together. Chuck out what you don’t want. Find stuff chucked out and rescue it. Justify why you saved the chucked out item.

Writers are hoarders. Teachers are hoarders. I am doubly dammed or blessed whichever way you look at it.

While I have been painting and contemplating treasure or trash... Bob Mayer has been taking a hard look at the Digital Book World conference and weighing up the worth of their speakers and the comments on twitter about where digital publishing is going...self publishing... and being your own publisher/bookstore owner.... This is a must read. Bob walks the talk. He pulls no punches.

Another person weighing up epublishing and her experiment with it is Zoe Winters. 

Zoe has released a couple of ebooks and designed and executed an amazing campaign around getting her name out there. This name is a pseudonym and in this critique of her year, social marketing her ebooks she compares it with her other ‘real life’ writer persona. Zoe shot to fame on the writer’s blogosphere with her video series Who is Zoe Winters...clever marketing. This article is also a must read for people contemplating ebooks.

I post these articles because the face of publishing is changing rapidly and writers should be aware of what is happening in the industry and what other writers are experiencing.

This week Publishing Perspectives posted an article entitled Half of US Publishers Believe ebooks Will Be Dominant By 2014 and Mike Shatz of Nokia wrote a guest article on Moconews On Why Online Retailers will Squeeze out Publishers In the Book Business.(as always I recommend you read the comments that these articles generate.)

Know what you want to do and go in with eyes wide open.

So after that dose of reality...back to Fiction

Callihoo has posted George Polti’s 36 dramatic plots...a good reference tool and Publetariat has answered the question How Do You Keep Your Plot from Feeling Contrived..if you are stuck for ideas. 

On Craicerplus (my Amplify page) I have links to articles on

Hunger Games- Why Kids Love Disaster Distress and Dystopia...(not only kids...this is a great article by a psychologist.)

10 Steps for Working Past The ‘This Stinks’ Blues.

How To Organise Your Assignments, Research, Interviews and All The Rest

How To Write Your First Novel In Under Four Weeks.

A Handy Beginners Guide To ebook Formats Apps And Devices.

Conference season is upon us and WriteOnCon kicked off with an Agent’s Panel which is covered on Heather McCorkles Blog.

And the Big One SCBWI NEW YORK...kicks off tomorrow....However you can hole up in your office and follow it all as it happens by going to the live blog site...I did that for LA...great little insights and it didn’t cost me the ticket...(but oh how I wished I was there.)

If you are interested in a conference closer to home Spinning Tales in Auckland is still open for registrations for another month.

Anita Laydon Millar advises that you must stick your neck out because you never know where it might lead you...(all from a reader of her blog...)

Here is episode 2 of Zoe’s Self Publishing Video Series...have a laugh.

enjoy,

maureen

Conference Connections....

It is conference season for Children’s Writers and Illustrators. 

WriteOnCon starts next week. It’s Free and Online and close to 500 people have signed up for it. (Click on forums to sign up.)

SCBWI LA Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators  L A summer conference has just finished and they had a record breaking crowd of over 1100 attendees this year.

Alice Pope and her team blogged their way through it again this year. You need a team to blog a conference of this magnitude. Last year was the first time that they did it and it was a stupendous undertaking. This year they surpassed themselves. For us who can only dream about one day making it over there to just experience it, or in our case having to put on our own conference so we could get the opportunity to learn, upskill, and network  in our craft, the SCBWI Team Blog is the way to go.

Just a warning there is so much information about what’s new, what editors are looking for, trends, multimedia, master class information, tips, learning,....Set aside time to really study what has been posted. And it is a lot! I clicked older posts 8 times before I got to the start of the four day conference. Along the way the information coming at me was incredible.

If you are in this business you would be a fool not to check out the blog.   

Michelle from The Y A Highway blog posted her impressions as an attendee and soundbites  of what she took away from the conference. It is a great little roundup of highpoints.

A couple or three  sites caught my eye this week to share with you before I got snowed by the conference blog.

The Book Doctor has an article up on organising your days on a weekly basis. It is timely as life gets pretty busy around here and fitting in time to write and not feel guilty is very tricky. So check out the advice from The Book Doctor Team.

Pimp My Novel has reposted an article from last year about 12 easy steps to help market your new novel. This is a good wake up call from the sales director of a publishing firm. Especially lead in times...websites etc...and Book Trailers.

As an aside Christopher Cheng from Australia/New Zealand SCBWI got an award In L A last week for most helpful  Regional Advisor and he did a session on creating book trailers...yes the authors HAVE TO DO IT and his session showed how you could do it in 30 minutes. You have to read SCBWI TEAM BLOG!

Alan Rinzler has a great article on Niche Marketing your book.

As I have said in earlier posts, the futurists are predicting that publishers will only survive if they become more niche so it is useful for authors to look at this form of marketing as well. This week I have been delving into marketing books again and the new buzz word coming out is fusion marketing. Teaming up with other industries and marketing together.

Alan looks at some of these ideas and shows examples of book campaigns that are doing this.

Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page)

What Writers Wish They Had Known Before Pitching

7 Things I’ve Learned So Far (a satire...very funny but thought provoking too)

Open Sky Website lets Authors Sell Directly To Consumers  (On Fusion Marketing )

Writing Vs Storytelling (Nathan Bransford writes a brilliant article on looking closely at why we love or don’t 

love best sellers and what we can learn from them)

How A Sticky Note Can Change Your Life

Some Tips For Writing A Series.

And in other news

The FABO Story project is off with a hiss and a roar and we are getting some great stories from the kids. Go and check out Chapter Two and the winning kids chapter two version. Kids can join in at any time as a new chapter is posted each week. New Zealand Illustrators have joined in with a team of their own getting together to illustrate each chapter for us...

If you are dreaming of book trailers....and going global....check out how you can run a TV Ad in the States  for very little money. Is this where FABO will end up?...heheheheh If you read the SCBWI TEAM BLOG you will find out that it’s not  such a silly idea....

enjoy, 

maureen

pic is from Christopher Cheng...his view of the 1100 attendees at SCBWI LA.

I'm not sorry...

1150 people attended the SCBWI (society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) 38th L.A. summer conference last weekend. Many more attended it virtually including yours truly whenever I got the chance.

There were five bloggers in a team who blogged the entire event.

It is an amazing read! But you need to clear the decks, sit down with a coffee and have no interruptions. The team reported the main points of every presentation over the four day conference and it is remarkable reading.

The presenters are all at the top of the publishing tree in the US and the bloggers made sure they covered every hand’s on workshop by Writers, Illustrators, Editors, Agents and Publishers.

Besides the conference, theirs and ours (only 42 days to go) I have been intrigued with the concept of book tours -Blog style.

Going on a blog book tour...means staying at home in your jammies and bed hair and promoting your book as a guest author on a different blog everyday.

Aussie author Alan Baxter has just finished a blog book tour and he has written an analysis of the experience and whether it resulted in any sales.

Alan started off his tour by talking to Smashwords an indie e-publisher, about blog book tours. Alan has a couple of books with them but he was promoting his new print book.

Smashwords are an interesting outfit. If you upload your book with them you get about 80% of the retail price. Their books are sold for all e-reading devices.

I think e-readers will benefit the Adult and Young Adult reader. I am yet to be convinced that Mid Grade, which I write, and Picture Book readers would get much out of it...but I am prepared to be persuaded, especially if I can get 80% of the price. Authors typically get between 3 and 10%.

Jeff Bulla has written a great post on the 10 new rules of Press Releases. The best advice for writers is contained in point number 10.

If you are thinking of the sea change for authors, where they have to learn marketing, take some time to read this post. If you are in business and every writer and illustrator is, you need to be up with the play on new marketing strategy. Here is a sample of what Jeff has to say.

The best PR and marketing pros know that Web-based communication delivered directly to their constituents is highly effective. Now, press releases circumvent the media and appear in real time on millions of desktops. Bloggers almost instantly comment on product announcements, and smart communications pros treat these “new journalists” with respect.

I don’t apologize for linking you to lots of extra reading in this weeks post.

All of it is relevant to our core business of making a living as a Writer for Children.

Extra Extra....

Fleur Beale, countless bridesmaid at the NZ Post Children's Book Awards has scored!

Congratulations To Fleur- Esther Glen Medalist 2009

maureen

52 days to go...

When you wake up at 3 am on a regular basis you know that something is occupying your mind.

There is always the odd thought...you hope could be a story, but mostly you know it is going to be conference related.

Over in Los Angeles, I’ll bet the organisers of the SCBWI conference (society of children’s book writers and illustrators)are having sleepless nights. The 38th summer conference kicks off today. Four days. 66 presenters. Over 1000 delegates .

There are a couple of kiwis going over...Frances Plumpton is among them and I can’t wait to pick her brains at our conference to see what they were talking about over there.

My guess is that we will be talking about much the same topics...

Marketing and Promotion...Here is a great link to the top ten marketing tips from an author who bills herself as The Shameless Promoter

New technology and how to use it... The creativepenn (a great site) has a post on 5 easy steps to do podcasting...ramp up your website with some excerpts of your work in progress.... Or you could check out Fifis cool book trailer for GLORY

Maybe they will be talking about, and to, amazing authors like Karen Cushman, winner of the Newberry medal who will be a presenter. There is a great interview with her on the cuppajolie blog

I have a new quote for my wall from reading this interview.

“The best reason to write is just to find out what happens.” Karen Cushman

So True. (My planned plots usually last about five chapters...then I need to write to find out what happens.)

They will be talking about the future of publishing... Jane Friedman’s current post about the future of publishing is a must read. Click on the sidebar link or Go Here to read it...

If you check out our conference timetable above you will see that we address all these topics...

But mostly I think the LA delegates will be soaking up the atmosphere.

Alice Pope, The editor of the Children’s Writers and Illustrators market (writers digest annual) is leading a team of bloggers who are blogging the entire conference as well as presenting. Go here to check out some amazing interviews already.

We have got some awesome presenters, great workshops and panels and our delegates come from all over New Zealand and are at all different stages of their writing and illustrating careers.

It’s going to be great.

Now if I could get some sleep to prepare for it.

maureen


pic is our conference schedule...click on it to bring it up in a large new window....