Villains and Heroes

This week doing the publishing rounds....

That RITA book.

That Watchman book refund.

That guy who yanked his book from St Martin’s Press.

There are plenty of sides to each story... tho the RITA saga has left me scratching my head on how it even got published. (The RITA’s are the Oscar’s of the Romance world.) This book was nominated and finalled in two categories. Just dodgy on so many levels...

Then we have an Indie bookstore giving refunds for the latest Harper Lee book to disappointed readers. OK readers you were warned about the hype around it. You were told it was an untouched early MS... (possibly a money grab by the publishers.) The Guardian let off some steam around this.

This week’s epic marketing fail.

So you think you have a pretty solid career with your big NY publisher. You’ve won awards, earned out etcetc. Then your latest book (with starred reviews already) gets yanked before publication. Heard it all before... but this time it is the author that has yanked the book because the publisher lied about the marketing campaign. (Takes writer guts to do it.)

Brooke Warner has written a piece about the lengths some Traditional publishers are going to control their writer's marketing lives. Stopping writers giving endorsements to other writers being one of them. Isn’t it supposed to be a win/win marketing strategy?

Catherine Nicholls decided to try a little experiment and sent her novel out under a man’s name. The comments on this one are very interesting. When you know that there are more women in the publishing industry but a male name means the project gets looked at faster... um ?

The annual SCBWI LA conference wrapped up this week. Children’s writers who can’t get there drop into the official conference blog where a team of dedicated writers live blog the sessions. It’s always interesting. Grab a coffee scroll down to the bottom and live vicariously.

Publishing Futurist Mike Shatzkin has an interesting post today about the changing nature of publishing. He makes a comment about not seeing any of the big writers jumping from Traditional publishing which a couple of years ago everyone expected. And when are we going to see the United Artists model of publishing? (I’ve been saying for years that the Indie future is in the Bloomsbury model.) I wonder when we will get to say I told you so...

In the Craft Section,

4 steps for organising plot ideas- Jody Hedlund (Bookmark)

3 crucial editing phases

Self editing tips

Emotional wounds- when you accidently kill someone- Angela Ackerman

7 things that will doom your novel

Killing your darlings- Janice Hardy

5 Tips for making writing a daily habit- C S Lakin

What is your characters internal struggle- Margot Dill (Bookmark)

22 experts on overcoming writing challenges

In the Marketing Section,

Changing your marketing mindset- Elizabeth S Craig

Online Marketing strategy for authors – Mike Shatzkin (Bookmark)

When to use pre orders- Lindsay Buroker (Bookmark)

3 tips to improve your pitch –Janice Hardy

22 ways a blog can sell a Non Fiction book- Joel Friedlander

Website of the Week.

I drop into Elizabeth Spann Craig’s blog pretty much every week. Elizabeth is writing about her learning journey as she becomes a hybrid author. This week she had an interesting article about what Traditional publishing needs to get the Hybrids back.

To Finish,

24 things that writers know only from other writers

and

Writers need their own personal heroes Why? Check out these 7 reasons.

(now go and make your list!)

Maureen

@craicer

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons / Ricky Brigante - Malificent

Spinning the Truth

What has been happening this week in the publishing blogosphere...

The open letter signed by over 900 American authors to Amazon about the ongoing dispute with Hachette has now got an international flavour with a German version springing up. Amazon is in dispute with German publishers about eBook prices... and over 1300 German language authors have signed an open letter. Porter Anderson takes a look at the two sides of this ongoing story. Which truth should we subscribe to?

Meanwhile... The Passive Guy is commenting on a Wall St Journal opinion piece about backing Amazon as they change the way publishing will be done...

Porter comments on a two-day workshop where publishing professionals gathered together to come up with a viable alternative to Amazon... interesting reading.

Mike Shatskin takes this further by looking specifically who could combine and give the Zon a fright.

Maggie Stiefvater delivered a keynote address at SCBWI that wowed people... She has published an excerpt... about writing being thievery... Excellent reading.

WriteOnCon is nearly set for takeoff... They have posted their list of agents dropping in. It promises to be a huge weekend. Take some time to check out what is on offer in this free online children’s writers’ conference.

In the Craft Section,

Organising your writing project using spreadsheets.

Using moral conflict to deepen your main character.

Can character arcs be subplots

Blurbs that bore and how to change them.

Titles and how to make them sing

Mining your dreams for story gold

Jody Hedlund on putting your best work out there.

Janice Hardy on myths about writing novelettes

Taking your character deeper with... anger

In the Marketing Section,

Joanna Penn continues to break new translation ground. She details how she has approached the German edition... and gets her translator to talk about the process. Fascinating reading.

Joel Friedlander has a guest post on planning your blog posts around your book.

Elisabeth S Craig has updated her database collection of editors, designers and illustrators for free lance projects.

Kris Rusch has added a new post to her discoverability series, which will shortly be turned into a book.

Author photos – what kind for what genre...

Self Publishing - three links

Shelli Johannes (YA writer) on things to think about before you jump in...

Jan Ruth (romance) on how to make the most of it.

Trevor Richardson on his journey which involved getting his rights back and starting a literary magazine.

To Finish,

The lovely Melinda Szymanik has packed a lot into her six month writing residency... if you can’t get away to another city maybe you could try organising a writing retreat when you can’t afford to go on one.  This could be handy if you want to combine it with the excellent WriteOnCon free children’s online writing conference... Or maybe you could dream about the most excellent writing studio... where you can contemplate writing your own truth.

maureen (late again…sorry. I am getting better….)

Pic from Flickr/Creative Commons/ RCabanilla

Playing Nice

Sometimes life gets in the way of getting this blog out on time every week.

This week in the writing publishing blogosphere....

The Amazon/Hachette battle doesn’t seem to be going away and Forbes is now commenting on the next battle coming up... Amazon/ HarperCollins. What are HC doing to prepare for it?

Digital Book World looks at why Self Published authors may have a stake in the zon/chette battle.

James Scott Bell is commenting on Agents... and some practices to be aware of that disadvantage the Author. This is a must read! (and follow the Clare Cook link.)

Writer Beware is a must go to site if you are researching agents etc. They have highlighted some dodgy practices in the past like Clare Cook’s saga. They have redeveloped their site and now have a special section for self publishers and the scams targeting them.

The NY Times profiled a new practice by a publisher... crowd sourcing their next Y A project. This is an interesting development from the publishers/ readers point of view... not sure about the authors tho.

With the next big Y A film The Giver by Lois Lowry coming out soon... Lois talks about the change she would have made to the ending ifshe was writing it now.

An author collective who all went to SCBWI LA share their take-aways from this event. Great round up.

The Christchurch Word festival is about to kick off… In the UK a festival causing a lot of buzz is the virtual festival...run by a publisher.

In the ongoing who is better, Trad vs Self, publishing debate... The rabid parts of the self publishing community aired their views on a Lee Child interview on Passive Guy’s site and were surprised when Lee took them up on it. Worth a read for the stylish way he handled it.

Bibliocrunch has an interview with Lorna Suzuki... Lorna writes kidslit, self published it and then the film studio came calling.

Bob Mayer talks about keeping your expectations real in publishing.

In the Craft Section,

10 commandments for reading like a writer

Stephen Pressfield has a great post on work habits

The inner conflict of your characters

The plot whisperer has posted up a scene tracker... awesome post 

and how to plot the end that grabs your reader.

10 bits of writing advice from JRR Tolkein

Structure tips using Joseph Campbell’s mythology structure.

Keeping your characters believable

Writing resources... a huge list.

7 reasons writing a book makes you a champion

In the Marketing Section,

Chuck Wendig on how to market without looking like asleeze... (Usual Chuck warnings)

Kristine Rusch is always a recommended read... and here she is looking at the dangers of treating your book release as an Event! Read it for a fresh viewpoint.

Marketing your book through other authors brilliance...

Molly Greens 15 website essentials

To Finish,

Bookriot has an article looking at the bad press some  YA writers have got... you might not agree with who they are sticking up for... but should you be dissing your peers?

Ava Jae has lots of good writing and craft advice on her site. Here she tells her young readers about what Book Piracy means to an author. It is worth sharing this info around… so that we all play nice… 

maureen

Looking Ahead

This week the winners of the LIANZA’S (Librarian and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa) were announced at lovely event in Wellington. I spoke to one of the judges at the event and we talked about the depth of books on offer this year. The judge said that they could have picked another 5 in each category, so I raised the issue that maybe they need a long list. After all The ManBooker has one. One of the important things about a long list is it raises the profile of up and coming authors. This is really important in a small country with a shrinking publishing market. Sales into libraries and schools make all the difference in our small publishing world. A good long list can become a first port of call for school book buyers. (here’s hoping they take it on board!)

"I was brave in my writing, in a way I wasn't in my life." -Judy Blume #LA14SCBWI pic.twitter.com/UgfCHFKyEt
— Samantha Berger (@BergerBooks) August 3, 2014

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators 2014 annual conference wound up in LA this week. Over 1300 kids lit people in one space...WOW. This conference is usually a sellout every year. Some great keynotes and panels were on offer. Fix your self a long drink and scroll down the conference blog where they had notes on all the events.

If you are feeling in need of a conference the ever popular WriteOnCon is back in a couple of weeks. This is a free online conference over two days for Kids Lit writers. It is worth dropping into... getting up early and attending.

This week the stoush between Hachette and Amazon hits the 4^th month and the online letter to Amazon from concerned writers hit 900 signatories.

Also in the news is the opening up of the Authors Guild (finally) to Indie writers. This has been loudly applauded... and the appointment of best selling Indie C J Lyon’s to the board has the blogosphere jumping with excitement. First up she called for ways to make the guild better. Joe Konrath produced a 12 point plan that was a masterpiece. Every writers organization should be taking a look at it. The discussion has been wide ranging and is still on going.

The LA Times has been talking ebook numbers...and the sometimes skewed reporting around them.

The Huffington Post has an article on how Barbara Freethy became a best seller...(Interesting post)

Eileen Goudge is a traditional best seller and she is looking at her first foray into self publishing because her publisher no longer felt she was a hot property... after 13 NYT best sellers...

In the Craft Section,

Should you hire an editor before querying

Editing – top ten tips

Crafting stronger characters

Boring opening lines and what to do about them

Why you should ignore most of the advice from your critiquegroup. (great post)

The keys to a great opening scene

Smooth transitions to keep your story moving.

In the Marketing Section,

Lessons from 2014 RWA –tips for marketing success – Jami Gold

Author digital marketing tools

Social Media Platform infographic (this is a printout post!)

Joanna Penn on using Wattpad

How to do Box Sets at Smashwords

6 tips to champion your story

To Finish,

Jane Friedman has an interesting guest post about an Appcalled Episode. It allows writers to post up chapters with animation or comic book styles and have reader interaction. Perfect place to play with characters etc and the whole thing is specifically designed for mobile reading... A sign post for the future.

maureen

In The CON Zone.

I’m just popping up from the world of virtual conferences to write this blog post.

Conferences have been the main topic of the week for me. It started earlier in the week when I had a book association meeting and on the agenda (officially) was conference 2015. Yes I know that is next year...yes I know that it is probably last third of next year... Yes I know that is 18 months away. But when we planned the last National Conference of Children’s Writer’s and Illustrators we started 18 months out. You have to if you want a good Keynote speaker... and other great faculty presenters. You have to if you want a good venue... You also have to find out from your potential attendee’s what they want to learn about. **

Twitter was full of NY2014 SCBWI chat about how awesome it is and was. The great thing about the NY and LA Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators is the live blogging that goes on at these events (great for us writers on the other side of the world.) So instead of feeling envious of Kyle (pres of NZSA) getting to go (his choice, he paid for it, he deserved it) you can live vicariously and go visit the blog and scroll down on the right, dropping into those presentations that interest you. (Alternatively you can buy Kyle a couple of beers and pick his brains next time you see him.)

IndieReCon is happening now. 3 days of awesome virtual conference which is free. There are quite a few kids writers on the faculty of this conference which is Genre Writing orientated and very practical for writers looking into Indie publishing. There is lots of info on marketing, book production, agents etc. I started, yesterday, listening to a webinar on Fear and Writing with the Awesome Susan Kaye Quinn. I had already bookmarked her Marketing Indie Mid Grade books post to share here...(Read It!)

In the story that doesn’t die...more commentary on the Author Earnings site and the talking/hand wringing that is going on.

Brian O’Leary on The Empire Strikes Back – if Trad publishers would get past the handwringing and realize the game has irrevocably changed and what they can do about it.

Eoin Purcell on understanding the technology shift where writers have moved quicker than publishers.

Passive Guy (who is also presenting at Indie ReCon) on Mark Coker’s, guest column in Publishers Weekly (subscribers only) this week, reaction to the Author Earnings reports...yes I know that was long winded... (badly worded, it’s late..) just read the link...Passive Guy quotes extensively from the article.

In the Website of the Week

I want to highlight two.

Writer Unboxed is a website that has a large list of contributors. It is like a classy magazine with long form essays exploring some aspect of writing or publishing. The contributors are publishing and writing veterans. Jane Friedman contributed a long form essay from her new magazine Scratch on serial or episodic writing which is fast becoming a reader favourite. This is an examination of what it is and how to do it and who is doing it and why.

Today was #MSWL day on Twitter. Manuscript Wish List. If you type #MSWL into the search bar all the tweets from editors and agents come up of what they want to see. If you have a story that fits that criteria...when you query, following their individual website guidelines, you must put #MSWL in the query. It makes for interesting reading.

In the Craft section,

What is magic realism?

Jody Hedlund on writing scenes- a quick 5 point checklist.

Jami Gold on How to skip the boring parts

Screenwriting – the 3 act structure and how to break it.

Susan Kaye Quinn on tools for helping you write faster.

Larry Brooks on The Bermuda Triangle of Storytelling (Bookmark this!)

In the Marketing section

Bibliocrunch has a list of book sites that do bookpromotion.

Check out IndieReCon....

To Finish,

The Daily Dot has an article looking at the restarting of an authors career in Kindle Worlds...The Kindle Fan Fiction site...ho hum you might think until you find out that the author is L J Smith who was the original writer of Vampire Diaries who found her rights to her own work cut out from under her when she was fired from the TV show of her own creation...

**If you have any ideas for topics to learn about or conference wants... either comment here, on Facebook, or through email. We are preparing a short survey which is coming soon.

To finally finish....Hank Green, Brother of John (half of the Vlog brothers) posted a great Video today on books...its a rant really but entertaining...as only the vlog brothers can be...

maureen

Trolls and Turtles

Reviews...fake...nasty...and contained has been the topic around the Blogosphere this week.

Goodreads moved to ‘set the appropriate tone’ of reviews on their site this week.  But some cried foul as they saw it as censorship.

As I have said before, if you don’t like the book don’t review it...or say why you don’t like the book and back it up....

Goodreads new policy is to try to stop the bullying reviews and personal attacks of authors on the site. The freedom of anonymity, while you are sitting at home, to write on the internet a corrosive review of a book or author because you can...and no one will call you out to your face for your behaviour...brings out the troll in some people. And trolls seem to seek affirmation of their troll behaviour from other trolls.  Any writer putting their head above the parapet to call out troll behaviour gets targeted. Hugh Howey talks about this and how he was guilty of ducking it until this week...A great article from Hugh.

Being the geek I am, I read PopSci and this week PopSci looked at a scientific study of negative reviews on science stories and found that constant negative reviews which are emotive, skewed the perceptions of the readers to put aside the facts of the science article.

PopSci pulled the plug on comments on their articles on their website...there are still ways to comment...FB, Twitter.... but not on their website. 

If you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch.

Self-publishing advice has an article which tells you about the subculture of Amazon Reviewers...yes they talk to each other...

Porter Anderson spends a lot of his Ether just looking at the articles flying about reviewersthis week and there are many... So take a long break and maybe reach for alcohol.

The Frankfurt Bookfair is about to kick off and as usual there are lots of side events looking at the state of publishing. Publishing Perspectives takes a look at one aspect that will be big news at the fair... Self Publishing : the industry implications and impact.

Another must read is Kris Rusch. This week’s stand out article is the stages of an Indie writer. This is being tweeted around the blogosphere...

Elisabeth S Craig also has a nice little post on being a Hybrid Writer.

Chuck has always been Mr Nice when talking about traditional publishers, after all he may cuss but he is not a hypocrite.  (Unlike a certain author who is getting roundly dissed for his hypocrisy all over the web.) Chuck traditionally publishes but doesn’t diss Indies or Amazon or anyone that plays fair... until today when he came out in Chuck mode in an open letter... Dear Publishers.

In Craft,

Star Wars...and the 8 things it can teach us about writing.

Simple Writing  has one of the best explanations ofVoice I have read in a while.

In Marketing,

Julie Muesil looks at the brilliant way that Hugh Howey markets.

MediaBistro takes a look at how to do book covers with public domain pictures.

DigitalBookWorld looks at 5 ways that authors can handle bad reviews.

Website to go look at,

This is an author run co-op with some illustrious members...making waves in the indie publishing world. Check out how they got together and how they publish their work. I keep saying this is the way of the future...

To Finish,

SCBWI has introduced a new award for non traditionally published books...and Katherine Applegate (Animorphs) has been signed by HarperCollins for a new series on the strength of 3 sentences...

The green trolls of jealousy should be gathering to pull her down about now. 

More Power to Katherine’s Arm. 

I saw in my Twitter feed today a nice reminder....

If you think your idea is too weird to fly... just remember these four words. 

Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles.

Feel free to comment....

maureen

Pic courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons/ Frankensteinnn

Bookmark It

This last week I’ve been meeting up with writers in various venues discussing writery things.... Sometimes it was what we thought the librarians would pick as their top books for 2012 in the Librarian and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa or the LIANZA’s as they are most commonly referred to. The awards are out...and I have great pleasure in saying to various writers.... including award winners...I told you so!

In other publishing blogosphere news... LA SCBWI conference wrapped up this week. This conference is the one everyone in children’s writing wants to go to, (or the NY Winter conference.) A few years ago they got a team of writer bloggers together who blog the conference for all of us who live around the world and can’t get to LA. Go to the blog and scroll down on the right for all the topics covered... Take your time and dip into the conference panels, keynotes, interviews....aaaaah. There is even a sampling of fabulous tweets from #LA13SCBWI throughout the four days.

When you finish that...breathe deeply. Squash down that green imp of jealousy and register for WriteOnCon...a free two day online conference for children’s writers, now in its fourth year, happening next week. With another brilliant line up of speakers again. WriteOnCon 2012 is still being referenced around the blogosphere now. IT WAS THAT GOOD.

When you have done that...

Make the time to watch this fabulous video where Joanna Penn interviews James Scott Bell on writing, self publishing and the business of being a prowriter. It is top notch brilliant. I have two of James Scott Bell’s books and they are amazing!

And after that...

You must read this blog post.

Susan Kaye Quinn on writing the five year plan and the fiveyear creative plan...So much writer awesomeness in one package.

If you are interested in gatekeepers...(you want more of them) copyright protections...(you want less of it) then you need to take a look at Porter’s Ether for the week and that will bring you up to speed on what has been talked about this week around the water coolers in New York.

If you want to get right to the craft bit.

Developing a strong third person voice...from Killzone.

Carol Riggs on knowing when your MS is ready to be sent out.

K M Weiland on making your book live up to its potential.

Ginger Clark...(Uber Kid’s Lit Agent) answers questions from writers...great round up including is there an optimum time to send that query?

In Marketing

Bookbaby has free book launch strategies.

So there you have it every one a bookmark post!

To Finish,

I have been following the misogynist pull up in Sci Fi for the last month. It is Con season in the states...and the trolls are out in force. Sci Fi writers are often at Con’s as part of their publishing contracts and it has been sad to see them having to defend their right to be there if they are women. However there are quite a few male Sci Fi writers pushing the misogynists right back, as John Scalzi beautifully says in ‘A Creator’s Note To Gatekeepers’ it’s an economic argument. Women read and play these cool games too.

So around the blogosphere there has been general high fives when one writer called the police over the 50 rape and murder threats she received in two hours...ongoing. And there was an arrest. When a writer commented on this in her BBC radio programme she was inundated with the same kind of troll calls. So she asked to talk to a couple of trolls. It was enlightening for everybody!

Along with this was Cassandra Clare’s experience as a YA novelist at Comic Con this week with the City Of Bones movie set to come out very soon. Interviewers questions were inane because they saw the movie as being for teenage girls and they weren’t worth wasting time on.

Anyone seeing red yet?

Read the great slap back which is being tweeted around the blogosphere today.

"We write by the light of every book we've ever read." Richard Peck

maureen

pic from Flickr/creative commons- The Laird of Oldham The flag of Greater Manchester City.

Socially Speaking....

Around the country Children’s Writers and Illustrators are getting together to celebrate Margaret Mahy’s life by going to their local library and reading Margaret Mahy stories at 11am on the 11th of August.

This is happening at public libraries up and down the land and overseas....If you want to find out more check out this great website especially put together for the event.

This whole event has snowballed from comments, made on social media among a bunch of children's writers, to become a National Event, getting press coverage around the country, in under 10 days.

In the blogosphere this week a lot of comment was devoted to Ewan Morrison’s piece in the Guardian about the (non) value of Social Media for authors.

Morrison often stirs the pot of controversy just before a speaking engagement and he is in fine form...however he took some flak for his blanket statements and figure analysis of the 80/20 rule of social media.

(You know it’s important if Shatzkin comments.)

Part of Morrison’s piece was to focus on Joanna Penn, who this week made a stir with her blog post on why she, a successful self published author, has just signed with an agent. It is all about putting the right team together. It is a good read and very timely as agents are re-examing their role in the changing marketplace...along with legacy publishers who seem to be chasing after the indie authors. 

SelfPublishingAdvice has a timely post on how Indie authors can work with traditional publishers.

Books and Such Literary agents have an interesting blog this week on Why Agents Blog.

Staying on the Social Networking topic, Writers Funzone looks at adding value in your social networking....and no, its not the 80/20 rule.

Publishers Weekly looked at the supposed Long Tail of publishing and wondered where it was...Their commenters put them straight! (you wonder if some publishing execs have been buried in sand for the last three years...)

It is conference season....and last weekend was the SCBWI summer conference.

I try to drop in, during the conference, to their live blog and get a feel for what people are talking about, hot trends, changes in the industry, things that will filter down here.

The running conference blog is a wonderful idea for those of us who can’t make the Los Angeles Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference...(tho over 1300 people did.)

Drop into the blog and scroll down the links to keynotes, panels etc. There is heaps of information just a click away.

However if you do feel like a conference experience...Check out WRITEONCON.

This is a free online children’s writers and illustrators conference which is getting bigger by the year. There are over 4000 members. I ‘attended’ last year...squashing in some online panels during the afternoon (NZ time). The big bonus tho for attendees is that everything is recorded online so those of us living in different time zones or having to work can drop in anytime and get up to date or post questions before panels and it is FREE. If you want to register go to forums. (if you registered at a previous writeoncon just log in) WRITEONCON goes live for forum and agent questions on Monday and conference live 14^th and 15^th August.

Dee, from I Write For Apples, has ten tips that will make WRITEONCON sooo much better for you.

In the Craft section,

The fabulous K M Weiland strikes again with her great common mistakes series This week Tension....

Joanna Penn has a great post on How To Create An Audio Book and why you should consider it.

Chuck Sambuchino has made public his Pitch Sheet Template...fill this in and you have your pitch sorted.

20 tips for writing strong heroines

Jodie Renner is guest posting on Elisabeth Spann Craig’s popular blog looking at how to name characters...and where to find their names....

Passive Guy takes a good look at which Creative Commons License is best.

Two links I just had to include for you... (the everything you want to know group of links.)

Mashables collection of digital tools to create ebooks

Inspired to Writes 25 helpful websites for writers

I am a fan of author collectives and their power to do good out there in the marketing world. Joanna Penn has a post on the 7 Benefits Of An Author Collective and how one such collective works specifically.  If you don’t know much about them, Read It... it will open your eyes!

I’m off to practice my Margaret Mahy story and work out which WRITEONCON sessions I can make...after all the power of Social Media to connect with others is what it is all about.

maureen

pic from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/ Stuart Miles

Decorative Links

Holidays, the chance to go away from your usual busy life, explore new country, meet new people and try out new things.

Coming back through the front door always triggers the best moments of the holiday for me.... It is my last ditch effort to hold holiday mode around me as I stare at the mess left and the long list of catch up jobs, mail and end of the school year craziness. This morning, five minutes before leaving for school, one child announced they needed cardboard tube inners, wrapping paper and lollies...for making crackers.

Last week on Blog day I was traveling down the middle of the South Island staring at the back country and alpine scenery and pointing out likely film spots from the Lord Of The Rings. It helped that we knew The Hobbit was being filmed on location in some of the places we were going through. New Zealand=Middle Earth.

Holiday memories are getting squished to the back of my mind as this is the week before Christmas...a time that heralds that frantically busy period when you realise you have not sorted out the Christmas day menu or the in law presents or even found the Christmas tree decorations...

However I have a box of Blog Christmas tree decorations...

50 blinking lights....or 50 simple ways to build your platform in 5 minutes a day.

12 Great Big Golden Baubles....or 7 Lessons about Self publishing I learnt in 7th Grade and (from the wonderful Catherine Ryan Howard) 5 things I am always telling self publishers.  

Every tree needs special ornaments that trigger great memories. Here is a nice idea from the Teaching Authors Blog.

In the pretty ornament category we have three really sweet posts.

A new Y A Publisher in Australia from Publishing Perspectives.

How to get your writing ready to win a Pulitzer....

A great craft check list on characterisation that will save you a few years of hard slog to learn.

There are always a couple of ornaments that you know you have to put on the tree but are always challenging as to where they go....

Amazon has brought out a Children's Publishing Imprint, what impact will this have...

An Australian Agent talks about why they are so different from U.S. Agents and why....

In the new ornament category check out this pretty nifty advice from Lisa Schroeder...Let Good Reads Ads be your friend. (This one should be in the middle at eye level!)

Find the Christmas Star or Angel of your fulfilled writing resolutions....(ok still making mine...) and stick it on the top.

Next week you may even get a present to stick under the tree....

maureen


pic from here