Excuse Me – We’re writing.

Keen eyed blog readers will be aware that this blog is a 24 hours late.... I have a great excuse. I was teaching suspense and other deep dive techniques to young authors in a holiday writing camp. Teaching techniques is a sure fire way to tighten up your own writing. Add in eager bright young writers (and their writing is so good it keeps you on your toes,) and your day is fun but exhausting! Delaying my blog to assist the writers of tomorrow... a good trade off I think.

It’s October and that means it’s prep month for NaNoWriMo. In catchy phrase terms Preptober. This is where those people who set aside November to write a 50,000 word novel in a month start to plan their stories, get their new journals, and lay in a stock of food for the duration. Shayla Raquel has the ultimate guide on how to rock Preptober so you can hit the keyboard running on November 1st.

With NaNoWriMo around the corner... it is timely to be aware of how to keep yourself well as you binge write. Don’t forget to build in breaks... and figure out a way to keep yourself sane throughout November. Procrastination and writing excuses can hijack you at just at the wrong moment. Chris Smith has a 5 step guide to defeating writer procrastination. 

Janice Hardy has written a remarkable roundup of all the lessons she has learned from her decade in publishing. What she would do differently if she knew. This is the information you wished you had known, the advice you should have taken. Share this with all the newbie writers out there. Old hands will be nodding all the way through.

Sam Bleicher recently guest posted on Joanna Penn’s blog on dealing with facts in science based fiction. Writing science fiction means getting the science right. This can be paralysing for the writer. How much science is too much? If you write in a genre that relies on facts like gravity this is a good article to help you out. (Thought: Space explosions... if there is no air in space can you have those movie firey explosions?) 

Kris Rusch always like to change things up around her publishing schedule and she has come up wit an ambitious idea for the holiday season... which starts around now. However the idea is so novel there are no contracts out there to cover the kind of collection she is thinking of... How do you write a contract for  creative contributors  for something that hasn’t been invented yet.

Recently Penny Sansevieri asked if I would write a blurb for the revised edition of How To Sell Books By The Truckload On Amazon. I was happy to do it as Penny is one of my Go To resources for understanding author marketing. Take a look at this excerpt on writing Amazon descriptions that recently appeared on Jane Friedman’s blog.

In The Craft Section,

Choosing the right setting for a powerful scene- Angela Ackerman

Chekov’s gun and your story- Anne R Allen- Bookmark

Conflict in scene writing – Go Into The Story- Bookmark

How writing a novel is like romance- Janice Hardy Bookmark

20 writing tips to improve your craft- Reedsy- Comprehensive!

In The Marketing Section,

Audiobook promotion for authors- Alli Blog Bookmark

Font tips for book covers-Christine Holmes - Bookmark 

Tips for Compelling Book Descriptions - David Kudler

Free podcast tool- Cool Resource

5 easy steps to repurpose your blog into a podcast.- Kunzonpublishing
(If you are keeping up with changes in tech, you will be aware that voice search is fast becoming mainstream. Audio is taking off like a rocket and voice search bots will be playing audio clips more often. Check out Joanna Penn’s AI and the future podcast she did in July. Already changes she thought were coming in a few years were announced this week.)

To Finish,

NaNoWriMo is often a time when everybody starts to share their best craft books for writers. Sacha Black has pulled together 11 of the best books around. I have a few of these. Take a look there just might be the perfect book for you in the list. Feel free to comment with your own best book on the craft of writing.

Maureen
@craicer

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter?
When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you. 
If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons 1894 NCCA

Life Is A Story

This week I had to come to terms with the mortality of one of my favourite writers. He slipped away into the next great adventure. I was asked to provide one of a series of public tributes and I found it quite hard and moving at the same time to reflect on a time and place that we both lived in and that feels like another country in today's world. The world is so fast-paced compared to my childhood which felt like a long summer of outdoor experiences. I look at my own children and wonder what their memories will be. Will it be wrapped up in technology? It got me thinking about literary estates and longevity of storytelling lives and the sheer breadth and depth of all the storied lives that have gone before us.

This week Ruth Harris looked at the seduction of the New Book idea. When you are tired of the old book idea... or the writing is dragging... isn’t it wonderful to play with the new shiny idea that makes writing fun again? Is there a danger in chasing after the new?

I’m always interested in book cover designs. Today I saw a fabulous cover of a book that will be out next year. But what was really interesting is that there are different book covers for the US market, the UK market, and the Aus/NZ market. What makes different countries prefer different motifs? IngramSpark has a roundup of the design trends they have noticed so far.

Statistics, love ‘em or hate ‘em, sometimes you just need to wrap your head around them. So this week Sandra Beckwith of BuildBookbuzz put together some publishing statistics for authors to help them understand and plan their careers. Take a look.

Branding is another subject authors love to hate. Yes, you are a brand but you can be a brand in a good way. Why branding confuses you and how to fix this in a good way written by Rachel Thompson especially for authors. 

Kobo has an eye on the fastest-growing format in publishing. This week they have launched an easy way to upload your audio files and you are not locked into anything. Another company entering the Audio publishing space.

Joanna Penn is always a fount of interesting wisdom and content. This week she had a great post on collaborative writing with  David Mark Brown who got together with his writing group to write stories... with fifty authors! Joanna also has a great interview with Blaire Palmer on transitioning to a creative career. 

Are you in danger of succumbing to the new cult of the first sentence? Do you need an intervention? Does the first sentence really matter? Scott McCormick takes issue with the cult and offers ways to get free.

In The Craft Section,

5 quick questions to help you write awesome characters- Bang to Write 

What are the traits of an espionage hero?- Piper Bayard- Bookmark

Give your readers someone to hate- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

How to identify Second Draft Writer Blues- Lucy Mitchell

When literary devices become tangled- Peter Selgin

In The Marketing Section,

Q and A with Literary Agent on identifying trends- Bookmark

How to spice up your boring author interview- Kathy Steinemann- Bookmark

Pinterest and Instagram for writers- Frances Caballo

4 ways Publisher Rocket helps authors- Dave Chesson

Bookbub Author profile examples- Bookbub

How to launch a book with more preorders- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

To Finish, 

A neat little video from author Jenna Moreci on the ten tips for writing your first chapter. Just when you thought you knew what to do... laugh out loud funny.

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: Creative Commons – John Lustig- Light reading

Learning From Pulp Fiction

Over one hundred years ago Pulp Fiction was born. Pulp paper was cheap and so many magazines sprang up looking for content. Famous writers learned their writing chops writing for the pulps. Crime, Sci-Fi, Mysteries, Thrillers, The Noir Detectives, Westerns, and many more genres were born in the fifty or so years of Pulp publishing. I have shelves of Louis Lamour and Leslie Charteris ‘Saint’ books. They wrote fast and they wrote for their readers. This week Christopher Wells examined the ebook publishing phenomenon and compared it to Pulp Fiction. 

Joanne Harris spoke out against the absurd focus on debut writers in the publishing world and pleaded with publishers to support their existing writers instead of always chasing the next debut. The Bookseller has a roundup of her Q and A with Sam Missingham. Joanne makes great points on age banding in children’s books, why genre fiction is seen as lesser and the invisible women writers. (Share this article around!)

Last week I pointed you to Dean Wesley Smith’s great post on doing the maths in a writing business. He has a follow-up post responding to the various reactions to his post. Explaining again how writing is a business. While we are in Dean’s neck of the woods he also has an interesting post on how licenses are not the end of the road. This is a great post about helping writers to understand all the tricky rights paragraphs in contracts.

The Audible lawyers are insisting that the judge should throw out the Caption Copyright case. If you haven’t been following this, Audible owned by Amazon wants to introduce written captions to their audiobooks. Publishers say this is eBook publishing and an infringement on their rights and licenses.

Joanna Penn has just passed her eight-year anniversary as an author entrepreneur. She has a great blog about how she is working now and why she has started even more content generation podcasts.

Anne R Allen has a super post on how well-intentioned friends and family can sabotage your writing and your self-belief. This is one of those posts that every writer will identify with. Reading the comments will make you wince. How do you protect your writing sanity?

Kris Rusch looks at Failure this week. Failure is good. Failure means you tried something. And all the best learning comes from failure. I was fascinated to read about Ben and Jerry's flavour graveyard.

This week Jami Gold had an interesting post on Writing Projects- Are we ever done? How do you cope with project overwhelm? Jami offers some good advice for when you can’t see the project because the TO DO LIST got in the way.

In The Craft Section,

5 character flaws to shake up your cast- Litlangislife

An easy way to find the right words- Writer CEO

Two great posts from Writelife- Writing action scenes and How to write a memoir- Bookmark both.

Evoke reader emotions-K M Weiland- Bookmark

Rules - who cares- Kathy Steinemann- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section, 

10 reasons readers unsubscribe from newsletters- Nate Hofelder- Bookmark

SEO for authors- Alli Blog

3 reasons authors need content strategies- Abbie Mood

Simple ebook design means good marketing- Alexandria Szeman

5 things to plan right now for good holiday sales- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

To Finish,

Joel Friedlander talks about understanding Styles in Manuscript formatting. I debated with myself whether this was craft or marketing and decided it was both. Knowing how to use styles is Very Useful. It will help you to craft the interior of a book as well as organise your manuscript.

Colleen Story has a way to boost your writing creativity- Go on a colour walk. She offers 5 ways to do this activity and how it can inspire your writing. You could even have fun with purple prose.

Maureen
@craicer

If you want the best of my bookmarked links, why don’t you subscribe? Then you can also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you.
I appreciate the virtual coffee love so if you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top.
Thanks.

Pic : Flickr Creative Commons- Will Hart -1943 Prince of Corpse Makers – E Hoffmann Price

Crisis Mode

This week I put the above cartoon on my Facebook page. To me, it highlights the disconnect of the world that our children are facing and how we are trying to protect them from it. Sometimes I have muttered under my breath at the latest dire news bulletin ‘Stop the world I want to get off.’ But it is important to take a deep breath and continue to support the changemakers. This month UK children’s publishing house Greystones announced that all their non-fiction books coming out will be issues-driven. (I wish that we didn’t have to have preschool books explaining climate change. Gulp.)

Publishing Perspectives reports on the changes to Book Expo for next year. In the past, the changes have resulted in very dissatisfied publishers and agents so 2020 Book Expo is almost a return to normality except that its shorter. Why, when the book industry is supposed to be expanding?

The week has been filled with reaction to the Medium article by Heather Demetrios -How to lose a third of a million dollars without really trying. This sad little tale comes from an Author who got big advances for debut novels and then watched the dream descend into a nightmare. 

For two very interesting perspectives on this article, you need to read Dean Wesley Smith and learn about what you don’t know. Then read Chuck Wendig for a dose of reality.
This is a business. After the flowers and the Champaign of your first book launch, you need to understand the book world and you need to ask questions. There is no question too dumb as Chuck points out in his own style.

Chris Syme has an interesting guest post on Anne R Allen’s blog this week about crisis management. When an author needs crisis management… it’s not as bad as you think it is.

David Gaughran, the fearless knight defender of the little author, writes about a book exhibit scam that is wrapped up in a veneer of publishing respectability. The big Book Fair comes around and there are companies ready and willing to take your book and exhibit it to the international book-buying world. Yeah, about that….. 

This week Joanna Penn interviewed James Scott Bell on his latest craft book- The Last 50 Pages. If you haven’t come across James Scott Bell’s craft books check them out. He is a master at showing another way to look at craft!

In The Craft Section,

Character development tips - Now Novel- Bookmark

Creating memorable characters- David Griffin Brown

3 tips for writing children- Lucia Tang

5 types of character arc at a glance – K M Weiland – Bookmark

Beyond two-dimensional character-building- Therese Walsh- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section

Book Ad design tools- Bookbub

What the ideal writer website should look like- Laksmhi Padmanaban- Bookmark

Before marketing your book- Boni Wagner Stafford

How to improve your email newsletters- Barb Drozdowich- Bookmark

Cover design terms you should know- Mary Neighbour

Selling books to an international audience – Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

To Finish,

Killzoneblog is a great blog to drop into for all things writerly. Recently Jordan Dane wrote a fabulous post on rediscovering your writer mojo. I was reminded of this as I dropped into Alli’s 24-hour conference earlier this week and saw Dean Wesley Smith talking about the negative associations of calling writing ‘work.’ It got me thinking about mindset and negativity, which helped me over a hump in some scenes this week. Go out there and rediscover writing FUN!

Maureen
@craicer

The monthly newsletter is due this week. If you want the best of my bookmarked links, why don’t you subscribe? Then you can also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you.
I appreciate the virtual coffee love so if you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top.
Thanks.

The Plot Thickens

Digital Book World is on and straight after it is the 24-hour free online conference put on by ALLI – The Alliance of Independent Authors. Register NOW so you can have 3 days perusing all the info before it is gone! 

In Publishing Business News…
Canada Independent Booksellers report a rise in print revenue according to Publishing Perspectives. This is good news if you have just launched a bookshop. (see last week’s post)

Meanwhile, Publish Drive have changed their author fees. They had introduced a flat fee for handling all the distribution in exchange for 100% royalties. Now they have a four-tier model. It still might be worth considering if you have quite a few books.

The French Military, taking a leaf out of the US military playbook, has put out a call to Science Fiction writers to write scenarios for them. Who better than a bunch of authors to come up with plots that might actually happen. (Debt of Honour by Tom Clancy published in 1997, 4 years before 9/11)

This year the Frankfurt Bookfair has a pavilion dedicated to Romani Gypsy literature. I first read of ethnic minorities becoming nation-states without borders in a Science Fiction novel. This pavilion recognises an ethnic minority, without a nation-state, and their literature. Literature is above borders.

Kris Rusch has published the next installment in her rethinking the writing business series. It’s all about money and licensing. How do you know how much to charge for each license?
(BTW Dean, her husband, is speaking on this topic in the free Alli conference if you needed another reason to register.)

Dean Wesley Smith is annoyed with the misinformation out there about how much it costs to Indie Publish. In his dumbest new myth blog post he points out it is relatively cheap… so anyone charging you $2000 plus you need to give the side-eye to. As ever, read the comments!! Some of the commenters added new resources to Dean's list that make it even cheaper!

Agent Janet Reid sends out a warning of a scam that she recently came into contact with. People who offer to represent you to agents… her thoughts… BURN.

The Alliance of Independent Authors has updated their publishing business reviews. If you are thinking of working with anyone in the publishing world it worth checking out whether they have a good review from ALLI.

Kathy Steinemann has a nifty list of ways to record the fabulous plot ideas that arrive in the middle of the night.

Amanda Rawson Hill gets a rave review from September Fawkes and just reading this guest post on How Theme and False Theme affect your protagonist, you can see why. 
This is a knockout… print this out and pin it on the wall post!

In The Craft Section,

Setting the scene- NowNovel Bookmark

Emotional mastery for fiction writers – C S Lakin- Bookmark

How to approach writing a villain protagonist - Scott Myers- Bookmark

The inner struggle- Janice Hardy

How to tell if you have too much plot and not enough character- K M Weiland - Bookmark

How can we make our conflict stronger- Jami Gold- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Behind the scenes of an author newsletter- DIYMFA -Bookmark

Forget what you learned in Kindergarten, copy Madonna- Janet Reid

Promote your book hacks-Reedsy- BOOKMARK

2 great posts from Penny Sansevieri, Easy SEO for author marketing and 5 quick ways to ramp up 
your author central page-Bookmark Both.

On producing my own audiobook- James Scott Bell

To Finish

Do you call yourself a Bookworm or a Bookshark? Lit Reactor can tell you the difference. I was nodding my way down the list… so I know what I am.

Today is a day that haunts many people. Inevitably it has filled the internet with sad stories. So maybe we need to turn to Roald Dahl for the perfect quote (collection)
It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like,
So long as somebody loves you.
Roald Dahl- The Witches

Maureen
@craicer

It’s nearly time for the monthly newsletter. If you want the best of my bookmarked links, why don’t you subscribe? Then you can also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you.
I appreciate the virtual coffee love so if you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top.
Thanks.

Pic : Flickr Creative Commons- Rab Driver-  Cat Plotting Revenge