Becoming A Phenomenon

Today I am one day late in posting this roundup. 

The end of January creeps up and suddenly the family realises that the summer holiday is over and school is nearly upon them. Cue plaintive cries for new stationery... uniforms... and other essential items that earlier in the year they denied they needed. How did they grow so fast over the last week? Why has one child lost their school pens before they even got to school? And whoever invented book covering plastic adhedsive should have a special hell reserved for them with a stack of schoolbooks, a tearful child and book coverings that never go on smoothly!

This week in the publishing blogosphere, Chuck and Mike ruffled feathers over their different takes of the self publishing phenomenon and the future of bookstores and publishing.

Mike Shatzkin started the week with a blog post on the future of bookstores and the decreasing shelf space for print books. Bookstores are increasingly going into non-book ‘things’, how will this impact on publishers and writers in the future. This is interesting reading and there was a lot of discussion about ebooks and whether selfpublishing print was sustainable...cue impassioned posts. Mike continued his examination of bookstores and the loss leader of selling cheap books to get consumers into the store...can this be sustained?

Chuck Wendig was in the gun for daring to state that selfpublishers should do the best writing they can as a service to the readers. He sees the increasing avalanche of badly published books as bringing down the status of the industry. He has had an avalanche of comments but some interesting ideas have come out of it. There was a mini thread looking at author collectives and the buying power of a group employing editing, cover and marketing services.

Andrea Phillips wrote a great follow up blog looking at different models of author collectives. Have a read then take a trawl around her website...WOW

I think an author collective model is where we may be heading in the future. (I’ve been saying it for years.) It maybe time for the best parts of the Bloomsbury model to be ressurected...

Porter Anderson has expanded the Ether to a live Twitter chat called #EtherIssue and this weeks topic was on self publishing where everyone has a % stake in the book. A lively chat ensued with all sorts of ideas and facts springing out. This was springboarded from the winning essay in December on the future of Bookselling. It is a brilliant read and was anonymously done by a publisher from Faber and Faber... a must read.

Another writer springboarding off Chucks blog posts this week is Ian Rodgers, a music critic, who looked at all the comments comparing the music industry and the publishing industry and decided to set the record straight. This is also a pointer to the way things also might be heading. A thought provoking read.

The phenomenon, Joanna Penn, was interviewed on her writing life balance and what she would do now if she were just starting out. It makes interesting reading.

Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi are a phenomenal twosome. Angela is interviewed on how to co write with another author, across countries...

In the Craft Section,

Revision is on everyones mind...

Elisabeth S Craig on how to tackle big revisions...great reading.

K M Weiland on when your character is out of character and crafting great opening lines

Kate Walker from Romance University on cutting for pace...this is a bookmark post.

What matters when writing for a global audience?

Writing a series...the things you need to remember.

Ten lessons in Non Fiction writing

In the Marketing Section,

The Book Designer.... checking your epub files before publishing, tips and tricks.

Social Media for writers.

Publishing Perspectives has an interesting discussion on Book trailers. Do you need them?

Website of the week.

Life Hacker and Google tips for the student...Some great tips in here for the writer!

To Finish,

Leaving a literacy legacy... This is an important issue and one that is not really talked about but what happens to your literary work after you are dead. Do you have a literary Power of Attorney? This is a timely read because your work hopefully will last longer than you will. How do you want your writing to be treated... and that means your good name as well.

My publishing advice - Do your homework in all facets of the game. Weigh up which path is right for you and your energy levels. Work on your writing to make it the best you can. Get it edited by a professional editor. Whichever publishing path you choose make sure your work is as good as it can be. Your name is on it and it is your legacy.

Writing is a Craft. Storytelling is an Art. Publishing is a Business. –Chuck Wendig

maureen

Pic from Flickr /Creative Commons/ Schristia

Stripping Back

After the full blog post last week... you may be thinking what more can there be?

Last year the talk of Digital Book World week was Hugh Howey with his ground breaking Print Only contract. Hugh wasn’t on the panels last week but he was still making waves with this incredible post speculating what he would do in the first month if he was the new CEO of a ‘New’ Harper Collins.

This list of 13 points was talked about, applauded and then analysed by Porter Anderson who included Hugh’s agent Kristin Nelson’s PS about what she would add to the new look publishing company.

Every point makes you sit up and go yeah! 

Hugh then followed it up with what he would do in the second month. Nailed It!

Anybody thinking of starting a publishing company… here is your blueprint. Brilliant stuff.

Recently the publishing bogosphere was talking price points and how you set prices on your books... Kris Rusch has been writing a series of articles on the business of writing and she is one savvy lady. Take a look at her latest post, pricing and discoverability, it is a comprehensive master class in pricing books... ebook, print, series... If you add this info with Hugh’s that is your brain expander for the month.

Joel Friedlander always has useful tips and here is the blogpost that explains how you pull neat quotes out of your book and make them jpeg graphics...sweet!

Rachel Gardner has a blog post on what you should do if you think your work has been pirated.

In the Craft Section,

Top tips in Combat writing.

Elisabeth S Craig's post on reason's why you kill your characters… has been shared around the blogosphere this week. You may selling your character short when you send them down the river.

Jody Hedlund has 5 top ways to rivet your reader.... and she uses children’s books as the example.

How lists can help you write.

In the Marketing Section,

Ava Jae has the blog post explaining why you can’t chooseany old 50 pages to send to an agent.

Writer Beware has warnings about Agent Artery, a dodgy outfit who will send your MS to agents on your behalf. It is a shocker! To start with they address your prospective agent as ‘Human’... not even Dear Human....

For those of you who like infographics Media Bistro has a funny one about publishing your book... This could be a good one to share around to all your author friends.

To Finish,

Anne R Allen has an interesting blog post on whether your writing is your hobby or your profession... or both. This is a nice post helping you make sense of your creative compulsive drive.

I’ve been painting and scraping in my old cottage today so am crawling off to bed to dream of a bright new publishing world... or probably neverending paint stripping... Think of your own picture for this weeks roundup…hehehe.

maureen

Cracking the Predictions for 2014

Happy New Year

2014 on Craicer was about to start with a round up of all the predictions for the publishing world for the year... until I fell and badly sprained my hand at a popular tourist spot in the North...so you got an extra weeks break and I narrowly escaped one.

This week is Digital Book Week Expo in the US (#DBW14) It kicked off with this one day conference on all things digital with children’s books. No surprises that the day was immediately sold out. Look what was on offer.

Publishing Trends has the quick round up...but really if you are involved at all in kids books you should take a look at what was discussed.

However the organisers have made some of the presentations available on slideshare...and for an extra insight you can scroll down the twitter feed. 

In Publishing Predictions for 2014

Ebook pricing was a big discussion point along with new publishing models... agent publishers, big publishers getting into concierge services, which publisher will be next on the block, subscription and library models.

Bob Mayer highlights audio as continuing to drive growth in sales.

Porter Anderson takes a close look at pricing in his latest Ether post, following on from discussions generated by predictions 2014.

Mike Shatzkin, publishing futurist, rounds up his important points and shrinking retail space for books is one of his top concerns...there is an obvious flow on effect everywhere and do we really need celebrity imprints? Johnny Depp gets his own imprint...

Mark Coker of Smashwords predicts big things for subscription models and the squeeze on libraries. He also puts in a plug for author collectives and the way authors are beginning to collaborate on branding and publish themselves collectively. (This has great potential in NZ as I keep saying...)

Author Media predicts writers focus on craft more, while publishers focus on platform... 

For those of you who use the New Year to Redefine Your Writing Goals…

Have a look at these articles.

Jane Friedman on What you want from Writing

Elisabeth S Craig on Meeting your Writing Goals

Dean Wesley Smith on How to Keep your Writing going as a Business.

K M Weiland on Easy Writing Resolutions.

Dave Gaughran on Enjoying Marketing...otherwise you aren’t doing it right.

On the flip side.

Hugh Howey raised the point that traditional publishers are about to try to market themselves as hip and independent publishers... this also became a talking point at #DBW14

Laura Kaye (Romance author) took issue with the Kensington Publishers comments on self publishing. She examined the myth and the reality points that they made...and then the comments opened up. What was really interesting in this conversation was the willingness of self published authors to talk about their incomes...and how they got them... which challenged all the original points made in the article. 

If you ever want to figure out where this publishing business is going just follow the romance writers. They are a very savvy bunch. (NB I heard over the grapevine that NorthTec may be including a Self Publishing course...tutor; a 6 figure income erotica writer based in Kaitaia...)

In an impassioned open letter to Indie Authors ... J M Gregoire asks everyone to lift their game! This letter has had many writers agreeing with her comments...

Go Forth into 2014 Armed With Knowledge... To Do It Write!

Next week I will be back home into my regular groove...well maybe when school gets back at the end of January.

maureen

Pic: Broken Christmas cracker...Flickr Creative Commons/Kurafire

The Quick and Dirty...

This is a busy time of the year so this is a quick post of things that caught my eye in the publishing blogosphere this week.

At this time of year ‘Best Of’ lists are pulled out of the drawer and dusted off. Publishers Weekly asked publishers to list their best children’s books... or the ones they wished they had published... interesting reading with a few familiar names... Go NZ.

Indiereaders also published their best of indie books for this year and that also makes interesting reading.

For all those who have e Readers a lot of these books are on sale for Christmas so your Christmas reading is sorted.   I note that in the letterbox mailers the tech stores are busily promoting mini e Readers for kids Christmas stockings... however  widespread take up of ebooks for kids are not a happening thing... yet.

Bob Mayer always takes this time of year to look at the current state of publishing and he kicks off his week with this blog post onBook sales over 2013 and the implications for publishers.

Again and again there are articles written about the state of Traditional Publishing against Self Publishing... and the perceived differences in quality and second class nature of those who self publish. Some people are still seeing it as a competition. This week Laura Kaye pointed out the bits that the Huffington Post got wrong when they tried to write about the current state of publishing.

Jacqueline Simonds talks about self publishing and distribution...this is the nut everyone hopes to crack.

Joanna Penn has written a great little post on working together to learn from and promote others in the same genre as you, along with a useful post on audio book tips from the pros.

In Craft this week,

Neil Gaimen on where great ideas come from

Ava Jae on stong supporting characters

10 tools to help writers write.

10 reasons to use the proposal process before you write the book

In Marketing this week,

How to format your book sales page on KDP

Lindsay Buroker- The art of selling on Amazon

The Book Designer on Genre vs Platform...very interesting post by C S Lakin

Jane Friedman on Reader Engagement

To Finish, 

In the weird files Writer Beware has noticed a new kind of weird. ‘The Literary Agent’ who is crowd sourcing which manuscripts she should ‘take on’ in her new venture. You've got to read it. How can people be sooo gullible that they think this is legit?

It is Christmas next week...I am taking a break for a couple of weeks and then I will be back with all those wonderful predictions for 2014.

maureen

Pic is Santa arriving in 1929 at Canberra airport. From the Flickr Commons Institutions pages. What wonderful collections of images are available here.

Is It Goodwill?

This week in the international childrens publishing community everyone was talking about the genre slap that we took when Kent University (UK) decided that Childrens Writing was not literary enough to teach seriously... this followed the sacking of the Times Children’s Book reviewer, in a budget cut. The children’s writing community in the UK wrote a letter signed by 425 writers and librarians to the Times expressing their outrage at this. Childrens writers around the world are facing the continual disparagement of what they do so there was lots of agreement when Keren David wrote this blog piece. There is a beautifully put comment on it from New Zealand’s Maria Gill who summed up our feelings here pretty well.

As the fallout continues over Learning Media and the sales of back lists etc etc, anybody who has got an email with new contract terms in it please check in with NZ Society of Authors before you sign anything.

Be aware that increasingly publishing contracts are now including tricky little phrases such as ‘all rights in perpetuity’ and ‘Worldwide’ and last month Writer Beware commented on a contract that had ‘Universe wide.’ Check over this handy book contract clause explain-all.

Bob Mayer has been looking at the traits of sucessful writers these days and it comes down to the fact that they are ‘Outliers.’ This is a really interesting article.

Continuing in this vein is a great post by C J Lyons who is probably the most sucessful Hybrid author out there. How has she juggled her writing career stradling both sides of the fence...she went and built a new paddock.

Bibliocrunch has some tips if you want to look into self publishing.

Phillip Jones of FutureBook has been looking at the slap dealt to the science publishing community from a Nobel Prize winner about the elitist nature of publishing journals... The Open Access of scholarly work is the big talking point in the academic community at the moment.

DigitalBookWorld is hosting a webinar on Rights Marketing and Management. Check it out.

Author newsletters...How do you do them and what use are they. This is a nifty bookmark worthy post giving you the low down.

Publishing Perspectives is taking issue with The Best Of 2013 Book lists...which are appearing all over the web at the moment. One ofthe more comprehensive book lists I’ve seen is BookRiot’s. At least I have heard of some of the books.

In the Craft section,

Susan Kaye Quinn on Brainstorming Your Book. This is a bookmark it post.

Jodie Renner has pro tips on character description.

Writersinthestorm has a How to write like the wind...

Kirsten Lamb on character duality traits.

Sarah Juckes has discovered a nifty website to help youuntangle your plot.

There are three stellar articles from Jami Gold.

4 tips that solve 99% of your writing problems

Subtext when your characters are liars

Fix 4 common problems with The Emotion Thesaurus (Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s amazing book)

In the Marketing section,

Joel  Friedman has a nifty template for anyone wanting to do a dust jacket.

Julie Hedlund has been doing a kick starter for her picture book which became funded yesterday. Take a look at how she broke it down and what she offered.

6 books every marketer needs to read. I have read some of them and they are very interesting even if you are not a marketer.

To Finish,

‘Tis the season to get gifts for yourself  (or the writer in your life...) Here we have Chuck’s Ten gifts for writers updated from when he asked people to kidnap Neil Gaiman.

K M Weiland has the top 10 gifts for writers...(not as extreme...) and

Writer Unboxed has bypassed the gift list and gone straight to New Years resolutions for writers...

Spread the Goodwill!

maureen

Pic from Amazon (5* book on visual fantasy writing)

After NaNo, The Choices Writers Make.

NaNoWriMo has finished and editors are bracing for the onslaught of manuscripts. December is Editing Month... or it should be. There are always ‘authors’ who just skip that process and upload their manuscripts straight onto the Amazon platform. And then there are some truly sharp operators out there who have an elaborate plan to defraud the reading and writing public. 
What is the hottest genre to read right now? Let’s go and create a persona and upload some books...(that we found on the internet.) AND MAKE $$$$$$. (CMOT Dibbler)*

In case you missed it, this is the plagiarizing author…”her” photo was stolen from a Revlon ad. pic.twitter.com/xyFuhuLkta
— Evil Wylie (@EvilWylie) December 4, 2013

This guy also registered a domain for selling “Kindle marketing tips.” His big tip? PLAGIARIZE YOUR BOOKS! pic.twitter.com/FQGfYUMGG4
— Evil Wylie (@EvilWylie) December 4, 2013

It is Illegal and Unethical and Scuzzball Low to plagiarise.

(Romance author’s you need to check to see if these are any of your books uplifted by this lowlife.)

In other news this week Amazon announced a new delivery service... Prime Air - delivery by drone. The internet was bursting with drone jokes. Jeff Bezos made the announcement on a CBS special which Porter Anderson covered as part of his weekly look at all things publishing. Jeff has messages for the publishing/retail community including ‘Complaining is not a strategy.’

Jane Friedman hosted Angela Ackerman on her site this week. Angela was talking about business plans for writers, which has had a lot of positive press.

In another twist Jane Friedman was interviewed by ALLi The Alliance of Independent Authors on The Business of Making Money from Writingand Publishing. This is one of those Get a coffee, close the door and upskill for an hour of awesomeness. Widely talked about on Twitter yesterday.

Passive Guy this week had two call to arms posts.

One was on the unprofessional behaviour of some editors and agents participating in the Twitter hashtag  #queryfail.

Detailing misdemeanors just makes you look unprofessional. The comments on his post make insightful reading.

The other was Author Websites and the Ten Mistakes to Avoid. This was a very informative piece as over 70 comments with tips to add or avoid attested.

The FutureBook conference continues to create talking points around the web... including this article from Publishing Perspectives on the big ideas to come out of the conference. Rebecca Smart’s address on Publishing -why are we so bloody slow and what can be done about it?

Digital Book World continues their self publishing dialogue series with this sadly telling infographic on writers take home pay.

Bob Mayer continues to fly the flag for Indie Publishing... with his article - Writer’s Create Product, Reader’s Consume Product, Everybody in Between Must Provide Long Term Value.

In the Craft Section,

After NaNo ... how to use Beat Sheets. Awesome advice from Jami Gold

The Romance Hero/ Heroine’s journey.

Roz Morris on Subtext in Dialogue...bookmark this!

5 Rules for Conquering Writer Chaos.

Susan Kaye Quinn – Do You Know Your Characters?

In the Marketing Section,

8 Marketing Exercises for Introverted Writers

Joanna Penn on Book Description SEO Bookmark this!

4 Ways To Find Readers Who Love Your Work
5 Things You Don't Know About Publishing

To Finish,

Local author, D C Grant (awesome children’s writer) participated in NaNoWriMo this year and chronicles her journey in a nifty post each line showing how her word count ebbed and flowed. Congratulations to all participants!

maureen

Pic from http://imgur.com/1OVaAQ0

* Those who read Discworld will get the reference... those who don't should!

Counting Down To Breaking Point

This week the news that young adults preferred printed books brought a cheer throughout the publishing blogosphere. There has been a lot of talk about the rise and rise of ebooks so the reading survey made interesting reading. 

Secretly most writers prefer the printed page because they are bibliophiles. This morning I did a funny online survey which asked how many books I read a week and gave a small sample up to 3 (I scoffed, only 3?) 

Along with the survey the other big discussion topic is Mike Shatzkin’s interview about the future of publishing. He is a publishing futurist guru and I have been following him for the last five years and so far he has predicted right an astonishing amount of times. This time he has had to write a disclaimer blog saying he is not predicting publishing is going down the drain. Take the time to read the initial interview which is short, sharp and to the point and then settle in for his blog disclaimer which amplifies hispredictions and puts things in context. The publishers job is getting harder but they have some good aces up their sleeve...the ability to help build brand is one of them.

The FutureBook 2013 conference happened last week and some of Mike Shatzkin’s comments are echoed in the takeouts from the Bookseller’s roundup.  This is an interesting list of short articles on what the presenters said.

Jill Corcoran has been getting high fives this week on her blog post about the devaluing of writers by writers. In your race to find the sweet spot in ebook pricing are you driving down the ability of all writers to achieve a fair price.

DigitalBookWorld has followed this up with an article on the digital pricing middle.

Kody Keplinger has a blog on disability in Kids Lit. How do you portray someone with disabilities? Are they the noble sufferer or does their disability limit their character growth? This week she shares her own experiences of disability and the reality that is often glossed over in Kids Lit. She is an award winning Kids Lit writer and a very good read. This should be widely shared around.

Penny Sanseveri alerts writers to Amazon changing theirkeyword use policies.

Writer Beware is looking at Vanity Radio scams on Authors.

Bob Mayer looks at a day in the life of an Indie Publisher... this shows you why his concierge writing service is doing so well.

In the Craft Section,

Janice Hardy has her real life diagnostics on Point Of View. Great stuff.

Are you stifling your creativity?

If you can’t take a research trip –No Problem

Janet Reid on do you know enough to send a query? (This is a quick survey for you to do before you send the query to an agent...)

In the Marketing Section,

Ruth Harris has been doing a writers toolkit series and this weeks installment is on promo and advertising ideas.

Jill Corcoran on what makes a book sell.

5 Indie authors tips on ebook launches.

Facebook fan engagement tips.

Marketing with promo cards.

Website to check out,

LiveHacked has listed what they think are the top 100 blogs for writers. They cover all facets of the business. You will see some familiar names among them as I am a regular visitor to quite a few of them.

To Finish,

Gift giving seems to be on peoples minds so several writers have got lists of popular gifts for writers. From 12 fun holiday gifts to 10 concentration apps for writers or you could check out Chucks list of 25 gifts to give a writer. Neil Gaiman checked it out today and broke Chucks site after tweeting about it. Of course he was apologetic...but I wonder if it was deliberate as Chuck wanted someone to steal Neil’s writing gazebo with him in it so Chuck could have a personal muse slave....hehehehehe.

maureen

Pic from Flickr/Creative Commons Charles Atkieson

Being Conflicted...

This week the blogosphere is trying to digest the news that Google won the lawsuit taken against them for scanning books under copyright and uploading them to Google books. Feelings are mixed...it’s been an 8 year battle. Authors are annoyed but the tech geeks see it as a victory.

Will there be an appeal? As the Author’s Guild have taken this case... can their membership sustain this fight?

This week Rachel Gardner talked about the conflicted nature of needing Amazon while it also is your biggest rival.

Joanna Penn and her agent parted ways ... it was bittersweet and a business decision... and definitely shows how the business has changed.

Alison Cherry on the conflicted feelings she has after she published...

The news is out... The market you want to get into is the German one if you are self publishing... The Passive Guy checks out why and Publishing Perspectives examines how 50% of authors there are self published. How to feel conflicted about your own countries practice.

Young Adult (YA) has always been the subject of conflicting emotions (probably because it is about conflicting emotions.) However these two articles will probably push your writer buttons. What books to give YA(reading) virgins and New trends in YA literature from the agents perspective.

If YA is not your thing...authors and agents are participating in PiBoIdMo...got 30 ideas for a picture book?

Author Beware tips on how not to get scammed.

In the Craft section,

Publishing Perspectives on how to spot a good editor

Writer Unboxed on Creating a Masterpiece...lots of juicy comments here.

The Plot Whisperer on pre-plotting a series.

Victoria Mixon on 10 tips to make you a better writer in 10 days.

K M Weiland on the top 25 ways to write an awesome book

In Marketing,

A discussion on price promotions... and how they can backfire.

Jane Friedman on the difference between marketing and promotion.

How to sell more books... and what you should be doing with the back of your ebook.

The key to growing readership.

To Finish,

Charlie Redmayne (he of Pottermore and now poached back to HarperCollins) has laid out the warnings to the publishing industry. Take back content! Spend money on building the brand.  Author’s will be conflicted about the implications...especially in light of new contracts with nice phrases like...  universe rights and in perpetuity.

O what a tangled web we weave...

If you know the author of that line and can finish the quotation...you are PrDmBrll.

maureen

pic from Flickr /creative commons/lju 

A Change In The Climate

Almost every month I find myself wondering if there are any climate change skeptics still around. The weather will get more extreme. Storms will be bigger.... and in the last week we have seen a Super Typhoon slam into the Philippines.

Candy Gourlay has quickly put together a kidlit author initiative and asked her fellow kidlitters to donate prizes for an online auction fundraiser. So far 125 authors have responded and there are some very cool writers and items to be picked up.

This week in the publishing blogosphere Porter Anderson was waxing lyrical about the self publishers who originally eschewed gate keepers now banding together to differentiate themselves from the mass of self published work out there and setting up gate-keeping awards as a badge of honour. This discussion is being had in NZ with various bodies including the NZ Society of Authors.

Rachel Gardner has a nice blog post on the tension between the business of writing and writing itself and another on 12 mistakes that authors make connecting with readers.

Writers Digest West conference has just wrapped up and WiseInk has a great list of takeaways from it including a shift in attitude to self publishing.

Writer Beware has an alert out on an outfit from Germany offering to blog your book. I treated this as spam when it showed up in my inbox but some people have been caught.

Roz Morris has reposted her comprehensive blog post on what to do before you spend money on publishing. If you missed this when I posted it before its well worth a re-read.

Larry, James and Randy got together to talk storytelling craft. This is a great article and really they don’t need any other introduction than their last names. Brooks, Scott Bell, Ingermanson, authors of some of the best writing craft guides out there.

In Craft,

Dialogue do’s and don’ts

Anti Villains...great article

Two great articles from K M Weiland when characters want the same things and 7 ways to decide which idea to run with next.

Hanging writing rules out to dry

On Stephen Pressfield’s site - the heirarchy of needs as it applies to your characters

Are you writing in the right POV?

10 writing exercises to free your mind

Writing slogans to put above your desk

Jami Gold- Do you know what you plan in advance?

This week’s Marketing Links,

Jane Friedman with another big article on marketing 101

Creative Book Launches from the Writers Helping Writers team

Selling through Indie Bookstores

4 reason’s you need a business plan

Marketing your manuscript

Enjoy marketing

To Finish,

The Toast had an interesting article from Sarah Rees Brennan which explores sexism and self promotion. It is a thought provoking article and echoes some of the conversations NZ has been having in the last week. I think we are ready for a ‘climate’ change.

maureen

pic from Flickr/ creative Commons Chascar