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)
Emotional wounds- when you accidently kill someone- Angela
Ackerman
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)
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,
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
