Thursday, May 12, 2016

Failure Planning In This Writing Business


This week I was discussing the abuse of interns with an economist (as you do.) He was highlighting how tech interns are offered lots of unpaid work as a leg up in the industry. Its not a leg up... it’s a leg shackle. This morning The Bookseller had an article pointing the finger at unpaid internships in publishing. (Arrgh – not in my own industry! I thought we were better than that...) I have seen Internships advertised now and again on Twitter... and they ask for writers mostly. So go in with your eyes open!

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has sideways jumped with her blog series on Contracts and Deal Breakers. Prince’s lack of a will raises some huge issues for any creative legacy. Recently Kris was editing an anthology and saw at first hand what a mess some writers literary estates were in. This is an important issue. And yes it applies to you! Take the time to read her article and think about what you can put in place in the unfortunate event...

If you are thinking like a business owner... and you should be... Molly Greene has an excellent article on Business Plans for Authors this week. This is a quick run through of the basics that you should be covering.

Anne R Allen has a great post for new writers about ways they can derail their writing careers before it even starts. This is a good post to share around. I have come up against these attitudes from writers and I just wince.

This week Catherine Ryan Howard had her first Traditional Fiction book published.  Catherine Caffienated has been a popular go to blog for anybody learning about self publishing. She is funny and honest as she learned in public and helped countless others on the way with her non fiction books. So why go traditional with fiction? As part of her promotion she has an excellent blog post on killer twists.

The Marketing SFF podcast is always a great learning resource to dip into. This week the team interviewed best selling series writer Garrett Robinson and it was a cracker! Garrett writes in public on YouTube. It’s almost performance art... Spend some time with this podcast and get mind blown!

Audible is doing an interesting thing. They are allowing subscribers to gift an audible book for free. I’m trying to see the catch. You get to still own the book. The creators still get paid as if it’s a real sale... you don’t have to buy the book again. Sounds wonderful!

In the Craft Section,


How to write deep POV- Ava Jae- Bookmark






Building the movie in our minds- Jami Gold - Bookmark

In the Marketing Section,

How to podcast – Joanna Penn


Susan Spann has written an excellent series on right in contracts. These are Bookmark posts! 
Subsidiary rights and Merchandising rights in publishing deals. Read and have your eyes opened!

Penny Sansevieri has a great post on live streaming on Facebook- and other epic Facebook marketing tips- Bookmark

To Finish,

Maureen
@craicer


Thursday, May 5, 2016

Looking for Jam


The Australian government is proposing some radical changes to their copyright laws and the writers have come out to protest. There have been open letters from Booker prize winners and other luminaries in the media over the last week. The Canadian Copyright centre has some warnings for Australia not to go down that twisted path based from bitter experience.

Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware has some warnings about the way spammers are targeting authors. I got one this week which I promptly ignored. (Legit publishers don’t contact randomly through Twitter offering to publish.) However Victoria is noticing how many spammers are using writing contests.

Dave Gaughran has been taking Amazon to task over the scammers that have taken over some bestseller categories. This week Amazon finally decided to do something about it. But it relies on you the author/reader too.

Amy from The Book Designer has an article on the new marketing tricks being offered to authors on Amazon beginning this month. This is like lifting the lid on your quiet runabout car and finding a sports car engine... but to use it might cost you the price of the sports car.

Joanna Penn has another great podcast this week on audiobooks and what she is doing. She is such a great resource. If you have been thinking about audio book narration you should check this out.

Dean Wesley Smith is a creative powerhouse. He runs popular courses on writing as well as his maintaining his busy writing career, monthly magazine, popular blog etc etc. This month he is putting some of his popular writing courses on YouTube... because.

Penny Sansevieri has put together a list of top resources for indie publishers- This is one of those bookmark lists to keep coming back to and Derek Murphy has his list of 10 things Indies are doing wrong and what they are doing right.


In the Craft Section,



When is a story not about plot -Jami Gold- Bookmark

The pre proofing checklist- Wiseink- Bookmark

The 5 biggest writing mistakes- James Scott Bell- Bookmark



In the Marketing Section,




10 tips for guest posts- Anne R Allen- Bookmark (I wish my guest post spammers would read this!)


The basics of book promotion- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

Website of the Week
I have featured Writers helping Writers before because of the fabulous work on the writing thesauri that Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi put together. They have two new books on Setting coming out that you might like to check out. For Marketing they usually do some cool pay it forward marketing thing which as a side effect gets their book noticed. They are looking for people to spread the word. However with just this wee taster I can see that these writing craft books will be snapped up!

To Finish,
Today I mucked around with resurrecting quince jam which had turned to toffee, while I was doing this I listened to this podcast on creativity and the art of asking and motherhood etc etc. This interview with Amanda Palmer was really interesting and a good way of getting your brain thinking while the toffee turns to syrup.

Maureen
@craicer


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