Thursday, April 21, 2016

Fair Learning


This week is all about the London Book Fair. (It is still Book Fair season.)
The Alliance of Independent Authors hosted a packed online conference at the London Book Fair. They had some wonderful speakers and have put blogposts up on their website with all sorts of juicy information and learning. This is well worth spending some quiet time trawling through.

Publishing Perspectives has their eye on the fair and the interesting ideas to come out of it and Lithub finds out how easy it is to get lost but then you find other things at the fair.

Sukhi Jutla has a great blog post on lessons learned at the London Book Fair.  This is of special relevance to independent authors or those thinking of the hybrid author model.

Joanna Penn has another great podcast, this week, on building your author business. This is an interesting subject because even if you follow the traditional approach to publishing you are still in the author business.

Mark Coker has released his 2016 survey on insights and habits of the bestselling authors on Smashwords. This is a comprehensive look at pricing sweet spots, box sets, etc. etc.

This week Passive Guy pointed out an interesting article in the WSJ about the new selling footprint of famous independent bookstore Shakespeare and Co. The new owner has turned it on its head. Is this the bookstore of the future?

In the Craft Section,



show- Angela Ackerman-Bookmark






In the Marketing Section,



Bookmark



To Finish,
After spending so much time Book Fair related it is time to take a break. Bustle has an article on why authors should take a reading break every now and then. This is a funny post about the need to step away from books in order to write them.

Maureen
@craicer
Thanks for all the kind messages about Craicer's 8th Blogoversary throughout the last week.


Thursday, April 14, 2016

Fair Value


This week I have some links to articles about the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (as promised last week.)

The New York Times had a piece looking at the rise of children’s publishing and the large Chinese contingent at the fair. This augers well for the new fair being inaugurated this year in Singapore for the ASEAN nations.

The London Book Fair is underway right now. Publishing Perspectives has a quick look at what the major talking points will be.

Children’s author C Alexander London this week wrote a brave article about coming out as Gay to children... and their reactions. All they really wanted to know was when the next book was coming out.

Larry Brooks has a great article on story development. What is the key criteria to the story? It’s a compelling premise. Another must read article from Larry.

Molly Greene has been carefully examining her earnings and her book goals. She sets out her Marketing goals for 2016 and the reasons why she is doing all these changes to her book business.

Recently I was chatting to my husband about Scrivener as I thought it might be useful in his office for a project his team was working on. He downloaded a free version and became a convert. This seems to be what happens when someone tries Scrivener- instant writing software love. Here is a master tips article for all those Scrivener users.

What are the marks of a Professional Independent Author? The key word in that sentence is ‘professional.’ The Book Reviewers site has a breakdown of what you should be aiming for.

Elizabeth S Craig has a great article on valuing your time. Writers are often asked to do things for free and it’s hard to say No. How do we evaluate the events we participate in so that they add value to us as writers? This is a great article to get you thinking about your time price.

In the Craft Section,

Essential writing tools -Angela Ackerman Becca Puglisi Bookmark


In the Marketing Section,

Using images for marketing- Joanna Penn Bookmark!

An Instagram primer for authors- Frances Caballo Bookmark


To Finish,
This week marks the eighth year of Craicer. I have been thinking about all the things I have learned along the way.
1. Commitment to a deadline. There is nothing like the creeping hour hand of the clock to make me stop researching and get the blog published.
2. Chances to push out of my comfort zone. Researching and writing this blog every week has made me a Go To person for speaking to groups or planning programmes or podcasting. Somehow people think I know stuff.
3. When I’ve struggled with my health the fact that I had a regular appointment to research and write up for others what I have learned has kept me sane. Ok not as crazy as I could be.

I am grateful for the people who read the blog, ask questions or share the blog to new readers. It always makes me laugh when I’m with a bunch of authors and someone asks 'how do you...' and the response from the group is “Read Maureen’s blog!”
Thanks everyone for reading and sharing the blog over the last eight years!

Maureen
@craicer


Thursday, April 7, 2016

Taking The Long View


In the children’s publishing world Bologna Children’s Book Fair is the big date on the annual calendar. It is just finishing as I write so all the commentaries about the fair will be out during the week. However Publishers Weekly has a day one impressions piece. In other Children’s Book News, today the brilliant  Meg Rosoff  won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award  for her career achievements. 

This week Hugh Howey gave an interview for DBW where he set out in his forthright way what the publishers should be doing now and into the future.
Mike Shatzkin, who programmes the DBW conference, then replied in his forthright way where he thought Hugh was right and where he thought Hugh was completely wrong.
Both of these articles are good reads. As always read the comments where you get a fuller sense of the conversations around both points of view.

Two people who have much to say on publishing and writing are Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. They both keep a sharp eye on the industry and have tremendous business smarts.
Kris is starting a new Business Musings series on Contracts and specifically deal breakers in contracts. Kris starts out by saying she was hoping that contracts would have improved in the three years since she wrote her book on Contracts but sadly they haven’t. With Author Societies calling for fairer contracts in the US and UK, writers need to keep these posts in their must read list.
Dean has a tremendous work ethic and works hard at explaining the writing business. He doesn’t suffer fools and has nothing to prove to anyone. This week he was a little taken aback when he was accused of devaluing the novel art-form because he wrote a novel in a week. Riiiiight.

Joel Friedlander is another publishing practitioner who has a must read blog. This week he looks at what Self Publishers can do when they find their books have been pirated.

Nathan Bransford still has interesting things to say about the publishing business. This week he comments on a New York Times article about focus groups being asked to read unpublished novels and mark where they stopped reading so the publishers can figure out how much money to spend on marketing.

In the Craft Section,
Making your plot less episodic- The Editors Blog-Bookmark

Making a series outline- Better Novel Project-Bookmark


Dramatic momentum or End of Chapter buttons-Writers in the 
Storm-Bookmark





In the Marketing Section,



Bookmark



To Finish,

This coming week Beverley Cleary turns 100 years old. Her books have touched the lives of millions of children around the world. We all love Henry and Ribsy, Beezus and Ramona and a whole cast of characters from neighbourhoods just like ours. She has had a remarkable publishing career which started when one little boy marched up to her library desk and asked 'where are the stories about kids like me.'

Maureen
@craicer

Pic: Beverley Cleary Born 12 April 1916

Thursday, March 31, 2016

The Ebb and Flow of Publishing


This week in the publishing blogosphere there was a lot of sympathy for the plight of Eilis O’Hanlon. Eilis has traditionally published her crime novels with her partner. They enjoyed modest success then in the ways of publishing... editors move... the series gets dropped and copyright reverts and the book goes out of print. That is until the book get plagiarised and finds a new success on Amazon.

This week Caroline Paul was shining a spotlight on publishing dilemma. Why boys should read girl books? There are some great arguments for this and a disquiet among authors that the push to be gender specific has not done children any favours. Melinda Szymanik explains this very well in her opinion piece.

Molly Green posted a breakdown of her earnings last year. A few authors are doing this now to explain why they are choosing to self publish. Transparency does educate. Her post makes interesting reading. As ever you should read the comments to get a fuller understanding.

Publishing Perspectives shines a spotlight on a new publishing company. Assisted publishing using people working in traditional publishing. It’s another way people can buy the services of a traditional publisher.

Joanna Penn interviewed Mark Lefebvre of Kobo about their global expansion into Asia and the new opportunities for authors who
publish with them. This makes interesting reading. Kobo is 2nd in sales of eBooks behind Amazon and they are growing.

In the Craft Section,
When to write the end- K M Weiland- Bookmark

Revelation Midpoint- Sara Le Tourneau- Bookmark!

7 things that will doom a novel- James Scott Bell- Bookmark


Why every writer needs a VIP- Ruth Harris- Bookmark!



In the Marketing Section,



How to build a media kit- Molly Greene- Bookmark



Website of the Week
The cool One Stop for Writers website has got even cooler. Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have put together visual story maps. This is a handy aid to those writers who struggle with structure. 

To Finish,
Stephen King’s book On Writing is one of those must have craft books in your writing arsenal. Here he has 17 screenwriting lessons. These are really writing lessons regardless of the medium.

Fabo is back! It's that time of the year when NZ's wacky children's writers come out of their writing caves and start another round of story starters for NZ children. 

 maureen
@craicer


Friday, March 25, 2016

Genre Journeys



This week seemed to be genre week with interesting  articles from across the genre spectrum.
Children’s Publishing day at Digital Book World had some interesting takeaways. A few years ago it was widely speculated that with all these smart phones the early adopters would be teenagers. But they aren’t. They still want a physical book with printed pages.
But the genre could be slowly changing.

Over in the Romance field the HEA (happily ever after) ending is being questioned... do modern romances need this? It isn’t reflected in real life... is it? Some interesting thoughts in this blog post and comments.

James Patterson, who is his own genre, has been making waves this week with the revelation that there is a whole publishing arm devoted to just him... and he is employing them through his publishers, which would make him a Self Publisher with a traditional publishing house or a traditional publishing house with a self publishing imprint devoted to one person. No one can decide but it makes fascinating reading especially as he is publishing across age groups.

Leo Hartas, an illustrator, makes a plea for writers to understand how to commission an illustrator. If you are in the market for having illustrations for your project... read this first. I know illustrators who say these words often.

One of the most heart felt posts on Social Media came from Anne R Allen this week. This follows on from Jami Gold’s post last week. Anne talks about the increasing pressure on writers to be everywhere... You don’t need to be. She makes absolute sense and this is a must read for every author out there.

Catherine Ryan Howard who is a Go To Guru on how to self publish has an agent and a traditional publishing deal. This is an interesting journey... and one a lot of writers are taking as Hybrid is seen as a good career move.

This week publishing futurist Mike Shatzkin has been thinking about the need for publishers to use critical data research in the acquisitions process. These days research and data profiles are becoming easier to find and use so why aren’t publishers using them? As always read the comments for the robust discussion points.

Today while traveling on an errand a character, whom I had put on hold for a few years, popped into my mind demanding that now was the time to tell his story... never mind I’m in the middle of something big... somewhere else. Some characters are so rude! This got me thinking about Story Structure and this led me to one of Larry Brooks latest posts on structure versus pantsing. There is no opposition. There is subliminal understanding that every story should have a beginning and an end. This is a one of those A-HA posts that you will print out!

In The Craft Section,


How to write a love scene- Jane Friedman Bookmark


2 Bookmark posts from  K M Weiland 5 ways to trim your word count and 11 killer chapter breaks.


Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have compiled a popular posts list.



In The Marketing Section,


How authors can find readers- Jane Friedman- Bookmark





To Finish,

Y A Highway is an interesting site where YA authors hang out. They have an interesting infographic (very Jasper Ffordish) with lots of clickable links on all sorts of interesting posts. This is well worth a trawl. Children’s writers cover all genres the good and the bad...

Maureen
@craicer

Thursday, March 17, 2016

The Scattered Writer Brain



Last week I linked to a couple of posts on the first day of the Digital Book World Conference. This week Porter Anderson covers Day Two and Jane Friedman shares her takeaways from the whole conference - 4 lessons in publishing. This post has been passed around Social Media quite a few times and is a must read.

Selina Kitt shines a light on scammers on Amazon. This is a sobering read and goes to the heart of the Kindle Unlimited subscription service. It is also a lesson in eBook formatting. Even when you are doing it right for the reader, you may be doing it wrong.

Jessica West takes a look at the grey area of paying for reviews. No you shouldn’t pay for a review but there are technical services that take a fee and their reviewers are legit. Using one of these services can make you a best seller.

If you’re a children’s author you always have an eye on Bologna. Publishers Weekly interviewed seven agents about what’s hot and what they are looking for at Bologna.

Roz Morris always has something interesting to say. This week she looks at ways to blog about your book without blogging your book. This is always a tricky topic for authors... how do you entice readers to check out your work without giving it all away.

The UK Society of Authors is ramping up their Creator Campaign for Fair Contracts. Many international author societies are supporting this too. When you look at the writing festivals that aren’t paying their writers and add that to the unfair contracts it can get pretty depressing out there.

Jami Gold has a timely post this week on when you just have to admit you are not a super publishing hero. Sometimes you just can’t do it all. It is an excellent article. Jami asks pointed questions to help you identify if you are falling into this common writing trap.

Ben Zackheim gathered together his list of great podcasts. I have listened to about half of these teams and I must take some time to listen to a few more. Sometimes just listening to authors chew the fat about writing is enough to make you feel energised to get back into your writing.

Booklife pulled together some great people to talk about book reviews and discoverability. This is a must read.

In the Craft Section,
Getting inspired to write- James Scott Bell

The copyedit from Heck- Kristine Rusch – Must Read!






Short Story Secrets-Anne R Allen


In the Marketing Section,
11 reasons why authors need Social Media-  Frances Caballo and The Book Designer - Bookmark!






Connecting with readers- Elizabeth Spann Craig -Bookmark


Website of the Week
If you’ve got that book finished and you're thinking 'now the hard part begins,' you are right. However there are a few voices out there in the Blogosphere that can point you in the right direction -marketing wise. Penny Sansevieri has been a marketing Go To site for authors for a few years now. Here are just three posts that caught my eye this week. 50 ways to promote your book- Part One and Two and 5 minute marketing.

To Finish,
I came across this interesting article today on Creativity. What are five areas you would like to grow and develop in your writing? Take Five Fat Files... is a way of refining your goals and making them more achievable.

maureen
@craicer

Thursday, March 10, 2016

The Business of Writing




The above is the whole reason I started this blog in the first place (coming up on 9 years).

Over the last two days I have been following the #DBW16 on Twitter. DBW is Digital Book World and they have conferences on... Book publishing now and in the future.
All the usual suspects were there but what is always interesting at DBW is you often get a glimpse into what’s going to hit in a years time. Tech startups that suddenly get big... etc
Porter and Jane Friedman were both there doing live tweeting... and some interesting ideas were being talked about. Porter has a wrap up of day one and The Bookseller (UK) has their own perspective on it. Next week I’ll link to day two but if you are interested put #DBW16 in the search bar in Twitter (click live) and get some gems.

Ros Barber’s blog post about telling the truth about what writing is really like now is getting talked about all over the place. It’s a brave writer that actually tells it like it is... because we can be seen as biting the hand that drops the crumbs....

Joanna Penn talked with Orna Ross this week on her podcast about Rights Selling and a fascinating chat it was too. This is a sit down with a beverage of your choice and take it all in. It is compelling listen.

Bran Lindy Ayres has a great post on writing diversity. It is thought provoking and lays out how a writer should approach telling a story when they don’t identify with the race, gender or sexuality of their characters.

We are all told we need to have email subscribers etc etc but what do we actually do with them once we’ve got some. Will Hoekenga wrote an interesting blog post – 7 emails you should send to your subscribers but probably don’t. This opens up a whole new world... and now you have to read Jami Gold’s great post -What is your reader retention plan...- Masterclass!

Recently an email came across my inbox with a pointer to a new US based website. Formswift combines a nice website with a whole lot of legal forms for free lancers and their business. Basic contracts, cease and desist orders... There is a huge range all downloadable, all free, that you can use as a basis for what you need.

Anne R Allen and Ruth Harris make a potent team for authors. They are always writing insightful helpful blog posts. Ruth has a wonderful post of 7 ways to rekindle joy in your writing. This is a print it out and stick it on the wall mantra for writers!

In the Craft Section,


In the Marketing Section,
5 steps to great cover art- This is in the great 5 question series by Jane Friedman. Bookmark. (Today’s 5 questions to Henry Baum is also interesting)

2 literary agents have great posts this week. Mistakes writers make in query letters- Steve Laube and Oops it happened again by Marisa Corvisiero. These are Bookmark reading if you are going to query!

How to number your series books for Amazon- (it’s trickier than you think) Bookmark

Website of the Week
Kate Tilton has a great website with all sorts of resources for writers. She hosts #K8chat on Twitter and generally is a fund of all sorts of useful information. Here she has put together her list of Book Review bloggers. Bookmark

To Finish,

Hands up those who noticed the new thing in my side bar. I have been wondering how to put a progress bar on my blog for a while. (I’m treating my series as one whole project.) So up pops this handy guide from J Abram Barneck.  It is excellent! Of course I could go crazy and add the 2 finished books in the drawer... 2 books plotted... 6 books still to go all from different projects – Beta readers saying my Mars book needs a sequel...  but I won’t bore you about my business.

maureen
@craicer

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Hand Wringing



This week was a turbulent one in the blogosphere.
There was angst about the U.S elections, Angst about Author Solutions, Angst about Mike Shatzkin’s blog.

General Angst everywhere.

Phillip Jones of the Bookseller, finally got Andrew Phillips of Penguin Random House to talk about Author Solutions. Andrew laid out one side of the story where PRH thought Author Solutions was a good idea. 'Unfortunately a few authors have disagreed.' 
‘A few,’ spluttered the leading commenter’s. With class actions happening, every major writer organisation’s complaints ignored and a long list of complaints from writers who have lost large sums of money there was an outpouring of disgust over the article. If you weren’t sure about Author Solutions and their imprints for big publishers this is required reading.

Staying on the subject of assisted publishing Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware tried to contact author Steve Alten. She was concerned about the look of his new publishing venture to help other authors, but had no success until Chuck Wendig wrote a blog about it.  What is the definition of a vanity press? Chuck laid it out and then there was the response from Steve. The tennis match of eyeballs on the responses from each side played out all over social media.

Mike Shatzkin, publishing futurist, published a blog this week where he talked about changing his mind on what is happening with Agency and print sales. Porter wrote a piece discussing this. It is all very murky. Has Amazon put one over the publishers by getting them to agree to Agency conditions where they set the prices? Have publishers’ tactic of inflating eBook prices until they were more expensive than buying a print copy helped print sales and booksellers or is it all an elaborate lie. Are adult Colouring In books skewing what is really happening in print sales?

If you wanted to try your hand at publishing a colouring in book Joanna Penn has a comprehensive interview with Meg Cowly on how to do it.

Novel Approach, a book review blog, discovered that Amazon has pulled all their reviews and they are legit. They can’t get them back and Amazon won’t talk to them.

We need some good news!
Susan Kaye Quinn breezed in with a great post on finding joy in our writing. This saved us from being overcome with despair.

In the Craft Section,
Why scripts are rejected- Becca Puglisi


In the Marketing Section,

How to make eBook design count- comprehensive by DBW- Bookmark


To Finish,
Nosy Crow Publishers wrote about how they select books to publish. They are a nimble bunch in London.
Top Agent Kristen Nelson wrote about her first year under the new request regime of asking for the first 10 pages up front. If the authors were sweating over the query letter- Kristen was finding that the first ten pages really showed if authors knew their craft. Angst in a good way over this blog.


Maureen
@craicer

Tweet from Victoria this afternoon... scary.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

For What Its Worth



This week the publishing blogosphere was soul searching as the news filtered through that Huffington Post was proud to not pay its writers. When the dust settled over the initial outrage, some great posts about the problem of free and paying the writer emerged.
Porter pulled together some of the articles and great discussions. Chuck wrote a piece that was full speed ahead, man the torpedoes. Jami Gold’s post, last week, was prescient about knowing why you are writing for free.

This week Joanne Harris dropped out of attending a literary festival over the restrictive nature of the contract. Festival appearance contracts are becoming very odd. With Phillip Pulman making a case to pay the writers for appearances of dubious value to the writer, some literary festivals have found another way to exact a pound of flesh. Restricting an authors public movements seems to be going a step too far though.

Writer Beware has been seeing some weird publishing contracts lately with termination clauses popping up with fine print saying the writer will have to pay costs... even if the writer didn’t terminate the agreement. Keep an eye on new contract language.

Ellen Oh wrote a heartfelt plea to white writers over how they write coloured characters. At first many writers thought she was saying white writers shouldn’t write these characters, but Ellen was saying something different. Be authentic in your writing. It is a great post to mull over.

Today Simon and Schuster launched a new imprint... specifically aimed at Muslim children’s books. This is a great addition to their imprint list and a great statement to make to the publishing world.

In the Craft Section,


Scenes as capsules of time- C S Lakin- Bookmark


2 great posts from Becca Puglisi- Pacing- and Writing memorable characters- Bookmark both


How to write a fight scene- Christine Frazier- Bookmark


In the Marketing Section,






10 clever ways to grow your email list- The Book Designer-Bookmark

To Finish,
If you are on Twitter and you are searching for some interesting writer accounts to follow then you can’t go far wrong taking a look at this nifty list that the Expert Editor has put together. A little something for everyone here.

Maureen
@craicer


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