Future Proof

It’s my eleven year blogoversary. The publishing world is very different now than when I started. I am very different... I have more grey in my hair. Writing remains the same but the way we publish has changed. The way we will publish in the future will be different again. As everyone in publishing likes to say... we live in interesting times.

This week Porter Anderson reported on a panel discussion held on the eve of the London Book Fair where publishers discussed how well the industry was able to face the competition in storytelling coming from TV, Netflix et al. The panel represented some of the biggest names in communication and the comments are really interesting. Read it and have a glimpse into the future.

Netflix is everywhere.... No seriously, they are everywhere. I was surprised when I found out they were in every country but four. Their global business is 70% of their revenue. Now think about the implications from a publishing perspective. Remember you are in the entertainment industry... Read this article for an insight into how you should be viewing your work....

Last week Google unveiled a little feature that could change book buying habits for ever.

'Talk to Books' takes the search into the realm of conversational AI. Ask the AI to search by sentence... and it will tell you all the matches. Take it further and ask the AI to buy it for you and then read it to you. Digital Book World looks at where this technology might take us.

Last month I highlighted a money laundering problem that used authors details without their knowledge. If you publish with CreateSpace you may need to go and change your passwords because hackers have started to target it.

This week Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware highlighted a problem with Publishers Weekly. PW is a respected industry magazine style resource that everybody in publishing refers to, so what are you to think when PW advertise two vanity publishers with questionable practices?

Amazon have been pulling reviews lately. This has disconcerted a lot of writers in the industry. After all reviews ensure how books get seen by potential readers... which means sales... which beget reviews.... Penny Sansevieri posted an article recently about what you need to watch for to ensure that the Zon doesn’t pull reviews on your book.

The European Union are implementing some changes that will hit everyone who gathers data from people visiting their websites. Before you think that doesn’t apply to me... it may do. Do you have newsletters or freebies on your site? If so the EU laws apply. Check out this handy FAQ about what you need to know.

This week I was talking about comparisonitis in my monthly newsletter. It is a creeping disease that overtakes you when you look at your work in progress and almost any other book that comes into your orbit. Joanna Penn has a great article on the subject. If you suffer from this or recognise the symptoms, this is the article for you.

In The Craft Section,

Subplot ideas- Now Novel- Bookmark

Learn about the colour of a page of type – The Book Designer

How should a character say nothing?- James Scott Bell- Bookmark

10 things about sequels- Janice Hardy

How to use commas in your writing- Grammarly

Elements of a great first chapter- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

How to get book reviews without begging- Dave Chesson

Reviews and what to do with them- Draft2Digital

Beyond a refresh- Changing our brand- Jami Gold- Bookmark

Print On Demand - cost comparisons- Bookworks

How to come up with good comp. titles for your book- Nathan Bransford- Bookmark

How to write a sizzling author resource box- Joan Stewart

To Finish,

James Scott Bell is one of my Go To writing craft gurus. When I’m in the middle of a tricky scene or taking a break or... I reach for a writing craft book. This week James talked about competence, which can sabotage a writer. Are you satisfied with getting by in your writing craft or are you willing to try to be better.

Over the last eleven years I have written a blog post nearly every week, a monthly newsletter for nearly two years, ten short novels, four full length and I don’t know how many short fragments of stories that sit in a folder on my hard drive. The more I learn the more I feel I need to know. I like to think I have improved as a writer. If you were around in the beginning and are still with me now... I must be doing something right.

Thank you for sticking with me every week.

Maureen

@craicer

I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces in a monthly newsletter. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes.Don’t forget to share the blog around your writing friends and if you want to fuel a celebratory coffee you can hit the coffee tab. Thanks

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons / Romerito Pontes

It’s All About The Author Business

London Book Fair is on.

Along with all the usual Fair news there was one item which was making waves. Publica announced that they had published the first blockchain author. I spoke about the future of publishing in an event at the end of last year, where I mentioned that blockchain publishing was on its way. The future is now.

Around the time of the London Book Fair the Alliance of Independent Authors has a free online conference. This year the schedule is packed full of goodies. If you want to partake you need to sign up so you can get the webinars. It is free and you shouldn’t miss it.

 Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Wattpad is eying up the Southeast Asian market for... film, television print and digital content. They already have a toe in the water, it looks like they are going to dive in. This could be very interesting for all the Young Adult authors. Check out what else they have in store...

Amazon is not coping with scammers very well. The Digital Reader reports that they have asked a court to confirm an arbitration... which doesn’t even go after the big guys. Meanwhile they are pulling Cassandra Clares brand new book series because they thought she would never self publish... this has caused another Amazon storm this week.

Kobo, that upstart Canadian rival to Amazon’s digital distribution model has published an interesting interview with one of the big stars in the Indie Author world, Marie Force.  How did she create her empire and what tips does she have...

Joel Friedlander has written an informative article on print distribution and discounting and all the ways you can do it. This is a good starting point if you want understand what it entails.

Anne R Allen has a fabulous article on ten tips for protecting your creative writing self as you go about the business of publishing. This is a must read!

Sacha Black has written the best article on Series bibles and keeping track of characters timelines etc for the Writers Helping Writers website. If you are neck deep in series writing this is a must read!

In The Craft Section,

10 ways to show character emotion- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

How to write a Book Proposal for a non fiction book- Writelife

Story Structure- the whole enchilada- Larry Brooks- BOOKMARK

Delaying submission to an Agent- Why you should- Mary Kole - Bookmark

Dragon Dictation for authors- Nick Stephenson- Bookmark

A story idea every day for April- Go Into The Story- Bookmark

10 typesetting rules for Indie Authors- Michelle DeFillipo- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Query letter strategies that don’t work- Writers Digest

Email marketing mastery- Derek Murphy- Bookmark

Promo sites- Nicolas Serik-BOOKMARK

How to create pre launch buzz- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

The dollars and sense of audiobooks- what authors need to know- Deborah Jacobs

How and Why to clean up your email subscriber list- Emily Wenstrom - Bookmark

To Finish,

Joanna Penn interviewed Jane Friedman about her new book, The Business of Being A Writer. This is the latest book on understanding author business. Jane, coming from an academic background, has written this as an academic textbook aimed at the MFA students who discover that writing that bestselling book didn’t make them rich. Check out the interview- two great gurus in one place!

The Independent Book Publishers Association has started a new podcast. They have got some great speakers and great plans for their podcast. Check out their first week’s playlist. Impressive!

Maureen

@craicer

I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces in a monthly newsletter. (This weekend I promise!) When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes.
If you like the blog and want to fuel my coffee habit you can hit the coffee tab. Don’t forget to share the blog around your writing friends.
 

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons / infous

Being Authentic

April slunk in along with the Easter eggs so it took a while before anyone noticed it. 

Amazon announced it was closing down Kindle Scout. This was unexpected and as industry pundits have said it was always an experiment anyway.

What wasn’t an experiment was a Twitter thread detailing the two different conferences that authors experience when they go to RWA, the biggest writers conference around. If you are a Writer of Colour what you experience is vastly different. 

A few months ago I linked to a plea by a British Independent Bookseller to have an organisation that could have the same marketing clout as the big chains. The House of Lords said tell us more and so this week publishing executives spent a few days informing the Lords just what makes a level playing field. A literate population is essential.

Attendees at Bologna Children’s Book Fair were talking about literacy too and the rise of Audio Books for children. With the increasing popularity of in home smart speakers, the big children’s publishers are adapting books into interactive experiences that 'Alexa' or 'Siri' can use to entertain your child.

Recently Steena Holmes sent out a plea to authors about finding your authentic fans and sticking by them. This is an interesting post and one to really think about if you find yourself in a marketing daze.

Have you ever had to give a performance of your work to an audience? Yes, it can be nerve wracking. Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz has 10 tips for taking your page to the stage.

This week Amy Collins has an interesting post about One Big Don’t. It is an important read for authors who are Indie publishing. If this is you... take the time to read it... and do your research.

Also in the Don’t category was the Twitter thread where a male author decided to take issue with the #ownvoices movement saying he was quite capable of writing from a woman’s interior viewpoint. Unfortunately when excerpts of his work were posted in the comments they didn’t prove his point. Woman wrote descriptions of themselves as they thought a male writers would write... also including famous male writers turgid descriptions of women and then the New Yorker published an op-ed. This is why Point of View matters so much in writing.

In The Craft Section,

3 creative writing exercises from Roz Morris... then get a whole heap more from Reedsy

Writing romantic and fight scenes- they are the same... NowNovel- Bookmark

4 ways to simplify your writing process

Writing is rewriting- tips to help you-Bookmark

When is it time to say goodbye to your Work in Progress and give up on it.- Anne R Allen- Must 

read!

In The Marketing Section,

Book Marketing Mistakes- Reedsy- Bookmark

31 Book Marketing tips- Bookthority- Bookmark

How your author platform  affects sales- Rachel Thompson

How to embed social media posts- Frances Caballo- Bookmark

How to get also boughts- Written Word Media- Bookmark

Mining your old content

To Finish,

Nathan Bransford has been struggling with concentration. He decided to fix it once and for all and discovered some good tips.

Last week I linked to an infographic that helped you brainstorm a book idea. This week what are you going to call your new Indie Press?

So coming soon from Black Fuzzy Turtle Press- the compulsively readable thriller about a lovesick ghost’s dream to explore their eating disorder....  

somewhere in a multi-verse near you...

Maureen

@craicer

I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces in a monthly newsletter. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. I promise to be early this month...
 

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons / Mike Lawrence CreditDebitPro.com

It’s That Time Of The Year

Ah Bologna, Bologna... The biggest children’s book fair in the world. This generally kicks off the start of Book Fair season.  Everyone is looking for the next greatest thing. The Bookseller reports the top news of the fair as well as the shock announcement of the demise of the 2nd biggest children’s publisher in Australia. For our own corner of the world the brand new One Tree House Publishing firm has picked up best Oceania publisher from Bologna after less than a year in business.

Coming hard on the heels of Bologna is The London Book Fair.  Alli- The Alliance of Independent Authors have pivoted their online conference away from a LBF concurrent fringe event into something a little bit different. Their conferences are always packed full of great info. Make sure you sign up.

Publishing is all about marketing. Jamie Engle has a guest post on Janice Hardy’s blog about how to analyse your book for better market value. This is important as a publisher can quickly go out of business if they don’t read and fill the gaps in the market.

Kenilworth books published a must read article about the role of the author in the chain of the book. Often publishers seem to forget that without the author you would not have a product. Isn’t it time the authors got some better royalty rates?

It’s been a horrible week for Facebook. However the talk in publishing is that FB isn’t going to be going anywhere as they have 2.2 billion users. However FB is changing its focus to facilitate more genuine sharing amongst its users. Groups are one of the best features of FB and publishers have finally got some ideas on this and how to make money from them.

There is so much information on the internet that it does get a bit tedious to be constantly fielding the same questions about publishing. Susan Kaye Quin’s heartfelt post about being your own genius has been doing the rounds. We all studied and researched and experimented and worked things out for ourselves. We share our thoughts coz we’re good like that but... 

Two great marketing posts caught my eye this week. How to get five star reviews- from Writer’s Digest and How to get also boughts- The holy grail of Amazon success from Written Word Media. If you are Indie publishing these are must reads.

Ruth Harris has a monthly guest post on Anne R Allen’s Blog. This month Ruth talks about Summoning The Muse. How you can get your subconscious working for you when writing.

In The Craft Section,

6 Writing exercises to help start or finish a novel- Indie reader- Bookmark

Using punctuation to greater effect- Joanna Penn- Bookmark

Deepening story theme- Jami Gold- Bookmark

5 rules for spring cleaning your manuscript- Tara Sparling

Frequently asked writing questions- K M Weiland

Best Books for Writers- Ann Handley

In The Marketing Section,

99 Twitter icebreakers

Pre order strategies and 9 Amazon secrets- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark Both

Book Marketing ideas – Reedsy- Bookmark

How to create pre order buzz for your book – Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Creative ways to boost reader engagement- Bookbub- Bookmark

Content Marketing promotion- Joanna Penn

To Finish,

Stuck for an idea? Use this infographic to help you get an elevator pitch from which to start your epic novel.

I’m off to write the compulsively readable thriller about a lovesick ghosts dream to explore their eating disorder....  It’s going to be a best seller I’m sure!

Maureen

@craicer

If you want a round up of the best of the months bookmarked craft and marketing links  then subscribeto my monthly newsletter. You will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes.
If you enjoy this blog share it with your writing friends- A nice Easter gift...

Pic Flickr Creative Commons – Jules Morgan

Keeping Up With Book Trends

I have a confession... I’m getting addicted to podcasts.

I started out with just one... then I added another and now I have eight podcasts I try to listen to regularly. I thought I could give them up. When I accidently put my phone in the washing machine and had to replace it I told myself not to load any podcasts on my phone. I lasted one week. 

This all leads me to the Spa Girls. They have been sharing some great podcasts from The Smarter Artist Summit. Trudi Jaye interviewed some great thought leaders in publishing. Tune in while driving, or doing the dishes, making a meal, having time out...

DiAnn Mills recently published a guest post on Suzanne Lakin’s blog about writer courage. Did you even know that you have to be courageous to write? 15 ways to strengthan your courage to write.

Rejection- Every writer will deal with it at some time. What makes rejection worse is that writing is such a personal act it feels like we have been rejected as a person. It is hard to distance yourself from the writing. Mona Lisa Foster has a great series on rejection. Rejection is an opinion not a death sentence.

In publishing news this week... Smashwords announced that they have partnered with Findaway voices audio platform.  Findaway is getting bigger. Audible may start losing customers especially as Findaway doesn’t lock audio book contracts  for seven years....

The other book aggregator, Draft2Digital, has been adding some new features as well. Author Pages and Book Tabs are their latest tweaks to a website that is getting lots of praise in the Indie publishing marketplace.

Bookbub is also making changes. You can now recommend books to your followers or groups... sharing the book love of your author friends.

Sam Missingham is a London based book marketer who has quite a following in the UK book scene, She recently started a marketing service for authors and one of the first things she did was to ask Traditionally Published authors if they paid for book marketing. A surprising number did. Is this the way of the future? Sam writes about the responses from the traditionally published authors- why they are picking up the ball from the publishers.

This week I was asked if I had heard anything regarding Bologna Children’s Book Fair. I went for a hunt and found the regular roundup of Agents discussing what they predict will be big trends. Bologna is a rights fair. Will we see another breakout hit? Nothing has come along lately... Agents are wondering whether Young Adult is on the wain...

In The Craft Section,

Word count guidelines by genre- Anne R Allen -  Bookmark

Show don’t tell- podcast – Joanna Penn, (always good!)

Creating a fantasy race- fantasy fiction

The magic fix it scene- Manuscript Shredder- Bookmark

How to write a character that can carry a series- Rebecca Langley- Bookmark

Have you chosen the right main character- Kristen Kieffer- Bookmark

A lesson in deep POV- Sue Coletta- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

5 ways to make your SP book look professional

A primer on book reviews- Joel Friedlander- Bookmark

4 ways to make time to blog- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

How to lower FB ads costs- Amanda Bond - Bookmark

Book publicity is not just about sales- Penny Sansevieri

To Finish,

Book Covers. The most important marketing tool you have. But book covers are subjective, they go in and out of fashion. It is always wise to keep an eye on what is trending in your genre. Calvin Emerson of 99 Book Designs, a book cover designer, talks about what is trending in book covers this year.

Maureen

@craicer

My monthly newsletter is coming soon, I’ve been busy reading... If you want a round up  of the best of the months bookmarked craft and marketing links then subscribe. You will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes.
If you enjoy this blog share it to your writing friends, or you can shout me a coffee by hitting the coffee button up top. Thanks
 

Pic Flickr Creative Commons - Summer

Writing Under The Spotlight

The UK Society of Authors have been asking questions, pointed questions, about where the profits are going in the big publishing houses and why the royalty rate is so low. Porter examines the arguments and chats to those in the middle about what they can do about it.

I have been thinking about serialised novels lately. Dickens made a killing with them and they have gained popularity amongst time poor people. The serial podcast along with the episodic audio book are transforming people’s commutes. The Guardian opinion piece looks at the rise and rise of this form of writing.

Jane Friedman is publishing a new book On The Business of Being A Writer. She gathered some writers together and sent them to the Association of Writers and Writing programmes – the biggest literary conference of the year. They reported back on a variety of interesting keynotes on tips and advice for the writing business.

The Alliance of Independent Authors have been shining a spotlight on various members and this week it was Elizabeth S Craig’s turn. I often refer to her great blog. If you have ever wondered who she is and why she is so successful check out this interview.

Successful publishing depends on writing the best book you can and getting the word out about it. Digital Pub has 7 strategies and 94 tools that writers can use to get the word out and Michelle from Random Writing Rants has the ten key ingredients for writing an effective blurb. These are both BOOKMARK posts.

Debbie Ridpath Ohi is a great illustrator. She is also a stellar human being who creates and shares many resources with the writing and illustrating community. She has been working on PB templates which are available Free from her website.

Do you consciously write to a reading level? Randy Ingermanson (the Snowflake Guy) recently blogged about the ideal reading level of novels. Did you know that bestsellers are written with a 10 year olds reading level? Randy shares other interesting facts about novel readability.

What actually matters to your reading audience? Are you missing the point completely when you write those indulgent scenes? Cathy Yardly of Writer Unboxed examines what are the most important things that readers look for in a novel.

In The Craft Section,

3 tips to hook your readers emotions- Writer Unboxed

Developing characters fatal flaw

Foreshadowing sentence examples- Now Novel – Bookmark

How to tell if your writing is good

How to create characters worth reading- Jami Gold - Bookmark

Garlic breath for writers AKA bad first pages- James Scott Bell- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

5 website mistakes- Anne R Allen- Bookmark

15 reasons your book is not selling- The Book Designer

Free tools that build Book Buzz- Bookbub- Bookmark

What to put in your author newsletter

How to create a Facebook group

How to create pre launch buzz- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

To Finish,

How do you know what kind of writer you are? Gretchen Rubin developed a test that divided people into four tendencies. Upholders, Questioners, Obligers and Rebels. Where your greatest tendency is, there you will find your biggest challenge as a writer.

The world lost a towering figure today. Stephen Hawking opened up new ways of seeing the cosmos and the future of technology and space. He defied the odds and a crippling disease and showed that nothing should get in the way of ideas. His mind and sense of humour were sharp right up to the last day. This quote was on the front of Cambridge’s Daily Paper. ‘ However difficult life may seem there is always something you can do and succeed at. Where there’s life, there’s hope.’ 

Stephen Hawking 1942-2018 RIP

Maureen

@craicer

My monthly newsletter is coming soon. I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. If you enjoy this blog share it to your writing friends or you can shout me a coffee by hitting the coffee button up top. Thanks

pic

http://cheezburger.com/9138272768/rip-stephen-hawking

Independent Unique Individuals

How often this week have you wondered about the motivations of people?

Shannon Hale is a top notch children’s author. She recently wrote a post on her experiences with school visits where she was introduced as a girls writer. She has some interesting strategies to challenge this opening but she raises an interesting question- Are we unconsciously limiting boys reading due to gender bias?

This week The NY Times launched a new best seller list.Audio. This will be interesting as Audible (owned by Amazon) has 90% of the market and they never share data...

Draft2Digital, ebook aggregator, has introduced a new nifty feature, book formatting for print books. You can use this feature for free.

Nick Stephenson has an interesting blog for Indie publishers. This week he profiled an author who amassed 3000 rabid fans before the book was out by creating the world the book is set in. It is a fascinating story... if you are into world building check it out.

When was the last time you walked into a bookstore? Was it an Indie bookstore? Did you feel the difference? Julie Rosenberg on Writer Unboxed has a post on how important Indie bookstores are becoming.

Penny Sansevieri has written a great post on Amazon ads. If you have wondered about how they work this is the post to read and Bookmark.

Roz Morris has a great post on the five stages of book production and why Indie publishers should follow them in strict order. Not only will it save you heartache it will also save you money!

Anne R Allen has a great post on choosing character names. For me the story doesn’t start until I have the character name sorted. It is so important. If you have ever struggled with getting the right name check this out.

In The Craft Section,

The myth of all you can eat sensory details- Lisa Cron- Bookmark

Creating editorial maps- Marcy Kennedy

Dumb little writing tricks that work

Writing a perfect first chapter- Writer Unboxed Bookmark

Is your novel premise and no plot?- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

What are your catnip tropes?

What is a Mary Sue? This is a must read post! TCK publishing- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Amazon book promotion techniques- Bookworks

Author website basics

How to find a reputable agent- Bookmark

9 types of pitches for promoting- Joan Stewart - Bookmark

5 unique strategies to market on Goodreads- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

To Finish,

What’s the opposite of a dystopian world... If you said utopian you would be nearly right. There is a new Sci Fi kid on the block... Solar Punk and its mission is to promote an alternative future within reach... oooh Shiny!

Hands up if you’ve stretched today while sitting at your computer.  Here are 5 tips to get that author body moving so you can invent more independent and unique characters.

Maureen

@craicer

In my monthly newsletter I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. If you enjoyed this blog you can shout me a coffee by hitting the coffee button up top or share the blog with your writing friends. Thanks
 

Pic Flickr Creative Commons/ Dave Catchpole

Losing The Plot

Last week when it was February and I was still thinking it was early February... (which caused me to miss an important birthday and completely screw up my calendar,) I mentioned a scandal that was just beginning to be noticed about Scammers stealing writer credentials and money laundering through Amazon. So now that this is becoming more widely known is anyone going to do anything about it....

Romance authors are spitting tacks about the pathetic royalties being offered by Amazon Audible Romance Subscription- think Kindle Unlimited but for Audio. They promised only good times ahead for authors who wanted to offer Audio books. The first Royalty payment is in... and it is shocking! Not only that but it is split with the Narrator and tied up for seven years. There is gold in them thar audiobooks...

I love my Book Cover Designer... They are truly important in the visibility of your book, regardless of which way you publish. So Terry Goodkind (famous SFF writer) really caused shock when he came out to diss his latest novel cover. Things got out of hand... Unless you are Indie publishing then you have little to no say over what the publisher chooses for the cover. If you have a problem take it up with the publisher.... Lets play Good and Kind out there people!

It has been two years since Harper Lee’s death and the feelings of disquiet felt amongst the author community at how her estate was being handled. So this week when a court ordered that the will be made public there was considerable interest. As one commenter noted... the person who drew up the will benefits from the will... is that legal? Warnings to all writers out there... Know what you want to do with your literary estate!

From time to time I post articles about what is happening in the educational publishing landscape. They are the last bastions of the $150 cheap print textbook. McGraw Hill has plans... big plans... and it just might be that the last barricade will be over run by cheering students.

Teachers in Canada are not cheering... They are taking the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency to court in a bitter battle about what isfair use... demanding repayment of tariffs. This is a case to keep an eye on.

The lovely Ursula K Le Guin died last month and many people have been digging into her work and mourning the loss. Karen Fowler wrote about the ten writing lessons she learned from Ursula...

In The Writing Craft Section,

2 great posts from Bridget. Villain motivations- make it real- and Foreshadowing examples- Now Novel- Bookmark Both!

2 Bookmark worthy posts from Anne R Allen 9 secrets to supercharge your fiction- and Plot holes and pot holes- Bookmark BOTH!

Using the Comic Relief Character for more than Comedy- Joanna Penn

Ten tips on how to clean up your MS before sending itanywhere- Must Read!

What can you do about limiting your bad writing days...Robin Lovett has the answer.

Showing vs Telling from the fabulous Jami Gold- Bookmark

In The Book Marketing Section,

Are you ready for video? Help for the author.

Formatting using MS Word Styles- Joel Friedlander- Bookmark

3 ways to blogging success

Critical cover rules

5 author tools for authors who hate marketing- Bookmark

Sell more books overseas- Bookbub

4 affordable ways to master Book Marketing- Jane Friedman- Bookmark

To Finish,

Who writes to music? Film scores are the go to for lots of writers but have you ever consciously listened to pop songs about writing... hmmm

Lit Hub dug up a list of 11 and I was surprised... among the list was Devo’s Whip It...

March Madness starts now!

Maureen

@craicer

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons/ Kate Ausburn

I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links from the last month. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. Come and join our happy band.