Editing Thoughts

This week I have been picking the threads up of my writing life... pulling out the project that was put on hold. When you take a month away sometimes it’s hard to dive back in. This is a good time to edit.

When I read Chuck’s Kubler Ross Stages of Grief of Editing I had to laugh. (Warning it’s Chuck!) My editing thinking is usually harsher. ‘Good grief how did I come to write this mess....’ I have to stop myself from deleting it all and curling up into a snotty whimpering ball in the corner. 

I must have been sending out unconscious signals on editing because some great posts on dealing with criticism fell into my Twitter feed.

Stephen Pressfield has a great post on pushing forward into a project -The 1 way I screw myself up.

Jami Gold also has a great post on criticism and how to deal with it. (even when it’s your own.)

Last Night The Booker Prize went to Marlon James from Nigeria. So this begins his author celebrity life where his every utterance will be scrutinised. Quartz magazine has an article on why turning authors into celebrities is bad for the reader.

Future Book has been compiling manifestos lately from people in the publishing world about how they see the future and what changes they would make. Porter takes a look at some of the ideas- from how to treat publishing interns to instantaneous transfer from writer to reader.

Many people in the publishing world are wondering how to get their books into the Asian market. Christine Sun has a very informative and detailed look at Fiberead, a translation service with a difference.

The Author Earnings team has published a new report on what sales look like in the rest of the eBook market outside of Amazon. Kris Rusch takes a look at what it means and offers some advice for Indie Publishers going forward. Kris also has a great post on front list... and how the Traditional Publishers are finally understanding what a backlist means in sales for the front list. If you didn’t understand that sentence go and read the Kris Rusch’s very good article.

In the Craft Section,

The writing world is heading into NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month.) The goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. That means that there are plenty of writing tips around NaNo in October.

K M Weiland on the 6 tasks you need to do before you start(Bookmark)

Ava Jae has her list of prep links for NaNo

Teddi Deppner has all the tools you might want to try out while NaNo-ing

Jami Gold also has a list of writing resources for NaNo.

How to find Book Ideas – Now Novel

Plotting mini arcs- Janice Hardy- (Bookmark)

In the Marketing Section,

Why Book PR needs lots of lead time

Media Kits – Janice Hardy

Manuscript to eBook cleaning guide – Joel Friedlander (Bookmark)

7 crucial mistakes authors make with their email lists

Marketing books on Social Media- Anne R Allen

A 12 month strategic plan for marketing your book before release- C S Lakin (Bookmark)

Generating Reader Reviews

Website of the Week

Joe Konrath has long been the go to website of Indie/Self publishers. Here is today’s guest post by Andrea Pearson with the Master Class on how to plan for success in the long term.

To Finish,

After all the editing and publishing, authors are after readers. Angela Ackerman has a great article on finding readers... What are the themes of your book... are there groups out there you can market to? You might find them in very unexpected places.

Maureen

@craicer

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons  - Ida Myrvold

Sparking Ideas

My brain is still buzzing from Tinderbox – that and I’m finding myself falling asleep at odd times. Some of this, I’m told, is body readjustment after a long campaign of heightened stress levels. I put it down to operating on about 3 hours sleep a night for a week.

For those of you who have never been on a committee putting a big event together... there are many behind the scenes details to organise. We started planning Tinderbox 18 months ago, scoping out what we wanted to have at our conference and researching who would be the best fit to deliver it. We had to do all this with one eye on the changing publishing marketplace. With themes established then it was booking presenters in and finding a suitable venue. Booking your presenters early is key! Along with the quality of the presenters the following list can make or break a conference, food, wifi, room size, assessments, hands on workshops, goodie bags and transport. All of this needs to be tied down early so that if anything falls over you have time to fix it.

Tinderbox was fantastic! The presenters were inspiring, the food was amazing and the high creative energy of the delegates was encouraging. My team were called Goddesses and I bow down before them. And the Wifi stayed on, with a little help.

Meanwhile in the outside world....

Stephanie Meyer sent the publishing world into the Twilight zone... with a gender bent version of Twilight.

Waterstones – the biggest bookshop chain in the UK decided that they would cease to sell the Kindle, apparently because e-publishing is failing.

Porter takes a look at whether Print is really triumphing, while Traditional publishers are joining Kindle Unlimited.

Yup everybody is still mixed up.

Stephan Pinker, Linguistics Professor and International Grammar Guru, declared that writing rules were only superstitions.

Macquarie University published their findings on authors in Australia which makes fascinating reading. Your average Aussie author is a woman, writing genre fiction, earning twelve grand.

In Florida the Novelists Inc (NINC) conference wrapped up. This conference is for novelists who have had two or more books published. Elizabeth S Craig has a round up of what was discussed at the conference. Very interesting takeaways here...

In The Craft Section,

NaNoWriMo is coming up so here are 7 ways to keep it going throughout the year.

5 tips for making writing a daily habit (Bookmark)

Hiring a freelance editor

How authors and editors can work well together

How to hook readers - Setting the stage and Puzzle Pieces

Understanding Point Of View

Style Sheets and Guides -Ruth Harris (Bookmark)

In The Marketing Section,

Can serials be profitable in Kindle Unlimited?- Lindsay Buroker (Bookmark)

Translate your book with Bablecube

6 tips for finding a cover artist- Jami Gold

How to Twitter tips- Molly Greene (Bookmark)

5 lessons learned between debut and second book

Website Of The Week

Inky Girl has a newsletter. This is a great resource for all those artists out there. 

And the Bookshelf Muse Library software is launched!

To Finish,

The Ten commandments of Indie Publishing is a very good pep talk for writers as is Jane Friedman’s Author Business models, a must read!

As I was putting together this roundup I was struck by the fact that many these links were ideas discussed at Tinderbox. Just add coffee and an enthusiastic crowd soundtrack. Or make plans to go to the next National conference in two years time.

To bed to bed….

Maureen

@craicer

Pic Flickr Creative Commons / S J Liew

Getting The Facts Right

Yes the round up is up early! 

It’s a small one because I’m a bit busy at the moment. Friday is the first day of our National Conference of Children’s Writers and Illustrators, which has been eighteen months in the planning. We are like ducks, looking like we have it together on top and paddling furiously below the surface!

In News this week, best selling children’s author Cornelia Funke parted ways with her publisher over a disagreement in editing. She is going to self publish the last book in her best selling series.

Two weeks ago I wrote about the Nielson kids book summit and the angry responses from writers about some panelists comments. Porter breaks down what happened, what went wrong and why people should just get their facts right before screaming all over Twitter. Very Good Advice!

Joanna Penn has a fabulous interview with James Scott Bell on his latest writing craft book. He talks about his daily goals, writing discipline and the joy of writing. It’s a must listen/read.

Writers at all stages of their careers will understand the struggling writer syndrome. Writers Digest has an article with four pieces of advice to take to heart.

In The Craft Section,

Seven dialogue basics- Jody Hedlund

Hidden enablers that make your story work.-Roz Morris on her Venice Masterclass. (Bookmark)

Five reasons to track questions and answers in your novel. (Bookmark)

Getting to the bottom in creating characters.

Five tips for creating a superior sequel.

What is Theme? (Bookmark)

In The Marketing Section,

How does an expensive box set of books make it to KOBO number one?

The risks of offering a freebie- Jami Gold

Five questions to ask before you Indie publish.

To Finish,

Creativity... We all have it but how do we use it? Seven of the worst tropes about creativity from Jon Westenburg. This is an interesting read over a beverage of your choice…

And in Karma Land… Ted Dawe's banned book has been picked up by a US publisher.

I’m off to do last minute organising for Tinderbox2015. See you all on the other side!

Maureen

@craicer

Pic from Flickr/ Creative Commons- Toshihero Gamo

Can you afford Oysters?

Every few months there seems to be another revolution in the publishing industry. Startups come and game change for a while and then a Big Fish snaps them up.

This week Oyster – the subscription reading service, got snapped up by Google.

Laura Hazard Own has a good analysis of recent history and a pointer to where next it could all go.

With Scribed the only other subscription service outside of Kindle Unlimited providing competition, is Google finally making a play? Mike Shatzkin uses this week’s news to look at the viability of ebook subscription models and what about Apple...

Oyster’s team were very good at Mobile Reading Apps and none of the Big Fish have made a move in this direction so far... So Google has ‘acquihired’ Oyster and their mobile reading technology. There may be big moves in mobile digital publishing ahead. But the subscription ebook model may be going bad...

In amongst the dredging for Oyster news... The Author Earning team of Hugh Howey and Data Guy did some analysis of their own on author incomes. After seven quarters they have enough data on what individual big authors may have been earning... It makes fascinating reading.

Jane Friedman has put together a great series of charts on the publishing industry and an eye opening interview with Richard Nash. He is in demand to talk to conferences about the future of the book. This is a must read for authors! In the future all your income could well come from personal appearances, the wine you select... the endorsements you have... not from your book.

In the Craft Section,

To prologue or not to prologue- Kristen Lamb

Fast writers and slow writers.- Eizabeth S Craig

What thriller authors can teach you

Writing Prompts- (Bookmark)

Essentials of Pitching – Ava Jae (Bookmark)

What type of secret does your character keep

Finding fresh ideas

In the Marketing Section,

Writing back cover copy

50 ways authors can kickstart their publicity –Molly Greene

How to get your Indie book translated – Anne R Allen (Bookmark)

5 ways to jumpstart creative thinking- Bob Mayer

Selling books at Conventions - Patty Jansen

7 rules to be successful as an author- The Book Designer

How to market to a niche audience (Bookmark)

Connecting to readers -C Hope Clark

Website of the Week

K M Weiland is one of those go to writing craft bloggers. This week she shared her publishing year breakdown. This is a great snapshot of what Indie Authors need to do.

To Finish,

This week in the Ask Polly section of The New York Times was a plaintive letter asking Polly if the author should just give up on writing. The reply was quoted all around the blogosphere. Go on and read the pearls of wisdom in this wonderful piece.

Tinderbox is about to strike! Lots of crazy last minute conference details to do until it goes BOOM. I wish I could clone myself... then I could get everything done and attend every workshop!

 Maureen

@craicer

Pic from Flickr Creative Commons - Jeremy Keith

Negativity or Reality

This week people in the publishing world were trying to make sense of different reports and breathing deeply. Roz Morris wrote a heart felt plea on self publishing and how hard it is... especially if you are writing literary fiction. Many writers commented and bared their souls over the dropping pay rates and sales. Their comments are interesting and enlightening.

Porter Anderson then picked up the baton and examined the general tone of despair in his column for Writer Unboxed, Looking For Truth In A Time Of Hype. We are so used to sounding chipper about our sales and our writing when in private we are holding our heads and wailing 'is it just me….' This is a great post with very insightful comments.

This week Hugh Howey and Data Guy tried to raise author spirits by publishing the next Author Earnings snapshot. Amazon Imprints have doubled their sales and Trad publishers have taken a dive. Are the Trad doom and gloom forecasts really indicative of the publishing world reality? (Hugh Howey investigated and found out differently.)

Porter still very much wondering about hype took the boys to task and pointed out that there were other very interesting gems to come out of the Author Earnings report that they hadn’t reported on. (Read them both.)

Rachelle Gardner wrote an article on Negativity. The single worst thing an author can do for their career. So if you complain make sure it’s in private... to trusted friends... in a dark room with hoods, passwords and false names.

Today Nielson had their one day kids book summit. Twitter raged when marketers on a panel started speculating that YA needed to be rebranded as 80% of its readers were adults. It was not a pretty sight. But there were other interesting take aways from the day so check out the Twitter stream.

Justine Larbalesteir wrote a wonderful piece comparing YA published today with that published 30 years ago. If Flowers In The Attic were published now it would probably be YA...

In The Craft Section,

Jane Friedman on The Novel Synopsis (Bookmark)

Darcy Pattison on 29 Plots

Janice Hardy on First pass editing

What to avoid in your cover copy

Macro and micro editing tips

Kate Tilton - Villains are the real stars (Bookmark)

7 ways to make yourself a better writer

The rule of 3 –Copyblogger

Writer’s essential tools (I’ve reference quite a few on this blog)

In The Marketing Section,

How to use Facebook ads to sell books- (Bookmark)

7 Venues for Virgin Indies to sell books

ALLi Chat with Orna Ross on Paid Marketing ads

Joanna Penn talking with Mark Coker on the Indie state of play now (Porter references this podcast in his Looking for Truth post)

16 query tips from Agents

Anne R Allen on group think red flags in critique groups (Bookmark)

Molly Greene on Book Reviews and Boxed sets and Book Promotions that work.

Website Of The Week

Last week I brought you a review of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s new project. This week Angela shows off some screen captures of the Very Classy software.  One Stop Shop for Authors....

To Finish,

Pick yourself up... dust yourself off ... Put on that cheerful face and go back out to fight the publishing world again.

Betty Kelly Sargent talks about why writers need a support group and where to find them.

Writers and Wellness has ten tools to keep you out of the doctor’s office.

It’s three weeks until the Tinderbox Conference... There seems to be piles of little details to sort out (how much chocolate is too much chocolate... is there a sale on hair dye?) However I’m looking forward to meeting up with the wider writer support network, making new friends and learning new and exciting stuff. It's all positive!

Pic from Flickr Creative Commons - www.worldislandinfo.com

Obsessed with Writer Activism

This week the New Zealand book world was rocked when there was a decision to ban an award winning Young Adult book pending a fourth review of it’s classification. (They have been arguing whether its 14+ or not for two years.) New Zealand has never had a novel banned in this way before and certainly not a Young Adult novel. As of Tuesday this week it is forbidden to share the book, have it on a library bookshelf or sell it in a bookshop. Today there was a silent reading protest throughout the country as writers and booksellers, librarians and teachers gathered in groups to publically read Into The River by Ted Dawe.

The chief judge who awarded this book the NZ Book of the Year in 2013 has written of his reasons to support the book. The book community is left shaking its head over the decision and the damage it has done to our international reputation. We wish Ted many happy sales as this decision has raised the profile of the book and now everybody will want to read the two small sex scenes and 17 f-words for themselves and wonder as we do... how something so trivial could be blown out of proportion and obscure the real message that racial intolerance and bullying can permanently damage a boys self esteem.

Another Author standing up for injustice this week was Patrick Ness. He started a small fundraising campaign for refugees. He just asked a few children’s writer friends to join him... and raise £10, 000 and then it snowballed....

Maggie Stiefvater has been having a tough week. This week she made a plea on Tumblr about being misreported and taken out of context and she also explained about her inclusion on a panel that she didn’t know was on writing about race. Can white writers write about POC in their books? Can we represent the world as it is? Maggie asks these important questions and makes some decisions.

Kristine Rusch has a great article on Obsession, Delusion and writing. Are you obsessed enough about writing to keep learning.

Porter Anderson comments on the Author Guild campaign of revising publishing contracts especially where it relates to back lists. The Novelists group report that two of their 900 members have been stopped in their tracks trying to get their back list back with over 150 titles between them..

In the Craft Section.

Quick and Dirty editing tips – Pub Hub(Bookmark)

When is a good editor not good for your story?-Misti Wolanski

Between First draft and test readers

6 ways to make ordinary protagonists extraordinary

What is a Beta reader? Everything you wanted to know.- Anne R Allen

Are you trying to write a well written book or tell a great story- Janice Hardy

In the Marketing Section,

Are Facebook author pages still worth it- Reedsy

The perfect book sales page – Tom Morkes

How to find Indie Reviewers (Bookmark)

How to identify your target audience (exhaustive list)

4 free sources for photos for books- The Book Designer

The Q n A podcast with Orna Ross and Joanna Penn- (Lots of info in here)

Website of The Week

Feather Stone reviews One Stop For Writers software, Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s latest project. This new software is coming soon.

To Finish,

Chuck has some pertinent things to say about authors being on Social Media. (warning it is Chuck!)

Social Media can be used as a force for good. Todays protest was organised on Social Media in under two days...

Maureen Crisp

@craicer

Pics taken by me today at the protest when I wasn’t reading...

Looking After Number One

This week I have been reflecting on the way the Amazon rankings of Indie authored books have become a de facto filtered slush pile for big Traditional publishers. This week Penguin Random House offered a 7 figure deal to that rabbit book which stormed up the Amazon charts last week to number one.

Porter Anderson has an interesting article on crowd sourcing publishing platform Pubslush and publisher Colbourne Communications joining forces. Porter looks at these new models of publishing. This is high end collaboration, an interesting way forward in the modern publishing world.

Dean Wesley Smith has some pointed comments on the publishing business. What other industry has English Majors negotiating contracts.

M Louisa Locke has carefully examined her marketing strategy and compared it with the previous year. The results surprised her. Here she explains what she found out. The unexpected effects of a perma free strategy.

Jami Gold has a great post on Author Self Esteem. Why don’t we value what we do? Why do we feel a fraud for putting work out there? This is a bookmark post... and you must read the post that inspired it!

In the Craft Section,

6 character archetypes to dump- (Bookmark)

Crafting a compelling novel concept- Jane Friedman

Problems with multiple viewpoints

10 smart things to do when writing

Apps for writers

A simple trick to help with show don’t tell

Getting over the hump in writing

In The Marketing Section,

Targeted marketing for self published books

Stellar examples of FB cover photo designs

30 Marketing questions self publishers need to answer

6 Smart ways authors can collaborate – Angela Ackerman

6 tips for getting your book reviewed

11 ways to get better book reviews

Self-e Library Journal opens up to International ebooks

To Finish,

Glimmer Train Journal recently published an opinion piece by Carmiel Banasky. Do we become better people as we become better writers? It is an interesting article on writer self care and how we should be looking after Number One.

Maureen

@craicer

Pic Flickr/Creative Commons/ Timothy Krause

The Revolving Door of Publishing

Writers & Illustrators: All the networking/promo in the world can’t help unless you get your book FINISHED first. pic.twitter.com/XeliPtgAHG

— Debbie Ridpath Ohi (@inkyelbows) August 25, 2015

This week the hot topic around Twitter was that self published sleep book for kids written by a sleep psychologist which raced to number one on Amazon and is now in a 7 figure publishing deal. Hugh Howey looks at all the changes in publishing in this story.

Germany announced this week that they are scrapping DRM on Ebooks. Predictions that the English language will be next could be far fetched. Mike Shatzkin looks at DRM free implications and reading books on phones. Surveys just out say the number is up to 1 in 7 people mainly reading on their phone but which apps are the best for this.

Writer Beware reports that the Author Solutions case has been dismissed as they settled out of court... that’s one class action down... (PRH has deep pockets...)

Can data dictate publishing decisions? That’s the topic for Futurechat this week. With data being mined by Kindle Unlimited who know exactly when a reader stops reading to phone companies who know where and when a reader is reading.... What are the implications for publishers?

Anne R Allen looks at author blogs. How can you do better?

Writer Unboxed revisits the ten things not to say to a writer in light of some dubious comments being said to writers very recently.

Larry Brooks is writing for the Killzone blog and he has a few wise words to say about authors letting rip on their manuscripts before they have learned some fundamentals of the craft... (for a less measured approach see Chucks rant.)

Christina Katz has a post looking at 10 things happy productive writers do that they don’t need to.

Author Chronicles takes issue with those annoying pop up adds.

In the Craft Section,

Perfect opening lines- from TOR

How believable themes build believable plots

How to describe people (Great post)

7 tips for proof reading your book

Chuck has a no holds barred post on rookie mistakes that new writers make. (You may never look at dialogue tags the same way again.)

Janice Hardy has two guest writers writing some great posts. 
Bonnie Randall on killing your darlings unless you can give them goals and Amy Christine Parker on writing outside of your comfort zone. (Bookmark)

In the Marketing Section,

11 ways to promote your book with images

Query Letters- What agents love and loathe

Four podcasts every self publisher should be listening to

Selling digital products and services - Jane Friedman

Building an author website – Joanna Penn

How and where to obtain book reviews – James Rose

How to use Twitter to find Book Reviewers- Ricardo Fayet (Bookmark)

To Finish,

The Queen’s bookstore in London has turned hand selling into a high end art and a global enterprise... so now they are mixing it up by having a bookseller in Asia. Yes... I mean A Bookseller NOT A Bookstore...

Just when you think you know what is coming next in publishing...

maureen
@craicer
Pic from Inkyelbows… Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Maintaining A Positive Face

This week I have been thinking about all sorts of eclectic things to do with the life of an author.

Headshots... This is an awful necessity when you write... at some point some one is going to ask for a headshot. Writer Unboxed has a great article on this. I have heard of conferences arranging photographers who specialise in this... (hmmm must explore this.)

Being a nicer person because I am a writer. Book Trib had an interesting article on this.

Jody Hedlund looks at the other side of niceness when you feel you are the worst writer in the world... How can you dig yourself out of the hole?

Keeping a positive attitude helps when you are visualising your goals. If you are Indie Publishing 5 tips on how you can measure success.

This week Publishers Weekly had a column from Kristan Higgins asking the literary world to grow up when it comes to Romance writing.They are among the savviest writers I know and Kristan has a point. Read the Genre before you criticise it.

The New York Times has changed the way they will be reporting Children’s Best Sellers... There was jubilation all over my Twitter Feed. Now finally we will find out the best selling junior fiction books... When the list jumped from Picture Book to Young Adult best sellers... something had to give.

Sticking with big companies making changes… HarperCollins is shutting down Authonomy, their website where aspiring authors could post stories. It was an interesting experiment.

Joanna Penn has answered a bunch of questions about her writing business. She is a postive force when it comes to finding out about marketing. Here she has lots of tips.

In the Craft Section,

Killing your darlings – 5 writers talk about the cutting room floor

Using beta readers to help you write- C S Lakin

6 easy ways to achieve a perfect ending

6 things writers should know about MB Thinking vs. Feeling

5 writing challenges all writers face

How to find an editor – Jane Friedman

Creativity tips for the stuck- Nathan Bransford

In the Marketing Section,

Mastering Radio Interviews - Anne R Allen (Bookmark)

What do you do when your Amazon reviews disappear?

Ebook formatting using MS Word- Molly Greene

How to make 3D cover generators

6 types of Copyright disclaimers – The Book Designer (Bookmark)

What makes your story unique –The Art of the Blurb – Jami Gold

Creating Author Business Plans- Janice Hardy

Easy ways to build an email list

Website of the Week

Writers in the Storm have a great website with all sorts of great craft and marketing tips. Here are two recent Bookmark posts, 5 easy SEO techniques and How actions determine character arc. There are four writers contributing and they manage to cover all facets of the business. A great Go To Website

To Finish,

Chuck Wendig has a new book out soon. It is his 13^th and by now he should be used to the feelings of gut wrenching fear, nervousness and excitement... It only gets worse… He tries to maintain a positive face… (Positive warnings on language apply.)

Maureen

@craicer

Pic is from Flickr/ Creative  Commons - Wonderlane