Thoughts in Translation

This week Amazon announced they were cracking down on fake reviewers. GULP went all the authors. Authors always think the worst. So what does it mean? Passive Guy takes a look at why Amazon has tweaked the review system. It’s all about trust.

The Frankfurt Book Fair has been happening and suddenly everyone is talking about translations. Germany just happens to be a huge market for translations. The Bookseller talks about the move to global authorship.

Amazon is in the translation business (of course) and Publishing Perspectives this week talked about the huge injection of cash into Amazon Crossing and sounded a note of caution to the translators who make it all happen.

Joanne Harris delivered a speech this week at the Manchester Literary Festival which is getting shared all around the internet. Why do people expect authors to work for free? Do readers ever ask what does the author wants from them? This is a fabulous read!

Jami Gold asks authors - What is your long term plan? This is one of those posts that have you thinking for a long time after you read it. Every author should read this.

This author life has its ups and downs, Lance Rubin wrote a great post on blocking out the noise and just creating.

Sometimes you come across a piece of writing that turns you on your ear and that you just have to share with someone. That happened to me this week when I heard a podcast interview with Paul Bishop on Authorbiz. I listened to it in the car and then couldn’t wait to share the ideas with my writing partner. Just WOW.

In the Craft Section,

Now Novel has two great articles- What is good writing and Guide to Writing a Romance novel

The secret power of Voice – James Scott Bell

Tips for Queriers- query, synopsis, first page

Brainstorming the hero – Angela Ackerman

Book critique ABC’s for authors – Kate Tilton

Secrets of bestselling authors

Letting go of the practice novel- Writer Unboxed- Bookmark!

Turning a unique phrase - Joanna Penn

In the Marketing Section,

The secret to a powerful author brand- Kristen Lamb

Help - My Amazon reviews have disappeared

5 tools to double your eBook sales

Get books into global markets- Molly Greene

5 basic elements of an Author website – The Book Designer - Bookmark

How to write the best author bio

Building an Author platform

How to deal with the stress of self publishing

Website of the Week.

Larry Brooks has an excellent website full to bursting with great content on writing. Here are just two recent stand out posts. The unspoken pinch point – climax and How to plan your novel in 6 weeks. Both are bookmark posts!

To Finish,

Infographics... Translating lots of information into handy charts.

The 8 infographics every author needs and The infographic for how to organise your writing desk.

And now you know everything.

 Maureen

@craicer

Pic From Flickr Creative Commons- Dan McKay

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...