Today I had an email interview with a
reporter on the subject of FaBo Story. One of the questions asked was how did
Fabostory get started. This got me thinking about the power of Facebook for
writers. Facebook can be a timesuck, a waste of time, a time waster, and
sometimes it can be a catalyst for a really cool project.
On my second day on Facebook,
Kyle Mewburn (cool Kiwi kids writer) said ‘Wouldn’t it be neat to have an online
kids story which lots of writers can contribute to.’ A bunch of us
started talking about how it could be done and before long it had morphed into
an online writing challenge involving children’s writers, illustrators and kiwi
kids all writing against each other in an hilarious mad story, which lasted for
18weeks!
We did it again last year trying out one off stories, in
different genre’s on another planet.
This year there is a huge sporting event
happening...What could go wrong at the Titanic games?....well we are about
to find out! FaBostory3 launches next week!
Around the blogosphere there has been lots
of talk about the excellent piece on creative writing courses by Kristine Rusch.
I posted it up on Facebook where it got picked up and discussed by tutors in
creative writing around the country. Judging from the huge pile of comments it
has struck a real chord in the online community. I know some of the
sentiments struck home personally. At a writers lunch I attended last week, there was first hand description from a writer who was a student on a masters course in creative writing. The description of how a University Tutor (and
name writer) conducted this course was hair raising! Read the Kris Rusch's article and all
the comments...It is worth the $5000 the poor writer, at lunch last week, paid.
Ploughshares Literary Magazine has
published a piece on Plagiarism as Pedagogy from a creative writing tutor...who
confessed they taught a student to plagiarise unintentionally and then thought
about it and gave them an A. Their arguments make for interesting reading and so
do the comments!
This morning I turned on my computer to see
the news that Penguin have bought Author Solutions, a sister ship to Publish America operating on the same lines. And the comments are flying on Twitter! Will they do
a Harlequin and offer rejected authors a ‘but if you pay us $000’s we will publish your manuscript in
our ‘boutique’ self publishing operation...’solution. This will be a big story
to watch! (And watch out for the ice berg underneath,Writer Beware comments.)
Another blog to get a lot of comment was Porter
Anderson asking whether publishers are doing any R&D? The comments about
how self publishers are doing R&D are very enlightening...(marketing 301)
The Atlantic Monthly has an opinion piece on why the new books coming out are all looking the same. Does it have anything to do with e readers? Check out this crop of covers.
The Stats are out....and are getting
commented on all over the place (yesterday in my car the local rock station DJ
commented on them!) Ebooks are now 31% of the total publishing market and have
doubled in sales to $2 Billion. Children and Young Adult books are the
fastest growing category.
Joel (the Book Designer) has gathered up a
collection on resources for you on the best book fonts to use that will warm
all designers hearts.
Bestseller Labs has a fabulous interview with Lorna Suzuki about being a bestselling indie author and how she did it.
Reading about Lorna is an inspiration in itself never mind that she writes as well!
In the craft section,
Jami Gold talks subtext using the recent spiderman movie. (brilliant as always)
K M Weiland tells you why your hero needs a yappy sidekick. (brilliant as always.)
K M Weiland is so brilliant that others
have taken her words and examples and made them into beautiful notes cards to
print out and post on your wall.
Check out this set on story structure.
In the marketing section,
Kevin Franco lets slip some more details over his Enthrill system...ebook cards in retail stores...some great
innovations happening here.
Bookbaby shows you how to market your book on a budget of...not much.
It’s conference season in North America.
Both of these reports are interesting for
new tech but also new ways of looking at the industry.
Harry Potter For Writers, which is a great site for writing craft have checked out the fan writing convention. Yup a writers conference for fan
fiction!
To finish,
I have been chatting to long
time industry participants about Agent Rachelle
Gardner's blog on why contracts are taking longer to negotiate. Contract
language is changing and there are many hidden icebergs being slipped in that
writers should be wary of. Passive Guy is always a good resource so I have
linked to an article he wrote a few months ago to alert you to the tip of what is a very
scary iceberg, especially if you negotiate your own contracts. (As always I urge you to read the comments so you can get a fuller picture.)
NZ Authors and Illustrators take
note...perpetuity rights, rights reversion, length of copywrite, ebook
publication, it is all being tweaked and not for the creators benefit.
2 comments:
Great links, Maureen! Thanks for including my post. :)
Always a pleasure to read your blog Jami!
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