New Zealand is
experiencing a heat wave. We are flocking to beaches...diving for water bottles
or staring stupidly into the sky and saying what is that yellow thing?
Over in the publishing
blogoshere there is disquiet...Sony has a nice little promo going on with the
20p (38cNZ) ebook and Amazon matched it coz that’s what they do and Sony
doesn’t look like stopping this anytime soon....Ummm. This could have a major
effect on everyone’s bottom line. FutureBook looks at the race to the bottom and the millons being squandered/earned/ redistributed...amongst the publishers
who signed up for this promo.
Burning up Twitter this
week is the news that Barne’s and Noble, America’s largest book chain is
beginning to close stores and tightening their bricks and mortar footprint. By
the end of the decade they will have slimmed down by a third. Mike Shatzkin takes a look at the implications.
In Amazon’s latest earning figures they forgot to put in the figures that everyone wants to know. Ebook sales means how many units over/under print ? and What about the bite Apple is taking in illustrated books because everyone really wants an iPad for kids books? and What does this all mean for hardware...and content providers. PaidContent check out the answers to these burning questions.
If you sign up for
anything Amazon writer related...be aware The Amazon orb can burn you if you
are not careful. This is a post about one writers baaad journey with Amazon and the lessons learned.
Mark Laurance was faced with a difficult situation on Reddit earlier today when he explained
exactly what lowly income a writer gets and was told by several readers that
they were now going to buy one of his books after discovering him through
pirated books. Check out this fascinating stream of comments where readers
defend piracy and Marks response.
Agent Rachelle Gardner
looks at the tricky topic of story vs craft in her latest blog post which has racked
up nearly 100 comments within 24 hours. Acquiring editors are all over the
place with whether they want a great story and hang the writing craft or
whether the craft has to be just as tight as the story before they will look at
it.
Jody Hedlund looks
back at life when she had one book published....and life now (5 books) and What She Wished She Knew Then.
If you could, would
you distribute your books through the largest UK book distributor? Did you know
it is now McDonalds? Publishing Perspectives takes a look at McDonalds UK move. Could we do it here and
who would lose out?
Joanna Penn is back in love with print! She tells why she came back to it and why for her it makes
financial sense.
IndieReCon has released their schedule for the free online conference happening from 19th
Feb. Everything you wanted to know about independent publishing...three days...
39 speakers....Inspired by WriteOnCon...
In Craft,
Raising the stakes in your novel in the first 50 pages... When you get into the planning stages you need
to have a good handle on complications. A good post on what you should be
looking for.
Adding complexity to your characters...Why do your villains act the way they do...
Tracking time in your novel...If you don’t do it you can come to a very sticky situation...Here are
some tips to keep up to speed.
How is your voice? This great post looks at refining your writing voice. Some great exercises
here.
Karen Woodward is
taking a close look at the StarBurst way of writing...In this post she tackles the classic heroes journey and the significance of Obi Wan Kenobi.
In Marketing,
How do you discover your books brand? And then what do you do....
The Market Within is a
nice blog post for Children’s Writers to contemplate...after all their target
market doesn’t buy the books so how do you engage with the buying wallets....
How do you know when you are a success? Angela Ackerman of the Bookshelf Muse has a great post
detailing the signs...You could be a success and you don’t even know it...
Futurebook has a nice
post on ways to optimise and monetise your social strategy in 2013. It sounds dire but
if you have a business then this is very much worth a look. Immediately
applicable to writers....
To finish,
11 ways to support a fellow writers book...I’m proud to be guilty of a few of these. Last week I was
in a big chain bookstore carefully looking for fellow writers books so I could
turn them...and found some other writer must have got there before me....They were all shining, face out, to the buying public.
Check out this interview with short story writer George Saunders on the Colbert Report...why short? Doesn't America only want Big Stuff? Gotta laugh!
maureen
pic: Fire / Ben Watts Flickr
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