The publishing world woke up yesterday to the news that Mal Peet had died suddenly. There was a collective Whaaat Noooo gasp around
Wellington. Mal and Elspeth had stayed here two years ago when Mal was Writer
in Residence at Victoria University. He made an impact from the first day and
was always affable and approachable, charming us and being charmed by us. He
teased us... gently. He was a brilliant Young Adult writer and the sadness over his passing
is for ourselves and the world because there will be no more Mal Peet books.
Our thoughts are with Elspeth. (What a wonderful team those two made...)
Earlier this week my Twitter feed was being burned up by
responses to an article written about MFA programs by an ex MFA teacher who
decided it was time to write his feelings about being a teacher of an MFA
program. As Chuck Wendig (usual warnings) exploded over the dismissive tone he used in his article... I was thinking, yes but he did have a point here or
there, which Chuck concedes. (However his rant is more entertaining than the
original article.)
Anybody venturing into the wonderful world of publishing
should always find out as much as possible. Yes Book People are wonderful
people but there are sharks out there, like any other industry and regularly
dropping in to Writer Beware is a good habit to get into.
This week Victoria shines a light on contract clauses that
make your hair curl and the latest news about Author Solutions.
If you are a newbie you won’t know that Author Solutions is
the subject of a class action suit. As this outfit has a wonderful chameleon
reputation running ‘concierge’ services for some of the biggest publishers out
there, they look bone fide and their tactics are anything but. Dave Gaughran has the latest twist in the plot of who is the next big publisher to swim with the sharks.
Chris McVeigh has written a heart felt post about the disconnect between publishing industry professionals and authors and the state
of publishing industry today after a recent trip to London. Chris has his own
solutions to fixing this disconnect, which is very real and what I hear on an
almost daily basis.
One author who has stepped into the disconnect and carved
out a different model is Bob Mayer. He is interviewed by Reedsy about his work and his publishing house Cool Gus. Bob and his team (Jen) work with other
authors to publish their books under a collaborative model. He has a really
interesting publishing model and he’s a great writer.
If you write for children you will know that print is still
king but there are different e-book
/app models being trialed all the time. Jane Friedman has a magnificent interview with two children’s book agents where they talk about
e-books for children. Is it going to be like the adult take up?
In the Craft section,
Oh the goodness of Jami Gold who has some brilliant worksheets for writers on her website...
And a halo goes to Janice Hardy who has started a month long series of story structure analysis posts.
K M Weiland has a wonderful post on passive voice...
The awesome Jenny Crusie has a next level post on ‘agency’
something that Chuck is very in to. That's when you unleash your characters.
The Crimson League has a post on killing your characters needlessly...or how not to do this.
How to write productively – sometimes it’s the simple
things.
In the Marketing Section,
Jane Friedman and Christina Katz on building better author bio’s and making use of them.
If you are thinking about book trailers Joanna Penn has
interviewed a book trailer making expert so this is chock full of tips and then
talks to Debbie Young about getting your book into bookstores and libraries.
Making the most of your publicity – tips from the agent.
The art of ARC-ing. What to do with those Advance Reader
Copies...
Website of the week
It’s more of an infographic.... but this is THE infographic of Book Genre’s. Any genre with
examples...Check it out.
To Finish,
This week we launched the first news about Tinderbox2015 -
The National Conference of NZ Children’s Writers and Illustrators. It’s
happening October 2-5th in Wellington this year. It
aims to ignite sparks, shed light on new practices, and nourish and energise
authors and illustrators. Tinderbox
2015 will be a hands-on conference, with workshops and panels, both
experiential and inspirational, it's not to be missed. We are thrilled with the enthusiastic
response already and hugging ourselves because we know what is coming... tho we
are still working out some details... hehehehehe. You can go on to our
exclusive mailing list at 2015tinderbox
at gmail dot com or head on over to our Facebook page, Tinderbox 2015. Our
website will be up and doing soon.
In the
meantime you can speculate as to what this might mean... and an innovative real-time, collaborative project that will run
alongside other sessions....
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