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