Giving Thanks

 

 

This week in publishing news,

 

Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard took a close look at this week’s report from the UK Publishers Association on the rise and rise of audiobook revenue. Mark looks at the bounce in publishing revenue from the pandemic. The numbers are truly startling. I never suspected that Children’s digital publishing had risen by 26%. 

 

Several days later and it was Nielsen’s turn to deliver their report on audio publishing. Publishing Perspectives compares both reports and the strong indications of subscription being the way of the future for our ears.

 

Recently two posts caught my eye on data protection and online privacy. 

How many times have you just skated around the edge of disaster, nearly losing all your work files. Lindsay Syhakhom on how to keep track of multiple copies of your work. You are filing multiple copies away, aren’t you?

 

How secure are you from hackers? Jacqui Murray has a great article for writers on protecting their online identities. If you ever wanted to scare someone about how easy it is to hack someone, check out the little embedded video of a hacker at work. Let’s be careful out there.

 

It’s interesting to look from the other side of the world at the North American holiday of Thanksgiving. On the surface, it seems to be all about the food, insane travel stories, family feuds, and getting ready for Black Friday sales. But underneath there is a simple message - stop what you are doing and be thankful for being. 

Ruth Harris listed her reasons to be thankful and they made me stop and think about the little things in my writing life that I am thankful for.

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors have published a useful glossary of terms for writing contracts. Know the meaning of the language.

 

Today I saw a comment about December being the Friday of the year. For some writers that piles extra pressure on to produce or finish a big project. Dave Chesson has an interesting article on coping with writer burnout.

 

Recently Joanna Penn interviewed Chrissy Metge on pitching to film studios. It was an information packed interview. If you think your writing project has potential you should listen/read the interview. Chrissy mentioned that studios need content all the time now with streaming services. 

Joshua Robinson follows this up with a post on Writing for Video Games on Insecure Writers Support Group. He writes for Video games. Yes, they need writers to do plot development and narration and dialogue. Writing is not only printed words on the page. 

 

Nina Amir has an interesting article on bringing writing ideas to life by creative visualization.

 

Now Novel has an excellent article on Story Planning. There are many ways to do this. Whether you write a bullet point list to begin with or a detailed plan- Jordan has broken down the main points of how to start from the first idea.

 

In The Craft Section,

Editing- The redundancy quiz- Kathy Steinemann- Bookmark

10 mistakes to avoid writing fantasy- Lucy Hay

Populating your story with background characters- Jan Drexler

Writing from the end- Mary Moore- Bookmark

The static hiss of description- Donald Maass- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Common Author questions- Draft2Digital team

How To format a book- Dave Chesson - Bookmark

Start marketing your book now- Stevan Spatz

Ultimate guide to getting reviews- Alliance of Independent Authors

22 must have resources in 2022- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

 

To Finish

It’s December and thoughts turn to getting ready for Christmas and the end of the year wind down. Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi are back with another Advent calendar for writers. Check out the daily offerings and send Thanks to the Dream Team.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

My monthly newsletter of the best of my bookmarked links is due out soon. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you. 

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks to the lovely person who donated coffee this week.

 

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons –  Mike Gnuckz