Giving Gifts

 

In Publishing News

Penguin Random House CEO Marcus Dohle is stepping down after ten years at the helm of the biggest publisher on the planet. Publishing Perspectives looks at the impact Marcus has had on the Traditional Book Publishing Industry. Meanwhile, Mark Williams gives a less glowing report on Marcus Dohle’s tenure. Ouch! The fallout from that court case is still ongoing.

 

The USA Today Bestseller list is on hiatus. The news broke leaving writers in consternation. The USA Today list was a fair stab at the real numbers of the bestselling books as opposed to the *curated* numbers from The New York Times. The editor of the list was let go as a cost-cutting measure. This could be an early warning of Christmas layoffs in the publishing business.

 

Publisher’s Weekly reports that Amazon is tightening its offerings by cutting magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Also on the block is Textbook print rentals. What will be next?

 

It is looking like an AI wild west out there. The big news has been GPT3’s chatbot which has shifted the game of AI text generation. This morning I saw an article written about a particular indigenous cultural practice in our country written by the GPT3 AI that was lyrical, informed, and accurate. That an AI wrote it was mind-blowing. So where do we go from here? If you are a publisher it could be useful says Nieman labs. If you are an Artist or using AI Art, strap in for Chuck Wendig’s take on it. Techcrunch reports that OpenAI is experimenting with watermarks for AI art. After this morning’s article, I think text might need this too.

 

Kris Rusch continues to look at the publishing year in review. This week, the relevance of Traditional Publishing.

 

Richard Charkin has written an opinion column in Publishing Perspectives about the three gifts he would like to see under Publishing’s tree. I’ve got to agree with all of them! What About You?

 

Judith Briles has an interesting series of 3-minute focus YouTube videos on writing and marketing. Check out this one on organizing writing files.

 

In The Craft Section,

Foreshadowing- Jami Gold – Bookmark

How to write a thriller- Reedsy- Bookmark

Where to start developing a story- Scott Myers

Dealing with multiple drafts during revisions- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

Mining Abandoned Projects – James Scott Bell

 

In The Marketing Section,

Video Camera shy tips- Amy Rodgers Nazarov- Bookmark

Creating single author box sets- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

Updating Amazon Book and Author pages- Elizabeth S Craig - Bookmark

Holiday promotion tips- Bookbaby

How to create a newsletter- Sendinblue

 

To Finish,

The Dream Team Angela and Becca have a great Christmas gift for writers – A free webinar on secrets to engaging readers. 

This is the last blog for the year. 

It has been a challenging year on the home front and I am ready for some downtime over Christmas and New Year. The blog will be back mid-January.

In the meantime, you can read past blog posts for great craft and marketing tips.

Leave reviews for other authors (Feel free to share the top image around.) 

Check out the First Book (Ebook) in the Circus Quest series for FREE or get any of my children's Ebooks for HALF PRICE. 

 

Wishing you all a peaceful holiday break.

Maureen

@craicer

 

There is a bumper newsletter with goodies coming to all subscribers soon so don’t forget to subscribe.

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee or eggnog for Christmas, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate all the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Navigating the Author Life

In Publishing News this week,

The annual writing income surveys from the UK, the US, and Australia all hit the news, leaving authors hot and bothered. For many, it was proof that their unsettled feelings that icebergs were ahead was completely right. Writer incomes have dropped all around the world.

The Guardian published the UK findings and then Joanne Harris explained how this drop would impact the books being published in the future.

Australia had a more rigorous approach with Macquarie University publishing breakdowns over 8 key findings from their survey. The impact of the PLR and the ELR income saving the children’s writers particularly.

Written Word Media took a different approach and looked at the backlist and its impact on writer income. There it was a different story. The bigger the backlist you control the better for your income.

Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware has been looking at scam publishers who contact writers telling them that their backlist can be reissued with only a few changes … just sign here. Beware fishhooks. Victoria details how you can get out of these traps if you find yourself in one.

Kris Rusch has been looking at the judges’ comments on the PRH and Simon and Schuster court case and making some pithy comments of her own on bestsellers. This is an informative read, in light of the author income survey results which came out after Kris had written her article. 

 

Over in Europe, audiobook companies are scrambling to get a bigger share of the market and another audiobook company abandons the unlimited subscription model. Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard also casts a weather eye on Nextory’s venture into adding News and Magazines to its subscriptions.

With all the stress of the writers' income reports Beth Barany of Writing and Wellness suggests 7 different types of rest that writers need to restore their creativity. 

 

In The Craft Section,

The best places to write- K M Weiland

The importance of writing your thoughts down- Rachel Thompson

The ingredients for a successful story climax

The eighth element the author needs- Donald Maass- READ and BOOKMARK!

The 4 stages of writing a novel- Beth Barany

When to use a scene or a summary- Savannah Gilbo - Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

The 2023 literary calendar for marketing ideas- Sandra Beckwith- BOOKMARK

6 things to know before publishing a book in 2023- Penny Sansevieri

The ultimate guide to Book Distribution tools – Bookbub- Bookmark

Pivoting Genres and Mindsets for Success- Joanna Penn Interview with Dan Padavona

 

To Finish,

Terry Odell has a great article on writer priorities… it’s all about finding out what are the big important things to you. 

Another week, another great list of writers’ gifts. This time Katie Weiland lists the best gifts she has received over the years. 

Meanwhile, a winning lottery ticket will be on every writers wish list.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter. Get the best of my bookmarked links when you subscribe.

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

 

Raise A Glass

In publishing news this week,

Porter Anderson has the rundown on what happened at the Futurebook conference. The big talking points- audio and the changing face of publishing.

 

Techcrunch reports that Spotify has launched audiobooks into more English speaking markets. They are apparently moving away from the all-you-can-eat model. Is this the beginning of the end of unlimited subscriptions? Mark Williams adds his own take on this new development in Audio.

 

If you want to understand book marketing – talk to romance writers they are amongst the savviest book marketers on the planet. Jane Friedman did just this and has an interesting interview with Kitty Thomas

 

Kris Rusch has part two of the year in review. This is a romp through that court case again. However, Kris has some very pertinent things to say about how this could be the last best year for Traditional publishers based on what the court case revealed about publishing.

 

Ruth Harris has a list of clueless things that drive writers crazy. I can see this morphing into writers drinking game.

 

Joanna Penn has a great interview with John Truby about his new book, The Anatomy of Genres. John is an in-demand writing craft teacher. He has several best-selling books which are on my bookshelf. I watched a webinar about the new book today and it is top notch so it’s now on my must-buy Christmas list.

 

In The Craft Section,

The plotting grid- Kobo- Bookmark

Getting to know your characters- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

When to use flashbacks and backstory- Donna Jo Stone

Plot bitches and how to slay them- Marissa Graff

Good endings- Roz Morris- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

2 great posts from Penny Sansevieri- Celebrate read a new book month and Clever book promos for 2023- Bookmark

How does a top book publicist think- Interview – Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

Why does my book need interior formatting- Bookbaby

5 concrete steps for building a mailing list- Laurel Osterkamp

 

To Finish,

The last month of the year is here. As we totter towards Christmas, the lists of Christmas gifts for writers start doing the rounds. I started with two lists last week- Check out Angela and Becca’s Christmas gift list for writers this week. I often buy myself a writer textbook in print for Christmas. It’s a gift to myself for achieving another writing year. What gift would you get for yourself? 

 

R.I.P. The Original Songbird. Christine McVie

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter. Get the best of my bookmarked links when you subscribe.

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: Photo by Kelsey Knight on Unsplash

Writing Challenges

 

 

It’s been a challenging week on the home front so apologies for no roundup last week. 

 

In Publishing News this week,

Tiktok is selling books- Yes, this is old news I can hear you say… but No, TikTok has partnered with Bookshop.org to create a Bookselling platform right in the app. It was only a matter of time.

Another company spreading its wings is Written Word Media- home of the Book Marketing email lists. They have partnered with Yonder, a serialized fiction app. They see it as curated a list of previously published fiction that is serialized. Didn’t Dicken’s do this? This could be an interesting way to mine your backlist.

 

And is Amazon price fixing again? Publishers Weekly reports that a new lawsuit is on the books involving Amazon and the big 5 and the pricing of ebooks. 

Maybe they saw something of interest in the recent lawsuit judgment against PRH and Simon And Schuster which you can read here.

 

This week a theme emerged. Every time I opened my laptop there was another post on writing and mental health. So dip into these.

5 strategies to prevent perfectionism with writer self-care by Lisa Towles

Small changes that can make big differences in your writing life by Beth Barany

9 things writers need to know about Trauma and Mental Health by Lisa Hall Wilson

 

As the country gets hit with lightning strikes and wild weather, this post popped up as a timely reminder of what writers can do to prepare for the worst mother nature can throw at us. There are some good tips in here to keep you from losing all your work. If you are congratulating yourself on storing everything in the cloud – just hope your server isn’t hit by lightning.

 

Indie thought leaders Orna Ross, Joanna Penn, Jane Friedman, and Becca Syme recently shared their thoughts on publishing trends and how to predict and profit from them. 

 

James Scott Bell, one of the best writing teachers around has an interesting article over on  The Killzone Blog about the writer quadruple threat. Do you qualify? If you are weak in any of the main areas it might be time to upskill yourself.

 

In The Craft Section

How to describe a location you have never visited?- Angela Ackerman

Surprising your reader in every scene.- September Fawkes- Bookmark

On Story Death and Life- Writer Unboxed

Clarity in the writing- Patrick McNulty - Bookmark

Emotion amplifiers- Angela Ackerman

Killing your darlings- Ruthanne Reid- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Using the right Font- Jessica Bell - Bookmark

Best practice for marketing on Kindle- The Fussy Librarian- Bookmark

You don’t need a platform if you can find an audience- Catherine Baab-Muguira- Bookmark

Why you should care about Library distribution.- Draft2Digital

5 steps to author success - Joanna Penn interviewing Rachel McLean  Bookmark

 

To Finish,

As we near the end of the year, and what a year it has been, thoughts turn to writer gifts.

If you need to hand your family some gift inspiration, get them to check out these two sites. Sandra Beckwith has pulled together 30 great gifts for writers, and Shayla Raquel adds to this with some wonderful extra ideas. 

Of course, one of the best things you can give your writer is time… so don’t forget to mention mini writing retreats – where the family goes away or you go away, or time banking where the usual chores are looked after by someone else so the writer can get more time in front of the keyboard.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed 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 or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Voting with Your Feet

  

In Publishing News this week,

Harper Collins employees go out on strike. They are asking for writers to support them by not submitting anything unless it's contractual. Will other publishing firms follow suit? Publishers Weekly breaks down the issues and how HC is also facing a financial downturn.

 

Spotify is having a stoush with Apple over not making their audiobooks available to buy on the IOS app. Did Spotify really think Apple would sell their competitor's books?

 

Publishers Weekly has a long-form article on publishing houses started by women and why they are different and successful.

 

Richard Charkin of Publishing Perspectives has updated his A-Z of publishing terms. Some of it is tongue in cheek and some is biting commentary on the state of the publishing world in the UK.

 

Kristine Rusch writes about the blame game in her How Writers Fail series. She also has some pithy commentary on the revelations from the S&S /PRH court case.

 

While you are wondering about the real sales numbers being admitted to by publishing execs… Jordan Pruett has a deep dive article into the workings of The New York Times Bestseller list.

 

Joanna Penn has a great interview on using tropes to strengthen your fiction with Jennifer Hilt, the author of The Trope Thesaurus-(My copy got snaffled by my daughter- I must get it back!) Read the transcript or listen to the podcast for some great ideas.

 

A M Cal from The Writing Cooperative has an interesting post on Embracing your bad ideas.

No idea you have spent time writing on is bad… maybe it’s time is not now.

 

In The Craft Section,

8 easy writing goals to accomplish before the end of the year.- Colleen Story- Bookmark

How to handle critique feedback- Suzanna Henshon

Making background characters pop out- September Fawkes- Bookmark

The craft of award winning microfiction- Amber Byers

How to free yourself from endless revision- Audrey Kalman- Bookmark

Conflict and Choices give agency to your characters- Becca Puglisi

 

In The Marketing Section,

Build an author website- Reedsy- Bookmark

5 tips to balance Book Marketing with writing- Colleen Story

Improve your publishing and marketing plan- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Choosing author targets in Bookbub- Bookbub Insights

How to use social media effectively- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

Many writers and publishing professionals hang out on Twitter. There is something about the quick-fire pithy quote that appeals to us all. From MSWL’s from agents and editors to Pomodoro writing sprints or just writing gossip. 

At the moment there is a big exodus happening from Twitter due to a billionaire takeover which has rapidly changed the website. Many authors are heading over to Mastodon which is a decentralized site.  Anna Featherstone has a great rundown on what is going on, advice about how to navigate the two sites, and why you shouldn’t delete your Twitter account. 

Mastodon has servers dedicated to the writing community. You can still follow all your old friends and make some new ones.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Apologies if you are waiting for my monthly newsletter. The website is not playing nicely with me. I hope to sort out the problem this week. You can still subscribe or shout me a coffee as I go into newsletter battle.

I appreciate all virtual coffee love. 

Thanks.

 

Pic: Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Who Really Wins?

 

In Publishing News this week…

 

The Judge has decided. There will be no sale of Simon and Schuster to Penguin Random House. As everybody was celebrating and Marcus Dohle CEO of PRH was airing his views about this at Sharjah, Mike Shatzkin reflected on how this would change the publishing world going forward. This is a food for thought post, a must read. While publishing may not be amalgamating into one giant publisher, has anyone thought about the power that Ingram is getting?

 

Publishers Weekly has an article about Ingram entering the ‘business to consumer’ space with all sorts of goodies that they are now going to provide for publishers.

 

Publishing Perspectives has a run down on the main talking points at the Sharjah Publishers Conference. It’s all about being more visible globally. This reflected a session I watched in the SelfPubCon conference from the Alliance of Independent Authors last weekend. Ingram is rolling out POD into the Middle East, this will open up access to translation markets. 

 

The Bookseller has an article on literary festivals having a hybrid element to them to allow for inclusivity. The pandemic has taught us to up our game with virtual events running alongside the in-person ones. This needs to be kept up for all those who cannot attend in-person events safely.

 

The New Publishing Standard has an article on Amazon’s new move to add 98 million music titles to Prime. If Spotify can have audiobooks, we can have music. The first shots in the new subscription wars.

 

In more backlash for AI art, the anime creators are up in arms over AI sampling. Apparently, the AI’s are really good at it. This is ringing alarm bells with creators. 

 

Building a new world is the title of Kris Rusch’s blog post this week and I was struck by her analysis of the long view of History and how events like the pandemic cause a reset in the wider world. There has been a lot of comment on falling book sales everywhere lately. Kris is more optimistic.

 

If you are like me and struggle with Goodreads… is it really worth your time, this article has me thinking it is worth taking another look. For instance – Did you know you can talk about your latest book while you are writing it and have people add it to their TBR stack. 

 

Litreactor has 10 NaNoWriMo tips for success from Editors and Agents.

 

Jane Friedman has a guest post from Michael Mohr on the secret sauce to being a good writer. It could be slightly controversial but the basic premise of needing to be a reader is absolutely key!

 

 

In The Craft Section,

Write Great First Sentences- Ruth Harris- Bookmark

How to write 500 words in 15 minutes- Colleen Story

3 tricks with flashbacks- Marissa Graff-Bookmark

Writing about a culture that isn’t yours- Sam Cameron

9 Positive character arcs in enneagram- K M Weiland- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

5 ways to promote long after launch – Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

How saleable are short stories- Sarah Dahl

How to make an audiobook – Kindlepreneur

How to promote globally- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

TikTok works for all genres- Sue Coletta- Bookmark and read comments!

 

To Finish,

Having a climate change researcher in the house over the last decade has given me a ring side seat to despair. As writers, we believe in the power of story to change hearts and minds.  Today I was told of a collection of writers across all genres who are dedicated to doing just this with climate change. Check out this fabulous organization if you write CliFi, Solarpunk, Dystopian, SciFi, Non-Fiction – anything to do with reimagining a better world and how to go about protecting this one. 

Let’s change the narrative for the future. 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed 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 or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Planning For Success

 

 

In Publishing News This Week,

 

Frankfurt. Are we back to normal? That seemed to be the question on everybody’s lips. There was a lot of chat amongst the publishers, sold-out sessions, and positivity everywhere.

Publishing Perspectives interviewed various publishers and agents about the hot new trends they were seeing.

 

Audiobooks got a lot of attention in Frankfurt with many saying that they were now a mainstream format. The ways for the public to acquire them seem to be all over the place though. You would think that Spotify with its streaming model would extend this into audiobooks – not so. Which audience model will win out was a hot topic discussed at Frankfurt.

 

Over the last month, the spotlight has been on AI generated art and its copyright ownership.  If you buy art for book covers or fan merch this seems to be a rising trend, to generate AI art. However, the AI’s are sampling artists' portfolios and styles and so the ownership is murky. After many photo stock dealers saying they wouldn’t deal with AI art, Shutterstock changed its mind and is trying have it both ways by attempting to pay the sampled artists if they can prove it. This has annoyed many in the industry.

 

It always pays to drop into Writer Beware occasionally to keep on top of ways that authors can be parted from their money. Recently Victoria had a long form piece on anthologies and how one anthology publisher collapsed and was exposed as probably running a Ponzi scheme. Anthologies can be great…but you must go in with your eyes wide open.

 

Today I was listening to an interesting conversation between Orna Ross and Joanna Penn on publishing values. It was wide ranging and referred to Orna’s recent article. This is a meaty topic. What do you wish to be known for and are you sure that’s what you are projecting to the readership?

 

Kris Rusch has an interesting article on Thinking Big. Do you note down your success? What about your positive reviews? Kris talks about exposure and when someone goes from chugging along to breakout.

 

Elizabeth Sims has an interesting post on short stories over on Jane Friedman's blog. 20 reasons why everyone should write a short story. I have been trying my hand at these this year and not managing to finish them. This article makes me look at short story writing in a different way. Let it go and have fun.

 

In The Craft Section,

Where do Ideas come from- Randy Ingermanson- Bookmark

4 writing pitfalls to avoid- Laurence McNaughton- Bookmark

Writing beginnings- Interview with Shane Millar- Joanna Penn- Bookmark

4 tips for writing effective backstory- Carolyn Arnold

The perils of not knowing what happens next- Janice Hardy

 

In The Marketing Section,

Update your Amazon book pages- Elizabeth S Craig- Bookmark

Book cover design ideas- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

3 ways to promote poetry- Raegen Pietrucha

Reaching readers for the long term- Becky Robinson- Interview with Joanna Penn- Bookmark

Instagram Book marketing ideas-Bookbub

 

To Finish,

This weekend is The Alliance of Independent Authors 24 hour conference, SelfPubCon. It’s free. Sessions are recorded and you get three days to go over them.

If you intend to attempt NaNoWriMo this November hopefully you will have everything organized. Check back over the last few blog posts for handy prep links. Don’t forget to check out your local library. Quite a few have embraced the NaNoWriMo experience and have spaces for writers to go and pound out their words.

Good Luck with your final days of preparation.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter of the best of the bookmarked links and other handy items Don’t forget to subscribe.

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash