Preparing For The Future

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

It’s Banned Books week in the United States and Penguin Random House has pushed out the truck on this literally. They have a huge truck visiting neighbourhoods and giving out children’s books that have been banned from their publishing house.

 

It was big news when Spotify bought Findaway voices last September and we waited to see what they would do. A year on and Spotify unveil their audiobooks in premium memberships in a trial run with Australia and the United Kingdom. They have negotiated deals that Publishing Perspectives report will shake Audible’s hold on the audiobook market.

 

Publisher Weekly reports on the Authors Guild author income survey- Why do we write again? It’s not for the money.

 

Wattpad wants to offer its creators more money so they have launched a new tier called Originals. You can pay for the latest chapter in your serial story or wait until it’s all finished. It’s like Netflix for authors.

 

Mike Shatzkin writes this week about AI and publishing. Mike has largely retired form advising big publishing companies so it’s always interesting when he writes an article on current trends. Just when you think you know what a commentator would say- they surprise you. Mike thinks AI is a good thing for publishing.

 

Another who thinks the Publishing industry is short sighted on AI is Mark Williams. He has a long form essay on how Publishers are tackling issues around AI- is it a tool, a threat, a higher form of achievement or copyright theft?

 

Seth Godin uses Chat GPT to come up with good questions to ask Chat GPT. An interesting way of editing your work.

 

Copyright is at the heart of AI. Who owns AI copyright. The machine or the prompter? Is it fair use to train AI on whole books? If a machine can replicate someone’s style is it a breach of copyright? Whatever you think, you do need to have a working knowledge of copyright and how it impacts your publishing business.

Kris Rusch writes about making sure you have the right licenses and why you need to print them out.

 

People who have mastered dictation swear by the ease of writing. You get articles like this one- I wrote a novel in a day- Nick Thacker on Writers in the Storm. Nick goes into detail about what tools he uses. Meanwhile, over on Jane Friedman’s blog Sarah Sawyer talks about how dictation can free up your writing time.

 

It’s that age old writer struggle- How do you feel when you kill off a nice character? 

Robin Rivera writes that picking the reason you want to kill off the character is just as important as choosing the character you want to kill- She has four reasons you might want to do this.

 

In The Craft Section,

Crafting unforgettable character arcs- C S Lakin- Bookmark

Fake swearing and how to write it- StopGap

5 mistakes that reverse social justice messages- Mythcreants

Mastering character description without info dumps- Lisa Hall Wilson- Bookmark

Going to your unhappy place- Donald Maass- Bookmark

Writing Mystery – DabbleWriter- Comprehensive

 

In The Marketing Section,

Honesty in book marketing – Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

Your books most powerful marketing tool- Greer Macallister

Playlists for your books- Heather Weidner

Non salesy social media content for authors- Dan Parsons- Bookmark

10 easy steps to get your website back to life- Karen Cioffi- Bookmark

October Social Media content- WolfSparrow- Bookmark

 

To Finish

October – or in the publishing world… getting ready for NaNoWriMo. 

There are a few good articles out there on NaNoPrepMo but if you go to the source- The NaNoWriMo official website,  you can get a huge checklist of ideas and resources to get your preparation for National Novel Writing Month underway.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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Pic: Photo by Sylas Boesten on Unsplash