Forewarned is Forearmed.

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In Publishing News this week,

 

Australia’s online book retailer Booktopia has gone into voluntary administration. This caught everyone by surprise, including Australian booksellers and publishers who are seeing a big hole opening up in distribution. The June redundancies should have given everyone a heads-up. Now will they flog it off and who to?

 

Amazon announced its dates for Prime Day and immediately Indie Bookstores got into action. Dan Holloway talks about the concerted actions to drive sales away from Amazon by TikTok and the American Booksellers Association.

 

In the UK, Waterstones have announced the new Children’s Laureate, Frank Cottrill-Boyce. Each laureate serves for two years, and they campaign for a cause associated with children’s literature. The new laureate is passionate about the freedom to read.

 

Over in the USA, librarians have been discussing the freedom to read problems that they are having, especially soft censorship. That’s the censorship when you think a book might be challenged and so you don’t buy it. Authors filling a need for books for marginalized communities are being hit in the pocket with this type of censorship.

 

The complaints about Baillie Gifford using their fossil fuels money to finance book festivals in the UK resulted in them pulling their funding of the festivals. Now the festivals have to find alternative funding. Some publishers have stepped up. 

 

Roz Morris has a great article on the six main hustles that are targeting writers so far in 2024 and what you can do about them. Over at Writer Unboxed, Michael Castleman writes about why we are seeing more writing scams than ever before and how we can avoid being ripped off. Make an effort to read these articles. Forewarned is forearmed.

 

Ruth Harris writes about the sting of rejection. It’s not about you the writer. She points out that there can be many things that generate a No response. David Lombardino writes about successful editor author relationships. Who is in charge?

Elizabeth Spann Craig talks about procrastination and being kind to your future self.

 

Draft2Digital is working hard on integrating Smashwords into the fold. They are also renaming their book cover acquisition. If you haven’t checked out D2D lately, they have a pretty comprehensive distribution network and loads of free stuff for authors and publishers.

 

What makes timeless fiction timeless? Donald Maass asks the writers golden ticket question. ‘Timeless characters stand in for us but are larger than we are.’ This is a fascinating read from a master agent.

 

 

In The Craft Section,

Creative ways to brainstorm ideas- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

How to use antagonists in your story- K M Weiland- Bookmark

Developing a scene outline- C S Lakin- Bookmark

Using tone in literature- Reedsy

Handling a cast of thousands- Terry Odell - Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Book Promotion timing – Sandra Beckwith

Positioning your book-Jane Weisman

Choosing an author name format- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

2 great posts from Authors Red Door- table of contents sales tool and copyright page marketing- Bookmark Both

 

To Finish,

This week I have been listening to Joanna Penn and Rachelle Ayala talk about AI tools and how authors are using them on the Creative Penn podcast. Whichever side you come in on, I really think you should give this transcript a read, or listen to the podcast episode. I had a few aha moments. Rachell is a romance author with a PHD in applied maths and a background in computing. So straight away she was able to explain what an AI is and is not and how it works. This was a super interesting episode. If you have been dismissive or fearful or bewildered by the changes that are coming like a runaway freight train towards you, take some time to understand what sort of tool AI could be in your writing business. At the very least you will be more informed of the possibilities even if you don’t choose to actively use them.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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