It Is All In The Mind

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

As I write this the American Book Awards is on. This award ceremony has been in the news over the last month with presenter problems and now Publishers Weekly report that media sponsorship is being pulled over the potential for authors to make hate speech comments. So, check your favourite book news website to find out if they were right.

 

Publishers Weekly also have a deep dive article on How TikTok Changed Romance Publishing. (You can put your genre of choice into that sentence.)

 

In AI news -The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association have published an open letter to the Copyright Office of America detailing their concerns over ascertaining copyright and the future of these works.

Meanwhile, Mark Williams adds his own acerbic take on the sky is falling rhetoric coming out of the publishing industry.

 

John Gilstrap writing over on the Killzone Authors blog has a great article on Traditional Publishing. It’s not dead, it’s evolving. It is all about mindset. Authors are small business owners. Now take that mindset into your interactions with agents and publishers.

 

The dream team of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have gathered together a list of Black Friday deals for Authors, or you can be overwhelmed with choice with Kindlepreneur’s huge list of deals.

 

Kris Rusch has been musing on out of print stories. She was wanting to use work in a teaching course but couldn’t find who owned the rights and whether there was a recent edition. This is one of those moments of wishing the internet had been around thirty years ago for research. 

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors have a super detailed article on keywords and Amazon category changes.

 

Suzette Mullen has an interesting article on mining your memoir and how sometimes you can fail badly in remembering and reflecting that others might have a completely different view of the memoir event. 

 

Roz Morris is back from a stint judging the Kindle Storyteller award- which is a big deal. Roz has written an article on what makes a great story – A must read.

  

In The Craft Section,

Unlocking cause and effect- Bang2Write

2 great posts from Becca Puglisi-Redeeming your villain and 9 tension builders for dialogue

- Bookmark Both

How to write one juicy description- April Davila- Bookmark

Identifying Flat Scenes- Janice Hardy

Writing Violence Archetypes  - Usvaldo De Leon on K M Weilands blog - Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

The best advertisement investments- Draft2Digital

Media Training for Authors – Paula Rizzo

How to make a personal brand- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

5 unique book marketing ideas- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Fantastic ways to sell books for the holidays- Bookbub- Bookmark

Book signing tips- Judith Briles

 

To Finish,

As we move from Print publishing to eBook to Audiobook to All Formats … what’s next? The big news over the last six months in the writing blogosphere is Selling Direct and the rise of the Shopify store. Joanna Penn interviews Russell Nohelty on the mindset you must cultivate to sell direct.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter to go out. If you want the best of my bookmarked links, you can subscribe here to join our happy band.

 

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Pic:Photo by Ian Stauffer on Unsplash

Finding Bargains

 

In Publishing News this week.

The news dust is still swirling after Spotify’s purchase of Findaway last week. While everyone was venting opinions the Futurebook conference happened in London. Dan Holloway from The Alliance of Independent Authors goes over the main talking points, subscription, sustainability and the rise of new digital products. How bad is the print publishing industry for the climate? Are eBooks just as bad? 

 

Meanwhile, Mark Williams from The New Publishing Standard shone a bright light on the Futurebook conference interview with the CEO of Penguin Random House. Mark was wondering where the hard questions were about the Simon and Schuster merger and the rise of subscriptions as a marketing model. PRH pulled all their books from subscription sites. Will this change?

 

Publishing Perspectives reports on Ingram Lightning Source opening their new Print On Demand facility at Sharjah Publishing City. The world's first publishing free trade zone was announced in 2018 with a commitment by Ingram to the East and African book market. Print On Demand does have the ability to reduce at least one of the unsustainable practices of the publishing industry, returns.

Penny Sansevieri has a guest post on Anne R Allen’s blog about creating reader connections. How many readers do you need to make a difference in your sales. It’s all about the right readers, says Penny. 

 

Have you got an idea for a book but are not sure where to start? How to blog a book takes a look at how you can get started by blogging the book. They use the idea for marketing the book right alongside.

 

Have you tried writing with soundtracks? Many authors swear by the practice. I find them distracting because I tune into the music instead of writing. Matt Frick has another way of using soundtracks. He uses them to write the book when he isn’t writing. This idea could be super inspirational for story crafting.

 

Ann Patchett has an article in Lithub on creating the workspace that you need. Are you really sitting well? Do you have the right keyboard?

 

Jami Gold turns her lazer eyes onto the Dune Movie and looks at the Plot Arc focus vs the Character Arc focus. Jami is an excellent writing craft teacher so make sure you read this.

 

In The Craft Section,

3 critical elements in opening scenes 

Award season PDF’s of screenplays- Scott Myers- Bookmark

5 tips on writing fiction- DIYMFA

Avoiding excessive detail in your descriptions-Mythcreants- bookmark

Writing using Word Styles.- Libertabooks- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

What is an Author Platform? Rachel Thompson – Bookmark

Unique marketing ideas for December and How to sell direct to the consumer

Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

How to track book marketing activity- Sandra Beckwith

Case study with Bryan Cohen on Amazon Ads

 

To Finish,

The Black Friday Sales are on. Everywhere you look there is an Ad for something. For writers there are sales on subscriptions or courses or books. Dave Chesson has compiled a long list of  Black Friday gifts for writers. Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have found some great Black Friday bargains as well. If you are thinking of stocking up gifts for Christmas check out Robyn Roste’s list of writer gifts. 

Don’t forget this week is the last week to get the NaNoWriMo Storybundle  Craft Book collection- which has often been my yearly gift to myself.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter where I share the best of the bookmarked links and other things that have caught my eye. 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.

 

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons- GoFishDigital