The Grapes Of Wrath

Another week in publishing… another meltdown in publishing. Hopefully this is not a sign of a new normal for 2020.

So what is it this time? 

The novel American Dirt got rave reviews pre-publication. The book was compared to a modern Grapes Of Wrath and so it has come to pass that wrath has been visited upon the author for writing a story of Latin immigration - without being Latin.

The furore has been public and vitriolic. The author has disappeared. The publisher has tried to calm the waters, not sure if he just poured petrol on the fire with this press release.

Publishers Weekly is reporting the cancellation of the book tour in favour of Town Hall style meetings about the book. Is all publicity really good? (Can’t help thinking this would be the classic author nightmare.)

* Just edited to add in this great post from Jami Gold -What Do the Calls For Diversity Mean For Our Writing

Meanwhile in other publishing threats, The White House is trying to pull a book because of revealed national secrets that may be in it. Anybody who is close to National government has to have their manuscripts approved for release. Apparently this one was… weeks ago…

Also in a banning frame of mind is Digital Book World. They have banned Macmillan from attending the Digital Book World conference because of the way they are treating libraries. Is this a publicity stunt, a highlighting of the Macmillan/ Library issue or the building of barricades for the revolution…

This week Lee and Low published their annual baseline survey on diversity in publishing. Is the publishing world hiring a more representative band of people?

Writer Beware has a new collection of scams hitting the newbies and its Pay To Play or in this case pay to get profiles on magazines… sadly Publishers Weekly may also be in this camp.

Jane Friedman has updated her guide to Writers Conferences so if you are thinking about attending one this year – take a look.

I came across two great posts on plotting this week. An oldie but a goodie from Chuck Wendig and Story Arcs from Write Practice.

In The Craft Section,

Creating believable characters

Story Structure – Heroes Journey- Karen Woodward- Bookmark

15 keys to writing dialogue – Ruth Harris – Bookmark 

7 rules to cliffhangers- Anne R Allen- Bookmark

How to write a mystery novel- Huge collection of links- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Unique content ideas for February- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Nates big list of promotion websites- Nate Hoffelder- Bookmark lots!!

Jacketed case printing – Ingram Spark’s new shiny 2020 goodie!!

To Finish,

As I come across interesting publishing links during the week I pass them on to people who are working at the coalface of any issue currently of concern. Our NZ Society of Authors is having a battle over what copyright means with government advisors. This week Joanna Penn had an interview with Rebecca Giblin on the importance of contracts and what to watch out for in publishing clauses. The interview is well worth a listen for the breaking news that an AI has been granted copyright. 

2020 is going to be an interesting year.

Maureen

@craicer

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Reality Bites

January is full of predictions and goal setting for the coming year. Writers enjoy marking off their new wall planners with book goals and organising their writing desks. Then reality sinks in as they note the first deadline is coming up fast. Productivity tool posts start filling up the internet. Writers In The Storm have a good blog post for the writer’s greatest challenge- Time Management. You may need to select from one of these useful collections of tools and tricks.

Time Management Apps.

No Cost tools for writers- Publication Coach

Five Writing Apps from DIYMFA

Every year The Write Life blog collects their 100 best websites for writers. Regular readers of my blog will see familiar names in the list. However their are some nifty new names in the different categories. (They also have a great post on writing residencies – in case you were thinking if it is worth it.)

Victoria Strauss has collected a list of Writer Beware posts from 2015. Writers should be regularly dropping into this site and getting familiar with the scams and dodgy contract language that is directed at them. Writer Beware has direct support from many writer associations.

Susan Spann is doing guest posts on what to watch out for in Contract Clauses- This month is the Out Of Print Clause.

Passive Guy takes a look at Kameron Hurley’s post on Non Compete and Rights Grab Clauses (PG is a lawyer so he has an eye for this.)

Today Kris Rusch warned about Anthology Contracts by new independent publishers. They have the best intentions and their contracts are the worst! Kris has seen some absolute nightmares in the last few weeks. Last week she wrote a great post - Whining is not a business model! Writers you must carefully look at your contracts. This is your work, your future earnings... you need to read the small print and walk away if it is not fair.

In the Craft Section,

The joy of nuances and shades of feelings- Celtic Frog-Bookmark.

Building Empathy- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark.

Sara Letourneau – Character evolution- Bookmark.

Self Editing for Dummies- Bookmark.

Five steps to writing faster.

In the Marketing Section,

Authors often struggle with Book Marketing. It is out of the comfort zone of the introverted garret dweller who talks to imaginary people. 

This week there were helpful posts on author blogs from Joanna Penn - Author blog mistakes, Molly Greene – What authors can blog about, Veronica Sicoe – building relationships with readers and Angela Ackerman- Social Media - why I don’t follow the rules.

Penny Sansevieri has a good post on Amazon reviews.

Lindsay Buroker has one on tips for getting a Bookbub advert.

Rachel Thompson- 4 ways to improve your sales.

Silas Payton has a guest post on Joe Konrath’s blog on collaborative marketing.

To Finish,

Digital Book World has an interesting post today from Jason Illian on the real future of digital publishing. Jason looks at a few company results which journalists didn’t cover and then started asking questions. This is a must read! In the comments SCBWI blogger Lee Wind referred to Enthrill (a company I have been watching for a few years.) They are about to ramp up their eBook gift cards after a long time developing and testing. I have a feeling that 2016 will be an interesting year in the digital book world.

Maureen Crisp

@craicer

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons/ DLG Images www.directline.com

Transparency and The Muse

Last week I was writing my blog from my writing retreat where I wrestled with The Muse... the Manuscript and the madness of Editing while writing while analysing three books. Next time I will schedule my time better...  (cue manic laughter.)

This week back inside the madness of school holidays, I’ve finally wrestled the computer out of the kids hands and can concentrate on getting back up to speed with what is happening in the publishing world.

Today Harper Lee broke some records on First Day sales of a book. Her sequel, Go Set A Watchman which was really her first book which was then rewritten to be How To Kill A Mockingbird has got writers thinking about their own literary estates... should bad first books see the light of day even when you are famous... publishers just after the money... or this great post from Stephen Pressfield on the amazingness of Lee’s editor and Lee herself that she could flip this book on its head and write HTKAM from it.

Writers are beginning to report on what hit (if any) they are taking with the Amazon pay per page read.  Molly Greene talks about her stats and what has changed. It is a great service to the writing community to show the money side of your business... and I appreciate the willingness of authors who do this. We all learn and it contributes to understanding and the need for the industry to be transparent....

Which leads to a timely and thoughtfilled post from Kristine Rusch on Transparency and the battles on the horizon. Take the time to read this. She covers the Authors Guild call for the DOJ to investigate Amazon (again????) understanding the writing business and how the music industry battles are preparing the way ahead of us...

This week, The Bookseller’s weekly chat looked at the reports from UK and US that author incomes are falling and the calls for fairer author contracts. One traditional publisher has moved to ebook royalties of 50% and 5 year contracts... is this a sniff of change?

Last week, The Bookseller was looking at why you should charge schools for author visits... something that has been exercising the thoughts of children’s writers here in NZ.

The Guardian thinks the pseudonyms are on their way out... we should be able to stand or fall with our own names. I find myself automatically thinking that initials mean a female author.

Paul Dale Anderson explores how you can tell what sort of writer you are... kinesthetic... audio…etc  and how you can use these traits to make yourself a better writer...which leads right into Joanna Penn’s great post on writing habits and productivity...

Book Riot has written a great blog post on the overuse and abuse of The Love Triangle. This device seems to be exclusive to the Young Adult market. Book Riot calls it out as sloppy unrealistic plotting (the teen in this house was agreeing... Not Real Life)

And so to Criticism - should you read those 1star reviews?  Catherine McKenzie has written an interesting post for Writer Unboxed on why you should.

In the Craft Section,

How to create a convincing good guy- A J Humpage

The power of what is left unsaid in dialogue- Janice Hardy

7 tips for balancing backstory- Shannon Donnelly (Bookmark)

Edits vs Revisions – one on one death- Janice Hardy

How to write the passage of time.-  A J Humpage

In the Marketing Section,

Nine things authors should be doing on Twitter

Joanna Penn on Sampling and how it sells books

Publishing Perspectives on Contracts and how you should compare them (From UK Soc of Authors)

Website of the Week

Digital Book World is a website that looks at the big picture of digital publishing. Authors often forget that Digital Publishing covers the whole spectrum of words online. This week DBW have been running a series on the future of publishing. Yes it is aimed at publishers but authors should run their eyes over these sorts of articles to keep themselves informed of what might be coming up behind them.

To Finish,

Chuck Wendig has written a neat post on writing and the power of failure... and there are no warnings on this... just great advice.

And Maggie Stiefvater echoes this with a punchy talk about how much you should want to write.

maureen

@craicer

Hugh and Cry Revolt

Last week, buried in the middle of my blog post were these lines.

Yesterday Icelandic author Baldur Bjarnason wrote a great piece on ethics in publishing. This is a great observation on what a lot of commentators are seeing as the great divide between the two different publishing communities.

Hands up those people who can tell me what the two communities are....hmmmm.

Today, in a breaking news bombshell, those communities just got wider with a new website launched and funded by Hugh Howey looking specifically at crunching the data on publishing stats and earnings for Self Publishing and Hybrid authors. 

For those of you who don’t understand what this means...

If you have a Traditional publishing contract. Your book gets published...you may get an advance. You may get up to 10% net of print price or up to 25% ebook price. You may get a quarterly statement on how sales are going but no other information. The marketing window for your book is usually 6 months...that’s 2 months before publication and 4 months after. After that the publisher is onto the next book and any blip in sales comes from author promotion. In the fine print of your book contract there may be a non-compete clause, you can’t publish with anyone else or anything else except the publisher. Your rights may be held in perpetuity (US law is the lifetime of the author plus 70 years) with no rights reversal clauses.

If you choose to self publish you may get up to 70% of ebook price with Amazon and whatever you set the profit of the book, after your costs have been taken out, on print. You do all the marketing work for as long as you want to.

In both models the author doesn’t really know what they are doing right or wrong with marketing. Data on what works and how different publishing models are successful is very thin on the ground.

From time to time surveys come out with data that says how well self publishing is doing against traditional publishing. I have linked to a few over the last few years in my blog. 

The ebook market where most authors self publish has been on the up. 

Today Hugh Howey’s report was released looking at raw data that crunched the numbers of the biggest selling genres (romance, sci-fi/fantasy and thriller/suspense) on Amazon on one day. 92% of the top 100 genre bestsellers were ebooks. Indie authors were outselling Traditional Big 5 authors in these categories. 

There are many bombs in this report. Porter Anderson does a good job of looking at them and extrapolating ideas but you should read the report for yourself. Hugh is the leading voice in the Indie author community at the moment. He is advocating a change to fairer contracts for authors and a partnership model with publishers. Below is his mission statement for the AuthorEarnings website.

Welcome to AuthorEarnings, where our purpose is to gather and share information so that writers can make informed decisions. Our secondary mission is to call for change within the publishing community for better pay and fairer terms in all contracts. This is a website by authors and for authors.

Two weeks ago he made it very clear just exactly what he thinks author contracts should consist of and what he thinks author societies should be advocating.

So after a few hours digesting The Report, Digital BookWorld weighed in with their analysis and they took issue with the one day data and the extrapolation thereof... however they also agreed that there was something rotten in the state of ....

Now Hugh is the first to say that this is one day...on Amazon... in January... and he is keen to have that dialogue from other authors on their experiences (see the website for ways to contribute to the discussion.) Steve Moseby takes up the challenge, he looks at the figures from The Report and wonders whether they are true based on his UK print figures and annual income after only one days data.

In Other News

Passive Guy sends out a warning over a contractual clause where any future law changes in any territory in the world will be the problem of the author. This, after an author was accused of blasphemy, following the passing of a law in India after her book was published. It all hinges on the word ‘will.’ He follows that up with another post on contracts. (As he is a lawyer he doth know what he speaks of.)

Cassandra Clare is tired of the constant carping of some who keep asking why she is still writing her book series ... she notes that male authors don’t get asked this. A thoughtful restrained response from a YA author.

In the Craft Section,

LiveWriteThrive on compelling novels centering on the goalof the protagonist.

Victoria Mixon on 3 tricks to increase tension.

How many characters should a book have?

What is more important Plot or Character Development?

KillZone Authors on pumping up your creativity.

5 big screenwriting mistakes and 5 fixes...(this is a bookmark post!)

How to organise writing ideas.

In the Marketing Section,

Jami Gold - A newbies guide to self publishing.

Goodreads strategies to increase sales.

K M Weiland - Story Cartel...how she got 50 + positive reviews (great review site)

Joanna Penn- On creating stronger bonds with readers.

Julie Musil - On connecting charities with books...this is a great post!

CreativeIndie on 300 cool fonts to use on book covers.

To Finish,

Hugh Howey again... He responds to a writer who has decided not to be tainted with self publishing because the goal is to emulate his heroes and publish the same way. A very interesting read and response by Hugh.

maureen

 Pic is from Passive Voices new range of tee shirts...check them out and chuckle... and maybe buy one or two.

Online Identity

The debate this week on the blogosphere is Author Websites.

They take too much time.

The authors should spend their time writing not on social media.

Most author websites are outdated...never updated and boring.

VS

Engaging websites connect readers with the author.

Connected readers are your marketing team.

In this modern age you need to be searchable as an author and have an online home.

So many opinions on this one...

Digital Book World was hosting a conference this week where this was discussed and the pro’s and con’s debated thick and fast... Here is their very detailed breakdown of the discussion.

Jane Friedman then picked up the baton and added her considerable intellectual weight to the discussion in her blog.

My two cents worth.... Time and again I have seen comments by editors and agents that if they really like the MS and they don’t know the author personally they google their name. This means that you should give them something to find...that you control. If it is your website...showcasing your style... Great.

Readers wanting to find out more about you and your books should be able to... and wouldn’t it be great if they could go on and buy your book! Check out Darcy Pattison’s article on the Codex survey about what readers want on an Author Website.

Joanna Penn source of amazing writing and marketing information for authors often interviews leaders in this field. Here she is, talking with Dan Blank on Combating Platform Fatigue...It is an hour long video blog so clear the decks for this one.

In Craft,

6 ways not to start your novel

Kidlit.com looks at building your book lexicon

Top 5 reasons to write New Adult

An easy technique to make your writing more immediate and effective

In Marketing,

PublishingGuru -  Twitter for authors

Training Authors – are you losing customers over this common problem

Your Writer Platform – defeat obscurity tips

Gordon Burdett on a handy tip for titles

Website to check out: The Insecure Writers Support Group.They have put together a great site chock full of info.

On Twitter today...The coolest writer in residence programme ever... Go enter!

To Finish,

Susan Kaye Quinn has been blogging her book over the last couple of months. It is a how to book on self publishing...I have been referencing Susan for a few years now and she is a great source of knowledge and inspiration. This chapter looks at Booksellers and Susan details her bookstoreof the future... If they were like this you wouldn’t get me out of them. (hmm it's difficult now....)

This is timely as Booksellers conferences are all over the place... everybody trying to find the solution to keep them going...which we all need when so far this week, in our small country, 3 independents have gone out of business.

If we end up only being able to sell online we will need our websites more than ever...

maureen

Pic from Flickr/Creative Commons/ SEOplanter