We are halfway into 2021 and I feel that I have been writing every week on the rise of entertainment subscription companies.
This week Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard, reported on yet another new kid on the block BookBeat which is quietly gathering steam in the Nordic countries and will probably try to break out soon. Another subscription reading/ listening service, are we going to see subscription wars soon for our reading dollars?
Mark also reported on Wattpad’s new merged Webtoon entity- which is making bold claims to knock down every border in entertainment.
Publishers Weekly reported in-depth on a webinar from NPD, a data and trend company. They have been analysing publishing over the last couple of years and have made some startling conclusions. Manga has gone from niche to mainstream in record time. They report that licensing is huge in children’s books- And it is all about backlist. This is driven by Booktok influencers in children’s books. It’s a fascinating read.
Mike Shatzkin, a long time publishing commentator writes about the third disruption to hit publishing since the 1990’s – The growth of Print On Demand and the rise of Ingram in this space. When Traditional Publishing takes notice after Indies have been in this space for years, is that mainstream?
Ebooks are mainstream technology but did you know they are 50 years old? Yes I was surprised too. Here is a handy infographic showing their history.
Meanwhile staying right in the present, Brad Frazer writes on Jane Friedman’s blog about the copyright headaches being caused by NFT’s. (I wrote about them two weeks ago.) I think this technology is still in its infancy and we will be seeing teething problems for a while.
Kindle Vella is still in the news around author groups. They have been tweaking their requirements before the big rollout. You can now publish your serial as a book. There are some strings and you have to be in the US.
Kristine Rusch has another great post in her Fear Based decision making series for authors. How much is your writing being affected by your fear? Are you afraid to push the envelope in your story?
My First Writing Craft book was How To Tell A Story by Gary Provost and Peter Rubie. Gary’s descriptive sentence for explaining the dramatic arc in the story is a classic. Recently Sue Coletta examined the sentence again and Gary’s Buts- How you can test a story idea. This has Must Read written all over it.
In The Craft Section,
8 tips to writing unreliable narrators- Deb Caletti
Character types – orphan- Scott Myers
Understanding the mirror moment- September Fawkes-
Bookmark
How to show your protagonist is stressed- Kathrine Grubb- Bookmark
3 mistakes writers make in act 1- Jeanne Bowerman- Bookmark
In The Marketing Section,
5 Twitter tips for marketing books- Newsbreak
What happens when you find a typo- Sandra Beckwith
Unique marketing ideas for July- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark
Social media tips for book marketing- Penny Sansevieri
Reader magnets for Indie Authors – Alliance of Independent Authors- Bookmark
To Finish,
Ruth Harris writes about writing superstars and how we are just like them. They started from nothing, just like us. So, what was their secret? They were everyday stars like us.
They showed up, they wrote in the teeth of rejection. It is that simple and that hard.
Another great post from Ruth.
Maureen
@craicer
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