This week people in the publishing world were trying to make
sense of different reports and breathing deeply. Roz Morris wrote a heart felt plea on self publishing and how hard it is... especially if you are writing
literary fiction. Many writers commented and bared their souls over the
dropping pay rates and sales. Their comments are interesting and enlightening.
Porter Anderson then picked up the baton and examined the
general tone of despair in his column for Writer Unboxed, Looking For Truth In A Time Of Hype. We are so used to sounding chipper about our sales and our
writing when in private we are holding our heads and wailing 'is it just me….' This is a great post with very insightful comments.
This week Hugh Howey and Data Guy tried to raise author
spirits by publishing the next Author Earnings snapshot. Amazon Imprints have
doubled their sales and Trad publishers have taken a dive. Are the Trad doom
and gloom forecasts really indicative of the publishing world reality? (Hugh
Howey investigated and found out differently.)
Porter still very much wondering about hype took the boys to
task and pointed out that there were other very interesting gems to come out of the Author Earnings report that they hadn’t reported on. (Read them both.)
Rachelle Gardner wrote an article on Negativity. The single
worst thing an author can do for their career. So if you complain make sure
it’s in private... to trusted friends... in a dark room with hoods, passwords
and false names.
Today Nielson had their one day kids book summit. Twitter
raged when marketers on a panel started speculating that YA needed to be
rebranded as 80% of its readers were adults. It was not a pretty sight. But
there were other interesting take aways from the day so check out the Twitter stream.
Justine Larbalesteir wrote a wonderful piece comparing YA published today with that published 30 years ago. If Flowers In The Attic were
published now it would probably be YA...
In The Craft Section,
Jane Friedman on The Novel Synopsis (Bookmark)
Janice Hardy on First pass editing
Kate Tilton - Villains are the real stars (Bookmark)
The rule of 3 –Copyblogger
Writer’s essential tools (I’ve reference quite a few on this
blog)
In The Marketing Section,
How to use Facebook ads to sell books- (Bookmark)
Joanna Penn talking with Mark Coker on the Indie state of play now (Porter references this podcast in his Looking for Truth post)
Anne R Allen on group think red flags in critique groups (Bookmark)
Molly Greene on Book Reviews and Boxed sets and Book Promotions that work.
Website Of The Week
Last week I brought you a review of Angela Ackerman and
Becca Puglisi’s new project. This week Angela shows off some screen captures of the Very Classy software. One Stop
Shop for Authors....
To Finish,
Pick yourself up... dust yourself off ... Put on that
cheerful face and go back out to fight the publishing world again.
Betty Kelly Sargent talks about why writers need a support group and where to find them.
Writers and Wellness has ten tools to keep you out of the doctor’s office.
It’s three weeks until the Tinderbox Conference... There
seems to be piles of little details to sort out (how much chocolate is too much
chocolate... is there a sale on hair dye?) However I’m looking forward to meeting
up with the wider writer support network, making new friends and learning new
and exciting stuff. It's all positive!
Pic from Flickr Creative Commons - www.worldislandinfo.com