Choosing Your Words

 

In Publishing News this week

 

It’s Banned Book week in the US and there are many different ways authors and publishers are drawing attention to the rise of challenged books in school sysyems. For the second year Penguin Random House are touring states with their Banned Book Wagon handing out banned books everywhere. Publishing Perspectives has a great article on what they are doing including the whopping number of books they are donating.

 

Following the bankruptcy of United Book Distributors a few months ago in the UK, the ripples are being felt throughout the UK book community reports Publishers Weekly. Verso publishers are running a Kickstarter campaign just to get their books from the distributor warehouse to another distributor. With 1 million pounds owed in book sales they are very pessimistic about receiving any money back.

 

Publishers Weekly also reports on the latest statistics on the publishing industry. Over the last 30 years, jobs in the industry have declined by 40%. Where have they gone asks Publishers Weekly. Amalgamations, bankruptcies, declining reading populations, digital publishing, rising printing costs… take your pick.

Bucking the trend is Poland who have reported rising demand for books. What are they doing right? 

 

The publishing industry in the US is crossing their fingers that TikTok lives past the US ban in some form or other… or rather Booktok. Super book girl Sam Missingham has put together a new platform connecting Booktok influencers with publishers. Dan Holloway has all the details. 

 

Recently Draft2Digital ran a survey asking authors how much they used AI tools and for what parts of their writing and editing. One of the survey questions asked whether authors would license their work to AI companies. I was surprised at the results.

 

Anne Handley has an interesting blog post on How To Write Like Robots Can’t, it’s all in the little details, like metaphor and word play. 

 

Chloe Gong was interviewed by Elle magazine on what it was like be an author online. Booktok influences had a hand in turning Chloe into a phenomenon but it’s not all Booktok. Chloe sees being online differently. Her books are great too- Shakespeare stories set in 1920’s China- addictive reading according to the teen in our house. 

 

Joanna Penn has a great interview with Mark Leslie Lefebvre on selling books at live events. He has some nifty tricks up his sleeve. Check out the podcast /transcript.

 

Kelley Way looks at the five most important clauses in a publishing contract. This is a must read for anyone who has or wants a publishing contract. Inside the very fine print after how much money you might get is some important information that often gets overlooked.

 

If you had to start your publishing career all over again, what would you do? Recently Craig Boyack published an article on what he has been doing starting a new genre and pen name. Everything completely different to what he wrote before. Interesting insights into what is useful now for starting up a new brand.

 

Russel Nohelty has an interesting article on How to Market Myself without Feeling Gross About It. This is a topic that every author struggles with. A great read.

 

Cynthia Swanson writes about how she went from debut New York Times bestseller to Publishing her 3^rd novel herself. There is a name for this, Orphaned Sequel Syndrome. When the career you thought you were going to have gets cut short and what you can do about it. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Layering your romance scenes- C S Lakin

5 pitfalls to avoid with protagonists- Savannah Cordova- Bookmark

Vulnerability not likeability is the key- Susan De Freitas- Bookmark

Why you lose motivation- Suzanne Lieurance

Story Structure the 3^rd act- K M Weiland- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

7 secrets to make your Manuscript stand out- Top Author

Social Media for authors-Evergreen authors- Bookmark

7 simple steps to build your brand- Draft2Digital

Creative reader magnets – Bang2Write- Bookmark

3 things you can do to get amazing blurbs- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

Sometimes events get up your nose and you find yourself on a rant. But should you write about it? James Scott Bell has an interesting blog post on writing while you are angry. Does the writing calm you down or rev you up even more? James has some great tips for when you are just burning to say something and putting it in a novel feels like a good idea.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic Photo by Johnson Wang on Unsplash

Writing Good Stuff

 

 

In Publishing News This Week,

 

This week Publishers Weekly reported on the state of publishing in 2023 now that the numbers are in. The sales figures were slightly up on last year but only because of a strong showing in religious books. The other numbers were down slightly. Life is good if you are a theological university publisher. 

 

Publishing Perspectives looks at the 2023 Canadian book buying trends showing a snapshot of key buying trends. Are book buyers buying from physical stores or online? Are they embracing digital or print only? Are Canadian buying habits reflected around the world?

 

Mark Williams reports that on the other side of the world, Thailand is about to have its first rights fair. Publishing is a global business and often people forget that Asia and the Middle East have over half the world’s population. The western centric book fairs don’t reflect this huge demographic and a lot of them want English language books. Are publishers missing a market here?

 

Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware has a list of the agents, editors and publishers who are being impersonated at the moment. This kind of scam is on the rise so if you get a nibble from someone check out if its legit before celebrating.

 

The writing business can be a lonely one. Where would we be without our writer friends. If you are new or trying to figure out how to find your literary community read this great guest article on Jane Friedman’s blog from Star Wuerdemann.

 

Joanna Penn interviewed Matthew Holmes this week on how to advertise on Meta. (Facebook) Matthew shares what is working now and tips on Going Direct. 

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors had a well-attended panel event at the London Book Fair on the future of publishing and it was filmed. Check out the video if you want a little slice of bookfair hustle along with some great commentary.

 

Writer Unboxed has their craft guru Ray Rhamey examining first pages and wondering if they would be an instant buy. 

 

Suzanne Lakin has a great writing craft blog. Her latest excellent post,  How can you get a character to self describe themselves without it sounding like a shopping list. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Why rough drafts should never be perfect- E S Foster

How to build powerful character relationships- Angela Ackerman

Best books for editors- Bookmark

Using beat sheets for memoir- Lisa Cooper Ellison -Bookmark

9 types of personalities writers can use for characters- Ken Miyamoto- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

How to promote a self published book- Derek Haines

Indie book marketing plan- PublishDrive

Tips for growing a worldwide audience- Mark Lefebvre- Bookmark

8 best book marketing strategies- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Visual Branding- James Scott Bell - Bookmark

 

To Finish

 

Give a writer a long weekend and they will invariably be thinking about their Work In Progress and how to carve some time to work on the craft of writing. The letters W.I.P. act just like the homonym to lash the back of the writer. Get some proper words down! (All that is missing is the H word.) James Scott Bell is a great writing craft teacher. In this article he takes a first page and edits it explaining what he is doing. This may be the Help you need to get stuck into your own craft learning.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

pic Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Out There Doing The Business

 

 

In Publishing News This Week,

 

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair is on this week and the hot topic this year is AI and children’s books. Porter Anderson has a great overview of the various keynotes around this topic. He nails the constant chatter around AI as a chicken little syndrome. Remember when everyone thought publishing was doomed with Virtual Reality, enhanced eBooks and Kindle?

 

Penguin Random House is re-organising. This is a little shakeup which sees imprints spun off or repurposed and staff moving all over the place. Publishers Weekly has the details.

 

Bookshop.org picked up steam during the Covid lockdowns by providing a place where bookshops could link in their shops and sell books online. They started offering eBooks last week. Now they are offering print books and beginning to publish. It all feels like the early days of Amazon.

 

Meanwhile, Small Press Distributors a 50 year old distributor specializing in Indie Publishers has inked a deal with Ingram and will be offering their 400 clients Print On Demand, warehousing, and international printing. However, they need some money to transition all their warehouses to Ingram so they have a Go Fund Me campaign running.

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors is running an author income survey. If you spent 50% of your time writing and publishing they want to hear from you. Apparently, the data so far is amazing. You only have a few days to participate. 

 

Mark Leslie Lefebvre has a great post on the Insights blog 10 tips for growing a global audience of readers. I’ve had this open on my computer for a few days as I mull over the excellent tips in here. 

 

Book Riot has collected what they think are the 25 iconic covers of all time. Do You Agree?

 

Ruth Harris has an interesting post on charisma and how too much could be psychopathic. Are you writing a psychopathic hero?

 

Victoria Strauss has a great article on Writer Unboxed about red flags in contracts. Do you know how to spot one? Where to look? The cluses that are most problematic. She shows examples of real contracts that she has seen. Ouch!

 

Grace Bialecki has an interesting post on the Acknowledgments page. How often do you look at it? It is actually full of great information… from editors who worked on the book and agents that repped it to writing awards and residences you might not have heard off. Grace shows how to put this information to good use. 

 

Kris Rusch has a super post on AI Audio and what she is finding out as she delves into whether AI Audio is worth pursuing. It is all about formats. Audio is expanding so much it will soon look like print.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when you say you are a writer someone will always reply, I’ve always wanted to write a book. Angela Ackerman has a great post that you can share around – 13 Tips On How To Write A Book From Start to Finish.

 

In The Craft Section,

A great article on reader anticipation- Donald Maass

How to edit- StoryGrid- BOOKMARK

Tips on How to write a mystery-K M Weiland

The 5 turning points of the character arc- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

How to amp up your conflict- Angela Ackerman

 

In The Marketing Section,

A step by step guide to using Booktok

Bad book marketing advice- Shayla Raquel

2 Great posts from Penny Sansevieri-

The definitive guide to creating a reader magnet and 

How to get more Goodreads reviews- Bookmark both

Bookfunnels explained- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

The Guardian has an article on the rise of older female writers with recent hits by debut authors over 70. And the authors are not writing cozy stories. They are edgy and angry. There are some great quotes in this article. More power to them I say.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here.

This blog is fueled by coffee. If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate all virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic:  Brooke Lark on Unsplash

 

Can You Hear The Rising Voices?

 

 

In publishing news this week,

NBC News published an opinion piece on the conflicts in publishing coming from the staff of publishing houses challenging the books that their publishing houses are publishing. In this week's challenge- It’s Mike Pence’s memoir. There have been rumblings around publishing Twitter on whether some books should be published, citing free speech and a balanced viewpoint against books that should never have been picked up because of their subject matter and/or author. (See last weeks blog) Are the publishing house’s only doing it for a quick buck to finance other books in the production list?

 

A task force of authors has come together to highlight the Disney-Must-Pay campaign. This campaign is gathering momentum. After all if the boot was on the other foot and people were using Disney’s exclusive content for their own gain – Their lawyers would be all over it.

 

Two interesting articles caught my eye this week from Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard. Wattpad has paid out over one million dollars to writers in their subscription model. Apple is moving into podcasts with a subscription model. Are subscription models really worth it to writers or are we stuck with the new payment model for entertainment? Will we be seeing subscription wars soon between the big digital players?

 

Horrified magazine-(Guess the genre) have an interesting article on the revolution happening in their genre – The female experience of fear. Bram Stoker nominee Gemma Amor writes about the rising number of women writing in the genre.

 

Bookriot has an interesting article on disability in children’s books. How often do disabled children see themselves in a book in a positive way? How many books do you know where the protagonist wears glasses? Such a little thing but a huge deal to a child who doesn’t see themselves in a book. I remember my child running up to me clutching a book saying, ‘Look the boy has glasses just like me!’

 

Joanna Penn recently interviewed Mark Leslei Lefebvre on his new book Wide For The Win.

This is a great book on publishing wide – across all marketplaces, not just Amazon. The Title comes from the great Facebook group Wide for the Win which is full of authors who are working out how to market across all platforms. I have the book and I’m in the group. I recommend listening to/ reading this great interview.

 

Ruth Harris has a great blog post on the eight stages in the life cycle of a writer. This is a read and share post. Every writer will relate to the life cycle… and then we do it all again.

 

It’s the last week of April and that means a third of the year has gone. If you are still trying to make sense of this year and marketing books, take a look at Bookbub’s comprehensive list of ways to market in 2021.

 

A lot of the time I have, hopefully, inspiring blogs and links for you to think about to help you in your writing. Today I came across the anti-post. What writing advice do you love to hate?

 

In the Craft Section,

The importance of subplots- Scott Myers- Bookmark

How Can I have a Jerk Love interest- Mythcrants

Writing an audio first novel- Sophie Masson

Archetypes – The Negative King- K M Weiland – Bookmark

10 ways to write better plots- Now Novel- Bookmark

Debunking 6 myths on Steadfast flat characters- September Fawkes- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

How to create a YouTube channel- Hootsuite- Bookmark

30 days of Social Media content Infographic- Barb Drozdowich

Instagram Book marketing ideas- Bookbub- Bookmark

How to write a book title- Written Word Media-

Author Branding- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

Nalini Singh is a publishing superstar who writes in the paranormal genre. Recently, she was interviewed by Mitzi Rapkin from First Draft Podcast. Nalini talks about the unnecessary divide between Literary and Genre fiction.

Literary Fiction is just another genre, in my opinion. 

What do you say?

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

My monthly newsletter full of the best of my bookmarked links will be going out soon. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed with marketing notes as a thank you. 

If you like the blog and want to shout me a blog birthday coffee, hit the coffee button up top. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons- Kimba Howard 141119