Acquisitions Arguments and Awards

This week around the publishing blogosphere...The news that Hachette has acquired the Perseus group is filtering through. Hachette is taking the publishing arm and on-selling the distribution arm to Ingram. Why should you care? Remember the predictions last year about publishers having to get bigger to survive? Hachette gets bigger. Ingram’s gets bigger and knocks out their major competitor along the way. This move has many implications for Indie publishers as Perseus was a main publisher of niche imprints and the main distributor of Indie Publishers. The move has fueled some speculation of what might be coming down the pipeline.... However it is a Sign That The Predictions Are Coming True.

Also in the wider news Amazon is flexing its muscles in the UK and Europe. Amazon is pressing for new terms with publishers some of which include that publishers cannot undersell Amazon even on their own websites and that Amazon is to provide a POD book for every print title currently out of print. There is a nice little phrase, (Most Favoured Nation) being bandied about.

The Carnegie Medal has been awarded. It is one of the top prizes in Children’s Literature... and not everyone is pleased. The book is a Young Adult novel for starters...and it just goes down from there. Kiwi Kids Lit authors will be familiar with this scenario as we watched it unfold last year after our own National Awards.

This years New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards was another celebration of the depth and breadth of children’s writing in this country. The winners were hard to pick from the stellar finalists in each category. Children’s Literature won on the night...with New Zealand Post finishing its 18 year sponsorship in style. Everyone hopes we find another sponsor just as dedicated to celebrating our Children’s Literature awards as NZ Post. (crossed fingers)

In the Craft Section,

Why Backstory is the Spine of your Story... (great article)

What Writers can learn from Jane Eyre

The real meaning of Show, Don’t Tell

When Smart Characters Do Dumb Things.

Get Back To Basics –Janice Hardy

Story Midpoint mirror moment –Angela Ackerman

9 common exposition mistakes

In the Marketing Section,

The best TED talks on Marketing...This is a great collection and worth bookmarking.

Query letter pet peeves from Agents

Public speaking for introverts.(video from Joanna Penn)

Who is your distributor?

Creating a Business Philosophy -Elisabeth S Craig

To Finish,

Writers are bibliophiles. Huffington Post has a collection of things YA Readers say about reading… but really these could all come out of writers mouths.

maureen

pic: The Margaret Mahy Book Of The Year 2014 awarded this week to Vasant Unka. (Penguin NZ)

Discovery

This week the rumours were confirmed that the sponsors of the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards, our national book awards are finishing after 18 years. 

It is a long time to have such dedicated sponsors for Children’s Books and although we in the New Zealand children’s writing community are very sad that the sponsorship has come to an end we are also very mindful that we have been so lucky to have such a wonderful sponsor promoting and encouraging children’s books. Thank you New Zealand Post for being our champion!

Book Awards and their publicity are an easy way for the general public to find out what is being published every year. NZ Post also sponsored the traveling road show of finalists visiting schools in far flung areas of the country in the lead up to the awards. Schools enjoyed the visits...authors enjoyed the schools... positive publicity all round for literacy. Book discovery did not have to rest on a chance encounter with a book on a back shelf in a small chain store, the harassed book rep at school or book club flyers. We may have to get more creative in our visibility in future.

Barnes and Noble (very big chain store in the US) is having some problems and Agent Rachel Gardner looks at what might happen if they follow Borders into liquidation.... It is not all doom and gloom.

Mark Coker, of Smashwords, shares an interesting publishing project that librarians, teachers and students have been working on with him. The poetry book the students wrote designed and uploaded with Smashwords has become a best seller. Mark would like to encourage other schools to try out this form of publishing with their students.

Jane Friedman was the Keynote Speaker at the Boston Muse and the Marketplace writers event which was held last week. A lot of erudite people came together to look at the changing nature of the marketplace for writers. Jane shares the reactions and expands on her very good keynote address -Be Optimistic About Publishing. Take some time to read this.

Last month I linked to an article about writers and game developers meeting at the London Book Fair. Publishing Perspectives talks to a UK publisher who is exploring this new path of collaboration.

Agent Janet Reid shares a cautionary tale on beta copies... be careful of your friends...

Porter Anderson takes a look at the cost of ISBN’s (they’ve gone up in the US) and why you need them (it’s all about metadata visibility.) Just a reminder if you are a Kiwi author you can get them free from National Library... but you have to lodge copies with them for reference.

In the Craft Section,

5 things Indiana Jones taught me about writing

Getting your manuscript over the finish line

Janice Hardy – on fixing episodic mistakes

Story-a-day – creative writing prompts

Character profile questionnaire and Four Types of Character Flaws 

from the fab team of Ackerman and Puglisi

Agent Donald Mass on Plot vs Heart

Jami Gold - Raising the stakes

  

In Between...

The green eyed conference monster

Virtual writing groups

Attitude is the author secret sauce

Getting the best from your writers retreat

  

In the Marketing Section,

Anatomy of a copyright page

Audiobooks and marketing

Joel has added some more children’s book templates...ahhh

Writing a fiction series...tips for spin offs

Important tips for self publishing success

How to brand yourself without a red hot iron

Marketing - an Author Primer

When the agent rejects a MS (which was subbed for their MSWL) Why?

To Finish,

Interviews with two writers which may be of interest Jo Nesbo who talks about his children’s books...the ones he writes when he is not writing hard boiled detective stories... and Scott Nicholson whom KOBO recently profiled as one of their self publishing success stories.

I have been thinking about Keynote Speakers for our conference next year and the criteria I need to evaluate who would be of most value to the average attendee. (KSWL) On my Wish List. Children’s author... who is doing new and exciting stuff... is available... can inspire and teach across the newbie and professional spectrum... is cheap... (factor in flights to NZ etcetcetc) Or can get up in the middle of the night for Skype.... Susan Kaye Quinn ticks a lot of these boxes. Check out this little webinar… drop me a line and tell me what you think (and she is a rocket scientist... of course that wasn’t a deciding factor…:)

maureen

Pic: Discovery Shuttle

Photo Credit: NASA/GSFC/ Rebecca Roth

Knee Jerks

The New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards are usually news for a few hours in the morning after the award ceremony. The only people who seem to care are Booksellers, Librarians and the Kid Lit community here in NZ. Not So This Year.

This year the Public have been warned that the winner of Book Of The Year and Senior Fiction (that’s Young Adult) is a smutty book with naughty language and deviant drug behaviour not to mention (gasp) the sex.

The media frenzy over a bookseller refusing to stock it, a conservative political party denouncing it, and an editorial in a major Sunday paper declaring it a waste of space is really sad. In the quotes and comments that the journalists chose to focus on, it was clear that the people doing the loudest complaining hadn’t even read the book but picked up that it might be ‘questionable.’

As one children’s writer commented...’have they forgotten that the Children’s Book Awards cover Young Adult fiction and this book is aimed at 15+

Into The River, by Ted Dawe, is a hard hitting book. It is aimed unapologetically at the hardest to reach demographic in our society. It shines a spotlight on something the wider public would rather not acknowledge...the disenfranchisement of young Maori men. 

Bernard Beckett, The chief judge of these awards has finally been asked why it was chosen and he makes a clear case for the importance of this book.

Emma Neale one of the early editors also makes an impassioned plea for the book. They are two who have read it and thought about the issues and so they have some authority to judge. 

Reporting knee-jerk reactionary comments from people who have not read the book is sloppy journalism.

The rest of the Kid Lit community here can’t believe Ted’s luck. All this publicity means the book should be flying out book sellers doors. Add in that it was self published and the world definitely changed in New Zealand’s Publishing landscape last week.

Across the world the rumbling of disquiet over Barnes and Nobles decision to stop making the Nook e-reader had pundits scrambling to explain what it would mean.

Publerati came out to say this is what happened to the photographic industry...and offered advice to Barnes and Noble.

Digital Book World has taken the demise of the Nook and focused on where digital content may be heading...along the way they take a look at the children’s book industry.  

Futurebook looked at the rise and rise of Book Apps and mobile media and wondered why Apple was not connecting the dots on this in their digital publishingmarketplace. 

This all makes interesting reading about publishing futures when you add in Amazon’s latest news the patenting of e-book extras...or enhanced e-books.

In Craft,

Jody Hedlund looks at making swoon worthy heroes.

Writeitsideways has 6 ways to hook readers on the first line.

Shortstorywritinggroup has this week’s story writing exercises

Badlanguage looks at research tips

Chip McGregor checks out whether you should write a series

Are there rules to writing seat of the pants style.

In Marketing,

Joanna Penn has a new marketing book to check out

Kris Rusch talks about word of mouth and how to get it.

Roz Morris investigates changing Book Covers for results

Bestsellerlabs has a look at the marketing maze and how to navigate it.

To Finish,

John Scalzi has laid down the law on his future appearances at Sci Fi Cons. As he is a draw card and attendance at Cons is built into Sci Fi publishing contracts...this is putting a firm stake in the ground on the side of anti harassment of his female colleagues. Of course he is getting dissed for it.

The Bookselfmuse has a great guest post on weathering reviews and taking criticism, something that might come in handy if you’ve had a week like Ted’s.

Hot Button Writing

Just before I took a holiday from the Internet for Easter... the news came in that Amazon was acquiring Goodreads.

In the fast world of Publishing Now, you know the news is big when a week after the announcement the fur... feathers...hair...are still flying around the blogosphere.

Those that hate all things Amazon are cursing. Those that love all things Amazon are trying to be calm....

Hugh Howey jumped first with an interesting blog post, which canny Amazon immediately updated their press release to include. This is a good thing says Howey. He makes a compelling argument for the merger. (Buy Buttons on Goodreads)

 Others are not so sure. 

Amazon, with its review problems, (sock puppetry) became only a buy platform after readers found trustworthy reviews on Goodreads. So will Goodreads recommendations count for anything in the future?

Laura Hazard Owen of Paid Content put some compelling questions to Otis Chandler of Goodreads and Russ Grandinetti of Amazon. First Do No Harm....

If you look at the comments... people are still asking the questions...

Phil Jones from FutureBook wonders whether any of the big 6,5,4, will use Goodreads now?  (Like asking Random Penguin to promote Scholastic.)

AmazonGoodreads will be the hot topic for a while...

Last week I mentioned another hot button topic, which is still simmering away underneath the AmazonGoodreads marriage, Barnes and Noble dropping Simon and Schuster books. S&S weren’t going to pay the new fees B&N wanted from publishers to display their books in stores.

As more information filters out it is becoming clear that B&N changed their pricing to publishers to reflect the fact that they are being seen as a showroom.

Go to B&N. Look at the latest book by your favourite author. Jump onto wifi. Buy it, at a better price, from somewhere else.

This is the reality now...and how do bookstores compete with this?  And what happens to the author whose publisher won’t take part in the game? VQR has a great article on what S&S authors are doing and what authors and publishers should do when they find themselves in the same situation.

In New Zealand the Hot Button topic is who made it onto the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. Who didn’t and should have been. And do we really agree with the Judges comment that there are no feisty girl heroines?

 Neal Pollack was riding a one way trip to Stardom when he got derailed by Hollywood. He talks about reinventing himself using Kindle serials.

In Craft,

Writer Unboxed have posted their 90 writing tools in a single post.

Chuck Sambuchino has a post on 7 tips for adapting your novel into a screenplay.

KillZone 8 ways to edit suspense and pace into your MS. (craftbook in a single post)

In Marketing,

Lindsay Buroker has been a canny marketer in the past on Amazon and as the algorithms change she has changed her marketing plans...to what works now.

To finish,

Following on from the Random House eBook contract debacle of early March, Dean Wesley Smith wrote one of the most definitive posts on rights reversal clauses in publishing contracts that I have seen. This is a must read. The comments are a must read. This post is being shared all around the place.

Writing, Publishing Contracts, Bookstores, Reviews, Marketing, Awards. All Hot Button issues. Wear gloves. Read at your own risk.

maureen

pic from

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthieu-aubry/239197990/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Being a Fan...

Last night I attended the the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. These are our top prizes for Children’s Literature and so are a BIG DEAL.

Today I have been reflecting on the surprises amongst the winners and the Judges comments about choosing books with a distinctly New Zealand flavor. 

For many years we have been looking outward trying to make our stories more international...or even ignoring our own stories thinking they won’t be of interest to an international audience. Publishers have hesitated about promoting New Zealand themed stories overseas...they won’t travel well, they're too kiwi. But these stories are our unique point of difference...amongst the fantasy/dystopian/superhero saturated publishing world and this year the judges decided to remind us of that fact.

Through it all Story is the defining thread...as Jack Lasenby (81), winner of the Young Adult category, said in his acceptance speech ‘Without Story, I Am Nothing.’

Jack’s writing career reflects New Zealands attitude to its own stories. He is a master storyteller deserving of a wide audience. His first novel for children tackled child abuse when no one ever talked about it and 'that is such a grim subject we don't want anyone overseas to know that happens in the land of Godzone'. Jack was known in New Zealand but no publisher took his work overseas...'it was too parochial'. Then he wrote dystopian Young Adult fiction, before it was popular...'great writing, but too dark...it might scare the children.' It won awards. His fun tall tales, for younger children, of life in New Zealand in the 30’s when he was growing up, great writing... won awards...'well the stories are too far removed from current children’s lives...won’t have any relevance to an international audience'. This year Gecko picked up his latest tall tale and took it overseas...and it got favourably reviewed by the Guardian.

Can we get over our cultural cringe and see if the world is ready for some real New Zealand stories. We are the nation of focus for Frankfurt and IBBY so we should start getting behind our great children’s writers.

 What interesting gems are there in my blog link roundup today? 

The importance of story links many of them.

From a cool infographic about how a story is born from Mediabistro to the importance of voice for audiobook narrators, the impressive Cris Dukehart on being a serial killer...and how to get the right narrators for your project from Bob Mayer.

The Book Designer has ten writing exercises to free your mind and K M Weiland talks about flipping genres halfway through the story and how to sort this out.

There is a guest interview featuring Editor Cheryl Klein who talks about the importance of plot and Bubblecow has a nifty piece on getting constructive feedback so you can edit.

The Guardian has an opinion piece on how Fan Fiction of popular stories is driving the new books being picked up and Rachelle Gardner has reprised her post on how to craft Book Proposals so your story can be picked up...

Two feel good stories offer hope out there...How one bookstore owner is taking on Amazon and how a self pubbed author of a popular scifi series got his project picked up in Hollywood.

Selfpublishing should be a marketing tool. This guest post has had lots of comment on Jane Friedmans blog and is a must read for the week along with the Books and Such agents blog on why everybody in publishing feels disenfranchised.

Joanna Penn has helpful hints on a marketing list to get your stories noticed and Catherine Ryan Howard tells you how to get your first readers.

Every link, a nice little story...I leave you with a video from Dan Blank about how the quality of the stories you create should last for generations.

The pic is The New Zealand Post Children's Book Award supreme winner...a distinctly New Zealand Non Fiction Story...which just happens to be a graphic novel!

maureen

Rockstars and Writers

Last night I sat glued to my cell phone and the computer and vicariously shared in the excitement of attending the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.

Melinda Szymanik, who blogged about being in the room so eloquently today, was my secret weapon. 

Melinda texted me the winners and Johanna Knox and I got them onto our WCBA blog in close to real time. As each text from Melinda came in I cheered the winners. 

The text announcing Fleur Beale’s win had me jumping up and down with excitement.

Fleur is the great heroine of Children’s Writing in New Zealand. Since 2005 she has been a finalist every year. Her work has consistently made the top five in all the big awards for children’s writing here in NZ but she has never won until Last Night!

Absolutely Well Deserved – A Long Time Coming and Oh So Sweet! Congratulations Fleur!

So what do I have for you this week...

Gabriela Pereira has blogged beautifully about why writers need writer friends...and for me Fleur has been every one of the main points listed here.

Business Insider has a great post about the four hour work day...and I know that Fleur in her new writing studio does this which is why she is a winner...

YA Highway has a great reference post about the differences between MG and YA . Fleur writes both and she is very good at both...

Around about now Fleur is probably reaching for a stick to beat me over the head so I’ll stop....

(Gotcha, Fleur xx).

Seth Godin  and Michael Stackpole have been busy rattling cages this week.

Seth has written an interesting and very thought provoking post on the future of libraries. I’ve passed it on to my librarian friends and hopefully they are still speaking to me. What do you think the library of the future will look like...I think there are some positives here for librarians....

Michael Stackpole has a post looking at House Slaves vs Spartacus....This is an examination of writers who are traditionally published and Independently published. Michael is in both camps but which one is better...?

If you are looking at epublishing here is a nifty roundup of the best conversion tools around.

If you like contests this one is a doozy.

The wonderful PJ Hoover has a great contest happening on her blog to celebrate the ebook launch of Solstice. 

I referred you to P J Hoover last week when I mentioned that P J’s Agent was bringing out Solstice and she was being interviewed on The Spectacle blog about this new move in publishing. P J has a 20 book giveaway happening...Go and Check It Out!

Janice Hardy has written a wonderful clear description of the difference between Show and Tell. This is one of those posts you bookmark and refer to again and again.

Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on

Children’s Writing and Cross Promotion

Boys Don’t Read -Except They Do

Why Writers Drink (warning content, hic)

To Finish,

Kristen Lamb has a great post on why Rock Stars and Writers are the same- Yes we really do work!

Access your inner rock star, people!

For all the finalists at the NZ Post Children’s Book Awards and for all those cheering them on...

The pen is mightier than the sword...

and The Solstice ebook trailer By P J Hoover



Enjoy,


maureen

Pic is the cover of Fierce September by Fleur Beale. NZ Post Children’s Book Awards -Young Adult Winner 2011.

Standing on shaky ground....

Tuesday started off with excitement in the New Zealand children’s writing community and then the day turned into horror.

At 6am the finalists in the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards were announced. These awards are keenly followed by the community. There were familiar names and quite a few new names which is wonderful for showcasing the depth and quality of our children’s writers. Of course there were big surprises that established previous award winner’s latest books weren’t in the shortlist but that is the nature of awards.

The excitement and the hope that National Media might notice the Awards this year faded quickly as the news that a major earthquake aftershock hit Christchurch at 12:51pm (the middle of a busy day) came through. 

Christchurch is one of our biggest cities, situated in the South Island, it is very historic and often packed with tourists as it is the main gateway to the alps, glaciers, and our biggest scenic tourist attractions.

As the afternoon progressed and the scale of the destruction was understood, the country stopped.

We are now in a National State of Emergency with over 98 confirmed dead and the toll is rising. We have over 200 people missing. As I commented in my November blog post, New Zealand is small and there are only 3 degree’s of separation here.

People are desperate for news of friends and family in Christchurch including the New Zealand Children’s Writing community. Some of our most prominent writers and illustrators are based in Christchurch including finalists in this year’s New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. In a week when the New Zealand children’s writing community should be celebrating, we are sad and anxious for our colleagues, friends and fellow kiwis.

Life in the rest of the country goes on but with a sense of the surreal...the picture postcard perfection of one of our most scenic cities in ruins.

Our most famous Christchurch landmark last week and this week.

So a shorter list of links to look at this week.

In the blogosphere the 2010 Cybills were announced.  This is an award for children’s books nominated by anyone but judged by bloggers in the Children’s Literature community.

Bob Mayer has a great post on the seven keys to unforgettable characters, this is part of his return to the basics series.

Bubblecow has a good post on finding the essence of your book. If you are looking for how to write tag lines or elevator lines this is a good resource.

The Great Jane Friedman has an interesting post on commenting on blogs...so if you have always wondered whether you should and what you could say...Jane has the answer for you.

Over on Craicerplus I have links to articles on

Offering Value For Book Buyers and Bookstores

Indie Publishing- the Problems With Book Distribution (became an ‘Aha- now I understand’ post on 

facebook this week 

How To Make A Quick Video For The Internet

Maureen

Pic Catholic Cathedral Christchurch

In the video, South Island landscape and the Canterbury plain not far from Christchurch, famous courtesy of Lord Of The Rings

Number 100

It’s that time of the year again when the great and the good gather together to witness the awarding of the ultimate prizes in Children’s Literature in New Zealand. Last night they gathered in Auckland for the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards 2010.

The annoying thing about the awards is that they can’t give great cash prizes to all the finalists...because they were all so good.

Every year Children’s Choice seems to up its profile and that is as it should be because we write for the children.

This year the Children’s Choice overall  winner was Wonky Donkey  By Craig Smith Illustrated by Katz Cowley

The winner of Children’s Choice Young Adult was Brainjack By Brian Falkner

The winner of Children’s Choice Junior Fiction was Friends By Joy Cowley Illustrated by Gavin Bishop

The winner of Children’s Choice Non Fiction  was Dear Alison edited by Simon Pollard.

As an interesting side note none of these books took out the top prize in their respective category.

Melinda has a great run down of the winners so you can jump over to her blog to satisfy your curiosity.

Thanks to the power of text and friends I was kept up to date as the awards were announced in Auckland and due to the power of email and friends the results were soon posted up on The Wellington Children’s Book Association website...almost in real time!!!

A nice golden glow was provided by Mandy Hager, her book ‘The Crossing’ was launched at Spinning Gold last Year and who won the Young Adult category.

As I have said before we must celebrate the brilliance, not only of the winners, but of the finalists because it was a truly hard task to separate them out.

I have been thinking lately that it is about time New Zealand woke up to the fact that we have world class GENRE writers  in this country  who quietly get on and do the business and never get acknowledged by the literati or CNZ....This would be a great profile push for New Zealand Book Month. 

Who are our unsung heroes in GENRE FICTION in this country? 

A good pointer to the answer can be found in the nominations for The Julius Vogel Awards for New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Nalini Singh has two novels and a novella entered...She is a New York Times Bestselling Author and Yes she is one of our top Romance authors. If you look down the Julius Vogel list you will see familiar names from the New Zealand Post Children’s Book finalists this year.

OK rant over (...well muted)

In other news... recently Booktalks was launched. This lovely initiative was sparked and germinated at the Spinning Gold Conference last year. The website, where Schools, Authors and Illustrators can hookup through Skype is up and running. New Zealand yet again is among the leaders in using this technology. This week I came across a great little blog Picturebook Junkies (five PB authors) extolling the virtues of Authors skyping into schools in the US and thought yep we’re doing it... only we are more organised.

Nathan Bransford has a great little poll on his blog at the moment - Which fictional land would you like to live in? No prizes for guessing  the most popular...although quite a few authors were extolling the virtues of their own created fictional worlds...heeheehee....

On Craicerplus (my Amplify page) I have links to articles on

Defending Teen Fiction

The Big Digital Issues in 2011

Humanoid Robot in Space...Go R2 (a nod to my geek side)

The Children’s Lit Conference programme...ax murderers, sexism, Pulman and fairytale fallout (this one has generated a few comments on Facebook)

The pic is The New Zealand Post Children’s Book of The Year 2010 Old Hu Hu. Congratulations Kyle Mewburn and Rachel Driscoll.

I can't think of a better pic to celebrate my 100th Blog Post.

maureen


So which fictional land would you like to live in? If you said Middle Earth we'll make room for you in Central Otago where Kyle lives....

Awards... Lets Amplify...OK?

Awards...who needs ‘em....

Um, well lots of us do... so we know what to read...or who to envy...who to celebrate with....

As I have said before, we need to do more celebrating of our amazing children’s writers in this country. Yesterday, the shortlist for the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards 2010 came out.

Once again I wish there was a longer short list...because I know many great Kiwi writers who published great books last year and deserved to be on it and were not. Sigh.(drowning sorrows with wine...)

I was also interested to see the make up of the Young Adult Short List...how would you choose from that stellar bunch? I’ve said it before, but we have amazing Children’s and Young Adult writers living in this country... (and Lia was born here.)

The other thing that caught my eye was the Aussie publishers who made sure that their Kiwi born writers books were submitted to the awards...coz they should be, as Elizabeth Knox pointed out last year when her Aussie published book wasn’t submitted. (They won’t make that mistake again...)

I note that the mistake I saw yesterday, on the booksellers website, that had Cowshed Christmas written by Gavin Bishop and illustrated by Joy Cowley has been fixed up...and that all the illustrators have equal billing with the author on the website today.

In the Picture Book category, another strong showing which has TVNZ slavering...Novice up against heavyweight authors...yes but what about Kyle I think...is he up against himself or Katerina Mataira’s translation of his words and if it wins who gets the award...the translator or the author? (and what does it all mean then...)

The Non fiction section has the usual spread of very different ages and stages of information. What a job to try to compare such a wide ranging group with each other. (In the ring today we have Willie against Ben and Mark...)

Oh plenty to ponder and discuss and gossip about...

Congratulations to everyone. A special wave out to all my friends who are spread out across the list, I bask in your reflected glory and wine drinking has commenced to toast you all...(like I needed an excuse. I foresee a tipsy weekend is ahead of me what with commiserations, congratulations and a birthday.)

In my continuing exploration of Social Media as it applies to marketing I have been thinking about this cool site that Jon Bard of CBI mentioned. Amplify is the place you always wanted to store those blog clippings, interesting news etc etc that you keep to yourself, because it would just be too hard to post the links to the six different social media sites you belong to....

Aha...Amplify does it for you. Clip once...click the social media links and you are done!

Best of all you can add your take on what you clip...so all your many followers can see and engage in conversation about it or not...so many possibilities...

And finally a very very good article on the future in Digital Publishing...we don’t know where we are going but we are going somewhere...

Unlike the author in this video....Did any one of our finalists have this conversation with their editors???

enjoy

maureen

RIP Jo Nobel

Busy....Busy...

After the excitement of Monday Night, I have spent the week immersed in tracking registrations answering queries and emails and responding to begging emails.

Right at the beginning of this Conference Ride, a year ago last month, we thought ‘ok let’s aim for 80 people.’ That’s a reasonable number, (double the previous conference 16 years ago.) It is affordable at the venue. The next biggest venue would double our costs....(Would anyone in NZ pay $700 to go to the same conference given the current economic climate...)

When we began to realise the public interest in what we were doing we started to let everyone know that interest was high. The speed of the take up surprised us and baffled some who thought Oh I’ll register tomorrow or next week. So now we have a waiting list...growing by the hour....

I did take a little break on Wednesday night to update our WCBA blog about the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. Fifi was texting them through from the award ceremony so I had to post them. Go Here if you want to read what I wrote.

Hats off and a wave to Melinda, fellow blogger, who won The Children’s Choice Award with The Were-Nana.

It has been a busy week...but I took another break this morning to catch up on blog reading.
So here are some little gems for you to take you into the weekend....

Every now and again I hop onto The Buried Editor site and have a look at what Madeline is talking about. Recently she posted the handout of the workshop she took at a regional conference in Texas. Madeline took a session looking at Online Marketing. It is very informative and covers a lot of ground. So go take a look.

The team at Writers Digest have put together a conference in New York that touches on some of the themes at our own conference. So worldwide, everyone seems to be asking the same questions. There is a great line up of speakers and sessions...

The great Jane has posted a MUST READ article on Five Ways Writers and Book Publishers Need To Embrace Change NOW.
Jane is an amazing resource in what’s coming and trends in the publishing world in America. Keep an eye on her....

When you take these 5 things together, I think authors will partner with publishers who offer a community of other like-minded authors (networking/growth potential), who offer diverse opportunities and methods of support, across all types of media, and who share the same values.

So it's been a busy week...

Maybe this weekend I'll get my tax done, paint that wall, write something on Mars....

Maureen

pic says it all really