Today I popped into
The Children’s Bookshop and noticed a new series being promoted...what was so
interesting to me was this contemporary thriller Y A series had photos of all
the books in the series on the inside cover and when they were coming out... 2
months apart! The whole 6 book series in a year. This year Indie Authors have
been talking about publishing two or more books in a series in a year to
capture readers...and feeling quite happy that they weren’t being restricted to
one book contracts from traditional publishing houses. This is the first time I
have seen a traditional publishing house run with this idea.
There are so many
risks to writing a full series when you don’t know if there will be an audience
for it. A respected Editor looked at my Book One of a series and said...make it
bigger...The first book has to sell the whole series. For a publisher to commit
to a full year publishing schedule of six books is taking a punt on the reader
when they don’t know if the book will take off. So how do you find these readers...how
do you know what they want and what they will buy? It is all in the DATA.
Cory Doctorow has been
stirring the pot this week with his article on the importance of metadata andhow publishers don’t actually know who their readers are...and they definitely
aren’t telling the writers. So who does know? Cory has the answer and he has a
warning that this is going to be a very important issue for publishing in the
future.
But what metadata are Readers concerned with? Front matter and End matter and Authors had better have
a handle on all of this.
Of all the data coming
out, authors do like to keep an eye on trends and what editors might be looking
for. Publishers Weekly report of a panel discussion with children’s editorstalking about exactly this is required reading.
James Patterson (mega
author) is passionate about children reading and wants America to wake up to
the demise of the publishing industry and libraries...So this week he took out
front page ads in The New York Times to tell everyone of his concerns. He
wanted to plant the issue right in front of Readers...reaction to his ads have been mixed from the literary community.
Kickstarter looks likeit could be replacing the publishing community...an interesting article for mid
career writers to chew over.
Rachelle Gardner had
the horrible experience of nursing a writer through a complete computer
meltdown just before the MS was due at the publishers. She talks about all the different ways you should be ensuring this does not happen to you.
Author Solutions is
off to court. http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/57046-authors-sue-self-publishing-service-author-solutions.html
Today a twitter
discussion between agents about New Adult became a blog post on how agents
should treat each other and what to be aware of in their public pronouncements.
Do you really want an agent who doesn’t know anything about your genre?
In Craft,
For those writers
wrestling with screenplays...Tell the story in visual beats.
Critique
Partners...and how to maintain passion for your story.
In Marketing,
To Finish,
Concert Pianist James
Rhodes has written in the Guardian a thought provoking post on creative
passion. Find what you love and let it kill you.... Read it and see whether you
agree with him...How passionate are you to get that novel written? What are you
doing about it?
Sorry about the huge URL's that appear this week. Bloggers highlight link broke in the middle of preparing this post.
maureen
PIC from
Sorry about the huge URL's that appear this week. Bloggers highlight link broke in the middle of preparing this post.
maureen
PIC from
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tensafefrogs/3649985674/
