Today I was braving the hordes with my kids as they did
their Christmas Shopping. This is a once a year activity where the kids get to
budget and think creatively. (Sounds like publishing.) While they were engaging
in creative accounting to make their dollars go further, I was wondering what I was going to write for the last blog post of the year. This was
not a year I planned. I was going to have a go at writing a small series of
junior fiction books because I wanted to challenge myself. I was going to
finish tidying up my Mars book and send it out!
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other
plans.
I ended up spending way too much time this year staring at
hospital food and wondering how anyone was supposed to get well while eating it
or whether it was all a psychological experiment to make you get well faster.
(If so, it didn’t work as I kept going back.)
So next year... (God and Surgeon willing.) I will restart...
Joanna Penn was in Auckland recently and wowed authors at a
meet-up. She was sponsored by Kiwi tech guys Booktrack. They’re the guys behind
soundtracks for books. Joanna interviewed them to find out all about this nifty idea.
Chuck is curious about everybody’s experience with Amazon’s
Kindle Unlimited. Is it worth it to the author?
The Verge took a trip into the ‘Zon to find out what might be coming in 2015.
John Scalzi has called out a couple of digital magazines about their rights grab… and they listened. Always check the copyright clauses!
I’m in conference planning mode with a bunch of excellent, talented, goodlooking and creative Children’s Writers and Illustrators for the New Zealand
National Conference of Children’s Writers and Illustrators. October 2-5 2015
Wellington. (Start looking for those cheap flights.) Janice Hardy writes about the benefits of a small writers’ conference. She is right on the money with her
thoughts. (and we have some interesting things planned...*grin* )
One of the tricky things about planning a conference is
trying to predict what will be relevant in publishing a year into the future.
The Bookseller is doing just that by asking a bunch of publishing tech people
what they think will happen in 2015.
In the Craft Section,
How to become a better writer – Rachelle Gardiner
Sample Permissions letters - Jane Friedman (Bookmark it)
In the Marketing Section,
To Finish,
I would like to thank all the writers and readers of this
blog, the writing communities on Facebook and Twitter, and the Wellington
writers who have had my back all year. Although most of you didn’t know what
was going on behind the scenes your comments and thoughts encouraged me to keep
going even when the going was tough.
Wishing you all a Happy and Safe Christmas. See you in 2015.
maureen
