Learning To Get Better…

It’s July… when did that happen?

Earlier in the year, there was some hope that the pandemic would be done and dusted by the Northern hemisphere summer and that things might be back to normal.

Ah well, it looks like this might be the new normal for a while.

The Frankfurt Bookfair has finally decided that it will have to be online this year and now they are asking everyone what they would like to have in a virtual book fair. If you have a bright idea for a seminar or webinar with a worldwide audience check out their call for proposals.

I was reading Publishers Weekly and came across this headline- Upcoming YA novel pulled by Author. Naturally, I clicked over to see who had pulled their novel and why and I found an interesting letter from Publishers Weekly saying why they weren’t going to tell us who it was and why. This is very responsible of them. Sadly, I wish they had thought of the implications sooner. 

While I was looking at the news on Publisher Weekly, I was interested to see this publishing company expanding its list. I wondered how their first book would go as there had to be buy in from all the rights holders to the hit music. Take a hit song… now pair it up with a great illustrator and launch it as a picture book for children. (Kiwi’s, imagine Welcome Home as a PB… sigh)

Has the world got you down? Are you struggling with your self-worth as a writer? Yes, it’s Imposter Syndrome time again but with a Covid spin. Elizabeth Hartl has a guest post over at Writers Helping Writers on how to beat this lurgy.

And for another bracing talk check out Ruth Harris and her latest post on 5 ways Authors stand between themselves and success. These are both great posts to shake you up and get you ready for the next 6 months.

This week Kris Rusch was musing about the writers who have come to her for advice about missing money. In this publishing environment, everyone is chasing down money to keep the lights on and the wolf from the door. Sometimes this means that money promised to the author doesn’t make it into the bank account. Check out what Kris has to say about how to track down missing payments.

Kris and Dean are also making their workshops half price for writers who are stuck inside. Check out all the great courses they have. 

Jami Gold has a great post on how to learn and improve writing skills. If you do a deep dive into self-editing then you can figure out what you need to learn. Read this outstanding post first to get some pointers on what to look for. You might want to check out Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s collection of writer tools as well.

In The Craft Section,

Identifying your characters fatal flaw- Becca Puglisi - Bookmark

Free Picture book templates from Inkygirl- Debbie RidpathOhi- Bookmark

10 ways to reach the end-Elspeth Futcher

Self-edit your novel- Kris Spisak- Bookmark

100’s of screenwriter interviews – Scott Myers

We Are Unsafe- Donald Maass- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

9 Tips on Writing Query letters- Robert Lee Brewer

Books to Film- Options vs Shopping agreements- Matt Knight- Bookmark

2 great posts from Penny Sansevieri-Timing your book launch and Promoting before the book is published- Bookmark

20 tips to rock social media- Frances Caballo

5 powerful principles on human behavior- Book marketing Bestsellers- Bookmark

To Finish,

In a little fishing village in Portugal lives a wild Irish Rover who lives online as a guru for writers. David Gaughran has been updating his great Writer Help books over the last 6 months or so. He has just made one of his best book marketing craft books FREE. Let’s get Digital was one of the first books I ever read on ebooks. David revised it three times always updating it. Now he has virtually rewritten it and made it available for Free. (and available from all the major ebook stores.) This is not just the primer on how to create an ebook but the whole encyclopedia- Let’s Get Digital 4^th Edition is a Must Get.

Maureen

@craicer

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter?  When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you. 

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

Pic: 

Writing Under The Spotlight

The UK Society of Authors have been asking questions, pointed questions, about where the profits are going in the big publishing houses and why the royalty rate is so low. Porter examines the arguments and chats to those in the middle about what they can do about it.

I have been thinking about serialised novels lately. Dickens made a killing with them and they have gained popularity amongst time poor people. The serial podcast along with the episodic audio book are transforming people’s commutes. The Guardian opinion piece looks at the rise and rise of this form of writing.

Jane Friedman is publishing a new book On The Business of Being A Writer. She gathered some writers together and sent them to the Association of Writers and Writing programmes – the biggest literary conference of the year. They reported back on a variety of interesting keynotes on tips and advice for the writing business.

The Alliance of Independent Authors have been shining a spotlight on various members and this week it was Elizabeth S Craig’s turn. I often refer to her great blog. If you have ever wondered who she is and why she is so successful check out this interview.

Successful publishing depends on writing the best book you can and getting the word out about it. Digital Pub has 7 strategies and 94 tools that writers can use to get the word out and Michelle from Random Writing Rants has the ten key ingredients for writing an effective blurb. These are both BOOKMARK posts.

Debbie Ridpath Ohi is a great illustrator. She is also a stellar human being who creates and shares many resources with the writing and illustrating community. She has been working on PB templates which are available Free from her website.

Do you consciously write to a reading level? Randy Ingermanson (the Snowflake Guy) recently blogged about the ideal reading level of novels. Did you know that bestsellers are written with a 10 year olds reading level? Randy shares other interesting facts about novel readability.

What actually matters to your reading audience? Are you missing the point completely when you write those indulgent scenes? Cathy Yardly of Writer Unboxed examines what are the most important things that readers look for in a novel.

In The Craft Section,

3 tips to hook your readers emotions- Writer Unboxed

Developing characters fatal flaw

Foreshadowing sentence examples- Now Novel – Bookmark

How to tell if your writing is good

How to create characters worth reading- Jami Gold - Bookmark

Garlic breath for writers AKA bad first pages- James Scott Bell- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

5 website mistakes- Anne R Allen- Bookmark

15 reasons your book is not selling- The Book Designer

Free tools that build Book Buzz- Bookbub- Bookmark

What to put in your author newsletter

How to create a Facebook group

How to create pre launch buzz- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

To Finish,

How do you know what kind of writer you are? Gretchen Rubin developed a test that divided people into four tendencies. Upholders, Questioners, Obligers and Rebels. Where your greatest tendency is, there you will find your biggest challenge as a writer.

The world lost a towering figure today. Stephen Hawking opened up new ways of seeing the cosmos and the future of technology and space. He defied the odds and a crippling disease and showed that nothing should get in the way of ideas. His mind and sense of humour were sharp right up to the last day. This quote was on the front of Cambridge’s Daily Paper. ‘ However difficult life may seem there is always something you can do and succeed at. Where there’s life, there’s hope.’ 

Stephen Hawking 1942-2018 RIP

Maureen

@craicer

My monthly newsletter is coming soon. I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. If you enjoy this blog share it to your writing friends or you can shout me a coffee by hitting the coffee button up top. Thanks

pic

http://cheezburger.com/9138272768/rip-stephen-hawking

Publishing This Way or That

July has stumbled in stomping its feet about the weather and cursing about never getting a clear run at being jolly cold. (Why are my jonquils out? Its not Spring yet!)

In the roundup this week,

 Porter Anderson chats with Jon Fine on the perceived curatorial mark that Traditional Publishers bring. Jon has interesting points to raise because he has worked on both sides of the fence. He points out that Indie publishers can rise above the herd if they pay attention to all the details.

Why is Dystopian Fiction popular? Are we living in a dystopian future now? This is an interesting article from European publishers about why Dystopian fiction sells to their teen audience but at the cost of their own countries voices.

For the Typography buffs out there, some good news. Google has reorganised its Font Library for the web.  You can find fonts easily and they have a nifty comparison widget. Why is that interesting... because they have a whole lot of free fonts and you can use them on websites and other places where people might read interesting stuff online written by you.

Kris Rusch has another Deal Breakers post. This looks at Contract termination language. In these days of ebook perpetuity how can you negotiate a termination clause and what should you ask for. This is really interesting, as the term out of print in the digital age now has no meaning.

James Scott Bell has a great post on writing advice you should ignore. That doesn’t mean ignore the post. James has written quite a few excellent writing craft books and is one of my go to craft book gurus. Here he takes issue with some of that tired old writing advice and explains how you can break the rules

Joanna Penn has an interesting interview with 3D designer about how writers can utilise 3D design. No they aren’t completely opposite. Children and Young Adult writers will be able to see the value straight away. 

In The Craft Section,

Subtext- How to write what’s not written- Bookmark

Combining genres- Stephen Pressfield

Multi-dimensional lead characters

15 tips to increase your productivity- Molly Greene

Choosing the right story setting- KM Weiland Bookmark

151 Plot resources- Now Novel

The 5 key turning points- C S Lakin- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

4 ways to respond when someone bugs you online

Book promotion – Do this, not that – The Book Designer- Bookmark

10 ways to build your author mailing list

How to prep for author events- Janice Hardy

How Goodreads can grow your readers- Frances Caballo

Create a box set bundle- Joanna Penn-Bookmark

To Finish,

If you are looking into a publishing future that is starting to have overtones of a dystopian landscape and you aren’t quite sure about self publishing, an Australian print company has a step by step overview of what you need to know. Google has a lot of answers to questions. Read widely about how others are doing it before you you leap in.

Maureen

@craicer

Pic from the AMAZING Debbie Ridpath Ohi/ Comics for Writers

After The End, What’s Next?

Comic: Death and the Writer. pic.twitter.com/aPDK8joGWm
— Debbie Ridpath Ohi (@inkyelbows) May 14, 2014

Sorry for the day delay in posting... There are some big articles in my round up this week, so grab a large drink and settle down for a brain expanding session.

‘Which leads me to, as my final point, the only real prediction I have made today. It’s one I made earlier: I think most existing publishers will disappear over the next decade or two.’

The quote is from Baldur Bjarnason who had a keynote address at Publishers Forum last week in London. As you can imagine the above comment coming towards the end of his address would be pretty novel given his audience. However as you read through his speech published on Publishing Perspectives, you find yourself nodding. For Authors, it is life as we know it. For Publishers it may be too late.

In the wider publishing world...News Corp buys Harlequin for not much over Harlequins annual revenue. How could it be so low? (another tick from Baldur’s speech)

Amazon and Hachette are having a fight... and low and behold Hachette’s books are delayed in shipping. We have seen it all before. Who gets hurt? The author.

After these three hit my brain I was on a mission to find some good news.

Alas,

Blogger Middle Grade Ninja who has a nice blog interviewing Agents (mostly for children’s books) revealed his disquiet over some agents practices which have been disturbing him and that he hoped were one off’s until they became too frequent to be ignored. (part two)

Scarlett Johansson is suing a French author claiming he stole her image when the novel is about a look-alike getting into a mess. Implications for authors who reference pop culture in their books could be alarming.

Dave Gaughran, on how to increase piracy... which explains why it is happening and what we can do about it.

Author Solutions which was supposed to be cleaned up after Penguin bought it...ummm This is a read and share...

Bridgid Kemmerer on why author expectations never live up to reality...

By now you may be feeling punch drunk. (time for a refill.)

Where is the good news!?

Agent Jonny Geller on his top 10 tips for being a literary agent. (yes, there are some good ones out there.)

The amazing interview with Jane Friedman on Money, Writing and Life by Joanna Penn. Take your time. Transcript under the podcast. This one just fills your heart with zing. (possibilities are endless.)

Hugh Howey once a month talks about how he is running his mythical publishing house NewHarperCollins. Prepare to have your mind blown. Here he looks at IP and worldbuilding. I watched Cassandra Clare do this with her YA author buddies in the last year.  She grabbed a few friends, went on a writing boot camp holiday where they all wrote short back stories featuring one character from her Mortal Instruments series. Then they released these stories, one a month, digitally. By the fourth month they were hitting best seller lists. (so it is being done...by authors!)

In the Craft section,

Building Catchy Titles,

Boost your creativity with an idea log.

Elisabeth S Craig on keeping things fresh in a series.

5 tips for running a writers circle

Ava Jae on Twitter chats. I tune into a couple every week #kidlitchat and #indiechat

Excellent article from Jami Gold on Character Internal Journey.

K M Weiland on The message in your story.

In the Marketing section,

53 Freelancing mistakes...

Self promo and marketing that works.

How to create a self paced email course...this is really interesting!

Crowdfunding a children’s board book.

Do you have an editor repelling email address?

Website of the week.

Gigaom. This tech/ publishing/ catch-all magazine website always has interesting articles and is run by very savvy people. Laura Hazard Owen looks at publishing startups and how they go head to head with Amazon and Apple. These startups change the face of publishing... until they get bought and incorporated. Check out what’s next on the block.

To Finish,

Last week I referenced a project that Mark Coker was involved with e-publishing kids stories with teachers and librarians.

This week I see that High School teachers are making up their own text books using iBooksAuthor to directly support their students.

Everyone has the potential to be a publisher... Baldur just pointed out current reality to the publishers.

maureen

Pic is from the cartoonist/illustrator Debbie Ridpath Ohi (AKA Inkyelbows) whose cartoons on the writing life are so funny.  Love seeing them pop up in my Twitter feed.  

New Moves

The weather scientists this week said that Winter has been so warm that Spring has come a month early. And this is a symptom of climate change. At the moment we have a late blast of winter going through and it is bleak and wet out there. (So breaking Elmore’s sacred rule never start with the weather....)

In the publishing blogosphere this week...

KOBO KOBO KOBO KOBO...

Kobo launched three new e-reading devices this week in NewYork...and got the publishing blogosphere talking...because along with the hardware...Kobo has new content to go on the hardware. Kobo Kids a dedicated e-bookstore for children...Beyond The Book for all stuff beyond the book including a special Font for dyslexics... and other nifty things. So another shift in the publishing world has happened.

Also in a quietly heralded move...The Alliance of Independent Authors has done a deal with PubMatch. If you are a member of Alli you can get a 90% discount on getting all your overseas rights sold...Read all about it...It is an interesting move.

Dave Gaughren has been comparing distributors...Smashwords and new kids on the block Draft2Digital.

Long Time readers of this blog will know that I have a bit of a geek thing with space etc etc and that this year the prominent writers in the SFF Geek community have been calling out misogynist and threatening behaviour towards women in the community. John Scalzi (just stepped down as Pres. SFF) has been targeted for his very vocal support by troll lowlifes. This week around Social Media a picture of John in a dress went viral calling John a feminist. John’s beautiful reply will have you chuckling. Way To Go John...also if you haven’t read any of his work...you are really missing something, he is a great writer!

Bob Mayer has 53 books under his belt and has decided to write a quick article about ten things he has learned as a writer...This is a good checklist for yourself.

The fabulous Debbie Ridpath Ohi and her comics on rejections...This will put it all in perspective.

Roz Morris runs a few blogs which I have referred to over the years in this blog...however I haven’t ever profiled her Undercover Soundtrack blog. Writers who write with soundtracks in their ears, talk about why they write to music and what sort of soundtracks they use.

In Craft,

Eleven Tips On Editing

Five Places To Find Critique Partners

Ten Things Emerging Writers need.

In Marketing, There are some very fine articles this week.

From Writer Unboxed –A key book principal that authors mustnot forget.

From Killzone – The best way to market your book.

From Marketing tips for Authors – tips for authors onAmazon.

From Bookshelfmuse...marketing for introverts.

Website to check out.

If you write Midgrade...Check out Emblazoners. This is another example of an author collective that niche market themselves. Roam around and get a feel for what they are doing and read the excellent article on writing midgrade series.

To Finish,

Rachel Gardner writes about Happy Authors and the things they don’t do.

Be Surprised.

maureen

pic from Flickr/ Creative Commons

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clearlyambiguous/

Valentine Writing

It is St Valentine’s Day...the feast day of the martyred priest who married Christians in defiance of Emperor Claudius (269AD). Patron Saint of Lovers, Marriage, Young People and Bee Keepers.

Around the Publishing Blogosphere several big conferences are about to kick off. O’Reillys Tools of Change is underway but this year they started with Author (R)Evolution Day where for about the first time writers got to be at a big publishing conference with content directed at them. Porter Anderson wraps up the important points...Metadata!!!!

Mediabistro has the low down on Porters panel discussion at this event...promotion. This is very hot off the press as ARD was yesterday.

TOC starts today and Indie ReCon (Free and Online) is this weekend.

Indies can do all this RT @annehill: New big 6: google, apple, amazon, Sony, kobo, nook. #ARDay #TOCcon" hey NYC, you listening?
— Joanna Penn (@thecreativepenn) February 12, 2013

This week Charles Gonzales post on Discovery only being a problem for publishers got mentioned a lot as people took sides.

Bookish the new ‘Discovery’ site set up by 3 Big Publishers launched and quickly got panned for what it wasn’t and should have been. Everybody had such high hopes!

Joanna Penn has a great post on writing more and getting a daily writing habit and another one on Sampling...This is a must read if you are thinking of going digital.

Mike Shatzkin wraps up his series on Bookstores...Publishers and the Future. Would you pay to browse a book store?

Rachelle Gardner cautions about who is reading your unpublished work...and who should be...while 
Writeitsideways continues this theme with the post Want Agents To Read Your MS...Do This First.

Chuck has a thoughtful reflective post on The Hardest Writerly Truth (usual warnings apply)

KillZone has a great post on Working On More Than One Book At A Time.

The Passive Guy has the run down on What Every Writer Should Know...If you are teaching writing or planning a conference you should read this!

In the Craft section,

The Fabulous Jami Gold on synopsis...This is a great cheat sheet on constructing a synopsis...or even an outline before you write the book.

Blake Snyder, he of Save The Cat (THE screenwriting craft book) has a guest post on his site by Marilyn Brant. This takes the classic Pride and Prejudice and applies the Save the Cat Beat sheet. Great stuff!

Chuck Wendig on 5 things you should know about narrative viewpoint...(Warning it’s Chuck!)

Diabolical Plots has an interview with Kristine Rusch on Critique...Kris and Dean run workshops on critiques but quite differently....Take a look!

The Bookshelf Muse on info dumping...when to do it or not....

Victoria Mixon 14 ways to love what your manuscript loves.

Linking Verbs...do you need them?

In the Marketing Section,

Joanna Penn on Marketing YA

AuthorMedia on engaging readers on your Facebook Author Page...3 Great Tips!

Good Author websites...with examples from Bookcovercafe

Why you might not be succeeding at Self Publishing... and Digital Book World has five unexpected tips to help you succeed...

To finish,

Recently some writers and I were discussing how sometimes you feel a fraud even tho you are published and you might know some stuff about the industry. The lovely Jami Gold has a great post on this subject but even better she links to one of those WOW TED talks that puts it all into perspective. This is a link to share around to everyone!!

Every now and then I post a video to say thanks to one of my commenter’s (FB and Blog)...Melinda this one is for you in honour of Today’s Big Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations Melinda and James.

pic from the fabulous Debbie Ridpath Ohi Writers Rejection Valentine