Conference Challenges

Conferences have been in my mind lately, specifically Book Expo America (BEA) and Golden Yarns (GY) here in New Zealand. 

BEA brings people from all over the publishing spectrum together for a packed 3 day conference. This is where new research is shared, trends predicted and deals are made. It isn’t much about the writers of the content but more about how the content is managed, packaged, delivered and distributed to the global marketplace. 

Golden Yarns was the latest conference for the Children’s Literature community in New Zealand. This community has now had 3 stellar conferences two years apart. The Golden Yarns conference focussed on best practice writing and illustration workshops with keynotes being delivered by leaders in the NZ Children’s Literature field on their personal heroes. There were many opportunities for the group to share ideas, hash out issues and drink wine. (The wine bill paid for by a NZ Children’s Writing Icon...gob smacking and a lovely gesture as she wasn’t there to drink it.)

Two very different conferences in focus but both valuable to the writing and illustration practitioner.

Breaking down B.E.A.

Bob Mayer gives an entertaining overview of what was going down in old New York Town. His main concern the lack of digital focus by the organisers (who seemed to believe the talk from publishers that ebooks sales have plateaued....) A report to show this was released at BEA.

Sam Missingham examined that report on ebook sales facts and figures, and blew that idea out of the water. Sam $40% BEA 0

Publishing Perspectives took a punt at what they think will be future trends in publishing....hmmm more amalgamations?

Shelf Awareness took a look at a BEA first, Power Readers, who were invited to participate at BEA. Who are they and Why do they matter... they also checked out Neil Gaimen’s talk on why fiction is dangerous.

Inspiring and Challenging

Here in New Zealand everyone who attended GY is coming down off their high. Melinda Szymanik has written an overview of the first part of the weekend.

Over in the UK the Children’s Laureate, Julia Donaldson stepped down after her two year stint with a great broadside at the lack of reviews for children’s books. The wonderful Malorie Blackman takes over.... 

This sparked a debate in NZ within the KidLit community for our own Children’s Laureate...after all we have a Poet Laureate. If you would like to add your voice to this and are on Facebook, check out this page.

Chuck Wendig has written another 25 things post.... this time on YA Lit. Be entertained...BeWare...it’s Chuck.

Jane Friedman has another of her Best Business Advice List For Writers

In Craft,

Jami Gold on Can ThisStory Be Saved...how to figure out what’s wrong. and What Soap Opera’s CanTeach You...

Janice Hardy on Handling Scene Transitions with Multiple POVs

Chuck Wendig on Ten Stupid Writer Tricks That Might Actually Work (they do!)

Writer’s Digest- Stormwriting- What it is and How To Do It

In Marketing,

Ways for writers to use Pinterest

4 best strategies for savvy self publishers

7 tips for choosing your book cover

PR and Marketing for Self Publishing Do’s and Don’ts

The Book Designer has a great blog and his guest blogger Joan Stewart has a take note article on Business Opportunities That Even Savvy Writers Are Missing Out On.

 To Finish,

 A good conference should allow time to network with your peers, should inspire you, educate you and give you tools to move forward in the ever changing world of publishing.

Suw Charman Anderson has written a Forbes article on what she thinks needs to happen next. Why Publishers Should Invest In Authors Not In Books.... could this be the model for the future?

Below the animation announcing Malorie Blackmans appointment...and no that rap was not written for the announcement it’s been out for a few years now.

(Such street cred with her readers!)

 

maureen 

pic from Flickr/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncvophotos

Shaking The Publishing Tree

It is Book Expo America time in the US and Golden Yarns time in NZ.

BEA is the biggest trade fair conference expo for the American publishing industry. This year in a bold move a group of Indie Authors are representing themselves and have a stand at BEA. 
The comments and takeaways have been coming thick and fast all over Twitter today from BEA so the wonderful Jane Friedman has helpfully collated her day’s tweets.

There is definitely movement in digital publishing, distribution and sales. Publishers are finally getting to grips with what they should be doing...

Mobile is really shaking up publishing and here is a slideshow showing this, which was presented at BEA earlier today. Food For Thought!

Here in NZ the mergers of the big publishers are beginning to bite.

Harper Collins announced yesterday that they were moving a lot of their operations out of NZ. This coming on top of the news that Pearson Education was also downsizing meant that it has been a bad week for New Zealand authors. As we are still waiting on news of what the Random Penguin merger will mean to NZ, which will be announced in July, it just adds to the depression about lean times for writers here in NZ.

Hybrid... Indie... Self Publishing the words are on everyone’s lips now.

Martin Taylor of Digital Publishing has a look at what it may mean to NZ.

The rise of the small Indie Press movement with a niche focus happening in the northern hemisphere is beginning to gain momentum here in NZ.

Dean Wesley Smith has a great take on Indie Print Runs...yes Indies are getting into Print!

However the key to all of this is distribution. Kristine Rusch has an excellent post on how the distribution models have shifted without anyone noticing and the change is really profound!

In general discussion Tobias Buckell and his post on survivorship bias and why 90% of the writing advice out there is bullshit...struck a chord everywhere. Chuck takes a look at what Tobias said and put his own views...(usual warnings apply)

Last week I posted a link to John Green's Radio NZ interview. John has posted a nice article on writing YA for those of you interested in his work...and why he thinks he got so much success. Maureen Johnson is the next to be interviewed by Radio NZ sometime this week. I had to laugh when she tweeted that she had to record the whole interview under a blanket to muffle noise....

*UPDATE Maureen Johnson’s interview on the coverflip project, which I covered in an earlier post, will be on National Radio after 11am, Queen’s Birthday Monday.

Jane Friedman has 2 excellent posts to mull over. 2 Strategic Reasons To Keep Blogging and Why Google+ is Better Than Facebook for Authors. Kristen Lamb takes it a step further looking at Facebook for Authors and what many are doing wrong.

In Craft,

5 Ways To Turn Up Suspense

K M Weiland on WhyYour Protagonist May Not Be Your Main Character

Ava Jae on When Not ToSubmit

Chuck Wendig on Killing Your Darlings...(warning it’s Chuck...it will be witty and profane)

In Marketing,

How To Get Reviews

The Best Way To Use Goodreads

Pubslush...the Kickstarter site for Books

Why Pick Up a DebutWriters Book?- nice article by Jody Hedlund on how to make readers care.

How To Get That Interview

To Finish,

Short fiction...there is gold in them thar stories...

Two articles to get you thinking. Short Is The New Long- The superb Anne R Allen

and How To Sell Your Short Fiction.

Lots of NZ children’s writers will be heading to Christchurch for the Golden Yarns conference this weekend. It will be a great time to look at our industry, what is moving and shaking it and where the opportunities may lie for the nimble writer in the fast changing publishing future.

maureen


Pic from Flickr/sammydavisdog

Go Forth And Seek

It has been a busy week in the publishing blogosphere. Following on from the emphatic statement (in last weeks blog post) by the Science Fiction and Fantasy writers association over the shonky nature of the new eBook imprints from Random House. Random House protested, got laughed at and backed down.

Writer Beware broke the news with the new changes to the imprint contracts and John Scalzi of SFWA details how those changes should work in practice...and what he personally thinks about them.

*Late addition. Dave Gaughran has put the new contracts under the microscope...and it still is not pretty. If the ebook is selected for print...the author will bear all the costs. Check out his very comprehensive post on this and other Big 4 vanity press ideas being slid past unsuspecting authors.

Futurebook blogger Phil Jones looks at the wider issues for publishers over what Random House attempted to do.

In other news here in NZ the registrations are open for Golden Yarns- The Children’s Writers and Illustrators hui to be held in Christchurch on Queens Birthday Weekend.

Melinda Szymanik had an interesting blog post this week on how we as writers have changed. Along with our interest in publishing digitally we have become adept at finding our writing friendships online. 

How far we have come from the writer in the garret struggling over a typewriter. Today information on writing and publishing is at the end of the modem cable. The writer needs to go out and hunt it down like a stray comma. I do my bit by providing a weekly roundup of good things I’ve come across but sometimes attending a writing conference fills in the gaps and reminds you that you are not alone.

Hugh Howey has written a tell all article that has been bouncing around the blogosphere all week on how he got that publishing deal for Wool. In a surprise move his print publishers are releasing AT THE SAME TIME hardcover and softcover editions of Wool.

Paidcontent reports that there is some disquiet over rumors that Amazon are tying up the new domain suffixes like .author and .book.

Joel Friedlander has an excellent article on 5 top legal issues for writers.

Dean Wesley Smith has made an excerpt of his book free entitled thinking like a publisher... and yes it is a must read.

The issue of writing for free got a workout in the blogosphere last week after a journalist had his material for a publisher repurposed and wasn't paid for it...here is Ernie Smith from the Future of Publishing blog on owning your work.

Agent Rachelle Gardner has a post on writer’s rights and responsibilities.

If you are mulling over translation of your work.... read this post so you understand all that it entails.

Larry Brooks from Storyfix has a great post on how to move your concept from good to great.

In Craft,

Writersinthestorm have a must read post on how to use your logline tag and pitch before you start writing! (I’m just in the process of figuring this out for my next book.)

James Scott Bell on how to work on more than one project at a time.

Jami Gold on 5 tips to writing that sexy scene.

YA Hiway on tips for researching your next project.

Clarity in Writing and the Curse of the Reader.

In Marketing,

Five Shades of Book Discovery.

How to handsell your own books.

Mathew Turner (AKA Turndog Millionaire) on five things he learned in 2012 about self publishing.

Bookriot on how to sell like Charles Dickens...this is an interesting article on serials.

To Finish,

Last year I linked to the video of Neil Gaimens commencement speech on freelancing which became a viral hit. Media Bistro have announced that HarperCollins is about to launch the book of the speech. Check out the details here along with a link to the speech if you missed it. The secret knowledge is out there...

maureen

pic from flickr/digitalrob