Writing- Ready or Not

It is nearly the witching hour. The time when the clock ticks forward into a new month. The month where writers around the world glance feverishly at their word counts and cheer or despair as the count climbs closer to the goal of 50,000 words. NaNoWriMo has begun.

So for those of you about to launch into the month of writing madness you might like Quick and Dirty Writing Tips from Melissa Donovan. Janice Hardy also has updated her post about ten things to remember if you want to be published.
And if you need any productivity or craft book help don’t forget to check out the Storybundle of great craft books especially for NaNoWriMo.

Everyone else.... Normal Transmission Will Resume Shortly.

This week The New Publishing Standard (TNPS) highlighted a couple of interesting developments. First was the launch of a new subscription service for Harry Potter fans. How can this be a new development you ask. Well back in the day, J K Rowling didn’t sell her ebook rights. And then went on to create a whole website experience around them. It was groundbreaking at the time in terms of fan engagement but also a lesson in how to really market your IP. The subscription service takes it up another notch and TNPS thinks this may become the future for books... 
Second, from TNPS was the news that Publishers Weekly was getting into the paid review game. Regardless of what you think about the ethics of paid reviews, there are some high-end book review sites that do this. Kirkus charges steeply to have a review. TNPS has some interesting comments to make about value for money.

There are some big writing conferences coming up. Kris Rusch, this week, looked at the bane of the writer – Giving Speeches. How do you manage public speaking events? How do you know you are any good? When is the writer off stage in public... (hint: Never.)
Check out her good advice. 

Ruth Harris has a great post on backlist. Have you given a thought to your backlist? Have you shown it some love? This week I reprinted my first book in The Circus Quest Series and took the chance to update the series page in the back of the manuscript. I have been noticing that Traditional Publishers are combing backlists more. They are discovering there is money to be made by slapping them up as ebooks. If they can do this why don’t you? Time to check your contracts.

The Alliance of Independent Authors has a great blog you should drop into. Recently, John Doppler, their contract watchdog posted about the ten most common contractual pitfalls he has seen.  The title of the blog is a great rule of thumb to assess a contract- Who does your publishing contract protect?

In The Craft Section,

Elements of plot development- NowNovel- Bookmark

Creating an Interesting character

On The Nose Dialogue- K M Weiland- Bookmark
2 Great posts from Janice Hardy The science of pacing and Busting Outline Myths – Bookmark Both.

In The Marketing Section,

Content marketing for Fiction and Non Fiction- Alli Blog-Bookmark

Bookbub ads for design inspiration

Improve author website search engine optimisation – The Creative Penn

Free Book Marketing tools- WrittenWord Media

Book marketing tips-1976write

How to promote your book on a shoestring- Prowriting aid- Bookmark

To Finish,

It’s the last day of October and if you are wracking your brains on where to start with NaNoWriMo about to begin, check out Bang To Write’s comprehensive post with loads of graphics about all the ways you can structure your story. Pick one and get started. I’m cheering you on!

Maureen
@craicer

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Pic: Flickr Creative Commons –  Erik Drost 

Diverse Publishing

This week I have been thinking about Diversity and the representation of diversity in publishing. Some of this was sparked by the campaign of an 11 year old girl who was searching for books that showed people of her race as the main characters in books.

I was talking with my writing buddy recently over my characters and I made the comment that none of my main characters were the same colour as me. I always saw them as mixed race though I never made a point of describing them as such. As my writing buddy hears and critiques my writing first... the fact that the characters were mixed race was news to her. This sparked a conversation about whether to info dump character information. (NO)

Info dumping statistics this week was Lee and Low, children’s publishers, with their report on Diversity in Publishing. We all know that publishing is White Skin dominant... It is also female gender dominant...

Porter Anderson takes a look at other statistics to pop out of the report.

Here in very multi cultural NZ, the loss of many of our NZ publishing offices to Australia has always concerned writers here. It widens the ditch that our distinctive Maori/Pasifica stories have to hurdle over to get published.

Today I was watching #Pit2Pub on Twitter. It was interesting to see the number of pitches that used diversity hash tags. A new kid on the Twitter pitch block is Pitch Match. – this is a 3 hour pitch fest broker party happening on the 11^th.

A brief Twitter storm happened with the reporting that Amazon was opening bricks and mortar bookstores across the U.S. This was quickly shut down on Twitter but it still raises questions...

Bob Mayer has been rallying the writing troops this week with two great posts on ambushing writing fear and what is becoming his annual exhortation to writers to face up to the harsh truths of this writing business. Go in with your eyes open...

This has been echoed by Agent Jennifer Laughran when she answered a question about sham agents and how you can tell who they are. (Especially important for people doing Twitter pitches)

You’ve dodged the sham agent and got your diverse story polished, what can you do next on your publishing journey?

You need an Author Business plan. This one is a comprehensive lists of things to think about on your way to establishing your author business.

Joel has put together a workflow checklist for book designing and publishing your project.

When it comes to selling this discussion on Ingram’s acquisition of Aer.io, a turn key bookstore that can be dropped into an author website, by Bookworks has some interesting opinions.

In the Craft Section,

The problem with revealing information- Janice Hardy

Using Twitter for research

Using a scene template- C S Lakin Bookmark

Mastering the art of the cliffhanger chapter ending- Bookmark

Seven stages of the writer process- Orna Ross- Bookmark

What’s killing your creativity

Who is the better hero - Han or Luke?

Drafting in layers- Elizabeth S Craig- Bookmark

In the Marketing Section,

Metadata-why it matters to Authors

How to develop and perfect your author marketing- Rachel Thompson Bookmark

24 tips for using photos in your POD book- The Book Designer

Rethinking book cover design – Dave Bricker

Book Marketing ideas -Bookbub- Bookmark

5 reasons Canva is your blogging design heaven

To Finish,

The last memory I have of the late, great Dame Katerina Mataira (Ngati Porou) was the speech where she didn’t mince any words to the publishing establishment. ‘Where are our Maori books? ‘The market is too small’ they said. So I have to do it myself.’ She went on to write, publish and sell in all genres across the board at over 70 years of age. “You have a niche product. No one will publish you. Get out there and do it yourself.”

The Pic is the cast of the new Harry Potter play. Yes, that is the Golden Trio. J K Rowling has said she never mentioned skin colour in the books for Hermione. Score for Diversity!

Maureen

@craicer

Trick Or Treat

Happy All Hallows Eve,

A couple of years ago Young Adult writers decided to hand out scary books to trick or treaters...and it has gained a following amongst the writing community in the countries that celebrate Halloween as a cultural festival. All Hallows Read...go to your local second hand bookstore...buy up ghostly children’s books and R L Stines...and hand them out.

This week in the publishing blogosphere there was a flutter as Larry Kirshbaum announced he was going back to agenting after heading up Amazon’s print publishing operation. Larry was up against it, when he was hired two years ago as all the bookstores holding onto deals with publishers decided they wouldn’t stock Amazon printed books. Traditional Publishing pundits have taken a ‘We Won Against The Mighty ‘Zon’ attitude but others aren’t so sure... Anyway you look at it, the authors are the ones suffering with poor print sales and no exposure to the bookstore browser. If the Mighty ‘Zon ever works out distribution into the bookstores for print books... the game will be changed.

In the blogosphere it is NaNoWriMo time and tips abound for how to tackle the month where everyone tries to write their 50,000 word opus. Editors and agents are shuddering because December heralds all these manuscripts hitting their floors. Many of them are saying they won’t look at a book that arrives in December because it won’t have moved beyond a first draft.

If you are not heading into the bunker to write you may be interested in the changing ownership hop of Figment, the teen writing community that keeps getting bought by very big publishers.... If I was very cynical I’d wonder whether they were keen to get their hands on the next big young thing who knows nothing about the cut throat business of publishing.... Lucky I’m not.... Dave Gaughren has a good blog post on this subject.

A Publishers Weekly article this week is definitely scaring quite a few people. The article has anonymous agents and editors saying publishers are beginning to carefully change contract wording so it doesn’t say what format they will publish the book in. If publishers don’t commit to a print edition or they go to a POD print edition so that rights will never revert back...or the Print edition will be under their new imprint where the writer pays costs (read Author Solutions here) then writer’s dreams may rapidly turn to nightmares.

A couple of weeks ago I was looking for a comparison piece on the indie music scene and the indie publishing scene and couldn’t find one and then into my Twitter feed pops this opinion piece from a musician writer.... Interesting reading.

Mark Coker looks at the economics of Ebook lending library style.

Joanna Penn has an interview with an expert on selling books into Germany. They have the biggest population of readers in Europe.

Now for all those great Craft Treats

These are the best blog posts I’ve seen on plotting this week.

Structure in HarryPotter and how JK Rowling followed the rules.

Plotting made easy.

Other inspirational writing tips worthy of bookmarking

How to figure out a great Concept

How to fix the sagging middle,

Why Voice is so important.

What do you do with a semi colon and other useful grammar stuff

Can you include song lyrics?

Telling vs Showing and how to figure it out.

NaNoWriMo a collection of tips and resources.

To Finish,

Two stellar opinion pieces.

On writing Y A from a literary writer... and what he learned, which was a heck of a lot!

Hugh Howey on the challenge of connecting with readers directly. You need to do it.

Here is my All Hallows treat for you...Writing tips fromGreat Authors. 

Print out a couple of these and hang them over your desk!

maureen

This great pic was from http://www.flickr.com/photos/rattler97/

Feeling The Emotion

ANZAC day* is always emotional. Whether you are braving the chilly dawn for the memorial service or later in the day at a full civic ceremony...there is always the tear in the eye, the tight feeling in your throat. On this day I think of all the members of my family who served in their different wars and are still serving. The one who didn’t come back in 1916, age 23 with no known grave...his brother, my grandfather who did. My husband’s grandfather, one of less than 200 that survived Gallipoli and the Western Front. ANZAC day is always harder when one of our family is overseas serving as a Peacekeeper.

When we were overseas last year, we met a Turk on a train in Italy. It was a special moment as we both talked about the war that forged our two nations. Each of us had a story to tell about visiting Gallipoli and crying. He talked about seeing a fused piece of metal, the result of 25 bullets that all hit together at once.

What a hell it must have been!

In the blogosphere this week a different kind of war was happening as reaction to Barry Eisler’s keynote address to the Pikes Peak writer’s conference was furiously debated on Twitter. Agents and Publishers taking exception to Barry’s comments that Legacy publishing was a lottery and their only value was for print distribution deals. Once the hot comments were out of the way and agents and publishers climbed down off the ceiling...debate was more constructive. Read the comments people...but give yourself some time...

In the last year very successful indie e-publishers have begun partnering with big publishers for print only deals and agents are becoming publishers on the side, organising editing, covers and marketing of eBooks or POD...it is pretty easy to see Barry Eisler’s point.

The London Book Fair has just wrapped up and there was lively debate around the changing nature of agents. So do you want a manager, a partner, a business coach...or a deal maker? And No an Agent is not necessarily going to do all of that.

Joanna Penn was also thrilled to be at the Fair. She has a huge blog post filled with video interviews and comments about the 2013 Fair, which had the most writers attend ever. Take some time over this one.

Joel Friedlander talks about his war on Word...how Word won...and what he is doing about it. Check it out and get a great deal on his solution!

Seven Steps To The Perfect Story is one of those amazing graphics that you really want to print out, stick on your wall and gaze at for a long time.

Myths about Query letters to Agents...don’t get too worried.

Elizabeth Spann Craig has been looking at Audio books and ACX. This is a feel good post telling you how to use ACX.

In Craft, It is all about Character Emotion...

3 Tips For Realistic Character Emotion

Real Life Diagnostics- Hooking The Reader- Janice Hardy dissects a submission.

Susan Sipal dissects your favourite Harry Potter Character Emotion Arc’s

4 Things You Need To Understand About Character Emotion...great roundup here.

Dropping into the Emotion Thesaurus, it’s all about sarcasm....

To Finish,

Roz Morris talks about Obituaries and why they are so important for writers...

maureen

*ANZAC Australian and New Zealand Army Corps remember their fallen soldiers on 25^th April the date of the landing of the Corps at Gallipoli in Turkey 1915. New Zealand lost ¼ of their men and more than ½ were severely wounded. The Turks lost twice as many allied casualties and their leader Ataturk Kemal became the Father of Modern Turkey. After a disastrous nine months the Allies left the peninsular in the dead of night leaving behind more than 44000 dead to lie with 87000 dead Turks. New Zealand suffered the largest casualties relative to their population of any Allied Nation and the campaign changed forever both Turkey, who won, and Australia and New Zealand, who lost but found and forged their own national identities away from Britain.

I saw Dire Straits perform this live when I was 21...it never fails to remind me of the loss and weariness of war and the need for Peace.

Publishing In The Now...

The dramatic rescue today, while the world watched, of the Chilean Miners from their underground prison had all the elements of great story telling. 

First the spine chilling event itself, How can they survive? Four months underground, limited food, psychological pressures and the decision not to tell them how long it would take.... The race to innovate new technology and drill down...The emotional and financial toll on the families. Breakthrough, two months earlier than predicted. Extraction. A new birth....

So how long before the book comes out I wonder? I noticed this week that the book on the Christchurch Earthquake has arrived in shops...that’s just under six weeks. Ah, the speed of publishing, either its a speeding train or a camel train.

This week The New York Times trumpeted that the day of the picture book was over. Parents weren’t buying them and children were encouraged to 'read up'. All over the blogosphere articles were posted refuting this and the sentiments expressed in the article from one misguided blogging book mother that she was forcing her 6 year old boy to ‘read up.’

In my experience (professional teacher, expert in reading,) children, especially boys, go backwards and forwards with their reading strategies and confidence until they are about eleven years old. Picture books can be very challenging reads...I’m thinking some of Graeme Base’s work aimed at twelve year olds...Forcing children to ‘read up’ defeats the purpose of encouraging reading. All you are doing is confirming for the child that reading is hard, a chore, and not worth their while....

Writing the books can be hard, a chore, and is debatable whether it is worth your while...but also like reading, writing can be a joy, a challenge and extremely rewarding.

Michael Hyatt reminds us all of this in an article on his blog about great writing being its own marketing.

Mike Shatzkin looks at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which has just wrapped up, and what we can learn from it...the world is getting smaller and what has happened in the US publishing industry is going to hit the rest of the world, very soon, harder and faster.

Liz Bury of Publishing Perspectives has an article on the Frankfurt Book Fair which looks at publishers use of ebook rights and what it may mean for world wide rights...tricky little lines in your contract that give the writer a bigger slice of the pie if they are sold in different groups.(Commonwealth rights separate from North American rights etc.)

Also looking at contracts is Jeannie Franz Ransom who has an interesting tale to tell about negotiating contracts.

L J Sellers has posted on the Blood Red Pencil blog, a publishers evaluation check list for Manuscript Readers. This is very informative and a handy little guide to look at before you send your master piece off anywhere.

Victoria Mixon has posted some humdinger articles this week...I could have linked to three but then I thought...just send you all to her site...grab a coffee first because I guarantee you won’t want to leave for a while.

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

5 Articles You Should Have Read Over The Summer (or our winter...but you can read them now as a quick 

‘publishing in the now’ 101 course.)

10 Essentials For The Inspired Writers Life. (No surprises I agree with number 1 completely.)

The Infamous New York Times Article

A Screenshot of the Planning Sheet of a Harry Potter Book. This is really good and a good way of visually plotting all the story arcs...

6 Things You Lose When Writing A Novel...very funny piece from the great Tahereh

Salman Rushdie Has Written A Kids Book...( we could all be legit writers now...)

How To Create A Futuristic World...( now I know why I’m doing so much research....)

And if you have got to the bottom and thought 'hey there isn’t any marketing link...' Never fear, Bookbuzzr has a comprehensive list of ten things to think about when you are using the internet to market your book.

enjoy,

maureen

pic...once upon a time this was very now.