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/

R.I.P Rights, Readers and Elmore

Today the news came through that writing legend Elmore Leonard died. He was a popular crime and thriller writer getting his start in pulp fiction. He had 10 rules for writing that have become a popular meme around the blogosphere but Leonard often broke his own rules. Here is a link to the interview where Elmore Leonard explains when to break the rules.

If you are looking for a cheat sheet in the game of life...Lifehacker has 10 infographics and cheat sheets to help you.

Last week I was immersed in WriteOnCon...and this week it’s Romance (a family member is staying here to attend the Romance Writers conference.)  Romance Writers are a savvy bunch often way ahead of other genres in marketing and trends. Here is a collection of great writing articles for Romance writers but they could easily apply right across all the genres.

However if mid grade is your specialty (and it’s mine) here is Peter Lerangis on writing for this age group.

Read this through carefully.

By posting your content on the Sites, you expressly grant Random House a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid-up worldwide, fully sub-licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, perform and display such content and your name, voice, and/or likeness as contained in your User Submission, in whole or in part, and in any form throughout the world in any media or technology, whether now known or hereafter discovered, including all promotion, advertising, marketing, merchandising, publicity and any other ancillary uses thereof, and including the unfettered right to sublicense such rights, in perpetuity throughout the universe.

Are you shaking your head and wondering why anyone would sign a contract with this in?

Well lots of writers have....it could be in .4 in your latest contract. However this little excerpt comes from a Random House contract where they invite writers to contribute blog posts to their online blogging universe. FOR FREE.

Read all about this latest devious way to screw the content creator from the world’s largest publisher.

In the blogosphere this week...Barnes and Nobel and Simon and Schuster have made up. Great news for the writers left out in the cold... However Barnes and Nobel are not having a good week with reaction to their quarterly earnings out yesterday bringing out the doom sayers. Mike Shatzkin takes a look at the bookstore that wants to compete on all fronts. 

Another bookstore getting a mention is our local proudly independent Children’s Book Shop...check out this article on what a bookstore should be doing by British author Mal Peet who graced our city with his presence in the first part of the year.

Passive Guy asks Do You know What Your Rights Are Worth? This is a good run down on different rights in your contract.

Galleycat has a list of what agents have on their wishlists.

In Craft,

There is a swag of very good articles today.

Elisabeth S Craig on Outlining...This is very good.

Bookshelfmuse on sagging middles...Excellent

Justine Larbalesteir on rewriting...Just Brilliant!

Kristen Lamb on Editing...Excellent

Jim Mercurio on beating exposition...very good

Jami Gold is calling all pantser’s and if you are not sure what type of writer that is you need to check out the article from the very clever Ms Gold.

In Marketing,

The Indie 50 best sites...this is a mix of craft and marketing...

Should you do your own Audiobooks?

Twitter lists and how to use them...a great how to guide.

Website to check out,

The Oatmeal....comics on grammar...

To Finish,

Publishers Weekly has been looking at where our audience has gone...The latest YouTube meetup had nearly 7000 vloggers...with teens to the forefront. Some of these teens have over 2 million subscribers to their channels....Where are the publishers? Can authors tap into this underground movement... or are we a dying artform...

Maureen

pic: Flickr Creative Commons /Eddie

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

Write On Writers

This week has been a busy one. 

Two writing deadlines and in the middle of that WRITEONCON.

This year WriteOnCon was in the middle of the week...as it is based in the Northern Hemisphere our time zones don’t quite match up...but WriteOnCon is online so even if you don’t get to all the live forum events you can still follow along as everything stays online.

There is a HUGE amount of information. To give you an idea...there were more than 30 kidslit agents and editors. They hosted panels and keynotes from YA to PB where they decontructed pitches and queries that were randomly selected from the many many submitted. This was great learning. It was always exciting when one of them in the forum said I’ll message you privately for a full request. 

There were keynotes and workshops on all sorts of topics from more than 30 experienced writers, illustrators and editors. Attendees were encouraged to register their pitch, 1st 250 words, first five pages and their query. A team of Ninja Agents would troll the lists over the two days looking for projects that interested them...No one knew who they were, they had code names...but everyone soon knew when they were ‘in the house.’

This year there were 15000 attendees from around the world  and more than 2 million hits on the web site in two days.

Check out the feast of links and set aside some time with a huge cup of coffee. You will not regret it....Then make plans to attend next year!!

WriteOnCon is the brain child of seven writers who got together in 2010 to offer an on line conference for people who couldn’t get to one. A fabulous idea which struck online gold straight away...Many kudos and writer prayers to this stellar bunch of writers!

Because WriteOnCon was the bulk of my online  trawling this week I have a short (but good) list of links for you to check out.

For those of you looking at self publishing these two links have been getting lots of rave comments this week.

Joel The Book Designer, On why a book looks self published and what to do about it.

Roz Morris looks at Createspace and Lightning Source...which one is better for POD books.

Agent Rachelle Gardner looks at ways to promote your books.

Joanna Penn interviews  Lisa Cron about using brain science to hook readers. This is an interesting article on why we like genre...it’s all biological!

One of the talking points in the blogoshere this week was the Forbes article looking at Publishing entitled Publishing is broken we’re drowning in indie books and it’s a good thing!  Some very interesting comments about gate keepers and what happens next in the industry.

FaBostory is ramping up...we have some keen young writers out there. It’s quite tricky knowing that they are soo good(when you are trying to write your own chapter!) Pop into the website and read some very good young writers!

Covering The Book

The Craic Project -Episode Two

A book is judged by its cover.

Book covers - The most important starting point for a reader, getting their attention! I set about reading up on them. What does a Book Cover need?

1. A strong choice of colours to have the book stand out.

2. An arresting image.

3. A clear font choice.

4. The ability to retain all these elements when reduced to thumbnail size. 

This is important because all the marketing of the book is on screen and book covers are reduced to thumbnail size...Check out Amazon and scroll through the average list of books in your genre. Focus on the books that grab your eye.

What colour palettes are being used in your genre? 

Opinion is divided on midgrade covers, from bubblegum cartoon to photo realism. I took myself to the book shops and stood back in front of the midgrade section to see what stood out. Very little. This is because the mid grade book cover is being influenced by the Young Adult cover. The Young Adult book cover is leaning towards paranormal and steampunk colour palettes...that’s browns, blacks and sepias and contrast white. This is what is being published now...bear in mind that books accepted now will take one -two years to come out so styles will change. I checked out what others were saying. Bookseller opinions were that they were over the muted colour tones.

After I finished rereading Craic for the umpteenth time I had several strong images and colours in my mind that represented the main themes of the book.

You know how it is when you have a vague idea of what you want but not a specific. I decided to look at a stock photo site just doodling around to see what was there.

Stock photo sites are a serious time suck...so many cool images. Along with the photos, many artists have uploaded designs as well.

I found two images that represented almost exactly what was in my head and more importantly the colours were strong. The purple image I thought may have been designed just for Craic (I fell in love. If you have read Craic you will know what I mean...If not, what are you waiting for...heheheh. )

Were they too strong? Go to target audience...What do they think...which one...or combination of them... Combination won out.

The cost of the image depends on how popular the image is, the size that you want and the type of license you need. You want a large image for clarity, especially if you are going to be using that image in a variety of media, print, screen, video...(altho not always, see below on book covers) 

So I quickly had to work out a budget. (I had a limited budget however the Book Cover is hugely important so invest money here.)

I had to figure out what licenses I needed and how to buy them.  I made one mistake, getting a more extensive license for the purple image, which means I can print it on teeshirts and sell it if I want...you never know I may just want to do that...hehehe.

Once I selected the images, bought and downloaded them then I had to figure out a way of combining them and find a title font.

Fonts...a serious timesuck, so many wonderful fonts.... I went with a Celtic theme because Craic is an Irish Gaelic word...and just happened to find a font called Dumbldor. How could I resist?

For the price of a couple of dinners, a friend played around in Photoshop and combined the images for me. Then back to the target audience for reaction and tweaking.

While I was checking out images... I was checking out books from the library on making YouTube videos. They all agreed that a good YouTube video was storyboarded and had a matching musical soundtrack...More research required.

Next week... What I learned about Book Trailers.

For those of you who have skipped down to the Main Event...The Link roundup.

What has been talked about in the blogosphere this week?

Apple’s announcement of iBooks and iAuthor iPad App software and the way they have used the EULA (End User Licence Agreement) After you have downloaded the free software then you find out that Apple will take a 30% cut of your work if you sell it. And you can only sell it on iTunes. There are lots of fors and againsts about this move. Check out Writer Beware and read the comments to get a good handle on this one. (my 2c is they don’t own your content and you are free to take that content and drop it into any other software to make an Enhanced Book App with. Latest numbers out... last year 32 million iPads sold.)

The Book designer has a great article on Book Covers (timely, I thought. heheh)

Joe Konrath has an interesting blog post on indie authors being wooed by print publishers after they hit some big numbers on their own.

Staying with this theme The Digital Book World Conference is on at the moment.

Bob Mayer recaps his thoughts on what’s been talked about so far and his participation on the self publishers panel...Yes even Mr Mayer can be outclassed!

Angela Ackerman AKA The BookshelfMuse has written a timely post about pulling back on social media. This resonated with a large amount of people who commented with links and advice to help focus on the task at hand.

Jeff Vandermeer has a blog post on Literary Estates and what it means for an anthologist to try to deal with them. TIP Even if you have only one piece published, have a literary executor...Jeff tells you why!

The great Jane Friedman has a must read article on Permissions...How much is fair use etc etc...and Kristen Lamb mixes it up with an article on the cost of FREE.

Brian Schmidt breaks down a Book Sell sheet, why you need it and tells you How To Make One...Check it out!

Jody Hedlund looks at making those book scenes play out like movies...

Finally the wonderful Shelli Johannes has compiled the list of things you must be aware and/or master if you want to go the self published route.

School starts next week and I’m about to start the mammoth job of covering books!

maureen

Craic (8-12 yrs) is available on Kindle and Smashwords (2.99US)

Check out www.craicthebook.com for more information.