Reading Between The Lines

 

In Publishing News this week,

Last week publishing social media was full of comment from disgruntled authors discovering they had been let go from a prominent author agency. I didn’t link to it at the time as tempers and opposing viewpoints were swirling and I figured that everyone might calm down and things were not as bad as portrayed. Then the Authors Guild got involved to try to sort out the mess of over 20 authors with contracts in various states of negotiating being hung out to dry. So yes, things were bad. The fallout has probably permanently tarnished the reputation of the agency. There are no winners.

 

This week a hybrid virtual/in person book fair in New York was held over three days. It’s the only Book Fair that attempts to be a national book fair for the USA. After the demise of Book Expo America and virtual Digital Book World offerings, the flagship shows like London or Frankfurt aren’t happening for the U.S. Mark Williams looks at the problems of running a big book fair. Does the English language publishing world really need another bookfair?

 

Germany has just published a survey on reading in their country and the declining levels of literacy among children is alarming. They are embarking on a huge campaign to lift literacy. However, recently their teen reading levels have been huge. Is it the power of TikTok influencers?

 

James Daunt CEO of Barnes and Noble recently spoke on how his policies have changed the face of the bookselling company. The secret is in curation, and local curation at that. Also shelving non-fiction books by subject instead of alphabetically. Wow. Who knew that might work?

 

Jane Friedman has a guest post by Joni Cole on cover woes and what you can do when your publisher gets it so very wrong. Her publisher though she would be happy with an explicit cover on a book about… writing craft. 

 

Randy Peyser has an interesting post on what publishers want. This is not a specific post but does have some interesting ideas for what you should keep in mind when approaching them.

 

Ingram Spark has a useful article on choosing readable fonts for your book. If you are into designing print interiors check it out. Warning- once you go down the typeface rabbit hole you will discover a wonderful new world that can be quite addictive. 

 

Recently the Spa Girls writing podcast had an interview with Matt Bird – a writing craft teacher on the secrets of story. It’s a great interview with different ways to look at scenes and characters.

 

September Fawkes has a great article on things she wished she knew as a beginning writer. This is a must read. It doesn’t matter if you are beginning or not, there are gems to think about… print out…carve on your wall, in here.

 

In The Craft Section,

7 cool tricks for beating the maddening middle- Holly Lisle

Hero’s journey structure and examples- Lisa Taylor- Bookmark

3 steps to engaging your readers- Angela Ackerman

The difference between Character Archetypes and Tropes- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

How to create insanely complex characters- K M Weiland- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Marketing to Libraries- Goodstory company- Bookmark

12 ways to promote your book- Green Leaf

First impressions, Book Covers-Mibl Art-Bookmark

Relaunching with audiobooks- Bookboss Academy

Moving the needle- Huge Marketing post from SCBWI – BOOKMARK

 

To Finish

Lisa Cooper Ellison has a great column on Jane Friedmans blog, this week she writes about Beta Readers. Lisa looks at  how important they are and how you can help them out. If you prepare questions and manage their expectations it should be a positive experience for everybody. If you haven’t really made use of Beta readers before this is a handy article on how to get started with them.

 

Go Forth and Read.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

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

 

Pic Photo by Matias North on Unsplash

 

Reading gymnastics- or how many ways you can curl up with a book.

Under The Skin

 

In Publishing News this week,

Many writers muttered Hallelujah when Ingram Spark announced they were making print file uploads of Print On Demand books free along with free revisions for the first 60 days. There was general joy all around the publishing socials. They wouldn’t have changed their policy because every other print POD service is free would it?

 

Business Insider reports that Tiktok has registered a publishing press trademark. I wonder how they are going to advertise their books to readers or reviewers or even how they will go about getting books to publish? Now all they need is a buy button…

 

The Writers Guild of America called their TV writer members out on strike. This last happened about 16 years ago… and suddenly there was lots of Reality TV popping up. The writers have been screwed by streaming. The New Yorker lays out the case.

 

The arrest of a Taiwan publisher visiting relatives in China is making the Asian book industry nervous. The disappearance of the writer and publisher is being highlighted by news agencies around the world, reports The Guardian.

 

The UK Publishing Association reports that they had a bumper year last year with physical book sales up. Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard points out that their reported numbers have huge million dollar holes. What happened to their digital book industry?

Mark also points out the double standard over Storytel Norway being accused of favouring their own brand on their own platform. Who knew that was unethical? *coughAmazoncough*

 

Kris Rusch writes this week on the gradual breakdown of favourable terms for writers from Amazon. She has been an advocate of going wide for years. This is her last heads up blog post on the danger of putting all your sales eggs into one basket. All the signs are warning of an iceberg ahead.

 

Ruth Harris has an interesting post on Outlines, AI, and Stormy Daniels. Ruth tries her hand at using AI to write a blog post and concludes that the prose is very boring. Then she thought about a biography of Stormy Daniels….

 

Lit Reactor has a great article on books with a lack of character development and concludes it is not a problem. Do we really need to see the characters grow and change? Sometimes the fact that they don’t is comforting. 

 

In The Craft Section,

Assuaging the pain of punctuation- Tiffany Yates Martin - Bookmark

5 things to know about writing for teens- Jennifer De Leon

The difference between character archetypes and tropes- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

What is a psycological thriller- Cailean Steed- Bookmark

What we can learn from reading bad fiction- Richard Thomas

 

In The Marketing Section,

7 tips for strategic pricing- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Critique sites- Kathy Steinemann

Should you pay an influencer- Sandra Beckwith

What goes on the copyright page- Darcy Pattison- Bookmark

Readerscout- new free tech from Kindlepreneur- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

The 122 page book, Death Of An Author has been making small waves after it was recently published by Seth Godin’s press Pushkin Industries. 95% of this murder mystery is written by AI. The New York Times reviews it fairly. Some will like it. Some will hate it. 

Creativity is not under threat- yet. 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

 It’s time for my monthly newsletter? If you want the best of my bookmarked links and other extras why not subscribe and join our merry band.

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

Pic: Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

https://claudeai.uk/ai-blog/

Listen Up!

 

 

This week in Publishing

 

The rise of the AI voice. DeepZen AI is partnering with Ingram to produce audiobooks using AI voices. Joanna Penn flagged this in her futurist segment in December last year. I don’t think she was expecting it to be a reality quite so soon. 

I recently got a chance to play with AI voices with my manuscript and it was uncanny. You can emotionally intensify words in a passage.

 DeepZen is offering all this and more in a cheap introductory package. It really could be a game-changer if you are looking for a cheap way to get into audio. 

Last week I linked to the news story of Audible+ subscription being rolled out to more countries. Don’t forget that Audiblegate is still ongoing. That’s where subscription participants are encouraged to treat Audible like a library and constantly return audiobooks so the writer doesn’t get paid. (The reader gets full credit back - up to a year later. The writer foots the bill for this.) With the drop in royalties from Audible and the cost of human narration, it could be a viable alternative. 

 

This week the excitement was palpable as authors logged into their KDP dashboards and discovered that Hardback was available. Is it really true? Yes, and early adopters say that you get a fancy coloured ribbon bookmark attached to it as well. Just a reminder, you need to check your dimensions and bleed for printing hardback and you need a new ISBN for the format. Go forth and have fun!

 

I’m starting to see plaintive moans from authors whose books are being held up in the great print delay of 2021. Supply chain issues, paper shortages, stuck boats in the Panama Canal, and overloaded ports in China have all conspired to delay print runs, especially for the pre-Christmas book rush. This has a knock-on effect on prices. Expect your Print book prices to go up. Ingram has already raised their print prices by 3-6%.

 

Joanna Penn has an interesting interview with Sarah Werner on producing audio drama. This is your full cast of characters audio play version of the audiobook. If you love listening to plays and want to turn your novel into an audio play, check out this interview. Just a note, all things narration have separate licenses- ISBN’s. A narrated audiobook is different from a cast of characters audiobook which is different from an AI narrated audiobook- although ISBN agencies might not have cottoned on to that last one yet, but it will come.

 

Written Word Media has a new ad programme for authors called Reader Reach- They will do the Facebook Ad marketing for you… for a price.

Meanwhile, Storygraph, an alternative to Goodreads is gaining traction.

 

Victoria Strauss has an update on the #Disneymustpay scandal. If you know anyone who has written for Disney or one of their many imprints, spread the word that the Task Force (a representative group from many writers organisations,) want to hear from them. Disney is NOT going out of their way to find the authors they owe royalties to.

 

This week Kris Rusch had a standout post entitled Comparison is The Thief of Joy. This post is one to mull over as you look at your creative life. I read it out loud to my family and we talked about what it meant to each of us. 

 

In The Craft Section,

2 great posts from Angela and Becca -Everything to do with Characters and Describing your characters appearance- Bookmark Both

What’s the plot point- David Farland

Crafting The Short Story- Insecure writer support group- Bookmark

What setup in a novel means- Janice Hardy

Story Planner success- Now Novel- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Is your website missing crucial elements? Bookmark

Making Ebook Bookstagrams- Bookbub

The social side of Social media for authors- Writers in the Storm

Ads promoting debut novels- Bookbub

Should you sell your books from your website? Sandra Beckwith - Bookmark

 

To Finish,

The news is out. Netflix has acquired the whole of Roald Dahl’s literary estate.

They have plans! Expect to see a bevy of Dahl movies, animations, musicals, and what about the books? Special tie-in’s, re-releases, animated digital versions…. The possibilities are endless. I hope Quentin Blake (as the iconic Dahl illustrator) gets a cut. Rumour suggests that the price was $500M. That estate is worth a lot of golden tickets to Netflix.

 

Don’t forget - every writer has a literary estate for the life of copyright. The Dahl heirs will be popping champaign for a long time on this, also the agents, the executors, the lawyers…

 

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.

 

 

Book Love

 

 

In Publishing news this week,

The Frankfurt Bookfair goes virtual following all the other book fairs around the world. They are opening up their virtual fair free to anyone who is interested. Publishing Perspectives details what virtual sessions are on offer.  

 

Meanwhile, Publishers Weekly reports that the book industry took a hit in sales over the last quarter. Was anybody surprised? The ongoing size of the contraction has some concerned. If you factor in the huge amounts of books being released this month and up to Christmas, there could be desperate times ahead for booksellers.

 

This week Amazon quietly announced a new service, Bookclubs. It seems kind of odd when they already have Goodreads. Nate Hoffelder reports, although their new idea sounds good it is missing some important features going forward, namely the club feature. It is still in Beta mode though.

 

This week Joanna Penn interview Erin Wright about publishing wide and the mindset you need to cultivate to do this successfully. It is a fascinating interview, well worth the listen/read.

 

This week Kris Rusch wrote about dealing with the effects of the wildfires along the west coast of the U.S. Do you have a Go Bag for your business? In the event of a sudden calamity could you access your passwords… your files… your finances… If you haven’t thought about it – time to make it a priority.  

 

Have you heard of Booktubers?  These are YouTube book reviewers that are influencers. Wired has an interesting interview with one. I checked out the site and lost an hour watching entertaining book reviews. 

 

Ruth Harris has an interesting article on imposter syndrome. We all suffer from it. Ruth mentions that sometimes it can be a good thing. 

 

Dave Chesson has an interesting guest article on changing up keywords in your metadata. If you regularly do this, it can make the book more relevant in the Amazon store.

 

In The Craft Section,

Antagonist motivations- K M Weiland- Bookmark

Structural Editing- Iris Marsh- Bookmark

How to write a synopsis if you hate writing synopses- Roz Morris- Bookmark

10 things you don’t want when naming characters- Katherine Grubb

How to put your reader into the scene- Sean Platt

Managing your cast of characters- Writer Unboxed

 

In The Marketing Section,

Building a long term career- Jane Friedman

2 great posts from Penny Sansevieri- Get creative with Bookbub and Promote with creative collaboration- Bookmark Both

Maintaining a reader mailing list – Alli Blog – Bookmark

The hidden potential of audiobooks- Tina Dietz

 

To Finish,

Being a book nerd, I can waste a lot of time on font sites. Their design fascinates me. Did you know that many of the fonts you read now were designed or based on fonts developed 400 years ago with the printing press?  The Ingram Spark blog looks at the best fonts for books and if you love jacketed books, Ingram are now offering this plus hardback books with embossed covers. FANCY! Meanwhile, check out the Alliance of Independent Authors blog on the guide to the perfect book cover.

 

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: Flickr Creative Commons- Rulenumberone2

Questioning Karma

This week I have been thinking about Karma. (As we sow, so shall we reap.)

Jami Gold has an excellent post which generated lots of comments on Writer Sanity and Recognising Takers. This follows on from last weeks excellent post on what do you do for others in the writing community. 

Jami always has really interesting articles about all things writing. Her name comes up a lot in my blog along with Anne R Allen, K M Weiland, Janice Hardy, Jane Friedman, E S Craig, Angela Ackerman and Kris Rusch. Along with many others they GIVE an enormous amount to the writing community. But some people don't understand that this takes time away from their own writing. Takers expect answers to their specific questions and feel entitled to get an answer right away- They can be pushy, and demanding of your time. They usually don’t bother with thanks either. I have experienced many of the situations Jami’s commenter’s have. I shrug it off and wish Karma back on that person in such a way that they learn. My Karma is to teach and remain positive, (tho in this game it is sometimes harrrrrd- pours wine.)

All of us Paying It Forward to the writing community would just like to say... before you ask your question...

1. Can you Google your question and then read at least the top two pages of links first. (We all did- that is how we learned!)

2. Find an expert in the field and then read everything they write on the subject. (Again, it’s a learning thing.) A lot of blogs have search functions. Read the comments as well. There is usually a ton more information in the discussions

3. Check out a curated blog (like this one) for links to lots of experts. Read them for a while, chances are your question will be answered somewhere.

I always have to laugh when someone asks me a question- about 90% of the time the answer was in one of my roundups within the previous month.

David Gaughran (an all round stellar person) has had his Karma moments on Twitter.

David has a great book, Let’s Get Visible, on author digital visibility. He posted a chapter quite a while back as a promo on the Alli blog. This was ripped off along with other peoples work and posted in an elaborate software scam. As David and Writer Bewares’ Victoria Strauss work through the implications... it gets murkier and murkier. Other writers have been taken in. There are arrest warrants out there.

Julie Hyzy has an interesting tale to tell about a work forhire situation. This is a glimpse into the world of book packaging, which can be lucrative for writers but perils await when the editors move on.

Roz Morris has taken a good hard look at what it means for Ingram Spark to own Aer.io. And it means that she is about to change her marketing strategy. This is Ingram expanding their book distribution service into storefronts for authors. (In the battle for P.O.D. Ingram may have scored a coup over Createspace.)

In the Craft Section,

How to write Fabulous Dialogue

Writing conflict to ruin characters lives- Bookmark!

Mastering the art of the cliffhanger ending- Becca Puglisi- 
Boomark!

Dictating a Book – tips for editing- The Book Designer

Janet Reid on using italics for thoughts-

How to write loglines- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark!

10 habits of successful authors- KM Weiland

Joanna Penn on her creative process.

In the Marketing Section, (Bookmark All of Them)

Molly Greene has a great post on low cost ebook givaway hosting.

Jane Friedman has two excellent posts - Optimizing Amazon descriptions and an interview with Patrick Walsh, a book publicist.

Lindsay Buroker – How to increase sales at Apple ibooks

Elisabeth S Craig on Timing Book Releases and her take on Ingram Spark

Carolyn Howard Johnson has a post on altering a published book – Do you need a new ISBN

Website of The Week,

Anne R Allen has a very informative blog. There are great articles on writing and publishing and guest posts from industry insiders. This week she has a great guest post, looking into the future, from Laurie McLean, a Fuse Literary Agent.  Recently she had a post on what to do with social media accounts in the event of your death. Very interesting stuff and a must read.

To Finish,

Often signing up for webinars is problematic because of our Time Zone but I try to attend various ones that have content available after the event. Joel Friedman and Joanna Penn have put together a great one on Self Publishing in 2016 this week and added some cool extras. Find a quiet space to meditate on Karma and thank these two for a great 90 min video.

Maureen

@craicer