Picking Winners

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

The Guardian reported that there was no magic fairy that would help fund Literary Festivals in the UK. Here in NZ we are also facing this fact head on. There is no money. With austere government retrenching across the board the arts are seen as nice to have if we can afford it, but we can’t. The majority of our arts and science funding comes from profits made from government lotteries. The wish to win the big one is the poor man’s dream and the poor artists and scientists dream as well. Wouldn’t it be lovely if the jackpot could be arts funding for ten years or new research labs. The winner could have their name on the trust fund to administer it. Not bad for a $10 lucky dip ticket.

The UK Creators Rights Alliance is gathering steam. The alliance claims to represent more than 500,000 creatives who don’t want their work used by AI companies. There are some big organisations here, but will they see any traction? This could be a last rear-guard effort to man the barricades. 

 

Mark Williams lives and works in Africa. He explains what it is like to watch technology leaps in Africa that other countries had to live through. Remember dial up? Africa went straight to 5G. Is AI going to be the same?

 

Staying with AI- Don’t believe that it is reliable. Randy Ingermanson (Snowflake guy) recently tried using Chat GPT to do some writing for him and discovered that every quote was made up by the AI bot. What to do?

 

Publishing Perspectives reports that on one of the hottest days in the UK the Publishing Association’s sustainability pledge reached 200 company signatories. Publishing without waste, it just makes sense.

 

Story Empire has an interesting post on going to tertiary research institutions to get reliable information. – This is not just universities but also archives and museums. 

 

Dan Holloway of The Alliance of Independent Authors ( Alli) reports on Substack expanding its reach and making it easy for anyone to have a newsletter.

Alli are rejigging their podcasts, if you are a regular listener, and they have just published a super in-depth article on Marketing Strategies.

 

The Insecure Writers Support Group (fantastic group) have a great article on putting together short story collections.

Jeff Goins has an article on 10 steps to writing a book.

 

Katie Weiland has the next installment of her structure series. This is a great resource and well worth following along for some great craft teaching.

 

In The Craft Section,

The art of the outline- James Scott Bell - Bookmark

Story Structure as a fractal- September Fawkes- Bookmark

Use your theme to trim content- Suzi Vadori- Bookmark

7 tips for opening in media res- K M Weiland

5 mistakes writers make in fantasy stories- Lucy Hay

 

In The Marketing Section,

Amazon A+ content- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

What does your marketing data say- In depth teaching on data!

Amazon book description generator- Dave Chesson – Bookmark

15 Book promo ideas – Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Audiobook marketing using virtual voices- Penny Sansevieri

 

To Finish

Last night I attended the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. It was great to celebrate with this very supportive community the fabulous books published in the last year. A striking feature was the emphasis of the winners in telling our indigenous stories. Out of seven major categories, five were won by books with indigenous main themes. The evening was enlivened by speeches entirely in Maori with many in the audience able to understand the main themes. For many years we read and copied stories that had an American or British style, to tell us who we are. This century I think we can say the national book awards finally reflect us - a pacific island nation with our own unique voice and heritage. It’s been a long time coming and its fabulous to see.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash

Taking A Stand

This week my Twitter feed began filling up with comments about that Game Of Thrones episode. Quite a few writers castigated using violence/rape against women, as a motivating factor in advancing the story or the character of the hero, as lazy storytelling. Chuck Wendig compared how the latest MAD MAX film and the GOT episode treated violence against women as a motivating factor. He makes excellent points and my hat is off to him for raising this issue.

Should Illustrators be credited in the Nielson ratings? This question has started a lot of comment, mostly along the lines of  Whaaat? You mean they aren’t? or It’s about time! or This is a debate? Porter Anderson takes a look at the issue and held a #futurechat on it this week. Nielson claim it is too difficult to credit illustrators. It is all about the metadata, folks.

Are literary journals in trouble?  Jane Friedman examines the way literary journals are run and whether they will still be around in a decade. Can they afford to rest on their laurels as print gatekeepers in today’s digital age? The comments make interesting reading.  Would you accept rejections for 10 years until they took one of your pieces?

Kris Rusch wrote this week about what it is like to stand up for yourself as a writer to your agent or editors. When you have to burn the bridges to get out of a toxic relationship that will harm your career. She has great advice and is well worth reading from a writer beware point of view.

James Scott Bell has responded to a post by Porter Anderson on the proliferation of writing services to authors. Are they worth it? Can writing be taught? Is the digital revolution, widely trumpeted as the best time to be an author, like the gold rush? The only rich people on the gold fields were the guys selling shovels. Lots of comments on both these provocative posts.

Mike Shatzkin has put a stake in the ground. He lists what Publishers need to do if they really want to tackle digital publishing. Although he is focused on Traditional Publishers his list of important points are good for Indie Publishers to take a look at.

In the Craft Section,

K M Weiland has two great posts on finding the perfect midpoint of your novel and the story climax.

Jody Calkins has 5 keys to great storytelling.

Kristen Lamb has a post on story structure.

Now Novel has a post on romance writing mistakes and a list of the best Sci Fi research sites for authors.

Janice Hardy has a great post overview on what a good YA should have and Hugh Howey tackles YA from a different perspective.

In the Marketing Section,

Penny Sansievieri has a great post on timing an Amazon preorder.

Anne R Allen has a must read post on Reviews - Don’t pay for them and what is considered payment – this surprised me. (Bookmark)

Kristen Lamb has a post on pen names. When do you absolutely need one?

7 ways Authors are using Instagram- The Book Designer

DBW is analysing 12 publishers websites. If you want to see how your website stacks up take a look at the criteria.

Publishing Crawl has a post on author photos. How to choose the best shots.

Apple has a new starter kit out for using iBooks.

Sue Coletta talks about what to do when pursuing the Trad Publishing dream.

Website of the Week

Storybundle is a website that offers curated bundles of eBooks. These bundles mean that authors get a bigger share of the pie, they also support charity and you get some great reading. The bundles are up for a limited time. This week Kris Rusch has curated a bundle of writing craft books. Included are some I have had my eye on for a while. So now I own 10 for the price of the 4 I was thinking of.  A present to myself for my 350^th blog post.* 

To Finish,

Alex Cavanaugh founded the Insecure Writers website which has grown from strength to strength. All writers suffer from insecurity at some time or other. She has a great post on taking small steps to conquer insecurity in your craft and move forward and maybe take a stand…

* Thank you for popping by every week to read. Thank you for all the comments over the years either on the blog, Twitter or Facebook.  I really appreciate it.

maureen

Pic: Flickr /Creative Commons- David - Joan of Arc