Thou Shalt...

It has been a funny old fortnight (do you still use that word in daily speech?) I had to take a break from my regular weekly blog due to the recovery dance going backwards.

In the publishing blogosphere it is Frankfurt time! Frankfurt is one of the worlds biggest book trade fairs. This year Frankfurt nodded towards self-publishing with a who’s who line up of speakers for a dedicated two day conference tacked onto the main event.  Along with the many book deals being done at Frankfurt there is lots of discussion about industry trends. ISBN’s are in the spotlight. Porter has been looking at the increasing dissatisfaction with ISBN’s. Are they necessary? (N.B. NZ provides free ISBN’s through the National Library for NZers.)

Just when you thought bookstores were on their way out... Faber (Lit publishers) decide to operate a pop up store selling Faber titles. Other publishers are watching that space.

Amazon announced this morning that they were going to have a store in Manhattan... So the store idea is not dead.

In a little rumble that may herald an earthquake is on the way... Adobe has been identified as scanning people’s digital bookshelves without their consent... this may be the straw that breaks DRM. Publishers may feel that DRM won’t be worth the lawsuits...

Futurebook has an interesting article on Bookbridgr. This is a site that teams up book bloggers with publishers. With the increasing loss of book review pages in print this looks like an interesting option. (Could be room for a NZ option...)

I’ve always thought India was a market to watch... 1billion people... many who speak English... EBooks India has just interviewed Mark Coker on what it takes to self publish there.

Writer Beware has an interesting post on how to ask publishers about rights reversion. This is an important clause in your contract...

Karen Inglis walks her readers through converting a Picture Book to an ‘Enhanced eBook’ through iBooks.

In the Craft Section,

Two great links from Ava Jae. How to write effective betrayal and How to make up your own language for your WIP.

How to write a page turner.

Screenwriting tips for novels, 3 act 8 sequence.

Showing or Telling

Anne R Allen - Are your dreams getting in the way of your writing goals?

Creating characters readers care about.

Multi - coloured heroes... diversity in your characters.

How to destroy your initial idea to make it better.

Chuck - what you need to know about your second draft. (Great article! Usual Chuck warnings)

In the Marketing Section,

Neil Gaiman's clever bookclub trick

Jane Friedman interviewed Bella Andre... and learned 5 tips for success.

Using Goodreads to its best advantage for Authors

10 book marketing mistakes

Killzone- ten tips to self promote like a marketer.

If you are interesting in the self-publishing revolution, Lateral Action interviewed Joanna Penn about her new book Business for Authors.

Writer Unboxed has 5 tips from Joanna to consider when you look at your author business.

15 terms every Indie author should know

To Finish,

The ongoing battle of should you/ shouldn’t you over author blogging is always a weighty tussle.

Here it takes another twist with a guest article on The Book Designer website... Thou shalt blog.

Of course I don’t follow the proscribed rule... in my weekly (ahem) blog but if you want to click on the book covers in the side bar you can get a taster of my writing.

maureen

Ch...Ch...Changes. (No.150.)

Three years ago, when I started this blog...the world did not know about the huge change in publishing just around the corner. 

Print was still king. E rights in contracts - do we really need to worry about them? Promotion...isn’t the book launch enough? Oh and book trailers, skype author tours, elending  and the demise of the newspaper... that is way in the future... isn’t it?

Over the last three years I have learned about author marketing, publishing trends, the rise and rise of independent publishing and the alternatives to the printed page. I’ve probably bored you silly with yet another link to Mike Shatzkin, publishing futurist and predictor of the trends that frighten you, that you hope won’t come true, except they do.

Mike is looking into the future to pick the big issues to address in nine months at the 2012 Digital Book World conference...The rise of children’s book apps are the next big thing to watch.

Kevin Kelley (of The Long Tail fame) has taken this even further and sees books existing in the cloud of web computing able to be mashed up into all different forms...in 20-30 years. His commenters take issue looking at the downside of ‘rogue’ governments controlling what people read or how they are informed by who controls the cloud and access to it...(or big business - Amazon and Google.)

With the huge upswing in epublishing in the last two years...authors becoming publishers, print publishers beginning to digitise their back lists, you could be forgiven for feeling a little shell shocked at the speed of take up. The key is to learn as much as you can before jumping in.

Elizabeth Spann Craig has a guest post on modern mythology about publishing myths...for authors and publishers. To E or not to E, that is the question.

Jane Friedman looks at who writers should trust to help them in this brave new world.

Three years ago you wouldn’t have considered book design important, or where to buy an ISBN number or whether you needed one before you flicked up your writing on the internet.

You wouldn’t have known about the importance of marketing and how to automate what you do, to make promotion easier.

You wouldn’t have known about escams that harvest content from blogs and websites, slap it into an ebook and sell it on Amazon or Kindle for $2.99.

This information is now becoming need to know and understand and presents a challenge to the writer who thought all they had to do was write.

Writing good stories has not changed in three years.

Roz Morris looks at how you can make dull scenes, that are full of information, interesting and Fictiongroupie has a good post on critique partners...why you need them and how to find them.

Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify page) I have links to articles on

Movie studios are looking for more YA books

Publishers obsession with the iPad elitist...(it’s big in the West but what about the East?)

To finish,

E Elle has a great post that will bring a smile to your face as you contemplate all the different roles the writer has.

I leave you with a video showing the emotional stages the writer goes through when writing that novel.

And a neat little spoof video.

enjoy,

maureen


pic...something yummy (Slainte)