Deals and Demigods

This week around the publishing blogosphere the news was all Simon and Schuster. While Hachette and Amazon are still embroiled in their contract war, Simon and Schuster quietly went about negotiating new contract terms with Amazon. And everyone wants to know just what those contract terms are.... Hugh Howey has a pretty good idea... it is probably very close to what the Indie authors are getting.

Hugh has been busy this week. His latest quarterly report Author Earnings is out. And it is the first one that looks at the impact of Kindle Unlimited on author income. Porter Anderson has a very detailed look at what Hugh found out. Subscription models look here to stay and authors need to keep a weather eye on their impact.

Australian Author Patty Jansen has been looking at her Indie income with a fine toothcomb. A very interesting analysis.

Articles about the Frankfurt Book Fair are still coming out. Reedsy has one looking at a panel discussion on when publishers get it right... with sales and content. Great read!

In our neck of the woods Walker seems to be going through a tough time. A long time popular editor has been let go and some Picture Book contracts have been cancelled. This is devastating news to the authors concerned as the illustrations were nearly finished. Picture Books can be anywhere from 18 months to four years in production and to pull them at such a late stage in the process sends alarm bells. Time to pore over those contracts... with a lawyer.

The huge success of the Percy Jackson series has the New Yorker looking hard at the quality of the books children choose to read. They draw on Neil Gaiman’s famous address which was in the “Just–so-long-as-they-are–reading” camp and contrast it with Tim Parks essay on reading habits where he suggests there is little evidence of reading upwards from Pulp to Proust. Having a Percy Jackson fan in my house I was treated to a diatribe this week about the important characters in the Greek demigod world. I don’t have a problem with that at all. Where else is the average Kiwi kid going to find out about thirty centuries old myth and legends?

In the news this week Disney has turned its sights on the South Pacific and their newest ‘Princess’ movie is in the works. Moana... ably supported by the demigod Maui. (Please Disney, don’t make it a white bread yawn!) Taika Waititi has written the original screenplay.

In the Craft Section,

Janice Hardy on finding the right rhythm and voice to nail your beginning.

Now Novel on Unreliable vs Omniscient narrators

How to get around using Trademark in novels from a Trademark lawyer. This is a Must Read post!

K M Weiland on the difference between Story Concept and Story Premise.

Quality not quantity in your writing.

In the Marketing Section,

Elisabeth S Craig looks at making your content work hard

Julie Muesil has a list of podcasts that are required viewing/listening. In the list are two people whom I have referred to before, Joanna Penn and Sean Platt. This week Joanna interviewed Sean so it’s a two for one deal in excellence!

Book Marketing tips for eBooks.

K M Wieland has a guest post on Book Cover design.

Matt Wallace has a comprehensive post on selling books from your own website.

The best ways to use Twitter lists

Tips on monetizing websites.

Using Book Trailers to promote your work.

To Finish,

NaNoWriMo is almost upon us... so Janice Hardy revisits her prep list for this event.

Every year Scrivener writing software do a free trial for the month… Go here to find out about it.

The Book Designer has a wonderful bundle discount on book interior designs. Well worth a visit and to grab an absolute bargain!

Huge Congratulations to Jack Lasenby who is receiving a Prime Ministers Award for literature tonight. Jack is one of New Zealand's finest writers for children. I am lucky to be attending this event… where we celebrate NZ demigods of literature.

Unleash your Demigod!

Maureen

Pic from The Disney press release

Creating Plan B

Last week the blogosphere was filled with reaction to Hugh Howey’s new website in aid of authors. Hugh got what he wanted, lots of dialogue...lots and lots of dialogue.

Discussion was everywhere. Porter Anderson took a look at what was being said... all sides of the report are being debated (tho interestingly very few traditionally published authors are saying anything at all.)

Last week Hugh’s first report looked at the top selling genre’s. This weeks report he takes a whopping 54,000 sample snapshot and looks at the other genres including childrens books (not YA)

Ebooks are not big in the children’s publishing world, compared to the numbers you see out there for adult genre titles, so it is interesting to get a little look into what might be around the corner.

This week, a friend who teaches in a not very affluent school, down the road, noted that all her kids had ipads and she was looking for good reading apps to download onto them. I would be very interested in seeing the numbers of Educational and Story Apps out there... and I wonder if Transmedia is where children’s publishing may be heading rather than an ebook take up.

Print is still king in the children’s publishing world despite what Hugh says. 

Interesting times...

Among the debates around the reports are the increasing recognition that Hybrid authors (who straddle Trad and Indie) are doing OK. Jami Gold takes a look at this in a very interesting post on hybrid authors and small publishers. 

Julie Muesil guest, Alex Cavanaugh looks at the small publisher side of the equation.

Yahoo Finance blog also weighs in with a publishing is not dying post.

Writer Unboxed has a must read post on Plan B when the career/contract/book dream seems over.

Chuck has written his final post on the subject of selfpublishing... and the report. (usual warnings) He has a great conclusion  ‘We should demand the best and most beautiful of one another. Not encourage the worst and ugliest.’

Passive Guy took some time out to look at a contract story that had the publisher say to the negotiator – You don’t like the contract –self publish...in other words, I aint gonna change it. This brings up all sorts of issues- Take a look.

In Craft,

Elisabeth S Craig looks at the pro’s and con’s of outlining. (I agree with her)

K M Weiland looks at the Antagonist needing a mushy moment...(say what?)

Janice Hardy Looks at what a good proof reader can do for you...(yes yes yes)

Archetypes Vs Stereotypes and Do you know the difference???

5 Voice Tools to help you write without a keyboard...(I’m trying out Evernote)

In Marketing,

One comprehensive post... Seven strategies and over 100 links to find readers and reviewers

The incomparable Kris Rusch (who’s Retrieval Agent story I just raced through) has Part 9 on her 

Discoverability series of marketing blogposts and it is a bookmark read...as is all the others in her series.

Janet Reid Lit Agent explains (begs) how to do a book comparison in a query properly.

Website: The 2nd Indie ReCon Free Online Conference is on next week. 10,000 people dropped in last year... and it was an amazing line up. Check out this years line up and try to catch it. Everything Indie.

To Finish,

Creativity is the one thing we fall back on in our writing... we need to be creative.

Here are two posts on Creativity - 3 Career Investments Every Creative Should Be Making and The Seven Stages Of Creativity -a new perspective on writing a book.

maureen

Pic from Flickr Creative Commons /Evelyn Giggles

Trolls and Turtles

Reviews...fake...nasty...and contained has been the topic around the Blogosphere this week.

Goodreads moved to ‘set the appropriate tone’ of reviews on their site this week.  But some cried foul as they saw it as censorship.

As I have said before, if you don’t like the book don’t review it...or say why you don’t like the book and back it up....

Goodreads new policy is to try to stop the bullying reviews and personal attacks of authors on the site. The freedom of anonymity, while you are sitting at home, to write on the internet a corrosive review of a book or author because you can...and no one will call you out to your face for your behaviour...brings out the troll in some people. And trolls seem to seek affirmation of their troll behaviour from other trolls.  Any writer putting their head above the parapet to call out troll behaviour gets targeted. Hugh Howey talks about this and how he was guilty of ducking it until this week...A great article from Hugh.

Being the geek I am, I read PopSci and this week PopSci looked at a scientific study of negative reviews on science stories and found that constant negative reviews which are emotive, skewed the perceptions of the readers to put aside the facts of the science article.

PopSci pulled the plug on comments on their articles on their website...there are still ways to comment...FB, Twitter.... but not on their website. 

If you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch.

Self-publishing advice has an article which tells you about the subculture of Amazon Reviewers...yes they talk to each other...

Porter Anderson spends a lot of his Ether just looking at the articles flying about reviewersthis week and there are many... So take a long break and maybe reach for alcohol.

The Frankfurt Bookfair is about to kick off and as usual there are lots of side events looking at the state of publishing. Publishing Perspectives takes a look at one aspect that will be big news at the fair... Self Publishing : the industry implications and impact.

Another must read is Kris Rusch. This week’s stand out article is the stages of an Indie writer. This is being tweeted around the blogosphere...

Elisabeth S Craig also has a nice little post on being a Hybrid Writer.

Chuck has always been Mr Nice when talking about traditional publishers, after all he may cuss but he is not a hypocrite.  (Unlike a certain author who is getting roundly dissed for his hypocrisy all over the web.) Chuck traditionally publishes but doesn’t diss Indies or Amazon or anyone that plays fair... until today when he came out in Chuck mode in an open letter... Dear Publishers.

In Craft,

Star Wars...and the 8 things it can teach us about writing.

Simple Writing  has one of the best explanations ofVoice I have read in a while.

In Marketing,

Julie Muesil looks at the brilliant way that Hugh Howey markets.

MediaBistro takes a look at how to do book covers with public domain pictures.

DigitalBookWorld looks at 5 ways that authors can handle bad reviews.

Website to go look at,

This is an author run co-op with some illustrious members...making waves in the indie publishing world. Check out how they got together and how they publish their work. I keep saying this is the way of the future...

To Finish,

SCBWI has introduced a new award for non traditionally published books...and Katherine Applegate (Animorphs) has been signed by HarperCollins for a new series on the strength of 3 sentences...

The green trolls of jealousy should be gathering to pull her down about now. 

More Power to Katherine’s Arm. 

I saw in my Twitter feed today a nice reminder....

If you think your idea is too weird to fly... just remember these four words. 

Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles.

Feel free to comment....

maureen

Pic courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons/ Frankensteinnn