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)