The Year That Was

The last post of 2021.

We made it. It was supposed to be better than 2020. There was a vaccine. Now a new variant is on the march. Make no hard and fast plans for 2022.

 

This week the posts that have caught my eye 

 

Joanna Penn’s great post on productivity and finding time to write. This is a post to reflect on as you make plans for 2022. Joanna is down under and soaking up the sun. *waves Hi*

 

Anne R Allen on taking all writing rules as guidelines. This is the post that reminds you not to stress about your work.- 

 

Kris Rusch – the 3^rd in her year in review posts. I was tempted to just put the link to her post in the middle of my page… and leave it at that. She says important things for you to think about for the writing publishing business going forward.- A must-read.

 

In the Craft Section,

A good article on dialogue- Writerswrite

 

In The Marketing Section, 

Bookbub posted their best articles from this year…

 

In the meantime here is my rundown of the year with interesting links for you.

 

Jogging through 2021 

 

In January Wattpad was sold to South Korean company Naver and a hedge fund bought Overdrive 

The Fabulous Spa Girls had tips on how to set goals for your writing year. 

Then we dropped into Michael Hyatt’s website to learn about SMARTER goals, to put them into place.

 

In February- Audiblegate…where Audible encouraged subscribers to return their listened to audiobooks for a credit which they clawed back from the author because it was a ‘returned book.’

David Farland warned about new contract terms in an interview with Joanna Penn. David mentioned in passing seeing contracts that asked for All formats existing now and to be invented. Deal Breaker Alert.

 

News: D2D is now offering Payment splitting for collaborators!

In March, Audio is big was the theme and about to get bigger. 

Dr. Suess had some books pulled from reprinting because of racist stereotyping. 

Tom Clancy’s estate discovers that they don’t own the rights to Jack Reacher due to a shocking contract signed early in Tom’s career. 

 

10 questions to help you set the stage- C S Lakin

How to market a book with smart planning- Penny Sansevieri

April- to be renamed Rest In Peace

Harper Collins bought Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 

Beverly Cleary died aged 104 

Amazon Vella launched

#Disneymust pay launched- (who knew that buying companies also meant buying their assets and if it is royalties, also their obligations?)

 

Tips for dividing your story into chapters- 10 minute novelists

30 days of Social Media content Infographic- Barb Drozdowich

 

In May, The Book Designer, Joel Friedlander died (but his excellent templates live on.) 

Storytel partnered with Spotify- That’s the audio ears of Europe wrapped up and a warning that Spotify was on the audio hunt- price no object.

 Amazon responded and bought MGM- The Backlist of films is there to be exploited. (Just remember your backlist has value even if your publishers don’t exploit it. Get limited terms of use and get your rights back)

Joanna Penn interviewed Gail Carriger on the heroine’s journey and how it differs from the hero’s journey. This is a deep dive into craft and fascinating reading /listening.

June

Some second-hand book dealers felt sorry for writers and launched a scheme to get some of them paid when their books were on-sold. 

The Pandemic began the rise of the online bookstore, now everybody has one.

Japan jailed Book pirates.

What is an NFT? Joanna Penn took a deep dive to find out. 

Christie's auctioned an NFT from Tim Berners Lee of the original source code from his invention of the internet. It was for events like this that publishing contracts now contain legal clauses like ‘universal rights in all formats existing and to be invented.’ 

 

In July Amazon introduced A+ 

Overdrive bought Kanopy , a video streaming service for public and academic libraries.

And publishers paid eye-watering sums to grab books about the Trump presidency from the insiders.

 

Understanding the mirror moment- September Fawkes

 

A brilliant article on SEO for indie authors- Alliance of Independent Authors. 

 

August 

Subscription became the new go-to for academic publishers. 

Scammers discovered audiobooks. What you can do about it.

Authors behaved badly. – N.B. Remember nothing is ever off the record so if you don’t want it reported don’t say it.

 

Dave Chesson examined the A+ content blocks and has written a comprehensive article on how to get the best out of the new bells and whistles.

 

In September, the constant news item was the future of Bookfairs… will they ever be face to face again?

Scammers cloning author Facebook pages and destroying their social media.

Amazon offers Hardback format

AI voices start getting taken seriously. 

Netflix bought the Roald Dahl estate for $500M 

Supply chain woes start to bite. (A Local bookshop has just posted they got their September orders today, 3 days before Christmas)

 

Deanna Cabinian writes on the Time vs Productivity paradox for authors.

 

Should you sell your books from your website? Sandra Beckwith 

AudiO-ctober

Paul Simon released an audiobiography Like a documentary but audio-only. (Earlier in the year, I reported that Dolly Parton is working with James Patterson on a fiction book with a companion album.) 

Ireland is trialing a Guaranteed Basic Income for artists.

The American Department of Justice began suing Penguin Random House over acquiring Simon and Schuster citing their outsized influence on publishing and writers compensation if the deal goes ahead

Sacha Black on How to kill your side characters.

Joanna Penn’s primer on understanding Intellectual Property and the ways that authors need to use and exploit what they create to make money.

 

November

What is an NFT? The question was on everyone’s lips as they tried to make sense of it for writers. 

Kobo expanded its subscription service to Oz and NZ. 

Spotify bought Findaway (and life changed in the publishing audio sphere forever.)

Anne R Allen wrote a superb post on creativity wounds. The wounds you might not know you have. 

The literary calendar of 2022-  Sandra Beckwith

  

December

Where did the time go…  End-of-year reports show publishing is still making money but only in certain formats.

Viacom CBS partners with Wattpad and Webtoon.

Publishers paid out silly money to celebrities for books and watched those books tank badly.

 

And now I’m staggering gently to the couch for a lie-down and a cool drink. 

Have a safe and blessed Christmas season. I’m off until mid-January 

It’s summer…

 

Maureen

@craicer

  

The last newsletter for the year is going out soon with the best of, the best of my bookmarked links of the year and other goodies. 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  Christmas cheer hit the coffee button up top. I appreciate all virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: 

 

Drinks by Aperol Spritz

 

 

 

And We're Off...

 I’m Back…

Yes, this blog is one day late. It will not be a trend for the year. (Way to go, Maureen, starting 2021 with an apology… OTOH isn’t that how we feel about 2021? It is supposed to be better than 2020.)

 

Over the Southern Hemisphere Summer, I tried to take a complete media and screen break. It worked some of the time…

This week I’m back in the swing of things researching, writing, and twiddling with my current WIP. I was on a roll yesterday with Pomodoro sprint writing so didn’t stop to get the blog done.

The posts that caught my eye over summer were the usual, what will 2021 be like for writers, what can we learn from 2020, and wow, what a great idea. 

 

Written Word Media has a post on the top ten trends authors need to know about 2021.

If you have been keeping an eye on publishing news, the shrinking of the Big Publishers is on that list. Let’s buy up publishers screamed accountants. (Obviously, they know where the money is- authors backlist IP) Publishing Perspectives reports that Aussie Illustrator Robert Ingpen’s backlist of titles, owned by one publishing house has been on-sold to a new publishing house. 

In other acquisitions, over Christmas, a hedge fund bought Overdrive the Ebook library service and now there are rumours that Wattpad may be on the block. If you haven’t checked into how big Wattpad has become, Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard has all the info and the rumoured price tag. (Eye-popping.) And just in, Nate Hoffelder reports that The Book Designer site has been sold to a dubious operator…. 

 

Looking back at 2020, Writer Beware had a rundown of all the scammy behaviour that popped up over 2020. Some of these scams are still ongoing. Don’t forget to familiarise yourself with the bad actors out there. Fore Warned is Fore Armed. I have just seen a reference to a new scam this week, Negative reviews on your books, which will be taken down by the reviewer… for a price. (Don’t engage… coz then they know you are a soft touch.)

 

Paula Munier has a handy roundup of writing lessons learned over 2020. These are timely reminders. Also, no idea, however weird, is too weird. Just think over the real-life plotlines of 2020 for a moment. (Or even the first two weeks of 2021…)

Nothing is to ‘out there’ anymore. 

 

Colleen Story thinks writers should take more risks this year. She has five reasons why this is a good thing. 

If you are wanting a challenge for 2021, the 12x12 Picture Book Challenge is open for the next month. Every year I vow that one day I must do this challenge. I’m in awe of my fellow writers who can write picture books... It is a special skill.

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors has a great roundup of Tech resources for authors for you to bookmark and investigate over the year ahead.

 

If you have been following the blog for many years. (12+) you will know I am a fan of author collectives. There is nothing like a group of authors to cheer you on. Recently Bookbub profiled a group of authors who got together to write a series set in a joint world. They are having a lot of fun. I know a couple of authors who are doing this with writer buddies- Cue writer envy- Such a cool thing to do. Check out how they make it work.

 

Alison Williams has a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog. This is a must read for a great tip to get your manuscript from first draft to second draft to ready to publish. (Everybody cue your movie trailer voices.)

 

In The Craft Section,

Write yourself a bad review- K M Weiland- Bookmark

Editors share their top tips- Emma Lombard

The vital importance of your writing community- John Peregine

10 quick tips to make your writing craft better- Diane Glazman- Bookmark

Inner conflict- reflecting the inner struggle - Janice Hardy - Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

10 Smart book promotion services- Penny Sansevieri – Bookmark

How to price your self-published book

Book Promotion a marathon, not a sprint- Sharon Bially- Bookmark

How to declutter your book marketing- Pauline Wiles

How to market your Kindle book- Penny Sansevieri

Extra,

Video on marketing on YouTube- This is by musician Mary Spender- It deals with musician income, however, this could be a heads up for the future as the book industry is following the music industry- (Subscription streaming services anyone?)

 

To Finish,

The Fabulous Spa Girls are back with tips on how to set goals for your writing year. They have a series of Golden Questions to answer which then make setting goals for the coming year so much easier. Then you can drop into Michael Hyatt’s website to learn about SMARTER goals, to put them into place.

 

2021… Here we come.

 

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.

 

 

 

Standing Up for Conferences

This week I’m still digesting the mega online Indie publishing conference Indie ReCon. I still haven’t caught up with all of the online content, but I’m happy it will stay there for a while. There is so much juicy information there. A big cheer to the behind the scenes team for putting it all together. More than 25,000 people dropped into Indie ReCon last year. I would say that was surpassed this year, hugely!

Porter Anderson, spent some time at the London Book Fair and dropped into The Indie ReCon meet-up at Foyles in London.

Two interesting developments have caught the eye of The Passive Guy this week. The rise of digital reading in China, over 50% of adults are reading online.

And a new bookselling venture in Florida. This one caught my attention as it seems to be taking the showroom bookstore model and tweaking it for Indie Authors. There are lots of comments about how successful this model might be.

I am seeing more Indie authors grouping together to share resources and publish collectively. I’ve been saying this is the way to go for years - this  bookstore selling model seems to take it all a step further.

Authors rarely talk about the hazards of their profession but with J K Rowling tweeting this morning about writers back... (too long sitting in one position,) attention is back on stand-up writing desks. Michael Hyatt blogged about his desk this week and then Nicola Morgan decided to share how she improved her health dramatically in the last month. I’m eyeing up my desk... if I can get to it. It seems to be the repository of the families clutter.

Author websites have been the focus of Joanna Penn’s blog this week. This is an ultra comprehensive post on the subject. You will find yourself coming back again to it. Don’t get overwhelmed as she says... small tweaks.

Joanna has also interviewed Tim Grahl about book titles, productivity, marketing and other stuff.  It’s a wide ranging interview and full of tips.

Last week I linked to Delilah Dawson’s plea about Self Promotion and Social Media. This week staying with this topic Rachel Thompson gives some tips to deal with this stress and not become a spam monster.

In the Craft Section,

Tips for developing Story Ideas

Roz Morris on tips for writing when time is scarce (which also has a link to her indie Recon video)

All about Pacing. This is a great post on that tricky craft subject.

Improving your character action beats- great post from K M Weiland

Editing – craft tips

Picking the right editor for each stage of writing.

Real rules for writing magic

The ultimate guide to what to do about the boring bitsbetween scenes. Bookmark

In the Marketing Section,

Using Pinterest to connect with your cover designer

Book design tip- include reviews

Author Newsletters- Bookmark this

7 reasons people unsubscribe from email lists...(Great read)

How to cross promote your books in back matter

Website of the Week

Dropping back into The Book Designer for a guest post on time saving tools for writers

To Finish,

This is one writer’s experience of attending Indie ReCon. I would agree with her. It is always good to meet up with other authors somewhere just to reassure yourself that you are not alone in this writing gig. Although Indie ReCon was amazing, checking in face to face at an author event is also important. We can spend too much time sitting in front of a screen. Tinderbox 2015 is gathering steam... the timetable is becoming a juggernaut with lots more cool stuff being added. (We’ve got to stop tweaking it!)

I’m off to re-jig the Tinderbox2015 timetable, again, and play around with my writing desk.

Maureen

@craicer

Pic is from a review of Standing Desks… this one goes up and down at the push of a button.

That Dirty Word...

Sometimes, as I research sites on the blogosphere for this weekly roundup, a topic just keeps getting highlighted. 

This week it is marketing. 

Everyone seems to be talking about marketing books or ideas in some way or another. 

Marketing is one of those dirty words that authors need to know and understand but would prefer that other people say and do on their behalf.

Now that the author is stuck with having to learn marketing tips, as the publishing industry either ditches their authors or ditches their publicity budget, marketing is becoming a hot topic.

What works?

This week some online gurus had some interesting things to share about this bright, new, shiny, wholesome word.

Michael Hyatt is CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and has a popular blog. This week he is looking at How to use FREE as your marketing strategy.

The BookDesigner has started a new series on Book Marketingfor the beginner self publisher. Even if you are not self publishing take a look. You never know where you might find a golden tip to generate more sales.

Ducttapemarketing has posted a podcast interview on their site with David Merman Scott on his new edition of New Rules of Marketing and PR. David’s book changed the landscape of small business marketing when it came out in 2007. His ideas and tools quickly became a bible for small business. So if you are seriously in business, drop by to listen to David.

Tony Eldridge recently reposted his Bookbuzzr link.  This is a nifty piece of code that allows you to put a sample of your book in a book icon with your cover on it on your websites with links to bookseller sites....and it is free.

While you are focussing on the word FREE... a group of dedicated contest lovers have started a Facebook page where they list every free book giveaway contest going. This is an interesting bit of marketing...for authors... bloggers...publishers....  Word of mouth is an incredible force and so is Facebook. They have only been going a couple of days and already they have over 200 people joining in.

The Children’s Writer’s and Illustrators Market Guide 2012 is out this month and Kidlit.com has a free copy to give away...because they contributed a couple of articles. With our exchange rate looking so good it is worth investing in a copy of the Guide. It is the white pages of publishers, agents, and art editors across the US (and their international section is growing every year) for people working in Children’s Publishing. It has great articles and how to tips as well. It is tax deductable and, if you get a free shipping bookseller, so worth the money. ($28 NZ for over 400 pages)

In the hot topics being discussed this week...David Gaughran’sidea of getting translators to translate your ebook/book for a share of theroyalties became a hot topic amongst the translating community as well as the Indie publishing community. Writers and Translators were weighing into the discussion to say how it might work or should work. Lots of interesting comments and examples of how to get your book translated into other languages as publishers get ready for the roll out of Kindle into non English speaking markets later this year.

Publishing Perspectives has focussed their critical eye onthe Gamification of books. If you are scratching your head...Children’s publishing has taken a head start on this with 39 Clues and Pottermore...those poor adult writers...how do you make a game out of your cookbook? Ah ha, read the article to find out...

Mark Coker, the guy behind Smashwords, has uploaded his slideshow keynote from The Central Coast Writers Conference last weekend about Five Big Trends That Will Rock The Future Of Publishing.

Over in the Craft Section,

The Five Elements Of The Riveting First Line. K M Weiland takes a scalpel to the first line and shows you how to craft the layers in. (take some time to trawl around her site too. You Will Be In Awe.)

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

Links to Free Clip Art

The Agents Side Of The Gay YA Saga

What StartUps Can Teach Publishers....This is a great article looking at crowd sourcing, dynamic pricing...

To Finish,

 A couple of months ago Writer Beware highlighted the questionable behaviour of Publish America...a ‘publishing’ firm who (for a fee) would take your MS to Edinburgh and present it to JK Rowling for comment. Yesterday, Writer Beware has become aware of a new scheme(scam) by this ‘reputable’ company...They can get your Christian Book in front of Christian Booksellers (for a fee.) Read the whole story and BE AWARE that sometimes Marketing (by unscrupulous people) is still a dirty word.

enjoy,

maureen

pic from ablebrains

Thoughts Over Coffee....

I’m back home. 

The holiday is over. 

The kids are still on holiday tho. This means that large cleaning projects get tackled piecemeal...because just as you think you have finished, you turn around to see the kids have been quietly trashing another part of the house. The lawn is overgrown, the indoor plants are dead and you promised that before the new bed gets delivered you will redecorate the room....um yeah...Its 30 hours since we came home...I need a holiday!

So what is hot and happening in the blogosphere.

Yesterday I managed to catch a little bit of Kidlitchat on Twitter. This real time twitter chat session happens every Wednesday at 3pm for me which is a rotten time as I’m usually on the school run and I only catch the last five minutes of it...But there was, as usual, some meaty thoughts.

The teachers on the chat session were commenting that they show their kids Book Trailers...post them on class websites etc etc . There was some talk about the trailers inspiring kids to read the book. This was welcome news to the writers on the chat as there was a lot of discussion on whether it was worth it to produce a book trailer. 

Greg Pincus who organises KidLit Chat had asked this question in his blog post a couple of weeks ago. Writers are still thinking this is in the too hard basket...but those that are getting into it think it’s a great idea. If you are thinking along these lines...check out the post and read the comments.

In the chat session, I asked the question would you have a book trailer for an ebook? This was seen as a good idea by some and others had never connected the two before...time will tell whether we see book trailers for ebooks. I remember thinking how weird when I saw the back of a bus advertising a book...and now this kind of advertising is everywhere. There is no hard and fast rule on marketing your book only in book stores.

Michael Hyatt CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers has written about what he sees happening in ebooks this year in his six trends article. This article is being heavily commented upon and there are lots of conversations happening around it. As one commenter writes If Starbucks can sell music CDs can McDonalds sell downloadable ebooks as part of their advertising?(An enhanced happy meal experience anyone?)

There has been some discussion about where the new gate keepers for ebooks will come from? Who will become the ebook reviewers? The filters of what is a good or worthwhile ebook to read, will it be print reviewers? Or will some 'body' jump into the void and become the guru ebook reviewer? These and other interesting questions have been percolating in my holiday mind...I will be interested in who picks up the baton.

Outside of ebooks...

Joanna Paterson has written a good list of steps to get into a good writing practice head space. The key word is practice.

The awesome Victoria Mixon has written a guest blog on Write to Done about the seven secrets of being an independent editor. This is a great post to read before you get hung up on how bad your writing is....

Janet Reid is preparing to go to the huge Writers Digest conference and she gives a great run down on the difference between queries and pitches...so if you always wanted to know go on over and take a look.

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

Making Books Do Things Ebooks Cant and Vice Versa. (this is an amazing article on hand made artefact 

books and enhanced books and ebooks...and the blurring of the lines between them...something for everyone here) Go here for the latest comment on authors enhanced content and contracts....)

How Authors Move Their Own Merchandise...(get some innovative ideas...)

I leave you with an inspiring story of an author blogger who started like we all did not really sure of what she should be doing and ended up with an agent and a book deal because of it...

There is hope for us all.

enjoy,

maureen

Check out this GREAT page of mugs for authors. I want them all! (the pic is one of the mugs featured. Yay Elspeth Antonelli !)