The Battle For Your Ears

 

This week in publishing,

The news that Spotify has bought Findaway broke like a thunderclap around the publishing world. Spotify aims to be a one stop shop for everything audio and Findaway is the biggest competitor to Audible in English language audiobooks. They are keeping the Findaway team on and will throw some serious money and muscle into the audiobook world. The reaction is mixed. Some herald it as a fantastic opportunity to go wide with Spotify bringing its subscription dominant model to audiobooks. Others note with caution the negative impact Spotify has had on musicians' take-home pay. 

 

Meanwhile, Storytel was acquiring a big audiobook publisher of its own. Their acquisition of audiobooks.com marks their first foray into the English language market. They have plans to expand in other little-served English language markets. The New Publishing Standard has an interesting analysis.

Audiobook subscription is here to stay. Authors will have to decide on what company has their best interests at heart.

 

The Futurebook conference is about to kick off in London. This is run by The Bookseller and a quick look at the programme shows what they think will be the big moves in publishing and the book trade in the next few years. 

 

Miral Satter has an interesting article on the importance of audio metadata. Increasingly people are asking their smart devices to find content and entertainment. Audiobooks are obviously chock full of audio metadata. You want to be found by search engines, don’t you?

 

Kris Rusch casts her laser eye over the proposed merger of Simon and Schuster with Penguin Random House. The DOJ has halted the sale while they wrangle about causing a monopoly Kris points out it might be too late.

 

The Guardian reports that UK store John Lewis who is known for their iconic Christmas Ads is being sued by a writer who thinks they have ripped off her book. It all hinges on copyright and proving who had the idea first.

Written Word Media published their survey findings on the state of Indie publishing in 2021. 

Becca Puglisi has a guest post on Anne R Allen’s blog on finding conflict. You don’t have to look far just allow your characters to speak. If you peel back a few layers your characters have enough conflict to punch up your story stakes.

 

Recently, Sarah Penner wrote an interesting article on Writer Unboxed about the cliffhanger. Readers love to be teased she says and the art of the cliffhanger is the best way to keep them reading. So how do you write an effective cliffhanger?

 

In The Craft Section,

The First Chapter Checklist- K M Weiland

Plotlines points and sequences- Scott Myers- Bookmark

How to write fight scenes- Write to Done

How to show emotion in non viewpoint characters- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

How to deal with writer's block- Dave Chesson- Bookmark

 

 

In The Marketing Section,

The literary calendar of 2022-  Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

 2 great posts from Bookbub- Boost reader engagement and 

Promoting multi-author book series- Bookmark

Marketing Book ARC’s- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Amazon keywords and Atticus – Dave Chesson- podcast 

transcript with Joanna Penn- Bookmark

 

To Finish

Christmas decorations are everywhere. This means the agony of Christmas shopping. With the supply chain problems the earlier you nail down those presents the better. The Alliance of Independent Authors has a gift buying guide for writers. 

Don’t forget to check out the Storybundle of NaNoWriMo craft and marketing books. It is available until the end of November which isn’t that far away.

The Dream Team of Angela and Becca have put together a list of Black Friday deals for writers. Check it out. 

 

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.

 

 

Author Rewards- Can You Afford An Elephant?

This week around the publishing blogosphere the chat was around author business.
Nate Hoffelder flagged that the new Amazon publishing dashboard has added a projected royalty earnings button. Things must be on the up. Markus Dohle CEO of Penguin Random seems to think so. Talk this industry up he says... 

Every writer has struggled with rejection. Writing is subjective. Not everyone will love what you write. In fact, as a writer, you regularly go through rejection of your own words. Anne R Allen has a fabulous post on rejection and why it feels so awful... 
Writer Unboxed came at rejection from another angle- Are you making writing harder than it needs to be? 

Joanna Penn has been on fire recently with great podcasts that this blog post is in danger of becoming an exclusive ode to The Creative Penn. If you have yet to watch/ listen to a podcast you are missing out on one of the most valuable sources of knowledge about Indie publishing around. Joanna also transcribes her podcasts... so you can read all the great information. So check out Why you need to treat your writing like a business and Joanna’s great interview with Frances Caballo on Pinterest and Instagram. And if you look carefully there are two more links in Craft and Marketing – both Bookmarked!

Understanding metadata and SEO is important in marketing. Miral Satter besides being CEO of Bibliocrunch is also savvy on SEO. (Search Engine Optimisation.) Miral has a must-read post on ways to nail author SEO.

I often wish for a nice team of elves to take over social media marketing and asking for reviews. It is so hard as I hate to bother anyone... Ingram has got a great post on how to build a community and get a team of elves together. Penny Sansevieri has a good post on how to get review recommendations.

Have you often wondered if there was a secret writers club that the big players are members of? There is, it’s called NINC.  They have amembers only newsletter but I recently came across a link to their article on crowdfunding for authors. This put me in mind of Kris Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smiths Crowdfunding campaign that is breaking all sorts of goals. If you donate even a little bit of money you get author workshops... books...courses... Seriously, seriously good prizes and there are only a few hours left...

In a Writer Beware moment – I often come across new writers in writing groups plaintively asking about publishers who want to publish their work if they would pay some money in first. Now there are Hybrid publishers who do a good job for authors and then there are the scammers who don’t. Here is a great article that lays out what you should be looking for to tell the difference. Pass it around- the more everybody knows the better for our industry.

In The Craft Section,

How to write with emotional truth- Bang2write- Bookmark

B speaks for A dialogue tricks- Stephen Pressfield

Using writing sprints- Paul Bonea- Bookmark

How to love self-editing - Hayley Milliman- Bookmark

Flawed characters= Great fiction – Kristen Lamb

9 weird ways to beat writer's block

In The Marketing Section,

How to make the most of Goodreads- Joy Rancantore- Bookmark

Author entrepreneur ethos- Jarie Bolander- Bookmark

Testing Bookbub ads- Bookbub- Bookmark

Choosing a publicist- Jane Friedman

3 simple mistakes to avoid in marketing- Jeff Bullas

Book Hooks and Blurbs- Sacha Black

To Finish,

This little video of A Day In The Life Of An Author popped across my Twitter feed today. I was intrigued by the elephants in the garden... every author has them.
They will be first on the list when I make my millions in royalties... LOL.

Maureen
@craicer

My monthly newsletter is where I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes. I always appreciate virtual coffee love. If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons William Warby – Elephants at Whipsnade Zoo

The Ebb and Flow of Publishing

This week in the publishing blogosphere there was a lot of sympathy for the plight of Eilis O’Hanlon. Eilis has traditionally published her crime novels with her partner. They enjoyed modest success then in the ways of publishing... editors move... the series gets dropped and copyright reverts and the book goes out of print. That is until the book get plagiarised and finds a new success on Amazon.

This week Caroline Paul was shining a spotlight on publishing dilemma. Why boys should read girl books? There are some great arguments for this and a disquiet among authors that the push to be gender specific has not done children any favours. Melinda Szymanik explains this very well in her opinion piece.

Molly Green posted a breakdown of her earnings last year. A few authors are doing this now to explain why they are choosing to self publish. Transparency does educate. Her post makes interesting reading. As ever you should read the comments to get a fuller understanding.

Publishing Perspectives shines a spotlight on a new publishing company. Assisted publishing using people working in traditional publishing. It’s another way people can buy the services of a traditional publisher.

Joanna Penn interviewed Mark Lefebvre of Kobo about their global expansion into Asia and the new opportunities for authors who

publish with them. This makes interesting reading. Kobo is 2^nd in sales of eBooks behind Amazon and they are growing.

In the Craft Section,

When to write the end- K M Weiland- Bookmark

Revelation Midpoint- Sara Le Tourneau- Bookmark!

7 things that will doom a novel- James Scott Bell- Bookmark

10 tips to create a good writing routine

Why every writer needs a VIP- Ruth Harris- Bookmark!

Plot skeletons

In the Marketing Section,

7 ways you can use Pinterest.

Top book marketing takeaways from DBW16

How to get distribution after you‘ve printed the book

How to build a media kit- Molly Greene- Bookmark

Don’t make these rookie marketing mistakes-Miral Sattar

Website of the Week

The cool One Stop for Writers website has got even cooler. Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have put together visual story maps. This is a handy aid to those writers who struggle with structure. 

To Finish,

Stephen King’s book On Writing is one of those must have craft books in your writing arsenal. Here he has 17 screenwriting lessons. These are really writing lessons regardless of the medium.

Fabo is back! It's that time of the year when NZ's wacky children's writers come out of their writing caves and start another round of story starters for NZ children. 

 maureen

@craicer

Pic from Flickr / Commons  Nedre Leirfoss, Trondheim, Norway 1890

Publishing Mobility and Catfish

I have been reading a lot of publishing industry 2015 reviews and 2016 predictions with Mobile, Global, Audio, and Change, the most common themes being discussed.

Jane Friedman has an excellent eye for these trends, her article is well worth a read.

In the self publishing world Bookworks has an excellent roundup of predictions from industry leaders.

Porter Anderson has been looking at the changing relationships between editors and authors. This is an excellent piece to share with your editor over a drink.

The call for realistic publishing contracts is gathering momentum with take up from Writers Guilds around the world.

The Bookseller examines this campaign and proposes a new one- how to get more readers in 2016.

While Authors are globally mobilising forces for change in contracts, the news that PRH has dropped Author Solutions was welcomed by authors. BUT as David Gaughran points out All Is Not What It Seems. Please read and share around to all those Newbie Authors out there. This is Vanity Publishing with Shark Bites taken out of Clueless Authors.

However even savvy authors can get burned. This week the publishing blogosphere was catfished. (When someone pretends to be someone they are not.) This elaborate scheme targeted writer reviewers and was pretty audacious.

This week news that GRR Martin will not be publishing the next book anytime soon had the blogosphere hopping with agitation. Bookriot published an excellent article about leaving authors to get on with writing in their own time.

Chuck Wendig took this a step further and delivered his first 2016 thought piece on writing. It is timely advice especially for 2016 writing resolutions....

Kris Rusch has also started 2016 with an excellent post on the publishing industry. If you ever wondered why publishers seem to publish the same sort of book... this explains it!

On the same theme Stephen Pressfield looks back in time to how Random House came to give all their employees a $5000 bonus.

You have made your writer resolutions for 2016 and you have vowed to commit to writing x amount of words every day (oooh look shiny distraction...) You are going to be faster, better, stronger... (Olympic theme tune.) You are going to rule this writing gig!

So below is the reason you drop in to my blog every week.... (Thanks for coming over!)

In the Craft Section,

R L Stedman has a great post on negotiating your contract if you don’t have an agent.

Roz Morris on how much you should talk about your novel.

The Pro’s and Con’s of writing in 2^nd person.

Helena Helme on 5 ways to learn your craft! (Ahhh Casablanca!) Bookmark!

Janice Hardy- Those Red Flag Telling words!

Jane Friedman on Query letters for Non Fiction.

In the Marketing Section,

Getting your website ready for 2016

Secrets to Self publishing success in 2016 – Lindsay Buroker- Bookmark!

How to nail your Author SEO- Miral Satter- Bookmark!

Molly Greene’s best posts about blogging

Digital Book World – Ingredients of a successful marketingplan – Bookmark!

To Finish,

Smart readers will realise that my first blog of 2016 is a day late. Excuses: I’m still in holiday mode... I’ve got lots of books still to be read on the holiday reading pile... I should be plotting Book Four in my series... I’m recovering from Christmas/ New Year... still... I’ve got to master all these Book Nerd resolutions!

Onwards to a successful 2016!

Maureen

@craicer

Pic from Flickr/Creative Commons- Missouri State Archives