It’s The Little Gifts

 In Publishing News this week,

The publishers are happy. It’s book gift buying season… but really, it’s because they won their court case against the Internet Archive. Publishing Perspectives writes that it all came about because of a missing certificate. (And if you work for Penguin Random House in the US they have just given everyone a pay rise.)

 

Scholastic is happy. They have sorted out a five nation Book Tour for Dav Pilkey. They anticipate bumper sales of his latest book, after all they printed 5 million copies. 

 

Authors and publishers who deal with Spotify had a nice surprise this week with Spotify rolling out lots of data about audiobooks on the site. You can figure out audience demographics and lots more with their new Spotify for Authors platform. 

 

While Spotify is gathering audiobook listeners, The UK Publishers Association thinks that there should be more money in the Audiobook sales pot. They suggest that the format sales along for the UK is closer to $1 Billion. Mark Williams looks at the numbers.

 

One of the popular gifts to teens from your government, if you live in Europe, is a Culture card which gives you quite a chunk of change to spend on cultural activities and books. French publishers are hanging on by their fingernails to their culture card in the face of government trying to claw back money from the scheme.

 

Spare a thought for the Mexican educational publishers… their industry has been hit with a 20% downturn in funding. Mark Williams looks at educational publishers and the problems of relying on fickle government handouts.

 

Do you wish you had a favourite book narrated by the author… it’s a shame they have shuffled off this mortal coil.* However, if you have a snippet of their recorded voice then you could be in business. GoodEReader explains how this will work. Hmm, I’m thinking of narration voice rights being a thing for literary estates.

 

Jane Friedman has a guest post from Nancy Wayson Dinan about the benefits of doing an MFA in writing. Nancy is a director of an MFA program. She looks at the MFA critically using Jane Friedmans quote ‘Art’s success on a commercial level versus on an artistic level.’ This is an interesting article on what the MFA teaches you and what it does not.

 

If you have been feeling that you need a break – check out Colleen Story’s article on managing the many baskets in your writing life to avoid writer overwhelm. This is a good post for those of us Down Under as we head into our Summer break.

 

Donald Maass has been teaching workshops and he stops for a moment to discuss emotional beats and human moments. An excellent teaching article.

 

In The Craft Section,

Character Secrets – Safeguarding- Angela Ackerman

Compelling tension and suspense in your story- Tiffany Yates Martin- Bookmark

How emotional shielding helps your characters- Becca Puglisi

How to mix dialogue and action- Janice Hardy-Bookmark

Inhabiting a name- Jeanne Kisacky- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

Promote your book with a roundup article- Sandra Beckwith

What you need to distribute into stores- Comprehensive- Joe Biel- Bookmark

What to do when the book launch is over- Alliance of Independent Authors - Bookmark

Starting and optimizing your website- Written Word Media

Universal Book Links with Bookfunnel- NEW – Bookmark

 

To Finish,

I’m sure Christmas is coming earlier every year. It doesn’t seem so long ago that it was Easter. The supermarkets have huge displays of Christmas food and conspicuous consumption is everywhere. So what to get for the writer in your life… or to drop hints about for yourself. Katie Weiland outlines her five gift rule for writers at Christmas. A package like this would make my Christmas.

 

Next week: I’m traveling to attend a family members Masters graduation, so there won’t be a blog post. When I get back it will be the bumper end of year roundup.  

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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Pic: Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

 

*From the Bard himself. If his voice was ever recorded, few would understand it. 

Being a Fan...

Last night I attended the the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. These are our top prizes for Children’s Literature and so are a BIG DEAL.

Today I have been reflecting on the surprises amongst the winners and the Judges comments about choosing books with a distinctly New Zealand flavor. 

For many years we have been looking outward trying to make our stories more international...or even ignoring our own stories thinking they won’t be of interest to an international audience. Publishers have hesitated about promoting New Zealand themed stories overseas...they won’t travel well, they're too kiwi. But these stories are our unique point of difference...amongst the fantasy/dystopian/superhero saturated publishing world and this year the judges decided to remind us of that fact.

Through it all Story is the defining thread...as Jack Lasenby (81), winner of the Young Adult category, said in his acceptance speech ‘Without Story, I Am Nothing.’

Jack’s writing career reflects New Zealands attitude to its own stories. He is a master storyteller deserving of a wide audience. His first novel for children tackled child abuse when no one ever talked about it and 'that is such a grim subject we don't want anyone overseas to know that happens in the land of Godzone'. Jack was known in New Zealand but no publisher took his work overseas...'it was too parochial'. Then he wrote dystopian Young Adult fiction, before it was popular...'great writing, but too dark...it might scare the children.' It won awards. His fun tall tales, for younger children, of life in New Zealand in the 30’s when he was growing up, great writing... won awards...'well the stories are too far removed from current children’s lives...won’t have any relevance to an international audience'. This year Gecko picked up his latest tall tale and took it overseas...and it got favourably reviewed by the Guardian.

Can we get over our cultural cringe and see if the world is ready for some real New Zealand stories. We are the nation of focus for Frankfurt and IBBY so we should start getting behind our great children’s writers.

 What interesting gems are there in my blog link roundup today? 

The importance of story links many of them.

From a cool infographic about how a story is born from Mediabistro to the importance of voice for audiobook narrators, the impressive Cris Dukehart on being a serial killer...and how to get the right narrators for your project from Bob Mayer.

The Book Designer has ten writing exercises to free your mind and K M Weiland talks about flipping genres halfway through the story and how to sort this out.

There is a guest interview featuring Editor Cheryl Klein who talks about the importance of plot and Bubblecow has a nifty piece on getting constructive feedback so you can edit.

The Guardian has an opinion piece on how Fan Fiction of popular stories is driving the new books being picked up and Rachelle Gardner has reprised her post on how to craft Book Proposals so your story can be picked up...

Two feel good stories offer hope out there...How one bookstore owner is taking on Amazon and how a self pubbed author of a popular scifi series got his project picked up in Hollywood.

Selfpublishing should be a marketing tool. This guest post has had lots of comment on Jane Friedmans blog and is a must read for the week along with the Books and Such agents blog on why everybody in publishing feels disenfranchised.

Joanna Penn has helpful hints on a marketing list to get your stories noticed and Catherine Ryan Howard tells you how to get your first readers.

Every link, a nice little story...I leave you with a video from Dan Blank about how the quality of the stories you create should last for generations.

The pic is The New Zealand Post Children's Book Award supreme winner...a distinctly New Zealand Non Fiction Story...which just happens to be a graphic novel!

maureen