Money In Money Out

My 400th Post!

This week in publishing news Simon and Shuster were hit with a class action on payment of eBook royalties. This one will be rattling the cages of a few big publishers. It all hinges on whether publishers treat an Ebook sale as a ‘sale’ or a licensing agreement.

Rattling Author and Agent cages; the news that Month9 publishers were in trouble and having to downsize their business. There was lots of support for the authors and editors caught up in a financial mess not of their making. This great article on how to evaluate a publisher got shared around.

Kris Rusch has another installment in her deal breakers posts, on Non Compete clauses. This is an awful little clause that can stop a writing career in its tracks. Writer Beware has highlighted a few over the years. Read and be very aware what the implications are.

Nicola Morgan is an in demand festival and school speaker in the UK. Lately she has been coming up against the notion that writers should be ‘happy to speak at festivals for free as exposure.’ The UK Society of Authors is running a campaign about this and here Nicola sets out her reasons why she won’t lower her fees without a good cause!

Porter has a thought provoking article about book prices being driven downwards thereby devaluing all creative work. There was lots of discussion around these ideas. Have we encouraged the reading public to only buy free?

We have all heard about laptop crashes and writers losing manuscripts... Janice Hardy has a great article about organising your hard drive to find your work in the first place and then you can back it up!

Rachel Thompson is a force to be reckoned with. I’ve linked to two of her marketing posts today. However this article struck a chord. How often are we left wondering why something failed? Rachel has written a great post on turning rules for failure into success.

Jane Friedman is one of the industry’s Go To Guru’s. She turns her clear and insightful gaze on crowdfunding. Should authors do it?

In the Craft Section,

Creating unforgettable settings- Part 3 and 4 Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

What are your characters not saying- and What can you do about plot -Two Bookmark posts from Janice Hardy

Avoid this pitfall when plotting –Roz Morris Bookmark

Editing for people who hate editing- Bookmark

12 steps from Inspiration to finished novel

Embrace imperfection- Bookmark

5 traits of a winning concept- Mythcreants-Bookmark

Getting the right feedback- Belinda Pollard- Bookmark

In the Marketing Section,

10 cringeless self promotion ideas

On submitting and submitting again

Why keywords are so important

Contest ideas for FB pages- Bookmark

Rachel Thompson hosts a Twitter chat on book marketing. She has a helpful list of book marketing tips -Bookmark

Mastering your Author Brand

Website of the Week

The Killzone is a great collective of crime and thriller writers who post great articles on the writing practice. Larry Brooks has a fabulous guest post here on receiving and working with editing criticism. As with all my links read the comments for a fuller picture.

To Finish

This week I was thinking about what my next writing craft book might be... and telling myself that really I didn’t need another... (oooh look shiny new book over there) My Kindle is mostly packed with writing craft books which I dip into on a fairly regular basis. Storybundle has been a great source for good writing craft books. And they have another great offering this month. 5 great books in a bundle or 10 if you pay over $15- you do the math. I have some gems in my Kindle from the last Storybundle. You pay what you like, the author gets a sale and you help a charity as well.

Maureen

@craicer

Photo from Flickr/ Creative Commons- 401kcalculator.org

Genre Bashing

Why did @JustinTrudeau choose a gender balanced cabinet? "Because it's 2015." https://t.co/oZhL8422pU

— George Darroch (@georgedarroch) November 4, 2015

This week I have been reflecting on the idiocy still perpetuated that somehow literary genres read by a majority of women are inferior to other literary genres.

Romance novelists were taken aback by a snarky article on plagiarism at the Washington Post this week. Instead of talking about the plagiarism that had been discovered the journalist went for the who-can- tell-because-it’s-not-real-writing angle.

Jenny Trout writes an excellent rebuttal and if you want to further enjoy the smack down read the comments following her post about Shakespeare.

Amazon has changed its Kindle Unlimited payouts again. At the same time as doing this it has finally (after twenty years of business) taken the plunge and opened a bookstore in Seattle. Just one... with 6000 books, a lot of them face out on the shelf....

If you are diving into NaNoWriMo and have popped your head up for air, check out Chuck Wendig’s post on surviving it...

November besides being the month of insane novel writing is also Non Fiction month. Nicola Morgan had a passionate post on the lack of recognition to our Non Fiction children’s writers.

Anne R Allen has written a post that has been passed around the blogosphere - 5 delusions that block writers from succeeding. The speed of the sharing showed that many writers found some truths in this excellent post.

Jane Friedman takes a look at literary journals... the struggles of writers to get published echo the struggles of these journals to publish.

The rules of storytelling… from Pixar.

In the Craft Section,

Two great posts on dialogue tags- Actions speak louder from C S Lakin and 10 dialogue mistakes from Marcy Kennedy - Bookmark both!

5 ways to build a flimsy villain

The single best way to finish a novel- Kristen Lamb

5 smart tips to write a draft at speed- Roz Morris – Bookmark

Planning a Character Arc – Angela Ackerman

Building a Great First Chapter- Beth Revis

Planning your Novel Ending- Janice Hardy

NaNoWriMo -planning

In the Marketing Section,

Promoting Pre Orders- Bookmark

How to get readers to lust after your book- James Scott Bell

Trying new things for visibility- Elisabeth S Craig

How to sell without being sleazy- Kate Tilton

How much does it cost to self publish- Bookmark

How to get your book reviewed – Molly Greene

Author marketing –ways to support your writer friends without compromising your own platform.

To Finish,

Stephen Pressfield and Black Irish books have a great series of videos on The Story Grid which you should check out for NaNoWriMo. Darcy Pattison has some tips to help you carve out a writing life.

If you are a fan of popular podcast serial Night Vale... Then look out for the book. It is 2015 and publishing has changed. Now we can take podcasts and get big publishing deals.

The new Canadian Prime Minister was sworn in today. Three words have echoed around Twitter following the swearing in ceremony. It’s a reflection on long it has taken and that we still have a way to go.

Maureen
@craicer

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.

Is It Goodwill?

This week in the international childrens publishing community everyone was talking about the genre slap that we took when Kent University (UK) decided that Childrens Writing was not literary enough to teach seriously... this followed the sacking of the Times Children’s Book reviewer, in a budget cut. The children’s writing community in the UK wrote a letter signed by 425 writers and librarians to the Times expressing their outrage at this. Childrens writers around the world are facing the continual disparagement of what they do so there was lots of agreement when Keren David wrote this blog piece. There is a beautifully put comment on it from New Zealand’s Maria Gill who summed up our feelings here pretty well.

As the fallout continues over Learning Media and the sales of back lists etc etc, anybody who has got an email with new contract terms in it please check in with NZ Society of Authors before you sign anything.

Be aware that increasingly publishing contracts are now including tricky little phrases such as ‘all rights in perpetuity’ and ‘Worldwide’ and last month Writer Beware commented on a contract that had ‘Universe wide.’ Check over this handy book contract clause explain-all.

Bob Mayer has been looking at the traits of sucessful writers these days and it comes down to the fact that they are ‘Outliers.’ This is a really interesting article.

Continuing in this vein is a great post by C J Lyons who is probably the most sucessful Hybrid author out there. How has she juggled her writing career stradling both sides of the fence...she went and built a new paddock.

Bibliocrunch has some tips if you want to look into self publishing.

Phillip Jones of FutureBook has been looking at the slap dealt to the science publishing community from a Nobel Prize winner about the elitist nature of publishing journals... The Open Access of scholarly work is the big talking point in the academic community at the moment.

DigitalBookWorld is hosting a webinar on Rights Marketing and Management. Check it out.

Author newsletters...How do you do them and what use are they. This is a nifty bookmark worthy post giving you the low down.

Publishing Perspectives is taking issue with The Best Of 2013 Book lists...which are appearing all over the web at the moment. One ofthe more comprehensive book lists I’ve seen is BookRiot’s. At least I have heard of some of the books.

In the Craft section,

Susan Kaye Quinn on Brainstorming Your Book. This is a bookmark it post.

Jodie Renner has pro tips on character description.

Writersinthestorm has a How to write like the wind...

Kirsten Lamb on character duality traits.

Sarah Juckes has discovered a nifty website to help youuntangle your plot.

There are three stellar articles from Jami Gold.

4 tips that solve 99% of your writing problems

Subtext when your characters are liars

Fix 4 common problems with The Emotion Thesaurus (Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s amazing book)

In the Marketing section,

Joel  Friedman has a nifty template for anyone wanting to do a dust jacket.

Julie Hedlund has been doing a kick starter for her picture book which became funded yesterday. Take a look at how she broke it down and what she offered.

6 books every marketer needs to read. I have read some of them and they are very interesting even if you are not a marketer.

To Finish,

‘Tis the season to get gifts for yourself  (or the writer in your life...) Here we have Chuck’s Ten gifts for writers updated from when he asked people to kidnap Neil Gaiman.

K M Weiland has the top 10 gifts for writers...(not as extreme...) and

Writer Unboxed has bypassed the gift list and gone straight to New Years resolutions for writers...

Spread the Goodwill!

maureen

Pic from Amazon (5* book on visual fantasy writing)

Rabble Rousers

Last week I referred to the media frenzy surrounding Into The River, which won Senior Fiction and Book of The Year at the New Zealand Post Children (and Young Adults) Book Awards. The media frenzy revolved around concerned groups of people calling for the book to be banned and stripped of its award, because in their view there is explicit content in it not suitable for children. As I stated last week the book is for Young Adults and is aimed at 15+ and reporting knee-jerk reactionary comments from people who have not read the book is sloppy journalism.

The media has moved on to cover other things...however the vitriol surrounding this book has not. This last week many Children and Young Adult Authors have been concerned about the level of personal attacks being made on Ted and the Award sponsors, New Zealand Post, on social media sites. The authors who have stepped in to defend Ted have also become targets with hate filled comments being left on their own websites and on public social media platforms.

The hurt being done, by a small number of vitriolic people with a deeply conservative viewpoint to the New Zealand Children’s Literature community is very palpable. These libelous slurs live on in social media, forever searchable. 

There are many things wrong that we should be taking the time to debate like the high suicide rate amongst our young people, the high youth unemployment and teen pregnancy figures, the ease of access to harmful drug substitutes at our local corner stores. These are very real threats to our young people in New Zealand. Why is there such a negative focus on a book that may help teenagers understand these issues and find solutions safely? 

This is why the children’s writers have been defending this book. With bile all over the award sponsors social media sites, will the children’s literature community lose its pre-eminent awards because of the actions of a small group of uninformed people who have not read the book? 

I Hope Not.

Overseas the news that the judge found Apple guilty of collusion in price fixing is starting to make waves.

Earthshaking is how Mike Shatzkin describes the latest figures coming out from Hachette in the UK. More than 50% of all sales, print and digital are being made online. This article is a must read for authors on the future implications to the publishing industry. With B&N pulling out of Nook it seems that the publishing world that we are getting used to may be going south very rapidly.

And what will RandomPenguin do? It seems that killing the Literary genre advance may be their first act.

Last week Sci Fi author and out going president of SFFW, John Scalzi, posted his manifesto for attending Sci Fi Con’s (something often built into Sci Fi genre authors contracts.) He won’t be going to a Sci Fi Con(vention) unless they have a published anti-harassment policy. Over 1000 authors have signed his manifesto, however it has also raised questions about limiting income for authors. One author writes why she won’t be signing the manifesto...with John’s support.

Jane Friedman’s article on Optimizing Metadata and its importance in marketing is being widely shared around.

Media Bistro have an infographic detailing where books were most abandoned in the reading.

The Guardian has a great article where they asked the editors of the finalist children’s books in the Branford Boase Awards to write their top 5 tips to authors.

In Craft,

Two fabulous links from Janice Hardy, 10 Questions To AskWhen Choosing A Setting and You Need More Scoundrels In Your Life. (My epiphany - all my favourite reading heroes are Han Solo’s)

7 Things Dungeons and Dragons Taught Me About Storytelling.

How To Use Dialogue Correctly...with examples.

Jody Hedlund has a great article on The Most Important Edit You 
Can Give Your Book.

Elissa Field On Novel Revision Strategies.

In Marketing,

ISBN’s Do You Need them? (NB: NZ authors can get free ISBN’sfrom National Library of New Zealand.)

Joanna Penn has a new marketing book out and she is doing excerpts of it as guest posts on different blogs...Check out Dave Gaughren’s blog for her take on Marketing Myths.

Goodreads shares a slideshow about Using Goodreads for publicity and marketing.

Nicola Morgan has started her own author shop. If you think about the ramifications of merchandising it seems a logical extension of the Author Brand. Check out what she has planned...

The Indelibles are also looking at Branding and Books and Such 

Lit Agency is looking at Author Blogging and whether it reflects your brand.

Cool Website link to visit.

AtlasObscura....click on Random Place and it will take you to a wonderful setting...where you can imagine writing a story...or just long for a lotto win so you can go there.

To Finish,

One of my wonderful author buddies found this great video comment by Young Adult author John Green when he found his debut book was being challenged as inappropriate for children...The reasons sound very similar to what is happening here in New Zealand and John’s answer to the critics is beautifully put.

FYI: NZ Children's Authors are sending letters of support to Ted and NZ Post.

maureen

pic from Flickr/JvL 

The Craft Of Writing...

What do I have for you this week.

Looking over the links I have gathered for you, today’s blog is turning into the craft of writing post...with the bulk of this weeks links across the publishing blogsphere spotlighting craft issues.

It could be that writers are gearing up for NaNoWriMo...yes I know we are in September but you can’t prepare too early....

First tho some interesting articles that caught my eye.

Kristine Rusch writes about the scammers who are targeting authors...unfortunately some of them are reputable publishing houses. This is one of those writer-you-must-know-what-your-rights-are posts, especially when publishing houses try to change contracts after they are signed...and it is not an isolated incident.

The advent of Kindle Serials has got everyone talking. Back in the old days writers like Dickens published their work as a serial changing parts of the story to fit audience reaction. Check out Jane Friedman and Porter Anderson’s round up of the opinions now that Amazon are giving this model a spin...

Rachelle talks about learning to pitch your potential to agents and editors.

There are new agents on the block looking for kids lit stuff.

Harper Voyager is having a two week window to unagented submissions...

Jami Gold touches on a few head scratchers for authors...print vs ebook, long tail vs out of print, actual bookstores  vs backlist. How does this impact the author now?

K M Weiland has a thoughtful post on the excuses writers have for not writing and how to combat them....

Indelible Writers have a great post on marketing books...know your hook, line and sinker.

Joel Friedlander has a post on gatekeepers...There aren’t any now and also a  great post on the hub and outpost method of Social Media marketing.

Now on with the great caft list...something for everyone here.

13 ways to put urgency in your writing from Rachelle Gardner

Are you preaching in your PB and how to tell from Mary Kole

The seductive but deadly sin that wants to kill your story from Larry Brooks

How to get your readers to love your villians- from Writers in the Storm

When your characters cry –from Superheronation

Archetypes - Neville Longbottom, the perfect foil from Harry Potter for Writers

Revising to raise the stakes in your story from Aimee Salter based on Janice Hardy’s advice.

If you can’t afford an editor...advice from Nicola Morgan

A must bookmark now post on scene structure from Randy Ingermanson...(The snowflake guy) Truly if you only have time to check one of the craft links today check this one...

To finish,

Every now and then I put a link to Chuck Wendig...he has a striking way of getting his point across...Here is a link to Chuck’s personal rules of writing now...(warning its Chuck! You will laugh and you will wince!)

‘Write as much as you can, as fast as you can. Finish your shit. Hit your deadlines. Try very hard not to suck.’ –Chuck Wendig

pic from http://www.flickr.com/photos/donovan_beeson/6879567474

Links to Giveaway...

Last week there was a lot to read through...so I forgive you for not making it to the end and discovering the cool giveaway! (Maureen watches last week’s post stats jump....heheheh)

This week I have some interesting links for your delectation.

The awesome Cris Dukehart explains why she loves her job as an audiobook narrator and the little tricks you need to know if you want to do this yourself.... A brilliant interview with tips for authors to help make their work more audio friendly.

One of the Blue Rose Girls, editor Alvina Ling gives a detailed breakdown of what happens when she gets a manuscript to edit. This is a fascinating look at the editing process and there are lots of tips to think about for writers when you get to the editing process.

Joanna Pennhas an interesting post on series continuation hassles...when you discover that you have a series on your hands how do you go about retro planning for the future life of your characters. Lots of comments on this one with some great advice.

Lydia Sharp has taken a look at the difference between inciting incident and catalyst and breaks it down with examples. This is a great reference for writers out there looking to nail how their plot can move forward.

Nicola Morgan has taken a long look at the synopsis and defined what really should be in it. Don’t get hung up on your timeline...say what...? Go and read this valuable post.

Bob Mayer has been attending the Storyworld Conference and he has some interesting things to say about transmedia and the three screen revolution...Is this where we are all headed?

On a similar theme Publishing Perspectives takes a look at the hoops publishers have to go through to produce a halfway decent picture book on an eBook platform.

Two marketing links that may be of interest...

Tony Eldridge looks at 10 Ideas for Non Traditional Book Marketing 


Hubspot has taken a close look at Facebook business pages and has highlighted the best ways to get them moving and sparkling...This has great relevance for websites so check out the article.

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

Keeping Your Superpowers Current

7 Gadgets That Won’t Be Around In 2020

To finish, 

Roni Loren has an hilarious article on the life cycle of a blogger and...
 Amanda Hooper has created the ultimate dream (and referenced her friends) for a writer who has a book coming out...watch the video!

I’ll keep the ebook giveaway up for another week...just remember to comment with your Zombie name...
enjoy,
maureen

Rants and Research

The holidays are fast disappearing and my To Do list stays the same. This week has had some highs tho.

My family managed to all go to the movies together. It may not sound like a big deal to you but it is to me. With so many things pulling at each one of us, we can only usually manage to eat together once a week. Family events of more than the fifteen minutes to eat dinner take major planning.  We saw The Sorcerer’s Apprentice...and we all enjoyed it for various reasons...How they managed to cleverly mix physics and magic, the mop scene from the old Disney version, Nicolas Cage, and the Harry Potter trailer....

Straight after the movie I raced into The Children’s Bookshop for Diana Menefy’s little soiree to celebrate her book, The Shadow of the Boyd. This ripping yarn’s journey to publication has been long in the making. Diana has been researching this piece of tragic New Zealand History for about a decade. She has cleverly woven in many facts about shipboard life in the early 1800’s but not at the expense of a great story of tragedy and survival against the odds. When I got home after dinner out with some great writers...I started the book and kept going...finishing it in one bite. Shadow of the Boyd is the last book picked up by a publisher from the pitch session at Spinning Gold to be published and I was delighted to be able to celebrate this with Diana and some of the Spinning Gold team.

I haven’t been doing much researching on the net this week so this morning I took a look at what has caught peoples attention that might be of interest to you.

Lynn Price, Editorial Director Of Behler Publications has ripped into Christopher Pike for not only NOT researching properly but for then trying to defend the resulting mess. She does not spare the editors of his publishing house either who did such a sloppy job that they didn’t catch obvious errors which ruin the whole foundation of the story....You may think she is a bit harsh...but I don’t. Diana Menefy spent ten years getting the history right, the life and times, the names of the characters and the language right for Shadow of The Boyd. It is children’s novel but it has been meticulously done. I know how much time I spend researching...writer friends have called me on it...(stop and just write the damn book...) We have a duty to our readers after all to write a good story. Our readers are not dumb and treating them as such shows an amazing arrogance which will fast lose you credibility and readers.

While I am ranting (but not half as well as Lynn Price) Suzannah of Write It Sideways has a minor rant on her blog about being plagiarized. Suzannah has discovered that whole articles have been copied and pasted, cut up and attributed to other bloggers. She is trying to get a perspective on it that doesn’t involve wasted energy...and negative thoughts. Suzannah has posted a short list of rules for new bloggers to understand about linking to others work, and commenter’s have linked to some great sites for copyright protection.

Off on a different tack Victoria Moxon has another very fine article on How To Make Your Novel Hopelessly Addictive and Nicola Morgan has one on Dialogue Techniques. Both of these bloggers are a valuable resource if you are looking for writing help.

Chip MacGregor has posted an exhaustive list of things a good agent needs to know. As Chip is the owner of a successful literary agency he is well qualified to speak. As always I urge you read the comments of the articles I link to because they often have some great extras to add to the discussion.

Over on Craicerplus my Amplify page I have links to articles on

7 Factors For Success In Finding An Agent

Earth Like Planet Can Sustain Life (geeking no apologies)

9 Ways To Prepare For NaNoWriMo

A Writers Guide To A Successful Interview (how to use an interview to get your message across)

Writing Series-Thoughts and Resources (this is great if you find your story going on longer than one book)

Kindle Self Publishing (writers can now self publish on Kindles....)

On a slightly different facet of the writing life...Alexis Grant has a good article on Writer’s Colonies. These are amazing residential places that writers can go and just write. Someone else takes care of all the other details...food, laundry etc etc. Some colonies will pay you to go there...It is to dream...

Guy Le Charles Gonzales has been doing a bit of that lately and has re mixed his ideas on 21st Century Publishing. Traditional print plus fan sites plus book cafe sites plus on demand printing equals a very interesting publishing model for writers.

For those of you interested in the 1000 fans idea, my friend Justin sent me a link to a photographer who is experimenting with the concept and has chronicled his two year journey...(yes he is making money...and he doesn’t have 1000 fans...)

enjoy,
maureen


Pic is the cover of The Shadow of The Boyd and below a little clip (you can find anything on YouTube)