Promoting Books? Get Reading!

In Publishing News this week...

Publishers Weekly reports that Amazon is reducing it’s buy in from publishers to make space in its warehouses. Should publishers be concerned? It’s only going into the busiest weeks of the year for sales...

Staying with Amazon, they have launched a new marketplace for teachers resources. Now all those nifty resources that you make for your classroom can be sold online to other teachers.

The Macmillan CEO came out to defend their library embargo to librarians. Publishers Weekly reports librarians wern’t impressed. Read the article and think about how someone in the publishing industry could get it so wrong.

On the other side of the world Sharjah International Book Fair has just wrapped up. TNPS reports that they broke their record and had over 2 million people attend. Meanwhile down the road The Algiers Bookfair, on at the same time, reported declining numbers. They only had just over 1 million. TNPS are doing a fantastic job of showing how many potential readers are out there.  

It’s been a busy week around here as another child prepares to spread her wings and fly to the other side of the world. More of my family will be overseas than at home for the next few months. I have swapped writer duties for mother/lifecoach/cheerleader/travel organiser mode. Juggling life has shot my November writing goals out of the water. Oh for a bit of silence I thought so I was interested to read this article about writers and silence that might not be golden. Do you crave silence to write or is it a trek down to the local coffee shop?

Should writers be perfectionists? Kelsey Engen has 10 ways perfectionism kills the writer and 10 ways it doesn’t (Which side of the fence are you on?)

Recently the Guardian had an opinion piece from a crime writer who was taken to task by a concerned citizen about the content of his novels. Writing crime meant he condoned it.  Hmmm. Where does the line stop between the writing and the author?

What makes readers give an unknown author a chance? Barbara Probst posed this question to a whole range of reader groups and reported her findings in an interesting article on Jane Friedman’s site. Yes, the book is judged by the cover but that wasn’t all.

Are you setting goals for 2020? (I’m ducking for cover as I can hear the screams that we’ve only just got into November...) Stephen Spatz makes a case for planning your reading goals early. You do read don’t you?

In The Craft Section,

Character descriptions- Avoid the boring stuff- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

Surprise your reader in every scene- September Fawkes - Bookmark

Identifying your characters fatal flaw- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

5 Misunderstandings that keep writers from Plotting- Mary Buckham

What really drives your characters- Jim Dempsey

In The Marketing Section,

Cover reveal checklist-Bookbub- Bookmark

Finding competing book titles- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

The amazon super url and how it can kill your reviews

Copywriting formulas- Blogging wizard- Bookmark

Free tools for podcasting

To Finish

Penny Sansevieri has a great post on using video for book promotion ideas. It doesn’t have to be hard she says. There are some nifty sites out there who can help put together something fun. Bookmark this article and play with Book Promo for 2020.

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.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons- Kimba Howard

Heading To Mt Doom.

We have women's bookstores, children's bookshops, new age emporia ... would a shop dedicated to New Zealand books fly, d'you think?
— Jolisa Gracewood (@nzdodo) September 13, 2013

Last week I started to write my blog post but ended up writing a 2 page letter of complaint to the government MP’s who decided that closing down Learning Media was a good thing.

From a teaching point of view my first Go To Resource was the School Journal Index book, 5 years of Journals indexed by subject and age level and theme.  With four levels of journal coming out three to four times a year, there was a lot of fiction, non fiction, plays, poems and craft activities to form the core resource component in literacy, science and numeracy  programmes.

Learning Media, who produced these resources, are a dedicated bunch with a commitment to high production standards... because they know that their work is what New Zealand children learn to read on. They used to work inside the Education Ministry producing not only free core resources in English but also in Maori and Pacific Island languages. The Ready to Read series was one of the first graded reading series for teaching reading in the world with stories by Margaret Mahy, Joy Cowley and Dorothy Butler among the first to be published.

My school was part of a group of schools that regularly hosted overseas teachers to show them best teaching practice because New Zealand consistently placed in the top tier of OECD literacy achievement. Every teacher who came through my class looked at the quality of the School Journal and sighed with envy. ‘How can we get something like this?’ was the most common refrain. From a writing point of view I, like so many New Zealand children's writers and illustrators, got my start in the School Journal. They happily provided feedback so you became a much stronger writer. Now New Zealand's common refrain is 'How can our government wreck something like this?'

New Zealand’s current publishing landscape has made international news...and not in a good way although NZ’s children’s books seem to be holding up. Because of our small size (4 ½ million) the publishing struggles going on overseas are played out here in a much more dramatic fashion. Porter Anderson covers the recent collection of articles about The Death Of Publishing In New Zealand in Publishing Perspectives along with news that The MAN BOOKER Prize will be open to all English language novels from next year...not just the ones published in the UK. This change is not being celebrated by everyone....

We Kiwi’s have an interest in the MAN BOOKER as we have a young writer in the shortlist for the prize...proving that even tho we don’t have a publishing industry we do have great writers.

So what is a kiwi writer to do when faced with the one way journey to Mt Doom.

Self publishing or working with small Indie publishers seem the only way to go... many commentators are saying that thinking outside New Zealand is the only way to survive. But do we then write generic Northern Hemisphere stories or do we really celebrate New Zealand cultural style and promote our stories (choice eh!) unashamedly? It means a cultural shift because Kiwi writers are like Kiwi birds... happy to be running around in secret, in the dark...we’re not flashy!

So if you are thinking Self Publishing... Publishers Weekly is now behind you...

Passive Guy talks about the rise and rise of audio books and Publishing Perspectives warns about 10 counter intuitive tips that Self Publishers try.

The incomparable Joel Friedlander has added some more templates to his Book Design template collection...and they are all children’s!

In the Craft Section,

10 simple rules for good writing.

Formatting Manuscripts Indie Style

Jody Hedlund with another brilliant post on getting to know your characters and plot.

K M Weiland on most common mistakes.

Chuck Wendig on 25 steps to edit the unmerciful suck from your stories. (usual Chuck warnings apply)

5 rookie mistakes negotiating a contract

In the Marketing Section,

10 things I’ve learned crowdfunding writers try.

Setting the right price for your book.

Susan Kaye Quinn on Book Discovery in the Digital Age

Publishing Crawl on Researching Literary Agents

Jody Hedlund on strategic ways to give away books

Writer Unboxed on the Query Detox

Joel Friedlander has a guest post from Anne Hill on How toSell Books from your Website.

Website to Check Out,

Lydia Sharp has a timely blog post on Posture and tips forwriters from the Physio...(I’m sitting straighter already.)

To Finish,

This week I ventured into The Children’s Bookshop for one book (yeah right!) The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. If you haven’t come across John Green, take some time to look at this explanation of the John Green and Vlogbrothers phenomenon. I have been following John Green for a while...and admire what he is doing to connect into his tribe of Nerdfighters. And by the way the book is excellent!

maureen

R.I.P Rights, Readers and Elmore

Today the news came through that writing legend Elmore Leonard died. He was a popular crime and thriller writer getting his start in pulp fiction. He had 10 rules for writing that have become a popular meme around the blogosphere but Leonard often broke his own rules. Here is a link to the interview where Elmore Leonard explains when to break the rules.

If you are looking for a cheat sheet in the game of life...Lifehacker has 10 infographics and cheat sheets to help you.

Last week I was immersed in WriteOnCon...and this week it’s Romance (a family member is staying here to attend the Romance Writers conference.)  Romance Writers are a savvy bunch often way ahead of other genres in marketing and trends. Here is a collection of great writing articles for Romance writers but they could easily apply right across all the genres.

However if mid grade is your specialty (and it’s mine) here is Peter Lerangis on writing for this age group.

Read this through carefully.

By posting your content on the Sites, you expressly grant Random House a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid-up worldwide, fully sub-licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, perform and display such content and your name, voice, and/or likeness as contained in your User Submission, in whole or in part, and in any form throughout the world in any media or technology, whether now known or hereafter discovered, including all promotion, advertising, marketing, merchandising, publicity and any other ancillary uses thereof, and including the unfettered right to sublicense such rights, in perpetuity throughout the universe.

Are you shaking your head and wondering why anyone would sign a contract with this in?

Well lots of writers have....it could be in .4 in your latest contract. However this little excerpt comes from a Random House contract where they invite writers to contribute blog posts to their online blogging universe. FOR FREE.

Read all about this latest devious way to screw the content creator from the world’s largest publisher.

In the blogosphere this week...Barnes and Nobel and Simon and Schuster have made up. Great news for the writers left out in the cold... However Barnes and Nobel are not having a good week with reaction to their quarterly earnings out yesterday bringing out the doom sayers. Mike Shatzkin takes a look at the bookstore that wants to compete on all fronts. 

Another bookstore getting a mention is our local proudly independent Children’s Book Shop...check out this article on what a bookstore should be doing by British author Mal Peet who graced our city with his presence in the first part of the year.

Passive Guy asks Do You know What Your Rights Are Worth? This is a good run down on different rights in your contract.

Galleycat has a list of what agents have on their wishlists.

In Craft,

There is a swag of very good articles today.

Elisabeth S Craig on Outlining...This is very good.

Bookshelfmuse on sagging middles...Excellent

Justine Larbalesteir on rewriting...Just Brilliant!

Kristen Lamb on Editing...Excellent

Jim Mercurio on beating exposition...very good

Jami Gold is calling all pantser’s and if you are not sure what type of writer that is you need to check out the article from the very clever Ms Gold.

In Marketing,

The Indie 50 best sites...this is a mix of craft and marketing...

Should you do your own Audiobooks?

Twitter lists and how to use them...a great how to guide.

Website to check out,

The Oatmeal....comics on grammar...

To Finish,

Publishers Weekly has been looking at where our audience has gone...The latest YouTube meetup had nearly 7000 vloggers...with teens to the forefront. Some of these teens have over 2 million subscribers to their channels....Where are the publishers? Can authors tap into this underground movement... or are we a dying artform...

Maureen

pic: Flickr Creative Commons /Eddie

The Venerable and the New...

This week the wonderful Beverley Cleary celebrated 94 years on this earth. 

In a School Library Journal Interview she reflected on her career and how she got started. (for those of you who need a little memory jogging...Ramona Quimby...Henry, Beezus, Ribsy, Ralph...)

When Beverly got started in 1950...books for kids were just moving out of the earnest educational tomes to teach the little savages into fun pacy romps that reflected the child’s world and were entertaining.

I wroteHenry Huggins (HarperCollins, 1950) because when I was a children’s librarian, there was almost nothing contemporary for boys. A little boy changed my life when he said, “Where are the books about kids like us?” All my books are still in print. 

Thanks Beverly for picking up your pen to fill the gap.

So 60 years into the future...this week the i-Pad launched and Publishers Weekly immediately picked up that 6 of the top 10 iPad apps downloaded were children’s books. This will be the game changer for children’s publishing. The most popular of the apps downloaded were picture books!

On launch day last Saturday, Apple sold more than 300,000 iPads—and users downloaded more than one million apps and more than 250,000 ebooks from the iBookstore. Parents immediately started snapping up picture book apps from Apple's online store. In fact, children's stories held six of the top 10 paid iPad book-app sales spots as of press time. Typical prices for children's book apps range anywhere from $2.99 for The Cat in the Hat to $9.99 for Miss Spider's Tea Party.

Here is a little video showing how Alice looks on the iPad.

On the marketing front Thomas McMahon of Online Marketing Blog has a great post on how to promote new blogs which can be used for other social media sites.

Darcy Pattison has a brilliant post on ten social media goals for author promotion here is number three...(It was hard to choose which one to give you a taster they are all so good.)

Long-term relationships versus short-term profits
This is an easy one for authors. We want long-term relationships with people who are interested in the stories we write, the passions that fill our days and our books. Those relationships may result in sales; but we also care about deep conversations about our passions, speaking engagements, connecting with kids, learning more about our craft and so on. Relationships – YOU – are important to me!

There is a UK website Smories offering a chance to authors to send in their up to 750 word stories for selection to be filmed and made into a downloadable app...The top five voted on by kids win substantial money and you keep all the rights. Open to submission by email from all English speaking countries.

Over at Casey McCormicks blog there is a big discussion about YA needing a love interest...and how much of a love interest should there be? and What about Boys YA? Do they care? Will they be turned off or on....Lots of comments and juicy discussion.

Over on Craicerplus (my amplify page.)

There is a link to an article on Wuthering Heights and the Twilight effect.

There is a link to brilliant (must read) article on pitching from Alan Rinzler.

And a link to an article on BlogTalkRadio. How to turn your blog into a radio station for free.

So reflecting on the last 60 years and looking forward to the next 60 years in children’s publishing...

Anyone got any thoughts as to what the child’s book will look like then?

maureen

P.S. Last week was my two year blogging anniversary....who’d a thought...Cheers Fifi.