Jumping Off With Your Eyes Open

 

In Publishing News this week.

Just after I posted my blog last week the news broke all over the publishing blogosphere that Findaway Terms Of Service had changed and they were doing an all in rights grab. I figured that instead of posting breaking news I would wait and see what happened and tell you this week. So, to recap for those in the back, Findaway was a nifty little startup that authors could put their audiobooks on without the punitive contracts and royalty grabbing that Amazon Audible locked authors into. Yay. 

They grew fast and everything was good and then Spotify bought them. Wow, said their authors, we’re playing with the big boys. Audible took a hit. Everything was fine, until Findaway’s TOS changed last week. The screams were deafening. 

Check out Author Beware for just what the terms are now and whether you should accept them.

Spotify/Findaway shouted, it’s all a mistake, all’s well, nothing to see here, as they quickly backpedaled most of the terms. 

Except, canny pundits said- Aha, we were waiting for this. They screwed musicians and now they are coming for us. Kris Rusch breaks this down and lays out the pros and cons.

What to do? 

First, Take a deep breath. Decide what you want your audiobook platform to be. Discoverability, a little money on the side, all in formats, human narrators, AI narrated shorts…

There are other discoverability platforms out there for Audiobooks- Many have ditched Spotify for Author Republic, who distribute to 50 other retailers including Spotify. (I hope they have looked at their terms of service well.) 

If you have a high traffic website of your own – Bookfunnel now delivers audiobooks. 

However, if you see the world in Entertainment- Subscription streaming is where movies and TV shows are. Spotify has all but captured the music business and are making big inroads into podcasts and now Audiobooks. If Netflix has your eyes, then Spotify has your ears. Can you afford to ditch them or do you play them like a lute- giving some of your content to Spotify and encouraging your fans to go to you direct.

If anything about the last week has taught authors, it’s that corporations who rely on creative content for money don’t care about the rights of the content providers. Read the TOS carefully and go in with your eyes open. 

 

In Other News...

TOR Books (Big SciFi publisher) has been caught using Ai images in cover art. They said they bought them legit but the artists whose work it is say that Ai’s ripped off their work. So even the legit Ai platforms are dodgy- who knew? 

 

London Bookfair has been announcing their programming. Publishing Perspectives details the special guests and what extra book events they have on offer.

 

Late January is when the Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators have their Winter conference. They have a great blog where they write up key moments and presentations from the speakers. Children’s Book Illustrator Debbie Ohi has a great post on picture books behind the scenes- excellent for new illustrators with tips of the trade.

 

The Week has a post on Romantasy - the hot new genre. Hmm I’m not sure it’s new, its been around for a while- think hot romance inside a fantasy novel.

 

Jane Friedman has a guest post  from Tiffany Yates Martin on why and how you can sabotage an important reveal in your story. It’s all about context.

 

Anne R Allen has a super post on action, dialogue, and business. Action is not violence it can be anything. But if you have too much action you can bore the reader as well. Use your action wisely.

 

In The Craft Section,

Perform your own developmental edit- WrittenWordMedia- Bookmark

3 kinds of Story Fuel, goal desire, and search- Barbara Linn Probst- Bookmark

Scene structure- September Fawkes

Tension suspense and conflict-Lynette Burrows- Bookmark

How To find Beta Readers- Now Novel

 

In The Marketing Section,

Amazon A+ Content Sandra Beckwith – Bookmark

Social Media and the author platform- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

What is a Book discovery platform - Alli Blog

How to go viral on TikTok- Hina Pandya

Booktok tips for writers- Sue Coletta- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

Platform. Your platform. Their platform. Publishers platform. Distributors platform.

You can be forgiven for thinking it is all too much - let me hide.

The most basic understanding is how you are represented online. It could be a webpage, a website, an email contact, Amazon Author page. Whatever it is you need to be aware of it and be in control of it. Colleen Story has 5 reasons to update your author platform. It doesn’t have to be hard. Imagine you are an enthusiastic reader- how could you find out about your favourite books?

Just don’t have mind boggling Terms Of Service for your fans!

Maureen

@craicer 

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Pic Photo by vherliann on Unsplash

 

Show Up Because The Show is Online

Today we went into Level 2. The kids go back to school next week - which feels like a big win. I’ll really know it’s true when the house is quiet and there aren’t toast crumbs everywhere. 

As I follow a lot of writers and publishers, I am very aware that life over in the Northern Hemisphere is very different. Many books have been delayed or published with hardly any publicity. Spring releases are being pushed back six months. Everyone predicts a huge bottleneck in September. 

In May, the industry starts thinking of the big Spring book fairs. Bologna (held a month later) was online last week and they have just published their visitor numbers. Who was predicting a huge online visitor turnout? Their success is hopefully going to spur others on to make a bit more of an effort in the online festival space. 

I was interested to see a Twitter conversation from an author about being rejected when they asked for payment for an online address. Their reason. They put just as much work into an online address as they do in real life so they should get paid. (ABSOLUTELY)

Online events are taking over the social space. Authors have to get used to talking to others through their computers. Esquire just published a big article looking at how different life is for authors now because of this.

The big children’s writers conference SCBWI is online this year. For a lot less than the usual sum, you can attend from the comfort of your own home. Although I did see an agent lamenting that the networking at online conferences was non-existent so why make the effort to attend. 

The bottom line is if you want a vibrant industry in the future you have to show up at the hard times and keep plugging away. 

This week Ask An Author wrote this post on how do you know when you’ve made it which was really saying show up, do the work and keep doing it.

Meanwhile, if you are still in juggling-the-kids-and-trying-to-write mode, Lit Reactor interviewed authors to find out some good survival tips.

In Industry news… IngramSpark has jazzed up its publishing dashboard. Along with some new features they are offering free ISBN’s now. (Just be aware that if you pick up a free ISBN you will not be recorded as the publisher of record. Whoever issued the free ISBN will be.) 

David Gaughran has the rundown on Apple books finally making their publishing dashboard friendly to PC owners. That means everyone can publish direct with them now. Their royalty system if you are direct is very nice so I expect this will be taken up with cries of glee.

Publishers Weekly has been looking at the new changes in digital publishing that Penguin Random House are doing. As they are the biggest publisher around it is always interesting to see where they think the next big thing is…and it’s interacting with readers through big virtual conventions.

Kristine Rusch writes today of the freedom in throwing out her calendars for 2020 and reinventing her year. It’s a mindset change that may make all the difference to your mental outlook.

Jami Gold has an excellent post on breaking the writing rules. Will It Be Easy or Hard?

What is one writers’ never break rule can be another’s guideline. Are there any rules you shouldn’t break?

 In The Craft Section,

How to find and hone your author voice- Heather Webb- Bookmark

When situational writing works better than plotting- Brandon Cornett- Bookmark

Why you shouldn’t edit your own book- Alexandria Szeman

Survive the chaos point-Melodie Campbell- Bookmark

Why should anyone help your protagonist- Janice Hardy

No – Diverse characters don’t have to drive the plot- Bang2 Write 

In The Marketing Section, 

Rachel Thompson has been hosting NaNoProMo on her website and it’s chock full of great posts on book marketing – here are two excellent posts- Will your novel solve a reader’s problem by Janice Hardy and How to safely choose and use colours for your website by Nate Hoffelder. While reading, put your name in the hat for some great prizes from Rachel’s guests.

How to write a novel synopsis- Jane Friedman has updated this classic post.

3 reasons to embrace one-star reviews- Sandra Beckwith

How to market with a BOGO- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

To Finish,

I have been doing a lot of intense learning over the last few weeks in publishing design software. Going down font rabbit holes… learning to manipulate images… (badly.) David Gaughran has recently launched a YouTube channel and one of the first offerings was a great tutorial on Canva for Facebook ad creation. And then he showed in real-time other nifty sites all available in his handy blog post on 12 free graphic design tools. When I think how long I spent trying to remove a background last night and David just mentions a free site that did it at the click of a button…. I nominate him for Sainthood.  

Maureen

@craicer

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter. If you want the best of my bookmarked links Go on and subscribe. You will 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 virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons- David Skinner 

Feed your Mind

This week in the publishing blogosphere The New Publishing Standard was looking at the Beijing Book Fair which kicks off next week. It is looking bigger than any other book fair at the moment. This is a really interesting read. Book sales are on the up in China, with the English language now being taught in state schools. The next decade promises interesting book publishing times outside of America. 
Edit: Late addition, the impact the America China trade war on publishing from Publishing Perspectives

Leapfrog nations are also embracing reading- on mobile phones. Cape Verde shows what the future hold for Book Publishers. The world is moving a lot faster than your print technology.

Somebody poked Google and it woke up. With everyone wondering if any of the other big tech companies would take on Amazon Publishing… Google decided to join the party and fix its royalty rates for Google Play. (However, if they really wanted to play big… as Jim Kukral from The Sell More Books Podcast says... Google needs to offer 100% royalties for a while – That will be the game changer!)

Google might be too late to take on Amazon. The Atlantic published an essay this week on how Amazon wants to conquer the world of publishing. It’s all about subscriptions… and how much they can tie you into their marketplace.

Meanwhile, Wattpad and Penguin Random House have been talking. Wattpad Books has inked a publishing deal with PRH. Their books are due to hit next month. Out of the gate first, are Young Adult titles.

Cory Doctorow has an interesting article on whether James Daunt can turn around Barnes and Noble. First, treat your stores like Indies… (How about giving the workers a living wage?)

Kris Rusch continues her look at licensing and this week’s post is another great one on mindset. Do we as writers expect success or rejection? Our mindset will control whether we take advantage of new learning or we don’t. This is a must-read post.

The fabulous Anne R Allen has a guest post from Sue McGinty about Book Marketing at home. How are you making sure that the people in your home town know about your books? As always, read the comments for some more great ideas for bookselling at home.

In The Craft Section,

The three-act sequence- Shaunta Grimes- Bookmark

What is external conflict?- Kristen Kieffer

4 ways to write a better novel- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

Masterful Character description – C S Lakin

How to cure mid-novel sag- James Scott Bell

Conflict- taking advice from the wrong person- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

Editing tips- The Write Life- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Two great posts from The Creative Penn Blog- How to sell more at author events and 5 ways to stand out as an author on social media – Bookmark Both!

Two great posts from Bookbub Insights- Book launch checklist and Promote your book before it’s published- Bookmark Both!

17 Book marketing tips- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

A simple trick to find your target audience- Writers Digest

To Finish,

When you are bootstrapping your author business – you always have an eye out for tips and tricks that might save you time and money. Written Word Media, besides operating some nifty book promo lists, have also got a list of free tools that you might want to check out. I use some of these… especially Canva. 
If you write for children you should dip into the SCBWI Conference blog. The big LA gathering finished this week and they live blog their conference. Run your eye down the list of keynotes and panels on the right-hand side to feast your brain on.

Maureen
@craicer

My monthly newsletter is coming soon, where I round up the best of the best links.
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: Foodista- Berries

The Writing Life Game

In Publishing News this week...

The Guardian reported on the take down of a  book piracy site that had the pirates claiming authors were elitist. Unfortunately The Guardian’s headline could have been more tactful.

"Entitled: Copyright thieves blame victims when illegal site is taken down." There, @guardian. Fixed that dodgy headline for you.https://t.co/pQ9MFTnbsY

— Joanne Harris (@Joannechocolat) August 8, 2018

Cory Doctorow talks about the changes that Audible have instigated that hit authors in the pocket. Word on the street says don’t take an exclusive audiobook deal...

The alliance of Independent Authors are now advising that authors should move from Createspace to Kindle Direct for print. (Having my own Kindle print headache at the moment so be prepared.) They also have a great post on research trip claims and expenses.

Last weekend was the annual Society of Children’s Book writers and Illustrators Summer conference in L.A . Over 1100 delegats, three days... fabulous panels etc etc. Check out the SCBWI blog which live blogs most of the conference. Scroll down the right hand side and read the gems from the conference. 

Writing through life’s catastrophes. This is a pertinent blog post on what to do when life really falls apart. How do you write through the chaos?

Jess Lourey guest posted on Jane Friedman’s blog  with the definitive post on how to republish your back list after getting your rights back. This is a must read post if you are in this position. 

Kris Rusch takes a look at the Crazy Rich Asians author and how he gatherered together a team to negotiate his way through the Hollywood film scene. In advance publicity for the film he talks about turning down a huge deal from Netflix to take a smaller deal which gave him more say. Shrewd marketing or a huge risk... Great read.

Anne R Allen has a superb post on studying personality disorders to make more complex and interesting antagonists. There are some really good descriptions here of different types of disorders and how they manifest. A Bookmark post. 

In The Craft Section,

Two great posts - Simple pacing techniques and 4 ways to choose a better theme for your book-from K M Weiland- Bookmark

Elmore Leonards advice to writers- Open Culture

The 5 most common editing mistakes- Writers Digest

Research ethics for Science Fiction

How to write a novel- Step by step with Jerry Jenkins

How an editor knows your novel isn’t ready after the first chapter- Meg Latorre- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

11 ways to simplify your book promotion life- Penny Sansevieri

Why are wannabe screenwriters getting scammed- Hollywood reporter (This is also useful info for writers doing pitch contests.)

Using Cafepress for Book Merchandise- Elisabeth Craig - Bookmark

5 ways to promote your book after the launch- Build Book Buzz

Spice up your Amazon Book Pages- The Creative Penn- Bookmark

How to use Vellum on a PC- Paul Teague

3 ways to avoid marketing hell- Nick Stephenson

To Finish,

Do you play games on your computer or phone? Do you feel guilty that you should be writing? Fear not Bold Hero! There is a quest just for you. How would you like to battle fearsome monsters and save the *fantasy* world through your word count. Game your writing. Take a look. It could be just what you need to bust that word count target. 

I can breathe a sigh of relief after last night’s award ceremony for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults is over. It was a huge honour to be a judge and nerve wracking as well. The finalists were all amazing. The winners well deserved. The judges still have to write up their reports but now we can talk and attend social events again.... 

Maureen

@craicer

In my monthly newsletter ( coming soon) 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 book crammed full with marketing notes. If you want to shout me a coffee, feel free to hit the Kofi button. Thank you to my caffeine sponsors! Life has been a roller coaster lately. I couldn’t have done it without the magic brew. 

The Sabotage Backup

Today we suffered the first of the big winter storms. Half the country seems to be digging themselves out of snow or suffering power cuts because of high winds and wind blown debris. I saw a comment today from an illustrator friend who was obsessively backing up her work every 30 seconds just in case. So....

Have you saved your work today? Do you have a plan for saving your work? Mary Moore has a list of ways that you can save your writing just in case...

This week CreateSpace rolled out a new barcode policy. Things get tricky when you have a barcode generated that doesn’t fit their guidelines.  They are being very specific about where the barcode should be on the back cover. Being forewarned will save you time and money.

SCBWI summer conference just wrapped up. If you are a children's writer and dream about attending from afar... (like me) Check out their conference blog. The next best thing to being there.

Audio books are this years hot topic with ACX finally getting competition from Draft2Digital. Kevin Tumlinson explains why writers should think audio as part of their publishing strategy. Anne R Allen talks with her Audio Book narrator about producing audio books and how to choose the right narrator.

Sophie Knowles has an interesting post on Digital Book World about resources for Indie Authors. She highlights a few great sites that are worth checking out.

Kris Rusch continues her branding series with an in depth look at brand loyalty with a strategic look at the also boughts on the Amazonpage. There is a wealth of information right out in plain sight!

Molly Greene has been doing other interesting things instead of writing and publishing this year. She takes a candid look at what happens when you step away from your production treadmill.

Suzanne Lakin has a great post on self sabotage. Writers can be excellent at this. She has a must read post on how to recognise the signs and ways to deal with it. It’s all tied up with your self esteem as a writer.

James Scott Bell is a master at the craft of writing and this post shows you why. How do you stand out from the crowd with your work? How do you ride the edge of great writing. This is a must read!

In The Craft Section,

K M Weiland has got three great posts for you to Bookmark

Myers Briggs for characters

Examining the first act in your sequel

and her Free Scrivener Template.

Writing Dialogue for teenagers.

How to steal time to write.

When is imagery description overkill- Mary Kole

How to create an elevator pitch

In The Marketing Section,

Using Amazon's preorder to boost sales- Penny Sansevieri

2 great posts from Joanna Penn Instagram for authors and Mistakes with book promotion- Bookmark both and the link to Freebooksy

139 tools and resources for building your author website- Bookmark

10 sneaky hacks with Draft2Digital

Three keys to selling more books with social media- Chris Syme

To Finish,

In the old days writers weren’t at the mercy of a power cut but they didn’t have the luxury of endless tinkering of a sentence before they printed it. The craft of writing has remained the same though. Take a look at Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 tips on how to write a good short story and ponder them deeply. And for extra homework, check out his ideas on shapes of stories which has now been backed up by a computer.

Maureen

@craicer

Pic: Flicker Creative Commons- Andrew Fogg

Backup Data. ;)

I round up the best of the months bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. Subscribing to my monthly newsletter also is a form of backup plus you get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes when you subscribe. 

Great Expectations

This week I have been thinking about expectations. This was sparked by Kris Rusch’s excellent blog post on the Indie and the Bestseller. Do you even know what questions to ask for your writing career or are you asking the wrong people? This applies to both Indies and Traditional published people.

Meanwhile Bob Mayer was also thinking along the same lines but looking at being an Introvert writer in an Extrovert world. How do we even cope?

John Scalzi takes a look at what life is like for the writer at the top of the heap. It is not all Champaign and roses.

Kelly Van Sant has an interesting blog post on Pub Crawl about what previously published means to an agent. She explains her reasons on why she doesn’t take on manuscripts from Wattpad. Read the comments for other schools of thought on this.

Do you have a media kit? What is in it? Joel Friedlander has an excellent article from Joan Stewart on what things make your media kit stand out. Dressing up your Media Kit.

Laurence O’Bryan has put together an interesting project called Author Teams. Check out what he thinks authors can do in collaboration with others.

Joanna Penn has been down under recently. While here in NZ she conducted workshops and found time to announce her new press imprint. She writes here about why she decided to go into what looks like being a Traditional publisher. Fascinating Joanna!

The Winter SCBWI conference has just wrapped up in New York and if you are interested in children’s books you need to check out the conference blog. They have a team of writers live blogging the whole event so it is chock full of interesting bits and pieces.

Tahlia Newland has been looking at audio companies. She has a comparison about who is best and why you should choose them for your audio book production.

In The Craft Section,

5 things to think about when hiring an editor

Ten Writing tools

5 things I learned when switching genres- Stephanie Morell

10 tips for choosing the right book title- Anne R Allen- Bookmark

Writing Cues- Prolifiko

Joanna Penn interviewed on her writing and research

Top Time Savers for Writing- Elisabeth S Craig-Bookmark

Three types of character arcs- Sarah Letourneau- Bookmark

  

In The Marketing Section,

The top emerging Social Platforms

Book Cover Font Guide- Bookmark

Why email marketing rocks- Frances Caballo - Bookmark

6 Essential Book descriptions

5 reasons authors should blog- Anne R Allen-Bookmark

Book Cover Design- Reedsy-Bookmark!!!! (with amazing infographic)

10 content marketing mistakes- Jeff Bullas

To Finish,

Suzanne Lakin is always a great Go To when looking for inspiration for your writing. In this great post she looks at that old standby of authors... Procrastination. What might be behind it?

If you have always been a careful writer, and therefore are slow to finish writing then this article by Pamela Hodges on vomiting out the first draft and why you should could be a writing life changer.

Vigilant readers will see a new icon on the right hand side... It’s nearly ten years of weekly blogging. It would be nice if the blog bought me a cup of coffee.

Maureen

@craicer

My first newsletter of the year is out. If you want to get a monthly roundup of my best bookmarked links and other goodies... Subscribe here.

Living To Write

Some weeks in the publishing blogosphere the focus seems to be all on one particular topic.

This week everywhere I turned it was on writing craft.

The Atlantic put out a story about a computer analysing 2000 stories and coming up with the six main arcs of storytelling. The most popular one involving a glass slipper. This is an interesting read.

Then Neil Gaiman’s advice to authors popped up all over my Twitter feed. Neil has cult status out in publishing land but hasn’t made it onto the bestseller list for the worlds richest authors (who are making a tidy sum off kids books and movies.)

Now Novel had a great post on writing advice from Nobel prize winners. You can’t beat that for excellent craft advice. (And then a whole lot of great craft articles went into my Craft Section.)

Joanna Penn had a fabulous interview with Ellen Bard on writer self care. This is a must read as every author I know can relate to this. As the weather has turned super cold here, looking after your self and your mental health is timely.

Teleread has an interesting article on Amazon Author accounts and how to make sure that Amazon doesn’t close you down over something trivial.

Joel Friedlander has an interesting article by Judith Briales on Book Piracy. Judith has a list of things you can do if your book ends up on a nasty site.

The biggest children’s writers and illustrators conference is over for another year and a good time was had by all. Those of us who live vicariously through the SCBWI LA16 Conference blog have got some excellent reading ahead with quick outtakes from every session.

In The Craft Section,

Agent Kristen Nelson continues her series on 9 story openings to avoid

Janice Hardy- On putting your five senses in. - Bookmark

Jami Gold- When is a shocking scene necessary or gratuitous- Bookmark

Roz Morris- You know what your book means but does your reader?- Bookmark

Two standout posts from KM Weiland on structure- What the mouse can teach you and Don’t make 

this structural mistake- Bookmark both.

How to evoke wonder in your writing- Writer Unboxed – Bookmark

Abbi Geni On using description in your settings- Bookmark

From the Writers helping Writers website- a comprehensive list of writer tools- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section

7 marketing trends that no longer work and what you can do instead- Penny Sansevieri Bookmark

How to market the 99c ebook sale – Molly Greene

The best ways to use Amazon Giveaways

How to get more traffic on your author website

The latest Facebook changes and what they mean for authors

To Finish,

Jane Friedman has a guest post from Jessica Strawser on 5 ways to keep writing when life intervenes. This is one of those thought provoking articles where you reflect on your writing life and think about your writing goals. Are they pushing you over the edge or keeping you from falling.

Maureen

@craicer

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Pic from Flickr /Creative Commons/Killa Bea