Planning For Success

 

 

In Publishing News This Week,

 

Frankfurt. Are we back to normal? That seemed to be the question on everybody’s lips. There was a lot of chat amongst the publishers, sold-out sessions, and positivity everywhere.

Publishing Perspectives interviewed various publishers and agents about the hot new trends they were seeing.

 

Audiobooks got a lot of attention in Frankfurt with many saying that they were now a mainstream format. The ways for the public to acquire them seem to be all over the place though. You would think that Spotify with its streaming model would extend this into audiobooks – not so. Which audience model will win out was a hot topic discussed at Frankfurt.

 

Over the last month, the spotlight has been on AI generated art and its copyright ownership.  If you buy art for book covers or fan merch this seems to be a rising trend, to generate AI art. However, the AI’s are sampling artists' portfolios and styles and so the ownership is murky. After many photo stock dealers saying they wouldn’t deal with AI art, Shutterstock changed its mind and is trying have it both ways by attempting to pay the sampled artists if they can prove it. This has annoyed many in the industry.

 

It always pays to drop into Writer Beware occasionally to keep on top of ways that authors can be parted from their money. Recently Victoria had a long form piece on anthologies and how one anthology publisher collapsed and was exposed as probably running a Ponzi scheme. Anthologies can be great…but you must go in with your eyes wide open.

 

Today I was listening to an interesting conversation between Orna Ross and Joanna Penn on publishing values. It was wide ranging and referred to Orna’s recent article. This is a meaty topic. What do you wish to be known for and are you sure that’s what you are projecting to the readership?

 

Kris Rusch has an interesting article on Thinking Big. Do you note down your success? What about your positive reviews? Kris talks about exposure and when someone goes from chugging along to breakout.

 

Elizabeth Sims has an interesting post on short stories over on Jane Friedman's blog. 20 reasons why everyone should write a short story. I have been trying my hand at these this year and not managing to finish them. This article makes me look at short story writing in a different way. Let it go and have fun.

 

In The Craft Section,

Where do Ideas come from- Randy Ingermanson- Bookmark

4 writing pitfalls to avoid- Laurence McNaughton- Bookmark

Writing beginnings- Interview with Shane Millar- Joanna Penn- Bookmark

4 tips for writing effective backstory- Carolyn Arnold

The perils of not knowing what happens next- Janice Hardy

 

In The Marketing Section,

Update your Amazon book pages- Elizabeth S Craig- Bookmark

Book cover design ideas- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

3 ways to promote poetry- Raegen Pietrucha

Reaching readers for the long term- Becky Robinson- Interview with Joanna Penn- Bookmark

Instagram Book marketing ideas-Bookbub

 

To Finish,

This weekend is The Alliance of Independent Authors 24 hour conference, SelfPubCon. It’s free. Sessions are recorded and you get three days to go over them.

If you intend to attempt NaNoWriMo this November hopefully you will have everything organized. Check back over the last few blog posts for handy prep links. Don’t forget to check out your local library. Quite a few have embraced the NaNoWriMo experience and have spaces for writers to go and pound out their words.

Good Luck with your final days of preparation.

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter of the best of the bookmarked links and other handy items Don’t forget to subscribe.

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

Taking Time to Recharge

 

 

In Publishing News this week.

 

The new Tutulia app is making little waves in the book community. The App uses a Machine learning AI to recommend your next read based on the information you feed it. The AI scrapes all the book sites and reviews and buzz to pull together a list of books that will suit you. As Ingram is a founder investor you can buy the book from inside the app and Ingram will print it and ship it to you. This is next Gen thinking.

 

Publishing Perspectives reports that Bonnier owned Bookbeat is expanding Europe. They seem to be competing in the Audiobook sector with Storytel. They want to increase more competition in Audiobooks. Their pricing subscription reflects this with by the hour of listening instead of monthly fees.

 

Mark Williams has an optimistic view of the big book fairs happening in the Middle East. They are back to clocking up a million visitors and audio looks like it will be taking off there as well with audio subscription services chasing this big market. Publishers should be taking note of the expanding audio markets.

 

Kris finishes The How Writers fail series with a pithy article on quitting too soon. This is a thought provoking article on how writers can self-sabotage their writing. 

 

Sam Missingham has a great newsletter called The Empowered Author. She has her finger on the pulse of the UK publishing scene and is often amplifying authors across social media. Recently she updated her fabulous post on all the different ways Author Collectives operate and their value to the writers involved. ( So of course I would be all over it.)

 

Recently Dan Blank was commenting on generosity as a book marketing idea. He has some really interesting examples of how this has been playing out in the author community.

 

Terry Odell on The Killzone blog recently wrote about giving yourself permission to step back from your writing. Sometimes life gets in the way and writers can tie themselves into knots trying to get their word count in or their projects finished. This is a great little article.

If you need to take a longer creative rest- check out Orna Ross and Joanna Penn’s latest podcast transcript. Joanna has just walked the Santiago Camino Trail and talks about how she is structuring creative rests into her writing calendar.

 

If you are preparing for NaNoWriMo which starts in November, Don’t Forget to check out all the good offers/ deals available for participants. (pssst Scrivener is on sale)

 

James Scott Bell is a great writing craft teacher. I have a few of his books and they are constant dip-ins when you get stymied. He is guest posting over on Anne R Allens’s Blog with a great 10 commandments of writing post- This is print out gold!

 

In The Craft Section,

7 tips to add complexity to the story- K M Weiland- Bookmark

2 tips to amp up the conflict- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

Handwriting vs Typing- Kay DiBianca

Prologues- Do we need them?- Janice Hardy – Bookmark

Fear Theasaurus- Not being believed- Angela Ackerman Becca Puglisi

 

In The Marketing Section,

Marketing beyond the bookstore

7 strategies to focus on book marketing- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Publishing resources Free downloads- Shala Raquel- Bookmark

The key elements of eye-catching book design- Jane Friedman- Bookmark

How to publish a Hardcover book on Amazon

 

To Finish,

It’s Frankfurt Bookfair time which means The Alliance of Independent Authors runs one of their free online conferences. SelfPubCon. Check out the link to see who the speakers are this year and sign up. The sessions are all prerecorded and usually 30 minutes long and chock full of information. It is free and there are often neat little deals and competitions on offer.

 

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 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 or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash