Gotta Fly...

This week’s blog post is going to be an ‘on the fly’ posting.

It could have been a rant on the NZ government screwing up the school terms for the benefit of the rugby world cup...meaning that all primary sport tournaments have changed...leaving us with conflicting schedules all over the place...

It could have been a thoughtful look at the impact of the reorganisation of chain bookstores and the rise of indie bookstores and authors selling direct in Australia and New Zealand.

It could have been a rant about the first released pics of the male lead characters in the Hunger Games film and how my teen has just found time to start reading the book after I warned her not to do so because her Nationals are this weekend and she needs her sleep. It is unputdownable and why do teen male leads have to look like beef cakes...this is not reality that I have seen...are we setting boys up to fail in the beauty stakes?

It could be about the wonderful Wellington Children’s Book Association AGM tonight where we celebrate the year with a panel discussion on Is Storytelling Dead?

We hope not...

But on the Twitter feeds at the moment there is discussion about the LA Times dropping all their book reviewers...and how Forbes Magazine is highlighting their ‘content creators.’ (Sort of a formalising of the brave new world...)

Jane Friedman has gone out on her own, because she has the clout to do so after maximising her visibility through Writers Digest...(Something Forbes maybe trying to tie up, by giving their journo’s permission to do likewise.) Jane has a great take on how to transition yourself...

Over on Craft

Jami Gold looks at Character Driven vs Plot  and how we fall one way or the other...and Procrastinating Writer has one on Establishing Writing Rituals.

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

Indie, Big 6 and Small Press Publishing (and how a writer can do all three)

The Hybrid Writer........(you have permission to be one)

To finish,

I would have talked about the huge stoush/debate/argument/angsting going on over at Bookends Literary blog over their decision to set up an epublishing arm. This has become the place where the whole agents becoming publishers debate is being held! At least they are trying to engage the writing community....tho some want to hang them out to dry...

And I was going to look at why book trailers could be the next big thing in your marketing arsenal following on from last week...

And this year’s Bulwer Lytton winners are out...(for the worst opening sentence)

But I have to fly...AGM’s... Tournaments...and National Dance events...are all steaming towards me....

maureen

pic is from Gizmodo...a new plane design

Being Social...the latest trend...

This week I have been mulling over trends. As the mailbox begins to fill up with junk mail advertising pre Christmas sales and this years hot trends for presents. To live a fulfilled life...it’s all about having the latest gadget...I was interviewing children this week about Christmas and they basically quoted their want list from the Dick Smith catalogue, starting with a new laptop and cell phone...these were 9yr olds!

I remember thinking at nine that a holiday would be fantastic and maybe a new book...

This week Publishers Weekly came out with a very comprehensive survey on What Teens Want based on a surveyTeenreads.com took with over 3000 teens. There is some surprising information in this report and some very valuable information to authors- for instance this little quote

We asked teens how they like to interact with their favorite authors. More than eight out of 10 (85%) visit the Web sites of their favorite authors for information about upcoming titles, and 65% would like to interact with an author at an in-store event. Other choices: library events (55%), book festivals (54%), in-school events (44%) and blogs (32%); and book and reader blogs (31%). Social networking sites like Facebook, Good Reads and My Space come in at 19%, lower than we expected

The kind of information that this article is stuffed full of should be passed around among all the children’s lit authors. It is invaluable.

So if you were wondering about whether you need to up your game in the online world the answer is Yes because generally where the teens lead the mid grade follow...after they get over the interactive fairy and pony web games.

You do need a website and some sort of interactive presence. Social media sites? Maybe a presence there, but not an all consuming live my life daily there presence, according to how I am interpreting the report.

Here in New Zealand we are lucky in that we do have time to mull over what we might do, and or how to approach this social media online public lifestyle. Our teens generally follow on a bit later from North American teens.

The speed of change means that we need to be giving some serious thought to our online presence.

Colleen Coble, multi published author, wrote a guest post on Michael Hyatts blog about using Social media to build the author brand. She has an interesting list of things that she is doing with social media and how it is impacting her visibility in the world. She has some good advice which is worth taking the time to think about. And the following video shows the speed of change that we have to be aware of....

In another trend, yesterday, Random House announced that they had bought Longacre Press.

I saw the press release on Beatties BookBlog...No one saw that coming a month ago.

It does change the shape of children’s publishing here in New Zealand, with only one independent left.

Much food for thought this week...

maureen

pic is the cover of my business card...blurry sorry...it is the barred spiral nebula.