It’s all about language...

This week in the publishing blogosphere... I was struck by how many times I was reading important articles about language. 

Language as a weapon against bias.

Language as a priviledge.

Language in education.

Which is better- Short capsules of meaning or long explanatory paragraphs? 

The ability to use language correctly is a touchstone for the writer.

This week Chuck Wendig was fired from his writing job with Marvel and Star Wars. The reason... they had finally discovered he uses colourful language on Twitter. It has nothing to do with the ongoing Twitter rage and abuse felt by a section of the community over Chuck introducing an LBGTQ character in his Star Wars books apparently.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Publishing Perspectives interviewed Pieter Swinkel from Kobo about the rise of book serialisation and subscription models in Europe. Are they creating readers? What about binge culture?

Kris Rusch always has an eye to the future and her lengthy time in all facets of publishing gives her the ability to clearly see and articulate what is happening and likely to happen. This week she looks at Barnes and Noble. Are we about to see the end of the chain bookstore model?

The New Publishing Standard is fast becoming a must read. They focus on the global publishing industry and are not UK/US centric. The rise in AI translators has been rapid. This week they report a Chinese language book has been translated by an AI with 95% accuracy. Stop and think of the implications to publishing. (Last weeks blog had a very interesting post on whether translators should be seen as original writers.)

Dave Kudler was thrilled to be referenced in a recent podcast with Dave Chesson and Joanna Penn. He has done some in depth study on keywords. If you are studying or working with keywords and ads for marketing books this article is a must read. It expands some ideas in the podcast which is a must listen/read. 

The fabuous Katie Weiland has a magical post about the power of language to expand and illuminate ideas. How to Cherish Language. This is a fantastic post.

Joanna Penn has a great interview with Bec Evans on how to be a prolific writer. There are some great ideas and tips in this interview.

In The Craft Section,

How can you tell if your idea is worth it?- Janice Hardy- Bookmark

4 Common copyediting issues to watch for- Julie Glover

11 tips on how to scare your readers- Litreactor

3 tricks to instantly increase your writing speed- Self Publishing Formula

Creating Villain Motivations- Now Novel- Bookmark

How to outline without killing the fun of writing- Roz Morris- Bookmark

Capturing Complex Emotion- Tamar Sloan- Bookmark

When abandoning your novel makes sense

Why does learning writing take so long?- Writers in the storm-Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Two interesting posts from the Ingram Spark blog- How to market your book with Author Speaking and What Authors can learn from Youtube stars.

Preorder Strategies- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

How to perform not just read your book- Writer Unboxed

A marketing exercise for critique groups- WomenOnWriting- Bookmark!

Do Bookbub members buy at full price?

What you are doing wrong on Twitter - Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

To Finish,

Shannon Hale is an award winning author of a popular series of books – Princess Academy. Here she writes in the Washington Post about the way books are presented to boys and how we unintentionally stop them from reading with the way we introduce books to them. Are we guilty of unconscious gender bias? Changing the language we use around boys and reading could be the magic trick that encourages life long readers. 

Maureen

@craicer

In my monthly newsletter 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. 

Pic Flicker Creative Commons- Yandle

Maintaining A Positive Face

This week I have been thinking about all sorts of eclectic things to do with the life of an author.

Headshots... This is an awful necessity when you write... at some point some one is going to ask for a headshot. Writer Unboxed has a great article on this. I have heard of conferences arranging photographers who specialise in this... (hmmm must explore this.)

Being a nicer person because I am a writer. Book Trib had an interesting article on this.

Jody Hedlund looks at the other side of niceness when you feel you are the worst writer in the world... How can you dig yourself out of the hole?

Keeping a positive attitude helps when you are visualising your goals. If you are Indie Publishing 5 tips on how you can measure success.

This week Publishers Weekly had a column from Kristan Higgins asking the literary world to grow up when it comes to Romance writing.They are among the savviest writers I know and Kristan has a point. Read the Genre before you criticise it.

The New York Times has changed the way they will be reporting Children’s Best Sellers... There was jubilation all over my Twitter Feed. Now finally we will find out the best selling junior fiction books... When the list jumped from Picture Book to Young Adult best sellers... something had to give.

Sticking with big companies making changes… HarperCollins is shutting down Authonomy, their website where aspiring authors could post stories. It was an interesting experiment.

Joanna Penn has answered a bunch of questions about her writing business. She is a postive force when it comes to finding out about marketing. Here she has lots of tips.

In the Craft Section,

Killing your darlings – 5 writers talk about the cutting room floor

Using beta readers to help you write- C S Lakin

6 easy ways to achieve a perfect ending

6 things writers should know about MB Thinking vs. Feeling

5 writing challenges all writers face

How to find an editor – Jane Friedman

Creativity tips for the stuck- Nathan Bransford

In the Marketing Section,

Mastering Radio Interviews - Anne R Allen (Bookmark)

What do you do when your Amazon reviews disappear?

Ebook formatting using MS Word- Molly Greene

How to make 3D cover generators

6 types of Copyright disclaimers – The Book Designer (Bookmark)

What makes your story unique –The Art of the Blurb – Jami Gold

Creating Author Business Plans- Janice Hardy

Easy ways to build an email list

Website of the Week

Writers in the Storm have a great website with all sorts of great craft and marketing tips. Here are two recent Bookmark posts, 5 easy SEO techniques and How actions determine character arc. There are four writers contributing and they manage to cover all facets of the business. A great Go To Website

To Finish,

Chuck Wendig has a new book out soon. It is his 13^th and by now he should be used to the feelings of gut wrenching fear, nervousness and excitement... It only gets worse… He tries to maintain a positive face… (Positive warnings on language apply.)

Maureen

@craicer

Pic is from Flickr/ Creative  Commons - Wonderlane

A Week Of It

Such a busy week, Monday started with the  NZ National Librarians Children’s Book Awards. A great night with some expected and unexpected wins. The Hells Pizza chain committed to another year of sponsorship. These are the only book awards left in NZ with sponsorship.

Then Tuesday night our Tinderbox conference opened for registrations. The team gathered to toast the opening and watch the screen fill up. Some workshops are close to full already less than 48 hours later. It looks like we got the mix right with hands on workshops on writing and illustrating, marketing, tax, contracts, editing, presenting, school visits, self publishing, copyright and translation. Phew. After adding in various dinner and wine events, we all needed a lie down before we opened for registrations. Don’t leave it too late to register we might be fully subscribed in less than a week.   

This week Amazon changed their Kindle Unlimited pay per borrow rules. Now it is pay per page read... The sky is falling ran the comments on Social Media. Hugh Howey shook his head and launched into finger waving as he called out the worst nay sayers. Hugh doesn’t think there is a problem at all. Porter took a more measured approach with comment from lots of sources... Do you want one entity to know so much about your reading habits?

This week the Authors Guild launched their fair contracts for writers campaign. Its time to let the public know just what can be stuffed into a writers contract. Porter talks to the new guild president and finds out why they are calling on readers to back the authors. Frankly the increasing prevalence of harsh non compete clauses deserve to be exposed as unethical and unreasonable bullying.

The lovely Janice Hardy has a great post on can we know too much about the publishing industry. here she outlines three mindsets and encourages everyone to find what inspired them most to start writing. Sometimes you need to block out the publishing world.

Today Smashwords launched a nifty addition- pre orders across the board to all their outlets... and you don’t need the product ready.  You can use your pre order date as your writing deadline. Mark Coker explains all in his blog today.

In the Craft Section,

Tiffany Reisz on dialogue - Great Post

K M Weiland on Character goals

Different Story Starters

The Seven Sins of World Building

10 Simple keys to Story Structure- (Bookmark)

Complex Book Plotting – Great Post

Creating Menacing Antagonists

Writers Block – ways to combat this.

Joanna Penn interviews Jen Blood on Editing (Bookmark)

In the Marketing Section,

How to get readers hooked from your e-book sample

How to Design a great e-book without design skills

Anne R Allen on dos and don’t for author bloggers

E tools for freelancers (comprehensive list)

Free Marketing tools.

Website of The Week

Writers In The Storm have a great website with interesting resources and articles. This article by Susan Spann is from earlier in the year on protecting your copyrights online.  Always relevant!

To Finish,

Joanna Penn interviews Nathan Meunier about gaming and writing and some very exciting software that allows you to write a choose your own adventure book and turn it into a game...

And the week isn’t finished yet!

Maureen

@craicer

Pic Flickr /Creative Commons/ photosteve101