I’m back home.
The holiday is over.
The kids are still on holiday tho. This means that large cleaning projects get tackled piecemeal...because just as you think you have finished, you turn around to see the kids have been quietly trashing another part of the house. The lawn is overgrown, the indoor plants are dead and you promised that before the new bed gets delivered you will redecorate the room....um yeah...Its 30 hours since we came home...I need a holiday!
So what is hot and happening in the blogosphere.
Yesterday I managed to catch a little bit of Kidlitchat on Twitter. This real time twitter chat session happens every Wednesday at 3pm for me which is a rotten time as I’m usually on the school run and I only catch the last five minutes of it...But there was, as usual, some meaty thoughts.
The teachers on the chat session were commenting that they show their kids Book Trailers...post them on class websites etc etc . There was some talk about the trailers inspiring kids to read the book. This was welcome news to the writers on the chat as there was a lot of discussion on whether it was worth it to produce a book trailer.
Greg Pincus who organises KidLit Chat had asked this question in his blog post a couple of weeks ago. Writers are still thinking this is in the too hard basket...but those that are getting into it think it’s a great idea. If you are thinking along these lines...check out the post and read the comments.
In the chat session, I asked the question would you have a book trailer for an ebook? This was seen as a good idea by some and others had never connected the two before...time will tell whether we see book trailers for ebooks. I remember thinking how weird when I saw the back of a bus advertising a book...and now this kind of advertising is everywhere. There is no hard and fast rule on marketing your book only in book stores.
Michael Hyatt CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers has written about what he sees happening in ebooks this year in his six trends article. This article is being heavily commented upon and there are lots of conversations happening around it. As one commenter writes If Starbucks can sell music CDs can McDonalds sell downloadable ebooks as part of their advertising?(An enhanced happy meal experience anyone?)
There has been some discussion about where the new gate keepers for ebooks will come from? Who will become the ebook reviewers? The filters of what is a good or worthwhile ebook to read, will it be print reviewers? Or will some 'body' jump into the void and become the guru ebook reviewer? These and other interesting questions have been percolating in my holiday mind...I will be interested in who picks up the baton.
Outside of ebooks...
Joanna Paterson has written a good list of steps to get into a good writing practice head space. The key word is practice.
The awesome Victoria Mixon has written a guest blog on Write to Done about the seven secrets of being an independent editor. This is a great post to read before you get hung up on how bad your writing is....
Janet Reid is preparing to go to the huge Writers Digest conference and she gives a great run down on the difference between queries and pitches...so if you always wanted to know go on over and take a look.
Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on
Making Books Do Things Ebooks Cant and Vice Versa. (this is an amazing article on hand made artefact
books and enhanced books and ebooks...and the blurring of the lines between them...something for everyone here) Go here for the latest comment on authors enhanced content and contracts....)
How Authors Move Their Own Merchandise...(get some innovative ideas...)
I leave you with an inspiring story of an author blogger who started like we all did not really sure of what she should be doing and ended up with an agent and a book deal because of it...
There is hope for us all.
enjoy,
maureen
Check out this GREAT page of mugs for authors. I want them all! (the pic is one of the mugs featured. Yay Elspeth Antonelli !)
