Taking Good Advice

This week in the publishing blogosphere writers were cheering when Philip Pullman took a stand on writers having to do festival appearances for free, when everybody else was paid.

Phillip is the current head of UK Society of Authors. They are campaigning on this issue, so he saw it as only logical. Others didn’t see it quite that way and a lively debate happened over Twitter. However there has been a change in attitude from the festival in question and a nice wake up call to all to the wider Lit community.

As Penguin and Random House draw ever closer lots of change has been happening recently. My first post of the year looked at Author Solutions being sold off... but while authors may be cheering that move, the closing of some imprints is not so good.

Mike Shatzkin (publishing futurist) has been sounding a wake up call to publishers for a few years now and recently he had two long posts that make interesting reading if you are a publisher- (Self publishers should scan these.) The importance of Author SEO to a publisher and playing on a theme coming through on what 2016 trends might be, Global, Mobile and Author Backlist and how publishers ignore these at the peril of the bottom line.

Kris Rusch has taken issue with the Author Guilds letter on Contracts. She questions the letters bone fides as the AG membership is not only authors... so their call for better contracts is suspicious. Great Rant!

January is the month where many make plans and goals for the coming year. Roz Morris has a great blog post on this with advice to the 2016 writer.

Hugh Howey also offers his opinions on writing now... (great new website- I wasted time looking at his new boat video.)

Joanna Penn interviewed Jane Friedman on trends to watch in 2016 – this is a podcast with a transcript. Grab a drink and find some quiet space to absorb this.

The Smashwords 2015 survey is out. It makes interesting reading... what worked last year and what you should keep in mind for this year.

Joel Friedlander talks about the new edition of the Self Publishers Resource Guide.

If you suffer from sore wrists and hands after writing, here are the best hand and wrist exercises.

In the Craft Section,

Two great posts from James Scott Bell - Lifting the middle of the Thriller plot and how to avoid writing paralysis due to over analysis (guilty) Bookmark!

Three current trends in screenwriting

How to write chapter structure- Bookmark

8 online writing tools

10 things that flag newbie writers- Anne R Allen. Bookmark

Make your hero suffer – Stephen Pressfield- Bookmark

In the Marketing Section,

7 Book Marketing trends you can’t ignore- Joel Friedlander

Build Book Buzz has their roundup of last year’s popular posts.

5 Book Marketing models- Jane Friedman. Bookmark

5 lies that authors tell themselves

7 Instagram tips for Self published writers

6 tips for author newsletters – Jami Gold. Bookmark

7 tips for platform building – Anne R Allen. Bookmark

5 guidelines for approaching Book Bloggers – Janice Hardy

Book Marketing tips you need to know- Rachel Thompson. Bookmark

Website Of The Week

I have linked to Katie Weiland’s posts in my craft section so often I should have her on a shortcut link button. I have her great book on structure. Her website is a great resource on craft questions that come up but she also offers some free downloadable resources that are just special!

To Finish

In the writing business it pays to keep an eye on what the Romance writers are doing – they are so savvy. Today I came across an article on a new Romance App that had my eyebrows lifting right off my head. I never even suspected this was a thing. I’m still not sure what to think about it... it could be a virtual reality step too far... OTOH if you love your book heroes enough to have a text relationship...

Chuck Wendig decided to do some thinking about mid career writers. This is his ramble on what you should be doing. It echoes others that I have linked to in today’s post but with the Wendig spin on the Good Advice.

Maureen

@craicer

Pic from Flickr Creative Commons / GotCredit

Weaving the strands

Last week was a fairly tough one in the family with a family funeral to deal with so there was no weekly blog post looking at the hot topics in the publishing blogosphere.

This week I am trying to pick up the threads and get back into the warp and weft of the publishing world.

Just when you think Amazon has every thing stitched up as the biggest book retailer in the world there is a thread ready to be yanked which could cause some unravelling...

Amazon has been negotiating (dictating) new pricing terms to book publishers this year. When the Independent Publishers Group rejected their terms all the Amazon buy buttons were disabled for all books represented by them. (Two years ago Amazon did this to Macmillan and Macmillan won. IPG are much smaller and their members risk going out of business entirely.)

The stand taken by IPG has lots of support from across the blogosphere as different ways to buy IPG books get promoted on websites and other online book retailers.

IPG Authors are stuck as they watch entire catalogues disappear...5000 authors are affected by this and there is much pessimism. When the largest book retailer on the planet refuses to stock your book...what do you do?

Mike Shatzkin as ever has the long view with his article on two questions that loom over the trade publishing business...In the end what will Amazon become and do we really want this?

Seth Godin has problems with Apple refusing to carry his latest book because it has links to buy books he quotes from Amazon...He questions whether the book retailer should have such a sensitivity to book content....

Crafting a successful children’s book requires the manipulating of many strands. Marketing is one important one as you want people to want to own your creation.

Lindsay Buroker has compiled a list of links to check out to help new writers tackle the marketing questions.

Author media shows how a purple cow can help you in your marketing efforts and Susan Kaye Quinn puts all your sweat equity into perspective when you market your work.

In your quest to make your book glow with subtle colour and texture you need a strong cover. India Drummond continues her examination of book covers. This is a must read post as India explains the contract and price work sheet she uses with clients when she designs book covers.

Along with subtle colour you must have strong threads to hang everything off and Warrior Writer have a post on story structure using Finding Nemo...Warrior Poet has one on using a Hollywood trick to outline....(hmm lots of warriors out there)

Jody Hedlund has finally read Hunger Games and she has an interesting post on riveting readers using Death as the main theme...Death by another name as the great antagonist.

There are 10 pieces of rotten writing advice...read and don’t follow....

Catherine Ryan Howard has an interesting piece of advice for you to try with your book if you are brave enough....

Liza Nowak wants to enlist the help of all writers of Boy Books out there. She has an interesting proposition for you.

Agent Kristin of Pub Rants has been experimenting with Friday video blogs and she has one examining the different levels and word counts of Mid Grade my favourite genre.

Time to tie off the ends with Publishers Weekly and their blog post on whether teens are embracing eBooks...Yup right after they address the digital divide between those who can afford e readers and those that can’t and that is where the libraries come in....

maureen