This is the week of the Buy.
Amazon bought Souk. Why should the average writer care? Souk
is to the Middle East what Amazon is to the West. Digital books are only 1% of
the market. They only have to go into China to get total world domination...
Kobo, the Canadian digital device and bookseller has bought Shelfi.
Why? For the tech developers apparently, ( or is it because they have a perfect
understanding of buyer’s reading habits.)
Microsoft unveils a digital bookstore. Why? Because
everybody else has one... (I wanna bookstore... Google and Apple have one and
Amazon has a big one....) Meanwhile a savvy bibliophile wandered into an Amazon
bookstore and saw that they don’t sell books like other booksellers. They group
them differently.
How is your reading this year? Elizabeth S Craig decided to put a reading plan into action this meant having another identity on Goodreads.
The Writers Guild Association home of script and screenwriters looks like it is gearing up for another strike. Negotiations have
broken down between the studios again on what they pay the writers. Why are the
content creators the last in line to get paid?
There are rumblings in the universities. Should
academics publish their own textbooks? There was an interesting panel debate at London Book Fair on this. Is the
traditional academic publishing world finally getting the shake up of self publishing.
The days of the $400 text book may be numbered.
Bologna is on! Bologna is the world’s biggest children’s
book fair. At this time all the children’s writers get a case of travel and
book envy. Publishers Weekly has a quick run down on what everyone is looking for.
James Scott Bell has a great article in Writer Unboxed asking is your writing big enough? You know those sweeping sentences that go on
for half a page and your eyes and attention remain riveted to the page, even
while you subconsciously know that no editor these days would let a writer
ramble on but the writing is soo good and you just can’t help reading on. I
have shelves full of writers that were sparing with a full stop but they could
sure tell a story. They were prolific and belonged to the pulp school of
writing. Anne R Allen wonders if the constant pressure to write and repeat is a
good idea. What about those writers who write slowly?
In The Craft Section,
Story structure purpose for readers- Jami Gold - Bookmark
Creating a strong moral premise- Jeff Lyons- Bookmark
Theme examples from literature- Now Novel
10 things to remember about sequels- Janice Hardy
In The Marketing Section,
3 Book marketing skills -C K Syme
9 things authors need on their landing pages- Bookthority-Bookmark
Author bio’s a help or hindrance- Anne R Allen - Bookmark
Amazon keywords to double your readers- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark
Book description A/B tests Bookmark
To Finish,
This week Marie Force wrote a fantastic article on chasing the best seller lists and how she realised that she needed to change her focus.
Kris Rusch talked about the bestseller lists and who you are writing for. It is
a fabulous article and a must read.
Maureen
@craicer
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Pic Flickr Creative Commons / Moyan Brenn /Tuscany Market
