December is the craziest month of the year in
New Zealand.
It is the month when you juggle end of school year events at schools. Christmas celebrations with all the organisations you are involved with, as
well as your children’s and your spouse’s. It is the start of the summer
holidays.
While you are rushing around trying to prepare for Christmas, you
are also trying to juggle the holiday timetable, travel, destination etc etc.
Throw in a few unexpected events and life
gets more than complicated. In December I find myself just concentrating on
each day at a time because otherwise my head will explode.
This week around the publishing blogosphere
there is a lot of head exploding about this article. Ebook readers to go the way of the dinosaurs. Of course writers publishing ebooks are worried...Do we
need to be?
In the last week Victoria Strauss from
Writer Beware (an excellent site) has dealt with sock puppetry of a different kind...where a small publisher has had writers extolling their
virtues...unfortunately the writers in question didn’t know they were. The
twitter feed exploded when Chuck Wendig found his name had been used. Victoria
does a great job bringing scams to writer's attention and her latest find is on International Scams...watch out if you are contracting for or to services overseas.
James Scott Bell has written a great post
on 10 ways to sabotage your writing. Hopefully you are doing none of these...I
could be guilty of letting the Zombies in...
Zoe Winters drops in from her Social Media Blackout to say what she has learned and achieved. Do you remember life before
Social Media? How was your writing then? (a safe sane existence?)
While I was away from Social Media a few
weeks ago on my travels, Kassia Krozser from Booksquare was interviewed by 40K Books. I have seen snippets of this great interview all over the place and the
whole thing makes VERY INTERESTING reading. Kassia is in demand as a speaker at
big publishing industry conferences where she regularly explodes heads with her
presentations. In this interview she has the heads up for publishers and what
they should be doing now and also for authors. Flexibility is the ultimate key!
Porter Anderson in his new Ether for Authors round up talks about the rise of publishing industry conferences
targeting Authors...join the dots... Authors increasing interest in Indie
publishing...ergo they need tools and skills... and as Porter says Krozser’s interview works as a useful
position paper, and it’s the kind of thing I hope more authors are taking the
time to read these days. Craft work is grand, but when it comes to
understanding the business in which that craft must be published, authors can
no longer “stick to the writing blogs.” Knowing what publishers face in today’s
market is the only way for an author to find a place for him- or herself.
So with this clarion call ringing in your
ears The Alliance of Independent Authors has a free online conference for ... Independent Authors.
Check out their speakers...many of whom
have been featured in this blog over the years.
I note that the cost of a publishing
industry conference is nearly $2000 NZ so maybe a 3 day holiday away around the
12-14th February where you can drop in to this makes good economic
sense.
The FutureBook Conference held last month in the UK goes under the microscope in Nick Harkaways blog. How broken is the
old publishing system when the accountants are running the asylum... (cue
zombie music)
Passive Guy highlights the wonderful Indie author Hugh Howey (author of mega selling Wool) and his new contract whith S&S which breaks new contract ground. I know this has been a
hot topic here in NZ among authors so take a look at this. (Is this the
contract of the future...please please please...)
In Craft,
A nice round up for this week.
From J R R Tolkein. 6 writing tips.
From K M Weiland. Structuring scenes and
also Why stupid characters make stupid books (must read)
From Gina Conroy. Cutting fat from your WIP
From Elisabeth S Craig. Writing in small chunks of time
From Kissmetrics. What Tarentino can teach you about reader engagement.
From MythicScribes 9 Amazing Blogs for Writers...and yes there are familiar names here for you.
In Marketing,
To finish,
Scholastic Editors have forecast their top 10 trends for 2013 (remember people that it usually takes a year to publish
a book...)
Hold Your Head NOW
maureen
P.S. As always I urge you to read the comments
on the links I put up each week.
Conversations I highlighted in last weeks
round up are still going so if something from last week caught your eye, check
in again... there is still plenty to talk about.
Pic from Grmisiti who has a whole lot of scary pictures
from the Zombie Walk in Sao Paulo. This is not the scariest!
