Game Changing and Piracy

On the side of my blog I have a list of must read blogs. One of those is Jane Friedman’s There Are No Rules. 

Jane is one of the touchstones in the blogosphere on publishing and change. She has been a keynote speaker at many big conferences on publishing and will be speaking at SXSW soon. Jane has a round up every week of what she thinks are among the best articles of the week (often I have already filed some of them for you) but I always pay attention to her list.  This week Jane highlighted a critical must read article by Kristine Rusch and yes I think that it deserves that status.

Kristine Rusch is a bestselling, award winning, romance, mystery and science fiction writer. She has been writing a series of articles on change in the publishing world. This week she has seen such a significant game change in self publishing that against all her previous advice she now believes that beginning writers should look seriously at self publishing...and not only them.

Bob Mayer was one of the first to comment (no surprise he agreed with what she said.) This week, on his own blog, Bob has an article about what he has learned in his writing life.  And it is a good read too. Bob breaks down the lessons he has learned since writing his first book...as he says... the more you consciously know about writing-the harder it gets!

However, to help you in this difficult creative endeavour is Mike Fleming and Elisabeth S Craig. Together they have sorted out a solution for storing all those links on writing... The Writers Knowledge Base.

This week Agent Mary Kole answered the tricky question...Would you turn down a book you loved but you knew you couldn’t sell? This is a good look at what agents are faced with...

Last week I asked the question, Who will be the digital ebook reviewers we trust?

I pointed you to Kristen Lambs blog post...this week also answering this question is Morris Rosenthal of Foner Books. Morris reckons that groups of writers will band together and become the new gate keepers...and then turn into writers guilds with too much power etcetcetc (check out the comments)

The Huffington Post has an interview with Annik LaFarge on effective author websites this is so full of information that you will probably need to set aside a long coffee break to take it in.

Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on

Writer Envy...The Rejectionist- Dear Superior Person

The Rules of Sci Fi...(don’t spare the red shirt guy)

The Best Writing Mistakes and How To Make Them

The Espresso Book Machine...This is a book printing robot in a NY book store which prints books 

immediately....Go and take a look at the video!...opens up a whole new world....

To Finish

Upstart Crow have a great archived article on Mid Grade and Y A differences and where you draw the line and 

The best article on story structure I have seen from the formidable Larry Brooks over on Storyfix, How to Learn Story Structure in Two Minutes or Less.

I leave you with Neil Gaimen talking on how Piracy helped him...

enjoy,

maureen

P.S The Jane Friedman that Kristine Rusch refers to is not the Jane Friedman of There Are No Rules. There are two Jane Friedman's in the publishing world.

Down The Rabbit Hole...

The Chinese Year Of The Rabbit is supposed to herald a period of tranquillity and calm. After the changes in the publishing world over the last two years we could all do with a bit of calm but I don’t think we are going to get it as the shaking up of the publishing industry continues.

It hasn’t been a year since the launch of the ipad and the explosion in the sales of ebooks. Publishers are very cagey about telling authors what their ebook sales are but just for your information, In the month of November 2010, the ebook sales, reported by the Association of American Publishers, were 14.5% higher than for the month of October and growth in ebook sales over the year (Nov09-Nov10) was 165% . This is a conservative estimate.

The implications of  readers moving to digital books have not been lost on Authors in the blogosphere. Getting an agent and getting a book deal is hard work, not for the faint hearted and with publishers insisting that authors must promote their books the Author is left looking hard at ebooks and self publishing. The books are cheaper to produce, there are no warehousing issues with POD and they are already promoting their work aren’t they?

The biggest hurdle to leap over is marketing. Who wants to spend all that precious writing time marketing? How can the reader find good books to read in the digital age, when a quick look on itunes shows more than 50,000 book apps available?( I’m probably missing a few zeros.)

Who will be the digital ebook reviewers we trust?

Who will help the new authors negotiate the quicksand of publishing in the now?

One person who has been doing a bit of thinking around this is Kristen Lamb. She has brainstormed a possible new publishing model that looks like a win/win from everyone’s perspective. Have a read and see what you think!

From the publishing marketing trenches to the how-do-I-just-get-on-the-ladder reality...Jody Hedlund posted an article on her blog last month about her agent receiving 10,000 queries in a year and accepting 0. Jody looks at what an author can do to change the numbers around.

If you are contemplating having a sales page on your website Victoria Mixon has got a great guest  post for you from Joanna Penn. These two blogging diva’s have swopped over and are guesting on each others blog.

For those looking for a bit of help before the hard grind of submitting your manuscript, here are three sites worth a good look.

Adventures in Children’s Publishing has a detailed presubmission checklist.

Writetodone with manuscript productivity tips

Bookendslitagency with an Agents perspective on revisions.

Over On Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on,

Extreme Book Design...blowtorches knives and spiders...

Is Speculative Fiction Poised To Break Into Literary Canon? (Guardian Article on the Man Booker.)

Rick Riorden’s experience with the effects of Ritalin on his family.

List of Most Commonly Used Cliches in YA (everyone’s checking their MS now)

6 Personality Types Who Will Fail As Writers. (laughing while you say ouch)

To finish, 

Alice Pope has a great list of SCBWI Winter conference roundups on her blog. Over 1100 people attended the winter conference in New York...that’s almost as many who attend the summer conference.

Justus Stone has written a detailed post about writing software and how they have changed his life.

Zoe Winters has the last word...(One of these characters could be a NZ Politician...)


enjoy,
maureen