Flagging The Craft

When I sat down to review the list of links I have made for your perusal this week I found that there is a strong craft element showing through. This is probably unconscious on my part as I have been back in the Martian landscape trying to move my characters from their unintentional holiday spot.... 

I own some great craft books on writing and I find myself obsessively reading them when I need to tackle my manuscript...this flows into my internet reading. Hence the collection of good links for you along with my usual foray into current trending topics, springing up from BEA and enlightened or thought provoking comments from writers in the trenches.

In the New Zealand blogosphere this week the comment has been all about The Frankfurt Book Fair. With New Zealand being a Guest of Honour and Children’s Literature being the focus genre, Kidlit writers here had high hopes. Unfortunately our government saw a Book Trade Fair as a place to promote New Zealand tourism...food and wine and forgot about waving the flag for the BOOK aspect. We waited with bated breath to see who was on the list and now the kidlit community feels badly let down. They are worthy people but there aren’t many writers in the total group of 160 going. Melinda sums up what we are all feeling...and talking about.

Mike Shatzkin, publishing futurist, rounds up what he learned at Book Expo America this year and as usual it makes interesting reading. He flags MetaData Mess, Digital Rights Databases and the slow down of ebooks as the main concerns going forward. Picture Books will stay printed...but what about enhanced books?

The Gurdian highlights some research showing that enhanced ebooks actually harm children’s reading ability.

For those of us who dream about going to BEA... Publishers Launch has made available 5 keynote slideshow presentations...however they stress if you have limited time check out the presentation by Bowker on Global Sales...of course to us in the Southern Hemisphere we are firmly fixed on global but it does highlight what formats are doing well in what countries.

Goodreads has published an interesting article where they flagged what makes a book take off. There are some interesting comparisons and author agility is a must.

Joel has a nifty article about what should be in a book design contract.

Writer Unboxed has a guest blog from the writer of Scrivener for Dummies. If you haven’t checked out Scrivener...read this post...Many writers say they will never go back to word processing software again. Scrivener is especially targeted at writers.

Kristine Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith are great at putting the finger on the pulse of changing attitudes in publishing and these posts are no exception.

Dean talks about just realising that books he was paid for but were never published can have a whole new life...

Kristine has been looking at the whole Indie vs Trad publishing debate and she has an interesting article on the long tail of each of these ways to publish...add to this 77 thoughtful comments. You need to take some time out to digest this great article and ongoing conversation.

This great article on how to do an author interview can be flipped on its head for authors...and if you add in this Fabulous post from the Midgrade writers site The Mixed Up Files Of... on tips to help create a memorable author visit to schools then you are on to some marketing gold.

In the craft section,

From The YAMuses...how to push through the soggy middle of your MS

From Kidlit.com... guiding the readers emotions, you are the puppet master.

From the incomparable Larry Brooks...when you get told that your structure is off and what does that mean...just brilliant.

From K M Weiland, 25 ways to blow your book.

How to find weak verbs...just change your tense.

In the US, Print On Demand Book Espresso Machines seem to be taking off...Check out how authors are using this creatively and Joanna Penn has a list of 7 networking ideas for authors.

It is tax time here in NZ and I must really get down and carve out some time to get this in....

This TIMELY and INFORMATIVE Article from Nick Dawes deals with how you get one of those US tax numbers if you live outside the US but you publish on Amazon...BOOKMARK IT.

This week this post, responding to a letter about how downloading pirated music is ok, went viral...I flagged it on FB expecting to see comments and got zilch...maybe writers are too busy or have their head in the sand thinking that this attitude will never happen to books...As someone commented on the original article...it happens to all artists. I’d be interested in your thoughts... 

Keeping Warm

The weather has turned cold down here in the Southern Hemisphere and all the writers I know are scrambling for heaters, blankets, fingerless gloves and other warming devices that can be plugged in and set to run under their desks.

In the blogosphere some writers are keeping warm with rants on the duplicity and underhandedness of other ‘writers.’

Take a well known writer’s name. Add a middle initial. Put that on your same genre self pubbed book. Market...
Galley Cat alerted everyone to the digital duplicity.

You could see it as a blatent marketing ploy...but it is probably lower than that as Sarah from SmartBitchesTrashyBooks explains. Why did the writer target the Romance community?

For those who follow Jane Friedman you will know that she is moving into the literary community combining her social media knowledge, publishing and Uni teaching while working for the Virginia Quarterly Review. Jane was recently interviewed by one of the founders of the Alliance of Independent Authors and it is a great interview. Jane’s tips for author websites as being their hot hub for all things is especially good...chock full of good advice.

Joel Friedlander revisits the best fonts for your P O D book this week. Joel is a great resource and he has a website stuffed with hot tips.

Chuck Sambuchino has a great guest post by Emmy Laybourne on his 7 things I have learned so far series. (7 ways to keep warm, doing some of these.)

Madison Woods gives the floor to Kath Meis, the founder of Bublish which had a lot of word of mouth at last weeks Book Expo America Convention.  Writers, it’s a free tool...and an interesting marketing idea...

Alan Rinzler, erudite observer of the business has spent an entire post looking at Barry Eisler and what writers can learn from what Barry is doing.... Alan has been a solid note of warning for the last few years about digital publishing but this year the speed of change in publishing community has got him almost spinning...and if Alan, with his long view, is spinning where are the rest of us in the centrifuge.... ( I could stuff another hot word in here but I won’t.)

The Guardian tells us all about the new release of dot suffixes in the internet domain world and what it will mean for us...dot book anyone?

 PaidContent has an overview on a ground breaking move by Google into epublishing in Europe...this may have flow on effects for us down here and is a smack for Amazon.

In the craft section,

What are your characters thinking while waiting for the story to get going. This is a good post on the importance of fleshing out your characters.

K M Weiland has a nice little post on antagonist P.O.V. Should they even have one?

Larry Brooks’ Storyfix series on the Hunger Games has been compeling reading over the last couple of months but this post nails the novel and how you can nail your own work down to nine sentences. Just Brilliant.

My fingers are seizing up with cold...every sentence is finishing with me rubbing warmth into my hands...Ah winter...I so missed you...NOT.