Jet lag...
Until you experience it you never can quite understand what it means.
I now know what it means!
Apparently flying from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere is worse.
I am just beginning to feel normal, four days after landing...and that is with pushing my body to get into the right time zone...drinking water and exercising etc etc.
While I was away, mostly out of wifi reach, (using the travelsim on my phone was a nightmare.) stirring events were taking place in the world of publishing.
So To Catch Up
The news that Random House and Penguin were merging...took every one by surprise at the end of October. The implications of this are fairly staggering. THE BIG 6 and AMAZON are now down to the BIG 5 or is it 4?
I caught up with current thinking about implications of this merger with The NY Times...who think they merged to fight Amazon on size (they increase market share to a quarter of all books sold.)
The Guardian thought that this could signal the rise of the Indies and so all is not lost.
These are two interesting articles and perspectives of what BIG 6 mergers mean to the industry...however as I was catching up with this news, yesterday rumours were beginning to surface of a merger between HarperCollins and Simon and Schuster. The WSJ has crunched the numbers on this one...so we may be seeing the cassandra prophecies of the NY Times come true. (eek)
Mike Shatzkin all round publishing futurist and guru has commented on a few things he learned at a librarians conference and the implications thereof. The impact of apps on non fiction publishing and how Non Fiction writers had better have the App ready.
Vertical Publishing has long been advocated by Mike and The Bookseller Blog written by the Chief Executive of Osprey Publishing takes a look at what they are doing to enhance their imprint impact. (For those of you who are interested, like me, in author collectives join the dots....)
James Scott Bell relates his encounter with a reader in Starbucks...which highlights the real world effect of the above two links. (read read read)
Anne R Allen puts writing into perspective when you feel you are running very fast just to stay in the same place. This blog post has resonated everywhere with writers.
Roz Morris has reposted her how to get a tax number from the IRS blog article updated...
Writer Beware has a guest post on when to let a contract go...some very good advice here on how some contracts will harm you.
Tim Ferris (the four hour guru) has had his Amazon published book banned by B and N stores. Porter Anderson takes a look at the implications of this...is it clever marketing...or does it herald a disturbing move by book stores against authors who are published by competitors...The usual chewy read from Porter.
In Marketing,
Goodreads want to introduce a new section for authors called the premium author programme...check out what it means for you.
Elisabeth S Craig explains how she gets a free promotion of her books without having to sign up to the KDP programme. A cunning plan!
In the last gasp up to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, Amazon have introduced Amazon Pages where you get a customised storefront just for you on the Amazon site...hmmm think about the implications on your business of that!
In the Craft Section,
The fine art of Story Resonance. This is a great article on adding depth to your story.
Seven reasons agents stop reading your first chapter. This article tells what happened when an actress started reading out random first chapters to a panel of agents...interesting!!!
To finish,
Tools of Change from the O’Reilly group and Publishers Weekly have posted their Author Revolution Manifesto. Take a look, do you agree....would you sign up to the revolution?
It is Thanksgiving day and Jill Monroe has posted her sweet potatoe casserole recipe on line to acclaim...Kiwi’s would you be able to do this to a Kumara?
maureen
pic is the interior of our local city airport. The city is hosting the world premier of a certain movie in 6 days time. Richard Taylor and his team had just finished putting this up when we arrived to fly out.
