Valentine Writing

It is St Valentine’s Day...the feast day of the martyred priest who married Christians in defiance of Emperor Claudius (269AD). Patron Saint of Lovers, Marriage, Young People and Bee Keepers.

Around the Publishing Blogosphere several big conferences are about to kick off. O’Reillys Tools of Change is underway but this year they started with Author (R)Evolution Day where for about the first time writers got to be at a big publishing conference with content directed at them. Porter Anderson wraps up the important points...Metadata!!!!

Mediabistro has the low down on Porters panel discussion at this event...promotion. This is very hot off the press as ARD was yesterday.

TOC starts today and Indie ReCon (Free and Online) is this weekend.

Indies can do all this RT @annehill: New big 6: google, apple, amazon, Sony, kobo, nook. #ARDay #TOCcon" hey NYC, you listening?
— Joanna Penn (@thecreativepenn) February 12, 2013

This week Charles Gonzales post on Discovery only being a problem for publishers got mentioned a lot as people took sides.

Bookish the new ‘Discovery’ site set up by 3 Big Publishers launched and quickly got panned for what it wasn’t and should have been. Everybody had such high hopes!

Joanna Penn has a great post on writing more and getting a daily writing habit and another one on Sampling...This is a must read if you are thinking of going digital.

Mike Shatzkin wraps up his series on Bookstores...Publishers and the Future. Would you pay to browse a book store?

Rachelle Gardner cautions about who is reading your unpublished work...and who should be...while 
Writeitsideways continues this theme with the post Want Agents To Read Your MS...Do This First.

Chuck has a thoughtful reflective post on The Hardest Writerly Truth (usual warnings apply)

KillZone has a great post on Working On More Than One Book At A Time.

The Passive Guy has the run down on What Every Writer Should Know...If you are teaching writing or planning a conference you should read this!

In the Craft section,

The Fabulous Jami Gold on synopsis...This is a great cheat sheet on constructing a synopsis...or even an outline before you write the book.

Blake Snyder, he of Save The Cat (THE screenwriting craft book) has a guest post on his site by Marilyn Brant. This takes the classic Pride and Prejudice and applies the Save the Cat Beat sheet. Great stuff!

Chuck Wendig on 5 things you should know about narrative viewpoint...(Warning it’s Chuck!)

Diabolical Plots has an interview with Kristine Rusch on Critique...Kris and Dean run workshops on critiques but quite differently....Take a look!

The Bookshelf Muse on info dumping...when to do it or not....

Victoria Mixon 14 ways to love what your manuscript loves.

Linking Verbs...do you need them?

In the Marketing Section,

Joanna Penn on Marketing YA

AuthorMedia on engaging readers on your Facebook Author Page...3 Great Tips!

Good Author websites...with examples from Bookcovercafe

Why you might not be succeeding at Self Publishing... and Digital Book World has five unexpected tips to help you succeed...

To finish,

Recently some writers and I were discussing how sometimes you feel a fraud even tho you are published and you might know some stuff about the industry. The lovely Jami Gold has a great post on this subject but even better she links to one of those WOW TED talks that puts it all into perspective. This is a link to share around to everyone!!

Every now and then I post a video to say thanks to one of my commenter’s (FB and Blog)...Melinda this one is for you in honour of Today’s Big Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations Melinda and James.

pic from the fabulous Debbie Ridpath Ohi Writers Rejection Valentine

Gatekeepers

Gatekeepers...the ones who you have to placate or bribe to get into the hallowed ground...They are tasked with only letting through the gates those that are worthy...

This week on the publishing blogosphere Rachelle Gardner has a post about gatekeeping on your mind. If you have discovered that as you increase screen time reading and interacting with social media there is a corresponding downward spiral in new and exciting ideas coming out of your brain you may be struggling with the same issue.

Chuck Wendig has decided to name February 6^th the anti pirate day and started the ball rolling with his thoughts about pirates; Why I hope you don’t pirate my book. Many authors joined him and posted  their open letters to book pirates.

Jody Hedlund has written about when your family doesn’t appreciate what you do and how hard it is to get them on board...they are gatekeepers of your writing time and energy, and what to do about it.

Electricliterature has an interesting post on those writers who have nipped round the back to the side door. Author Entrepreneur...The Hybrid Author. They have some very interesting stats on this new Hybrid model.

John Scalzi (head of SFA) has a post detailing the sales numbers of his latest book... print, audio and epublishing and talks candidly about what is working for him. The fact that he is able to to talk numbers for his trad book is astounding...and The State Of a Genre Novel makes for interesting reading.

If you didn’t get a chance to look at Dean Wesley Smiths post on crunching numbers in a Hybrid world a few weeks ago (it was no 5 in his series) Read this post, No 4 and then No 5. In fact go read the whole series. If you wanted a no nonsense set of guidelines to follow this year to be a successful writer...it’s all in these posts.

Last year I gifted myself Steven Pressfields, War of Art and a nice gift it was too.

Editor Shawn Coyne has written a thought provoking post on Steven’s blog about where the midlist writer is now in the big six, five...world...Nowhere. Ouch what is a midlister to do...

Apple have decided to highlight self published books...This is an interesting article detailing the latest moves in the Gatekeepers of online publishing.

In craft,

K M Weiland on sure fire awesome setting creation and structuring scenes.

Victoria Strauss is guesting over at Children’s Publishing and she has a nice post on letting your characters into your head.

Plot Conflicts and Desires...or how to get the best out of your plot.

James Scott Bell on how to get emotional about your novel.

In Marketing,

Perfect press releases...

QR codes...which are apparently big in NZ...

Iain Broome has collected seven articles on Authors using Goodreads effectively.

Top Ten mistakes in self publishing.

5 Reasons to Set your novel in a famous place...

To finish,

How to deal with crushing feedback on your creative work...it may not be what you think it is...or you maybe in this situation.

maureen

pic from Flickr /counse