Stripping Back

After the full blog post last week... you may be thinking what more can there be?

Last year the talk of Digital Book World week was Hugh Howey with his ground breaking Print Only contract. Hugh wasn’t on the panels last week but he was still making waves with this incredible post speculating what he would do in the first month if he was the new CEO of a ‘New’ Harper Collins.

This list of 13 points was talked about, applauded and then analysed by Porter Anderson who included Hugh’s agent Kristin Nelson’s PS about what she would add to the new look publishing company.

Every point makes you sit up and go yeah! 

Hugh then followed it up with what he would do in the second month. Nailed It!

Anybody thinking of starting a publishing company… here is your blueprint. Brilliant stuff.

Recently the publishing bogosphere was talking price points and how you set prices on your books... Kris Rusch has been writing a series of articles on the business of writing and she is one savvy lady. Take a look at her latest post, pricing and discoverability, it is a comprehensive master class in pricing books... ebook, print, series... If you add this info with Hugh’s that is your brain expander for the month.

Joel Friedlander always has useful tips and here is the blogpost that explains how you pull neat quotes out of your book and make them jpeg graphics...sweet!

Rachel Gardner has a blog post on what you should do if you think your work has been pirated.

In the Craft Section,

Top tips in Combat writing.

Elisabeth S Craig's post on reason's why you kill your characters… has been shared around the blogosphere this week. You may selling your character short when you send them down the river.

Jody Hedlund has 5 top ways to rivet your reader.... and she uses children’s books as the example.

How lists can help you write.

In the Marketing Section,

Ava Jae has the blog post explaining why you can’t chooseany old 50 pages to send to an agent.

Writer Beware has warnings about Agent Artery, a dodgy outfit who will send your MS to agents on your behalf. It is a shocker! To start with they address your prospective agent as ‘Human’... not even Dear Human....

For those of you who like infographics Media Bistro has a funny one about publishing your book... This could be a good one to share around to all your author friends.

To Finish,

Anne R Allen has an interesting blog post on whether your writing is your hobby or your profession... or both. This is a nice post helping you make sense of your creative compulsive drive.

I’ve been painting and scraping in my old cottage today so am crawling off to bed to dream of a bright new publishing world... or probably neverending paint stripping... Think of your own picture for this weeks roundup…hehehe.

maureen

Cracking the Predictions for 2014

Happy New Year

2014 on Craicer was about to start with a round up of all the predictions for the publishing world for the year... until I fell and badly sprained my hand at a popular tourist spot in the North...so you got an extra weeks break and I narrowly escaped one.

This week is Digital Book Week Expo in the US (#DBW14) It kicked off with this one day conference on all things digital with children’s books. No surprises that the day was immediately sold out. Look what was on offer.

Publishing Trends has the quick round up...but really if you are involved at all in kids books you should take a look at what was discussed.

However the organisers have made some of the presentations available on slideshare...and for an extra insight you can scroll down the twitter feed. 

In Publishing Predictions for 2014

Ebook pricing was a big discussion point along with new publishing models... agent publishers, big publishers getting into concierge services, which publisher will be next on the block, subscription and library models.

Bob Mayer highlights audio as continuing to drive growth in sales.

Porter Anderson takes a close look at pricing in his latest Ether post, following on from discussions generated by predictions 2014.

Mike Shatzkin, publishing futurist, rounds up his important points and shrinking retail space for books is one of his top concerns...there is an obvious flow on effect everywhere and do we really need celebrity imprints? Johnny Depp gets his own imprint...

Mark Coker of Smashwords predicts big things for subscription models and the squeeze on libraries. He also puts in a plug for author collectives and the way authors are beginning to collaborate on branding and publish themselves collectively. (This has great potential in NZ as I keep saying...)

Author Media predicts writers focus on craft more, while publishers focus on platform... 

For those of you who use the New Year to Redefine Your Writing Goals…

Have a look at these articles.

Jane Friedman on What you want from Writing

Elisabeth S Craig on Meeting your Writing Goals

Dean Wesley Smith on How to Keep your Writing going as a Business.

K M Weiland on Easy Writing Resolutions.

Dave Gaughran on Enjoying Marketing...otherwise you aren’t doing it right.

On the flip side.

Hugh Howey raised the point that traditional publishers are about to try to market themselves as hip and independent publishers... this also became a talking point at #DBW14

Laura Kaye (Romance author) took issue with the Kensington Publishers comments on self publishing. She examined the myth and the reality points that they made...and then the comments opened up. What was really interesting in this conversation was the willingness of self published authors to talk about their incomes...and how they got them... which challenged all the original points made in the article. 

If you ever want to figure out where this publishing business is going just follow the romance writers. They are a very savvy bunch. (NB I heard over the grapevine that NorthTec may be including a Self Publishing course...tutor; a 6 figure income erotica writer based in Kaitaia...)

In an impassioned open letter to Indie Authors ... J M Gregoire asks everyone to lift their game! This letter has had many writers agreeing with her comments...

Go Forth into 2014 Armed With Knowledge... To Do It Write!

Next week I will be back home into my regular groove...well maybe when school gets back at the end of January.

maureen

Pic: Broken Christmas cracker...Flickr Creative Commons/Kurafire