Spinning the Truth

What has been happening this week in the publishing blogosphere...

The open letter signed by over 900 American authors to Amazon about the ongoing dispute with Hachette has now got an international flavour with a German version springing up. Amazon is in dispute with German publishers about eBook prices... and over 1300 German language authors have signed an open letter. Porter Anderson takes a look at the two sides of this ongoing story. Which truth should we subscribe to?

Meanwhile... The Passive Guy is commenting on a Wall St Journal opinion piece about backing Amazon as they change the way publishing will be done...

Porter comments on a two-day workshop where publishing professionals gathered together to come up with a viable alternative to Amazon... interesting reading.

Mike Shatskin takes this further by looking specifically who could combine and give the Zon a fright.

Maggie Stiefvater delivered a keynote address at SCBWI that wowed people... She has published an excerpt... about writing being thievery... Excellent reading.

WriteOnCon is nearly set for takeoff... They have posted their list of agents dropping in. It promises to be a huge weekend. Take some time to check out what is on offer in this free online children’s writers’ conference.

In the Craft Section,

Organising your writing project using spreadsheets.

Using moral conflict to deepen your main character.

Can character arcs be subplots

Blurbs that bore and how to change them.

Titles and how to make them sing

Mining your dreams for story gold

Jody Hedlund on putting your best work out there.

Janice Hardy on myths about writing novelettes

Taking your character deeper with... anger

In the Marketing Section,

Joanna Penn continues to break new translation ground. She details how she has approached the German edition... and gets her translator to talk about the process. Fascinating reading.

Joel Friedlander has a guest post on planning your blog posts around your book.

Elisabeth S Craig has updated her database collection of editors, designers and illustrators for free lance projects.

Kris Rusch has added a new post to her discoverability series, which will shortly be turned into a book.

Author photos – what kind for what genre...

Self Publishing - three links

Shelli Johannes (YA writer) on things to think about before you jump in...

Jan Ruth (romance) on how to make the most of it.

Trevor Richardson on his journey which involved getting his rights back and starting a literary magazine.

To Finish,

The lovely Melinda Szymanik has packed a lot into her six month writing residency... if you can’t get away to another city maybe you could try organising a writing retreat when you can’t afford to go on one.  This could be handy if you want to combine it with the excellent WriteOnCon free children’s online writing conference... Or maybe you could dream about the most excellent writing studio... where you can contemplate writing your own truth.

maureen (late again…sorry. I am getting better….)

Pic from Flickr/Creative Commons/ RCabanilla

Playing Nice

Sometimes life gets in the way of getting this blog out on time every week.

This week in the writing publishing blogosphere....

The Amazon/Hachette battle doesn’t seem to be going away and Forbes is now commenting on the next battle coming up... Amazon/ HarperCollins. What are HC doing to prepare for it?

Digital Book World looks at why Self Published authors may have a stake in the zon/chette battle.

James Scott Bell is commenting on Agents... and some practices to be aware of that disadvantage the Author. This is a must read! (and follow the Clare Cook link.)

Writer Beware is a must go to site if you are researching agents etc. They have highlighted some dodgy practices in the past like Clare Cook’s saga. They have redeveloped their site and now have a special section for self publishers and the scams targeting them.

The NY Times profiled a new practice by a publisher... crowd sourcing their next Y A project. This is an interesting development from the publishers/ readers point of view... not sure about the authors tho.

With the next big Y A film The Giver by Lois Lowry coming out soon... Lois talks about the change she would have made to the ending ifshe was writing it now.

An author collective who all went to SCBWI LA share their take-aways from this event. Great round up.

The Christchurch Word festival is about to kick off… In the UK a festival causing a lot of buzz is the virtual festival...run by a publisher.

In the ongoing who is better, Trad vs Self, publishing debate... The rabid parts of the self publishing community aired their views on a Lee Child interview on Passive Guy’s site and were surprised when Lee took them up on it. Worth a read for the stylish way he handled it.

Bibliocrunch has an interview with Lorna Suzuki... Lorna writes kidslit, self published it and then the film studio came calling.

Bob Mayer talks about keeping your expectations real in publishing.

In the Craft Section,

10 commandments for reading like a writer

Stephen Pressfield has a great post on work habits

The inner conflict of your characters

The plot whisperer has posted up a scene tracker... awesome post 

and how to plot the end that grabs your reader.

10 bits of writing advice from JRR Tolkein

Structure tips using Joseph Campbell’s mythology structure.

Keeping your characters believable

Writing resources... a huge list.

7 reasons writing a book makes you a champion

In the Marketing Section,

Chuck Wendig on how to market without looking like asleeze... (Usual Chuck warnings)

Kristine Rusch is always a recommended read... and here she is looking at the dangers of treating your book release as an Event! Read it for a fresh viewpoint.

Marketing your book through other authors brilliance...

Molly Greens 15 website essentials

To Finish,

Bookriot has an article looking at the bad press some  YA writers have got... you might not agree with who they are sticking up for... but should you be dissing your peers?

Ava Jae has lots of good writing and craft advice on her site. Here she tells her young readers about what Book Piracy means to an author. It is worth sharing this info around… so that we all play nice… 

maureen