My brain is still buzzing from Tinderbox – that and I’m
finding myself falling asleep at odd times. Some of this, I’m told, is body
readjustment after a long campaign of heightened stress levels. I put it down
to operating on about 3 hours sleep a night for a week.
For those of you who have never been on a committee putting
a big event together... there are many behind the scenes details to organise. We
started planning Tinderbox 18 months ago, scoping out what we wanted to have at
our conference and researching who would be the best fit to deliver it. We had
to do all this with one eye on the changing publishing marketplace. With themes
established then it was booking presenters in and finding a suitable venue.
Booking your presenters early is key! Along with the quality of the presenters
the following list can make or break a conference, food, wifi, room size,
assessments, hands on workshops, goodie bags and transport. All of this needs
to be tied down early so that if anything falls over you have time to fix it.
Tinderbox was fantastic! The presenters were inspiring, the
food was amazing and the high creative energy of the delegates was encouraging.
My team were called Goddesses and I bow down before them. And the Wifi stayed
on, with a little help.
Meanwhile in the outside world....
Stephanie Meyer sent the publishing world into the Twilight zone... with a gender bent version of Twilight.
Waterstones – the biggest bookshop chain in the UK decided that they would cease to sell the Kindle, apparently because e-publishing is
failing.
Porter takes a look at whether Print is really triumphing, while
Traditional publishers are joining Kindle Unlimited.
Yup everybody is still mixed up.
Stephan Pinker, Linguistics Professor and International
Grammar Guru, declared that writing rules were only superstitions.
Macquarie University published their findings on authors in Australia which makes fascinating reading. Your average Aussie author is a
woman, writing genre fiction, earning twelve grand.
In Florida the Novelists Inc (NINC) conference wrapped up. This
conference is for novelists who have had two or more books published. Elizabeth S Craig has a round up of what was discussed at the conference. Very
interesting takeaways here...
In The Craft Section,
NaNoWriMo is coming up so here are 7 ways to keep it going throughout the year.
5 tips for making writing a daily habit (Bookmark)
How to hook readers - Setting the stage and Puzzle Pieces
Style Sheets and Guides -Ruth Harris (Bookmark)
In The Marketing Section,
Can serials be profitable in Kindle Unlimited?- Lindsay
Buroker (Bookmark)
6 tips for finding a cover artist- Jami Gold
How to Twitter tips- Molly Greene (Bookmark)
Website Of The Week
Inky Girl has a newsletter. This is a great resource for all
those artists out there.
And the Bookshelf Muse Library software is launched!
To Finish,
The Ten commandments of Indie Publishing is a very good pep
talk for writers as is Jane Friedman’s Author Business models, a must read!
As I was putting together this roundup I was struck by the
fact that many these links were ideas discussed at Tinderbox. Just add coffee
and an enthusiastic crowd soundtrack. Or make plans to go to the next National
conference in two years time.
To bed to bed….
Maureen
@craicer
