This week in publishing news Simon and Shuster were hit with
a class action on payment of eBook royalties. This one will be rattling the cages
of a few big publishers. It all hinges on whether publishers treat an Ebook sale as a ‘sale’ or a licensing agreement.
Rattling Author and Agent cages; the news that Month9
publishers were in trouble and having to downsize their business. There was
lots of support for the authors and editors caught up in a financial mess not
of their making. This great
article on how to evaluate a publisher got shared around.
Kris Rusch has another installment in her deal breakers
posts, on Non Compete clauses. This is an awful little clause that can stop a
writing career in its tracks. Writer Beware has highlighted a few over the
years. Read and be very aware what the implications are.
Nicola Morgan is an in demand festival and school speaker in
the UK. Lately she has been coming up against the notion that writers should be
‘happy to speak at festivals for free as exposure.’ The UK Society of Authors
is running a campaign about this and here Nicola sets out her reasons why she won’t lower her fees without a good cause!
Porter has a thought provoking article about book prices being driven downwards thereby devaluing all creative work. There was lots of
discussion around these ideas. Have we encouraged the reading public to only
buy free?
We have all heard about laptop crashes and writers losing
manuscripts... Janice Hardy has a great article about organising your hard drive to find your work in the first place and then you can back it up!
Rachel Thompson is a force to be reckoned with. I’ve linked
to two of her marketing posts today. However this article struck a chord. How
often are we left wondering why something failed? Rachel has written a great
post on turning rules for failure into success.
Jane Friedman is one of the industry’s Go To Guru’s. She
turns her clear and insightful gaze on crowdfunding. Should authors do it?
In the Craft Section,
Creating unforgettable settings- Part 3 and 4 Angela
Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
What are your characters not saying- and What can you do about plot -Two Bookmark posts from Janice Hardy
Avoid this pitfall when plotting –Roz Morris Bookmark
Editing for people who hate editing- Bookmark
Embrace imperfection- Bookmark
5 traits of a winning concept- Mythcreants-Bookmark
Getting the right feedback- Belinda Pollard- Bookmark
In the Marketing Section,
Contest ideas for FB pages- Bookmark
Rachel Thompson hosts a Twitter chat on book marketing. She
has a helpful list of book marketing tips -Bookmark
Website of the Week
The Killzone is a great collective of crime and thriller
writers who post great articles on the writing practice. Larry Brooks has a fabulous guest post here on receiving and working with editing criticism. As
with all my links read the comments for a fuller picture.
To Finish
This week I was thinking about what my next writing craft
book might be... and telling myself that really I didn’t need another... (oooh
look shiny new book over there) My Kindle is mostly packed with writing craft
books which I dip into on a fairly regular basis. Storybundle has been a great source for good writing craft books. And they have another great offering this month. 5 great books in a bundle or 10 if you pay over $15- you do the math. I
have some gems in my Kindle from the last Storybundle. You pay what you like,
the author gets a sale and you help a charity as well.
Maureen
@craicer
Photo from Flickr/ Creative Commons- 401kcalculator.org
