Taking Sides

The news at the moment is all around voting. Britain goes to the polls tonight about staying in the EU. American senators are staging a sit in about wanting to vote on a gun law. Australia is gearing up for a National Election, the outcome of which may spell a real hit on copyright. What does it all mean for publishing? Porter Anderson takes a global litmus test on how the publishing industry may be faring in this toxic political landscape.

In the meantime independent presses are opening bookstores... This seems to be a move designed to increase a unique community awareness and maximise profits. After all if Amazon can do it with a third bookstore planned soon...

Bob Mayer speculated recently about what would happen if Barnes and Noble closed...

James Scott Bell has an open letter to a discouraged author.

Audio Books are being pushed into the mainstream- why? Digital Book World speculates about profits.

A lot of authors are concerned about the scammer attacks happening on Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited. However Amazon’s method of dealing with a book taken over by a pirate scammer was not helpful. Instead of dealing with the scammer Amazon closed down the hapless author’s account. This author and a few others may have got caught up in Amazon’s clean up of email blast services which were tweaking their bestseller lists. Hugh Howey explains how this happens. But will Amazon touch Bookbub- the most influential marketing list around...

Anne R Allen has another edition of her scamming watch out list targeting authors. This is a must read and share around post.

In a nice piece of good news Apple have begun to pay out their refunds from the price fixing case they were involved in.

In The Craft Section,

10 dialogue errors

Do’s and Dont’s for beginnings

The first turning point in your novel - C S Lakin Bookmark

Plumb the emotional depth of your setting- Bookmark

How to plot – K M Weiland- Bookmark

Glimmertrain essay on Description- Bookmark

The how of great openings- Bookmark

In the Marketing Section,

5 Online Marketing Trends Authors should consider

10 things you need to know about Bookseller lists

Email lists  and email list mistakes

5 Marketing tips for Introverts-diymfa

The care and feeding of your Blog -RachelThompson

How to nail Author SEO- Miral Slatter

  

To Finish,

Publishers Weekly highlighted the story of two children’s authors who were disinvited from school visits ... One of the authors seemed to be disinvited because he openly supported another children’s author who had written a ‘controversial’ book. As some children’s authors have said... you want to censor us because of what we ‘might’ say?

Good luck with all the voting...

Maureen

@craicer

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons- Alan Cleaver

Voicing The Truth

This week one of my friends was surprised by an ‘Agent’ who reached out to her on her Linked In account. Of course an agent is going to contact you out of the blue in this way. Yeah Right!

My friends immediately did a Google search and up popped a Writer Beware notice. Writer Beware is a great site sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy writers. This site covers scams, bad agents, agent scams, publisher scams... shonky contracts... it is a minefield out there. If you get contacted by an ‘Agent’ be very wary. Google first. And search their name with Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors.

Anne R Allen has made a list of Facebook scams targeting writers. It’s not pretty. I’ve seen most of them in the last six months. If it is too good to be true... then it’s not legit and you could be opening yourself up to hacking or malware or both.

Staying with scammy stuff the writers who entered the Star Trek writing contest got an email that asked them to work with Simon and Schuster’s self publishing arm Archway Publishing. This is a front for Author Solutions. If you have not heard of Author Solutions then you must read this article by Dave Gaughran. When you see the list of reputable publishers using them it will make your hair stand on end.

Kris Rusch has another great post on contract negotiation as part of her deal breakers series. All writers should be reading this series. Forewarned is a forearmed. Knowledge is power... you get the drift!

The problem of distribution for Self Publishers is a tricky one. Meghan Harvey has written a clear article of the problems. Some of her commenter’s have some innovative solutions.

This weekend Tumblr is running a mini Bookcon. If you need some inspiration or a way to fill up a few hours check out the great speakers.

Last week I linked to the latest Author Earnings breakdown. Joanna Penn has decided to break down her earning for the last year and show you what she has been doing and what worked for her. This is a generous post. She lays it all out. It is thought provoking and impressive. Thank you Joanna!

In the Craft Section,

Two Bookmark posts from Janice Hardy

How can you tell if your idea is worth it?

But what are you really saying – subtext

K M Weiland-Character goals

10 do’s and don’ts on seeking feedback- Jenny Nash

Balancing dialogue and description – Jane Friedman

10 ways to keep your reader enthralled

The Awesome Duo of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have two new thesauri to add to their Writers Thesaurus collection Both on Setting - Rural and Urban. Angela even went to the trouble to get arrested so she could authentically write about the settings. (not for real) So they have some great posts on Setting- Building a story garden and Level up your setting to celebrate the new books.

In the Marketing Section,

Checklists Cheatsheets and Worksheets - The Book Designer -Bookmark

13 ways for authors to use Twitter lists

The importance of your author photo

Tracking ebook links- Bookmark

Planning your Social Media calendar -Writers in the Storm -Bookmark

To Finish,

Voice is one of the hardest things to describe, to write and to nail in a novel for a writer. Every so often I get asked to look out for an article that can help writers understand voice. Chuck has a guest post by Cassandra Khaw on just this and it is a knockout. 

When scammers and pirates want to stop your voice being heard it is hard to rise above it and sing loud. But writers need to do this. We speak for those who can't. We can change attitudes with our writing. This week a hate crime on a huge scale in Orlando tried to stop the LBGT community and the world amplified their voice. 

It's your voice! Write it!

Maureen

@craicer

Pic: The Auckland SkyTower