Barmy Weather

There are two words that describe the weather at the moment in my home town. Balmy and Barmy. You never know what you are going to get when you step outside the door.

The news around the publishing world is similar.

Are the screenwriters going on strike? (You would think the studios learned from the last time.)

Are there less eBooks being published? (Is everybody copying fake news?)

What’s happening with the bestseller lists? Penny Sansevieri has some hard truths about them.

Who had the bright idea of adding eBooks into the PLR in Britain... (I can hear the cheers from down here –yippee.)

Who knew that everyone would be listening to podcasts on their phones... which has fueled the podcast market and now audio books are going gangbusters. Joanna talks to J Daniel Sawyer about all the changes in audio. (balmy)

Written Word surveyed 1000 Kindle readers and found out some startling facts that authors need to be aware of. This is a must read!

Some things stay the same. You need author friends. Joanna Penn talks about how to find these valuable guides on the writing path. (balmy)

You need to keep learning the craft. Michael Hauge has a fantastic post on how to change your critique group so everyone is learning and growing in the craft.

The Rocking Self Publishing podcast had an exceptional episode with Kevin Tumlinson who talked about the ways to use a UBL – Unique Book Link available from Draft2Digital- free

Robin Bennis has a great post on productivity and exploding dogs.- (barmy)

Darcy Pattison has a must read post on Amazon ads... (go on... dip your toe in...)

Ruth Harris has a stand out post on rejection and failure and how to put them into perspective. (We must be barmy to do this writing thing...)

In The Craft Section,

How to format a book. Bookmark

When good characters go bad- Writer Unboxed

The character inventory

Why novellas are making a comeback- Ali Luke- Bookmark

Two great posts from K M Weiland Don’t write expository dialogue and

Overly complex plots -Bookmark Both!

5 unrealistic character traits- Mythcreants

Making your characters jump off the page- Angela Ackerman and James Scott Bell. (I have this book and it is awesome!)

How not to start a novel!- Anne R Allen- Bookmark

7 tips to deal with back story-Pat Verducci

In The Marketing Section,

Get better at pitching- Write Life

Writing a series as a marketing strategy- Peter Mulraney

4 steps to generate sales with keywords- Beth Bacon- Bookmark!

Creating author business plans- Marcy Kennedy

3 ways you are wasting social media time- Jonathan Chan

8 ways to grow your Facebook author page- Frances Caballo

Promoting series books- Daniel Arenson- Bookmark

Self publishing mistakes

To Finish,

Sometimes you just can’t find the right title no matter how hard you try. Tara Sparling has the answer. She has a collection of nifty title generators for the struggling author. You would have to be barmy not to check it out....

Maureen

@craicer

It’s nearly time to write my monthly newsletter. I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. If you want to want to check it out and join our merry band of virtual coffee drinkers, make sure you subscribe. Coffee is the fuel for the blog so I’m thanking all the people who hit the coffee button this week.

Pic : Flickr Creative Commons/ Chenelle J- When the weather can’t make up its mind...

Good Villains

Ssssh You can’t tell anyone but someone with your name left a large amount of cash in a bank account and died with no heirs....

Straight away I knew the letter was a fake.

Several things tipped me off. No letterhead. The appeals to greed, tastefully alluded to, inside the letter. Some of the sentence structure was clunky. (Barclays Bank can afford to hire people who can write.) And my mother rung me up to say she had received a letter just like it earlier this week.

Can you always spot the scammers though? I have been watching Victoria Strauss (@victoriastrauss), co founder of Writer Beware pointing out  a series of questionable practices to a small publisher on Twitter. The publisher feels that they should be treated like a plumber and get paid by the writer to publish the work. (Hint: they have a license to publish your work under strict conditions... that’s only for fixing the leak... not the house and contents.)

After reading Kris Rusch’s latest blog post on dealing with editors who want to be paid to pass on information to the writer. Along with writers who don’t know what rights they have given up so are missing out on reprint rights because their agents can’t be bothered or don’t know what rights they sold either... I’m not surprised that Kris had a melt down. Know your business! Everybody should read this blog post and be educated.

Jami Gold has an excellent series of blog posts on Indie Publishing that I am working my way through. Her post on long term goals got me thinking. Do you have a master plan? (For world domination...)

Two weeks ago I linked to two important blogs discussing whether author newsletters were a good idea. (Anne R Allen’s blog post and Kris Rusch’s.) This topic has caused quite a stir in the online publishing world. Kris wrote a new blog post refining her thoughts on this. Anne’s blog post had 125 comments.

Writers Digest recently had a blog post about the importance of finding your tribe. That’s all your writing friends... and then Writer Unboxed had an interesting guest post from Kate Brandes about what a debut writers collective did for each other... (I keep saying this is the way of the future...)

Nate Hoffelder writes that Audible are dropping their credit gifting to the dismay of their fans.

Dean Wesley Smith has an interesting post on how to make money from short fiction pieces.

John Doppler has a must read post on the Alli blog about visualising the best sellers. Just how many Indies are in the top 100 by category.

Lit Reactor has a great article on 13 ways to support an author without spending a cent. (Spread the word and be a hero!)

Roz Morris has a fascinating blog post about opening up Book Reviewers to Indie published books. The discussion from book reviewers in the comments is well worth a read.

The fabulous K M Weiland has gathered up her recent series of blog posts based on Marvel movies. The Do’s and Don’ts of Storytelling according to Marvel. This is an excellent resource for every writer. (Her latest book on characterisation is amazing as well!) I Have been obsessively watching Avengers Civil War and seeing all the plot points!

In The Craft Section,

Five Failed Character Arcs- Mythcreants

Checklist to improve your writing- Writers Write- Bookmark

How to Refine your novel- Martha Alderson

How to end books in a series- Bookmark

Creating your remarkable villain- David Villalva- Bookmark

10 signs of underdeveloped characters- Emily Morgan

How to use writers intuition- Colleen M Story- Bookmark

5 qualities of a brilliant story- Roz Morris- Bookmark

5 examples of characterisation- Now Novel

In The Marketing Section,

Ultimate guide to creating Author Bio’s- Chris Well- Bookmark

Grow your Google page

Creating an irresistible series- WriteToDone

How to encourage readers to leave reviews- Bookmark

Marketing a new book in a series- Julianne MacLean - Bookmark

Endorsement quotes, Do you need them?- Debbie Young

Avoid looking like an amateur author

International author central on Amazon- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

To Finish,

Ricardo Fayet of Reedsy knows that I am a sucker for a fabulous infographic so he takes the time to email me and send their latest one. Everything you wanted to know about dynamic characters... in a handy chart!

Sara Letourneau has been taking a break from blogging recently. Here she explains why in a great article, Seven Steps to Honoring Your Reality. This is how you become a writing hero...

Maureen

@craicer

I have a monthly newsletter. It is a collection of the best of my bookmarked links plus other news about my writing and what I am personally learning about book marketing and publishing. I don’t spam or push any products. You can virtually meet me for coffee every month if you subscribe. (Thanks to everyone who has bought me a coffee by hitting the Kofi button.)