It’s Book Expo time...in Frankfurt.
The big talking points are...
The rise and rise of audio books,
Fake News and why books are needed more than ever,
and Free Speech.
German and European publishers are coming out to highlight the need for publishers to stand firm with a mission and a social duty forfreedom of the press.
While the Frankfurt Book Fair is on the Alliance of
Independent Authors have the last of their Free Online Fringe conferences this weekend. These conferences are held at the same time as the big book fairs and
have a different theme for each one. This time the conference theme is Author
Business. These conferences are free and the content stays online. They have
live Q and A and lots of chances to get discounts on products and services.
This is well worth attending from the comfort of your own chair.
Last weekend New Zealand children’s writers and illustrators
got together for their biennial conference where there was much discussion over
new trends in publishing. Mid Grade is where its at.... Kathryn Van Beek has a little roundup of great takeaways.
The Independent Book Publishers Association published an
update to their members this week on their dialogue with Amazon over third
party vendors bidding for control of the buy button on the Amazon storefront.
If you missed this bit of news in May, check out their update.
The Romance Bookstore, The Ripped Bodice has released a report on the state of racial diversity in romance publishing. Over the last
few years on Twitter it has been common to see MSWL tags asking for Own Voices
and P.O.C. stories. This report shows what is happening in publishing in
reality. Book Riot has an overview of the report, it makes for sad reading.
This week I came across a great article by Kevin Tumlinson
on goal setting in your author business. Do you even make goals? This is worth
a read and a good think over. What’s your Mountain is the title of the essay.
If you are asked this question in New Zealand it means what landscape has
shaped you and is very important in your identity. Goal setting in this context
can be just as important to your writer identity.
NaNoWriMo is about to fall upon us. (National Novel Writing
Month) November becomes the month of quiet as writers commit to writing a
50,000 word novel. October is prep month. December is editing month. January is
agent collapse month as the books pour in. Joanna Penn has a blog post dedicated to the resources you will need if you are attempting this. Even if
you are not, you should get your hands on the NaNo Storybundle collection.
In The Craft section,
Genre is world building- Jami Gold – Bookmark
Backstory- why what we’ve been taught is wrong- Writer Unboxed
Well motivated villains- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark
Taking a book idea to the next level- Mary Kole
Characters misbelief drives plot- Lisa Cron – Bookmark
Are you a real writer- Anne R Allen- Bookmark
In The Marketing Section,
Book Marketing Basics- Molly Greene- Bookmark
Content ideas for Book Marketing – Penny Sansevieri
Your pub date is not as important as you think- Writer
Unboxed- Bookmark
Indie Publishing paths- Janice Hardy
An actionable plan for finding new readers- Book Marketing
Tools
To Finish,
Jane Friedman was recently interviewed for the Backmatter
podcast by Leanpub. It was a wide ranging interview about aspects of Jane’s
career and her thoughts for the future of publishing. Jane reiterated her
belief in publishing collectives as a way forward for authors and small
publishers. (Long time readers of this blog know what the next sentence is
going to be....) I think this is a good idea and I try to highlight different
models as I come across them. This week the launch of J L Pawley's new book, Air Born highlighted another publishing collective. Steampress, a funky Sci Fi
/Horror press and the publisher of Air Born, has joined the Eunoia Collective of
publishers. This is a group of small New Zealand publishers all doing their own
publishing under the Eunoia banner where they can access International Rights
selling, translations, Frankfurt Book fair visibility and Film and Television
Rights selling. It is a great initiative and a good use of resources and
knowhow.
Congratulations Jess!
Maureen
@craicer
