Motivation and The Writer

 

 

This week in publishing news...

 

Spare a thought for the new Debut authors in the UK who have discovered that the UK’s largest book chain Waterstones is still having problems with their new book supply software. Waterstones promised it is fixed but now they are trying to process the backlog of two months of supply chain issues. Meanwhile, marketing campaigns fizzle out as the books are not on shelves.

 

It’s Book Festival time and along with the shock cancelation of the Beijing Book Fair with two days' notice, many book festivals are finding the numbers attending are down. The Guardian wonders if the pandemic years have doomed the book festival as it used to be. Will they morph into something else?

 

Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard has two interesting articles this week on the launch of a self-publishing Manga comic platform and the quiet rise of another podcast company looking to stake a claim in European audiobook market, after gobbling up Latin America.

 Audiobooks aren’t stopping yet. 

If you have been wondering just what all the hype about the PRH vs the DOJ court case really means to publishing going forward- Nathan Goldman has broken it down in an interesting essay on The Conglomeration Of Literature. The other big three are already sniffing around S&S with big wallets waiting for PRH to be rolled by the court.

 

I always recommend writers keep an eye on Writer Beware so they are up to date with scams and bad actors in the publishing scene. This week Victoria Strauss had an interesting and detailed exchange with an editor who found herself out of a job when the company disappeared under her and set about pulling together writers and contracts and trying to salvage author careers. This is a close look at the behind-the-scenes problems of keeping a publishing house going. 

 

Kristine Rusch continues her How Writers Fail series with a look at the problem of upskilling. How often have you really challenged yourself to get better in the craft? Do you consciously practice new techniques?

 

Imposter syndrome- Writers are notorious for suffering it. Ruth Harris has a great article on dealing with this mental monster of destruction- First, did you know there was an upside to having imposter syndrome?

 

Yazmin Angoe in Writer Unboxed has an interesting article about the trials and tribulations of writing the second novel. What can you do when the second novel is a grind after the freedom of writing the first one has disappeared.

 

In The Craft Section

How to choose the right kind of conflict- Angela Ackerman

Character development- Dianne Braley

7 ways to reach writing goals- Jordan Kantay- Bookmark

5 times it's ok to write stereotypes- Lucy Hay

The beats of the Action Genre- Storygrid- Bookmark

How to start a story- Novelry- Bookmark

 

In the Marketing Section,

What a book marketing strategy requires- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Grow your writing business by stepping away from your computer- Alexander Lewis

55 examples of what to say if you are unsure about book marketing on social media- Frances 

Caballo - Bookmark

Sending surveys- Mailerlite

6 steps for building a brand using giveaways- Bestbookmonkey- Bookmark

Turning books into audiobooks- DIYMFA- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

 

Motivation. If you could sell it in a bottle you would be rich. Alyssa Hitaka of Insecure Writers Support Group has some great ways to capture that motivation spirit to get you back writing again. This is a print out and keep on the wall list of great ideas. 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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PIC: Photo by Cristofer Maximilian on Unsplash

 

The Publishing Soap Opera

This week in publishing news…

 

The DOJ and PRH wrapped up their closing arguments after nearly a month in court. Now the judge has to decide if the sale of Simon and Schuster will go through or whether the DOJ can successfully block it. There were many popcorn moments. Among them, opposing lawyers not wanting to grill Stephen King because they wanted their books signed and the PRH CEO thinking everyone gets large advances and marketing budgets. 

Publishers Weekly has a breakdown of the closing arguments, or as they say- we’re right back where we started. It makes fascinating reading.

 

While everyone looks at the money that is supposed to be swimming in publishing, the reality is looking different for the actual workers, let alone the writers. A survey of publishing professionals' workplace stress indicates that burnout and low pay is causing many to leave the profession. It makes grim and sad reading. The death of starry-eyed dreams is never pretty. Something has to change.

 

Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard points out that the recent American Publishers report of falling eBook sales doesn’t account for the huge payouts Amazon has been giving to authors from Kindle Unlimited during the same reporting period. So where is all the money in publishing? At the same time as everyone is looking at the numbers, Amazon is too and pulling back from restocking its warehouses. It’s just a blip they said to Publisher’s Weekly, but for how long?

 

Over in the UK the association of publishers are not happy with the government which has decided that data mining copyrighted work and creative IP is ok. The government is about to pass a law to make it easier. They want to welcome huge data firms to the UK. Guess who will lose out?

 

Mark Williams likes to remind everyone that publishing is a global business. This week he looked at the rising cost of printing that has seen the Bangladesh publishers scrambling to stay afloat with costs for ink, paper, and printing jumping by 50%. What to do? Mark points out that with over 75% of the population online, maybe they could make a digital book. Radical thinking for conservative publishers.

 

Joanna Penn interviewed Ryan Dingler from Google Play Books on AI narration. Whatever you feel about the spoken word and narration it is worth keeping an eye on with the big moves in audio publishing. It’s an interesting interview. Check out the links to Google’s voice library, the AI voices are getting very good. When they get full cast functionality, which Google are promising soon, that’s when it will seriously change audio publishing.

 

Anne R Allen has a big post on the latest scams which I touched upon last week. Anne goes into more detail about how these scammers are stealing agent identities and how you can sort out the fakes from the real offers.

 

Kris Rusch continues her posts on the business of writing. When is your art not a business? 

I kept thinking of the poor young publishing professionals being told to grab audio rights their company has no intention of doing anything with when I was reading this.

 

BookBaby has a big post on serial writing sites. If you want to figure out where the best place is to publish your serial soap opera- check out their recommendations. 

 

Now Novel has a comprehensive post on Thriller writing. If you have been wanting to try out some ideas in the thriller genre this is the post for you.

 

In the Craft section,

How to write a good blog post- Rachel Thompson

3 mistakes to avoid with your side characters- Sacha Black- Bookmark

Plot emerges from characters- Scott Myers

5 character tools you need to know- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

Beyond character goal and motivation- Foxprint Editorial- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

8 creative ways to launch a book- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

How to launch a thriller- Interview with a thriller writer.- Sandra Beckwith

Infographic on writing promo-related dates for September – Penny Sansevieri

2 great posts from Dave Chesson- How to build an about the author page and a nifty print formatting template generator- Bookmark both

 

To Finish,

If you are looking for some courses to do around writing craft, punctuation, publishing, cover design etc. Udemy has a big selection. Dave Chesson has pulled together a useful list. The big news is that Udemy is having a sale for a week with all their courses over 85% off. You can pick up a course for less than $20. So if you were looking to learn new skills or deep dive research into artisan cheese making for your soap opera serial cowboy hero… now’s the time to sign up.

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter. If you want the best of my bookmarked links and other bits and pieces come on in and subscribe.

If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

PIC Photo by Matthew Tkocz on Unsplash