What Is The Real Story?

 

In Publishing News this week

 

The Independent Book Publishers Association is rebranding their main book awards and adding some new ones, reports Publishers Weekly. They are including many marginalized and diverse communities in their new categories.

 

Publishers Weekly is promoting a book to publishers about Disinformation and how to recognize it. With national elections coming up in nearly half the world- publishing the truth has never been more important.

 

Publishing Perspectives reports that the Sharjah Booksellers conference has grown to 76 countries participating. They are just wrapping up their successful gathering of booksellers and distributors.

 

Last week, I mentioned the viral post on book publishing that had people polarized over the future of the book industry. The week has seen a few more Op Ed’s. Here is a reasonably balanced one from Lincoln Michel published in Slate.

 

America’s National Public Radio has discovered that authors are using AI- they have an article on authors who are feeding AI their own work. But does this help you create anything new?

Meanwhile, there is still divided opinion whether Harper Collins partnering with Eleven Labs is a good thing. Harper Collins stress it is only looking at AI audio for their backlist. And now that they have started, watch everyone else do the same.

 

This week Ruth Harris looks at that problem when literary agents go bad. Do your due diligence and check out this great article. Over at Writer Beware, there is a great article on how a book really becomes a movie. Hint: It’s a hard slog.

 

Joanna Penn interviews Dan Blank on human centered marketing. This is a great podcast/transcript of getting comfortable about talking about what you write, whether it is to one person or Social Media.

 

Ingram Spark has an interesting article on creating Book Merch. They list all the places you can get it along with design ideas. Do you have a great setting for your books? Design the town’s business logos. Put it on a coaster. 

 

Ayesha Ali has a great post on Jane Friedman’s blog about opening scenes. She has 4 must have goals to really nail the scene. This is a print out and mull over post. 

Donald Mass has been thinking about imagination. How does the writer convey their imagination to the reader- does it ever happen? He has some words of wisdom for getting the reader and writer imagination working together.

 

In The Craft Section,

2 excellent posts from Becca Puglisi-7 growth milestones for character arc and The central conflict of your story- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

12 Jungian archetypes to shape character- Now Novel

5 effective outlining techniques- Rachel Thompson

Yes or No questions in dialogue- Sue Coletta-Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

How to record your own audiobook- Draft2Digital

Author website start points- R Shannon

FAQ on Book marketing with Book Machine PR- Bookmark

24 ways to promote your book or brand- Marika Flatt- Bookmark

Promoting your book with another author- Ingram Spark

 

To Finish

‘Won’t someone think of the children,’ has become a pop culture phrase culled from The Simpsons television series to lampoon a moralistic and narrow outlook. I confess to wincing and thinking these thoughts when I saw a news article about a horror movie being developed with those two out of copywrite characters, Mickey Mouse (Steamboat Willie) version and Winnie the Pooh (A A Milne version). What’s next … Conan the Barbarian meets Little House on the Prairie? (2028)

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic: Photo by Michael Carruth on Unsplash

The Opinions of Writers

 

In Publishing News this week

 

This week has seen rumbles of discontent through the publishing communities. At issue is the freedom to express your opinions and or the truth without being labelled with racist slurs. Finding and keeping the middle ground in the rhetoric over the Gaza crisis is becoming increasingly problematic. This week Pen America cancelled its award ceremony as many finalists pulled out citing a lack of support from Pen America. This is the American branch of the organization which supports writers in prison and the freedom of ideas and speech. 

 

In Italy, the publisher’s association has come out swinging over perceived censorship when a prominent writer was refused a broadcast appearance on the way to the studio, for criticizing the government. Their statement “A country that is strong in its democracy should never fear the opinions of writers, whatever they may be.”

 

On the Bookfair front, Publishing Perspectives has a breakdown on the deals that were done at Bologna. The comics group can’t have been eating or sleeping with so many deals done in their genre.

 

Publisher’s Weekly reports that Entangled Press is flying high with a blockbuster on their hands but they insist nothing will change at their little Indie press.

 

London Bookfair has another change of director. This revolving door or ‘poisoned chalice’ as Mark Williams calls it, is not helping the industry in any way. He makes good points in his acerbic take down of London Book Fair’s governing body.

 

Meanwhile, Elle Griffin, writing at The Elysian has spurred discussion with her provocative article No One Buys Books. She read the book based on the big Department of Justice trial over Penguin Random House wanting to buy Simon and Schuster. She pulls out charts and statements made by publishing executives to illustrate her article and opinion that publishing is broken but no one has told the writers.

Taking the opposing point of view, Kathleen Schmidt with her article Please Stop Bashing Book Publishing. Here she shows who is buying books and why they aren’t being noticed in book sales lists.

 

After all this you might like to drop in to Kris Maze and read the excellent article 7 Super Mental Health Hacks for Writers To De-Stress.

 

Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur has another deep dive article full of information over the changes to Audible's categories. With Spotify grabbing increasing market share- The Amazon owned audio publishing company is tweaking the metadata.

 

Sandra Beckwith has a roundup of the interesting book promotion days in May. Check it out if you want inspiration for your Social Media posts.

 

Caroline Leavett has an interesting guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog on writing fact as fiction. This can get very tricky and could involve lawsuits. Caroline talks about the ways you can disguise the Fact in your Fiction so nobody ever knows it’s a true story.

 

 

In The Craft Section,

Writing character appearance- Michelle Miller

Motivating emotionally challenging characters-Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

How to use symbolic settings in your story- K M Weiland- Bookmark

Tropes to the left of me- Terry Odell

Adding a listening pass to your edit- Suzy Vadori-Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section,

7 Social Media Best Practices- Draft2digital

Book Marketing strategies- Dale Roberts- Bookmark

Analyzing your book marketing niche- Colleen Story

Chirp- free marketing tools-Bookbub- Bookmark

Facebook ads – Written Word Media- Bookmark

 

To Finish

It’s that time of the year when I look back over sixteen years of weekly blogging on the publishing and writing industry where change is constant. Ebooks to Kindle to Subscription publishing services to Print on Demand to Audio Books to Direct Sales to AI. In the next year the Publishers will be coping with the avalanche of AI generated novels and the disruptive impact on the industry. For the Writers it will be the insistence that they are human and human interaction with fans will be the most important strand in their writer business.

This human is about to look for a big drink and cake!

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee or cake for 16 years of blogging, I appreciate and value virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Pic Photo by Julien Photo on Unsplash