For What Its Worth

This week the publishing blogosphere was soul searching as the news filtered through that Huffington Post was proud to not pay its writers. When the dust settled over the initial outrage, some great posts about the problem of free and paying the writer emerged.

Porter pulled together some of the articles and great discussions. Chuck wrote a piece that was full speed ahead, man the torpedoes. Jami Gold’s post, last week, was prescient about knowing why you are writing for free.

This week Joanne Harris dropped out of attending a literary festival over the restrictive nature of the contract. Festival appearance contracts are becoming very odd. With Phillip Pulman making a case to pay the writers for appearances of dubious value to the writer, some literary festivals have found another way to exact a pound of flesh. Restricting an authors public movements seems to be going a step too far though.

Writer Beware has been seeing some weird publishing contracts lately with termination clauses popping up with fine print saying the writer will have to pay costs... even if the writer didn’t terminate the agreement. Keep an eye on new contract language.

Ellen Oh wrote a heartfelt plea to white writers over how they write coloured characters. At first many writers thought she was saying white writers shouldn’t write these characters, but Ellen was saying something different. Be authentic in your writing. It is a great post to mull over.

Today Simon and Schuster launched a new imprint... specifically aimed at Muslim children’s books. This is a great addition to their imprint list and a great statement to make to the publishing world.

In the Craft Section,

Conquering Self Doubt

5 methods to meet writing goals-

Scenes as capsules of time- C S Lakin- Bookmark

Creating Author business plans- Janice Hardy

2 great posts from Becca Puglisi- Pacing- and Writing memorable characters- Bookmark both

Hack your readers brains by using senses- K M Weiland- Bookmark

How to write a fight scene- Christine Frazier- Bookmark

In the Marketing Section,

How authors can use Pinterst- Jane Friedman

Book marketing trends

How not to ask for a free review

Subject codes on your book cover

Make your book the best marketing tool

Goodreads and why you should be there.

10 clever ways to grow your email list- The Book Designer-Bookmark

To Finish,

If you are on Twitter and you are searching for some interesting writer accounts to follow then you can’t go far wrong taking a look at this nifty list that the Expert Editor has put together. A little something for everyone here.

Maureen

@craicer

Pic Flickr Creative Commons/ khrawlings

Chasing The Reader

This week in the publishing blogosphere

Scribd changed its subscription model. A little shiver fluttered through the online publishing community at the news. Were they going to fold? With the dominance of Amazon Unlimited and the demise of Oyster, Scribd is really the only alternative in subscription reading. Scribd still lives but the day of the all you can read buffet is ending.

This week Google entered into the reading market... with books that cannot be printed.

These books aren’t even for e-readers. They are short, just right for a commute and designed to be read on a phone.... and they are choose your own adventure type books. Taking the story and gaming it into your phone challenges conventional storytelling. With Google behind this experiment it will be interesting to see where it goes.

At the end of January, Berlin hosted a Future Publish conference. One of the keynote speakers, Chantal Restivo-Alessi, talked about the value of the story across all mediums, harnessing digital across all platforms and building deep engagement. Backlists are crucial and Authors and their brand should be marketed on a global scale. This is a really interesting article. (I can't help wondering what it would do for NZ if the individual imprints here marketed NZ Books globally instead of to two chain booksellers.)

Jane Friedman has an interview with Agent Laurie McLean specifically about one of her clients who operates in a hybrid fashion across the publishing and music industries with one feeding into the other. So Simon Curtis writes a Y.A. book and happens to create music and so references it in the story and brings out an album of music which promotes the book which promotes his music and.... Hybrid storytelling going in all directions now.

By now your brain has probably gone into Popcorn Kitten mode so you should read what James Scott Bell has to say about coping with the writers bane of too many ideas crowding in all at once. This is excellent advice which will keep you productive or at least allow you to sleep easier.

Writer Beware is continuing to warn authors about the many and varied scams that Author Solutions are perpetuating across all their various fronts for reputable publishing companies. The latest examination is the marketing on-sell. This is where they really make their money charging hundreds of dollars for simple services. The charges are truly eye-watering. Even if you know that you will never get caught on this - read it so you can inform others.

Jami Gold has been thinking about the times when an Author might work for free. This is hotly debated in the creative community where we see little enough money for our work. A few weeks back we had Phillip Pullman campaigning to pay authors at festivals. Jami has some good points to make about choosing carefully which projects we do for free.

I have been thinking about Dean Wesley Smith's article all day. He takes a look at the longevity of the writer in the digital age. It does make you think. If books don’t go out of print because digital backlists are still selling... authors really need to understand the long game and plan their careers for it. Dean is still finding readers for books that are 30 years old... and you can too.

In the Craft Section,

The Book Designer- 3 mistakes you made writing the first book.

Tara Sparling- Dissecting the blurb formula

September Fawkes – 15 tactics for writing humour- Bookmark

What not to do when writing for teens

Steven Pressfield -The difference between subject and theme- Bookmark

Effective outlining in Scrivener using metadata

Anne R Allen – a guide to co writing -Bookmark

Darcy Pattison- find your novel opening

Janice Hardy – Deep P.O.V is not the only P.O.V.

In the Marketing Section,

Rachel Thompson- 4 ways to improve your sales

How to promote your book

Anne R Allen- Using Google plus and why you should. (This post is getting a lot of comments 

around the blogosphere. You should read it!)

How writers ruin their Amazon links- Bookmark!

Jane Friedman on finding a Book Publicist

Ways Authors can reach Readers

Website of the Week

Besides being an awesome blogger Lindsay Buroker manages a podcast called SFF Marketing. This podcast is a deep look at marketing issues and has great guests. Being a podcast it’s easy to listen to while doing other things. Today they interviewed Data Guy of Author Earnings. The latest Author Earnings report is ruffling a few feathers. Data Guy is being touted as a guest at Digital Book World’s upcoming conference so this podcast is a must listen if you are following what is happening in the Indie World. Then you can check out all the other goodies in past podcasts.

To Finish,

Angela Ackerman writes some great articles.  This one for Romance University on romancing the reader is a must read. After all readers are why we spend so much time crafting the characters. We want them to love our characters as much as we do.

Loving the reader means we have to show up for them. 

This week the annual SCBWI conference in New York was rocked by an amazing keynote from children's author Gary Schmidt. Besides reading the keynote... check out the great conference blog.

Maureen

@craicer

Pic : Flickr /Creative Commons/ Rene Schwietzke