It’s That Time Of The Year

Ah Bologna, Bologna... The biggest children’s book fair in the world. This generally kicks off the start of Book Fair season.  Everyone is looking for the next greatest thing. The Bookseller reports the top news of the fair as well as the shock announcement of the demise of the 2nd biggest children’s publisher in Australia. For our own corner of the world the brand new One Tree House Publishing firm has picked up best Oceania publisher from Bologna after less than a year in business.

Coming hard on the heels of Bologna is The London Book Fair.  Alli- The Alliance of Independent Authors have pivoted their online conference away from a LBF concurrent fringe event into something a little bit different. Their conferences are always packed full of great info. Make sure you sign up.

Publishing is all about marketing. Jamie Engle has a guest post on Janice Hardy’s blog about how to analyse your book for better market value. This is important as a publisher can quickly go out of business if they don’t read and fill the gaps in the market.

Kenilworth books published a must read article about the role of the author in the chain of the book. Often publishers seem to forget that without the author you would not have a product. Isn’t it time the authors got some better royalty rates?

It’s been a horrible week for Facebook. However the talk in publishing is that FB isn’t going to be going anywhere as they have 2.2 billion users. However FB is changing its focus to facilitate more genuine sharing amongst its users. Groups are one of the best features of FB and publishers have finally got some ideas on this and how to make money from them.

There is so much information on the internet that it does get a bit tedious to be constantly fielding the same questions about publishing. Susan Kaye Quin’s heartfelt post about being your own genius has been doing the rounds. We all studied and researched and experimented and worked things out for ourselves. We share our thoughts coz we’re good like that but... 

Two great marketing posts caught my eye this week. How to get five star reviews- from Writer’s Digest and How to get also boughts- The holy grail of Amazon success from Written Word Media. If you are Indie publishing these are must reads.

Ruth Harris has a monthly guest post on Anne R Allen’s Blog. This month Ruth talks about Summoning The Muse. How you can get your subconscious working for you when writing.

In The Craft Section,

6 Writing exercises to help start or finish a novel- Indie reader- Bookmark

Using punctuation to greater effect- Joanna Penn- Bookmark

Deepening story theme- Jami Gold- Bookmark

5 rules for spring cleaning your manuscript- Tara Sparling

Frequently asked writing questions- K M Weiland

Best Books for Writers- Ann Handley

In The Marketing Section,

99 Twitter icebreakers

Pre order strategies and 9 Amazon secrets- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark Both

Book Marketing ideas – Reedsy- Bookmark

How to create pre order buzz for your book – Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Creative ways to boost reader engagement- Bookbub- Bookmark

Content Marketing promotion- Joanna Penn

To Finish,

Stuck for an idea? Use this infographic to help you get an elevator pitch from which to start your epic novel.

I’m off to write the compulsively readable thriller about a lovesick ghosts dream to explore their eating disorder....  It’s going to be a best seller I’m sure!

Maureen

@craicer

If you want a round up of the best of the months bookmarked craft and marketing links  then subscribeto my monthly newsletter. You will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes.
If you enjoy this blog share it with your writing friends- A nice Easter gift...

Pic Flickr Creative Commons – Jules Morgan

Keeping Up With Book Trends

I have a confession... I’m getting addicted to podcasts.

I started out with just one... then I added another and now I have eight podcasts I try to listen to regularly. I thought I could give them up. When I accidently put my phone in the washing machine and had to replace it I told myself not to load any podcasts on my phone. I lasted one week. 

This all leads me to the Spa Girls. They have been sharing some great podcasts from The Smarter Artist Summit. Trudi Jaye interviewed some great thought leaders in publishing. Tune in while driving, or doing the dishes, making a meal, having time out...

DiAnn Mills recently published a guest post on Suzanne Lakin’s blog about writer courage. Did you even know that you have to be courageous to write? 15 ways to strengthan your courage to write.

Rejection- Every writer will deal with it at some time. What makes rejection worse is that writing is such a personal act it feels like we have been rejected as a person. It is hard to distance yourself from the writing. Mona Lisa Foster has a great series on rejection. Rejection is an opinion not a death sentence.

In publishing news this week... Smashwords announced that they have partnered with Findaway voices audio platform.  Findaway is getting bigger. Audible may start losing customers especially as Findaway doesn’t lock audio book contracts  for seven years....

The other book aggregator, Draft2Digital, has been adding some new features as well. Author Pages and Book Tabs are their latest tweaks to a website that is getting lots of praise in the Indie publishing marketplace.

Bookbub is also making changes. You can now recommend books to your followers or groups... sharing the book love of your author friends.

Sam Missingham is a London based book marketer who has quite a following in the UK book scene, She recently started a marketing service for authors and one of the first things she did was to ask Traditionally Published authors if they paid for book marketing. A surprising number did. Is this the way of the future? Sam writes about the responses from the traditionally published authors- why they are picking up the ball from the publishers.

This week I was asked if I had heard anything regarding Bologna Children’s Book Fair. I went for a hunt and found the regular roundup of Agents discussing what they predict will be big trends. Bologna is a rights fair. Will we see another breakout hit? Nothing has come along lately... Agents are wondering whether Young Adult is on the wain...

In The Craft Section,

Word count guidelines by genre- Anne R Allen -  Bookmark

Show don’t tell- podcast – Joanna Penn, (always good!)

Creating a fantasy race- fantasy fiction

The magic fix it scene- Manuscript Shredder- Bookmark

How to write a character that can carry a series- Rebecca Langley- Bookmark

Have you chosen the right main character- Kristen Kieffer- Bookmark

A lesson in deep POV- Sue Coletta- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

5 ways to make your SP book look professional

A primer on book reviews- Joel Friedlander- Bookmark

4 ways to make time to blog- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

How to lower FB ads costs- Amanda Bond - Bookmark

Book publicity is not just about sales- Penny Sansevieri

To Finish,

Book Covers. The most important marketing tool you have. But book covers are subjective, they go in and out of fashion. It is always wise to keep an eye on what is trending in your genre. Calvin Emerson of 99 Book Designs, a book cover designer, talks about what is trending in book covers this year.

Maureen

@craicer

My monthly newsletter is coming soon, I’ve been busy reading... If you want a round up  of the best of the months bookmarked craft and marketing links then subscribe. You will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes.
If you enjoy this blog share it to your writing friends, or you can shout me a coffee by hitting the coffee button up top. Thanks
 

Pic Flickr Creative Commons - Summer