Conquering The Mountain

A couple of news items caught my eye this week in publishing. 
First, a shot across the Audible bows from the big four publishers over Audibles new speech to text captions on its audiobooks. Audible is claiming it's an AI message service. The publishers are saying it is equivalent to ebook publishing. So how does Amazon, who owns Audible see this? They tried something similar in 2009 and backed down from the publisher's wrath back then... but ten years on and who is the biggest player in town?

Last weekend I hosted a day-long mini-conference on publishing and one of the sessions I programmed was collaboration. This is becoming more of a thing in the Indie world and anything that encourages groups of people to work together must be a good thing... Publish Drive has just launched a new service that helps collaborators. Abacus. It splits the money at source and so one person doesn’t get lumbered with all the tricky maths on royalty payments to a group. 

Mike Shatzkin took a look at the last ten years of the book publishing industry and notes the major turning points on the way. Ipads... Borders... and the growth of Amazon from 5th in book sales to over 50% of the book sales.

While the publishing eyes focussed on the West it is wise to keep an eye out on the East. This is where The New Publishing Standard is so valuable. Who knew there was such a book hungry market out there... not the regular publishers. The latest figures out say that Nigeria has eclipsed Japan to be the 6th largest online nation. Paper books have always been the standard in Nigeria, I wonder what will happen when they find out they can read on their phones. TNPS is launching a new newsletter just looking at the rise of African readers. While they are doing that they are also examining the subscription model. They only see good things ahead for subscription. It’s all about discovery.

Jane Friedman has a guest post from David Woghan on why self-publishers should consider their own imprint. I like to use the term Indie publishers. If you are contracting editors, cover designers, proofreaders, etc then you are acting like a traditional publisher. You are managing the production process. Traditional Publishers outsource much of their editing and design work so you can find the exact same people that traditional publishers use.  Maybe you should be thinking about imprints a lot earlier on. David talks a lot about Bowker rules. 
(If you are in NZ you can get free ISBN’s and you should.)

Anne R Allen has a great post this week on the 8 reasons why your manuscripts are getting rejected. It is not personal. You may be guilty of presenting a manuscript with a few of these errors. 

In The Craft Section,

Why editing matters- WriterUnboxed

Letting your antagonist drive the plot- Writers Digest- Bookmark

Layering characters for believable fiction- Victoria Mixon- Bookmark

On Core Story- Donna Macmeans- Bookmark

3 reasons to use timestamps in your novel

5 popular tropes writers struggle with – Mythcreants- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

3 secrets to effective landing pages- Nate Hoffelder- Bookmark

2 great posts from Penny Sansevieri 10 Bookcover rules- and Securing Amazon Reviews- Bookmark

Custom books cards- Bookbrush- Bookmark

Booklaunch for maximum sales- Bookbub- Bookmark

To Finish

Elizabeth Spann Craig always brings a note of sanity to the publishing process. It must be because she is a cozy mystery writer. This week she has a great post on author overwhelm. What can you do when your To-Do List looks and feels like a mountain. How do you tackle the writing life then? Break it down. A mountain is only climbed one step at a time. 

Maureen
@craicer

Hmm, I thought I would get the newsletter out this week… This weekend for sure! So if you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter Go on and Subscribe. You will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you.
If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top. I appreciate virtual coffee love. 

Or you can head over to Smashwords and pick up my books which are on sale at the moment. Just go to my books website. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons – Paxson Woelber

Saving Money

This week seems to be all about saving money. It started with the fantastic article by Anne R Allen on Self Publishing money wasters. This is a great article and a real heads up on what not to spend your money on. As always with articles like this read the comments because there are a few more tips in the conversations.

Saving money seems to be the theme with the publishers. This week The Guardian reported that Pearson is switching to a Netflix style rental option for its academic textbooks. Is this a good idea? I saw one horror story, this week where a parent copped a $3000 fine for a student's overdue textbook.

Every week I try to drop in on the Twitter chat that Rachel Thompson hosts around Book Marketing. Often her fellow co-host is an Author Virtual Assistant- The Rural VA.  This is not an AI but a real human person whom authors can employ to do tedious work for you. Here is a guest article about working with an author assistant.

Last month I mentioned that libraries were being stung by the new policies around library copies of ebooks that the publishers were imposing. Libraries pay for very expensive digital copies that have kill codes embedded in them, which activate after so many borrows. Some publishers are now changing the terms and it’s biting libraries and their wallets. Publishers Weekly explores that brick wall that libraries are up against. This week a librarian about to retire decided to vent her feeling about the disenfranchisement that these lending policies are causing communities.

The DIYMFA ( Do it Yourself Master of Fine Arts) site has loads of great articles. Have a trawl around the site. There is an article for every writer there. One recent article from Helen Darling was on Indie publishing budgets. How to think about them and prepare yourself for business. 

This week Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware rounded up the seven publishers that she has the most complaints about. It’s a sad list as their ads are everywhere and they make themselves look so legit. Please take the time to look at the list so you can advise newbies to stay away from their fishing hooks. 

Kris Rusch is on week four of her licensing journey. This week she talks about inventory. Do you have a comprehensive master sheet of your inventory anywhere? Most of us don’t. A few files in various hard drives or filing cabinets. This is an important and overlooked document. There is money in knowing what you own, what rights you haven’t signed away.

In the Craft Section,

In search of a moral compass- Writer Unboxed- READ THIS! Bookmark

Character descriptions, avoid boring stuff- Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

4 tips to get unstuck with hard emotion- Lisa Hall Wilson

Story Climax- The Write Practice

Exploring nonlinear narrative- Art of Narrative

In The Marketing Section,

4 dirty secrets about author social media marketing- Frances Caballo

Ten business models for Indie Authors – Orna Ross

Mailchimp or Mailerlite -which one for budget-conscious authors- Rachel McCollin

10 reasons you aren’t getting book reviews and how to fix this- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

How to write good jacket copy – Nathan Bransford- Bookmark

12 SEO tips to drive traffic and sell books – The Book Designer- Bookmark

To Finish

Saving money is what the lean Indie Publisher is all about, so with that in mind, Nate Hoffelder has a list of ten free online graphic and image manipulation tools. This is a BOOKMARK resource. Take a look at all that is possible for ... ZERO dollars. 

Maureen
@craicer

My newsletter is due out soon so if you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter Why not subscribe and you will also get a nifty mini book crammed full with marketing notes as a thank you.
If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons – Got Credit