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The Business of Writing
Books: The Big Story Is Consolidation
This Financial Times article argues for further consolidation of book publishers so they can compete with Amazon and Google. I understand the operational efficiencies companies realize when they consolidate, but I can’t help but wonder what effect it will have on our economy, authors, and ultimately readers. Is a monoculture as damaging to the economic ecosystem as it is to the natural one? Will authors find their advances and percentages cut because of less competition for publishing rights? Will they then move to self-publishing? And, will readers find low prices but a less diverse selection?
Profit and Loss
The ladies at New Shelves describe the different costs that go into publishing a book and how publishers turn a profit.
Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid
M.J. Rose offers an interesting look at the amount of money authors are paid in relation to the amount of marketing work they are expected to do.
Christina Dodd Celebrates Her First Forty Books
In this inspirational and, yes, Christina, funny post, this author reflects on her 40-book career and provides equal doses of inspiration and realism to aspiring writers.
How and What Piracy Can Cost Readers
Shiloh Walker shares her feelings about book piracy and her responses to common excuses. It’s unfortunate that a writer’s time must be spent chasing down pirated books.
Interview with Newly Repped Writer Tess Hilmo
Robyn Campbell gives us a nice interview with Tess Hilmo, who recently signed with an agent. Tess shares the feeling of getting “the call,” the work she is doing to her manuscript at the behest of her agent, and her thoughts on author marketing.
Craft
Order in the Court
Jenn Bray-Weber discusses the work that goes into judging contests and how you should choose which contests you might want to judge. What does judging a contest have to do with making you a better writer? A lot. You will see a lot of examples of successful and unsuccessful writing, and you can use that knowledge to improve your own.
Free Critique per Week: Lizzy
Mary deMuth offers an almost completely clean critique this week as an example what to do. Read the passage, then let me know if you agree with deMuth’s assessment.
Deep Purple
No, not the band. Elle Scott discusses the joys of creating purple prose as contrasted to the torture of reading it. Write it for fun and quickly delete it, is her advice. That way, you can get it out of your system and get on with writing sentences readers will actually enjoy.
Fiction
There’s Only One Way to Write a Novel
“Unfortunately,” Emily Bryan continues, “no one knows what it is.” Bryan gives a good description of the major approaches to novel writing in this blog post.
World-Building and Characterization
Lauren Dane shares her experiences building not only worlds but also well-developed characters to inhabit them. She stresses the importance of backstory, whether it appears in the manuscript or not.
Choosing Short Fiction Markets
Victoria Janssen provides a good guide for selecting the right markets for your short stories. Is pay the most important criterion? Prestige? Not sure why you would waste your time on short stories when you could be writing your novel? For the answer to that question, please review my post regarding short stories as a learning tool.
Freelancing
A Real Look at Residual Income
Jennifer Mattern provides a thorough look at the potential income from content sites that pay only residual income from page views and/or ad clicks. She uses her experience working for some of these sites in the past as well as her experience in higher-paying freelance gigs to make her argument.
Think Big
Michelle Rafter reviews some of the current ideas being floated by big business and adapts them to the freelancers mindset. Of particular interest is the idea of collaborating with other freelancers on a project. I’m doing that, pulling together a collaborative blog with some fellow romance writers that will debut soon. I’ll keep you up-to-date on that.
Platform
How to Create a Rock Star Online Presence
Under 30 CEO gives great ideas for building your online presence and keeping it up.
Time Out with Christina Katz
Katz provides a fresh look at the ideas in her book Get Known Before the Book Deal as well as a summary of the platform mistakes none of us are going to make.
Fun Stuff
Hear Me Roar: Extraordinary Women in Music
A little girl power to send you into the weekend. Chiron O’Keefe discusses some of her favorite female songstresses and solicits reader recommendations. This post could be the blueprint for the female vocalist hall of fame.
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