Public Service Message: If you are affected by the Google Books settlement and you want to opt out, today is the deadline. Here is the link to opt out.
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.
Related Posts - Can You Write Short and Long Pieces Simultaneously? Wil Wheaton recently posted this snippet on his blog:most people can't write for a book and a blog at the same time, because our brains get different kinds of feedback and rewards from each. For most of us, if we had to pick, we'll write in our blogs because the......
- Book Review: Novel Shortcuts by Laura Whitcomb Young adult author Laura Whitcomb shares techniques that will help even the most seasoned wordsmiths write better and faster....
- Writing Roundup, February 12 Whew. This has been a week of technology troubles for me, but my laptop is on the mend. So, I'm back with some of the great writing posts from around the blogosphere. (It pains me to use such a cliched word, but I don't know of any word to describe......
- Writing Roundup, October 30: The Pre-Halloween, Post-Flu Edition I missed my Wednesday post because I was down for the count with the regular-old flu. The Business of Writing Craft Fiction Freelancing Platform The Business of Writing Special Video Interview Series with Chris Anderson Jeff Rivera got an exclusive video interview from Chris Anderson, proponent of the freemium model......
- Writing Roundup, May 29 Let's start by re-checking our goals for the month. Did you achieve them? If not, what can you do next month to reach your goals? Blogging How to Devalue Your Blog and Burn Yourself Out Men with Pens have done it again. This post about the need to find a......
Related Websites -
Tips for Writing a Successful Blog One of the biggest keys when it comes to keeping a successful blog is to provide content that is perceived to be exceptional. The following... -
How Many Authors Can You Name? by Susan Sigler, guest blogger Do you think you know your romance authors? eg (evil grin) I’m going to have you crossing genres, throwing TBR... -
US Department of Justice objects to Google book plan [/caption] The US Department of Justice has said that it is still not satisfied with a deal that would allow search giant Google to build... -
6 More Steps for How to Get Blog Traffic If you are trying to learn how to get blog traffic, the following tips will definitely come in handy for you. Access to the right... -
how a 'regular person' can make passive income Wikipedia has a rather tortured entry on passive income. The entry begins by categorizing all income as either earned (wages), portfolio (income from market instruments...
No Comments so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.