Recently, there has been a lot of publishing mergers and acquisitions. Big companies continue to attempt to repeat as they gobble up smaller publishing companies and imprints. But with those acquisitions comes the responsibility to pay out royalties that continue to be owed to authors. Royalties are how authors survive between sales. It is the only way that they can continue writing. It is the publisher’s responsibility to maintain these payments to the author. That is how they will keep their trust.
If You Could See The Future
In publishing news this week…
The high-powered writing teams pulled together by various author organizations are having an impact on Disney. Finally, there has been some positive movement on behalf of the writers whose books were acquired by Disney in media buyouts. For some reason, Disney thought that meant they didn’t have to pay royalties.
Meanwhile, Mark Williams decided to figure out how many royalties Amazon has paid out over the last few years to indie authors. A 1 with a lot of zero’s after it.
Mark also has an interesting news post on South Korean media giant, Kakao, and their deep chequebook. They are making a real play for eyes in the online reading serial space with China and India in their sights.
The Alliance of Independent Authors has a comprehensive write-up on finding followers and true fans. This is a must-read. It goes into the background of the original 1000 true fans and how this has changed.
Five years ago I received an award from my peers where I had to give a lecture. I asked what they wanted and they told me ‘talk about the future.’ Since then other award winners have sometimes name-checked me- mostly to say they didn’t understand what I was talking about. I referenced the rise of blockchain and how publishing on the blockchain will change authors’ futures. Fast forward to now. I have had an eye on NFT’s trying to understand exactly how they work. This article explains how NFT’s have changed artist’s lives. As you read through swap the word ‘art’ for ‘books.’ A little glimpse of the future that is coming.
This week Jane Friedman has an excerpt, The New Holy Grail of Traditional Publishers – Direct to Reader relationships, from a new book, Book Wars. The excerpt looks at how publishers are trying to get the sort of data that Amazon has and why it is important to them. Interesting reading.
Joanna Penn interviewed Gail Carriger this week on The Creative Penn blog. Gail talks about the heroine’s journey and how it differs from the hero’s journey. This is a deep dive into craft and fascinating reading /listening.
Don’t forget those deals from last week- They are both limited time.
In The Craft Section,
Overthinking your writing– K M Weiland – Bookmark
Deep Point of View – Joslyn Chase-Bookmark
What they want- same but different– Scot Myers
Tips for writing fight scenes -Sandy Dragon
Avoid cliché responses– Becca Puglisi
Mystery novels – 5 things you need– Melodie Campbell- Bookmark
In The Marketing Section,
11 free things you can do to buzz your book- Sandra Beckwith
How to set up an email list – Joanna Penn Bookmark
Book Advertising design elements- Bookbub- Bookmark
5 ways to improve book marketing on Amazon- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark
The authors guide to eBook pre-orders– Written Word Media-Bookmark
To Finish,
Ten years ago I came across The Book Designer, Joel Friedlander, who had a blog devoted to font, typography and formatting of books. eBooks were just becoming a thing and there were lots of discussions over readable fonts etc. I fell in love with font sites and learned all sorts of odd information from Joel. A few years later Joel decided to help out authors by putting together easy to use templates for print books. I bought some and loved them. Then he went on to curate the Indie Cover design awards. Joel sold The Book Designer site last year but kept Book Design Templates going. This week Joel died from cancer. He leaves behind thousands of fans and a real legacy of service to the Indie Book Community. His products are top-notch and still available. His advice was stellar. He will be sadly missed.
Maureen
@craicer
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