Publishing employees are continuing to find their voices as they challenge their top levels to make better decisions when it comes to what they decide to publish and represent. Many in publishing joined this industry with the hope of spreading meaningful content to readers to help define the progressive world of literature. These people believe that extends to their company’s image as a whole. With so many large publishing houses coming forward to preach a safe and supportive environment for their employees, the promise feels meaningless when they continue to publish books that go against just that. Employees are now making a call to action to ensure that these promises are to be kept.
Can You Hear The Rising Voices?
Pic: Flickr Creative Commons- Kimba Howard 141119
In publishing news this week,
NBC News published an opinion piece on the conflicts in publishing coming from the staff of publishing houses challenging the books that their publishing houses are publishing. In this week’s challenge- It’s Mike Pence’s memoir. There have been rumblings around publishing Twitter on whether some books should be published, citing free speech and a balanced viewpoint against books that should never have been picked up because of their subject matter and/or author. (See last weeks blog) Are the publishing house’s only doing it for a quick buck to finance other books in the production list?
A task force of authors has come together to highlight the Disney-Must-Pay campaign. This campaign is gathering momentum. After all if the boot was on the other foot and people were using Disney’s exclusive content for their own gain – Their lawyers would be all over it.
Two interesting articles caught my eye this week from Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard. Wattpad has paid out over one million dollars to writers in their subscription model. Apple is moving into podcasts with a subscription model. Are subscription models really worth it to writers or are we stuck with the new payment model for entertainment? Will we be seeing subscription wars soon between the big digital players?
Horrified magazine-(Guess the genre) have an interesting article on the revolution happening in their genre – The female experience of fear. Bram Stoker nominee Gemma Amor writes about the rising number of women writing in the genre.
Bookriot has an interesting article on disability in children’s books. How often do disabled children see themselves in a book in a positive way? How many books do you know where the protagonist wears glasses? Such a little thing but a huge deal to a child who doesn’t see themselves in a book. I remember my child running up to me clutching a book saying, ‘Look the boy has glasses just like me!’
Joanna Penn recently interviewed Mark Leslei Lefebvre on his new book Wide For The Win.
This is a great book on publishing wide – across all marketplaces, not just Amazon. The Title comes from the great Facebook group Wide for the Win which is full of authors who are working out how to market across all platforms. I have the book and I’m in the group. I recommend listening to/ reading this great interview.
Ruth Harris has a great blog post on the eight stages in the life cycle of a writer. This is a read and share post. Every writer will relate to the life cycle… and then we do it all again.
It’s the last week of April and that means a third of the year has gone. If you are still trying to make sense of this year and marketing books, take a look at Bookbub’s comprehensive list of ways to market in 2021.
A lot of the time I have, hopefully, inspiring blogs and links for you to think about to help you in your writing. Today I came across the anti-post. What writing advice do you love to hate?
In the Craft Section,
The importance of subplots– Scott Myers- Bookmark
How Can I have a Jerk Love interest– Mythcrants
Writing an audio first novel- Sophie Masson
Archetypes – The Negative King– K M Weiland – Bookmark
10 ways to write better plots– Now Novel- Bookmark
Debunking 6 myths on Steadfast flat characters– September Fawkes- Bookmark
In The Marketing Section,
How to create a YouTube channel- Hootsuite- Bookmark
30 days of Social Media content Infographic- Barb Drozdowich
Instagram Book marketing ideas– Bookbub- Bookmark
How to write a book title– Written Word Media-
Author Branding– Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark
To Finish,
Nalini Singh is a publishing superstar who writes in the paranormal genre. Recently, she was interviewed by Mitzi Rapkin from First Draft Podcast. Nalini talks about the unnecessary divide between Literary and Genre fiction.
Literary Fiction is just another genre, in my opinion.
What do you say?
Maureen
@craicer
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