Publishing Pick and Mix

 

 

In Publishing News this week

 

London Book Fair is coming up and Porter Anderson gives a run down on the big topics that will be discussed at the fair. No prizes for guessing that AI will be front and centre as how to use it/cope with it/ignore it/embrace it are the hot topics in publishing this year.

 

Forbes magazine put their toe in the water with a prediction on how the publishing industry will cope with AI “which promises to transform how we create, distribute, and consume content.”

Piper Bayard see’s AI as a cause for concern. She looks at the big questions. How much AI is too much and Will AI be the end of authors?  

 

With the concerns about distinguishing your content from AI driven content, Dan Holloway of The Alliance of Independent Authors takes a look at a new initiative from The Authors Guild to champion a book registering site which makes it official that your book is human authored.

 

This week Simon and Schuster announced that they would no longer blurb books. This has caught some people by surprise with many thinking it is the back blurb that they are talking about, which seems daft. However, it’s the pull quotes from reviews by other authors that they are meaning. (I hope.) My bookseller family member said they had received books from PRH that had no blurbs on the back - only reviews. Which didn’t help when they had to catalogue the book.

 

Publishing Industry commentator Kathleen Schmidt weighs in on the blurb news in her article Let’s Talk About Blurbs Again – Is it past its use by date or does the blurb have a place in publishing?

 

Publishing Perspectives reports that the Big Five publishers and quite a few other interested groups have banded together to sue Idaho over their book banning efforts. 

 

We are two weeks into the new American administration and the big news was around tariffs. Who was getting them who was not? Would there be a reprieve? If so for how long? The publishing industry is caught up in this as well. After all where are the big printers based? Publishers Weekly took a look at what the publishing industry might have to do to survive.

 

Katie Weiland has an interesting article on Creative Burnout Recovery. I am always asking my teacher colleagues about what they are doing to fill the creative well. This is important for writers too.

Netgalley has upgraded their reader experience by creating a new reader browser with the ability to read in the website and protect files from unauthorised downloads.

 

In happy news, Mac Barnett became the new US National Ambassador for Young Peoples Literature. In the UK this position is the Children’s Laureate. Here in New Zealand, we are eagerly awaiting who will get the nod as our Reading Ambassador. These positions are about connecting and inspiring reading and young people. These truly are the most important jobs. For every reader we inspire, we create a person who thinks about their life and other lives, who finds solace or inspiration in imaginary worlds and ultimately remains a reader into adult hood. 

 

Donald Maass has another knock it out of the park article on craft. Nailing Purpose and Effect. Do you understand the primary purpose of the story? The intent. The intent of any given story is the effect that you want to have on readers. It is a must read.

 

In The Craft Section,

Creating a plot/subplot template-Laurie Campbell- Bookmark

Tag your dialogue- Margie Lawson

How to manipulate time in your writing- C S Lakin- Bookmark

Important parts of a book- Joe Yamulla

Most asked for topic articles- K M Weilands master list- Bookmark

 

In The Marketing Section

How cover art influences readers-Sierra Kay

Why reviews are a game changer- ReaderViews

Optimize your Amazon Central page – Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

Generating article ideas- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

From obscurity to bestseller-Leonard Tillerman- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

How wedded are you to a particular sales platform? If it all fell over tomorrow would your business survive? That is the wake up call authors who were primarily relying on BookTok got faced with recently. The Alliance of Independent Authors canvassed a few of their superstar members to find out how they would navigate a similar business problem. This is a great article about being in control of your business. 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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*Kiwi’s call a selection of lollies… a pick and mix.

Snacking On Publishers

 

 

In Publishing News this week

It’s a tough old time if you are a writer down under. You may have had some hope of placing a book with one of the independent presses that still operate, but last week saw another of them gobbled up by Penguin Random House. Our regional voices are disappearing said a Guardian article. While Aussie authors are wincing- Kiwi authors have been there. Most of our publisher’s head offices are in Australia and we are lucky if they publish 1 NZ book a year.

 

In Davos the world economic forum got underway. How does this relate to publishing? Well, one of the key presentations is the future of jobs report. Dan Holloway took a look and found key indicators for publishers and writers. Reading is down…but creative thinking is up. Can we work with this information?

 

Publisher’s Weekly reports on a new imprint being started by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. It’s all about science. In this world of misinformation, any increase in science publishing is a good thing.

 

When it’s award season the critics choices are always highlighted but if you look at the bestseller lists, they often don’t show up. However, bestsellers have awards too. It is based on number of sales. Spot the children’s books. Julia Donaldson has topped the UK bestseller lists for the 5^th straight year. She is a critics’ choice and a bestselling author. Gotta love children’s authors, they keep publishing houses afloat.

 

Bookshop.org is turning 5. This great independent initiative linked independent booksellers together and created another way to order books instead of always heading to Amazon. Now they are about to add eBooks into the platform.

 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica was the last word in authoritative knowledge when I was growing up. They are still around and having gone online early they are now embracing AI. This is a fascinating example of a publishing pivot. Mark Williams takes an in depth look at what they are doing. I don’t know about you but if I have to get information from an AI bot, I would prefer it to come from a trusted verified source, not a scraped chat forum.

 

Angela Ackerman has an interesting article on How Authors Thrive In A World Of AI-Generated Books. She has some great points to think about. Being human is your point of difference. As ever, she is a must read.

Meanwhile, Dale Roberts is talking about live video being the key to author visibility in 2025.

In The New Publishing Standard, Mark Williams shines a light on a publishing topic not much talked about, the three words ‘adjusted for inflation.’ Why don’t publishers show the real figures? 

 

Victoria Strauss does great work on Writer Beware and lately she has been looking at ghostwriting scams. She has a list of websites that are fronts for a scam publishing company.

 

Ah procrastination, what is stopping you from writing that novel? Barbara O’Neal has an interesting article on Writer Unboxed about the three things that cause procrastination. This is a must read if you want to conquer this insidious problem. Read It Now!

 

In The Craft Section,

How to make themes work together- Jami Gold- Bookmark

How to write dark fantasy- Stephanie Wytovich

How to stay focused on your central conflict- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

World building lessons from Myst- Gabriela Pereira-Bookmark

5 wellness hacks to boost your writing- Colleen Story

 

In The Marketing Section,

Planning a book launch party- Tama Hela

 2 great posts from Sandra Beckwith- 3 Author marketing mistakes to avoid in 2025 and

Using AI as your author assistant - Bookmark

Is Facebook still worth it for writers- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

How to budget for your book- Written Word Media- Bookmark

 

To Finish

It’s been a rough old week in politics for the USA. For those of us looking on from afar we do feel for the people caught up in the middle. In this age of instant news and opinion it can feel overwhelming. “In war, truth is the first casualty” said Aeschylus in 500BC. When the world is wondering whether Mein Kampf, published in 1925 is being dusted off 100 years later to the detriment of another empire, it is courageous to stand up to your government and demand that they do better. One such person was the Bishop Mariann Budde who asked the new president point blank if he would protect the meek and helpless. Her words resonated around the world and now her book How We Learn To Be Brave, published in 2023 is being rushed into a second printing and is climbing the bestseller ranks. 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

If you want the weekly blog in your inbox subscribe to the Substack version.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Photo by Sander Dalhuisen on Unsplash