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

 

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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

Viability and Curiosity

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

January seems to be the month where the accountants have come back to work and said… Your business is not viable. 

The latest to crash is Unbound, a crowdfunding venture that I covered when they launched in 2011. It was a brave new world then and upvoting books to get published was a new exciting thing.

Also in the red is The Good Literary Agency which began in 2018 with a huge 500,000 pound grant. They were focused mainly on discovering marginalized authors in the hopes of uncovering potential runaway bestsellers to keep them viable. They discovered some but not enough. They close their doors in March.

 

Ahh TikTok, you came, you went, you came back. For everyone who has a business that is based on TikTok they recently had quite a scare. Publishing commentator Kathleen Schmidt has a great article on how you should be managing your social media content. First make it shareable. 

 

While this business is hard there is always room for hope with exciting new ventures just around the corner. Ingram Content Group (Ingram printers etc etc) have just launched a new business Film and TV rights marketplace, MediaScout. Publishing Perspectives has the low down.

 

Mark Williams has an article on The Alpine Collective, a new group that aims to help publishers across the globe use each other’s strengths to navigate new formats and territories. This is one of those groups that people often speculate would be amazing if only someone would do it… someone did. 

 

BookFunnel is a great company who got started when an author decided to take the pain out of download assistance for book buyers along the way he happened to solve other pain problems. Now they are venturing into helping with Direct Sales and have partnered with a company to manage the tax headache.

 

I was alerted to the coming closure of the Mobi format in the last week. Ho hum you say it’s been closed for a while. Yes. But after March the Mobi format will no longer be supported on Amazon. You might need to check if your mobi files will still be viable. You can use Kindle Create to construct picture books or image heavy books for EReaders in the Epub format. 

 

Bologna Children’s Book Fair is coming up fast at the end of March. They will be hosting an inaugural AI Summit at the fair specifically looking at how to leverage AI to enhance profitability in publishing. Publisher’s Weekly reports on their summit plans.

 

While you are coming to grips with AI – there is new technology right around the corner using it to develop other nifty tools like taking a 2D image and turn it into a 3D image and then animating it or generating a printer plan etc. Why is this important? Merchandise.  Mark Williams looks at the advantages for publishers.

 

James Daunt, CEO of Waterstones and Barnes and Noble has had an interesting five years at the helm of B&N and he has no plans to leave. In fact, he is just getting started. If you live in a town with a Barnes and Noble store, check it out. James wants a more local focus in each of the stores.  

 

Eleanor Hecks has a great article on how you can stay hopeful in a tough publishing climate. Sally Hamer has an excellent article on Why we don’t believe in our own writing. If you have ever looked at your work and reached for the bin… Stop. Maybe your judgement is flawed.

 

In The Craft Section

Use hidden experiences for empathy-Angela Ackerman- Bookmark

8 steps for getting better at editing- Ali Luke- Bookmark

5 phases to writing a fantasy novel- BookBaby

Dissecting Voice- Dave King

Therese Walsh writes about the LA wildfires leading to character understanding. What would you save in a fire? - Excellent!

 

In the Marketing Section,

13 bookmarketing tips- Victoria Jayne- Bookmark

Book promotion ideas- BookBaby

Unleash your Social Media potential- Rachel Thompson has an excellent article on Social Media now and how to navigate it. Bookmark

 

Sam Missingham has a fabulous video up on her YouTube channel that she did for a recent conference on how to create reader communities. Five creative ways authors can harness fans to sell books. Must Watch

 

To Finish,

In November last year, the Author Nation (the successor to 20booksto50K) conference happened. It’s the largest Indie Writers conference in the world. They have all the big industry players there and the conference is a bucket list item for many writers who live far from Las Vegas. The Indie Author magazine scored a coup by being allowed to show one of the keynote presentations. Be entertained and also learn about the curiosity gap and how you can put it in your writing with Drew Davis. 

Writers have bags of curiosity…make it work for you!

 

 

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 François Verbeeck on Unsplash