Looking For A Life Ring.

 

 

In Publishing News this week,

 

Just after I published last week’s blog news broke about Meta forcing a book take down. I published a note about it in my Substack blog version. The Streisand Effect is in full flight as many are picking up the book to see what the fuss is about. A tell all about the Meta company by an ex -employee. The author is barred from talking about the book. Kathleen Schmidt has the details. The Kiwi author was due to be interviewed on our state radio last Friday but the take down went into effect forcing the termination of the interview.

 

The London Bookfair is over for another year and Publishing Perspectives talks about their impressions of the fair. It looks like the new venue isn’t wonderful, but the deal hall is getting bigger. What happens when you sacrifice comfort for turnout at a bookfair? 

 

While the UK had a seven week consulting period on AI and copyright, the US has just had a three week consultation period on the same issue. Publishing Perspectives looks at publishers viewpoints on this and their warning over the fair use defense. US publishers were scrambling to put in a submission. This is a comprehensive article, and they draw on responses from the Associations of American Publishers. They quote from the American government AI action plan.

The American “AI Action Plan” is not as detailed and structured an approach as the British proposal is. Instead, the US plan—described in the current administration’s fondness for comparative bravura—”will define priority policy actions to enhance America’s position as an AI powerhouse and prevent unnecessarily burdensome requirements from hindering private sector innovation. With the right governmental policies, continued US artificial intelligence leadership will promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.”

 

Publishers Weekly has an interesting article on a survey of Spanish language publishing professionals 75% of whom believe that the adoption of AI is unavoidable. Diving into the article there is a sort of cost benefit analysis. It is a great tool, but it could threaten jobs. Is there an upside?

 

Mark Williams points out that the robot rebellion is underway with an AI refusing to do the work of a coder. Mark also looks at lessons for book publishers learned from watching television morph into streaming. He says that publishing history is active resistance, passive acceptance, and eventual embrace. 

 

Bloomsbury is expanding its imprints. Harry Potter may have saved them, but Sarah J Mass is keeping them going and now they are acknowledging this by having a dedicated imprint for Science Fiction and Fantasy. It only took them 25 years.

 

Spotify is expanding its audiobook platform to include short form audiobooks from Indie publishers. Dan Holloway writes about this latest move and who will benefit from it.

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors has an interview with Ricardo Fayet of Reedsy on Marketing and what he sees as important for 2025.

 

Darcy Pattison has in interesting article on using AI to do preliminary copy editing. This is how she saves herself time but while she uses these and other tools she does go through a human editor as well.

 

P J Parrish has a great article on giving your secondary characters some love. Do they even have a growth arc in your story? 

 

Oliver Fox has a guest article on Katie Weilands blog which explores an alternative narrative structure. This is thought provoking stuff. We all have a favourite book that seems to break the rules of classic storytelling structure. This approach maybe the structure that resonates with you.

 

In The Craft Section,

2 fantastic articles from September Fawkes on Structuring scenes and Alternative views of basic story structure- Bookmark Both!

How to master the passage of time- C S Lakin

How to write a likable character- Lucy Hay- Bookmark

The 5 leaf clover structure of story genre- Storygrid- Bookmark

 

In the Marketing Section,

How to create email press releases to journalists- Sandra Beckwith

SEO for authors in 2025- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Pricing strategies to sell more books- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark

10 tips for public appearances- Kathryn Craft- Bookmark

What do you do when the book reviewer says yes- Karen Cioffi

 

To Finish,

Who are you online? Michelle Cutler writing on Jane Friedman’s blog has a warning. If you don’t define and present yourself online, others will. How do you define yourself? Has it changed from the first time you put up a website?

 

With all the future talk of AI now becoming present talk, and in your face AI, it is worth dropping into Joanna Penn’s website to checking out all the articles and interviews she has done on the future of publishing. She offers ways to approach the changes that are now here and how to use them. Joanna advocates for using AI as a tool and doubling down on human experiences for your readers. 

We are in another publishing revolution. It might be time to hunt down a life ring for comfort and safety. 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

It’s nearly time for my monthly newsletter. If you want the best of my bookmarked links 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 virtual coffee love. Thanks.

 

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Publishing: An International Conundrum

  

In Publishing News this week,

 

The London Book Fair is on and as usual the trade publishing world stops to reassess where everything is and what might befall them in the coming year. They kicked off LBF with a discussion on books and what’s selling with James Daunt, CEO of Waterstones and Barnes and Noble, and David Shelley CEO of Hachette. Thank goodness Booktok is still a thing. 

 

NeilsenIQ presented data at The London Book Fair on how the international book markets were doing based on sales figures from last year. There was a little bump up from pretty much everyone except New Zealand where it went down by 3%. This is worrying if you publish and sell books in New Zealand. Come on Kiwi’s we’ve taken hit after hit in publishing lately- give us some love!

 

While everyone seems to be focused on tariffs, spare a thought for Mexican publishers. Publishing Perspectives looks at how they are responding to the tariff trade war with their neighbor to the north.

 

Princeton University Press is partnering with other North American publishers outside of academia to bring a wider selection of books to their branch in China. Publishing Perspectives gives the low down. 

 

Dan Holloway talks about the rise of memberships in Libro.fm. Libro.fm is the audiobook partner of Bookshop.org which is the independent response to Amazon. It wouldn’t have anything to do with tariffs, would it? Maybe its anti-oligarch sentiment?

 

Kathleen Schmidt has an interesting article on the business decision of cancelling a book contract. This follows the news that a book was canceled by its publisher as the author was not prepared to make the changes they requested. As always there are two sides to the story. 

 

Anne R Allen has revived her excellent writing blog after her hiatus. She has an interesting article on how an all-out effort to write a novel resulted in a form of depression and how this is actually common. She also writes about how blogging is not dead, in fact it is very much alive and an interesting alternative to newsletters. I’m only a month off 17 years blogging. There are very few of us around from the good old days. *waves madly at Anne*

 

Anne Janzer writes on Jane Friedman’s blog about Dodging the Scarcity Trap. Is your book idea really unique? Should you be worried that others might steal the concept?

 

Lisa Norman writes on Writers In The Storm about the No Burnout Plan For Writers. If you are feeling overwhelmed, this is the post for you . 

 

The excellent Roz Morris talks about the hero’s journey and archetypes. Have you ever thought about yourself and your writing journey as the hero? Who are your archetype mentors and villains? This is a great post!

 

In The Craft Section,

Deepen character development- Selene Silver- Bookmark

Story Non Negotiables- Storygrid- Bookmark!

6 tips for constructing a heroic sacrifice- Mythcreants

Choosing themes for stories- Isabella Peralta- Bookmark

How to revise and save your novel- Matthew Norman

 

In The Marketing Section,

Elevate your social media presence- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

27 Fun April holidays for book promo- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

Marketing using your Amazon author page- Rob Bignall

5 valuable writing tools- Colleen Story- Bookmark

How to record your own audiobooks- Draft2Digital

Podcasting as an author -Tyrean Martinson

 

To Finish,

Recently Joanna Penn interviewed Jacob Nordby about creativity and overcoming fear. It is an interesting interview about creativity and change and failure and all sorts of thought provoking stuff. The publishing world has been changing so rapidly in the last decade and now our geopolitical world is being shaken up. We are all feeling uncertain and worried, embracing our creativity might be just what we need.

 

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 Andrew Stutesman on Unsplash