Eyes Wide Open.

In Publishing News This Week

The Bologna Book Fair is on. This is the annual international bookfair for children’s books. Publishers Weekly caught up with agents at the fair to talk about trends that they see coming in children’s books. Publishers Weekly also reported on disquiet over the prevalence of AI. There were a number of panels on the subject with great advice for illustrators and writers about showing development and transparency. The last paragraph was interesting. There is more pushback against AI from younger members of publishing teams.

Also in Bookfair news, Frankfurt Bookfair is carving out permanent space for comics with the introduction of a Comics Business Centre for everything comic book related at the fair. Mark Williams reports on what Frankfurt is planning. With webtoons and anime becoming big business Frankfurt is following the trend.

Bookfair season always worries newer authors who wonder whether they should be attending them. Mark Lefebvre has the answer. NO. However he also explains why and what book events you should be thinking about attending. It’s all about what you want and need for your own author journey. Great Advice from Mark.

Amazon announced they would be discontinuing support for a number of Kindle devices reports Dan Holloway of The Alliance of Independent Authors. This has caught readers out. Will they be able to access their books? Well, there is the Kindle App. And everybody is reading on their phones now aren’t they?

Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware has an update on The Bartz Vs Anthropic class action court case. If you are following this you can get up to date with all the machinations, like the move to exclude publishers from the payout and whether the judge will let new people into the class action and just when will we see any money?

Penguin Random House is calling on US politicians to reject a proposed bill on banning books. Of course it is never called a book ban it’s protecting the children from knowledge they do not need to know. Riiiight.

Meanwhile, authors who have had books banned are facing threats and harassment. PEN America has created a US Author Safety Programme and is raising money for resources, workshops and training for authors who need help. Some high profile authors are auctioning off character names in forthcoming books to support the cause.

Kirsten Bell has a cautionary tale on Jane Friedman’s blog, about paying for social media exposure and what not to do. This is a lesson on doing due diligence for everything. Jane adds her own advice as well, if you are really tempted by using an influencer to promote your book.

Darcy Pattison has an updated roundup of the best tech to create children’s books. She looks at all the software available and what is best to use. Very useful information.

Reedsy has been playing with new tech solutions for writing and organizing your manuscript. Check out Reedsy Studio. It’s free for the basic set up which looks pretty nifty.

Alexa Bigwarfe has a great post on avoiding procrastination because the weather is warmer and you should be outside. She has advice for how to trick your brain into writing when you really don’t want to.

The dream team, Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have launched their latest Thesaurus, The Fear Thesaurus. At the moment, it is available only on their website store before they launch it on all the other stores. Their books are great reference tools used by writers around the world. If you haven’t seen one, check out their website. The Fear Thesaurus is their 11^th book. They also have a great article on How fear plays into the Character Arc.

In The Craft Section,

Want stronger writing? Write Less- Janice Hardy - Bookmark

How to create compelling hooks for chapters- Jenn Windrow- Bookmark

Microtension by degrees- C S Lakin- Bookmark

4 ways specificity drives your story forward- Kathryn Craft- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

How Author Visibility Drives Book Marketing- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Stalled book marketing and what to do about it- Sandra Beckwith- Bookmark

Bookstagrammers – What you should know- Ann Marie Nieves

Finding the right book positioning- Penny Sansevieri

Your About page matters more than you think- Dan Blank- Bookmark

To Finish,

Draft2Digitals new press release on charging fees dropped into inboxes causing all kinds of comments in the Indie Writing community today. Their reasoning is that they are swamped with AI titles and scammers so they figure charging for new accounts and annual fees if you earn less than $100 annually might get over this problem. The debate is raging online.

While you are weighing up pros and cons of publishing aggregators, Dale Evans has written the comprehensive deep dive into all things Amazon and the pros and cons of publishing with them.

AI books and scam operators are changing the playing field. Go into publishing with eyes wide open and test your results. Be skeptical. Do your research. What works in one genre may not work in another. Find successful authors in your genre and watch what they are doing.

Let’s be careful out there.

Maureen

@craicer

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