Publetariat

This news release, from The National Literacy Trust in the UK, originally appeared on that site on 1/11/12.

"…almost four million children in Britain – one in three – do not own a book."

McDonald’s UK is to hand out around nine million popular children’s books with its Happy Meals, as part of a new partnership with publishing house HarperCollins. The promotion aims to get books into the hands of families and support mums and dads in reading with their children.

From Wednesday 11 January to Tuesday 7 February 2012, McDonald’s will offer its Happy Meals customers copies of the much-loved Mudpuddle Farm series of books by Michael Morpurgo, former children’s laureate and War Horse author.

The announcement follows research released by the National Literacy Trust in December which revealed that almost four million children in Britain – one in three – do not own a book.

Jonathan Douglas, Director of The National Literacy Trust, commented: “Our recent research showed that one in three children in this country don’t own a book, which is extremely concerning as there is a clear link between book ownership and children’s future success in life.  We are very supportive of McDonald’s decision to give families access to popular books, as its size and scale will be a huge leap towards encouraging more families to read together.”

Families will be able to take home copies of favourite titles including ‘Mossop’s Last Chance’ and ‘Martians at Mudpuddle Farm’.  Each book comes with a finger puppet to help parents bring the stories to life for their children, and to encourage children of all reading abilities to use their imagination and create their own tales.

This post, by Jenna Blum, originally appeared on grub street daily on 12/22/11.

Dear Writers,

Just when you thought it was safe to visit book clubs by phone and therefore wander around in your underwear drinking wine while you talk to readers…..now there’s SKYPE!

I find Skype miraculous. Every time I use it, I think of my dad, who died in 1999. How amazed he would be that you can talk to people through your computer screen!  It’s so space-age. So Jetsons. Yet another way to bring us all closer together. How can you not love that?  I can be in Wichita, Duluth, Boston–and have a book club literally in my lap.  (That didn’t sound quite right. What I meant was, I use my laptop for Skypeing, and I often hold it….oh, never mind.)

Even still, the prudent writer will benefit from certain ground rules about Skypeing with readers. I have learned these rules through painful, inadvertently exhibitionist trial-and-error.  I will share them with you.

A gift. Use as you wish.

JENNA’S RULES FOR SKYPEING WITH BOOK CLUBS

10.  GET YOUR YA-YAs OUT. It may take you some time to get used to seeing yourself on the screen.  And even if you hide yourself during the book club (yes, there is a link that allows you to do this), remember, THEY CAN SEE YOU. So get your ya-yas out beforehand. Find and strike that perfect pose.

9. I personally would go with your SMART AUTHOR POSE, the one that has a disembodied hand in it a la most author photos. Glasses help, too, even if you don’t really need them and they are just for show.

8. GET DRESSED. Again, THEY CAN SEE YOU. So don’t get caught like this:

Read the rest of the post on grub street daily.

This post, by Bob Mayer, originally appeared on his Write It Forward blog on 12/26/11.

2011 saw great change.  2012 will bring even more. 10 predictions below.

The reality is, to thrive and not just survive, everyone in publishing must be willing to change on a dime and innovate.  My background in Special Forces taught me how to do that.  Also, it taught me that to succeed, I must take risks.  The company isn’t called Who Dares Wins for nuthing (as we say in da’ Bronx).

What do I see for 2012 in publishing from the perspective of someone who spent two decades in traditional publishing and two years in indie publishing?

1. One big thing lurking is a major trad author who goes indie, once they crunch the numbers on their royalty statements (which are still working via the Pony Express rather than the Internet) and realize their loyal readers will follow them regardless of which imprint the book is published under and how their royalty rate can skyrocket on their own.  I still feel the fear coming off many authors about abandoning traditional publishing, even though trad publishing will dump them in a hearbeat if the P&L statement isn’t favorable.  And gives them very lousy royalty rates and restrictive contracts to boot.  Fear will kill you.
    
2. Slow will also kill you.  I’d forgotten that “I’ll get back to you next week” in traditional publishing equals “I might get back to you in a few months, but likely never” in the real world.  That’s not going to cut it in the electronic age.  Five years ago, when describing publishing, I’d use two terms:  SLOW and TECHNOPHOBIC.  Both are killers today.  And they’re still damn slow. Tick-tock says the reaper.
    
3. Agents as publishers.  Yep, every agent wants to make a living and keep their clients.  So they’re cobbling together some “experts” and offering services to their clients.  I’m not even going to weigh in on whether it’s ethical, my issue is can they do it?  Being an agent is not being a publisher.  It took almost two years to get feet on the ground with Who Dares Wins Publishing.  Can an agent do it?  Can their clients afford to go through their growing pains and mistakes?
    
4. Authors as publishers: ditto.  I call myself indie, but in a blog post earlier this year I pointed out the term “self-publishing” is a dangerous one.  I’m not self-publishing.  I’ve got a company.  I can’t do it all myself.  I think the success stories from self-publishing will occur, but be few and far between.  What will happen is agents and publishers will use self-publishing as the new slush pile, letting the author do all the work, and then scoop in.  Nothing wrong with that.  I think it gives authors a fairer shot by letting readers and thei authors’ own initiative and work ethic count a lot more than the vagaries of the unpaid intern reading the slush pile.

Read the rest of the post, which contains 6 more daring predictions, on Write It Forward.

Publetariat staff will be off Sunday 1/1/12 in observance of the New Year’s Day holiday. No new content will be posted to the front page of the site until the evening of Monday, 1/2/12 at 6pm PST, but site members can still post to their blogs and use the Publetariat Forum in the meantime. We wish you a safe and happy holiday, and will see you next year—or, um…in this case, tomorrow.   No need to click through – this is the end of the post.

This post, by Jeff Bennington, originally appeared on The Writing Bomb on 12/11/11.

Back in the day, before the Internet, global warming and eReaders, an old friend of mine who goes by the name of St. Nicholas, aka Santa Claus, wanted to write a book. He enjoyed reading the old classics such as Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Frosty the Snowman and the ever popular, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He wasn’t trained in the craft of literature by any means, but he certainly had an appreciation for the literary arts.

As you can imagine, the Christmas season would take its toll on the old-butter ball. So after the packages were delivered, the cookies eaten and the payroll met (damn elves had formed a union and nearly brought the north pole into bankruptcy court), my holly-jolly friend would find himself kicked back in his leather BarcaLounger with a stiff drink and a good book. While reading, and slowly getting buzzed, he’d dream up his own novels. His love for the story, or perhaps his bout with ADHD, would send him into a dream state where his mind did a dance, forming new characters and worlds and plots that only he could imagine.

You see, Santa had lived quite a life. He had many stories to tell, you know, the usual world-traveler fare: fine dining, the occasional holiday mascot kidnapping/ransom thingy and  Colombian cigs. Finally, his vast experiences and love of the arts had come to a head. He took one more drunken sip of his Jack-n-Coke and rang his little jingle bell that he kept near his side at all times.

The bell rang and a sexy little elf strutted into his private quarters and humbly bowed before the saint. He asked her to get him his old typewriter. She suggested he use the new MAC laptop that had recently come in from R & D. He smiled, parting his beard with his happy lips and his eyes beamed. Minutes later, after a brief tutorial, old Santa was off and running, well, typing actually.

His life-long dream of writing a hard-boiled crime fiction series had begun. Words came to him fast and furious, whipping through his thoughts and into the computer like Balzac on his sixth cup of coffee (look him up). Day after day he crafted his series, finally giving him the sense of fulfillment he had always longed for.

He once told me that bringing presents to those snot-nose brats year after year had lost its glam decades ago. But writing had ignited a spark in him. He had discovered that he wasn’t a saint after all, but rather, a novelist, a gosh-darn-can-you-believe-it novelist.

Read the rest of the post on The Writing Bomb.

The most asked question we get at The Independent Publishing Magazine is often along the lines of; ‘What self-publishing service should I go with?‘; ‘Is so and so a good service to go with?‘; or ‘Is so and so a scam?‘

This post, by Chuck Wendig, originally appeared on his Terribleminds site on 11/30/11.

(Related: “25 Things You Should Know About Your Completed Novel.”)

Maybe you finished — er, excuse me, “won” — your NaNoWriMo novel.

That’s good. You should be beaming. Chest puffed out. Fists on cocked hips. Cheeks ruddy from neighbors and parents pinching them. Your pride is well-earned. Bask in it its triumphant musk.

On the other hand, maybe you didn’t finish — er, excuse me, “you lost” — NaNoWriMo this year.

That’s good, too. I see you there, blustery and stammering — “Buh-buh-buh but how is it good that I didn’t finish what I started? What’s happening? Why is my face numb? Who took my shirt off?”

My message to both of you is the same.

You’re not done.

I know. You want to be done. If you finished, you want to slam it down, freeze-frame high-five yourself, and then go have an egg cream. If you didn’t finish, you want to delete the file, close the drawer, and pretend that none of this shame spiral ever happened. To both of you: bzzt. Wrongo, word-nerds.

You’re not done.

Writing a book is a war. What you just did was experience only one of the many battles in fighting that war: muddy in the trenches, crawling through the ejected blood of your cohorts, the stink of burning ink slithering up your nose like so many grave-worms. Maybe you won this battle. Maybe you lost. But the war goes on, friend-o. The typewriter keeps chattering. The story keeps struggling to be born. The screams of forgotten characters echo (echo echo) across the battlefield.

Read the rest of the post on Terribleminds.

This post, by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, originally appeared on his site on 11/30/11.

Research, hate it or love it, is something every speculative fiction writer must deal with at one time or another. Most deal with it often. Research is an easy thing to neglect for many reasons. Above all, it’s usually less fun than writing and creating and it’s time consuming. Still, research is necessary. Here are ten mistakes writers make with research. Consider the costs of making them yourself.

1) Skipping the research. I don’t need no stinking research. Mistake number one. You may be able to fudge some things, especially in science fiction stories set in worlds far distant from our own, for example, but in your historical fantasy, your contemporary urban fantasy or your medieval epic fantasy, you’d better know the facts. If you don’t, readers will and they’ll be unhappy you didn’t care enough to make sure you did. In any world building or story crafting where facts and details readers could know or research are required, research it yourself. Know what you’re talking about. That’s usually impossible without research.

2) Relying on novels by other genre writers. How do you know Terry Goodkind or Patrick Rothfuss got it right? Where did they get their facts? People make up inaccurate facts all the time and write them into their novels. (I am not saying Goodkind and Rothfuss did. I have no such examples. Just using them as examples.) There’s nothing worse for fantasy fans than reading another stereotypical novel set in a stereotypical fantasy world that gets it wrong. Don’t trust anyone but yourself to do the research and do it well, unless you can afford to pay a research assistant, in which case, be sure and hire a trustworthy one.

3) Using only one source. How do you verify facts? Check them against multiple sources. Don’t assume the source you are using has it all right. Check their facts against other sources. The internet is a great resource as are libraries. You can find multiple resources on almost any topic you’d want to research. So make use of that and be sure you’ve got it right.

4) Researching only when and what they have to. To a degree, you only need research for a science in your science fiction, so to speak. But that doesn’t mean you should stop there. How do you know your world makes sense geographically? How do you know the dietary patterns and plants you place in various locations are correct for the climate or environment? Who cares? Informed readers, that’s who, and all it takes is one to blow the whistle and cause other readers to doubt you. Once they doubt you, they have trouble trusting the stories you tell and if they can’t suspend disbelief, your science fiction and fantasy can’t succeed very well. So research details whenever you can. Even if you’re not sure they’re important. This doesn’t mean you need to research every word, of course, but play detective and ask yourself what you can research to make your story better and more skeptic-proof and true to life and then get busy.

Read the rest of the post, which includes 6 more mistakes, on Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s site.

Today (technically yesterday since it’s after midnight), I wrote 10,097 words. This is a big deal to me because this is the first time I’ve ever done this with original fiction. And I’d only done it one time with fanfiction. Looking back at the day’s work, I’m surprised by how doable it was. It wasn’t a horrific struggle, it just required sticking with it. I had planned to move between multiple manuscripts if I got stuck on a story, but that proved to be unnecessary, and as a result I was able to finish the novel I was working on. It ended up being a tiny bit shorter than I’d originally planned, but that’s okay. Some parts may get expanded in edits, but if they don’t, the word count I have should be fine. I’m not going to pad the story.

It’s crazy how I’ve stood in my own way and prevented myself from seeing how doable this was. Do I want to do this every day? No. I’m pretty tired. But I’m also running on a bit of an adrenaline high. Though I can’t imagine doing this all over again right now, after several hours of decompressing and then a full sleep, I may be able to do it once more before a break.

So here was what my writing day ended up looking like, for anyone curious about how it played out:

From start to finish my writing day spanned 8 hours and 45 minutes, but that includes the breaks I took.

I started at 5:45 pm. I’d just gotten up (yes, my schedule is THAT fucked up right now. I’ll get it fixed again next week). Tom, me, and my mother-in-law were going to order some pizza but I was determined that I would get my first 1,000 words for the day written before pizza crossed my lips.

The pizza arrived early while I was still writing, and then Tom’s cousin and her boyfriend came by. I said that the universe was trying to conspire against my word count, but I proceeded to write and finish up my 1k before eating or really socializing.

Rude? Perhaps, but dude, I had a mission and nobody told me anybody was coming by. And yes, I did totally just sit right here in a room with 4 other people and ignore them to write my words. I told them I had to finish something up and then proceeded to do so.

I ended up with 1,111 words when I found a stopping place. Then I took a dinner break and socialized for a bit. After Tom’s cousin and her boyfriend left, I dug into another writing session with a 3k goal this time.

A couple of hours later I had an additional 3,096 words. I took another break and then came back for another session that I managed to somehow accomplish in an hour and 20 minutes (I swear I blinked and it was over and I somehow had another 3,182 words.) Another break happened. I had a snack, stretched, checked some email, then buckled down for my final word count, ending up with another 2,708 words for a grand total of 10,097.

I may do one more day of this craziness before I take a couple of days off. Then Monday I need to get to work on edits for Dark Mercy so I can send it along to the copyeditor. I also hope to have the final cover art by Monday to post on my blog.

This is a reprint from The Weblog of Zoe Winters.

Publetariat staff will be off in observance of the American Thanksgiving holiday from now through the weekend. We will resume our normal editorial schedule of posting on Sunday, November 27 at 6pm PST. In the meantime the site will remain online and members can still use the Forum and post to their member blogs. We wish all who will be celebrating a safe and happy holiday.

[no need to click through, this is the end of the post] 

The latest episode of Thrillercast is out – Sorting Out The Civil War In Publishing. In this latest podcast, David Wood and I talk about the rise of evangelism on both sides of publishing – those advocating self-publishing as the only viable route, and those who think traditional publishing is the only acceptable path. And we discuss how we’re thoroughly sick and tired of both forms of extremism.

Listen, enjoy and share – Episode 32 – Sorting Out The Civil War in Publishing

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

This post, by Jeff Bennington, originally appeared on The Writing Bomb on 11/14/11.

If you’re a writer, I’m sure you’ve scratched your head and asked, "What the hell’s a platform anyway?" If so, you’re not alone. The question comes with the territory.

You send out your query letters, hoping that a website and writer’s group is enough to qualify for the ever coveted platform…whatever.

I struggled with the idea of a platform for the longest time. And honestly, it sort of pissed me off that as a newer author I was expected to have a platform. Really? I just finished writing a novel. Isn’t that a good enough platform for ya? Huh?

Hell,  I don’t know anyone in my circle of family and friends who’ve written a novel. That’s a pretty big deal don’t you think? And now you expect me to have an audience of hundreds, and even thousands. Get a life. 

That was then…this is now (9 months later).

I have sincerely swallowed those words several times over.

In the course of my writing journey I’ve learned that your platform is absolutely critical to a writer with long term writing objectives. So how do you get on? Where do you you find it? Can you buy it? Rent it?

No. You have to build.

A platform is simply the way you reach out to your readers. Like many authors, I learned that by default, or as we say in the trade, by screwing up a lot!

Over the course of the last nine months, yes I said nine months. You heard right. I did not have a platform  nine months ago.
Zip.
       Zilch.
                 Zero.
I had a book, a few family members and some friends who were sure to read it, but like many of you, I was starting from scratch…as in peel off the skin, muscle, and veins and  that’s where you’d find me, scratching the bare bones of my audience.

While looking up from that vantage point, I learned that every writer seemed to be doing his or her own thing. A platform, from my perspective, appeared to be vague and unattainable unless I had the readers first. This platform thingy was really confusing. I had no idea from whence would my readers come?

Ahhh, that’s the trick. But wait. Building your platform really isn’t a trick. It’s work.

Read the rest of the post on The Writing Bomb.

Back in May 2009 a reader asked Neil Gaiman, via his blog, whether it was reasonable to feel let down that George R R Martin was not giving any clues about the release of the next A Song Of Fire & Ice installment. Gaiman famously told that reader, “George R R Martin is not your bitch”.

GRRM is one of the best and most popular fantasy writers, but his A Song Of Ice & Fire series, which started in 1996, has been a long time to completion, and isn’t finished yet. At the end of book 4 it said to expect book 5 in a year. It took six years to see publication. There are still two more books to come, with no release date even hinted at. So people are getting concerned that the whole story may never be told, and the query posted to Neil Gaiman is still valid. As, potentially, is Gaiman’s answer.

Gaiman’s point is that GRRM doesn’t have to live up to our (readers) expectations. As a writer, I can kind of agree with that to an extent. Gaiman posits that the reader, by buying the first book, assumed some kind of contract with Martin. Gaiman says, “No such contract existed. You were paying your ten dollars for the book you were reading, and I assume that you enjoyed it because you want to know what happens next.”

Art is not something you can force, and Martin is well within his rights to do whatever he wants with his story. Even quit now and never finish. He’s not our bitch and that’s his prerogative. However, if he does do that, I think he is also letting his readers down. And not just GRRM – this applies to all of us as writers. If we’ve said we’ll do one thing and we do something else, that’s either our choice or a situation forced upon us. But we are letting people down when we do it. It’s not an either/or proposition.

Recently, Brent Weeks, author of the Night Angel Trilogy and The Black Prism, posted an opinion piece at SciFiNow in which he says that Gaiman is wrong. In the article, Weeks says:

“Part of what entices us to buy a book is the promise conveyed in the title. “Gragnar’s Epic Magical Dragon Quest Trilogy: Book 1” promises there will be two more books. Whether through the title, or interviews, or through a note to readers at the end of a book that says the next book will be out in a year, when an author makes that kind of commitment, maybe technically there’s no contract, but there is an obligation.”

He also says, “…writers make mistakes about how fast they’re going to finish books All The Time. GRRM’s situation is merely illustrative.” This is well worth bearing in mind, as I’m not out to bash GRRM here, or anyone else in particular. I’m simply addressing the issue as a whole.

But I think Weeks is right – there is an obligation there. When a writer says they’ll write X number of books, readers start to invest their time and money into that series. It’s quite reasonable to feel cheated when the author doesn’t come through on that promise. For this reason a lot of people are now loathe to buy into a series until they know it’s finished. After all, they don’t want to spend time and money getting into a story without an end. Which is fairly reasonable. I’m tempted to make a sexual metaphor here, about encounters without happy endings, but I’ll be a grown-up and rise above that temptation.

I wrote a piece a while back called While you wait for book three, authors die! in which I point out that this method can be damaging. If an author’s first book doesn’t sell well, their publisher may decide to cut their losses and not publish the rest of the series. Bad for readers and writers. I always advise buying the first book, but not reading it yet. Collect the whole series as it comes out and read it all once it’s finished. Of course, this could turn out to be a waste of your hard-earned if the author doesn’t finish the series. But life without risk is like an untoasted tea cake. There’s no crunch.

Readers and authors are entering into unwritten contracts with each other. The author says, “I’ll write this series.” The reader says, “Cool, I’ll buy it and read it. I might even like it and give you a positive review and tell my friends about it.” It’s a symbiotic relationship.

The author doesn’t have to finish that series. There’s no legally binding contract, no demon’s blood on the page to force the magic out. But, should they not see through that originally stated obligation, they are letting the readers down. We all fuck up sometimes, we all get distracted by life and things that happen which are beyond our control. We all let people down sometimes, however much we may wish and try not to. But we should also own up to that let down. “Sorry, folks, I let you down” is lot more conducive to an ongoing relationship than, “Fuck you, I’m not your bitch!”

I really want GRRM to finish A Song Of Ice & Fire. I’ve invested a lot of time and money into it and I really want to know how it all works out. But Martin isn’t my bitch and I can’t force him to do something that he may not have the ability (due to other things in his life) or inclination to do. But, should the series not be wrapped up, I will feel let down.

How do you feel about it?

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.