Publishing Industry News

Publishing news and industry blogs for 5/17-5/31 (since I was AFK on the Friday of the last post, those links will be included for this time.)


Publishing News

Amazon now has a service for selling fanfiction. (Should I have seen this coming? I should have seen this coming. So why is my mind blown?) It is (/was) currently a non-served market, so it was only a matter of time until someone found a way to make this happen, and innovative, business-savvy Amazon leads the pack. There are stipulations, of course: the material must be one that Amazon has licensed (Amazon must have bought certain rights, and the author of the original work gets paid a royalty for every copy sold), no porn (I wonder if this holds trues for explicit romances? Probably, seems like a blanket rule...), Amazon owns the lifetime rights for book (kind of like licensed books, such as Star Wars and Doctor Who series), and others.

Got a Borders Gift Card? Don't expect to redeem it, or be reimbursed. The courts denied gift card holders the right to a class action suit. In large part this is due to not filing any claims by the deadline.

Simon & Schuster will now be publishing in Canada.

News Corp's (owner of HarperCollins) official split into two companies will be June 28.

Ingram's opening an easy-to-use POD service for indie publishers (which Courier Corp. already plans to take advantage of).

Judge Denise Cote approves an extension for Penguin and Author Solutions to respond to the lawsuit filed against them both.

R.R. Donnelly will be handling Harlequin's e-distribution.

A sum-up of the case against Apple in the DOJ vs Apple & 5 major publishers. Penguin settles with the DOJ for $75 million.

MetaComet launches AuthorPortal.com, a site designed to give authors easy to access to their contracts, royalty statements, and other pertinent information.

Yahoo! will acquire Tumblr.



Industry Blogs

QueryTracker's Publishing Pulse for 5/17 and 5/24.                     

Nathan Bransford's The Last Few Weeks in Books.

GalleyCat puts together a collection of self-publishing news and resources for May.

Jane Freidman puts together a handy-dandy infographic on the 5 types of publishing.

Kristine Rusch offers practical, if blunt, advice on book promotion. #1: Write a good book. #s 2-4: have a good cover, price right, promote quietly. And more.

GalleyCat tackles the ISBN issue. They also post the DOJ's summary of how much e-book prices rose after the switch agency model.

Rachelle Gardener puts together a collection of links to everything about publishing.

Thinking about including song lyrics in your story? Here's what you have to do.

And on QueryTracker, Sarah Pinneo gives the ups and downs of GoodReads. Set yourself up as an author, populate your own bookshelves, and more.

Still wondering why people are saying the industry is improving while the best-seller authors you read most are saying it's getting worse? Kristine Rusch explains that the market is changing to favor the midlist author. Most of her maths and numbers come from this article on FutureBook.

Searching for synonyms? PowerThesaurus offers "crowd-sourced" synonyms, where authors can vote for their favorite synonyms.

What interesting publishing news have you encountered in the past couple of weeks?

Delayed due to kittens! Check back tonight.

Publishing industry news will be posted this evening. My only excuse is that I got a little distracted by my new house guests this week:

Fostering again, two 5-week-old darlings who already have a home lined up (it didn't take long with this much cute!)

Sorry about the delay! See you in a few more hours...

Visual Puns: Doing it wrong?

I had a little fun with my camera over the weekend... So here's some visual puns to brighten your day!

Strawberry freezer jam,
rock music... same difference.

USB book

Green tea, white tea, fruit tea...

Okay, okay, those were bad. You're welcome.

Wait, you sent the catassassin after me for that? C'mon; it wasn't that bad! It was? Sorry... Well, in that case, let's play a game of Clue.

Geez, tough crowd. Don't mind me. I'm going to go hide now.

Time for revenge: leave your worst pun in the comments. You know you want to.

Memorial Day: Thanks

Today is Memorial Day.

It's a day set aside to honor those who gave their lives for America.

Thank you, all our soldiers, all our firemen, all our police and rescue workers. It's your bravery that forms the backbone of the country, that lets Americans live without fear in our own homes.

Thanks.

Replaying Twilight Princess: re-discoveries

I waited with baited breath for Nintendo's Twilight Princess to come out. Got a Gamecube just so I could play it, even. Then the developers delayed the release date so it could come out simultaneously on Wii, and... well... it wasn't pretty. I might have been cut from a soap opera for being too melodramatic.

It's probably the only game I've ever pre-ordered. Yes, I'm a Zelda fan; my first game system actual ownership (as in not totally bummed off my older brother) was an N64 that we shared (half-mine was still legitimately MINE), and the Ocarina of Time subsequently became one of my all-time favorite games.

It still took me two years to actually finish Twilight Princess. I like video games, but as an adult, finding time to play means "hour here; two hours there." Plus I had to discover every little sidequest I could, and figure out every little curious riddle I could find, and explore each corner of the game three or four or twelve times. Because hey, if I'm going to wait years for a game to come out, then it's going to entertain me, darn it.

I'm here to steal your soul. Or
maybe your baby's crib.

Now I've turned on this old favorite once more, and discovered something: I'd completely and utterly forgotten about the opening scene the first time through, when Link gets asked to take something to Castle Town in the morning as a favor for another villager.

Huh.

Then I get to the "plot" of the first day. Monkeys. Why'd it have to be monkeys?

Of course I know exactly where that darn monkey is. I mean, seriously, I played this game for two years. I don't need a walkthrough or a guide or any help whatsoever. Didn't you just see me save the basket with an eagle long before I talked to the guy who told me I could call eagles with grass? I got this.

Hours of wandering around later, after collecting rupees and buying extra oil and drinking bee larva to make an empty bottle to buy more extra oil...

Right. Hidden key. Caves. Right, I remembered that. Hey, whaddya know, I've got a map. Guess I could have bothered to look at it earlier.

But despite the frustration of trying to remember what I was doing, I did remember how much I loved the game. Sure, the graphics are good. No, not top-of-the-line, but remember how far I am behind the gaming curve? They're very pretty, and the world is detailed. But more to the point, I don't have to spend weeks leveling up.

I hate leveling up. I hate grinding.

The Zelda games and the Mario games have this in common, and it's why I'm a fan of both: you don't have to run around picking up XP by killing things. Every time you defeat a monster, it's because it's directly in your path to your goal (or killing it is your goal). There's a point.

In other words, I can actually play the game instead of wasting time wandering around in the outfield trying to get enough stuff/experience/levels to play the game.

I'm looking forward to rediscovering new things I've forgotten. So here's to old favorites.

What's one of your all-time favorite games? What really made it fun to play?

Top 10 Quotes from Assassin's Creed First Play

What have I learned from watching my roommate's boyfriend play her Assassin's Creed game?

10. "So it's socially unacceptable to jump?"

9.  "High-profile. Now that's a euphemism."

8.  "Roasting his own cashews is part of his training. Also, he likes it."

7.  "It was an accident. I swear. I won't do it again." (*kills another villager*) "Dammit!"

6.  "Am I taking a squat in the well, or hiding? I can't tell."

5.  "Look, I'm back at the chimney! Her name is Susan."

4.  "My love for the barrel is real! Yeah, I broke up with the chimney."

3.  "This is okay to do to people. Totally socially acceptable. The guards don't think this is weird at all. See, I'll do it to a guard. He doesn't mind." (*continues to do-si-do with guard*)

2.  "You guys! This wall tastes so good!"

1.  "No, that murder I said was an accident, but this really was an accident."

Giving a good critique

So on Wednesday I talked about being emotionally prepared for a professional edit. But here's something equally important: being able to give one.

As a professional writer, you'll probably, at some point, be asked to critique someone else's work. Especially if you're successful.

But it's also terrifying. Will you offend them? You want to be honest. Is being honest the same thing as being blunt? How blunt is too blunt? Should you be offended if your advice gets ignored?

I've blogged tips on editing before. But I think RJ Blain really gets to the core of the matter with her post "RJ's Guide to Improving Editorial and Critiquing Skills." Here's a short excerpt:

Your opinion is valuable--even if the writer doesn't agree with you

The beauty of writing critiques and editing is that your opinion is valuable, even if the writer doesn't agree with you. Every time you write a comment or note that was done honestly and thoroughly, the writer has to think about what you've said. They have to justify what they did versus your recommendation. This lets them see their work in a new light, even they don’t use your opinions.

They don't need to use your opinion. They don't even need to seriously consider using them. You just need to say what you think in an honest and serious fashion, without being condescending to the writer. You might think you're a better writer than the person you're editing… that doesn't mean you are. It doesn't even mean your ego is welcome. It really isn't. Help the writer because you want to help them and yourself. Your opinion is valuable, but it's only valuable because you took the time to say it. By taking the time to point out a mistake in their writing, you can start to see these same mistakes in your writing.

It absolutely does not matter what the writer does with your opinion after you've given it. It isn't any of your business, anyway. What happens after you've given your opinion isn't important, with the exception of providing a clarification if the writer asks it of you. After all, it is their story, not yours.

I hoard editors instead
of princesses or gold.

I'd check out the rest of her post, too. It's easy to forget the purpose of editing, and the etiquette is tricky. But this will help you navigate those waters a with more confidence. It'll also show you how to give a good edit in terms of content--what to comment on, and how to comment.

Trust me when I say good editors are a treasure. If skills had weight, editing skills would be worth their weight in gold.

What's one piece of good advice you've gotten from a critique?