Writing and publishing news, events and markets

More reports are reaching us about "jobs" for authors being offered through Seek.com. This latest one headlines with the promise of "generous" royalties, and guarantees editorial services at cost price as well as the latest in e-marketing.

We do not know the company involved, and leave you to make your own investigations should you wish to follow it up. But as a general rule, remember that writing your book is a craft, but from then on it’s all business. When approaching any publishing service, ask lots of questions to understand what they offer, check each line item in the entire publishing/editing/marketing package to ensure you understand any fees payable, and make sure all the publisher’s information is transparent.  Seek legal advice before signing any contract. Keep your dreams of publication alive in your heart, but make your financial decisions with your head…

In other news, Harlequin Press are forging a path among the big players in publishing, with the launch of their digital-only publishing house, Carina Press. Check out this Juno books post for more details.

Write On!

Come and get your write on with the Racers tonight, featuring Writers of the Future winner, Jason Fischer. Jason is based in Adelaide, South Australia. He attended Clarion South in 2007, was shortlisted in the 2009 Ditmar Awards for Best New Talent, and is a contributing member of the Daily Cabal project. He has stories in Dreaming Again, Apex, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and Aurealis Magazine. Check out Jason’s blog – he has a way with puns and an eye for the obscure and funny!

Writing Race Special Guest Jason Fischer

Join us at 7.45pm (AEST) for an hour of power writing from 8-9pm…

If you haven’t read it yet, have a look regular Racer Dr Kim’s latest post, Don’t Be a Cry Baby, with a special lift-out section for motivating writers. Hilarious. And true.

Writers Groups FTW!

Are you a member of a Writers Group? You are? No way! AWMonline loves Writers Groups!!

We know how hard Writers Groups have been working all year, and especially in NaNoWriMo, so we want to show our support by extending you an exclusive offer. If your Writers Group signs up as an institutional member (which means all the members of your Writers Group can access AWMonline for one low fee), you will receive an extra month’s membership for free!

Contact admin@awmonline.com.au or phone 07 3839 1243 for more information. Hurry, this offer is only valid until Friday 20 November.

Writing Racers Kim Wilkins and Bec Sparrow

Picture a warehouse room full of laptops and expectant faces, imaginations primed and ready to write. Then picture those same faces, an hour and a half later,  glowing with achievement: combined, the QWC Writing Racers produced 48,498 words, just a squeak away from a complete naNoWriMo novel. 20 or so writers all boosted their own projects by thousands of words in one writing session of social writing – and what with all the pizza and lollies, it didn’t feel like work at all!

Meanwhile, the AWMonline Racing crew are also smoking hot this November. Some are working on NaNo books, and others are just using the month of focus to work on their ongoing projects. Last Sunday we were joined by Special Guest Peter M. Ball, author of Horn, and he blew us away with these fantastic tips:

Staying on the Ball:

1) You only have to write the next 250 words (Picked up from the blog of Dean Wesley Smith originally).

I like breaking goals down into something small and achievable, so I try not to think in terms of "I need 1000 words today" or "a ninety thousand word manuscript." All I need to do, in order to get things done, is write the next 250 words of the manuscript. If I do that every day, at a minimum, I’ll have a short story within the space of a week or a novel in the space of a year.

The other way to think about it is "how much can you write in twenty minutes." For me it largely equates to the aforementioned 250 words. If I find myself not wanting to write, I tell myself I’ll sit in front of the computer and do twenty minutes of work before heading off to my procrastinatory activity.

2) Get things done in the morning

I’m one of those folks who feels the guilt of not-writing really heavily, so I make sure it’s the first thing I do when I get up in the morning. Even if it’s just for an hour, or a half hour, or twenty minutes, I get the writing out of the way so I’m no longer thinking ‘oh, god, I have to write something."

Usually this makes it easier to sit down and keep working, because the angst of not-writting usually gets worse the longer I leave it and I have a somewhat counter-intuitive response (basically, "oh god, I’m not writing, lets go watch TV")

3) Have space that’s committed to being a writer.

While this is my first writing race, I have a regular write-club with my friend Angela Slatter where we meet once a week and basically be writers. We trade news about our successes and failings, eat a nice meal, then sit down and bang out words with someone else in the room. Frequently the three or four hours we meet will be more productive than the rest of the week combined.

On the weeks where we don’t meet, for whatever reason, it’s usually much harder to focus on getting work done. Largely this is a mindset thing – spending time talking about writing, giving it a weekly space regardless of what’s going on, makes it easier to remember that I’m a writer when the day-to-day problems of the week start distracting me from the idea that I should be writing.

Giving yourself the space *to be a writer* with other people who acknowledge that is enourmously powerful when you’re starting out, especially when other people look to things like novels and JK Rowlings sized paycheques to justify the activity.

4) Turn off the internet

It took me years to learn this one, but it finally sunk in. The internet is based on creating links and diverting your attention, always sending new information your way and demanding that it be processed. It’s the most distracting thing I’ve ever come accross and I noticed the difference immediately the day I decided to turn it off during my regular writing time.

And once again, it’s a reinforcement thing – the three hours every morning I devote to writing are *purely for writing*. By taking the internet away I’m telling myself that I’m not doing anything but writing.

These days I tend to get up and write for three hours every morning before I take my computer into the study and plug it into the modem. Creating that space, away from the distraction, made a huge difference in my daily wordcounts.

This is a luxury that a lot of people don’t have, and I appreciate it as such, but even if you’re only going to be writing for twenty minutes on your lunch break it’s worth seeing what happens when you take the modem away

~

Last bits…

Feeling scared about changes to the publishing industry? Take heart from this post at Storytellers Unplugged. And then be gobsmacked by the innovations at the new monthly magazine, Electric Literature.

Write on, people!

There’s something in the air, can you feel it? Writers everywhere are planning, focussed, determined, motivated…

I call it the NaNo Effect. Even if you’re not signed up to write a novel this November, the impetus to write is everywhere around you. It’s a vortex, sucking you in to a wonderful world of words on the page and social writing fun.

AWMonline is running extra Writing Races with loads of special guests. Subscribers, log in this Sunday 3-4pm to write alongside the science fiction short story writer, Peter M. Ball, whose novella Horn was published with Twelfth Planet Press this year. He’s kooky and charming and full of good ideas about how to get those words on the page – and he’s madly finishing off a novella in time to start a NaNo project!

Peter M. Ball with Spokesbear

Then next Tuesday 7-9pm we are getting really adventurous, launching into a cross-platform world of social writing fun at Digital Pizza. If you’re in Brisbane, call QWC 07 3839 1243 to book your seat. If you prefer the online world, join us for this special two-hour Writing Race, with Captains Kim Wilkins and Trent Jamieson, and special guest Racer Kate Morton!

Perhaps, as Liz Sinclair explains to Angela Meyer, you can use this month of frenzied writing to raise funds for your writing project or another good cause. Technology is rendering old business models for content producers obsolete, so maybe writers will need to get used to taking their wares to market themselves; artisans at online markets ftw!

And for insight into how the other half lives, check out this fantastic blog by Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent. Offering straightforward and practical advice on the process of getting an agent, this post demonstrates the quality that is not often attributed to Agents, but which frequently strikes me as being there in abundance: heart.

Have a great writing weekend, folks.

I have made a commitment to balanced blogging, since I Could Have Cats took me to task for my recent rant on the PIR debate. But then something like this comes along: Kindle hits Australia this month.

Regular Speakeasy readers will remember that one of the key issues preventing the sale of Kindle outside the US was the complexity of Amazon’s negotiations with local telecommunications providers, whose 3G networks are required for distribution of Kindle books. According to cnet:

A spokesperson for VHA said it hadn’t signed a deal with the bookseller. Telstra has yet to respond to queries. Optus said it "had nothing to confirm". On the site, however, it is possible to check wireless coverage that the device will access, which seems to be quite extensive.

So everyone’s being very coy, but if you compare coverage maps (and thanks to the very clever Mark Bahnisch for this tip), it looks like a pretty good pattern match for Optus. Don’t take my word for it.

Now, let us all take a brief moment to grok out on the fact that the gadget uses real ink. Mmmm, lo-fi…

I alluded to a little rant about this issue, and here’s the thing. Well, there are many things, as non-Optus (I’m postulating) customers will soon realise, but here’s my thing: Prices are all in USD! For some, this would be no biggie – your actual price information is just a conversion rate away. But it represents a barrier to the seamless integration of e-books into users’ experiences, one of the strongest benefits of digital publishing. It also makes me feel totally coca-colonised.

Still, if you look at this comprehensive list of kindle services, Australia is better off than most countries, especially Islamic countries, and even poor old Canada, still out in the Kindle wilderness…

~

From Publishers’ Lunch:

Simon & Schuster is taking their successful Simon Spotlight Entertainment line and merging it with Pocket Books’ hardcovers and trade paperbacks to create a new imprint, Gallery Books. Pocket itself will return to focusing entirely on mass market publishing, as partner for all of the S&S imprints and continuing with paperback originals for "rising authors" such as Kresley Cole and Thomas Greanias.

The new line is expected to launch in spring 2010. CEO Carolyn Reidy writes to employees that "as a company we need to insure that each of our imprints has sufficient strength and support, especially in this difficult environment." Reidy notes that Gallery will have immediate strength in areas where Pocket and SSE "have already forged well-earned reputations, such as women’s fiction, pop culture and entertainment," while it "will also operate with a mandate to acquire top authors and hot prospects in a broad range of publishing categories, both fiction and nonfiction."

Large publishers often lack agility in the marketplace, constraining their ability to respond to economic and cultural trends. It will be so interesting to see how Gallery Books performs.

~

Budding scriptwriters pease note, next week is your last chance this year to throw your hat into the Neighbours pool:

The Australian Writers Guild has once again joined forces with FremantleMedia Australia to present the Neighbours Scriptwriter Training Initiative. The initiative provides the opportunity for two writers to join the Neighbours writing team for six weeks as trainee storyliners and learn what it takes to write for Australia’s favourite serial.

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FYI, Speakeasy will now be posting once weekly, as we move into the production schedule for the next AWM print edtion.

Write on, everybody!

A writer has brought this to my attention: a recruitment notice on the job site Seek for writers of children’s books. While it certainly seems to be an exciting opportunity, this approach raises a few questions: how does a publisher responsibly handle the potentially high number of submissions resulting from such a wide call out? How does a writer investigate the suitablity and credibility of the publisher involved, when so little information is supplied? And note, the burden of proof here is on the aspiring author, who must provide a CV and a sample, while the publisher provides only an email address. I’m interested to know, would you respond to this type of call out for manuscripts?

Over at Publishers Weekly there’s an amazing example of how digital publishing is both challenging and complementing traditional publishing: Kemble Scott released an e-reader edition of his second The Sower through scridbd.com, and quickly gained interest from a range of publishers. Since it was available as print-on-demand, The Sower did not have to wait the standard year or more to work it’s way through the traditional publishing process, which kept its contemporary cultural references fresh. Scott clearly understands marketing very well, and has great relationships with independent booksellers in the Bay Area. Now published in a limited hardcover edition, The Sower has reached the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller list. Says Scott, "This book was completely done outside all of the traditional gatekeepers of publishing… [P]eople can read the book for its merits and its content and not for the way it was published.”

Lastly folks, TINA is nearly upon us! This Is Not Art: Independent, Emerging and Experimental Arts Festival includes the National Young Writers Festival, as well as the Crack Theatre Festival, Sound Summit, Electrofringe and Critical Animals. So if you like writing, poetry, spoken word, zines or comics, get involved! TINA runs from 1-5 October in Newcastle Australia, so go for the festivals, and check out the beaches while you’re there…

Write on!

Remember how the Productivity Commission found that ditching Parallel Import Restrictions would deliver cheaper books for Australians? An assertion suspiciously similar to the consortium of giant chain stores known as, what was it again, oh yes … the Coaltition for Cheaper Books? Well, check out this media release from the Australian Publishers Association for some interesting news on the subject. In response to the damning independent study into the Commission’s report (see this great summary), the Commission is now asserting ‘even if repeal of the PIRs were to cause the cost of books to booksellers to fall but these savings were not passed on to consumers … the repeal of the PIRs would still provide benefits’.

It’s becoming excruciatingly clear just who those ‘benefits’ would flow to, and it sure isn’t Australian readers and writers. Try Coles, Woolies, Target, Big W… who want to restructure the Australian publishing industry into a rapacious beasty feeding on the souls of Australian literary producers.

Don’t be fooled, people, PIR reform is not about delivering cheaper books, it’s about delivering more profit to major retailers.

Verse Novelist, Tim Sinclair

On a lighter note, if you are a young writer living in South-East Queensland, check out the Young Writers Boot Camp at QWC these school holidays, with the amazing Tim Sinclair. It’s going to be zine-tastic!!

Also, have a look at Wordbox. It’s an amazing resource directory of opportunities, festivals, tips & competitions for young Australian writers.

~

Playwrights, check out Writer’s Tips, where the lovely Dr Tess Brady interviews seven successful writers (including Louis Nowra, who I met at BBWF09 – he is totally quirky and super-smart!) on how to write a great play.

~

Lastly, Kat Meyers and colleagues’ venture into commercial digital publishing has come to an premature end. A confluence of unfortunate events has seen Quartet Press’s demise, and Meyers has issued a statement that demonstrates the sort of transparency, integrity, and savvy that we wish for all publishers:

What is amazing is that the bookish community are being so kind and understanding about our failure. It’s made it even more apparent that readers really want quality, affordable digital books. One way or another, each of us are committed to moving forward and helping to make that happen eventually. Quartet just wasn’t the time or place for us

~

Why is it that the more time passes between blogging, the harder it is to publish that new post? To paraphrase writing genius Aaron Sorkin, let’s overlook that I came late to the party, and celebrate the fact  that I turned up at all…

Time to catch up on recent events in the blogosphere:

They’ve started announcing the Book Bloggers Appreciation Week Awards. In particular, check out the nominations for Best Blog Tours – great leads for bloggers wishing to reach a broader audience.

And of course, you’ve all heard that Twitter has announced their new terms of service, summarised in their blog. They are eager to reassure people that, unlike Facebook, ownership of user content will remain with the user. You own your Tweets. But what rough beast slouches towards the Twitterverse? Targetted advertising, folks - it’s just over the horizon. Which is great, because I don’t know about you, but I’m sure sick of having to spend hours hunting down information about the latest miracle-celebrity-weightloss-facecream!

So have you tried the new Facebook Lite? It’s a clutter-busted version of Fb, with old school design to be easy on the download quota.

Like!

Mashable has a great short post on tips on writing for digital markets: take this quiz and let me know how your web content measures up!

• Know your objective: Do you adopt a different tone for articles, blog posts, tweets and status updates?
• Know your audience: Do you think about who will be reading your content, and target your information accordingly?
• Keep it short: Do you omit needless words?
• Make it scannable: Do you write in the F-shape, highlight your main points, and use comprehensible titles instead of in-jokes?

• Embrace constraints: Still feeling frustrated with only 140 characters, or do you enjoy the challenge of working within different physical and cultural constraints?

Give yourself a star for each yes answer. I’m about a three-star web writer. (Room for improvement is a good thing, right?)

And completely off the topic, whose September would be complete without sparing a smile for the pint-sized funkster phenomenon… so much talent it’s kinda disturbing!

I’ll leave you with a quote from NaNoWriMo guru Chris Baty, who attended a live forum at AWMonline this morning:

Once I discovered that there was a reasonably unhorrible book lurking in there all that time, I started wondering what ELSE was inside me. It’s funny what tackling an overly ambitious creative project can do to help people realize their potential.

Happy writing, folks, and I’ll see you real soon (no, I mean it!)…

With QWC’s big announcement at MWF about the new centre for excellence in digital publishing, the Australian Institute for the Future of the Book (if:book Australia), you just knew today’s post was going to be all about the digital, didn’t you?

Based in Brisbane, if: book Australia is only the third centre of excellence of its kind for digital literature established in the world, after the New York and London Institutes … if: book Australia will promote new forms of digital publishing and explore ways to boost connections between writers and audiences.

This morning, The Book Show’s Ramona Koval was in conversation with Bob Stein, Founder if:book. Generally, I am a huge fan of Ramona, but I have to say that she doesn’t do Australia proud in this interview… Perhaps if she’d been able to recall the name of the "thing that has the red light in supermarkets" (barcode scanner), we could have all seemed a bit more across the digital issues du jour. But I think the main friction stemmed from two very different timeframes of vision: Ramona seemed intent of protecting the interests of we, now, who love the book – the bound, traditional tree-book – and just what we think of those who wish to take them from us. Whereas Bob was envisioning the future, near and far.

I listened to that interview while perusing KCDC’s take on the new augmented reality apps available for the 3G iphone. My synapses had a total Gruen transfer moment: surrounded by the growing cybermall of digital technology available or relevant for storytellers, I suddenly became excited about multiplatform opportunities for creating and crafting stories for a wide-range of readers/users/communities, accessible through their preferred media. Excited like I get when I’m planning a scene for a story; dreamy and fidgeting and weirdly hyper, itching for a keyboard and a spare hour.

As a Gen-Xer, I had a childhood free of computers, and now am immersed in a career that depends on them, and a social and creative life that thrives on them. I am comfortable with the thought that in fifty to one hundred years, people are going to experience the publication and communication of ideas very differently. if:book Australia means that local cultural producers will have the chance to be instrumental in experimenting and engaging in new creative processes: cause for enthusiastic cheers, not threatened snarls.

In related digital news, today’s On Line Opinion (Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate)sees Mark Bahnisch discuss some of the myths that underpin both celebatory and catastrophic claims about social media. Mark argues that educators and organisations seeking to work in the digital media space must  review their ‘pop pschology’ assumptions about digital media and instead address crucial issues of privacy and corporate ownership from a sound basis of research.

Enter the brilliant Phoebe Connelly, who looks at the impact of corporate ownership of our digital playgrounds (AKA social media) through the lens of GeoCities’ demise. When the commercial success of a social media site is judged as wanting, the community has no control over the fate of the content they produced. Beyond corporate mercenaries, there’s also the concern of plain old link rot:

In a keynote address at a 2001 conference on preserving digital media, science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling observed, "Bits have no archival medium. We haven’t invented one yet. If you print something on acid-free paper with stable ink, and you put it in a dry, dark closet, you can read it in 200 years. We have no way to archive bits that we know will be readable in even 50 years."

He added, "Tape demagnetizes. CDs delaminate. Networks go down."

Point taken. But are authors responsible for printing books on sustainable materials? Secure digital archiving sounds more like an issue for information managers, not cultural producers. Bring on the super librarians!

All in all, a most interesting day on the intertubes, with many more to come. Have a great weekend, folks.

Melbourne Writers Festival update:

Robert Sessions left the UK for Australia looking for the promised land, or at least a gig in publishing. He found both, and 47 years later has headed publishing in Penguin Australia for 20 years. He spoke for nearly an hour at The Whole Shebang this morning. I wish he’d spoken for two, because he only had time to hint at issues on the horizon like digital publishing and the parallel importation of books.

He gave a brief history of Australian publishing. Did you know that, back in the day, Penguin attempted to open a bookstore? Nobody came, because readers don’t want the restriction of one publisher and its imprints – they want to graze across the full range of titles published. A sage lesson for contemporary publishers who seek to establish their house brand over author recognition.

Sessions told us about the halcyon days when the ratio of front list (new titles) to back list was 40%-60%. Nowadays it’s more like 70-30%. That means venerable old titles are written off, and vulnerable new titles have a crucial window in which to Sell or Die.
Sessions’s top tip: Penguin likes to hear from you by email. Send your synopsis through, when your project is ready, and you’ll hear back reasonably promptly as to whether they want to read more. (This from a man who carries around 60+ manuscripts on his eReader – I wonder when publishers have time to read for, y’know, pleasure. Methinks it is an enjoyment foregone by those who love the artform most – quite a sacrifice).

The next Whole Shebang presenter, Louise Swinn from Sleepers Publishing, is a younger but no less invaluable contributor to the Australian publishing landscape. Louise spoke with Brendan Gullifer (debut author of Sold) about the journey of his book. Louise, Zoe (publisher with Sleepers also) and Brendan all still have their day jobs – and perhaps we would expect this of an author, but to think of a respected literary publishing house being fueled by the passion and dedication of a pair of moonlighters is as surprising as it is inspiring.

Most fascinating insight from this panel: Louise sees books in colour, a synaesthesiac editor – her explanation of how she comprehends and develops manuscripts was like hearing Michelangelo discussing his plans for the ceiling of the Cistine!
‘There’s only one thing more painful than being a writer, and that’s being married to one.’ Brendan Gullifer’s wife approved the sale of the family home to support his writing. They have three kids. Such are the sacrifices writers are willing to make to develop their career.  And his novel sounds like an interesting window into the real estate idealism dominating the Australian psyche.

That’s a plug, folks…

So many books in the festival bookstore, so little cash to spend. I’m going with Lisa Lutz, but that’s cos I’m a crime fic fan girl. Did I mention I bagged an invite to the Davitt Awards tonight? Squeeeeeee!

Okay, Now I’ve finished my Borek (Turkish spanikopota) and my blog post, I’ll get back into The Whole Shebang. It’s another incredible opportunity  to learn about the Australian literary community. Arts VIC, City of Lit, VWC … more juicy facts and figures about what’s available for writers.

Special News: AWMonline Live Forum

A live forum to discuss proposed changes to laws protecting Australian books starts soon at www.AWMonline.com.au

Writers are encouraged to participate in this live, online forum that aims to demystify the impacts of the Productivity Commission’s proposed changes to the restrictions on the parallel importation of books. Ask your questions, air your comments, and plan your response to this crucial issue for Australian writers and readers.

11am to 12 noon today

www.awmonline.com.au [You need to be a subscriber to access the forums. Subscriptions start at $19.95]

Special guests:
Sophie Masson, ASA
Sheryl Gwyther, Saving Aussie Books
Kelly Hunter, Romance Writers of Australia

Hope to see you there soon!