Friday, July 27, 2012

Publishing Industry News

Publishing industry news for 7/14-7/27.

Industry News

Pearson Hall (the parent company of Penguin Books, among others) purchases Author Solutions, Inc., a self-publishing company. Controversy arises throughout the writing community over the move, which Jane Friedman explains pretty well. Porter Anderson offers a compilation of links of authors and industry professionals responding to the move, almost all in protest. (short explanation at bottom of page)

Random House launches a television company dedicated to making television content from their books.

The Writer Magazine goes on hiatus after a 125-year run as the company looks for a purchaser.

The DOJ begins responding to the letters from the public on the price-fixing lawsuit. Standing by their decision, they respond to Barnes and Nobles letter of protest and a letter from self-published writers in agreement, among others, and is generally dismissive of all claims that the settlement might be a bad idea, pointing out that claims that it will hinder competition are highly speculative. Penguin launches an appeal on the case, but is denied.

Authors sue Harlequin, popular category romance publisher, for e-book royalties on the basis that Harlequin's method of calculating the royalty for payments pretty much halves the percent the authors should receive.

Barnes & Noble releases Nook for reading on the web; Nook readers can now access their e-libraries anywhere, even without Nook in hand.

Industry Blogs

QueryTracker's Publishing Pulse for 7/20 and 7/27.

Roni Loren shares her unfortunate experience being sued for using copyrighted photos in a blog, pictures she found from a Google search and thought it would be okay if she added to a personal, not-for-profit blog, on which she included a "I don't claim to own this picture" disclaimer. Yes, and the photographer won, because the law was on his side. Be careful what pictures you add to your blogs!

Janet Reid answers questions. Readers often form critique groups and share manuscripts with each other; this is generally accepted and the incidence of plagiarism is almost nil (most writers will be offended at the very suggestion.) However, sending a manuscript to a screenwriter is an entirely different animal, assuming the screenwriter even opens it. Reid advises that you don't take that chance. Also, in regards to the standard wait time for a response to a query, 30 days is about industry average. And is it a red flag if an agent is a member of the AAR? No. Many agents are not, and while it's a good sign that an agent is legitimate, not having a membership with AAR isn't necessarily a sign of the opposite. It's okay to ask why she isn't.

This Saturday, Janet Reid will answer queries received between 7 and 8pm EST. This doesn't mean acceptance or feedback, but it does mean that, at the very least, you'll get a non-form reply.

The Editor's Blog explains point of view (POV) in 3 lessons: Lesson 1, lesson 2, and lesson 3. Commonly confused with viewpoint character ("the particular character viewpoint a story is told from"), point of view is actually how the story is being told, that is, first, second, or third person, and omniscient, objective, and subjective.

Also on The Editor's Blog is a post about writing synopses. There are two types: the tease type and the report type. The tease type is made to draw reader in and make her want to read more; it models the style of the story itself. The report type explains what happens in the story from start to end. Which should be used depends on the situation (contest, or agent) and the preferences of the recipient. Keep an example of each on hand.

Agent Kristen summarizes the differences between pitches and queries. A query is a business letter to sell your manuscript to an agent/editor; a pitch is a short statement to sell your manuscript to the agent/editor. Written vs. verbal.

QueryTracker posts an article all about fingerprinting.

Rachelle Gardner asks, "Is talent overrated?" and then answers, "Yes." For her, as with for many of us, it's as much hard work, practice, and effort to improve that lends us ability, not natural talent. (Watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Thursday night [highly recommended!], and as one of the characters said: "It's funny; the more we do, the luckier we get.")

Her guest poster Ed Cyzewski also reminds us that our biggest competitor isn't other writers: it's social media. Are your manuscripts interesting enough to draw readers away from Facebook? What will you give them that's more interested? The truth. Books are deeper. They're not short little blurbs, and they're not censoring out the details of life, but rather uncovering the core truth of it.

On Writers Write, the 10 Principles of Effective Writing are posted. #s 1, 2, and 3? Brevity, clarity, and communication. Also, when to use me, myself, or I.

*Edit-added Friday noon*
Nathan Bransford's These Past Few Weeks in Books

The big deal: ASI self-publishing isn't like Smashwords

I'll admit that at first, when I heard that ASI was a self-publishing company, I thought "Oh, like Smashwords or PubIt!" No. ASI is old-school self-publishing, as in, a service where an author sends in a manuscript for x number of copies to be printed, and sends the check to the publisher for these copies. Again, author pays publisher, as in the publisher makes its profit from the authors. The standard traditional publishing model is 'publisher makes profit from readers purchasing book and shares a portion with the author' (also known as 'author earns royalties'). ASI also offers a number of services such as editing, covers, and marketing - all for a price, of course. There are manuscripts for which POD (Print-on-demand) is ideal (a gardening book that you'll be giving to thirty close friends, for example, or a Class of 2012 cookbook for which you've pre-sold 200 copies to families of students and expect to sell no more, or a self-published work that has achieved success as an e-book and has fans asking to buy print copies that would be otherwise unavailable). However, for most authors intending to earn an overall profit on their writing, POD is not the ideal choice of publishing, and some companies such as ASI have a reputation of selling more services than an author needs, charging the author thousands of dollars when the author only sells a few hundred dollars worth of books. If you're considering self-publishing and intend to be a career writer, I suggest starting with a free self-publishing service (Smashwords, PubIt!, KDP, etc).

What publishing industry news have you come across in the last two weeks?


  1. 0.0 The blog-sueing story is scary... I thought it was fine if you had a disclaimer, left a link back to the original page, and made no money off it. And the fact that it makes Tumblr and Pinterest pretty much defunct within the laws?

    1. It sure is. And yes, it does- I actually saw an article circulating about it a few weeks ago, about how using Pinterest as most people do is actually technically illegal. Although in practice, you're not likely to get sued. I guess the biggest thing comes down to spreading awareness. Sometimes I think about adding more pictures to my own posts, but it's just hard to take that many related to my posts. I mean, what would I post for the news? A sunrise or a flower? 0.o

  2. I don't know if I'd say all talent is overrated, but I am finding that the ratio between brilliant ideas and actually hitting deadlines is not what I once thought. Seems a lot of success is dependent on showing up, doing the work, making deadlines, being easy to work with, proofreading, being considerate, etc. not just brilliant talent.

    1. Really, I think "talent" could be more accurately described as "the initiative to improve." Really have to agree, though, that all the other bits are much more important than how quickly a person could theoretically pick something up and become good at it.