The Best of the Blogs for the week ending 20 May 2017 …
Publishing News
There were two major stories in the publishing world this week.
Harlequin Closes Five Lines
Harlequin confirmed they are closing five fiction lines to new acquisitions. One of these is the Love Inspired Historical line, which publishes 4-6 Christian romance novels each month. Romance Writers of America report that the final Love Inspired Historical titles will be published in June 2018.
Love Inspired (contemporary romances) and Love Inspired Suspense (contemporary romantic suspense) do not appear to be affected.
Harlequin (knowns as Mills & Boon in the UK) have long been best known for their short category romances. But the increasing rise of self-publishing and cheap ebooks means many publishers are facing financial problems.
But knowing something is inevitable doesn’t change the reality for the stable of established Love Inspired Historical authors who are now without a publishing home. Some of these authors have been writing for Love Inspired for twenty years.
Amazon Changes Buy Buttons
Publishers Weekly report Amazon have changed the “buy” buttons for books. This means that when you buy a book from Amazon, you need to check who you are buying it from.
- If you’re buying it new from the publisher, great. That means the author is getting a royalty from your purchase.
- If you’re buying a new book from anyone other the original publisher, it’s likely the title is a review copy, remaindered, or perhaps even stolen. This means the author won’t receive a royalty from the sale.
Royalties have never been paid on used or second-hand books, so there’s no change there.
So be sure if you’re buying what the seller says is a new book that it actually is a new, unread book—not read carefully, not a remaindered copy (which might be marked by a black line across the pages), and not a review copy (also marked).
Writing
Writing Emotion
Screenwriter Art Holcomb visited the StoryFix blog to share What an Actor Wants You to Know About Your Novel. This is important, because:
Since the majority of movies are adaptations of novels and other materials these days, the problem lies as much with the sort of characters in novels today as they are in screenplays.
Writing Scenes
Randy Ingermanson is the author of several novels, as well as Writing Fiction for Dummies, and his website has lots of great advice for writers (including his famous snowflake method for plotting a novel, which I’ve talked about before).
This week, he’s answering a question from a reader: How do You Know When to Start and End a Scene?
Marketing
Penny Sanseveri at Author Marketing Experts posts that This One Thing Will Encourge More Book Sales. It’s a clickbait-y title, sure, but the advice is good. Her One Thing? Consistency. She says:
My homework for you is this: choose 3 things you can do better to promote your book over the next 30 days and hold yourself accountable to be consistent.
No, there are no easy answers.
