Lemony Snicket, the pen name of author Daniel Handler, has set up an award to honor librarians. The $3,000 award will be for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity, and intends to help eliminate censorship.
Amazon’s new Christian imprint will specialize in faith-based fiction and nonfiction. Brilliance Publishing will launch its first title this month. Authors include those who started out in self-publishing, and several titles will be launched with collaborative support from Christianity Today.
Galleycat posted a great infographic on 40 years of ebook publishing here.
The points I found most revealing are:
The first ebook was launched in 1971 by Project Gutenberg. This points to the importance ebooks held before most traditional houses really understood their potential.
In 2000, Stephen King’s novella Riding the Bullet was downloaded over 400,000 times in 24 hours, proving the ability of ebooks to reach existing fans and new readers.
Amazon launched Kindle in 2007, five years after traditional publishers began working with ebooks. So Amazon is not always at the forefront of publishing trends.
The Rensing Center, a nonprofit arts organization set on 26 acres in the southern Appalachian foothills in South Carolina, is looking for help with their website. The website is run on WordPress, so all additions are made in that format.
The center is looking for an intern who can join their volunteer board in this capacity. This is a great opportunity to see how a nonprofit can meet several goals. And everything the Rensing center does encourages a more conscious and responsible relationship to the environment.
Contact the administrator through their website http://www.rensingcenter.org.
Netflix has been on a roll. Originally considered something of a rube among Hollywood types, the individual responsible for its success has proven that new ways of thinking, and servicing viewer’s desires and needs before any other metric, is the path to success these days.
Netflix did everything “wrong,” according to film’s old guard. It released a full season of episodes all at the same time to allow for binge viewing (which subscribers wanted), it paid top dollar to lease items that others would have taken only if they could own (again to serve their subscribers regardless of the way others would have made a deal), and they bought new concepts without forcing the producers to make a pilot (taking a chance again to give viewers what they want).
Publishers could learn from all this. Release books faster (because that’s what readers want), allow authors to maintain ownership (serve readers no matter what the old deals looked like), and take chances on unproven concepts (because again, readers want unique, fresh ideas from authors who haven’t yet “proven” themselves with big publishers).
Authors, too, can learn from Netflix. Although the company is willing to take risks and try new things, the concepts they’ve bought have had a strong level of professionalism built in. Actors have been sought out who are clear viewer favorites to attract viewers to those fresh concepts. All the deals made have also been for concepts that have fully written scripts, professional people already on board, and “bibles” or dossiers that outline the fictional world’s details in full.
For authors, this means having a full and polished manuscript ready to go, professional assistance from editors or pitch consultants, and a fully developed idea about their audience, publishing trends, and the author’s potential or actual platform (which is all wrapped into a book proposal, the author’s bible).
I’m partial to the third one shown on this list. I would use this for writing as much as for reading. Which is your fav?
What your favorite children’s book series says about you on HuffPost.
Beatrix Potter, fed up with rejections from publishers, self-published The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1901.
Now there’s a success story!
Elise Parsley went from query to book deal in 72 hours.
Her work is a picture book called If You Ever Want to Bring an Alligator to School, Don’t! Little, Brown made a preemptive offer (meaning one that was intended to eliminate other bids and a potential bidding war).
The story sparks with creativity and chaos. In juvenile publishing as in other forms of fiction, that creative spark is critical! And yes, quality still sells!
Texts that deal with Biblical information and themes have long been popular with readers. In fact, publishing a Bible often anchors a publishing house with a text that continues to generate sales year after year.
This leaves the arena wide open for authors writing Christian-based works. In addition to novels that deal with spiritual topics, the nonfiction area is strong. Topics can be academic in nature or geared toward mainstream audiences reading at home on their own.
Keep an eye on titles that are coming out to determine which publisher is best for your Christian work.
Rio Nuevo Publishers work with nonfiction books on the American West and Southwest: history, folklore, cooking, travel, memoir, photography, and more.
John Weber of Serendipity Lit is looking for middle grade and YA fiction with universal themes and unique settings. Interested in realistic historical fiction, well-researched science fiction with no fantasy elements.
More great news in publishing. Amulet paid a seven-figure deal for a new middle grade series. The four-book deal is for The Terrible Two, which follows two pranksters.
Middle grade books are alive and well. In fact, some chatter has been overheard lately about adults purchasing these books for their own reading pleasures. They’ve been doing that for YA titles for some years now. Although the numbers likely aren’t the same for middle grade, the fact that some folks are admitting to reading the books rather than only buying them for their kids proves that the story counts.
Magazine layout disasters…great visuals here.
Yesterday I discussed the latest trends in YA, and noted that everyone is looking for a YA thriller right now.
It seems that Finland has hit the mark. A YA series has come out and the rights have been sold in 33 territories. The first book, As Red as Flood, was released in Feb 2013. Book two came out in August and the third is scheduled for spring of 2014.
Don’t wait! If you’re finished with a YA thriller, get your pitch together now!
Writer's Resource/Sunspot Lit 