“To Declare Your Story’s Intent” There are things important to you. You hurt. You know stuff. I don’t. You see things that I cannot…You have everything you need, including the courage to declare your story’s intent. — Donald Maass, Writing 21st Century Fiction Not for nothing am I looking forward to the November 3-7 Writer… Read More
Subscriptions: What If All The Fitness Club Members Actually Come To The Gym?
If I had a dollar for every time I had seen a pitch for a subscription-based ebook platform, I would by now have launched my own. And right about now, you could be forgiven for feeling that The Bookseller’s Philip Jones is the only guy who hasn’t launched a digital book subscription. In his lead editorial for… Read More
This Week: Will Publishing Change The Tone?
It’s Never Too Late To Embrace Your Cognitive Dissonance Here’s an interesting irony for those following — or being battered to bits by — the Amazon-Hachette mania that’s enraging so many people in book publishing in this loud, hot summer. Edan Lepucki, author of California, the Stephen Colbert-promoted Hachette book, is married to Patrick Brown — the main spokesperson for… Read More
3 Voices In The Age Of Amazon: Tech It To The Next Level
Is there a way to hack through the jungle of snarls and get a higher view on publishing’s struggle with and around Amazon? “Those who think the ground beneath the book business is not moving violently, look away now,” writes The Bookseller’sPhilip Jones in his editorial lead for Friday. And yeah, at ground level? Maintain a good… Read More
The Ether Is Moving to Thought Catalog
Ich bin ein millennial. I’m just not telling them which millennium. Launched in February 2010, ThoughtCatalog.com, a property of Thought.Is, is known, not without controversy, as a buslting, cool hub of self-expression for smart writers whose perspective, talent, and purview skew quite young. By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson Writing on the Ether: The Ether Is Moving to ThoughtCatalog.com Read the… Read More
And If the Readership Pulls in Different Directions?
While lots of authors are fond of saying that readers don’t care whether something is traditionally published or self-published, many of them also want to tell you there’s this marching army of indie-only reading author. Read More
When They Talk About You at #DBW14: You're Branded
This is why Hugh Howey talks of self-publishing authors being “maniacally focused” on their readers. Those writers are doing it without even the apparatus and muscle of publishing houses. They’re conquering that fan-fulfillment challenge one reader at a time—a reader earned must be a reader retained. Read More
Can We Stop Short of Overstatement?
Few of even the most effective self-publishing authors will say they want to see traditional publishers go down the proverbial drain. And it’s always good in these times of sensitive, difficult, exhausting change and unease to be careful how we interpret comments. Read More
WRITING ON THE ETHER: Independence
Writing on the Ether is currently sponsored by author and publisher Will Entrekin and his book The Prodigal Hour from Exciting Press. The Ether is a collection of news and perspectives on publishing. It is written by journalist and critic Porter Anderson for Jane Friedman and it appears at JaneFriedman.com each Thursday. Because it is a long post, each edition includes a table of contents to help you move quickly to sections of the article you’d like to reach quickly. When you click on a table of contents listing, the URL generated can be sent to others to direct them to that specific section. Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
It’s springtime for Amazon, and there’s more than one evolving new slant on the massive retailer in play at the moment. Between the monkey chatter and the growls of slow-moving traditionalists, hear it? A skip in the usual drumbeats. A new syncopation in the publishing jungle. Read More