Resources and tips for the self-published author.

Publishing News Roundup Series: Australian Publishing Laws and Avoiding Publishing Scammers

by Maureen Crisp •  May 9, 2016  •   Follow

Published in News  •  No comments

 

This week, the Australian publishing law battles continue.

As the fight continues, Australian writers continue to push back against the countries new copyright laws. The Canadian Copyright center has backed up the writers, attempting to convince Australia not to go through with the laws. In other publishing news, Writer Beware continues to warn us about the risks of publisher scammers:

 

Looking for Jam

 

Around the publishing blogosphere this week…

 

The Australian government is proposing some radical changes to their copyright laws and the writers have come out to protest. There have been open letters from Booker prize winners and other luminaries in the media over the last week. The Canadian Copyright centre has some warnings for Australia not to go down that twisted path based from bitter experience.

 

Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware has some warnings about the way spammers are targeting authors. I got one this week which I promptly ignored. (Legit publishers don’t contact randomly through Twitter offering to publish.) However Victoria is noticing how many spammers are using writing contests.

 

Dave Gaughran has been taking Amazon to task over the scammers that have taken over some bestseller categories. This week Amazon finally decided to do something about it. But it relies on you the author/reader too.

 

Amy from The Book Designer has an article on the new marketing tricks being offered to authors on Amazon beginning this month. This is like lifting the lid on your quiet runabout car and finding a sports car engine… but to use it might cost you the price of the sports car.

 

Joanna Penn has another great podcast this week on audiobooks and what she is doing. She is such a great resource. If you have been thinking about audio book narration you should check this out.

 

Dean Wesley Smith is a creative powerhouse. He runs popular courses on writing as well as his maintaining his busy writing career, monthly magazine, popular blog etc etc. This month he is putting some of his popular writing courses on YouTube… because.

 

Penny Sansevieri has put together a list of top resources for indie publishers– This is one of those bookmark lists to keep coming back to and Derek Murphy has his list of 10 things Indies are doing wrong and what they are doing right.

 

In the Craft Section,
 
 
 
When is a story not about plot -Jami Gold- Bookmark
 
The pre proofing checklist– Wiseink- Bookmark
 
The 5 biggest writing mistakes– James Scott Bell- Bookmark
 
 

 

In the Marketing Section,
 
 
 
 
10 tips for guest posts– Anne R Allen- Bookmark (I wish my guest post spammers would read this!)
 
 
The basics of book promotion– Janice Hardy- Bookmark

 

Website of the Week
I have featured Writers helping Writers before because of the fabulous work on the writing thesauri that Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi put together. They have two new books on Setting coming out that you might like to check out. For Marketing they usually do some cool pay it forward marketing thing which as a side effect gets their book noticed. They are looking for people to spread the word. However with just this wee taster I can see that these writing craft books will be snapped up!

 

To Finish,
Today I mucked around with resurrecting quince jam which had turned to toffee, while I was doing this I listened to this podcast on creativity and the art of asking and motherhood etc etc. This interview with Amanda Palmer was really interesting and a good way of getting your brain thinking while the toffee turns to syrup.

 

Maureen
@craicer

About Maureen Crisp

Maureen Crisp has been writing her weekly publishing roundups for over seven years. She is a traditionally published children's author as well as indie-published. She lives in New Zealand and is heading the team organising the 4th National Conference of Children's Writers and Illustrators. She is currently trying her hand at writing a children’s book series if she can drag herself away from forever tweaking her Mars novel or obsessing over space.