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Writing communities are essential to author lives.
For this week’s Publishing News Roundup series, we’re discussing the difference between your large writing community that you meet with at events, versus your small community that you meet with regularly, and the benefits of both:
Great Communities
This week I have been thinking about writing communities. There is the small community of writers that you meet with regularly, then the larger community of writers that you know of in your genre that you see occasionally at events. The engage-with-only-online community and the global community of writers. There is a wealth of online information for writers but make sure you meet up with other writers for face to face interaction. It is an important part of feeling that you belong in the community.
The UK publishing community got together recently for their association AGM and heard some straight talking from their guest panel on changing publisher perceptions.
Publishing Perspectives reports on the speeches that must have made uncomfortable hearing while any author in the room would have been silently cheering.
Claude Nougat has a blog post saying that
Newbies should not be self publishing. The game has changed so much it is a waste of time. It is an interesting point of view and she makes some good points. All communities need robust voices.
Zetta Elliott has an article in the School Library Journal that makes the call to change the publishing community from the 89% white to a more diverse lineup because surely this would result in more diverse publishing. She has to self publish to get important black stories out there for children. It is an amazing article and echoes indigenous issues in publishing here in NZ.
An interesting comparison was recently examined in the Huffington Post on book launches.
Over on Twitter there is a Twitter Fiction festival contest happening. A J Walkley talks about how to participate and
how Twitter helps writers. #TwitterFiction
In the Craft Section,
(Bookmark)
In the Marketing Section,
Website of the Week
To Finish,
Chuck Wendig (warnings on language) is master of the descriptive sentence that explains a writing truism.
Here he explains the writing journey for experienced writers to a newbie writer in his Chuck style… a nice example of community. (choking with laughter warnings)
As I have been writing this my region has been undergoing flooding and roads have been cut off all around. People have been opening up homes to stranded commuters all across the city. Half of my family are sleeping in a strangers home tonight. A great community celebrates its members and also reaches out and supports its members in times of crisis.
Thank you Wellington.
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.