Interesting Links #13: Scammers & Sales!
Interesting Links returns for 2018! (I didn’t do an Interesting Links post last week because I was busy finishing up SEVENFOLD SWORD: NECROMANCER.) Interesting Links is simply a collection of articles that I read over the week that I found interesting enough to share.
This week’s Interesting Links deals with publishing and scammers.
-If a publisher wants to charge you money, they’re a scammer: Run, Run, As Fast As You Can.
-In my opinion, prose is only a vehicle for delivering the plot. If you’re a fiction writer, your main concern needs to be telling a good story: Why Should We Subsidise Writers Who Have Lost The Plot?
-It is interesting that despite all the “monopoly” talk around Amazon (in reality it isn’t anything near a monopoly, and if it was a monopoly, the government would gleefully come after it like a mob enforcer with a pillowcase full of doorknobs), it’s still only the 7th largest retailer in the United States: The Limits Of Amazon.
-I’ve used a lot of the tactics in this article, and it’s good advice: How Going Wide (And Quitting Kindle Unlimited) Helped Me Quit My Day Job.
-I really like Smashwords, but I always enjoy the jarring juxtaposition of the Smashwords Blog’s end of year posts: Indie Publishing Is Doomed! Then it’s followed immediately by Smashwords Profitable For 11th Consecutive Year.
-A good quote from Kristine Kathryn Rusch in this post on the Big Five publishers: “I’m telling you this because many writers still want to be traditionally published. The beginners who think that they “need” traditional publishing and won’t consider indie are lost. Maybe they’ll learn that’s wrong, like the musicians do after their first big success which makes them almost zero dollars.”
-To be honest, people who say “there are too many books being published” generally mean “there are too many of OTHER PEOPLE’S books being published, and not enough of mine!”: Way Too Many Books Are Being Published. (The Passive Voice has a good debunking of this article.)
-This is an interesting and useful article: Top Ten Publishing Trends Every Author Needs To Know in 2018.
-I liked this article, since the game developer’s trajectory kind of reminded me of the course of my writing career: The Rise, Fall, And Rise Of MDickie – Or, How To Be The Best Worst Game Developer.
-JM
Love the article by Tim Lott. I would add to this that a lot of literary authors fall down by not having any real sense of resolution, as if they think that an ending is somehow lowbrow. I know that many would argue that real life doesn’t have neat endings as such but a story should still have some sort of resolution, in my eyes. Look at your Frostborn series – the books often end with some sort of cliffhanger and they all run in a sequence but there is, nonetheless, a clear sense of resolution at the end of each individual book. This, to me, is more satisfying than a book that simply stops.
I totally agree. The ending is the most important part. If the writer screws up the ending, it’s like multiplying by zero – it doesn’t matter what the equation does, the result is still a big fat zero. Same thing with an ending that doesn’t resolve the emotional and physical conflicts of the story properly.