Links of Interest: May 16, 2018

by

News and Trends

  • After 17 years, freelance writers win their class-action copyright lawsuit. The suit was initiated by the Authors Guild and ultimately paid out $9 million to about 2,500 writers. Learn more in the Authors Guild announcement.
  • Kensington is attempting to diversify romance publishing. A trio of black editors is leading the way; they extend credit to president Steven Zacharius and the company ethos of “try it and see what works.” Read more from Bim Adewunmi in BuzzFeed.
  • HarperCollins has launched a faith-based book community. Page Chaser offers editorials, listicles, and author Q&As. Learn more in the press release. 
  • There’s now a book category for “single woman fiction.” The Amazon-created category for books about unmarried women is raising eyebrows. Read more in the Guardian by Kaite Welsh.

Legal Issues

  • Morality clauses are appearing in traditional book-publishing contracts. In what’s seen as a symptom of the #metoo era, such clauses allow publishers to cancel book contracts due to bad author behavior. Read about it in Publishers Weekly from Rachel Deahl.
  • Be on the lookout for more rights grabs in magazine contracts. At the SFWA blog, Victoria Strauss details emerging red-flag language you should avoid. Learn more.
  • GDPR compliance for authors. As May 25 draws closer, more and more resources and best practices are emerging for email marketing and “cleaning” your list to be compliant with new EU regulations on data privacy. Before you decide to do anything dramatic, check out Nick Stephenson’s free workshop for useful advice (it requires you to give up your email address, of course). Learn more.
  • In the ongoing saga of Canada’s copyright crisis: the international publishing community sees Canada as the poster child for copyright legislation blunders. Read more at Publishing Perspectives.

Marketing Toolbox

  • Try a contest instead of a giveaway. Indie author Ian Sutherland outlines a creative method for using a free ebook to attract email newsletter sign-ups. Read at the ALLi blog.
  • Social media Stories are becoming more popular. Stories, unlike basic newsfeed posts on Instagram and Facebook, are video-driven and eventually disappear. Story creation and consumption is up, while newsfeed visibility is down. Marketers are taking notice. Read more in TechCrunch from Josh Constine.  
  • Move over Kickstarter; Patreon is the new cool kid. The Guardian covers the growth (and growing pains) of Patreon, the platform that more writers are using these days to raise money to support their work. Read Alex Hern.

Amazon

  • The fake-review problem at Amazon continues to generate lots of ink. This time, BuzzFeed tackles the issue in a piece that looks at not just books but all products. Learn more from Nicole Nguyen.
  • The head of Amazon Publishing UK (APub) says it is increasing print sales outside Amazon. Bookseller relations are strained, but Eoin Purcell says APub is focused on playing the long game. Read more in Publishing Perspectives.

Self-publishing

  • Draft2Digital has made improvements to its free, automated print layouts. You can now select the page size for your paperback and take advantage of other new features. Learn more.
  • How to reissue books in the public domain ethically: With many desirable works hitting the public domain in 2019, expect to see more players and more activity. If you want to try it yourself, here’s a brief how-to by Megan Hustad at StreetLib.

New Imprint Alert