The Agile Writer – Page 5 – Greg Smith: Novelist and Coach

July 17, 2018

Indie Audiobooks on the Rise

Looking to offer indie authors access to a booming audiobook market, Smashwords, the self-publishing platform and e-book distributor, is teaming with Findaway Voices, an online production platform and distributor of audiobook content, to create a turnkey solution. In a blogpost, Smashwords CEO Mark Coker said the new partnership would give authors and publishers “greater control over pricing and distribution.” The […]

Greg Smith Audio Books 0 24 sec read

July 13, 2018

Life in 10 Introduces Hybrid Publishing Service in RVA

Our friend Valley Haggard over at Life in 10 Minutes has just launched a hybrid press. The concept behind a hybrid press is different from an independent or even traditional press. With hybrid, the publisher acts as an assistant to the writer. For a fee, they will perform all the activities that transform your manuscript into a publishable book – […]

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July 9, 2018

Evoking Emotion in Fiction: 7 Pragmatic Ways to Make Readers Give a Damn

In Writer’s Digest, author Dustin Grimmel gives these 7 ways to engage readers. Do you agree? Evoking Emotion #1: Positive moral judgments about the protagonist Evoking Emotion #2: A protagonist who wants something really badly Evoking Emotion #3: A protagonist who pursues their desires Evoking Emotion #4: A protagonist who never gives up Evoking Emotion #5: Characters who do the […]

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July 8, 2018

Hollywood comes calling for self-published authors

Film and TV production companies are increasingly turning to self-published authors to pick up potential screen blockbusters. The latest indie writer to get a call from Hollywood is best-selling thriller author Mark Dawson. Advanced negotiations are taking place with a leading TV production company that wants to snap up his Beatrix Rose series, according to a report in The Guardian. […]

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July 4, 2018

B&N CEO Fired – no explanation

In a brief statement released late Tuesday afternoon, the retailer said CEO Demos Parneros was terminated for “violations of the Company’s policies.” While not saying what policies Parneros violated, B&N said his termination “is not due to any disagreement with the Company regarding its financial reporting, policies, or practices or any potential fraud relating thereto.” In addition to being fired […]

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July 1, 2018

B&N – Rocky Times

With sales at Barnes & Noble in the fiscal year ended April 28 dropping 6% compared to fiscal 2017 and a host of one-time charges contributing to a net loss of $125.5 million compared to net income of $22.0 million in 2017, CEO Demos Parneros acknowledged that fiscal 2018 was a “challenging year.” He said that some of the changes […]

Greg Smith Publishing 0 47 sec read

July 1, 2018

Little House on the Prairie – Banned

The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, voted on Saturday to strip the name of Laura Ingalls Wilder from a popular children’s book award, months after a task force set out to consider the long-running scholarly discussion around “anti-Native and anti-Black sentiments” in the author’s work. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award honors […]

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June 30, 2018

The Science of the Plot Twist

“A major part of the pleasure of plot twists, too, comes not from the shock of surprise, but from looking back at the early bits of the narrative in light of the twist. The most satisfying surprises get their power from giving us a fresh, better way of making sense of the material that came before. This is another opportunity […]

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June 30, 2018

When Action Isn’t a Good Thing

“For example, we need to write a scene with two characters talking, but something should be happening besides dialogue, right? Enter props. We put them at a kitchen table and give them tea to pour into cups. We put them in a car where they can fiddle with the radio dial and glance in the rear-view mirror. We get them to […]

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June 28, 2018

Author Earnings Sliding Fast in U.K.

Can authors make a living as a writer? Is this another case for self-publishing and self-promotion? From Publishers Weekly: Median annual income of professional writers in the U.K. is now under £10,500, down by 15% since 2013, according to ALCS (Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society) research. That figure puts authors’ hourly rate well below minimum wage The earnings figure of […]

Greg Smith Marketing 0 44 sec read

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