Full House at January 16 Meeting!

Our first meeting of the year had us scrambling for extra chairs. This picture doesn't quite show how full our meeting room was. 

The topic for this month is "Changes in the Industry." Janice Thompson, Crystal Barnes, Linda Kozar, Stacey Zink, and Kathrese McKee shared what they know of the changes, both from their personal experiences and from what they learned at the 2015 ACFW Conference. 

Here are a few of the things we talked about, taken from my [pitiful] notes:

Traditional publishers are seeking rights to some unusual things, aside to the rights to the book itself: audio, digital, film, even "theme park" rights. 

Once upon a time, traditional houses put out roughly 18 new books a year, with only one or two having been written by new authors. Now, in the digital age, over 200 new books are released per day.

Once it was difficult finding an author's older works in bookstores, because the stores had to make room for new releases. Now, in the digital age, books--and their authors--can live forever.

Purchases of print books went up 7% in 2015 (yea!)

Self-publishers need to take advantage of blog tour opportunities. Blogs that automatically post to Facebook can help keep your cover visible.

It may help indies to get away from Create Space, since it's affiliated with Amazon, which makes it more difficult to get other outlets to carry your books. If using Create Space, give yourself a name, like a publishing company, so you can be distributed in the other outlets. Of course, using your own publishing company name means you'll also have to buy your own ISBNs.

Next month, Linda Kozar and Janice Thompson will be discussing Dollars and Sense (Earning money in today's crazy market: traditional, indie, and audio incomes). Don't miss it--because you don't want to have to rely on me and my sorry notes if this is something you're really interested in!

Kudos:

Donn Taylor just signed a three-book deal, and Martha Rogers just signed a four-book deal.

Babs Brooks is celebrating "The End" on her manuscript.

Crystal Barnes's newest, Love, Stock, & Barrel (the 2nd in the Marriage Mayhem series) is due out February 4th. 

Rachel Phifer and her writing partner, Christine Lindsey, have opened a wonderful new blog called Novel Renaissance that has some great writing tips and info on it. 

Reminder:

If you haven't paid your dues for both ACFW and WOTS, you can do so using the buttons on the right sidebar. Don't let your membership lapse!