Inkymole: Twilight, True Love, And...The Truth.

I just came across this blog post about my mum's book - it's everything I wanted to say about it, if I could write as well as her.

I love the gorgeous alternative front covers, the white with red calligraphy is my favourite.

Inkymole: Twilight, True Love, And...The Truth.

The House of Silk: The New Sherlock Holmes Novel

Loving this video, especially the crackly fire noise as he reads...



Thank you Anthony Horowitz!

I’m part of the Transworld Book Group!

But which titles should I go for? I get to pick 4:

1. The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark
2. Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll
3. The Secrets Between Us by Louise Douglas
4. Teacher, Teacher! by Jack Sheffield
5. Death Sentence by Mikkel Birkegaard
6. Crippen by John Boyne
7. Caligula by Douglas Jackson
8. Twelve by Jasper Kent
9. The Obscure Logic of the Heart by Priya Basil
10. Nothing But Trouble by Rachel Gibson
11. The Colour of Death by Michael Cordy
12. Odin’s Mission by James Holland
13. Legacy by Danielle Steel
14. The Water Room by Christopher Fowler
15. The Bomber by Liza Marklund

J.K. Rowling announces 'Pottermore' - using YouTube

I saw articles on Mashable and The Guardian in the past few days speculating what 'Pottermore' was all about, there were rumours of a fake leak that it was a game, with wands hidden in the real world for fans to find. They all said to look out for the announcement on the 23rd.

The mystery is now revealed!

JK herself stars in a video released today announcing that it is part game, part online community that fans can contribute to, and a place where for the first time people can buy the Harry Potter ebooks.



I still can't imagine what it's actually going to do, but the concept sounds very exciting, and at the very least fans will be drawn to it because JK will be putting up hidden content she has been "hoarding for years" about the Harry Potter world.

This is due to launch in October, though a lucky few can participate early. She ends with a mysterious call to "follow the owl" if you want a chance of being one of the founding contributors.

The middle of the video is particularly beautiful, using cutout animation recreating images from the book using the actual text of the book. This is clearly a nod to the wildly successful book trailer produced in New Zealand in 2009 for Maurice Gee's 'Going West,' which I wrote about in 2009 here, and has now achieved almost a million views which makes it the most successful book trailer ever.

Here are some of my questions:

Will this result in a spike of new sales?
How far will the site tie in with the film?
How much will it be an ecommerce site flogging Harry Potter merchandise, or will it offfer something genuinely exciting and original to fans?
Will the new content be publishing in book form one day? Who will own the rights if so?
What the Harry Potter fan fic community think?

I love the way it all links together - the author, a video, the text, the ideas, the text itself, a game and a fan fiction community. It's a beautiful example of transmedia, where the digital meets fiction and the fans meet the author, and it will all end up in ebooks and the excitement around Harry Potter living on beyond the final film.

Very exciting times for publishing!

The Mumsnet Rules book trailer

Bloomsbury have produced a really nice video supporting the launch of their new book "The Mumsnet Rules" which you can watch here:



I'm impressed by the quality of this video, Bloomsbury have been making book trailers for a while and this is a big step up from some of the others (have a look at Bloomsbury's YouTube channel).  It's short, to-the-point, it's not a TV ad, no cheesy voiceovers, and it looks like they didn't blow the budget making it either. It definitely makes sense to do this kind of online promotion when the book is based on an incredibly popular forum.

What they say about the book: Do ‘milestones’ feel like millstones? Does the thought of waiting at the school gate make you more nervous than your five-year-old? Do you find yourself sometimes tempted just to let your children fight to the death? And does flicking through childcare books leave you feeling mostly bewildered and blamed? Then The Mumsnet Rules are what you have been waiting for…

Some questions for you:

-          Should you use rules when parenting your children?
-          What other rules might you use when parenting?
-          Do you think that these golden rules work?

New Amazon 'Like' Button!

I last heard about Amazon testing a 'Like' button for some users back in November on Techcrunch. I think it's a great idea, 90% of the reason I'll buy a book is through a recommendation from friends or Amazon ratings, and this is a very easy way to give feedback on a book when you're feeling too lazy to do a review. When books have no reviews on Amazon, it's an immediate turn-off, so this will help get more recommendations.

YouTube realised back in 2009 that a 5-star rating system is useless for reasons outlined here, so I'm relieved Amazon has caught up. It's a lot easier to click 'like,' and people enjoy sharing their opinions.

Even more excitingly, once you've 'liked' a book, you can share this news on Facebook or Twitter. I've taken note of people showing off on LinkedIn about what Amazon books they've read, I think once this catches on then reading will feature more prominently in people's more popular social media profiles.

Here's where I saw the Like button for the first time, on my own dear mother's book 'Twilight, True Love and You' which is out in April.

I can't wait to see what effect this will have on book sales!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Twilight-True-Love-You-Finding/dp/1849531404/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296811055&sr=1-1

Get Writing 2011 and ebook fever

Last month I attended the one-day writing conference event organised by the Verulam Writer's Circle.

The main thing that struck me this year was the focus on ereaders.

Will they change the way people read?
Will they affect what is being published?
Will they change the way people write?

Here are the panels answers: ebooks will change everything. Short stories will sell better, as will episodically written books that are little more than strings of anecdotes. Paragraphs will get shorter. Writers have much more freedom of pursuing other routes to publication other than relying on the major publishing companies. Ebooks can be knocked up much more quickly than print (or p-books as they could end up being called), and the effects of this can already be seen, some established authors are publishing their novels in stages as they write - so we could end up with more books like the serialised novels of Dickens. Children's picture books are going down the pan at the moment but new formats with ebooks could help.

I'd like to add to this and say that especially in the case of the Kindle, reviews will become even more important. I always check the Amazon reviews of a book I'm thinking of buying if I have a computer handy, if I had a Kindle that would be the case for every new book I buy.

The consensus amongst the panel was that we've had a blip of ebook sales recently because of all the Christmas gadgets, (I got a Sony!) but we'll probably have a lull now. People may also end up reading more classics, as they fill up their ereader with Gutenberg freebies. This is so true, I'm reading War and Peace right now!

Ebooks account for 2% of book sales in the UK, and 10% in the US. I asked if publishers had any plans to really push ebook sales in the UK with a bit of advertising, surprise surprise they said 'nah, not really.' We know for a fact that ebook sales are on the rise - why not cash in on this? Publishers make more profit from ebooks, after all so you would think it makes sense.

I was shocked to hear that the definition of a heavy book buyer is someone who buys seven books a year. I'd say I buy around seventy books in a year, probably around twenty-five of them new.

Ghost Stories

Last night seven of us managed to organise ourselves into going to the theatre to see 'Ghost Stories' at the Duke of York theatre. I say 'theatre' but I wasn't sure exactly what to expect: a play? Some kind of lecture with stunts? All I know is, my patience is limited and with the majority of plays, I look forward to the interval and am comforted when it comes with the thought that the second half is shorter than the first.

This was 80 minutes with no interval so the spell they cast with the story, light and sound effects remained unbroken. And for me, the spell worked - I forgot all about the outside world. Highly recommended! Probably not for theatre snobs, but for anyone who enjoys X-Files type TV shows like me, it is a brilliant night out.

Tip - sit in the stalls

For some strange reason I had my rocket air blower (part of camera cleaning equipment) in my bag, and when I realised I was sitting behind a girl who not only believed in ghosts but believed she had had a supernatural experience, never before have I been so tempted to do a bad thing.

Fan-Made Book Trailers

This is a great example of what I mean:



The creator of this video is MissPhoenix, she's made lots of these trailers for her favourite books, and they're getting hundreds of thousands of views, compare that with the average of around 300 YouTube views for the videos on publishers' sites!

200k views for the trailer, NY times #1 bestseller

Tim Ferriss, author of 'The Four Hour Workweek' and now 'The Four Hour Body' is all over the internet right now. His second book was a bestseller before it was even published.

This guy is definitely on to something. I'm picking up all the tips I  can, which he has kindly shared on his blog though it takes some digging to find them. Here's the best I've found so far:

How Does a Bestseller Happen? A Case Study in Hitting #1 on the New York Times

His new book trailer has 238k views, putting it straight into the top ten most successful book trailers of all time.



What strikes me about this video is how professional it is, and how you can't tell at first that it's for a book at all, it looks more like a slick crime show. Then all the inspiring music and action it could be a new awe-inspiring Nike advert (Nike currently holds the record for achieving the most viral commercial EVER for Write the Future, withgetting on for 25 million views and 615k shares).

I'm going to follow his advice to the letter.

On traditional book advertising

Why adverts for books so rubbish? They are all the same, just a big picture of the front cover and maybe an author photo if they're a not too minging. Or a large author photo and a small front cover if they're a celebrity.

How is this going to sell books? Okay it will raise awareness for the existing fans, I have seen a couple of Tess Gerritsen adverts on the London Underground and I've thought 'oh cool.' I'm a big Tess Gerritsen fan but I still didn't rush out to buy it.

The people who create advertising agree with me: http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2006/09/book-advertising-hackiest-of-hack.html

This article is from 2006, but in light of what I learned at a UK media agency last week, it's still very relevant.

And with shrinking book sales, this has to change.

A Tale Dark and Grimm Book Trailer

Love this short, simple, intriguing book trailer. I instantly want this book!