Linkity-link

I am swamped with writery tasks so today's post is some juicy links to keep you up-to-date and well informed and more....

Check out this post on "which rights you should sell" from the How Publishing Really Works Blog. This is good advice. Rights are only worth retaining if you think you can do better with them yourself. Realistically I think very few authors have the time or experience to go sell foreign rights themselves and especially here in New Zealand we have few agents who can take on this job for you. Different publishers here do have different records for overseas sales but we don't always/often/ever get to choose who publishes us so this information won't necessarily help you much. My current thinking on overseas sales is, a failure to sell in foreign markets comes down to five things. 1) They don't want your book because its cheaper and easier to stick with their local stuff. 2) They don't want your book because no one has showed it to them. 3) They don't want your book because they are risk averse. 4) They don't want your book because its not good enough. 5) The moons weren't correctly aligned, and the god/goddess of luck is in a bad mood. I liked what Walker Books Australia Editor Sarah Foster said recently on the subject, 'Overseas sales come from getting published and having sales in your home country first.' Work on getting published here. Work on establishing your brand and your reputation. There are no guarantees that this will give you overseas deals but it won't hurt. Some writery folk do skip this step and go straight to overseas deals with no local action at all. Lady Luck was in a good mood that day. If this doesn't happen to you then perservere with getting published and establishing yourself in the local market. If you do give your publisher foreign rights do, of course, make sure your rates for those foreign rights are within the norms (check out the NZSA, your writer mates and relevant blogs) but don't agonise over it folks.

Loved this link (via facebook from UK writer Tracy Ann Baines who can be found at her blog here) on the Biggest Problem in Publishing. Problems in publishing are a ginormous can of ugly-ass worms so to say there is only one biggest problem is a little presumptious but I do think this is a smart comment. What do y'all think?

Along with the exciting new Pear Jam publishing venture from author Jill Marshall there is another new kid on the block in local publishing. If speculative fiction is your thing go check this out!

And go check out the redoubtable Lily Max here, the splendiferous creation of the wonderful Jane Bloomfield. AND she has printables on the website!