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May 01, 2015

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Losing an Anchor Client: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Marijke Vroomen Durning, ASJA

It's a mantra that experienced entrepreneurs pass on to newbies: "Market, market, and market some more, no matter how busy you are. You never know when you'll need more work." But advice is only helpful if you take it and while I said the same thing to others, I didn’t do it myself.

I had a strong anchor client for five years; the work made up 75 percent of my income. It's easy to become complacent if you have a good client. You may put out feelers here and there, send out a few LOIs, or answer a few writing job postings, but regular marketing techniques of following up, networking, and actively digging for work prospects don’t seem quite so vital. And one morning, the anchor client disappears. With one phone call, that monthly check was gone. All the warnings of "keep marketing" ricocheted in my brain.

So what to do?

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How to Craft Characters Scene by Scene
Writer's Digest
Dimensional characters are born from drama — not description. Here's why (and how) to delve into your characterizations one defining scene at a time.

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Now, Writing is for Extroverts Too
The Rumpus
Elizabeth Andre, who authors lesbian erotic romance, science fiction and young adult stories, writes: When my wife proposed writing a novel together last year, I was initially resistant but not for the most obvious reasons. I wasn’t worried about our ability to work together. I wasn’t even worried about whether we could actually produce a good novel. We had decades of writing experience between us, mostly as reporters for small and mid-sized newspapers around the world. We had a wall full of awards saying we knew how to write.

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Google and Facebook are our frenemy. Beware.
Columbia Journalism Review
Google, Facebook, Twitter and any other social platform you care to name would at one time have gone to the corporate stake to defend the idea that they are not publishers or actively engaged in acts of journalism. Things are changing rapidly. Google, eight major publishers across Europe, and a couple of trade organizations are forming a partnership with the declared aim of supporting high quality journalism.

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Is Agency Ebook Pricing Suppressing Sales? Hard to Say
Digital Book World
The latest monthly data from the Association of American Publishers, for January 2015, show e-book sales in slump. Comprising just 20 percent of trade sales, digital formats clocked in at $100.3 million, down more than 10 percent to what Publishers Lunch notes is the lowest monthly sales figure since April 2012, when the AAP reported digital sales at $99.5 million.

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Georgia Webber on Dumb, Self-Publishing and Cartoonist Communities
Paste Magazine
In 2012, Georgia Webber couldn't use her voice for more than a few minutes a day. Searching for a viable mode of communication, Webber turned to comics, leading to the creation of Dumb — a self-published series that follows Webber’s journey as she navigates life without a voice. Webber is poised to release three new issues at this year's TCAF (Toronto Comics Art Festival).

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What's So Great About Young Writers?
The New York Times
Robin Black, author of the novel "Life Drawing" writes: I have an interest in the nurturing of "late blooming" writers. I have long grumbled about the conflation of the words "young" and "emerging," and particularly about the many prizes set aside for writers in their early careers below whatever cutoff has been picked, usually 35 or 40.

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