Penguin Group (USA), via its Book Country subsidiary, now offers a menu of services for writers planning to self-publish. For fees ranging from about $99 to about $549, plus a share of sales revenue, Book Country will convert files, create covers, and handle other tasks. Read more at  http://goo.gl/jWVun and at http://on.wsj.com/sKqzGn

Danielle Poiesz, Book Country’s Editorial Coordinator, offers tips to ensure manuscripts are ready for publication at http://bit.ly/vZYD7a

Best-selling author Barry Eisler spoke to Grub Street about his decision to self-publish and his thoughts on the future of the publishing industry. Listen to him at  http://vimeo.com/32204698

Literary agent Jessica Faust offers a succinct definition of women’s fiction at http://bit.ly/rDXBRG

At Writer Unboxed, Therese Walsh interviews agent Katie Shea, who’s new to the Donald Maass Literary Agency and is looking for women’s fiction. Shea, too, has a definition of  the genre. Read more at http://bit.ly/sp54SZ

 The Authors Guild isn’t a fan of Amazon’s new Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. The Guild is concerned authors won’t be fairly compensated and has reservations about publishers’ right to include titles in KOLL.  For more information, go to http://bit.ly/vNUMF9 

Writer Beware‘s Victoria Strauss tackled the same issue at  http://bit.ly/sKadLg

According to Mike Shatzkin of  The Shatzkin Files, some publishing houses effectively bolster authors’ own marketing efforts. Traditional publisher Macmillan, for example, is sending out emails to tens of thousands of readers and, more importantly, tracking click-through rates. E-book publisher Open Road Integrated Media prides itself on its marketing plans, reaction time, and analytics. Read more here. http://bit.ly/uHqt2D

Happy Thanksgiving!

The publishing industry is supposed to be on summer lull right now, but the blogs have been active as late summer conferences wind down, and Apple and Amazon launch salvos in the ebook access and pricing wars.

On Barbara Vey’s Beyond Her Book blog, guest blogger Maggie Mae Gallagher gives a rundown of reader-author event RomCon, recently held in Denver, CO. She was so impressed by the reader-focused interaction that she’s put the conference on her “must-go” schedule for next year.

Meanwhile, there is good news from the American Publishers and Book Industry Study Group, BookStats. As Publisher’s Weekly blogger Jim Melliot reported:

BookStats found that, contrary to widespread belief, the publishing industry grew in both 2009 and 2010, aided by $1.6 billion in sales from e-books. Total estimated revenue for all publishers rose 3.1% in 2010, to $27.9 billion, following a 2.5% increase in 2009.

As digital news outlet C-Net reported, reader access to ebooks on the iPad and other Apple devices took a small blow when Apple decided to disallow “buy” links from ebook reader apps such as Kindle and B&N’s Nook. However, Apple may have to rethink its strategy as Amazon responded with its new Kindle Cloud Reader web app that uses HTML5 to create a web app, more technical details from Wired here. Apple will also have to respond to a lawsuit accusing Apple and other “agency model” publishers of illegal ebook price fixing.

Also this month the discussion continued about literary agents offering additional services, namely ebook publishing, to their clients. The Knight Agency was named in this blog entry from the Shatzkin Files as one full service model to keep your eye on.

Jane Friedman interviews author Amy Stolls about how book marketing has changed in the past five years, and how Amy is marketing her novel, The Ninth Wife. And BookEnds literary agent, Jessica Faust, offers the advice to author-entrepreneurs to, “Give it five years.”

Stay cool, everyone. And happy writing!

In the bad news/good news department, Writer’s Digest contributing editor Jane Friedman won’t add new content to There Are No Rules, the writing blog she launched in 2008 on WD’s website. (The blog’s contents will be archived at WD and at JaneFriedman.com.) Happily, Friedman has unveiled Being Human at Electric Speed, her new writer-centric blog.  There, she advises writers to use more than one social-media route—and explains why.  See http://janefriedman.com/2011/07/27/build-diversity-online-presence/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JaneFriedman+%28Jane+Friedman%29

At Romance University, editor Theresa Stevens offers ten tips to help with final edits before you submit a full manuscript.  Find them at http://romanceuniversity.org/2011/07/22/ask-an-editor-by-theresa-stevens/

I’d never read WF-RWA member Amy Sue Nathan’s women’s fiction blog until she introduced herself and it to the chapter. Now I’m hooked on Amy’s posts and those of her guest authors. You’ll find them at http://womensfictionwriters.wordpress.com/

Cindi Myers continues her reports on the RWA 2011 Publisher Spotlights with an overview of the Spotlight on Bethany House at http://cindimyersmarketnews.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/spotlight-on-bethany-books-and-more/  WF-RWA members who write inspirationals will be happy to learn Bethany publishes women’s fiction.

At The Shatzin Files, Mike Shatzin opines on Apple’s decision to sell ebooks for the iPhone and iPad through its own bookstore rather than via apps for Kobo, Nook, and, presumably, for other ereaders.  Go to http://www.idealog.com/blog/publishing-is-living-in-a-world-not-of-its-own-making

Publishing-industry blogs had quieted due to the midsummer heatwave and Borders’ demise, and then, on July 25, agent Jessica Faust of Bookends LLC blogged about her agency’s plan to set up a separate epublishing arm. See http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2011/07/bookends-strategy-for-self-epublishing.html  Last I checked, Faust’s post had triggered 161 comments and a number of blog posts from writers and others. Why did Faust’s blog entry generate heat when other agents, Scott Waxman, for example, had already ventured into epubbing? Waxman, after all, launched Diversion Books, see http://www.diversionbooks.com/ back in 2009. In addition, while Dystel Goderich Literary Management didn’t launch an epubbing arm, it announced in June at http://www.dystel.com/2011/06/announcement/  that it would “facilitate” epubbing for clients who decide they want to go that route. My take is that Faust’s long-time blog and agent-next-door persona gave aspiring writers a high comfort level. While she meant to be transparent in her July 25th post, readers, some of whom who may not have known of other agents-turned-publishers, didn’t hesitate to scold their agent-next-door for a perceived conflict of interest. Now, Bookends is revisiting some of its policies. In the meantime, reactions to the Bookends announcement came from historical romance writer Courtney Milan at http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2011/07/26/an-open-letter-to-agents/ and from The Passive Voice at  http://www.thepassivevoice.com/07/2011/agents-in-conflict-with-clients-issues-and-responses/ Both Milan and the writer of The Passive Voice are lawyers by training, and it’s worthwhile to scroll through their subsequent entries on the subject. Back in May, Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware noted that the trend of literary agencies morphing into publishers was accelerating and emphasized that those agencies must put policies in place that “build a wall” to address confict-of-interest issues. Find her post at http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2011/05/literary-agencies-as-publishers.html

I hope you have no conflicts of interest this coming week. Happy writing!

Jane Friedman, editor at Writers Digest and blogger at “There Are No Rules” delivered the keynote at the Writers League of Texas’ Agents’ Conference earlier this month and said writers “have more power and control than ever before.” Find excerpts from Friedman’s speech at “TechChi.”

At The Shatzin Files, Mike Shatzin discusses the connection between the prices of ebooks and ranking on sales lists.

Do backlist ebooks sell to the detriment of new ebooks? Literary agent Kristin Nelson voices an opinion.

Authors whose publishers are loathe to relinquish rights to out-of-print books get good news and bad from “The Passive Voice.”

At his “Guide toLiterary Agents,” Chuck Sambuchino posted a new agent alert for Meredith Barnes, an associate agent at Lowenstein Associates. Barnes, you’ll be happy to know, is looking for women’s fiction. (Her name’s familiar from FinePrint Literary Management.)

Agent Jessica Faust of Bookends LLC offers Ten Myths about Agents on Jennifer Wilkov’s “Your Book Is Your Hook” blog.

Jessica Faust talks about labels, chick lit and women’s fiction on Gabriela Lessa’s blog.

If you ever read (or start to read) a book filled with clichés and bad writing, and you can’t understand why it’s on the bestseller lists, then this article titled “Why we love bad writing” is for you.

A new Canadian agent, Carly Watters, at P.S. Literary Agency, is currently acquiring International Literary and Commercial fiction, Women’s fiction, Chick lit, Sagas, Literary Thrillers, crossover YA novels, Memoir and up-market nonfiction.

Amazon announced that the third-generation Kindle is now the bestselling product of all time on Amazon Worldwide, “surpassing Harry Potter 7.” As a result of the popularity of e-readers, classics novels are enjoying a renaissance “because they can be downloaded for free onto electronic readers.”

Perhaps another result is that book publishers see their role as gatekeeper shrink, with writers such as Joe Konrath leading the wave of authors who are selling their own books through online retailers.

“In addition to Konrath, bestselling author Seth Godin, science fiction writer Greg Bear and action novelist David Morrell recently have used Internet tools to put their works online themselves. Earlier this year, suspense master Stephen King, Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho and Stephen Covey, the author of bestselling self-help books, self-published some of their works exclusively on Amazon’s Kindle bookstore.”

And this brings us to a Writer Unboxed post by Jane Friedman on the how bad it really is in the publishing industry. After you read it, be sure to scroll down and read Bob Mayer’s comment.

Russ Grandinetti, the head of content for Amazon.com’s Kindle business, talks about Amazon’s plans for its rapidly growing Kindle business.

Smashwords founder Mark Stoker has some interesting predictions for publishing in 2011. Dean Wesley Smith gives his opinion on Stoker’s predictions.

Mike Shatzkin, Founder & CEO of The Idea Logical Company, talks about selling the backlist and finding the next battleground.

“Remember those ebook catalogs I suggested might be a good idea? Why not start by putting one with an entry for every title by an author into every ebook by that author? That’s a pretty obvious opportunity. I’ll make my last publishing prediction of 2010: anybody not doing this by the end of 2011 will be seen as “behind.” (It might be that any agent not already suggesting this, if not insisting on it, is behind now.)”

Here’s advice on getting Google eBooks to notice your book, though if you’re technically challenged like me it might be confusing.

If you’re interested in the results of a survey of U.S. literary agents on the subject of e-book royalties, you’ll want to read this.

Happy New Year!

We’re having our first agent guest blogger this Monday, the fabulous Jennifer Schober from Spencerhill Associates. She’s written a great blog and she’s taking questions. Be sure to stop off and comment.

Agent Jessica Faust from Bookends posted her New and Updated Publishing Dictionary. She says it’s an “ever-popular post.”

Agent Donald Maass wrote a blog about The Elements of Awe on Writer Unboxed that every writer should read. He used information from a New York Times article on a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. The study shows which NY Times articles are most emailed to friends and family, and end up going viral. Maass brilliantly links the results to writing.

“Their conclusions have some relevance for fiction writers because they reveal what it is about stories that probably generate word of mouth. This month and next I’m going to discuss these elements and show how you can apply them in your novels.”

If you can bear reading one more article about e-book pricing, the Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book might be the one.

J.A. Konrath has only good things to say about e-books. His blog title says it all: “JA Konrath Kindle Sales: 30k Ebooks in 11 months.”

“I’m currently selling $1.99 ebooks at the rate of 170 per day. That means I’m earning around $120 per day just sitting on my butt. If this trend continues as-is, I’ll earn $43,800 this year on previously published short stories and novels that NY print publishing rejected.”

E-books aren’t the only unconventional alternative writers are taking. John Edgar Wideman, a two-time winner of the Faulker Award for fiction, is publishing his next book through Lulu. Briefs, Stories for the Palm of the Mind, are available now.

“I’ve been thinking about alternatives for a long time,” said Wideman, whose works of fiction and non-fiction include the award-winning Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire and Fanon. “Lulu seems to represent a very live possibility as the publishing industry mutates. I like the idea of being in charge. I have more control over what happens to my book. And I have more control over whom I reach.”

This study on The Short-Term Influence of Free Digital Versions of Books on Print Sales shows that for the most part giving free digital books increases sales. The only ones that didn’t work was Tor, and they concluded it could have been because of Tor’s distribution.

“Two of these books (titles 32 and 41) both had releases of paperback editions that preceded the free book by only a few weeks. Thus for the majority of the ‘pre’ weeks, a paperback version was not available. These newly released paperback versions could easily explain why the “pre” sales of these titles were less than the “post” sales.”

E-pubs are in the news again. Agent Nat Sobel challenges publishers to hold back e-reprints for six months. He compares e-books to DVDs and hardcover books to newly released movies. He feels that “the future of hardcover publishing is at stake.”

Random House is claiming e-rights on backlist books. I hope no one reading this will have to fight for their rights.

Agent Holly Root talks to Romance University about negotiating publishing contracts.

Agent Jessica Faust at Bookends talks about negotiating your advance.

If you’re looking for a publisher instead of an agent and you weren’t at the Spotlight on Kensington at National in July, you can read an excellent summary at Cindi Myers Market News Blog.

Hurrah for the Chicago Tribune! They posted their favorite fiction list of 2009, and 9 out of the 15 authors are women. Love to see numbers like that.

In Jennifer Crusie’s 10 Tips for writers, tip Number One is Get a support group. The RWA-WF group agrees.

In an interview at 1st Turning Point, Dorchester Editor Leah Hultenschmidt says, “Authors who have a strong network of contacts in the romance and bookselling community definitely have a leg up when submitting. The more friends you have to help spread the word, the wider your potential audience.”

This is one reason our WF chapter is so valuable. By the support we give each other and the genre, we’re affirming that there’s a market for women’s fiction.

Steve Jobs: 7 Lessons from a Marketing Genius by Carmine Gallo is a great blog on marketing any product. Books are a product! One of the 7 lessons is creating a “Twitter-friendly headline.” According to Gallo, when Jobs “introduced the MacBook Air in January, 2008, he said that it is simply, ‘The world’s thinnest notebook.’” Simple and powerful!

Looking for an agent? Writer’s Digest has a list of 24 Agents Who Want Your Work. 11 of the 24 are looking for women’s fiction.

Anyone thinking of querying a BookEnds agent should wait until the end of January. Jessica Faust and Kim Lionetti are taking a query break. On her blog, Jessica says says she stopped taking queries in the beginning of October. Since she began her hiatus, “there’s at least an extra hour in every day to work with my clients, get my office organized or even, on those rare evenings, put my feet up and read something I don’t have to. More then that though, it’s been a really nice mental break for me.”

If You Build It, They Won’t Come: A Guide to Author Websites is a GREAT article on websites. It gives percentages of what readers want in a website. And on how a website helps sell books. Did you know “Book shoppers who had visited an author website in the past week bought 38% more books, from a wider range of retailers, than those who had not visited an author site”? Neither did I, until I read the article.

Librarians visit websites, too, according to Susan Gibberman, Head of Reader Services, Schaumburg Township District Library and RWA’s 2008 Librarian of the Year. In her Romance University blog, she gives the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly about querying librarians.

She adds that library patrons can request books from librarians. I’ve done that with The Lost Recipe of Happiness by Barbara O’Neal (aka Barbara Samuel) and The Last Will of Moira Leahy by Therese Walsh. In both cases, I brought the book to the library and actually put it in the acquisitions librarian’s hands so she could read the first pages for herself.

More links this week. A few from agents should interest all writers.  First up, Jessica Faust at the Bookends blog talks about Fixing a Stalled Career.

Kristin Nelson at Pub Rants has many great blogs on the writing business, but I restrained myself and linked to only two. One on e-book percentages. Another is An Argument For The Midlist.

Bravo! to NY Times bestselling writer Lynn Viehl. Lynn posted the link to her royalty statement for Twilight Fall, and shared “some thoughts on how the book performed in the eleven months since the initial release.”

No Bravo for this announcement about the closing of approximately 200 Waldenbooks stores. According to CEO Ron Marshall, Borders Group is “right-sizing.”

Another “non-Bravo” link is a blog about the omission of women writers on the Publishers Weekly Top 10 Book List. All the more important to have a group like RWA-WF.

That leads me to a Romance University blog by our group’s founder, Therese Walsh, on Romance University. She answers the question: Is it Romance or Romantic Women’s Fiction?

For WF writers looking for agents, there is hope! At AgentQuery, 328 agents list Women’s Fiction as one of their genres of interest. QueryTracker lists 295.

Harlequin launched Carina Press, a digital-only pub. You can read more here. This is lifted from their submission guidelines: “We expect to publish a majority of romance and erotic romance but are also very interested in women’s fiction, science fiction, fantasy, futuristic, mystery, thrillers, horror, and niches. If you have something new and fresh we would be happy to read your story!”

I’m ending with a link to the video of a 2007 interview of Wise Woman Barbara Samuel at the Women’s Fiction Festival. Enjoy!

Women’s Fiction is in the news — and the blogs. First up, a link to an article from our Wise Woman, Barbara Samuel, that was posted on Likes Books in 2000. Nine years later, everything she says still holds true.

More recently, agent Jim McCarthy from Dystel & Goderich Literary Management blogged about the importance of voice for romance and women’s fiction.

Halfway down this Oxygen blog, which summarizes the panel on genre fiction from The Surrey International Writers’ Conference, is a question from an audience member about women’s fiction, with a great answer by Donald Maass.

Pimp My Novel has a great blog about Women’s Fiction, with links to blogs on the subject by agent Jessica Faust and author Jennifer Weiner.

If you want to go straight to Jessica Faust’s blog on The Future of Women’s Fiction, here’s the link.

Of interest to all writers is JA Konrath’s blog where he shows and tells his e-royalty figures.

I thought it would be fun to throw in this job position description posted on MediaBistro:

Finally, Penguin Group seeks a Senior Editor/Executive Editor for the New American Library. Here’s more about the job: “This position will work primarily with best-selling womens fiction and non-fiction authors. Offering a wide selection of commercial fiction and non-fiction, NAL aims at reaching the largest number of possible readers, the true mass market.”

Last, enjoy this video from Barbara Vey’s Beyond Her Book PW’s blog on Women’s Fiction last June.

If you have news about women’s fiction, please email me at edieramer.