“Write and Sell That Book!” workshop in Ubud, Bali Oct.1-6, 2010

photo courtesy of Flickr

This workshop will take place the week before the Annual Ubud Writers Festival – not to be missed.

The publishing world, in case you have not yet heard, has changed.

The time has never been better, riper, more promising for story tellers to get their tales out of their heads and into the hands of readers fast. And to make money doing so. The old publishing paradigm dinosaur is gone. Poof. Like that.

I for one say, “Thank God”.

The old way: Months and months to find an agent. Followed by more months seeking a publisher. Followed by 2 years (If you are one of the 1% chosen for publication) of line edits, book design, back and forth between editor and writer – all before ever (if ever) seeing your book in print. Followed by years of having to hit the road on your own dime to sell your own books from the trunk of your car, for a few dollars per book.

The publishing bottleneck that has developed over the past 20 years is enough to intimidate many authors from even getting started.

No more.  There is a new way.

Join us in Ubud, Bali at the “Write and Sell That Book!” workshop October 1-6, 2010 – one week before the Annual Ubud Writers Festival – and together we will learn how to use the new tools available to write our books, to promote and sell them.

Details : http://www.oneworldretreats.com/ubud_bali_yoga_retreat_robin_Joanna.php

And just in case you’re worried that all that new technological know how will give you a headache, relax. You won’t have to do anything but sit back soaking up the infamous Balinese atmosphere while Joanna Penn www.thecreativepenn shows you everything you need to know to take your place in what is rapidly developing into a new era for authors.

We’ll stay at the luxurious Kumara Sakti Resort www.oneworldretreats.com

The peaceful Kumara Sakti Resort

We’re keeping the class size small at 20 students – 5  reserved for locales.

In case you’re not convinced about the changes unfolding in the world of publishing, here are predictions for authors for 2010-2020 in an article by Jane Friedman.

http://blog.writersdigest.com/norules/2010/01/11/WhatDoesFutureHoldForWritersPredictionsFor20102020.aspx

Or you can just read my excerpts from the article below:

“Predictions are common as a new year begins–especially a new decade. And the publishing industry invites more speculation than ever, given the tremendous transformation underway.

The rise of the independent, as I expect more individual authors and small presses will be able to take advantage of the digital format to sell direct to the consumer, make a healthy living doing so and take advantage of the platform to provide more (and more unfiltered) coverage of a broader range of content, including niche and emerging topics. Just as apps have liberated bedroom coders, so too will the preponderance of ways to connect directly with readers, build a healthy fan base and enjoy higher profit margins doing so compel legions of aspiring authors to finally put pen (or is that stylus?) to (digital) paper and permanently blur the lines between amateurs and professionals. While they’ll still have a place in the industry, I suspect by that point, most agents will be, shall we say, a good less relevant than they’ve become accustomed to in the past.

—Scott Steinberg, DigitalTrends.com

Long-form text-only narrative will continue to thrive as it has since cavemen gathered around the fire, just as painting has thrived since Lascaux. The advent of more and richer iterations of multimodal entertainment and edification will not kill off others (either multi or single mode) in the future, just as they did not in the past, though they certainly will kill businesses with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement based on past success in a given mode.

—Richard Nash, publisher

Digital First/Print Maybe Deals Will Give Authors Leverage: Not only will traditional publishers enter into more ebook-first deals, but more digital publishing houses will emerge, across all genres. Because the latter will naturally start from a position of higher royalties, traditional publishers will have to up the ante as well. Right now, the trend is to decrease digital royalties, but when publishers ask authors to take new kinds of risks, publishers have to be willing to make it worthwhile for the author. Especially in a world where playing field is increasingly level.

—Kassia Krozser, Booksquare blogger

Trend: [Publishers] will continue to focus more resources on fewer titles, using their strengths as large-scale marketers and distributors to publish brand-names. Title count at the largest houses could drop by as much as fifty percent over the next five years. Counter trend: At the same time, self-publishing (including partnerships like the one announced recently between Author Solutions and Harlequin) will grow exponentially.

Trend: Title reduction will be most significant for new talent, with the largest houses entrusting support of new authors to a handful of editorial imprints. The editors at those imprints-editors with proven ability to choose new material successfully-will increase in value. Counter trend: Editors whose job is to handle existing talent will find their roles diminished.

Trend: As the initial sale becomes less of the focus for authors, the agent of the future will become more of a business manager who handles every aspect of an author’s career, overseeing the author’s online presence, developing sources of revenue outside of book sales such as workshops and lecture tours, and acting as the author’s publicist in between publications. Counter trend: Publishers will create free-standing departments whose services can be purchased a la carte by authors, whether that author is self-published or published by a competitor who doesn’t offer such services.
—Bob Miller, HarperStudio

Thanks to digital, there is no minimum length for a book anymore. Ebooks that are too short to be print books will become a real factor in ebook sales, opening up new opportunities for publishers but even more for authors. Short fiction is already well established in the romance genre and some major publishers have broken out stories from anthologies as separate items to be sold on Kindle. In 2010, authors and agents will discover that shorter-than-a-book works can be the subject of useful experimentation and learning through electronic publishing and, by the end of the year, it will become a frequently-employed device. Periodical media (newspapers and magazines) will also see this paid delivery mechanism as an alternative worth experimentation for them as well. After all, if a big publisher can unbundle a short story anthology to sell the individual stories as Kindle editons, why couldn’t The New Yorker sell the short fiction it publishes that way as well? This concept has been tipped by the announcement in 2009 than the web site Daily Beast will be delivering shorter books in a timely manner through electronic distribution.

—Mike Shatzkin, publishing futurist”

So ready to write your book and get it out into the world? Join us in Ubud, Bali the week before the Annual Ubud Writers Festival for all the tools you’ll need to get your book written, published and in the hands of as many readers as possible, fast, and actually earn money doing it.

Snag one of the 20 spots available asap and we’ll see you in Bali in October!

http://www.oneworldretreats.com/ubud_bali_yoga_retreat_robin_Joanna.php

Robin

Beautiful Bali