Saturday Scoop: The "Fall Celebrations!" Edition
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Saturday Scoop: The "Fall Celebrations!" Edition
The most noteworthy publishing news for the week.
Hey there! The Saturday Scoop is a roundup of publishing news that I found noteworthy over the course of this week, with some added but minimal commentary.
I’m also rounding up what has been going on in my newsletter this week. Did you know I don’t send everything out to my email list? Make sure you peruse the links to see what you might have missed!
It is officially FALL WEATHER here in St. Louis and I’m pretty much the happiest person ever in my long sleeves. Okay, I’m still wearing shorts and skirts that land above the knee, so “fall weather” is a stretch. The truth is that it’s no longer a sauna in St. Louis, and that is something worth celebrating.
So I’m just going to pretend that leaves are falling and I’m in a hoodie and it’s cold enough for a hot mug of tea, thank you very much. By the time these things are actually true, it’ll be about a month until winter. I always feel like fall is not long enough!
Fall means back-to-school, of course. I haven’t cared much about that for the last fifteen years, but now I have a school-aged child! My child started at a new school this week, and also spent most of the week sick, so I’m incredibly sleep-deprived and quite behind on some of the work I meant to get done this week!
Still, I managed to release the second edition of my book, Get Your Book Selling on Your Website (which originally released in 2021). It’s so good. The new release boasts four new chapters and several other updates. You can currently get the ebook on my website here:
https://theworldneedsyourpassion.com/product/gybs-on-your-website-digital-edition/
It’ll be on all the platforms in all the formats at a later date that I haven’t figured out yet, but I’ll let you know.
And yes, I made not one but TWO fall background pictures with this ebook. I am not playing about fall. Thank you, Book Brush, for making this celebration of fall possible.
One last thing: You get this book as a bonus when you book a consult call with me before the end of September! Happy fall! And to be clear the call doesn’t have to happen in September (my calendar is so full right now) but it just has to be booked by September 30th.
The next second edition to drop will be Get Your Book Selling on Amazon, which comes out on September 13th. How is that three days away already?
I’ve also been blogging and sharing some behind-the-scenes of my business (and general take on creativity) over on Ream this week through my new publication, The Passion Papers. You can start reading here:
Are you on Ream yet? Give me a holler (and a Follow) over there if you are!
The Saturday Scoop
Amazon Becomes the First Major Retailer to Ask for AI Disclosure. The company writes, “When you publish a new title or make edits to and re-publish an existing title through KDP, you will be asked whether your content is AI-generated.” I’ll be writing a longer post about this for next week, as this is still a developing story. A few threads that are weaving their way in:
Amazon defines and distinguishes AI-generated content from AI-assisted content. Amazon reps have further confirmed that these definitions apply to covers, interior images, and text. Read the definitions here »
There is currently no public-facing marker added to your books if you check that the book was AI-generated, indicating that at the current time, this disclosure is for internal processes.
Authors Guild inserts themselves into the conversation. Authors Guild has come under tremendous fire for both their harsh stance on AI usage and their efforts to promote AI through training and webinars (the most recent of which received so much backlash that they were forced to cancel it). They are now implying that their conversations with Amazon are a significant force behind Amazon’s new disclosure policy.
More likely, Amazon has added disclosure to its Terms of Service to handle the copyright issues and infringement claims that arise, now and in the future. As a reminder, Amazon is one of the leading AI companies in the world and is bringing multiple AI-generated tools to all its products, including its products for vendors.
Findaway Voices is looking for discounted books for a merchandising opportunity. Take a look and see if you have anything that fits!
Our new book, Get Your Book Selling Direct to Readers, is coming to Kickstarter on November 6th! Because the size of our campaigns has gotten much larger, this will happen on the new and dedicated Writer MBA account (blessed by Kickstarter). That means that you will not be alerted about the campaign unless you Follow it, so make sure you click through and hit the Follow button here »
Get Free Coaching on Your Direct Sales Efforts! (With the Help of Author Ecosystems) - We will be doing one webinar this month—this one about how the Author Ecosystems can apply to direct sales! This one will be interesting because it will *mostly* be live coaching attendees. If you'd like to be live coached by us on how to use your Author Ecosystem archetype to forge your own direct sales path, make sure you sign up! (You can also sign up just for the replay.) Register here » https://writermba.com/aedirect/
Geniuslinks, an affiliate and link localizer company similar to Books2Read and the Author Helper (formerly ReaderLinks), now allows you to turn off your affiliate codes if you are using those links in your email newsletter or book backmatter. This helps you stay in compliance with various retailers’ Terms of Service agreements. The announcement went out to users via email this week!
Some Data On Substack's Network Effects - This week, I shared some data on how my Substack is doing and who is subscribing, now that it has surpassed 200 subscribers and 100 posts.
What Surprised Us Most About Book Brush’s New Hourly Concepts Done-For-You Service - We spoke to Kathleen Sweeney of Book Brush last week about their newish service, Hourly Concepts, and she gave us a demo of the service live on the webinar! This service is ideal for authors who want affordable help with Kickstarter campaigns, book swag, A+ content, TikTok videos, advertising images and copy, interior page design (for print special editions), and more. Russell and I are now going to be booking for our next Kickstarter campaign, which neither of us wanted to do the graphics for…But really, we are also trying to figure out how much more we want to send to the service. Graphics are exhausting (for me at least) and the service is so affordable!
Watch the replay: https://writermba.com/bookbrush/
Listen to the replay: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2013629/13513850
Learn About Book Brush: https://bookbrush.com/
Book a Call With Kathleen: https://writermba.com/hourlyconcepts (limited spots!)
Hourly Concepts Portfolio: https://bookbrush.com/hourly-concepts-portfolio/
Hourly Concepts Menu Prices: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QDje3701FiiIdfiQB3i-dj6Pkym5d9GH/view
Looking to Chat In-Person About Industry News Like This? You Should Come to the Future of Publishing Mastermind!
We’ve recently updated the Future of Publishing Mastermind website to include an incomplete list of speakers and attendees so you can see who else is coming.
Join us for the Future of Publishing Mastermind February 26th-29th at the gorgeous Hilton Riverside and hang out with speakers, vendors, sponsors, attendees, and us! We are headed to New Orleans next year with some of the best and brightest minds in publishing.
Please note: this is a private, premium event with many successful authors attending.
You can now see some of the people who are attending the event—we’ll share more announcements about who is coming soon.
You can learn more about the exclusive mastermind here and you can apply to be one of the attendees here. Tickets are more than 60% sold out!
If you’ve heard anything interesting in the publishing world this week, make sure you share it in the comments!