Writers' Forum - June 2025
The month's important publishing news, helpful writing craft tips, and savvy book marketing and publishing advice curated for you!
Hello, Everyone!
June’s been an incredible month! I’m nearly finished with all the pre-publishing tasks for book 4 in my Circle of Nine series, but more importantly, my husband and I welcomed a second grandson to the family! Busy times here for sure. Add to that all the gardening chore and it’s been A LOT to manage.
Even so, I managed to bookmark a nice bundle of helpful and interesting articles this month. There’s more of a slant toward publishing news and marketing help with just a couple on writing craft his month.
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FEATURED ARTICLES:
Print Royalty Rate and Paperback Printing Cost Changes on KDP
Reese Witherspoon is Starting a Podcast for her Book Club
Are em dashes really a sign of AI writing?
Amazon Kills Hourly Ranking Updates
Typos In and On Published Books
How Indie Authors Are Doing in 2025: Mid-Year Survey Results
The NEA Has Turned Its Back on Books—Now What?
Print Royalty Rate and Paperback Printing Cost Changes on KDP
If you use the KDP dashboard, you’ve probably noticed the nice message at the top that warns of royalty rate and printing cost changes. Here’s the quick take: For print books priced at less than $9.99 the royalty rate is going to decrease on these from 60% to 50%. And the print cost change — surprise surprise — isn’t an increase. For color printing in some marketplaces there’ll be a reduction in costs. You can see the info in more detail here.
Reese Witherspoon is Starting a Podcast for her Book Club
I took notice when this Book Riot article popped up announcing a weekly podcast called Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club. It won’t be hosted by Witherspoon though. Danielle Robay will be the host. She’ll be joined by “celebrities, authors, and ‘tastemakers.’ Learn more here.
Grammar Girl Takes on the em-Dash AI Claim
As a user (probably an over user) of the em-dash, I was pleased to listen to this episode from the Grammar Girl as she takes on the false claim that AI writing can be identifieid by its use of the lovely em-dash. Listen here.
Amazon Kills Hourly Ranking Updates
Alrighty — this is BAD news. And it’s a little crazy that everyone has been scrambling to figure out what the heck is wrong over on Amazon when they’re running a big promo stack and they can see the sales or downloads and the ranking IS NOT moving AT ALL. Well, turns out, Amazon quietly made some changes. The Self-Publishing with Dale Podcast has the scoop.
Typos In and On Published Books
This is every author / publisher’s nightmare . . . Brook Warner details an egregious error on a recent release by a big 5 publishing house. On the spine of the book it should have read: Actress of a Certain Age — but the “r” was left out of certain. Yikes. This is a fun look at typos—yes, they happen—but we hate that they do. (Especially, if we were the on in charge of finding them.) Stay vigilant!
How Indie Authors Are Doing in 2025: Mid-Year Survey Results
Written Word Media has again checked in on “Author Sentiment” in this mid-year survey summarized by Harishini Fernando. There’s cautious optimism about the market overall. The marketing tactics area is interesting as is the comment section.
The NEA Has Turned Its Back on Books—Now What?
Although I think this headline gives a slant to what has really happened at the NEA, this is a good article by Daniel Yadin detailing the termination of NEA literary grants in this article for Publishers Weekly in the amount of $1.2 million that thad been promised to “51 independent presses and literary organizations.” Some of this was to cover projects that have already been completed, leaving these organizations with surprising shortfalls. Here in the Midwest, Milkweed Editions out of Minneapolis said that “its canceled $50,000 grant was set to underwrite the publication of seven titles.” Read more here.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE NEWS
Quick list here on AI articles of interest:
Google’s AI search features are killing traffic to publishers by Rebecca Bellan for TechCrunch
The AI Accusation Heard ‘Round BookTok: You Thought It Was AI, But It Was Just Strategy - by Mary Kole / Good Story Company
AI Policies for Libraries - Some Observations - by David Lee King
The Power of Connotation in Picture Books
Oh, this is fun! Word choice is so important and even more so in works that have lower word counts. Chelsea Tornetto unpacks the connotation of words as it relates to picture books in this article for Jane Friedman’s blog.
10 Ways to Embrace Critical Feedback About Your Writing
Receiving criticism is hard, but it’s a necessary part of the writing process. B.A. Durham for the Chicago Writers Association gives helpful tips on how to embrace criticism to make our writing better.
Writing Propaganda You Should Stop Believing
The subtitle of this article from Mary Kole is “Ten Lies Writers Believe When Publishing Feels Impossible.” You might laugh at some of these, but I guarantee you’ve heard them and you might even have used them yourself. I know I have. Read them here.
15 Ways to Protect Your Writing Time
It’s a struggle to protect that writing time, so I’m always looking for helpful hints to keep to a schedule. B.A. Durham suggests creating routines around your writing time, blocking it off on the ‘family’ schedule, finding the right place to write, knowing when you’re at your best to tackle writing, and more.
When to Let Go: Recognize the Point of Diminishing Returns in Revision
I’m thinking of the song from Frozen . . . Let it go, let it go. ha ha! But it’s true, we could revise forever, but at some point you’ve got to be done. Seth Harwood teaches us how to get out of the ‘revision trap’ in his article for Jane Friedman’s blog.
Social Media Infographics from Barb Drozdowich / Bakerview Consulting
Here are the smart social media infographics Barb offered us this month:
Indie Author Marketing on a Shoestring Budget
Kelly McDaniel gives great promotion ideas that don’t have to cost a bundle on the Written Word Media site. This is a great promotion/marketing basics checklist that covers in-person events, swag, newsletters and a ton of smart branding. Are you doing these things well?
My children’s book sales are down 28% - by Darcy Pattison
Darcy Pattison gives a transparent account of her book sales trends and dives into what she does to troubleshoot poor sales. I know a lot of authors are feeling this right now, and perhaps what Darcy’s learned can help you, too. The one thing she mentions that’s a growing worry is with AI replacing the regular Google search as noted in an article in this Forum, is it now time to start AI Optimization for Book Discovery? Probably! We’ll dive into that more in future Forums.
7 Ways to Repurpose Your Book’s Content to Earn Even More Money
Sandra Beckwith is a master PR strategist and this article helps you make the most of content you’ve already created. Many of these suggestions work best for nonfiction book content; however, with a little brainstorming I think you can come up with topics/themes in your fiction book that might make these work for you. Read it here.
Book Bundling Strategies You May Not Have Tried (Plus Examples)
I’m now at the jumping off point to create a boxed set of my ebooks with the first three in my Circle of Nine series, so I gravitated to this article. AJ YEE has some smart ideas here . . . while we’ve all probably thought of bundling books in a series, what about combining series? Or what about create a boxed set of the first books in multiple series? Or group together a collection of standalone books? Or collaborate with other authors? Check out all the examples here.
5 Mistakes Authors Make When Running eBook Promotions (and How to Fix Them)
Promo stacking is a common strategy to gain new readers, but it’s easy to make mistakes with these. Written Word Media helps us avoid some mistakes with this list but also encourages authors to go beyond ‘just’ booking the promo and actively promote the freebie or reduced price book to audiences via ads and newsletters, too.
How to Build a Book Marketing Stack Without Hiring Consultants (or Losing Your Mind)
Without making a statement about whether it’s ethical to use AI for marketing assistance, there’s a lot of things AI can do for authors quickly that support book marketing tasks. The Author Stack publication created A Practical Guide to Book Marketing in the Age of AI.
36 Authors Using Pinterest for Book Marketing & Inspiration
I love pinterest and have used to promote my books and author assistance for years. See how Pinterest might work for you in these examples compiled for the BookBub Partners Blog.
14 Creative Hooks That Drive More Ad Clicks — BookBub
If you’re interested in BookBub advertising, this article is a must read with 14 examples taken from successful BookBub ads . . . everything from showing the discounted price and including a review quote to pointing out new releases or popular tropes. You KNOW these, you’ve seen them at work, but it’s so nice to have them compile din one spot to use for your own book advertising.
6 types of Submission Comments BookBub Editors Love to See
So you know how there’s that spot for entering more information when you apply for a BookBub featured deal? Here’s the ‘stuff’ the BookBub editors want you to include there. Super hack—bookmark this article for use later.
Shelf Talkers 101: Catching the Eye of New Readers
You know those little (often handwritten) notes that sit in front of a book on a shelf at a store? Those are called shelf talkers. Usually, I see that they’ve been created by store staff explaining why they love the book. I never really thought about creating them as a part of my overall book marketing campaign. This article from Chanticleer Book Reviews gives great ideas for what to put on a shelf talker to make it useful for bookstores that carry your titles.
Thanks for reading to the end and I hope this information is helpful to your writing life and career!! Happy Writing!! - Valerie
So valuable!