Here, as promised is the second part of this month’s update. Apart from the writing events, there are ideas for submitting to a new reading software, information on publishing with different types of companies, and webinars you can watch after the fact at a reduced price. Thanks for reading!

The Mark Twain House is holding its annual Writers Weekend virtually again this year from July 9-11. The weekend will feature a variety of author talks, writing workshops, panel discussions, and keynote addresses. Admission to the entire weekend is $100 and includes all workshops, panels, and author talks by Jennifer Finney Boylan (Good Boy: My life in Seven Dogs), Matthew Salesses (Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear), and Dr. François Clemmons (Officer Clemmons: a memoir). Register here.

Caitlin Jans, poet and co-founder of one of my favorite websites, AuthorsPublish, began an annual event, the Poetry Marathon, several years ago. The idea is to write 24 poems in 24 hours or 12 poems in 12 hours. This year’s event takes place from 9am ET on Saturday, June 26 to 9am on Sunday, June 27. Every hour you must write and post a poem on the site. Optional prompts will be posted on the official website, every hour on the hour. You can choose to follow these prompts or ignore them. Register between June 1-19. Winners will be published in the 2021 Poetry Marathon anthology.

If you ever need to convert a PDF file into a Word document, or an image file into a PDF, there’s a way to do it without buying the premium version of Adobe. Nicholas Rossis had a great blog for writers, and this post will tell you about a free converter from Tool Rocket. They offer tutorials too.

And here’s an article on how to email your book to your Kindle. This can be particularly useful if you’re sending your book to Beta readers or reviewers.

Something a little less inspiring, but probably important for writers to know: How much do authors make per book? Author Sarah Nicolas has interviewed writers to answer this question and the article is published on Book Riot a weekly blog about books, authors, and writing. But don’t despair…

Erica Verillo, author and publisher of the blog Publishing…and Other Forms of Insanity, recently provided a list of 350 paying markets for short stories, poetry and nonfiction. Her blog is worth following for all kinds of useful tips and information.

If you’re trying to determine which publishing path is for you, you will find Jane Friedman‘s presentation: Key Book Publishing Paths, for the Princeton Public Library worth watching. The event happened on April 30, but you can still watch the replay. You’ll need to sign up for Crowdcast, but they only require an email, no password. The presentation is around 30 minutes.

Crazy Maple Studios are a California-based company that publishes books via apps for smartphone and other platforms, and they’re looking for content. Currently, they offer an app called Chapters which is designed to bring fictional stories to life in a game format by blending animation, music, sound effects, and a unique style of gameplay that offers players and readers an immersive interactive experience. This struck me as being aimed at younger readers with its graphic and sound elements. They also have a romance app, Kiss, aimed at the romance market. You can submit to either of these. Novels here are serialized, with users buying tokens that enable them to read a certain number of pages. Ir readers like your book, they’ll pay to read more of it. Check the site for more details.

Free Expressions was founded in 1995 by renowned editor/writer/instructor Lorin Oberweger. The company’s primary goal is to support new and experienced writers with professional literary services that include editing, story development, ghostwriting, and select book packaging projects with award-winning designers and illustrators. They also produce national seminars and workshops for both fiction and nonfiction. You can watch past webinars for $19 each. Topics include Advanced Character Arc, and Emotional Tipping Points with literary agent Donald Maass, and Unstuck in the Middle, with Lorin Oberweger. Maass is a highly respected literary agent, in addition to an experienced teacher of novel-writing in particular.

Hope you’ve found something you can use here. Until next month – keep writing!