|
| |
Log of the weekly changes on the site on 2003
This week's changes 2001
2002 2003
2004 2005
2006 2007
2008 2009
22 December 2003
 | In Bob
Ritchie's Journal
he ruminates on novels he's read this year: 'Realise I’m going
through a bad patch with novels. No longer sure why I read them. Way
past the age when still believed they could change my life.' |
| News Review looks at
authors' agencies as big businesses: 'The agent community contains
its share of predators and eccentrics, but most agents work hard and do
a professional job for their clients.' |
| We've updated our Review of Ann
Hoffman's Research for Writers 'The seventh edition confirms the
supremacy of Research for Writers. It is an excellent tool for all
writers who need to research in any field.' |
| Benjamin Disraeli in dismissive mode in our
Writers' Quotes: 'Books are
fatal: they are the curse of the human race... The greatest
misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.' |
| 'The Big Read … was a revolting act of patronage from our most
powerful medium... There's no harm done to books. We can all pick up any
book we like, the next minute, without thinking of The Big Read. But
harm has been done - to the standing of the BBC.’ David Sexton in
the Evening Standard, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Season's greetings and best wishes for 2004 to all our visitors.
|
15 December 2003
|
My Say is a new feature launched this
week which gives writers the chance to air their own views on a subject
of interest to other writers. Send us your contributions! The
first My Say is from Lynda Finn on the plight of New Zealand writers. |
| This week News Review looks at
bestsellers and Big Reads: 'the Big Read has had a terrific effect on
sales and reading, with many readers rediscovering the classics and scores
of new reading groups being formed.' |
| The bizarre 2003 Diagram Prize
has been awarded. Will it be 227 Secrets Your Snake Wants
You To Know or Hot Topics in Urology? |
| 'We have this marvellous language, and we are so lucky it gives us a
huge audience. If we were writing in high Norwegian we'd have mostly
reindeer for readers.' Shirley Hazard at the National Book Awards on
literature versus commerce quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Lynne Truss's Eats Shoots and Leaves,
reviewed last week, has now soared to
number one in the UK bestseller lists and has over half a million copies
in print. Not bad for a book on punctuation! |
| Gore Vidal on writing in our
Writers' Quotes: 'Some writers take to drink, others take to
audiences.' |
8 December 2003
| Our reviewer said of
Lynne Truss's surprise bestseller, Eats Shoots and Leaves: The
Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation: 'Obsessive, entertaining,
passionate, this book is a delight and a must-read for anyone interested
in the future – and the past - of the language.' |
| This week in Bob's Journal
he laments the fact that everyone thinks they can write: 'In my
experience the entire population is divided into two camps: those who
have just written something, and those who would write something if only
they could get around to it.' |
| In our Comment column Tobias Hill on the difference between writing
poems and short stories, and novels: 'with a novel you need to get down
to it and have a place where you can do it, with piles of books around you
for research.' |
| We've produced a recommended
Writers' Reference Shelf. Check
it out to see if you agree and to see whether you've got all the books
you need. |
| This week News Review
investigates open access, which is beginning to look as if it
will transform online journal publishing. |
| See our WritersBookstall for a host
of good ideas of what you'd like for Christmas - or treat yourself.
Amazon are offering free delivery on orders over £25 in the UK and free
super saver shipping in the US.. |
| And finally, A N Wilson in waspish mood in our
Writers' Quotes: 'I’m not
saying all publishers have to be literary, but some interest in books
would help.’ |
1 December 2003
| The shortlist for the
Bookseller's 2003 Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year is announced
to an incredulous world. So will it be 227 Secrets Your Snake
Wants You To Know or Hot Topics in Urology, or even
The Voodoo Revenge Book: An Anger Management Program You can Really Stick
With? |
| The Invisible Web, part one
in a new series, Quality v Quantity, investigates the vast number
of pages on the web which are 'invisible' to you. |
| This week News Review
investigates Amazon's mega-deal with the British Library, which
will give it the right to use the Library’s massive bibliographic
catalogue, which contains 2.55 million books. |
| Our new Accessibility statement
shows how we have designed the site for users with
disabilities in accordance with the ISO guidelines. |
| Writers' Forum editor, John Jenkins', new
column tackles punctuation and
blacklisting - and much more. |
| Comment quotes Victoria
Barnsley, CEO of HarperCollins UK:We are
creating a whole new generation of book buyers who see books as very
cheap.' |
| In these highly political times, it's still true that: 'No
regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.'
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The First Circle, in our
Writers Quotes. |
| The December Magazine is ready! |
24 November 2003
| This week in his Journal
Bob is 'quietly
confident. Crisis of major story change behind me. Feel sure nothing can
go wrong now.' But it was to prove only the calm before the storm... |
| Our Comment column we quote A C
Grayling's views on what makes the novel different:: 'A novel is all
present at once, and can be gone over and back, re-entered, skimmed,
sampled or devoured, just as required...' |
| We've carried out a major update of our
Links section, with
over 30 new links to recommended sites. |
| News Review looks at the
book famine in our schools and how children are failing to develop the
reading habit. |
| 'All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hour,
and the books of all time.' John Ruskin's thoughts in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| Starting to think about Christmas? Why not browse
through our WritersBookstall to make sure
you can tell everyone what you'd really like? |
17 November 2003
| Our big launch this week is
our newly updated agents' listings,
bringing you hundreds of
detailed listings of UK and US agents, together with UK literary scouts
and bursaries.
Easily accessible and searchable, the listings provide detailed
information on what kinds of books the agencies deal with, the agents
who work there and how to submit to them. |
|
'Without me the literary industry would not exist:
the publishers, the agents, the sub-agents, the sub-sub agents... all this
vast and proliferating edifice is because of this small,
patronised, put-down and underpaid person.'
Read Doris Lessing's wonderful writers'
manifesto in full in our Writers'
Quotes. |
| A brand-new feature this week is our
Problem page. Now you can write in to WritersServices
about your problems with getting published - and share the answer with
other writers. |
| This week News
Review looks at how authors are using the web in innovative ways to
help them get published and to publicise their work. |
| 'I think there is something much deeper at work: a snobbish
distaste for popular writing full stop.' Isobel Woolf on attitudes
to chick-lit in our Comment
column. |
10 November 2003
| Bob writes in in his
latest Journal entry on
shooting his EastEnders script and offers more ruminations on the
Big Read. 'It occurs to me that spelling, in its comforting
certainty and its preoccupation with competitive accumulation...
is something that appeals to the childish mind.' |
| ‘Perhaps one reason the publishing industry is enjoying only slow
growth is that we do not listen closely enough to the market, because we
read too far apart from the mainstream of the market…' Jeff Zaleski
in Publishers Weekly, quoted in our Comment column. |
| News Review looks at the
media frenzy surrounding Paul Burrell's book and contrasts it with
the censorship of Hilary Clinton's Living History by the Chinese. |
| ‘Writers and politicians are natural rivals.
Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for
the same territory.' Salman Rushdie in our Writers' Quotes. |
| Have you looked at our
self-publishing service,
WritersPrintShop? We offer a full
service to support you in publishing your own work at a reasonable cost. |
3 November 2003
| This week News Review looks
at the Big Read - trashy TV or reinstating great books? 'The
Big Read has given books new prominence and coverage in the media.
A surge in their sales has taken several backlist titles into the
bestseller lists.' |
| John Jenkins' latest column
from Writers Forum magazine on the idea of removing prices
from books and one self-publisher's route to success. |
| Our latest poster takes a
cynical look at Teamwork. |
| 'Publishing is a business and therefore what is wanted is books
that will sell. The difference between the commercial writer and
others is the former writes for a readership and others often just
for themselves.' Agent Andrew Lownie, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| ‘The only reason for being a professional writer is
that you just can't help it.' is Leo Rosten's view in our
Writers' quotes. |
| The November Magazine is here! |
27 October 2003
| Bob's Journal offers his
scathing but witty thoughts on the BBC's Big Read:
'After Catch-22 no one should have any problem understanding war,
capitalism, religion, famine, violence, greed, inequality, the
worthlessness of fast food, the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger or the
awful state of Saturday night television.' |
| News Review looks at the
latest news: Amazon’s new 'Search inside the Book' feature opens up a
vision of their future as a giant electronic archive and eventually a
repository of books awaiting POD orders. |
| In our latest
software review Muse names is described as 'Fun to
install, fun to use and fun to discover those new slants on familiar and
new names.' |
| Check out the 2003 Ig
Nobel prizes, including the Psychology winner for a study of
Politicians' Uniquely Simple Personalities and the Medicine
winner for presenting evidence that the brains of London taxi
drivers are more highly developed than those of their fellow citizens.
|
| In our Comment column: 'I
love taking the prosaic and making it extraordinary. Writers don’t get
enough credit for that…' Julie Myerson, author of Something Might
Happen. |
| ‘Writing is not like painting where you add. It is
not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more
like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work
visible.' Elie Wiesel in our
Writers' Quotes |
20 October 2003
| Check out our review of
How to Market Books. Chris Holifield says:
'the book as a whole is highly recommended for all self-publishers,
authors and marketeers in publishing, or anyone who wants to develop
their book promotion skills.' |
| In our Comment
column Bookshops have never been this good at selling books.
Not in living memory has the public profile of books been this high.'
David
Blow in Publishing News' |
| Our WritersPrintShop for
self-publishers has new guidelines on what to put on
your end pages. |
| ‘A writer’s ambition should be to trade 100
contemporary readers for 10 readers in 10 years’ time and for one in 100
years’ is Arthur Koestler's view in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| This week's
News Review looks at the how second-hand books have taken off: 'Abebooks
is a book collector’s dream – access to 45 million titles which can be
tracked down and purchased instantly and easily.' |
13 October 2003
| Carole Blake discusses the issues of
dealing with rejection in the
latest extract from her book
From Pitch to Publication. |
| News Review The Frankfurt Book Fair, just drawing to a close,
is still the biggest international book fair by some considerable
margin, but there are signs that its pre-eminence is being challenged by
smaller fairs. |
| "At the best of moments I feel as if I draw, like the storytelling
parents do, on ancient energies" Children’s writer David Almond in The Times.
Comment column. |
| 'It’s a common tactic on such occasions to leave a tiny loophole
through which a character can if necessary crawl back into the limelight.'
Bob muses on the return of
'Dirty Den' in his
Journal of a Virtually Unpublished Writer. |
| We 'list the lists' of
competitions for new writers. But read the small print before you
part with an 'entry fee'. |
| We have just overhauled the 15,000+ links on the site. If you want
to explore the world beyond WritersServices
check out the links - But please come back! |
| If you want to be considered a poet, you will have to show mastery of
the petrarchan
sonnet form or the sestina. Your musical efforts must begin with
well-formed fugues. There is no substitute for craft... Art begins with
craft, and there is no art until craft has been mastered.'
Anthony Burgess in our
Writers Quotations |
6 October 2003
| News Review In an
interesting coda to last week’s story on the progress being made by
e-books, some sudden changes of personnel and policy have followed on
from a switch in ownership at a key e-book operation. |
| Reflections on poetry for National Poetry Day - '...a lot of
poetry's not getting any coverage because a lot is being skewed towards
these intellectually minded male poets..'. Neil Astley, MD of Bloodaxe in Publishing News
Comment column. |
| John Jenkins' monthly column from
Writers' Forum magazine |
| The October magazine is ready.
Including some posters in a
print-friendly format. The
experts don't always get it right. |
| ‘Literature nowadays is a trade… the successful man of letters is
your skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets.’
George Gissing, writing in New Grub Street in 1895 in our
Writers Quotations |
29 September 2003
| Bob contemplate the derivation
of the 'Life of Pi'. "Yann Martel may be able to name his hero after
the French for swimming pool and get away with it." See where this leads you!
Journal of a Virtually Unpublished Writer |
| News Review examines the evidence that Ebooks is growing. In the first half of 2003 alone, ebook sales revenues are up by
30% and unit sales up 40%, which compares well with an annual growth
rate of 5% in traditional publishing. |
| 'A lot of modern fiction tends to be "slice of life" stuff in
which a story has no apparent ending to it. The reader reaches the end
and says "Huh?" ' Elizabeth George in Publishing News in our Comment column. |
| 'It's a delicious thing to write. To be no longer
yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating.' Gustave Flaubert in our
Writers Quotations |
| Competition The last
week to win a free report. It's open to writers around the globe -
All you need is access to email. |
22 September 2003
| Our latest new service is
Manuscript typing, which will
get your handwritten manuscripts, messy typescripts or audio tapes into
good shape for reworking, submission or publication. |
| News Review looks at a
startling Man Booker shortlist, book awards and bestsellers: 'A
giant killers’ year in the Man Booker. Three first novels and only one
big name left’ is what John Carey, chair of the judges, had
to say. |
| 'The most important thing for a writer is to have read absolutely
everything you can get your hands on at an early age' Kate Atkinson in
the Guardian in our Comment column. |
| If all the recent publicity about hackers getting into computers has
made you nervous about protecting your work, check out our revised page
on Your own privacy policy.
|
|
‘No one can do without some semblance of
immortality, and even less will they deny themselves the right to seek
it out in the form of this or that reputation, starting with the
literary… Since death has come to be accepted by all as the absolute
end, everyone writes.’ Romanian
philosopher Emil Cioran in our
Writers Quotations |
|
Our WritersPrintShop is
attracting many writers who want to publish their own work and retain
control using cost-effective Print
on Demand. Have you checked out our service yet?
|
15 September 2003
|
Bob confronts us with a new
dilemma. 'For the first time in my life I
realise I am actually earning from writing just about enough to live on.
Can I consider myself a professional writer yet? Well, yes, at long last,
I think I can.' How can we go on calling his diary the Journal of a
Virtually Unpublished Writer? Read the latest exciting
entry! |
| News Review is in reflective
mode this week: 'writers may come from the most unexpected places and
achieve their goal through all sorts of different means, self-publishing
being one of them. Determination is the key.' |
| The latest addition to our do-it-yourself series Computing on the
Cheap is part 3,
Cleaning your computer. |
| 'At the keyboard I find myself trapped in a labyrinth of facts, each
sentence with its own nugget of information.' Scientist Steve Jones,
author of The Descent of Man, in our
Comment column, quoted in the Guardian on how scientists
approach their writing. |
| Don't forget to check out our WritersForum
discussion group for a lively debate on agents and other
subjects of interest to writers. |
|
‘The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,/Moves on: nor all thy Piety not Wit/Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,/Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.'
From The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in our
Writers' Quotations.
|
8 September 2003
| A handy new service for writers with old typescripts!
Check out Scanning in our
Services
section. We can put old material onto disk and email it to you,
so you can work on it on your computer, to prepare for submission or
publication. |
| Franklin Delano Roosevelt from the perspective of 1942: ‘We all
know that books burn - yet we have the greater knowledge that books
cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and
no force can abolish memory... In this war, we know, books are weapons.'
In our Writers Quotes |
| Check out John Johnson's column
from the September issue of
Writers' Forum for news from the writers' world and a summary of why
writers take up writing, |
| News Review looks at
success for generic book promotion - Australia's Books Alive
campaign stimulated an increase in total book sales during the period of
23%. |
| Film director Alan Parker, soon to publish his first novel,
contrasts the film and book worlds in the Bookseller:
‘Publishing is an infinitely more civilised world with infinitely more
gracious people than the film industry'. In our
Comment column. |
| Check out our September Magazine. |
1 September 2003
18 August 2003
| Bob gets back to normal - rewriting EastEnders scripts
and ruminating that: 'punctuation marks are the roundabouts on
the route through the road network of our words'. In his
Journal. |
| News Review opts for
the silly season, looking at a study on the links between books and
personality, and reflecting on books and friendship. |
| We've been on holiday and so have you! Our Services have been
run off their feet by writers sending us their manuscripts. Now's
the time to explore all 1100 pages of the site, read up on
Inside Publishing and use our
Advice for Writers to get
your manuscript ready for
submission. |
| 'This is a country in which, if you are old, you become
invisible.' Francis King, just longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
for his novel The Nick of Time, on the fate of older writers,
quoted in our Comment column. |
|
‘A word is not a crystal, transparent and
unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in
color and content according to the circumstances in which it is used.’
Oliver Wendell Holmes in our
Writers' Quotes. |
4 August 2003
| Why do we have so many and strangely named
book sizes? In the
WritersPrintShop. |
| The relentless pace at which publishing houses are bought and
sold on the international scene has slowed recently, as anti-monopoly
rulings are brought to bear on proposed acquisitions discussed in
our News Review |
| Real life drama - So Bob's diary arrived late and you
might have missed it. Read on.. |
| '.....every time we were beginning to form up in teams, we would
be re-organised.' Another poster
to print. |
| 'Writers need fantasies' writes Sarah Dunant in The Times in our
Comment column. |
| ‘Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none is undeservedly
remembered.’ W H Auden in our
Writers Quotations. |
28 July 2003
| Our new Proof-reading
service is launched this week, joining our 12 other editorial and
publishing services for writers.
It's especially recommended for self-publishers planning to use
WritersPrintShop. |
| Amazon has continued to surge ahead with sales growth backed by
new initiatives - but the stock is still hugely overvalued. See
News Review |
| Flat on his back, Bob is rushed to hospital. 'When I told her one of the
things I did was write for EastEnders, it was as if she’d suddenly
discovered royalty.' Read on.. |
| ‘A new brand of literature has arisen to feed the
20-something guys’ need to read…' The Toronto Star in our
Comment column. |
| ‘Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and
an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master,
then it becomes a tyrant...' Winston Churchill on writing in our
Writers Quotations. |
21 July 2003
| This week we have an excerpt from Neil Bromage
How I became a highly-paid writer:
'What I always try to
ensure is that my ideas have "legs", that they are not going to be
static, one-off ideas that go no further than the first magazine I
approach.' |
| For the second year running the 'African Booker', the Caine
prize for African writing has gone to an Kenyan writer, Yvonne
Adhiambo Owuor. See
News Review |
| Check out the Editor's column from
Writers'
Forum magazine and a free offer. |
| 'You can read a book as and when you like...any book which
truly lives, lives beyond its author and reaches readers not yet
present, entirely unforeseen.’ David Sexton in the London
Evening Standard in our Comment
column. |
| In WritersPrintShop there's a new page on
Preparing your own artwork and text, which gives you
guidelines for doing it yourself. |
| ‘A book is so much a part of oneself that in delivering it
to the public one feels as if one were pushing one’s own child out
into the traffic.’ Quentin Bell in our
Writers Quotations. |
| And we've added several new pages to our
Education
Resource Centre for students and course organisers to bring it
up to date with all the new material on the site. |
14 July 2003
| Bob's
Journal: The BIG DAY has arrived and he is off to Elstree
Studio to watch the filming of his EastEnders script...... |
| If you want to check out e-books, this could be a good time to give
them a try. Microsoft have a free offer to attract users for their
reader but there are alternatives.
News review |
| 'The great thing about fiction-writing is that you are licensed to
lie.' Victoria Glendinning in the Guardian
|
| ‘What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.’
Samuel Johnson |
7 July 2003
| 'Finding the words' - a report from
the 23rd Annual Writers' Conference in Winchester, UK, includes Beryl
Bainbridge's encouragement to writers: ‘finding the words can often
mean finding ourselves’. |
| The latest excerpt
from Carole Blake's From Pitch to
Publication tells you how to get editorial criticism:
'If we were to prepare editorial reports for the
manuscripts we have to reject every day, we would, quite simply, never
have time to work for the clients we do actually represent.' |
| ‘Things don’t change as much as we
grow into what we’ve always been. As bad as the lives we’ve had, we
wouldn’t be the people we are today without them' is James Lee Burke's
Comment on the writer's life. |
| Our new Book Review is for
Raymond Frensham's
Screenwriting: 'if you think you’d like to try your hand at
screenwriting and are not sure what’s involved, this is probably the
best book to start with.' |
| News Review on how
'heavy discounting has pushed down the average selling price of books
sold in the UK General Retail Market from £7.51 in 2001 to £7.33 in
2002.' |
| ‘Soundbite and
slogan, strapline and headline, at every turn we meet hyperbole.
The soaring inflation of the English language is more urgently in need
of control than the economic variety.' Trevor Nunn's view In our
Quotations. |
| The July Magazine is ready. |
30 June 2003
| Bob's latest diary entry:
'How do I let the reader know who my hero is if he gets no more
air-time than anyone else?... He may not be the hero of this novel, but
he could be the star of the next…' |
| News Review reports
on how 'the aftershock of the fastest-selling
book in history is running through the book trade worldwide.' |
| In WritersPrintShop, our self-publishing service for writers, a new
page fills you in on
readability scores. Check out the Fog Index and the Flesch
Reading Ease Score to find out how your work measures up. |
| ‘Why did I become a writer? I can’t
really come up with any antecedent for it. I’m certainly not from the
classic unhappy childhood.' Graham Swift
quoted in our Comment
column. |
| ‘Every novel is an
attempt to capture time, to weave something solid out of air. The
author knows it is an impossible task - that is why he keeps on trying.' David Beaty in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
23 June 2003
| The latest article in our Inside Publishing
series focuses on Direct selling
and how it affects the author. |
| 'The original writer is the one who creates a new genre instead
of repeating the last.' Margaret Drabble in the
Independent on Sunday quoted in our
|
| Are you out of
print? WritersPrintshop now offers an inexpensive way of reprinting your own book - or any other
title you may want to get back into print. |
| News Review reports
on a conundrum: why can't fiction writers get published when 125,390
titles were published in the UK in 2002, an increase of 5% on the
previous year? |
| ‘No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone
else's draft.' H G Wells in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
| Please note that our server is being updated during the week of
21-28 June and we regret that you may experience short interruptions
to services. |
16 June 2003
| Bob reflects on how much he has learnt: from working on
EastEnders 'Six months ago I would
have cut the arm off anyone who had the temerity to suggest a single
change.' In his Journal. |
| ‘The funny thing is that the more you say no to Hollywood the
more it wants you.' Harlan Coben
on Hollywood in our
Comment column.
|
| Find out about everything you ever wanted to know about
Looking after your mouse
in our latest new Web How-to
page. |
| News Review reports
on the biggest book of the year. ' By publication there will be 13
million copies of ‘Harry 5’ in print', but could sales be slowing? |
| Our revised page on picture
technologies is now bang-up-to-date. Find out why images take up
prodigious amounts of digital space on the web. |
| New Writer magazine has just announced its 2003 Poetry
and Prose prizes - see
their
listing in our Links section. |
| ‘Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know
men. 'Confucius
in our Writers' Quotations. |
9 June 2003
| If you're working on a non-fiction book, our new
software
review looks at Indexing
Software, showing you how the various packages can help. |
| 'It seems to me a reader should expect a novel to take her
outside the tight circle of her own knowledge and concerns.' Hilary
Mantel's enlightening views in our Comment
column.
|
| We've extended our Links section with reviews of 15 more wonderful
poetry
sites. |
| News Review reports
on Amazon, E-books and Saga: Amazon has produced 'some amazing
behind-the scene achievements too, not least a stock-turn of 20 times
a year'. |
| Thinking about
self-publishing? We've
added a page on choosing your publication date. |
| ‘The attributes you need to be a
travel writer are somewhat contradictory. For travel you need to be
tough and resilient and to write you must be sensitive and sympathetic.’
Colin Hebron in the Independent on Sunday in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
2 June 2003
| Bob's
Journal: Bob's latest diary entry on EastEnders:
'Late afternoon Laura emails to say Louise wants us to completely rework
at least two of the main stories in my episode.' |
|
'A gap has emerged in the market for enterprising independents
that do not have to trade basic bookshop efficiency for institutional
shareholder satisfaction.' David Blow writing in Publishing
News. In our Comment column.
|
| Our new Competition: answer the three questions correctly to
go into the draw for copies of
The Writer's Handbook Guide to Crime
Writing. |
| Our new Review this month
is for The Writer's Handbook Guide to Crime Writing:
'This may be a slim book but it’s packed with detail.
Every aspiring crime writer should have a copy close at hand.' |
| In News Review Bowker figures show US title output
increasing by 5.86% to a whopping 150,00 new titles and editions in 2002. |
| In our June extract from
From Pitch to Publication
you'll find Carole's extremely useful checklist of the
things you should be looking for when choosing an agent, 'Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted'. |
| ‘Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by
anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real
truth about his or her love affairs.' Rebecca West in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
26 May 2003
| What is PEN?
Find out about the international writers' organisation that
fights for freedom of expression all over the world. |
| By special arrangement with Writers' Forum magazine,
WritersServices will feature
the editor's monthly
column. Hot off the press, John Jenkins' column from the June
issue. |
| In News
Review the purchase of BertelsmannSpringer by buyout specialists
Candover and Cinven has brought about another seismic shift in the
rapidly-changing world of scientific and academic publishing. |
| Also reprinted from Writers' Forum magazine,
Chris Holifield's article
about the history of WritersServices. In our
Media Centre. |
| 'A writer's problem does not
change... It is always how to write truly and having found what is
true, to project it is such a way that it becomes a part of the
experience of the person who reads it.'
Ernest Hemingway in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
| ‘My job is to write as honestly as I know how, whether it’s
fiction or non-fiction' is the view of bestselling writer Stephen
King. In our Comment
column. |
| English PEN are running an International Writers' Day in London
on 7 June. Find out more and book for this mini-festival at
www.englishpen.org/events. |
| You can still sign
up for our weekly newsletter. |
19 May 2003
| Inside Publishing 11 looks at
the topical subject of book clubs and
mail order: 'You can’t altogether blame the bookshops for
resenting the idea that the big new book of the season is being widely
‘sold’ for 25p or 25 cents'. |
| Bob makes progress with EastEnders scripts:
'She’s much less brutal with this one – because it’s much better, why
else?' In his Journal. |
| The Big Read finds the best-loved books: 'James Joyce
vies with Jeffrey Archer, Lord of the Flies with Lord of the Rings...
but how can books fail to benefit from this huge publicity
bonanza? In News Review. |
| ‘To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write
and read comes by nature.' William Shakespeare
in our Writers'
Quotations. |
| The Annual Writers Conference in Winchester at the end of June is
Britain's biggest. Make your booking now. |
| In updating our Web How-to, there are new pages on
looking after your keyboard and
useful keystrokes. |
| 'Even after writing 29 novels, I hate the loneliness, the doubt.'
Bestselling novelist Wilbur Smith on being a writer. In our
Comment column. |
12 May 2003
| In a major revamp of our WritersBookstall,
we've just added 60 more titles, so now you can find over 200 specially
selected books for writers, categorised so it's easy to track down
what you want. |
| We've just added a new page to
Preparing an Index in WritersPrintShop, showing how to
Make an
Index using Word®. |
| The little guys see off the big battalions. Overlook
Press acquires Duckworth. Perseus looks likely to buy Time Warner
Books. In
News Review. |
| ‘All fiction is for me a kind of
magic and trickery - a confidence trick, trying to make people believe
something is true that isn't.' In our
Writers'
Quotations. |
| The third article in Computing on the
Cheap takes you Inside the box. |
| Visit the WritersShowcase
to find the
work of five new writers! |
|
'It has turned out that I now
make about as good a living as a New York dermatologist' The
American writer Philip Roth on how the writer hones his trade and the
financial outcome .
In
Comment. |
5 May 2003
28 April 2003
| Free offer (for those with a UK
postal address) - Request
a copy of Writers' Forum |
| News Review
Writers take an experimental turn. |
| ‘Writers seldom write the things they think. They simply write
the things they think other folks think they think.’ Ethan Hubbard in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
| Does writing about your pains help heal them? 'There is an idea current in the prevailing culture that writing about
something that pains you heals the pain.' Nuala O’Faolain in the Guardian
In Comment. |
| Book review - 'Inside
Book Publishing'. "The very last section considers career paths
in publishing and will be extremely useful for anyone contemplating
working in publishing or trying to figure out how to get into it." |
| In
WritersPrintShop the 'new' ISBN
is previewed and there are some new
book sizes available. |
21 April 2003
| Bob's
Journal - The 'Ups' and 'Downs' of a writer's life. Bob sees
himself in print again but has to cope with the comments on his script. |
| News Review UK library borrowing habits is good news for writers. A boost of £2 million in the funding for Public Lending Right has given 1500
more British authors the first chance to share in the payment made for library loans.
|
| ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece
of exceptionally fine writing, obey it ... and delete it before sending
your manuscript to the press.' Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
| Looking for a Unique Selling Point? "Here is how it works. The lodestar of publishing a successful book is
publicity..." Terence
Blacker in the Independent on Sunday. In Comment.
|
| A picture story of how
WritersPrintShop prints books on demand. |
| The next in the
Computing on the Cheap series -
Lifting the lid. |
| We have added PayPal to the
ways you can pay for services. |
14 April 2003
| Having difficulty with some aspect of
WritersPrintShop?
We've just added a new section of frequently
asked questions to guide you through our self-publishing design, production and distribution service. |
| News
Review reports on UK book sales: 'Total chain book sales are up 17% and supermarket book sales are up a
whopping 32% over the last four years, accompanied, not surprisingly, by a 26%
decline in sales through independents.' |
| Check out our new index of
Advice
for Writers to track down what's on the site. New this week,
lists of manual and electronic
Proofreader's
marks. |
| ‘There are two ways of speaking an audience will always like;
one is to tell them what they don't understand; and the other is to tell
them what they're used to.' George Eliot in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
| 'American readers have realised that we’re
living in more serious times and people want more nourishment from books.'
Nan Talese,Senior VP of Doubleday, quoted in the Observer.
See
Comment. |
| Spyware, the latest addition
to Web Issues, shows how
cookies can provide advertisers with information about you and
what you can do to stop them. |
7 April 2003
| In our illuminating April extract,
Carole
Blake on how agents sell:
'the job description of an agent must be a mix
of nanny and brothel keeper: kind, supportive and protective (to the
writer) and procurer and exploiter (when luring the editor to the
novel).'
|
| Bob's
Journal - Bob gets taken to task for what he's written in his
column for the site: "And what about all these horrible things
you’ve been saying about script editors?" |
| In
a brilliant exposition of how to write for children, Jacqueline Wilson
says: 'I always write in the
first person from the child’s point of view. I always have flashes of
humour, and I always try to resolve situations in a positive way.' See
Comment. |
| Bowling for Columbine battles it out with
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The recently announced results of the
Alties, the first-ever online alternative movie awards. |
| We've updated our Links section
again, adding nearly 30 new links to some superb sites. |
| News
Review reports on Thomas Dunne Books' takeover of Bertelsmann:
"The
books are all well and good, and we are thrilled to own Random, Transworld, und
so weiter." |
| Our new poster contains classic views from
Writers
on Writing. |
| ‘Writing is a cop-out. An excuse to live perpetually in
fantasy land, where you can create, direct and watch the products of
your own head.' Monica Dickens in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
| Our April Magazine is
ready! |
31 March 2003
| This week we have the first in a new series by Charles Jones called
Computing on the Cheap, which shows you
how to turn an old computer into a usable machine for your writing. |
| The tenth article in Inside
Publishing looks at the unglamorous but important subject of
Distribution. Find
out how your book gets to the bookshop! |
| In the Comment
column, do you think that
'a lot of male writers are terrified of being honest about the way
they see women'? That's the view of Tim Lott, author of The
Love Secrets of Don Juan.
|
| Check out Advice for
Writers for links to over 60 pages of useful information on the
site. |
| News
Review reports on the Oxford English Dictionary and its
latest addition of the word 'Muggle', quickly adopted for
everyday use from the Harry Potter books. |
| ‘A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as
one deed.' Henrik Ibsen
in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
24 March 2003
| Will you still love me tomorrow? This session on PR at the London Book Fair agreed that
'Authors need to know what book PR is really like' |
| Bob's
Journal Bob considers violence from within and censorship -
and dreams of George Bush: 'Unless I start writing the American way
I must go into exile or ‘face the consequences’. |
| News
Review reports on good news from London and bad news from the
US. The London Book Fair is now the second most important international rights fair after
Frankfurt. International delegates leapt by 20% to nearly
5,000 people. But in the US book purchasing is down. |
| The Comment
column has Grisham on writing: '
I spend several hours every day just wreaking havoc with American
literature.' |
| WritersServices gets more media coverage
in Publishing News. In our Media
Centre. |
| ‘An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation,
the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterwards.' F Scott Fitzgerald
in our Writers'
Quotations. |
17 March 2003
| Writers learn
from PEN star authors A special report - in three
packed sessions at the London Book Fair, the PEN/Daily Mail
Masterclasses provided superb coaching for aspiring writers... |
| News
Review reports on The Society of Authors publishers'
survey: Authors’ levels of satisfaction with their publishers have fallen over
the past six years but 70% of the authors would recommend their
publishers to other authors. |
| Our WritersBookstall is now linked to
Amazon.com, as well as Amazon.co.uk, to make it easier to order your
books. But if you're not in either the UK or the US,
check
out our findings on which is the quickest and cheapest site
for you to use. |
| The Comment
column has an elegant description of how reading becomes writing: 'Each of us inhabits a private world that others
cannot see, and it is with this world we read.' John McGahern in the Guardian Review
|
| We've just added a site map to help you
work your way around our 1,000 plus pages. Now you can
see what you've been missing! |
| ‘Writing a book is an adventure; it begins as an amusement, then
it becomes a mistress, then a master, and finally a tyrant.' Winston Churchill
in our Writers'
Quotations. |
10 March 2003
| Bob's Journal: Bob ruminates on spelling and why we're
obsessed with it: 'Deep down – speller or
non-speller – everyone has a sneaking suspicion that good spelling
is at best the sign of a dullard, at worst the obsession of people
with serious personality defects.' |
| News
Review reports on a writers' conference and contest planned in
connection with BookExpo America. 'It is good news for writers that the book trade is
beginning to take more notice of the originators of the raw material on which
their business is based.' |
| Want to tell us what you think? Our new
Feedback
page gives you the chance to send us your comments on the site.
|
| The Comment
column: ' It is something else to treat as a loss leader the
fastest-selling product line in living memory' David Blow of Publishing
News on Pottermania and booksellers' battle for market share. |
| Last chance to get to the PEN Creative
Masterclasses tutored by top writers at the London Book Fair
on Sunday 16th March. |
| ‘Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can.
That is the only secret of style.' Matthew Arnold in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
3 March 2003
| In our March extract from Carole Blake's From
Pitch to Publication, see what Carole has to say about
What
an agent does. 'Blaming
agents for raising fees is like accusing mosquitoes of bloodlust. It's
their livelihood.' |
| News
Review reports on a new transatlantic publishing venture. Organic
growth worked for Headline in the UK, so why not try it in the US? |
| The number of visitors to the site continues to grow at great
speed! We've just passed 17,000 a week. Time spent
on the site has increased for the 12th week in a row to nearly three and
a half minutes and we're achieving 51,000 page views a week. |
| The Comment
column: 'Military history is ultimately about what men will
put above life itself; what they will kill for and what they will die for.
That is its special power.’ John Sexton. |
| Our poster collection continues with
The
Printer's Devil. |
| ‘The really terrifying thing is that writing poetry is not something
people necessarily get better at. There is no guarantee that they
will exceed their early promise.' British poet Jacob Polley in our
Writers'
Quotations. |
| The March magazine is ready! |
24 February 2003
| This week - Bob's
Journal: Bob is still at work on his crime novel -
But there are struggles with his computer and Microsoft's ideas of grammar - And
time to muse on the sponsorship of fictional characters.
The latest
entry. |
| International Book Fairs 2003
listing has been added |
| News
Review has a heart warming story of success for every
struggling writer. |
| The Comment
column strikes an optimistic note about literary fiction. |
| ‘A book is the only place in which you can examine a
fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea
without fear it will go off in your face… It is one of the few havens
remaining where a man’s mind can get both provocation and privacy.’
Edward P Morgan in our
Writers' Quotations. |
| The technical glossary has been
updated. |
17 February 2003
| Using
the web as a research tool is the latest addition to our Web How-to
pages, with useful guidance on researching online and many
handy links. |
| Don't miss out if you can get to London! PEN Creative
Masterclasses tutored by top writers at the London Book Fair
on Sunday 16th March. |
| Our newsletter gets more
subscribers every week. Why not try it out? You can
unsubscribe whenever you want, but hardly anyone has. |
| News
Review reports on more corporate reshuffles. Hodder Headline,
planning to set up in the US, will need all their famous commercial nous to
break into the tough American market. |
| Our new three-level Search pages give
you instant access to each section of the site, to all 1,000 plus pages
of the WritersServices site and to the whole world wide web, using Google. |
| 'If you are going to make a book end badly, it
must end badly from the beginning.' Robert
Louis Stevenson in a letter to J M Barrie in our
Writers' Quotations. |
| Please help us build our
WritersBookstall
by recommending your own
favourite writers' books |
| In our
Comment
column: 'I am very explicit, but it’s still the emotions that are
the real turn-on.’ Maureen Lee on writing erotic fiction.
|
10 February 2003
| Just launched this week to go with our other new services,
Scriptwriting
Assessment and Manuscript
Polishing. Our new set of
Children's
Editorial Services, includes a Reader's Report, Editor's
Report and Copy editing. |
| In the latest excerpt
from his Journal, Bob turns
back to his crime novel - 'First
murder has been committed; body has been discovered; enter the
police,' but is then overcome by sudden computer
death syndrome. |
| News
Review looks at the changes in children's publishing due to the
Harry Potter effect. The series has now sold a breathtaking 192 million copies
worldwide. |
| 'If something can go wrong, it will.' We've
added a poster featuring
Murphy's Law to our collection. The
Master Plan is even funnier. |
| If you've been struggling to send your
manuscript, our new page on Sending
by post - how to send manuscripts without using email gives you the
low-tech answer. |
| 'Unprovided with original
learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of
composition, I resolved to write a book.' Edward Gibbon
in our
Writers' Quotations. |
| The results of our
Mousebean competition are announced just as we start running our second
competition
in association with
newnovelist
writers' software. |
| In our
Comment
column: 'the
great bonus of taking the reader out of his or her small world is that they
can consider the huge questions, like love and loss, betrayal and loyalty,
success and failure, friendship and death.’ Rose Tremain on historical
fiction. |
3 February 2003
| Are you writing scripts, screenplays or plays? Our
new Scriptwriting Assessment
service may be just what you need, offering the services
of a skilled
professional with particular expertise in assessing and editing writing for
performance. |
| This month's review is
for Writer's Blocks
software, which our reviewer said was 'an
excellent tool for organising plot lines. It will also appeal
to those assembling any work of non-fiction which requires
meticulous organisation.' |
| Our second competition is run in association with newnovelist. This
writers' software was described by our
reviewer as
'
an excellent training tool and invaluable for part-time writers.' Answer the 3 questions correctly and
you go into the draw for newnovelist software. Closing date 2nd
March. |
| News
Review reports on two
interesting promotional initiatives which give cause for hope about the future of the
book in the midst of the latest gloomy news from corporate publishing. |
| In our February extract from
From
Pitch to Publication, see what Carole has to say about
submission to an agent. |
| In our Comment
column 'I want to move people and have them understand what I felt, what I
went through and what I felt other people were feeling and going through.’
James Frey, author of the latest American cause celebre. |
| 'Biting my truant pen, beating
myself for spite: 'Fool!' said my Muse to me,
'look in thy heart and write.' Sir Philip
Sidney in Astrophel and Stella in our
Writers' Quotations. |
| The February magazine is ready! |
27 January 2003
| This week in his Journal Bob encounters The Writer's Block and concludes
that 'to write only about what one knows would be
completely stultifying. How would one ever grow as a writer if one never
explored unfamiliar territory?' |
| Found a publisher and wondering what happens
next? We've added a new page on
Preparing
for Publication, which takes you through all the processes
involved. |
| News
Review reports on a flurry of corporate activity, as some big
companies become more profit-focused and try to sell off their
publishing assets to reduce their debt. |
| In our Comment
column 'We’d never
been honest about the fact that writing was the most important thing in our
lives.' Alice Sebold on her relationship with her husband, the
writer Glen David Gold. |
| A new page on Packing up your
Manuscript has been added to our WritersPrintShop |
| 'The worst thing about new
books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.' Joseph Joubert
in our Writers' Quotations. |
| Last chance to enter our
first competition, closing
2 February!
Answer the 3 questions
on health hazards and the computer correctly and
you go into the draw for a MouseBean® Hand Rest. |
20 January 2003
| Just-launched, our latest new service is
Manuscript
Polishing, specially designed to help non-native English
speakers polish up their work for publication or submission. |
| News
Review reports on the Supreme Court's decision not to repeal
Bono's Law, which extended copyright to life plus 70 years.
Elsewhere publisher John Wiley is experimenting with Open License
publishing, which abandons the protection of copyright. |
| Our WritersPrintShop is now providing
self-publishers with a cost-effective design, production and
distribution service. We've just added a helpful page on
How
to Clear Copyright. |
| In our Comment
column, Do 'readers actually want to read
things that have a beginning, a middle and an end'? Are we
'hard-wired for narrative'? See Val McDermid's comment on this
interesting subject. |
| This week's new Web How-to
features the topical subject of spam, which has
evolved from an annoying, intrusive method of distributing emails
into an untargeted way into a sinister, high-tech game. |
| We've
added some useful software packages to
our WritersBookstall.
|
| Do you agree with H L Mencken that 'There are no dull
subjects. There are only dull writers'? In our
Writers' Quotations. |
13 January 2003
| Bob Ritchie picks up on Alan Bennett's conclusion that 'most
of what people write in diaries is unpublishable, nothing but
tedious whingeing... I make a new year's resolution: no tedious
whingeing in this year's diary.' See his
Journal. |
| News
Review reports on prizes and literary lists. Is 44 'late
in life' for a first novel and what about the Granta Best of Young British
Novelists, who are all under 40? |
| In our Comment
column, 'Without editors we would not have half the writers whose books have
changed our lives.' Joanna Trollope on why writers need the skills of a good editor. |
| We've added some new entries to our
Collection
of Clangers: 'The Americans may have need of the telephone but we do not. We have
plenty of messenger boys.' Sir William Preece,
chief engineer of the General Post Office in Britain |
| This week's new Web How-to
is about how the web works and getting
paid on the web. |
| Many of you may agree with Ernest
Hemingway that 'The most essential gift for a
good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector.' In our
Writers' Quotations.
|
| Don't forget you only have until 2 February to enter our
first competition.
Answer the 3 questions
on health hazards and the computer correctly and
you go into the draw for a
MouseBean® Hand Rest. |
6 January 2003
This week's changes 2001
2002 2003
2004 2005
2006 2007
2008 2009
| |
|
