What's New in 2012

• 'The Bookseller's big Futurebook conference last week gave top publishers an opportunity to lay out their stalls in terms of the future. The keynote speaker was Charlie Redmayne, CEO of Pottermore. The most visible trend was that publishers are dedicating themselves to getting in direct touch with readers, largely through online means. It's difficult to over-emphasise what a big turnaround this change of attitude is.' News Review reports.
• In Latest changes in the book trade 7 Chris HolifieldManaging director of WritersServices; spent working life in publishing,employed by everything from global corporations to start-ups; track record includes: editorial director of Sphere Books, publishing director of The Bodley Head, publishing director for start-up of upmarket book club, The Softback Preview, editorial director of Britain’s biggest book club group, BCA, and, most recently, deputy MD and publisher of Cassell & Co. She is also currently the Director of the Poetry Book Society; During all of this time aware of problems faced by writers, as publishing changed from idiosyncratic cottage industry, 'occupation for gentlemen', into corporate business of today. Writers encountered increasing difficulty in getting books edited or published. Authors create the books which are the raw material for the whole business. She believes it is time to bring them back to centre stage. looked at the subject of Creative Commons and how these special licenses might transform authors' capacity to license the use of their books for all sorts of purposes. The rest of the series covers Bookselling, Publishing, Print on Demand and the Long Tail, Self-publishing - career suicide or 'really great', Writers' Routes to their audiences and Copyright.
• Our last Success Story featured Christopher Paolini. With the publication of Inheritance he brought to a triumphant conclusion his epic sequence. In the UK this book had a first week sale of 76,000 copies and the series as a whole has sold 1.2 million books to date in the UK. It had a first printing of 2.5 million in the US. Not only have the books been translated in 49 countries but total sales for the first three books in the series have been 25 million copies worldwide.
• 'I don't think people always understand the scale of what we have done in the past 12 months. The level of work has been very intense. What we've done with Pottermore is harness a fanbase of millions of the biggest Harry Potter fans. In terms of producing value to all of the rights holders – be it J K Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Warner Bros, or indeed our sponsor Sony – that's an immensely valuable thing, as any new books, content or products come out.' Charlie Redmayne, quoted in our Comment column.
• If you want editorial input from our professional editors, have a look at our 18 Services, especially our Editor's Report, Submission Critique and Children's Services. Also available is Copy editing and Manuscript Polishing, for authors who are not native English speakers and Manuscript Typing.
• 'There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island.' Walt Disney in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'Recent figures from Bowker show self-publishing continuing its rapid growth in the US. The number of self-published books coming out has nearly tripled since 2006, with 235,625 new print and ebook titles published in 2011... ' News Review on the self-publishing boom in the US.
• There's just time to enter our latest Writing Opportunity, the wide-ranging The New WriterThis well-regarded magazine comes out six times a year and publishes the best in fact, fiction and poetry, including top stories from the Fish Prize and Real Writers annual competitions. Runs annual Prose and Poetry prizes, including short stories, novellas and essays, material to be submitted by end November. The magazine is towards the more literary end of the spectrum, but offers more publishing opportunities and market information for subscribers than other UK-based creative writing magazines. http://www.thenewwriter.com prose, fiction and poetry prizes, which are closing on 30 November. They're open to everyone, with different entry fees for different categories, but hurry!
• We've recently launched our new Poetry Critique service Set up in response to popular demand, our new service provides a line-by-line critique on up to 150 lines of poetry from our expert editor, plus advice on marketing your poems. If you've been writing poems, but have no idea if they're any good, or just want to make sure they're the best they can be, this service can help you.
• Our topical article this week is The Copy"right" Principle - writing in ALCS News(Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society) writer and campaigner Katharine Quarmby explains why publishing her work under Creative Commons licences is against her principles.
• 'A brand is a job in its own right. You feel like you can't leave it. I'm very fond ofCharlie and Lola but there was a time when I really just wanted it to end. You want to walk away because you want to get on with something else, but if you walk away you can't be sure how it might move without you... ' Lauren Child, author of the Charlie and Lola series, in the Sunday Telegraph, quoted in ourComment column.
• Don't procrastinate! - 'Do you find it difficult to get started on your writing? Is it always easier to put off finishing that research/ starting that novel/embarking on the second draft? You are not alone, for many writers suffer from procrastination.' Chris HolifieldManaging director of WritersServices; spent working life in publishing,employed by everything from global corporations to start-ups; track record includes: editorial director of Sphere Books, publishing director of The Bodley Head, publishing director for start-up of upmarket book club, The Softback Preview, editorial director of Britain’s biggest book club group, BCA, and, most recently, deputy MD and publisher of Cassell & Co. She is also currently the Director of the Poetry Book Society; During all of this time aware of problems faced by writers, as publishing changed from idiosyncratic cottage industry, 'occupation for gentlemen', into corporate business of today. Writers encountered increasing difficulty in getting books edited or published. Authors create the books which are the raw material for the whole business. She believes it is time to bring them back to centre stage. looks at how to get yourself going.
• 'In writing a series of stories about the same characters, plan the whole series in advance in some detail, to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies.' L Sprague de Camp in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'Things are settling around the idea of Random House and Penguin merging, but there are plenty of dire predictions. Some think it will change the nature of publishing as we know it, others that it will lead to further consolidation. The combined group will have 25 to 30% of the global books business. This sounds a lot and already there is talk of whether the merger will be referred to the regulatory agencies in various countries...' News Review reports.
• Links to this week's top stories this week we follow up on the Random House/Penguin story - Authors Guild asks for “close scrutiny” of Penguin Random House merger and Bertelsmann's pickup of Penguin shows the poor state of British publishing.
• Our 23 lists of recommended links have been updated with many new links to sites of special interest to writers. these range from Writers Online Services to Picture libraries and Writers Magazines & Sites and many more.
• 'Thematically this email is a microcosm of publishing now and tomorrow. Mega-mergers, new devices, Amazon growth (and losses) and established players seeking to re-adjust for the digital age through innovation and restructure. The Penguin Random House story suggests that the phoney war is now over, digital is here, it is driving our thoughts and strategies, and will come to dominate this content led business as it has other content sectors.' Philip Jones in the Bookseller's Futurebook, quoted in our Comment column.
• Michael Legat's Factsheets are a series of specially commissioned information-packed Factsheets for WritersServices, which cover the essentials for writers from a former publisher, novelist and author of 12 books on writing. For a quick update on Write about What You Know, Literary Agents or Shall I be Famous? Shall I be Rich?, and much more, this is the place to look.
• There's still just time to go for our Writing Opportunity this week, which is The Complete Works, a mentoring opportunity for advanced Black and Asian poets, before it closes on 22 November.
• 'I think I can boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.' Jane Austen in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'New imprints are being set up to publish genre fiction in ebook form. One of these is the new women's fiction imprint set up by Oliver Rhodes, late of Harlequin UK. Bookouture – perhaps not the most memorable name - is to focus on creating global author brands and building them up through clever digital marketing. Bookouture will accept agented and unagented submissions...' News Review shows how romance rides high in ebooks.
• Links to this week's top stories - Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world:Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. 2012: Self-publishing cell-phones and start-ups and Ian McEwan is lucky to be allowed to publish novellas.
• Does your manuscript need Copy editing? Do you know the difference between copy editing and proof-reading? Divided by a common language? - are you wondering about the difference between American and British copy editing? Our new page on Getting your manuscript copy edited provides a useful overview and clarifies a new feature of our service, which enables you to get two versions of your copy edited manuscript, one showing the editor's changes in 'track changes' and one with the changes accepted.
• 'Spies allow a novelist to heighten what all novels do anyway, which is control the flow of information. They allow limitless possibilities of tangled plot; they carry with them a hint of danger, which I think we rather love, from the perspective of our rather safe lives. Historically, we are safer than we've ever been. It's my theory that the reason we're getting such amazing thrillers from the social democracies of Scandinavia is because they've got such low crime rates... Ian McEwan, whose latest novel is Sweet Tooth, in The Times, quoted in our Comment column.
• WritersServices editor Kay GaleWritersServices editor who has worked for many years as a freelance editor for number of publishers. offers her tips on Getting through the Slush-pile, drawing on her own experience as an editorial assistant reading her way through it.
• 'For me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we are and to who we will become.' Carol Ann Duffy in our Writers' Quotes.

• News Review reports on Frankfurt trends: 'A report on ebook statistics and trends to be launched at the Publishers Launch Conference which precedes the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. next week suggests that some of the wilder predictions about ebook adoption have been off the mark. US ebook growth has declined considerably from September 2011, when it had been doubling each year, and it is now expected to grow at the lower rate of about one-third in 2012...'
• There's still time to sign up for our Writing Opportunity this week, the London Screenwriters' Festival, which runs from 26th to 28th October and includes many luminaries of the film world.
• If you want editorial input from our professional editors, have a look at our 18 Services, especially our Editor's Report, Submission Critique and Children's Services. Also available is Copy editing and Manuscript Polishing, for authors who are not native English speakers and Manuscript Typing.
• Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world. This week: Richard Curtis asks 'Are Publishers Making a Killing on E-Books?'
• 'I went to classes at the college one evening a week. For the rest of the week I did my homework. I wrote stories, plays, poems, and read voraciously. We emailed our homework to our tutors and classmates, who gave invaluable feedback. I became obsessed. My flat is falling to pieces, the windows filthy, my clothes shabby, my friends have forgotten who I am, and my relationship with my partner, the writer Andrew Lycett, has disintegrated to the occasional grunt. And there is nothing in our fridge...' Susan Greenhill, photographer extraordinaire and now writer and contributor to MIR9, in Bookbrunch, quoted in our Comment column.
• Our reviewer, Maureen Kincaid Speller a reviewer, writer, editor and former librarian, is our book reviewer and also works for WritersServices as a freelance editor., said of the The Arvon Book of Life Writing by Sally Cline and Carole Angier: 'Many people want to write about someone's life, perhaps their own, and there are courses to suit every level of interest, from university masters degrees to local college qualifications' and concluded that it was: 'a brisk and helpful guide on how to set about writing a life story... It is a sensible account of life writing from experienced practitioners of what is both art and craft, and I recommend it!'
• 'The existence of good bad literature - the fact that one can be amused or excited or even moved by a book that one's intellect simply refuses to take seriously - is a reminder that art is not the same thing as cerebration.' George Orwell in our Writers' Quotes.

'Never will a writer be read more closely than by his or her translator.　The best translators seem to have an extra ear, indeed, have to have an extra ear, for the literary dimensions and possibilities of their own language. Translation can draw the poet out of someone who may not have realised the poet in himself...' George Szirtes, author of The Burning of the Books and Other Poems in The Times, quoted in our Comment column.

Topical links - our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world. This week: Publishing's digital switchover; Knowledge and expertise in a hybrid world and Ebook Price War Obscures Larger Problem.

Does your manuscript need Copy editing? Do you know the difference between copy editing and proof-reading? Divided by a common language? - are you wondering about the difference between American and British copy editing? Our new page on Getting your manuscript copy edited provides a useful overview and clarifies a new feature of our service, which enables you to get two versions of your copy edited manuscript, one showing the editor's changes in 'track changes' and one with the changes accepted.

'There's little doubt that winning a literary prize can give a big boost to your career as a writer. Unfortunately though many of the prizes which attract the most attention and are most financially attractive to the winner are only open to writers who have been published by a publisher, ie not self-published. Usually the books have to be entered by the publisher, not the author...' News Review on prizes.

• 'At the 2012 Edinburgh World Writers conference, the author China Mieville suggested that one way of safeguarding the future of writing might be a minimum wage for authors: "For the great majority of people who write, it would mean an improvement in their situation, an ability to write full-time. For a few it would mean an income cut, but you know what? It was a good run."'... News Review reports.
• Blurb-writing Our new service is for anyone who is having difficulty producing their cover or jacket copy and may be especially helpful for self-publishers. Let our skilled editor/writers do the job for you, so that you end up with a professional blurb.
• Links to this week's top stories Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world: On Publishing Punditry and Trying to Hit a Moving Target; The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy; and UK's BookMachine: Meetups and Social Media Networking for Publishers.
• 'I've never worked out what the actual rate of pay is for writing - I think it would be too depressing. It took me three and a half years to write the first book, which worked out at ten grand a year, which is not too bad. That was just the advance...' Evie Wyld, author of After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, quoted in our Comment column.
• Writing for the web is a particular skill. Is it something you need to learn? Jakob Nielsen's study has been extracted from to give you the key points on how to go about this.
• 'Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.' Colette's advice in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'The recent news that Amazon's Kindle sales of ebooks have surpassed sales of print books led many commentators to assume that ebook sales are now outstripping print book sales. But, even in the States, where the growth in ebook sales has been extraordinarily fast, print books still outsell ebooks to a large extent, in fact they currently only constitute about 25% of total sales...' News Review reports.
• The National Association of Writers in Education offers two new articles in its Turning the Next Page resources for writers, both of them for poets, but it's worth also looking at the existing resources.
• 'I was surprised at the success of Chocolat. I was told that sort of book wouldn't sell as it was too old-fashioned and stuck between literary and commercial fiction, but the public voted with their wallets. (It sold more than a million copies.) And just when I was getting used to it being a bestseller, I had to come to terms with the surreal progress of it becoming a movie...' Joanne Harris in the Independent on Sunday in our Comment column.
• There's still time to enter the new MsLexia Children's Novel Competition, closing on 10 September.
• An Editor's Advice is a useful series is based on the advice Maureen Kincaid Speller a reviewer, writer, editor and former librarian, is our book reviewer and also works for WritersServices as a freelance editor., a long-serving WritersServices freelance editor, has given writers over the years. The series covers Dialogue, doing further drafts, genre writing, planning, points of view, autobiography and travel and manuscript presentation.
• 'Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.' Orson Scott Card in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'Maeve Binchy, who died this week at the age of 72, was one of those rare authors who is loved by everyone. Her warm, readable novels showed her great story-telling talent, but it was her wonderful personality which marked her out from many other successful authors...' News Review reports.
• Links to this week's top stories - this week we have: The future of publishing is in the cupboard under the stairs and Why social media isn't the magic bullet for self-epublished authors.
• Have a look at some very practical pages on the site on Making submissions and Finding an agent.
• 'So what's it like being a writer today? At grass roots level I don't think it has changed at all from thousands of years ago. Good writers tell gripping stories; they always have done and always will do – it is the delivery method that has changed, but then it always has. Originally storytelling began as an oral tradition. Stories were eventually handwritten in order to preserve them...' Peter James in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
• 'Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.' Gore Vidal, who died this week, in our Writers' Quotes

• 'New figures suggest that self-publishing output has played a significant part in the first growth in US title output in four years. Bowker figures project that print book output increased by 6% last year over the previous year, to an astonishing 328,259 titles, but if the self-publishing contribution is removed the market was flat...' News Review reports.
• Links to this week's top stories Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world: E-books are for porn but real books will survive, says award-winning author; 'Open access' move puts thousands of UK jobs at risk; Authors Guild Sees Return of Predatory Pricing if DoJ Deal Stands; and The Way Books Used to Be Sold by Tim Waterstone.

There's just time to enter the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, Britain's most prestigious prize for poets aged 11-17, closing on 31 July.

• 'The writing itself has always felt like a bit of a compulsion. It's what I do, why I exist. My motivation in general is I can do this and I want to be able to take care of myself, my friends and family. That keeps me going - the idea that I can have career stability and I can look after people I care about… Amanda Hocking, bestselling self-published author of the Trylle Trilogy and the upcoming Watersong series, quoted in our Comment column.
• Why do non-fiction books need an index? In The Ins and Outs of Indexing Joanne Phillips provides an answer, explains why it's a specialist job and why computers can't achieve the same result as a skilled indexer.
• Success story - Darren Shan's first book, Ayuamarca, was published in 1999 by Orion and didn't have much impact. The sequel, Hell's Horizon, sold fewer copies than the first. But in January 2000, Shan released Cirque du Freak, the first book of The Saga of Darren Shan series in the UK and Ireland and this was the beginning of his tremendous success and as a YA (and, more recently, adult) horror writer.
• 'The short story is as diverse and exciting a form as the novel, offering the condensed satisfaction of a good poem.' Sean O'Brien in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'Last week's BookExpo AmericaBookExpo America, commonly referred to within the book publishing industry as BEA. The largest annual book trade fair in the United States in New York City seemed to show a resurgence amongst independent booksellers, until recently in steep decline. The American Booksellers Association reported that the number of member bookstores has increased from 1,512 to 1,567, and booksellers seem to have been voicing a new confidence about their role. Book buyer attendance was up 5% on last year.' News Review on news from the fair.
• Links to this week's top stories, keeping you up to date with what's going on in the book world: Good Books Are Worth the Wait - Tim Schaffner in Publishing Perspectives asks why writers are in so much of a hurry and The Value of Self-Publishing is the "Blind Spot in the Market" - the Bowker figures show an astonishing 124,700 self-published titles in the total of 211,269  titles published in the US in 2011.
• If you want editorial input from our professional editors, have a look at our Services, especially our Editor's Report, Submission Critique and Children's Services. Also available is Copy editing, Manuscript Typing and Indexing.
• The Caine Prize for African Writing has come of age this year, with energetic chairing of the judges by Bernardine Evaristo and a further reaching-out to a wider African and international audience. This year the thirteenth 'African Booker' has produced an anthology, African Violet, which will be published in six African countries and consists of five shortlisted stories from the Caine Prize entries, and 10 short stories produced at the workshop held in South Africa in March 2012.
• Our list of picture libraries is a good place to start if you're looking to source pictures for your book.
• 'The Booker made me a lot of money. I didn't realise that all over the world, people will read a book just because it won the Booker prize. Not something I would do myself... But then one goes into some quite other, private region to produce a book. I think the Booker can drive people quite mad. That's why it's good to be detached from it...' Alan Hollinghurst, author of The Stranger's Child in the Guardian, quoted in our Comment column.
• Why do non-fiction books need an index? In The Ins and Outs of Indexing Joanne PhillipsUK-based freelance writer and ghostwriter. She has had articles published in national writing magazines, and has ghostwritten books on subjects as diverse as hairdressing and keeping chickens. Visit her at www.joannephillips.co.uk provides an answer, explains why it's a specialist job and why computers can't achieve the same result as a skilled indexer.
• 'Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.' Rita Dove in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'It's been a big week for the Orange Prize for Fiction. First there was the announcement that Orange will no longer be sponsoring it after this year's Prize. This was certainly a big surprise, as it's generally been regarded as one of the most successful of all sponsorships and there had been no indication, in public at least, that anything had changed. It has been the longest-running arts sponsorship in the UK...' News Review on this week's big story.
• This week's Writing Opportunity is the Manchester Poetry Prize, closing on 31 August, open internationally and with a First Prize of £10,000.
• Our Inside Publishing  series provides a helpful introduction to publishing for authors. This extremely useful 19-part series has been revised to take account of changes in the publishing world.  Advances and royalties, The Relationship between agents and publishers, Subsidiary rights, The English-speaking publishing world, The Marketing department and The Financial relationship between writers and publishers can all be found on the site.
• 'I worry so much about everything I write, I always think: "Is this the one that's a disaster?" Fortunately I've written enough, and didn't get successful with my first book so I've had experience with not selling very many copies.　 I worry every single time, it's an awful experience, but hopefully it makes my writing better...' Patrick Ness, author of A Monster Calls and the Chaos Walking trilogy, in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
• This week's Links to recent stories includes NY judge grants class status in Google book fight, James Daunt isn't a moron, Publishers should be proud of their legacy and UK Publisher's Association Accuses British Library Of 'Tawdry Theft' For Supporting More Reasonable Copyright .
• 'The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.' Henry James in our Writers' Quotes

• 'I wouldn't use the word "fun" to describe the process (of writing). It's like someone has said "OK, you have to scrub St Paul's Cathedral. Now here's your toothbrush." It looks overwhelming, but you think in terms of scrubbing one brick at a time. One chapter, one sentence, one word at a time, and eventually you'll get there.' George R R Martin in The Times in our Comment column.
• Links to recent stories Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world. This week: How a book is born, It doesn't matter what e-books cost to make and Serious Non-fiction in the Digital Age.
• If you want editorial input from our professional editors, have a look at our 18 Services, especially our Editor's Report, Submission Critique and Children's Services. Also available is Copy editing, Manuscript Typing and what we call Manuscript Polishing - getting your manuscript ready for publication if you are not a native English speaker and need some help to get it right.
• 'As if there wasn't enough change going on in the publishing world at the moment, the British government has decided to take a hand in academic publishing, having just concluded that a new model would work better. For years publishers have undertaken this kind of scholarly publishing which is financed by book and journal sales, yet now government minister David Willetts is suggesting that open access is the way forward.' News Review on academic publishing.
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is the H G Wells Short Story Competition, closing on 22 July and especially welcoming to younger writers.
• Bob's Journal of a Virtually Unpublished Writer offers entertaining insights into the life of an aspiring writer. It's a WritersServices exclusive and you can go back to the start in 2001 and right through to its end in December 2007, when he reflected: 'Still haven't broken through my writer's block. No longer even sure I want to. Why write? What's writing for? Have absolutely no idea. How can one add anything worthwhile to the work of writers like Oscar Wilde? Yet the internet grows more vast by the minute with the words of the millions who are certain their opinions are worth airing.'
• 'When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.' Ernest Hemingway in our fantastic Writers' Quotes.

• 'An article in a recent edition of the Bookseller focused on the London agency Conville and Walsh, a relative newcomer to the agency business but a successful one. How is the world of agenting being affected by the changes in the book world, and what impact does this have on writers? News Review reports on agenting in a changing world.
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is the new MslexiaStylish and lively site for quarterly UK literary magazine read by 12,000 'committed' women writers. Good range of quality writing, information and advice with news, reviews, competitions and interviews, all presented in a friendly fashion. Praised by Helen Dunmore as 'astute, invigorating and above all an excellent read.' www.mslexia.co.uk Children's Novel Competition, open to children's novels in any genre by previously unpublished women novelists. First Prize £5,000 and an entry fee of £25.
• 'I want to make sure that a reader could figure out every twist in the book from what went before. I try really hard to give those clues and suggestions double or triple meanings and steer (the reader) in a different direction. But the opportunity, if one chose to figure out what was going to happen, should be there...' Jeffrey Deaver, author of XO and 29 other thrillers, in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
• Does your manuscript need  Copy editing?  Do you know the difference between copy editing and proof-reading? Divided by a common language? - are you wondering about the difference between American and British copy editing? Our new page on Getting your manuscript copy edited provides a useful overview and clarifies a new feature of our service, which enables you to get two versions of your copy edited manuscript, one showing the editor's changes in 'track changes' and one with the changes accepted.
• Links to recent stories - Scale and synergy do not drive publishing, people do, Why Writers Need Publishers…Or Do They? and Why smart authors are cutting Amazon out.
• WritersServices editor Kay GaleWritersServices editor who has worked for many years as a freelance editor for number of publishers. offers her tips on Getting through the Slush-pile, drawing on her own experience as an editorial assistant reading through it.
• And the same Kay Gale now has her own blog about gourmet food, The Single Gourmet and Traveller, which is highly recommended for all foodies.
• 'Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer.'  Ray Bradbury in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'In the halls of the London Book Fair, publishers and others continued to agonise about whether the e-book agency model can survive globally in the wake of the US Department of Justice lawsuit (see News Review last week) and there was also widespread frustration at the delay of the Nook device launching in the UK...' News Review reports from LBF.
• Read Michael Legat’s 19  Factsheets on everything from plotting your novel to publishers’ contracts.
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is The Biographers' Club Tony Lothian Prize, which has a deadline of 1 August and is open to uncommissioned writers working on a biography.
• ‘I don’t believe in writer’s block. Think about it—when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn’t it always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer’s block is having too much time on your hands. If you have a limited amount of time to write, you just sit down and do it... ' Jodi Piccoult, author of Lone Wolf, in our Comment column.
• Publicising your book - gaining publicity is one of the biggest hurdles a new fiction or non-fiction writer faces. After all, without it, no-one will even know your book exists. In this article, media agent Alison Smith-Squire offers some top tips.
• Links to recent stories - our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world: Love, Sex & Romance -In a move to build community and learn more about its customers, American publisher Sourcebooks is launching a romance e-book club. Trending: clash of the book titles- What's worse than seeing that someone else has come up with the same book title as yours? But there's no copyright in titles, as John Walsh points out.
• 'Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.' William Hazlitt in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'The annual Books & Consumers research into the British book market was delivered to a highly interested audience last week. Rarely can there have been so much change in one year and the assembled bookseller and publishers were keen to hear what had actually been going on.' News Review joined the audience.
• Update to our links Our 23 lists of recommended links have just been updated with many new links to sites of special interest to writers. these range from Writers' Online Services to Picture libraries and from Software for writers to Writers' Magazines & Sites. There's a new Writers' Blogs listing which needs populating, so please send your suggestions in.
• 'Oddly enough, despite the explosion of new formats and new media, the fundamental things apply. Vanity Fair confirms that the grammar of writing and publishing is unchanged. Authors work alone in their private space. Eventually, their work is ready to be seen by readers...' Robert McCrum in the Observer, quoted in our Comment column.
• If you want editorial input from our professional editors, have a look at our 18 Services, especially our Editor's Report,  Submission Critique and Children's Services.  Also available is Copy editing, Manuscript Typing and what we call Manuscript Polishing - getting your manuscript ready for publication if you are not a native English speaker and need some help to get it right.
• Links to stories of the week Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world. This week it's Discoverability and the New World of Book PR and Why The 'Missing 20th Century' Of Books Is Even Worse Than It Seems.
• 'Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.' Colette in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'I’m afraid we can’t escape Amazon in the news at the moment. In Publishing Perspectives Bryce Milligan, the publisher of small American indie Wings Press, asks whether Amazon’s philanthropic grants are not just helping along their company aim of overwhelming the competition. The independent Publishers Group of small publishers is currently engaged in a battle with the Internet giant. The options don’t look good – either trade with Amazon at a discount, which means the publisher will actually lose money, or don’t trade with them at all...' News Review reports.
• Links to stories of the weekOur new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world: The New Press - 20 years of publishing in the public interest and now they have a bestseller and Sourcebooks announces Agile model, which allows for the rapid and interactive development of work by its authors, where the content evolves through a partnership between the author and their community.
• Real Time Web for Old Time Books: the Benefit of Social Media for Publishers and Authors - Fauzia Burke explores the online activities you can do in real time -- from status updates on Facebook, to microblogging on Twitter to uploading photos and videos on other social media sites. If you want to explore how social networking can help you market your book, her article provides a starting-point.
• ‘One reason why first-time novelists are frequently turned down by agents and publishers is because they tend to regard freedom of expression as a permit to waffle on, page after page, about nothing in particular. Their manuscripts lack rigour and economy, and this reveals a common failing in the creative mind-set of beginners: too much allowance is made for the gratification of every expressive urge that springs to mind...' Roland Vernon, quoted in our Comment column.
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is the Authors' Foundation awards from the Society of Authors, in nine categories, open to British writers who fulfil the criteria.
• 'I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because when two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worries and only half the royalties.' Agatha Christie in our  Writers' Quotes.

• 'With the world’s top children book fair, Bologna, starting on the 19th March, all eyes are on this lucrative and expanding area of the publishing market. This is partly because across the world parents have continued to invest in books for their children and in their children’s education at a time when general bookselling has been affected by recession. Children’s publishers are subject to less uncertainty than their adult counterparts and can continue to invest in the long term.' News Review reports.
• The 2011 Diagram Prize - Now's your chance to catch up with this year's shortlist of six barmy titles, and to go to the Bookseller's site to cast your own vote. Ranging from Mr Andoh's Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge to Estonian Sock Patterns All Around the World, this is a vintage year.
• Our Inside Publishing series provides a helpful introduction to publishing for authors. This extremely useful 19-part series has been revised to take account of changes in the publishing world. Advances and royalties, The Relationship between agents and publishers, Subsidiary rights, The English-speaking publishing world, The Marketing department and The Financial relationship between writers and publishers can all be found on the site.
• 'I can't do fantasy. When I read C S Lewis I just don't get it. I can walk into the cupboard but I can't walk out of it into the snow. I like historical facts, evidence, real stories. There are so many vampires now, there is a lot of dross as well as good stuff. But take J K Rowling or Philip Pullman, it is amazing what these people have done... Michael Morpurgo, author of War Horse, in The Times, quoted in our Comment column.
• British Library Web Archive - We feel very honoured that the British Library asked to archive www.writersservices.com in its web archive. It was initially archived on 15 October 2009 and has been updated at six-monthly intervals ever since.
• ‘That’s the thing about a film script. It doesn’t matter how much of your heart and soul you put into it, it’s still an instruction manual, and if someone doesn’t make it, it doesn’t have a purpose.’ David Nicholls in our Writers' Quotes.