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Writers' Web Resources

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Another extremely informative infographic, following on from Life Cycle of a Book, which shows you the various processes a book goes through to be published as a translation . This comes from Publishing Trendsetter and is accompanied by a series of video explanations from publishing staff from across the world. It's especially useful because publishing translations is particulalrly complicated.


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Author Maxwell's website offers a Character Name Generator and a Writing Prompts Generator which is quite fun if you're stuck on what to write next, plus short stories and flash fiction, all served up in a sardonic tone. www.adammaxwell.com


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Rather unusual site which allows you to look up books and their authors by searching on plot lines and other elements. www.allreaders.com


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Useful introduction and weekly newsletter. www.askaboutwriting.net


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A labour of love for a group of academics who have compiled biographies of innumerable authors and links to other authors’ websites.  Will you be there one day? (http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jbh/author.html)


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How to Write pages provide pithy insights into writing novels, screenplays, radio plays and memoirs from authors such as Martin Amis, Rober McKee and Michele Roberts.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/howtowrite/index.shtml

You might also be interested in their international playwriting competition and the top tips for play-writers.


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Busy online bureau for freelance writers of all kinds. People post their projects, which are then bid for online. http://www.bizreef.com/Services


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'A literary smorgasbord of a site, offering substantial excerpts from bestselling books which you can browse through before purchasing.' www.BookBrowse.com


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Enthusiastic and supportive site which addresses boomer women, born between 1946 and 1964, with its stated aim to 'encourage, connect and support one another online' Book project, book club, writing critique circle, as well as covering health, travel, retirement and much else. www.boomerwomenspeak.com


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(http://uk.cambridge.org/aboutus/infoforauthors/electronic.htm) tells you how to submit manuscripts electronically, but only deals with non-fiction.


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US not-for-profit organisation which manages rights relating to 1.75 million works. Authors can register their published works free and get royalty payments less nominal service fee. Also useful if you are trying to clear permissions/track down rights-holders. www.copyright.com

United States

United States

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The US copyright office has information on its website about how to register and what advantages there are in doing so. www.copyright.gov/register/

United States

United States

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Three times a week this site updates with new creativity brain games, in the belief that creative thinking is quickly becoming our most valuable asset. the site exists to encourage you to push the boundaries of your creative ability. http://creativitygames.net/


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Very useful site for all aspiring screenplay writers, with good articles on things like Story Structure, Script Formatting, Character Development and Selling Your Script. www.filmscriptwriting.com/index.html


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American site providing work for professional freelance writers. The main areas are academic and professional writing (custom essays, term papers, research papers, book reports, dissertations), custom reviews and reports, powerpoint presentations, quantitative projects in accounting and finance. There's an emphasis on deadlines and qualifications and having the right experience to do the job, but some may find it a useful source of fairly well-paid freelance work. http://www.freelancewritingcenter.com/

United States

United States

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Excellent Guardian site has useful up-to-date style British English style guide.  Much recommended, to the probable surprise of those for whom the Guardian is renowned for its errors. http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide

 


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Enormously wide-ranging self-help site, which covers everything from How to move an aquarium and How to learn glass-blowing, and includes useful articles such as How to Jumpstart Creative Writing and How to Come up with Creative Ideas. http://www.howtodothings.com


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Useful portal which takes you to a lot of other links, including sections of fantasy, fiction and horror. http://keoz.com


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A brilliantly informative infographic which shows you the various processes a book goes through to be traditionally published. This comes from Publishing Trendsetter and is accompanied by a series of video explanations from publishing staff in the various departments, showing what they do. It's really clear and useful. There's also Life Cycle of a Book in Translation, which helps to explain the complicated production cycle of a translated book.


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This site uses the huge publishing database belonging to the American publishing bible Literary Market Place

This site uses the huge publishing database belonging to the American publishing bible Literary Market Place, but free access is only to the small press listings and publishers' names and addresses. To get access to all the other information and to use of their powerful search facility, the annual fee is $399. www.literarymarketplace.com/lmp/us/index_us.asp

, but free access is only to the small press listings and publishers' names and addresses. To get access to all the other information and to use of their powerful search facility, the annual fee is $399. www.literarymarketplace.com/lmp/us/index_us.asp

United States

United States

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We've included the website of this enterprising writer and ghost-writer because it includes useful resources such as The Publishing Machine, a free database to do all your admin for you, and a toolbar to sort out your layout and styles, useful templates for Word and Excel, and a quick tutorial on Styles and formatting in Word. http://www.andrew.kerr.name/megan/Writing/Writing.htm


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Husband-and-wife run online publishing company for plays, both one-act and full-length. They charge a small reading fee but, if accepted, half of your work will go online to gauge interest and hopefully collect royalties. You can download their guidelines from the site. http://www.geocities.com/playwrightspublishingco


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Husband-and-wife run online publishing company for plays, both one-act and full-length. They charge a small reading fee but, if accepted, half of your work will go online to gauge interest and hopefully collect royalties. You can download their guidelines from the site. http://windows.podnova.com/trends/synonyms_dictionary.html


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ProjectsETC is a growing UK resource for people creating interactive projects in Education, Technology and Culture. It brings together practical guidance pieces, case studies and inspiring comment pieces to prompt debate. You can publish your material on the site to share your knowledge and help others. http://www.projectsetc.org


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Expert on web research helps you get started with masses of links to US information sources. www.robertniles.com

United States

United States

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UK site providing useful articles on writing creatively and successfully, with subjects like The Nuances of Writing for Kids, versus Adults and How to Proofread your Writing. www.scribblepad.co.uk

United States

United States

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Booker prize-shortlisted Jill Paton Walsh and John Rowe Townsend offer some pithy advice based on their own experience. www.greenbay.co.uk/advice.html


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Advice on how to prepare scientific texts, some of which is only accessible to Springer authors. Navigate from http://www.springeronline.com

United States

United States

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This Australian site offers 30 Resources for writers to improve their skills and get exposure and is a really useful resource. www.startlocal.com.au/articles/educational_writers_resource.html

Australia

Australia

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Useful site if you're at a loss for a word or want to find a synonym. www.synonymsfor.com/


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Organisation working to save and retain in the UK the manuscripts and archives of modern and contemporary UK writers, which are continuing to be sold to institutions abroad, despite the efforts of publicly-funded collections in the UK.

Recent acquisitions include the archives of poet Don Patterson and novelist Piers Paul Read. http://www.literary.org.uk/index.php#guidance


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Wake Up Writing is a site that offers a free writing prompt daily. The tone may be too relentlessly cheerful for some, but others may like Katie-Anne Gustaffson's ideas and find they help to get your writing exercises started.


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Site with links through Thinkers.net to writing in many categories and to notice-boards relating to them. A bit impersonal but useful stuff if you dig around. thinkers.net


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This website offers a free sampler from the book it advertises, which is described as 'a Perpetual Calendar of classic Writing-related Quotations of Writers, Writing, Books, Literature and Publishing. http://fcsachandsonspublishers.com/


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Writer Jobs

New site offering a chance for writers to post their details for free and employers to post their writing jobs, plus facility to post advertisements.


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Useful site which offers day-by-day calendar of events and Internet humour for free, plus a subscription service to a mass of other reference material, including a slang thesaurus, clichés, humorous quotations and a handy collection of lists. This is Larry Belling's personal collection, compiled over 25 years. www.writersdreamtools.com


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Business-like site created in 1993 and offering a set of resources for writers, including articles on a wide range of writing, extending from technical writing to how to compile quizzes and exercises for improving dialogue. http://www.poewar.com/


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Handy American reference site which gives links to a wide range of different information sources, from bay names to song lyrics, from daily newspapers to international postal codes. www.writers-free-reference.com


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Very useful resource section with agreements for TV, radio, theatre, radio, animation and video games. Also has useful articles on late payment of invoices and writers’ rights, and audiobooks. http://www.writersguild.org.uk/public/005_WritersGuil/index.html


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Thoughtful blog originally set up to provide a central point for all Jo Phillips's favourite writing sites and to allow her to share these with others. Useful pieces, including 'Everything you always wanted to know about ezines.' http://www.writingbase.blogspot.com/