1 October 2018 - What's new
1 October 2018
- ‘One of the great joys of being an editor is sharing your enthusiasm with colleagues and seeing others really get behind a project, so I suppose that's a strength - feeling that I'm able to gather a team around a book so that it might be published in the best possible way. Editors are readers first and foremost, and when I love a book my first instinct is always to approach its acquisition and publication with that readerly passion. But of course that's not always enough. I've had to really reign that in sometimes and remind myself to always consider the market...' Sophie Jonathan, Pan MacmillanOne of largest fiction and non-fiction book publishers in UK; includes imprints of Pan, Picador and Macmillan Children’s Books/Picador senior commissioning editor, interviewed by Porter Anderson in Publishing Perspectives. Our Comment.
- Here's an unusual writing competition, the Futurebook Story Competition, which is open to international writers of 18 or over. There's no entry fee but you need to be able to create a fresh and exciting vision of the future of the book. Prizes are: reading your story at the Futurebook conference, publication on the Pigeonhole app and a full set of novels from this year's Arthur C. Clarke shortlist. Closing 30 October.
- Other live Opportunities.
- Do you want some help with your writing but don't quite know what you want? Are you a bit puzzled by the various services on offer, and not sure what to go for? This article will show you how to work out which is the right editorial service for you. Choosing a service. Alternatively, email us and we'll do our best to help.
- Our links: however long it takes you to get the initial version down, there is always more work to be done, Reasons to Rewrite | Samantha Tonge; Orwell advised cutting as many words as possible, Woolf found energy in verbs, and Baldwin aimed for ‘a sentence as clean as a bone', How to write the perfect sentence | Books | The Guardian; unusual author marketing, but did it work? Pre-Publication Marketing: A Van Tour to Bookstores | Jane Friedman; and are bookstores engaging with their communities by stocking self-published titles by local writers? The Indie Author - Indie Bookseller Relationship Warms Up.
- Bob's Journal is a long-running column from writer Bob Ritchie described by fellow EastEnders script-writer Pippa McCarthy: 'Just discovered your web page... I've just spent the last hour crying with laughter with periodic yelps of 'been there!'... I'm going to make my entire family read your diary. Then perhaps they will understand own bizarre behaviour every time I start a script... Anyway, will shut up now but just wanted to say you have cheered me up no end. It's brilliant.'
- The Web as a Research tool - there are some sensational research resources for writers on the web. The search engines and other directories have made these accessible. But it helps to understand a little about how they work.
- More links: we missed this earlier in the year, but it's good to know that short story anthologies are enjoying a boom in sales, rising by almost 50% in value, to reach their highest level in seven years, Sales of short story collections surge | The Bookseller; staring at the black computer screen, blinking occasionally-staring and blinking, staring and blinking, until the cursor starts to blink back and you have to go to bed for a while, Is It Real? 25 Famous Writers on Writer's Block | Literary Hub; fantastic new study about how children connect with poetry, Poetry 'more popular with children on free school meals', finds NLT | The Bookseller; and with nearly 2 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, this poet/novelist has sold over a million copies of her books, A Modern Poet: PW Talks with Lang Leav.
- Do you need advice on how to deal with your publishing contract? Writers who are not represented by an agent may feel that they need professional advice on their publisher's contracts, which many authors find mystifying. Our Contract vetting service will give you an authoritative overview of your contract from a publishing contracts expert
- 'It is my contention that a really great novel is made with a knife and not a pen. A novelist must have the intestinal fortitude to cut out even the most brilliant passage so long as it doesn't advance the story.' Frank Yerby in our Writers' Quotes.
