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11 July 2016 - What's new

11 July 2016
  • 'Not content with deciding they prefer print books to ebooks, young people are further confounding expectations by showing a growing enthusiasm for audiobooks. This is perhaps even more surprising because audiobooks have been seen in the UK as appealing especially to older people, whilst in the US they tend to find a ready audience amongst commuters, given the American habit of driving long distances to work... News Review
  • 'I regret we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we could not publish it with commercial success... A helpful bookshop may be able to advise you.' Unnamed editor at Constable & Robinson turning down J K Rowling's first Harry Potter book provides this week's Comment.
  • Getting your poetry published can be quite hard, but here are a few general pointers: 'Poetry is not in general given much space in bookshops and it is difficult to find poetry sections that go much beyond some bestselling backlist and a few new volumes. It's hard therefore to achieve any sales for first collections and the publishers have to be realistic about this...'
  • Closing on 30 September, The BookLife Prize in Fiction is open to all authors of unpublished or self-published novels in six categories. The entry fee is $99 and the Grand Prize $5,000, with a publishable critique for every entry.
  • Our links: now the Crime genre is seeing the rise of women writers, After Agatha Christie ... female crime writers delve deep into women's worst fears | Books | The Guardian; there's someone out there who's going to be your translator... You're glad you're going to have another fan of your work, who will be down on her knees before you and your talent. But what if it's not like that? BookBrunch - What I found in translation; before my first books were born they were with me everywhere, growing babies, part of my body and my every move, How To Be A Writer: The Map Is the Territory | Literary Hub; and since long before the publication of Loop of Jade (2015), her debut collection, Sarah Howe has been a highly regarded and much-loved member of the UK poetry scene, The Sound of Her Voice | Boston Review.
  • Our page of Picture library links provides a good starting-point for finding an image for your book, whether it's for the cover or inside. Gograph has just been added with its 18 million stock links.
  • There are 23 other pages of links to recommended sites and we'd love to hear about any more sites you'd like to recommend to other writers.
  • More links: so now there's a formula for writing bestselling novels, The Bestseller Code: The words that make a successful book | News | Culture | The Independent; in the same vein, how "all stories" are one of ten or six or three or eight types of possible stories; Data Analysis of Novels Reveals... Nothing New - Electric Literature; and is the ‘perennial cachet' in fantasy fiction so strong for booksellers in India that ‘writers are told by publishers to base their stories around the time of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata'? Fantasy Fiction in India: Beyond Mythology and Religion.
  • 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.
  • 'I wish critics would judge me as an author, not as a woman.' Charlotte Bronte in our Writers Quotes.