11 July 2022 - What's new
11 July 2022
- 'In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It's an aggressive, even a hostile act... there's no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer's sensibility on the reader's most private space.' Joan Didion, author of 19 books including The Year of Magical thinking, Slouching towards Bethlehem, Play It As It Lays and The Panic in Needle Park.
- Writing is a continual learning process. The best authors develop their skills over time and constantly strive to improve. And there is a lot to learn: plotting; dialogue; action scenes and set pieces; character development; continuity and consistency; style, language and tone. Our developmental edit is specifically designed to help you bring your writing to the next level. Our experienced team of editors will guide and support you, helping you to grow as a writer, as you take your book project from draft manuscript to finished product. Our brand-new Developmental editing service.
- Our other just-launched and unique new service is The Cutting edit.
- For anyone thinking about or embarked on self-publishing, our ten-part WritersServices Self-Publishing Guide by 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 is an essential starting-point, taking you through the process step-by-step. 'Self-publishing has changed so much over the past few years it's hard to believe it was once looked down upon by the publishing industry as the last resort of the vain and desperate. At the time of writing many self-publishing authors are identifying with the term ‘indie author', which acknowledges that to professionally publish today, you don't actually have to do everything yourself!' Articles include Formatting your book for Kindle and Marketing and Promotion for Indie Authors: Online.
- The Bridport Prize 2022 Check on the individual category on their website for entry and fees for Poetry, Short Story, Novel, Flash Fiction and new Memoir category. Entry fees various, please check with them. Most are open to authors throughout the world. The Memoir Prize closes on 30 September.
- Links from the publishing world: the latest trend in US book sales, Is the Book Sales Boom Finally Over? In the UK the position of many small presses is difficult, The Bookseller - News - Rising costs mix 'bitter cocktail' for small indies; a historical perspective on children's publishing, Making Room for Children's Books; a matching article on children's book sales, Whither Children's Bookselling? And the extraordinary story of copyright under massive threat, Publishers File for Summary Judgment Against the Internet Archive.
- Writing Biography & Autobiography is a serialisation from our Archives of the book by Brian D Osborne published by A & C BlackClick for A & C Black Publishers Publishers References listing. In the first excerpt, Managing the matters of truth and objectivity, the author says: 'Just as you need to remember that letters, reports, census forms, legal documents and so forth were not created simply for our convenience, so you also need to remember that what is written in them may not be true...'
- Our 22 services for writers, just a listing of what we provide to help you get your manuscript ready for publication. We think it's the widest range on the web.
- Links from writers: let's look at Gone Girl as literature. Gone Girl is not just clever marketing and good timing. It's art, Gillian Flynn Is the Real Gone Girl ‹ CrimeReads; children's poet appointed laureate, Joseph Coelho chosen as Britain's new children's laureate | Books | The Guardian; every now and again, a character steps into a book fully formed and sheds a special kind of narrative glow, Meeting with a killer; and, for fans of the FAS, The Enduring Appeal of the Female Amateur Sleuth ‹ CrimeReads.
- Are you getting ready to publish your book - perhaps planning to self-publish? WritersServices offers a suite of twelve services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. Services for Self-publishers
- Links on agencies, prizes and readers: if you're going to build a bigger agency you need to have a global strategy, The Bookseller - News - UTA and Curtis Brown deal is opportunity to respond to big publishers and streamers, says Geller; the USP of the Whitbreads, which morphed into the Costas 14 years ago, was that they didn't buy into literary snobbery, Shock ending: how the Costa book awards changed reading - and pitted husband against wife | Books | The Guardian; and depressing US survey, Over 50% of Adults Have Not Finished a Book in the Last Year.
- It may surprise you to know that the first of Julie Wheelwright's Top Ten Tips for Nonfiction Writers is: 'Story, story, story. Make sure that your story can sustain several chapters and tens of thousands of words. Keep asking yourself: Why would anyone want to read this story?'
- Links from writers' lives: how do you write a book about a tween who lives for TikTok when you aren't on TikTok? When Authors Play the TikTok Game; "Why don't you start something new. See what happens. Have fun. Play." Marcy Dermansky on Revising Without Losing Your Mind ‹ Literary Hub; something you can practice, a skill you can develop, everyone can learn it, Negotiation Tips for Writers and Creatives; and Goethe's The Sorrows of Werther is an example of both art's cultural power and also the unpredictability of its influence, When Will Novels Fix Society Already? - by Lincoln Michel.
- Advice for Writers is a really useful page which takes you into our archive and helps you explore our more than 8,000 pages of information for writers.
- 'There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine - "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté."' Margaret Atwood in our Writers' Quotes.
