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13 August 2012 - What's new

13 August 2012
  • 'It's alarming to read in Publishers' Weekly that unit sales of print fiction backlist titles in the US fell 30% in the period ended 22 July compared to the same period last year, whilst non-fiction was 13% down. American publishers have suffered badly from the demise of Borders and this hasn't been offset by a switch to online backlist sales, as you might have expected...' News Review on the latest changes in the book trade.
  • Links to this week's top stories - Amazon sells more e-books than print titles in the UK; Self-Publishing: Vanity Publishing or Something Else?; The Bonfire of the Straw Men; Why social media isn't the magic bullet for self-epublished authors and Women On The Rise Among The World's Top-Earning Authors.
  • '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 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.
  • Our Writing Opportunity this week is the Costa Short Story Award, closing on 7 September and open to all writers over 18 resident in the UK.
  • Our editor Kay GaleWritersServices editor who has worked for many years as a freelance editor for number of publishers. has excelled herself in the latest summery entry in her Gourmet Single Traveller blog. Do you know how to dress a salad?
  • 'Fiction is not a dream. Nor is it guess work. It is imagining based on facts, and the facts must be accurate or the work of imagining will not stand up.' Margaret Culkin Banning in our Writers' Quotes.