18 December 2023 - What's new
18 December 2023
- ‘I looked at it as a numbers thing. There were hundreds, if not thousands of authors, submitting to the same agents every week. And although I was getting feedback that was positive, for me that didn't make logical sense because the odds were not in my favour... Self-publishing put the odds back in my favour because it put it back in my control...' J M Dalgliesh, author and self-publisher of 22 police procedurals from The Misty Isle, Dark Yorkshire and Hidden Norfolk series, who has sold over 2m books and has now been taken on by a traditional publisher, in the Observer.
- Choose Your Self-publishing Route is the second part of our newly-revived series Writersservices Self-publishing Guide: 'Embarking on the indie publishing journey, in the ever-evolving landscape that is 2023, demands a fresh perspective. Back in 2012, the array of choices for authors was mind-boggling, leading to meticulous research and comparisons. Fast forward to today, and the paths have evolved into two main routes: Do it all yourself or pay someone else to do it all for you...' 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 our expert guide to the remarkable evolution there has been in self-publishing, giving the indie author new opportunities to get published.
- Which service? offers an overview of the editorial services we offer and Our Services for Writers offers links to all 22 of them - we think this is the biggest range on the internet.
- From the bumper crop of links this week, first up are links to the publishing world: modern-day trade publishing in large houses is a game of numbers, employed in the service of reducing risk, The Bookseller - Comment - Playing the editorial joker; sales of print books enjoying lift from success of genre fiction and interest from young readers, E-readers were supposed to kill printed books. Instead, they're booming | CBC Radio; there's a lot of overlap with Amazon's other platform for book lovers, Amazon competes with its own Goodreads with launch of book discovery service, ‘Your Books' | TechCrunch; the influential user review site has suffered a year of controversies, ‘It's totally unhinged': is the book world turning against Goodreads? | Books | The Guardian; accused of posting fake negative reviews, Author Cait Corrain loses book deal after accusations of review bombing on Goodreads; its recommendations, reviews and releases have amassed 185 billion views, How TikTok's BookTok craze is 'making reading cool again' - The Big Issue.
- From our Endorsements page: on English Language Editing: 'The result? A book that reads like it's written by a native speaker for only 13% of the price a complete translation would have costed. Thank you, writersservices.' Anthony Fitzgerald
- Closing on 9 February, The Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2024 is open to unpublished and unagented female writers, aged 18 or over, who live in the UK or Ireland. The entry fee is £12 and the winner receives £1,500 and also guidance and support from literary agent and sponsor Peters Fraser Dunlop.
- WritersServices offers a comprehensive range of editorial services for authors writing for the children's book market. All our services are carried out to the highest professional standard, and offer competitive rates and excellent value for money. Writing for children is not an easy option. It requires sound writing skills, originality, a clear understanding of the target audience and a good grasp of the market. Our expert editors are specialists in writing for children, and they will help you make your work the best it can be. Children's Editorial Services.
- Links about writers' craft: 'After two decades of making our living as mystery authors, we thought, hey, we must have done something right', 10 Things We Learned in 20 Years of Writing Mysteries ‹ CrimeReads; the author of The Witch's Daughter on historical research, the occult and the genius of Nabokov, Q&A: novelist Imogen Edwards Jones; and whether your story is set in the urban northeast or a western wilderness, the question still arises - every story has to start somewhere, Fictional Versus Real Settings: A Writer's Dilemma ‹ CrimeReads.
- 'So you want to be a crime writer? This is probably a good choice. Crime writing has long been popular with readers across the English-speaking world but it had a real resurgence a few years ago. Although publishers have reined back from the subsequent tendency towards over-production, there is still a solid market for good crime writing and many bestselling writers, such as Richard Osman, write in this category. As well as being a long term publishing staple in the main English-speaking markets, the US and UK, crime novels are much in demand in translation, especially in Europe...' Writing Crime Fiction in our Genre writing series.
- Do you need to get your material typed up, but can't face doing the job yourself? We can provide a clean typed version of your work at very competitive rates. Our service offers help for writers who have an old or handwritten manuscript, or a printed book which needs re-typing, before the writer can proceed with revision, submission or publication. Typing manuscripts
- 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 my 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.'
- Links to writers' stories: an engrossing account of the birth of a crime writer and a new sub-genre, My First Thriller: Patricia Cornwell ‹ CrimeReads; the sudden death of a well-liked writer and poet, The Bookseller - News - Benjamin Zephaniah dies aged 65; major new children's fantasy author, The Bookseller - Author Interviews - Jordan Lees | 'What I really wanted to do was capture the spirit of the books that I loved as a kid'; and her best-selling debut has sold 6m copies and been made into a hit TV series, ‘It was smart to write when I was so angry': Bonnie Garmus on the winning formula behind Lessons in Chemistry | Fiction | The Guardian.
- There are eight sets of Tips for Writers, which range from Improving Your Writing to Submission to publishers and Agents: 'Get your work into the best possible shape before you start submitting it' and 'Do your research on agents and their clients. Many agents specify what they don't represent (scripts, children's and science fiction are often excluded), but try to gauge from their client lists what they might actually be looking for.'
- PhD editing service - get your PhD edited by a professional editor to make sure you achieve the best result you can. Are you working to prepare your PhD for submission? Professional editing can help you improve the presentation of your work and iron out any grammar or spelling errors, so that you can achieve the best possible result.
- So what's wrong with PDFs? 'If you need your file to be edited, PDF is not the ideal format; in fact, it is practically the worst format you can choose. Why? Precisely because PDFs are designed not to be tampered with or changed. When you stop to think about it, editing is no more or less than a process of changing - and correcting - your file...'
- Our final set of links are a miscellany: Demetrious Polychron ordered to destroy all copies of The Fellowship of the King after claiming Amazon prequel infringed his copyright, Copyright claim against Tolkien estate backfires on Lord of the Rings fanfiction author | JRR Tolkien | The Guardian; print reading could boost skills by six to eight times more than digital reading, Reading print improves comprehension far more than looking at digital text, say researchers | Books | The Guardian; a stunning article shows the potential of new technology, How augmented reality is reviving print textbooks; a seasonal photographic treat for cat-lovers showing writers with their pets, Jill Krementz Photo Journal: A Celebration of Cats | New York Social Diary; and finally a feast of fantastic new children's Christmas poems from their weekly blog, Children's Poetry Summit Poems.
- From Joanne Phillips, The Business of Writing for Self-publishing Authors offers terrific advice for all writers: 'Self-publishing authors - also known as ‘indie' authors or author-publishers - have had a steep learning curve these past few years. Getting to grips with the various sales channels available to them, producing top quality ebooks and paperbacks, and finding a place in mainstream outlets have left many writers struggling to keep up with the paperwork. What follows is a brief guide to the essentials your self-publishing business needs - because it is a business, even if you only publish one book!'
- From Lawrence Clark Powell in our Writers' Quotes: 'To achieve lasting literature, fictional or factual, a writer needs perceptive vision, absorptive capacity, and creative strength.'
- Season's greetings to all our newsletter subscribers - see you in the New Year!
