- ‘Growing up in Zimbabwe was a great adventure, but I didn't see it as such. I spent my entire childhood in Africa. I couldn't have written The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books, which are set in Botswana, without the affection that gave me. If I'm working at full tilt, I'll write 3,000 to 4,000 words in a day. It just comes to me. I break the rules: you're only supposed to write one book a year or every two years. (this year he has published six.)' Alexander McCall Smith in the Sunday Telegraph's Stella provides this week's Comment.
- 'This year the charity Book Aid InternationalSupplies much-needed books to developing countries, raising funds from publishers and general public; 'Reverse Book Club' is masterly idea-for just £5 ($10) month you can provide 48 books to go to where they're most needed, which goes from strength to strength, has sent over 1.1 million books to partners in Africa, beating their previous donation levels. Books and libraries are a crucial resource in sub-Saharan Africa. They are vital for quality education; they raise literacy levels, provide information and underpin development. The books help children learn, students increase their knowledge and adults improve their skills. Books really do have the power to help people change their own lives for the better. The books go to libraries, so they are accessible to all.' This week's News Review looks at the work of an amazing book charity.
- Which service should I choose to help me get my work into good shape for submission or self-publishing? This is the question our page Which service? answers and it then goes on to give a quick rundown on our 20 editorial services for writers, which we think is the biggest range you can find on the internet.
- Our links this week: One of our most successful crime writers talks crime - and poetry - Sophie Hannah: ‘There are people who think a crime novel can't be proper literature... that's a shame for them' | Books | The Guardian; in a report back: 'a predictable and deep sense among many writers at the Author Day conference that a commercial motive has vastly outweighed aesthetics and literary meaning in much of publishing', A message to FutureBook from Author Day | The Bookseller; and authors and publishers give their own views on How do we stop UK publishing being so posh and white? | Books | The Guardian.
- A recent entry to our endorsement page: ‘The site covers EVERYTHING a new writer, established writer, or a wannabe writer could possibly want or need to know.' Hester Mundis, author of many books, including My Chimp Friday, Heart Songs For Animal Lovers and The Vitamin Bible.
- More links: Author-centric publishing is a mindset, an attitude for all future-facing members of the publishing community, 'Our main responsibility is to our authors' | The Bookseller; the 5th biennial Kwani? Litfest took place Nairobi from December 1 through 6th, Kwani Literary Festival in Nairobi Showcases African Authors; and when Rebecca Thornton got the debut novel jitters, a community of Bonnier authors came to her help, BookBrunch - Support from a procrastination of writers.
- 'No poet, no artist of any art has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.' T S Eliot in our Writers' Quotes.
What's New in 2015
28 December 2015 - What's new
14 December 2015 - What's new
- This article in the Guardian, Are books getting longer, shows that in both commercial bestseller lists and literary lists (measured by Booker Prize winners), the books that feature are tending to get longer. But this goes against a number of trends which you would expect to be pushing readers in the opposite direction. News Review on Big books in demand.
- Our 19-part Inside Publishing series gives you an insider's take on the publishing world, covering everything from subsidiary rights to the world English language market, from advances and royalties to the writer/publisher financial relationship. From the Introduction to the series - 'It's a curious mixture of a business, an industry, a profession and a compulsion, but those who work in publishing find it hard to tear themselves away from that heady mix of books, authors and commerce.'
- 'I've written poems as long as I've been able to write - obviously, since long before blogging existed. It's about language for me, and the play of light, if you will, on an idea or a feeling or something so inchoate you can only make it flesh in the form of a poem. It's like gathering smoke together and giving it embodiment in the form of words. A poem is like a little miracle...' Katy Evans-Bush, the author of the Baroque in Hackney
Katy Evans-Bush's elegant blog about poetry, arts and culture, which has become a must-read for many. baroqueinhackney.com/
blog, talks about her collection of essays Forgive the Language: Essays on Poets and Poetry, and provides our Comment. - Which Report? gives the details of the three reports we offer: the full Editor's Report, the basic Reader's Report and the most substantial Editor's Report Plus. There's also our specialist Children's reports, part of our Children's Editorial Services. If you want a professional editor's assessment of your work, here's the place to start.
- Our links of the week: the oddly persistent myth that genre fiction is "popular fiction" and that literary fiction is pointless and obscure, When Popular Fiction Isn't Popular: Genre, Literary, and the Myths of Popularity | Electric Literature; a remarkably positive view of what's to come in publishing, Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch on the Future of Publishing - WSJ; a survey which has found the average number of pages in a book has grown by 25% over the last 15 years, The big question: are books getting longer? | Books | The Guardian; and a report back from Author Day, Authors need to 'engage' in the publishing process | The Bookseller.
- How to market your writing services online is a useful article from 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 about selling yourself as a writer. 'Recently someone commented to me that I seem to be doing a pretty good job of promoting my writing services on the internet. I was touched by the observation - we writers get so many rejections that a little praise is especially gratifying. And I began to wonder - what does it take to market yourself successfully as a jobbing writer today?...'
- More links: as One Hundred Years of Solitude turns 50, Paul Elie interviews Gabo's longtime agent-just weeks before her death, at 85 - and discovers the events that led to a literary revelation, The Secret History of One Hundred Years of Solitude | Vanity Fair; a serious and quite lengthy look at writing and gender, Knausgaard Writes Like a Woman ‹ Literary Hub; and, as a little light relief, Morrissey's win of the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award | Literary Review.
- 'The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader.' Paulo Coelho in our Writers' Quotes
30 November 2015 - What's new
- 'Lizzie Kremer's amusing article about being a nerd, which we link to this week, disguises a greater truth about agents, which is that behind the showmanship and flair that many of the better-known and possibly more successful ones show there is a great deal of attention paid to the detail of their clients' affairs, particularly their royalty statements and subsidiary rights sales...' News Review on agents.
- Have you got something you'd like to say to our community of writers? My Say gives writers a chance to air their views about writing and the writer's life. So we have Zoe Jenny on learning to write in another language - and loving it, Dominae Primus with a paean of praise for WritersServices and Wendy Walker with How a Stay-Home-Mom Became a Writer. Contributions should ideally be 200 to 400 words in length and of general interest. Please email them to us.
- Our Comment is from Robert Harris, author of Dictator, Pompeii and many other historical novels, in the Bookseller: ‘I wouldn't have gone back to the period, if I hadn't felt it had something to say to us. You have a double benefit (when you write a historical novel): you re-create that world for the reader, yet at the same time it's a commentary on our own time: whatever you select to write is inevitably trying to hold up a mirror to our own age, whether consciously or unconsciously...'
- 'You are a first-time author without an agent and you receive a contract to publish your book - just how do you evaluate it? Is it fair or biased against the author by prevailing industry standards? Is your publisher looking out for your interests as well as his own - or wording the clauses in a way only advantageous to the company?' Why your book contract needs vetting.
- Our links: an audacious attempt to extend the copyright in Anne Frank's book, Does Anne Frank Copyright Extension Rewrite History? - Publishing Perspectives; a useful article for anyone who is self-publishing a book with illustrations, The Indie Authors' Guide to Self-Publishing Art Books; all agents love to make a lot of money for an author: to find a book which sets their heart racing and to work all day and all night sending it to publishers, so they can feel the excitement too; to use their skills to make a fantastic deal or thirty fantastic deals, Hi, I'm Lizzy, I'll be your nerd today: The detail of publishing | Publishing for Humans; and the latest manifesto - 'We need to change the way we think about our books, A manifesto for new formats | The Bookseller.
- Have you managed to find a publisher for your work and are now enjoying the thrill of knowing that your book will soon be published? If you're wondering what happens next or just dreaming of being in that situation, Preparing for Publication gives an outline of the processes involved.
- More links: Collins Dictionaries in the UK has declared "binge-watch" its "word of the year" for 2015, following the public's appetite for watching episodes of series like House of Cards and Breaking Bad back to back, Forget Binge-Watching, Try Encouraging Binge-Reading; for the first time in 17 years, the Guardian First Book Award has been won by a poet, Guardian first book award 2015 goes to poet Andrew McMillan | Books | The Guardian; and Call it "Goldfinching", after Vanity Fair's 2014 yes-but-is-it-art interrogation as to whether Donna Tartt's Pulitzer prize-winning, mega-bestselling book The Goldfinch is or is not literature, If you enjoyed a good book and you're a woman, the critics think you're wrong | Jennifer Weiner | Comment is free | The Guardian.
- The September Magazine is ready!
- From our Writers' Quotes: 'When you take stuff from one writer, it's plagiarism; but when you take it from many writers, it's research.' William Mizner
23 November 2015 - What's new
- The new Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers' Award for literary fiction has been set up in memory of the distinguished literary agent. It is open to writers residing in the British Commonwealth and Eire. For this Writing Opportunity there's no entry fee, the prize is £10,000 and the closing date is 31 January 2016.
- 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!...'
- 'The news from the independent publishing sector is good. The UK Independent Publishers Guild has just published its first report into the independent sector in the UK. What it shows is a thriving picture, with 600 independent publishers and just 15% of the respondents saying that their business is contracting...' Our News Review looks at good news from indie publishers.
- 'Hardly any authors can copy edit their own writing. It is notoriously difficult to spot the errors in your own work. So professional copy editing does make sense, either if you are trying to give your work its best chance when submitting it or, even more crucially, if you are planning to self-publish...' Getting your manuscript copy edited
- ‘Short story is a terrible term, I much prefer the French term conte. I looked up the word "short" in the OED, and it is almost always used pejoratively. Short stories are nearer poetry than anything...' Jane Gardam, whose 10th short story collection The Stories recently won the Charleston-Chichester Award for a Lifetime's Excellence in' Short Fiction, in our Comment column.
- Our links: Alison Waines didn't expect her two-year-old psychological thriller to hit it big, Loved the Novel About a Girl on a Train? You May Have Read the Wrong Book - WSJ; for many readers, no matter where they come from, the collective childhood experience begins with the line "Once upon a time", but what if you have no siblings? BookBrunch - China and the second child; whilst the journals market is seeing significant growth for open access publication, what about monographs? A manifesto for the open book | The Bookseller; and when you hear about networking platforms or building a presence on social media, authors generally talk about Facebook, Twitter, and blogging straight away. Sometimes podcasting and Pinterest are mentioned. But Instagram? 5 Ways to Use Instagram as an Author | Jane Friedman.
- Have you ever wondered why you don't win any of those competitions? Our tips on Entering Competitions.
- More links: a major effort to get people reading, BBC Launches Campaign Promoting Reading - Publishing Perspectives; The free "Future Visions" anthology imagines the implications of quantum computing, machine learning, and more, Microsoft gets into sci-fi publishing with research-inspired short stories | PCWorld; and the sweat, the groans, the spasming muscles, the licked ears and other bits, the pendulous breasts and other bits; it can only be time for the bad sex prize, Bad sex in fiction award 2015: Morrissey goes head to head with Erica Jong | Books | The Guardian.
- 'I write because I cannot NOT write.' A styish double negative from Charlotte Bronte from our Writers' Quotes.
16 November 2015 - What's new
- The fuss that's been sparked off by the recent publication of Philip Henscher's selection of short Stories in The Penguin Book of the British Short Story suggests that short stories may be achieving more traction and visibility than they did even a few years ago. The 90 short stories included in the two volumes come from the eighteenth century (Daniel Defoe) up to the present day (Zadie Smith). Henscher trawled trough thousands of short stories by hundreds of writers. Top authors such as Rose Tremain, Julian Barnes and William Boyd, surprisingly, didn't make the cut. Our News Review.
- Another poetry Writing Opportunity, the Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize 2015, is open to all unpublished poems and you can enter as many poems as you like. 1st Prize €10,000, entry fee €12 per poem and closing on 31 December.
- Tips for writers is our 8-part crash course for writers, taking you from Improving Your Writing to Learn on the Job, from Keep up to date to Submisson to publishers and agents. 'Think about the market for your book. Research the category and read widely to see what other published writers in this area are doing. Which writers are successful and why? Visit bookshops and analyse what you find there. If you are reading this you are probably already writing, but it really is worth thinking right from the beginning about your readers, as that makes it far more likely you'll eventually find them...'
- ‘It is a mark of the importance that still attaches itself to biography as an art form that practically every example of it that appears in a publisher's catalogue tends to cause offence to someone... All this raises the associated questions: who is the biographer writing for, and to whom is he or she ultimately responsible? If the answer to the first question hangs tantalisingly out of reach, the second's answer is "the subject". D J Taylor in the Independent on Sunday provides this week's Comment.
- Working with an Agent - 'It can be hard work finding an agent to represent you. Make sure though that, when you set up the relationship, you do so in a professional manner Don't let your eagerness to find representation mean that things are left vague. You will be depending on the agent to process all your income from the books they sell, so you need to have a written record of your arrangement, preferably a contract...'
- Our links: a new generation of young, digitally astute poets whose loyal online followings have helped catapault them onto the bestseller lists, Web Poets' Society: New Breed Succeeds in Taking Verse Viral - The New York Times; a long but extremely thorough article about how to get published in a literary magazine, The Ultimate Guide To Getting Published In A Literary Magazine; Alec Ross argues that the future of the book industry lies in a combination of data compression technology and cryptography, Data Encryption, Cryptography are Keys to the Future of the Book - Publishing Perspectives; and there tends to be a lot of crossover between the U.K. and American children's book markets, but are there types of books that tend to be "too American" for the UK market? PW Talks with Global Kids Connect Speaker Ginger Clark.
- Our new article How to get your book translated into English (without it costing the earth) asks writers with a manuscript which needs translating: "if your English is good enough, what about translating your book yourself, and then getting your translation polished and copy edited by a professional editor who is a native English speaker?" This could be a cost-effective way of reaching the international English-speaking market.
- More links: what happens when you start wanting to rewrite your already-published book? Writers on the pain of hindsight in publishing: 'It's like a bad breakup - you have to move on' | Books | The Guardian; Born-digital millennial readers are a slippery bunch. Reports indicate that this generation is equally engaged in content in both print and digital formats. But one thing is clear: more readers are going to discover and read books - as well as related content - on their phones and tablets, Bastei Lübbe Targets Millennials With New Mobile Platform - Publishing Perspectives; and - a long piece again - the Mexican-American writer Jennifer Clement was elected as the first female president of PENSupported by eminent writers, this is the English branch of International Pen, which has centres in nearly 100 countries. It fights for freedom of expression and against political censorship. It campaigns for writers harassed, imprisoned and sometimes murdered for their views. http://www.englishpen.org/ International, With First Female President, PEN International Looks to the Future - Publishing Perspectives.
- And it was the great Elmore Leonard who said: 'All the information you need can be given in dialogue.' From our Writers' Quotes.
- The August Magazine is ready, giving you access to a month's worth of fascinating recent material.
9 November 2015 - What's new
- The recent Digital Census 2015 revealed some surprises in the responses. In the book trade in general there's been much talk of a slowdown and reversal in the speed of ebook adoption, accompanied by a revival in the fortunes of print. So what exactly did the Census reveal? Digital Census has plenty of surprises is the title of this week's News Review.
- Our series of six articles on writing in different categories covers a wide range of genre writing - Crime, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Romance, Non-fiction, Historical fiction and Memoir and Autobiography. So, if you're a genre writer, we've probably got an article on the genre you are interested in.
- The Brunel University African Poetry Prize 2016 is open to poets who were born in Africa, or who are nationals of an African country, or whose parents are African and who have not yet had a full-length collection published. It closes on 30 November and the prize is £3,000 - and a lot of kudos.
- 'Well, I wrote one and nobody wanted it. I wrote a second and nobody wanted it. I wrote the third and nobody wanted it. And then I went back to the newspaper to see if I could get a job. I thought, you've really failed. Like usual. Loser, loser, loser...' Patricia Cornwell, whose latest book is Depraved Heart, in the Observer magazine provides our Comment, Becoming a writer, the hard way.
- Which service should I choose to help me get my work into good shape for submission or self-publishing? This is the question our page Which service? answers and it then goes on to give a quick rundown on our 20 editorial services for writers, which we think is the biggest you can find on the internet.
- Our links: so what exactly do you feel you owe your readers? What Do Writers Owe Readers? ‹ Literary Hub; Michael Bhaskar argues that a saturated market and retail consolidation will drive change in publishing over the next five years, BookBrunch - Publishing 2020: the next five years; "Books in translation" is not a genre. It just means books from other languages. These behave like books written in English, BookBrunch - Taking stock: literature in translation; and Recording an audiobook well, as opposed to merely mechanically, is as much a performance as a stage play or a film, says Nicholas Jones in BookBrunch - Reproducing the inner voice.
- Advice for Writers is a really useful page which takes you into our archive and helps you explore our 5,000 pages of information for writers.
- More links: the author of Harry Potter is writing for children again, JK Rowling: I'm writing a children's book under my own name - Telegraph; if you think you've gotten over the practice of sounding words out, you're probably wrong. Although people watching you read will see you read silently and without moving your lips, part of you is still sounding out the words, You Will Always Read Like a Child, According to Science; and Jessica Faulkner on a programme that opens doors to literacy, learning and a lifetime of opportunity, BookBrunch - Book Aid International's Children's Corners.
- New in our Writers' Quotes, 'You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.' Larry Niven
2 November 2015 - What's new
- 'I remember telling myself that I had yet to live an interesting life. What could this twenty-something woman who'd lived only in Massachusetts write about? Weren't there enough poems singing the praises of New England leaves? I decided to stop writing. I needed to go out and extend the margins of my world before I'd know anything worthy of a poem...' Susan Rich provides this week's Comment.
- Our Writing Opportunity is Discovery Day Online 2015 on 26 November, which is open to anyone on Twitter. It's the opportunity to take part in four consecutive sessions which will show you how to find a literary agent and give advice on routes to becoming a published author, run by agencies Curtis BrownSee Curtis Brown listing and Conville and Walsh.
- Getting ready to publish your book? Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. From Copy editing to Blurb-writing with much else as well. There's also our new Translation editing service.
- To self-publish or to go for a publisher? To publish your own book confidently as an indie author or to feel that only a publisher will be able to give you what you want? Views on this are gradually changing and the major success of self-publishing authors - who often then turn to traditional publishers - has altered a lot of writers' views on the subject. Self-publishing or traditional publishing, which is best? is this week's News Review.
- Have you got something you'd like to say to our community of writers? My Say gives writers a chance to air their views about writing and the writer's life. So we have Natasha Mostert: There are few things as satisfying as typing THE END to a manuscript; Richard Hall "Write about what you know" - does this adage always make sense? and Jae Watson's Magic formula. Contributions should ideally be 200 to 400 words in length and of general interest. Please email them to us.
- Our links: an unpublished author writes with great clarity on how to go about it, The Holy Trinity of Success: write like an angel, market like a demon and be a lovely human being, | Jo Hogan Writes; an interview with the inspiring Jane Friedman of Open Road, who is busy reinventing backlist publishing for the digital age, Jane Friedman on bringing books 'back to life' | The Bookseller; John Bond reports on a new generation of writers for whom self-publishing is a matter of choice, BookBrunch - Outliers, not outsiders; and the rather shocking idea that writers should pay to be considered by literary magazines, Should Literary Journals Charge Writers for Submissions? - The Atlantic.
- This elegant and intriguing pictograph of Old World Language Families has been drawn to my attention by the poet George Szirtes, who has an excellent blog about poetry.
- More links: from a publishers' point of view but still interesting as a summary of possibilities in Africa, BookBrunch - Africa rising: digital opportunities; American novelist Joshua Cohen is setting himself a larger target - of the internet at large - as he embarks on an a mission to reinterpret Dickens' debut live online, In Rewriting Dickens Live Online, Author Critiques the Internet Age - Publishing Perspectives; and the Women's Media Group chew things over, The Latest Trends in YA Publishing.
- And from our Writers' Quotes: 'Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance too: bad luck, loss, pain. If you make something out of it, then you've no longer been bested by these events.' Louise Glück.
26 October 2015 - What's new
- You'll have to move fast to get involved in National Novel Writing Month 2015, which starts on Sunday 1 November and finishes on 30 November, and is this week's Writing Opportunity. NaNoWriMo is a thoroughly international writers' event which challenges you to write a 50,000 word novel in one month - and thousands of writers accept the challenge every year! Is it for you?
- '...Downton has been a big thing for me. It's been a worldwide sensation to a degree that is unknown in most careers. I consider myself lucky to have had one; I would be astonished if there was another.' Julian Fellowes, creator and writer of Downton Abbey, in the Sunday Times provides this week's Comment.
- Tom Chalmers of IPR has written two articles about rights for self-publishers, Self-publishing - the rights way and How to get your book in the hands of an international audience. 'It's a fact that most self-published authors understand the process that takes them from a written manuscript to a published book, but few realise the additional elements that make publishing a profitable business. Rights licensing is arguably the most vital element in this equation. Whether it's selling translation rights, audio rights or optioning the film rights, these all help balance the book's books...'
- Two of our links this week relate to AmazonCrossing's announcement of $10m to be spent on publishing translations, an impressive figure which shows how much translations are entering the mainstream. Whatever your view about Amazon's initiative, there's no doubt that translations in general are garnering much more international attention than they used to. News Review
- 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' 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!'
- Some links from this week: For publishers, sending authors on tour is expensive - they have to cover transport, meals, and nice hotels. And perhaps more importantly, touring doesn't necessarily translate into better book sales, What Book Tours Are Like in the 21st Century - The Atlantic; a new survey shows that young adults 18-29 were more likely to have a read a book over the past year than their older counterparts, New Pew Survey Finds Kids Reading More Than Adults; more on Amazon and translations, Amazon Commits $10 Million to Translations, Prompting Questions - Publishing Perspectives; and a long and thoughtful article considering the issue, America's Biggest Publisher of Literature In Translation is Amazon | The New Republic.
- Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish.
- More links: When it comes to reading books, the kids are all right. But the rest of us have some work to do, Fewer Americans are reading books, but don't blame the millennials - LA Times; the first of two articles on the burgeoning Indian book market, Nielsen Values Indian Publishing at $3.9 Billion - Publishing Perspectives; and, moe about th epublishing, Jo Henry reports on some of the findings of the Nielsen India Book Market Report 2015, launched last week at the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two., BookBrunch - India: Huge possibilities and challenges.
- 'Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.' John Irving in our Writers' Quotes.
19 October 2015 - What's new
- 'We had intended to report on the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. this week, but all we have been able to glean so far is that it was a busy fair, with a great many successful rights deals, and the new layout of the Fair was generally liked. Salman Rushdie spoke at the opening ceremony, saying freedom of speech is not just a human right but a "universal of the human race" which must be defended...' News Review
- The Times / Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition 2016 is open to all writers of 18 and over internationally. The wonderful prize is a worldwide publishing deal with Chicken House with an advance of £10,000, a great start for a new children's writer. Our Writing Opportunity.
- ‘Twenty years as a teacher, ten years in educational research and five years of directing an educational charity, and in all that time, I hadn't published any fiction or poetry at all. I'd always had a feeling that if life ever did allow me a clear run at creative writing, I might just be able to do something with it...' Bruce Harris's Writing Short Fiction: A Personal Journey is about how he worked his way towards setting up the fantastic website Writing Short Fiction. In spite of problems with the site, it still has some wonderful material but do visit it now.
- Authors often find it difficult to write their own synopsis for submission to publishers, which is where our Synopsis-writing service can help. If you're preparing to self-publish and having difficulty with your blurb, our Blurb-writing service might be what you need. There are eighteen other services if this isn't what you're looking for.
- Our links: today's writers have never had a more global reach; ebooks and digital distribution have made it easier for authors to find readers in other countries as well as their own, How Authors Can Find Their Ideal Reading Audience | Jane Friedman; this Manifesto is about letting writers be writers and bridging the gap betwenn traditionally published and self-published, A manifesto for all writers | The Bookseller; the first bit of the investigation which turned into the fake reviews scandal, Amazon fake reviews bought for £3 | The Bookseller; and as self-publishing shrugs off its "vanity press" stigma and becomes recognized as a bona fide and lucrative option, more and more authors are finding that going indie just makes more sense, Why Traditionally Published Authors Are Choosing to Go Indie.
- From our Archive, in the first excerpt from the excellent Writing Biography & Autobiography by Brian D Osborn, he makes a valuable point: 'The novelist L P Hartley wrote in The Go-Between: ‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.' This is a great and important truth, awareness of which should always be with us when writing biographies; and making proper allowance for that truth is one of the core skills that the biographer has to learn...'
- More links: after polling 1,674 Guild members, Mary Rasenberger, executive editor at the Authors Guild, created a splash a few weeks ago by claiming that most of its members' annual earnings were below the federal poverty level of $11,670 but Publishers, Amazon Not to Blame for Author Poverty Wages; the phenomenal success of vloggers, Video killed the book star? The rise of the YouTuber author | Children's books | The Guardian; and Emma Barnes says "I want to work in a flourishing industry known for its competence, kindness, innovation and creativity", A manifesto for skills | The Bookseller.
- 'If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.' Somerset Maugham in our Writers' Quotes.
12 October 2015 - What's new
- This week's story was to have been on the rise in support for short stories, until, that is, Marlon James had his stunning Man Booker Prize win last night. It might have been expected that an American would win this year for the first time since the Prize was opened to novels in English from across the world... News Review on how it's gone to ‘an uncompromising and exhilarating Man Booker winner'.
- 'Read voraciously and read forensically, whether it's stories you admire or stories you detest. There is a lesson in every one, tricks to steal, potholes to avoid. Treat every story like a crime scene. Take it to pieces. How many adverbs are there? How much does the narrator know? How long are the sentences?...' Mark Haddon, nominated for the 2015 BBC Short Story Award for Bunny is this week's Comment.
- 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 takes 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!...'
- We're coming up to the 31 October closing date for the National Poetry Competition 2015. Open to poets across the world, this prestigious and valuable prize offers a first prize of £5,000 and nearly £6,000 in other prizes for a single poem. This week's Writing Opportunity.
- Another closing date looming now on 19 October is for the Troubadour International Poetry Prize, a less well-known prize with the same top prize money.
- Have you translated your work into English? Now you need to make sure it's good enough to publish, or send to a publisher. Our new Translation Editing service provides a polishing service for non-native English speakers who want to publish their work in English.
- Our links of the week: Andy Mulligan, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, reflects on the differences and similarities between the crafts, BookBrunch - The excitement of getting lost; the gatekeepers have always been publishers, book retailers and the media but now DBW claims that Authors Are the New Gatekeepers to Large Audiences | Digital Book World; Egmont publisher Cally Poplak's take is that although children are increasingly discovering books through digital and new media brands, books still matter, Children's Conference: 'Old-fashioned' publishing skills 'still relevant' | The Bookseller; and the blurb in all its different meanings, including book cover copy and endorsement, The Curious Case Of The Book Blurb (And Why It Exists) : NPR.
- Under 24 different headings we have hundreds of recommended links to sites, including Interesting Literature, a new one, and Writers Online Services. Share with us any new links you'd recommend.
- More links: is it a wrong turning for publishers to make editors an endangered species? Why the End of Editors in Digital Publishing is a Mistake - Publishing Perspectives; Waterstones has taken Kindle devices off most of its shelves due to "pitiful" sales, Is it now the time for something completely different? | The Bookseller; and a thoughtful article which throws light not just on celebrity bio pubishing but on publishers' profits on these potentially blockbusting books, Is an Amy Schumer Essay Collection Worth $10 Million? | The New Republic.
- 'What makes an exceptional poem/poet? DNA, luck, reading a lot, independence of mind, solitude, silence, curiosity, patience, pride, humility' Glyn Maxwell, judge of the National Poetry Competition in Ask the Judge, quoted in our Writers' Quotes.
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5 October 2015 - What's new
- ''If I can make people think while also being accessible, and possibly make them laugh and cry a bit at the same time, then, frankly, I don't care what they call me. I'd like to be the Puccini of fiction...' Jojo Moyes, author of Me Before You and After You in the Observer, provides this week's Comment.
- 'The announcement that the subscription service Oyster is to close down has prompted a lot of ruminating on the subject of how these services work. Simon Dunlop, CEO of the competing business Bookmate, said that Oyster had a flawed business model because of publishers' indifference towards the idea. In fact they were worse than indifferent and seem to have been hoping it would fail...' Oyster hits the rocks in our News Review.
- First-time author Garth Gunston took two accidental steps which made the difference between attracting a ‘proper publisher' and having to self- publish. 'Whatever happened, the advice to get professional advice had proved invaluable. This had happened ‘by accident' and it was a second ‘accident' which proved equally significant. I had been looking for the magic bullet and had been approved for publication by a Texas-based operation...' Getting my novel published.
- Closing on 16 October, this week's Writing Opportunity is the C21 Drama Series Script Competition, which is open to all and offers £10,000 of development funding, time in a writers' room on a current series and assistance in taking their drama project to series as the prizes.
- Your submission package - 'given the difficulty of getting agents and publishers to take on your work, it's really important to make sure that you present it in the best possible way. Less is more, so don't send a full manuscript, as it's very unlikely to be read. Far better to tempt them with a submission package that will leave them wanting to see the rest of the manuscript'.
- Our links this week: what do Hard Times, Middlemarch, Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, and many more of the greatest novels ever published have in common? When they were first published, they were not published as books. They were published serially. A manifesto for serial publishing | The Bookseller; a rather dull report but essential reading for children's authors, 3 Key Takeaways from the Nielsen Children's Book Summit - Publishing Perspectives; more literary authors, from David Mitchell to Jennifer Egan, are turning to Twitter to publish fiction, a form that mimics both poetry and serialization, Can One Write Serious Twitter Fiction? and a tough UK editor's view on acquisition, When Acquiring Debut Authors, Ask If They Can Compete - Publishing Perspectives.
- Our Children's Editorial Services can help you get your work ready for publication or self-publishing. Have you found it difficult to get expert editorial input on your work ? Do you want to know if it has real commercial potential? Or are you planning to self-publish? Two reports and copy editing are available from skilled children's editors.
- More links: growing research data suggests that people are not reading the ebooks they buy, People are Not Reading the e-Books they Buy Anymore; the extraordinary power of the internationally famous literary agent, Publishing Colleagues Share Admiration for Carmen Balcells; and there's a tendency to think of self-published books as a bit of a joke but maybe not their covers, Why Self-Published Book Covers Are Better Than You Think - Publishing Perspectives.
- 'If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking' Haruki Murakami in our Writers' Quotes.
- We've just published our July Magazine, so you can browse back through recent content.
21 September 2015 - What's new
- 'In an unusual move, the UK children's publisher Chicken House and US publisher Little Brown Young Readers have parted company with bestselling children's author Cornelia Funke, who both have published right from the beginning of her writing career. What's unusual about the split is that it's not about money, or more promotion, but about differences relating to editorial advice...' This week's News Review.
- 'Hardly any authors can copy edit their own writing. It is notoriously difficult to spot the errors in your own work. So professional copy editing does make sense, either if you are trying to give your work its best chance when submitting it or, even more crucially, if you are planning to self-publish...' Getting your manuscript copy edited
- ‘When you have a new development in forensic science, as a crime writer your first thought is how do I work my way around that? Because these new developments do make for a slightly more complicated environment for us to be working in. If you look back 20 years even, what was available in terms of evidential analysis was really quite low level. The writer had a lot of leeway and could leave forensic traces that were never going to be picked up on...' Val McDermid, whose latest book is Splinter the Silence, in the Sunday Telegraph quoted in our Comment column.
- Amongst the entries in our Endorsements page: ‘The site covers EVERYTHING a new writer, established writer, or a wannabe writer could possibly want or need to know.' Hester Mundis, author many books, including My Chimp Friday, Heart Songs For Animal Lovers and The Vitamin Bible.
- Our links this week, an especially rich trawl: author Ian Graham's dissatisfaction with his publisher led to A manifesto on working with authors | The Bookseller; an interesting but perhaps over-long series of views on the great crime writer, Agatha Christie: genius or hack? Crime writers pass judgment and pick favourites; a useful article giving self-publishers a perspective on selling their books internationally, How Self-Published Authors Can Go Global - Publishing Perspectives; and in its first study on author income since 2009, the Authors Guild delivers some jarring, if unsurprising, data, New Guild Survey Reveals Majority of Authors Earn Below Poverty Line.
- From our Archive, a two-part serialisation of Linda Strachan's Writing for Children: 'One of the most exciting things about writing for children is the sheer diversity. You have different ages to choose from; you can write picture books, easy readers, short books for more confident readers, or novels - each quite different in length and often in content... Do you want to write for the educational market - books written for use in schools - or would you rather write poetry or plays, a series or a ‘stand alone', or perhaps a picture book for the very young?...'
- More links: some help with getting started each day on your writing, 10 Tips to Help Writers Actually Write; the Daily Telegraph says: 'What a fascinating job this year's Man Booker committee is doing, and how difficult they're making life for the poor souls charged with calling the odds' in The Booker Prize shortlist 2015: the best for years; and more tips, from a very successful and well-respected author, William Boyd: my advice for budding authors | Books | The Guardian.
- 'In the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood. Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it's not poison; and we will all come to the end together, and even to the beginning: living, as we do, in the middle.' Ursula K Le Guin in our Writers' Quotes.
7 September 2015 - What's new
'The speed with which Penguin Random House has moved to do a world English language deal for Ehrlin's bestselling picture book, The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep, is an indication of how much the big publishers are now relying on self-publishers to produce saleable books. Once the author has established a market, it's easy to see why the publishers want to jump on board...' News Review is entitled 'Penguin Random House swoops on Ehrlin's bestseller'.
'The laureateship meant an awful lot more to me than any prize I got, because it happened at home. It takes Ireland a while to accept one of its writers, because there's a very dissenting tradition in Irish writing. Writers are never telling wonderful stories about Ireland, they're telling interesting stories about Ireland, and Ireland doesn't necessarily appreciate that...' Anne Enright, author of The Green Road and the Booker Prize-winning The Gathering, in the Observer in this week's Comment.
Our 19-part Inside Publishing series gives you an insider's take on the publishing world, covering everything from subsidiary rights to the world Engllish language market, from advances and royalties to the writer/publisher financial relationship. 'There's no escaping the fact that publishers and authors are essentially in an adversarial position. Even in the very best and most supportive publisher/writer relationships there is the tension caused by the fact that authors would like to earn as much as possible from their writing and publishers to pay as little as they can get away with. Understanding this is part of working your way through the relationship so as to come out of it in the way that best suits you as the writer...'
The 2015 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, which closes on 16 September, is our Writing Opportunity. It is open to writers of any nationality who can show a previous record of publication in creative writing in the UK and Ireland. The First Prize is £30,000 and five shortlisted writers will each receive £1,000.
Which service should I choose to help me get my work into good shape for submission or self-publishing? Writers coming to WritersServices for help with getting their work into shape for submission or self-publishing often have difficulty with working out which service they should go for. The services have been designed to suit a wide range of requirements, so whatever you want we've probably got it covered.
Our links of the week: the bestselling author asks the question, Stephen King: Can a Novelist Be Too Productive? - The New York Times; Amazon has just introduced a new model that's likely to be much more disruptive in the long run - Amazon Underground, where paid apps go to be free, How Amazon Underground will affect content pricing and business models - Joe Wikert's Digital Content Strategies; Author Ruth Galm received upwards of 60 rejections from agents for her first novel, Into the Valley, On Writing, Rejection, and Persistence; and an inspiring story about how quality and persistence paid off in the end, How the Tiny Graywolf Press Became a Big Player in Book Publishing.
Getting Your Poetry Published has some suggestions on how to get started with this. 'Don't even try to approach publishers until you have a collection-length amount of material to offer. Your chances will be much better even then if you can point to publication of your poems in magazines. Don't waste any time trying to get a literary agent to represent you..'
More links: There you sit, day after day, alone at your computer, trying to bang out 500 words or so because that's what they say writers are supposed to do, Why Indie Authors Need Writing Communities; a strong argument for diversity in publishing, We Need Diverse Diverse Books ‹ Literary Hub; and Bill Clegg's debut novel, Why the Most Famous Agent In Book Publishing Is About to Become a Famous Novelist Too | Vanity Fair.
'The simple way to arrive at an appreciation of poetry is to read it - and then to read it again.' Desmond Flower in our Writers' Quotes.
31 August 2015 - What's new
- Kevin Morley wrote his book Inside Eritrea: A Volunteer in East Africa in order to raise funds from its sales to support the Saltergate Children's Home which he founded in Addis Ababa. He tells his story in Becoming a writer to ‘help kids in Africa'
- 'It's the colouring books and a self-published sleep aid which are making the headlines and topping the charts as summer moves in to autumn in the northern hemisphere - not that those of us in the UK feel we've had much summer... News Review looks at surprise bestsellers for the silly season.
- An Editor's Advice is a series of seven articles by one of our editors on really useful subjects for writers such as Dialogue, Manuscript presentation and Doing further drafts: 'I have just finished writing a report on a novel. I've pinpointed various areas of weakness and made various suggestions that the writer may or may not wish to follow. But the nub of the report is a recommendation that the writer produce a further draft of the novel rather than trying to submit it to a publisher now. I wonder sometimes how writers feel when they get my reports and see that recommendation...'
- ‘By rejection number 45, I was truly neurotic. It was all I could think about - revising the book, making it better, getting an agent, getting it published. I insisted on rewriting the last chapter an hour before I was due at the hospital to give birth to my daughter. I would not go to the hospital until I'd typed The End...' Kathryn Stockett, author of the huge bestseller The Help, advises you to 'Give in to your obsession' in our Comment column.
- Our latest Writing Opportunity is the Twenty7 Books open submission, which started on 1 September and closes on 27 September. Submit a one-page pitch and 5,000 words from your debut novel.
- Our links: an unbelievable number of rejections, Kathryn Stockett's 'The Help' Turned Down 60 Times Before Becoming a Best Seller | MORE Magazine; what's going on in the book design world, Flat book cover design: Why do all the summer novels have the same look? so what about direct to consumer, A manifesto for reaching readers | The Bookseller; Authors United's campaign continues, Is Amazon Creating a Cultural Monopoly? - The New Yorker;
- Which Report? gives the details of the three reports we offer: the full Editor's Report, the basic Reader's Report and the most substantial Editor's Report Plus. There's also our specialist Children's reports, part of our Children's Editorial Services. If you want a professional editor's assessmen of your work, here's the place to start.
- More links: fans of the best-selling Millennium series have been rushing to get their copies of The Girl in the Spider's Web, Stieg Larsson's partner ‘casts a spell' to jynx Millennium series book launch | Daily Mail Online and how publishers miss opportunities to sell books and build their authors, Why Smart Publishers Build Bad Websites | Digital Book World.
- 'A book is a device to ignite the imagination.' Alan Bennett from our Writers' Quotes.
24 August 2015 - What's new
- Have you translated your work into English? Or do you have a translation that someone else has done? Now you need to make sure it's good enough to publish, or send to a publisher. If you need help to get your work into perfect condition, our new service, Translation Editing, is for you. Acknowledging the growth of world English, this new service is designed for the many non-native English speakers throughout the world who want to publish their work in English.
- 'I've learned that despite all the new bells and whistles, there's no substitute for giving the bookselling community time enough to read a book and get behind it... It starts with the book no matter what. Without that it doesn't matter how much you tweet. You'll get one wave of publicity and then it's over.' Dawn Davis, founder of 37 Ink, in Poets and Writers magazine, quoted in our Comment column.
- First excerpt - How to Open Doors and Get Noticed the First Time Around is from The ABC Checklist for New Writers, the first of a six-part series of extracts from this useful book by Lorraine Mace and Maureen Vincent-Northam. 'Plenty of authors have sold their books directly to a publisher, but there are a number of benefits in acquiring the services of an agent. Agents are well informed about market trends, able to assess your work and offer it to the most suitable publisher. They will advise, check over your publishing contract and negotiate the best terms on your behalf. So when is the right time to approach an agent and how do you go about it?...'
- You'd better be quick to catch this week's Writing Opportunity, which is the 2015 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, closing on 31 August. There are two prizes of £1,000 and the second one is for poets for whom English is a second language.
- Your Submission Package helps with getting your package exactly right: 'Given the difficulty of getting agents and publishers to take on your work, it's really important to make sure that you present it in the best possible way...'
- Our links this week: a new term for opportunities which are 'in the cracks', Interstitial Publishing | The Scholarly Kitchen; the New York Times investigation of Amazon's white collar workforce culture reveals that the company may be on the road to its own eventual demise, says Edward Nawotka, Editor in Chief of PP, in a thoughtful article, Is Amazon Eating Itself Alive? - Publishing Perspectives; one of Scotland's leading authors is bitter about publishers and publishing and where is new thinking in the publishing world coming from, Publisher or Author? Whose Job Is it to Innovate Anyway? - Publishing Perspectives.
- Authors often find it difficult to write their own synopsis for submission to publishers, which is where our Synopsis-writing service can help. If you're preparing to self-publish and having difficulty with your blurb, our Blurb-writing service might be what you need.
- More links: author Diana Kimpton presents A manifesto for author-publisher relations | The Bookseller; we're especially afraid of data deciding what gets published; Booktrack and Audible are becoming very successful but We're Spending $10 Billion On Kids' Classroom Technology-But Does It Help Them Learn? | Fast Company | Business + Innovation
- 'One of the conditions for reading what is good is that we must not read what is bad; for life is short and time and energy are limited.' Arthur Schopenhauer in our Writers' Quotes.
17 August 2015 - What's new
- Our new article How to get your book translated into English (without it costing the earth) asks writers with a manuscript which needs translating: "if your English is good enough, what about translating your book yourself, and then getting your translation polished and copy edited by a professional editor who is a native English speaker?" This could be a cost-effective way of reaching the international English-speaking market.
- 'One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily. In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone.' Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in an interview in Writers at Work, in our Comment column.
- Suzy Jenvey, vastly experienced children's editorial director and now agent, has written a special series for WritersServices, the four-part The Essential Guide to Writing for Children. The first article looks at the all-important question of age groups and what you should be aware of in writing for each one. The second part is - Before You Write: What is My Story Going to be? The third part deals with Starting to Write and the fourth part is about Submitting Your Work to Agents and Editors.
- As many in the northern hemisphere are still sunning themselves (or sitting out the rain if they're in the UK), the book trade is hotting up for the autumn. In the UK it looks as if 8 October will be Super Thursday, when the combination of big books being launched reaches its peak. News Review this week is looking forward to the autumn.
- Our Poetry Critique service and Poetry Collection Editing might help you to work out where you've got to with your poetry. Do you want to make sure that your poetry is as good as it can be before you go ahead with submitting to magazines or websites, or do you want help to prepare a collection?
- Our links of the week: how ebooks might be changing the way we read - and even the way we write, Ebooks are changing the way we read, and the way novelists write | Comment is free | The Guardian; the Wall Street Journal thinks we are about to have an explosion of reading on phones, The Rise of Phone Reading - WSJ; determination really can get you there, Delhi Tea Seller Finds Success As Author on Amazon - Publishing Perspectives; and the answer back to the challenge of last week about communities supporting writers appears to be 'no', Can digital community support writing, really? | The Bookseller.
- Our Publishing Glossary is a really helpful way of finding your way about the business.
- More links: quoting Virginia Woolf in "How Should One Read a Book?", this takes a literay approach to writing, When the page is broken: Who writes the books? | The Bookseller; one author's day-to-day experience of living the dream of becoming a writer, Down, Up, Down Again: The Diary of a Debut Author - Publishing Perspectives; and Frankfurt has proudly announced a link to Shakespeare in the 1622 fair catalogue, which listed Shakespeare's First Folio, no less! How the Frankfurt Book Fair Helped Launch Shakespeare - Publishing Perspectives.
- 'One of the conditions for reading what is good is that we must not read what is bad; for life is short and time and energy are limited.' Arthur Schopenhauer provides this week's quote in our Writers' Quotes.
10 August 2015 - What's new
- Our Writing Opportunity this week is the poetry part of the Manchester Writing Prize, with a first prize of £10,000 and open to poets across the world. It closes on 25 September.
- A recent report from Enders Analysis has said that it would be a mistake to see the ebook revolution as the key disruption in the book trade. The authors of the report are much more concerned with the reduction in the time people spend on reading, due to time spent on mobile devices, which is eating into book reading time. News Review
- Have you got something you'd like to say to our community of writers? My Say gives writers a chance to air their views. So we have Natasha Mostert: There are few things as satisfying as typing THE END to a manuscript, Richard Hall "Write about what you know" and Jae Watson with his 'magic formula' for writers. Contributions should ideally be 200 to 400 words in length and of general interest. Email us.
- 'That's the essential goal of the writer: you slice out a piece of yourself and slap it down on the desk in front of you. You try to put it on paper, try to describe it in a way that the reader can see and feel and touch. You paste all your nerve endings into it and then give it out to strangers who don't know you or understand you. And you will feel everything that happens to that story...' Our Comment is from Stephen Leigh, author of The Crow of Connemara.
- 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' 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!'
- Our links of the week; Once writing was the most solitary of professions. Now it's the most social. What has changed? Digital writing: If only community weren't so communal | The Bookseller; ebook sales for the big publishers seem to be declining, but what does Mike Shatzkin think the real catalyst for change might be? The publishing world is changing, but there is one big dog that has not yet barked - The Shatzkin Files The Shatzkin Files; an amazingly revealing interview with the great Sara Paretsky, Sara Paretsky interview: ‘I start each VI Warshawski book convinced I can't do it' | Books | The Guardian; and the inspiring story of how indie women writers are using ebooks, Kindle turns five: independent women thrive in ebook bestseller charts | Books | The Guardian.
- Getting ready to publish your book? Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a set of Services for Self-publishers which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. From Copy editing to Blurb-writing with much else as well.
- More links: one writer's account (with video) of how he used YouTube to promote his work, Teymour Shahabi on YouTube for Writers; you might not have known that reading for pleasure can result in increased empathy, improved relationships with others, reductions in the symptoms of depression and dementia, and improved wellbeing, Why is reading for pleasure important? | Reading Agency; and a powerful account of one writer's route to success as a self-publisher - through his agent, "My Agent By My Side": An Author's Assisted Publishing Experience - Publishing Perspectives.
- 'When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.' Enrique Jardiel Poncela in our Writers' Quotes.
3 August 2015 - What's new
- 'The longlist for this year's Man Booker Prize is both diverse and international, with a wide range of different kinds of writers and a number of debuts. The longlist features three British writers, five US writers and one each from the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, India, Nigeria and Jamaica... News Review looks as the internationalisation of the Prize.
- 'It's all to do with fiction: life is mysterious, human beings are opaque - even your family, spouse, children, you don't know what goes on in their heads. How do you find out what makes people tick? The answer is the novel. That's why it endures and thrives, it's the best art form for making sense of the human condition. It deals with the messy, random business of our lives, this common adventure we're on, the human predicament. Fiction's the best way of getting at the truth, however paradoxical that sounds.' Our Comment is from William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart and the forthcoming Sweet Caress, in the Bookseller.
- Tips for writers is an eight-part series which goes from Improve your writing to Submisson to agents and publishers, and includes Self-pubishing - is it for you? and Keep up to date. Effectively it's a crash-course for writers who are starting out.
- Our Writing Opportunity this week is the MslexiaStylish and lively site for quarterly UK literary magazine read by 12,000 'committed' women writers. Good range of quality writing, information and advice with news, reviews, competitions and interviews, all presented in a friendly fashion. Praised by Helen Dunmore as 'astute, invigorating and above all an excellent read.' www.mslexia.co.uk Women's Novel Competition, closing on 21 September and open to unpublished women writers from across the world. The winner of this highly-regarded Prize gets £5,000 and there's an entry fee of £25.
- 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.
- Our links this week: in our age of media saturation and, for all practical purposes, limitless entertainment options, how does a specific book find the right reader at the right time? Book Media Amplification is Key to Small Press Success - Publishing Perspectives; the US Authors' Guild has moved on to an attack on term of copyright, Authors Guild Urges More Book Contract Changes; and a publisher's research into which writers have influenced you, Publisher finds that writers' influences are mostly male | Books | The Guardian.
- More links: is the publishing world moving towards using freelancers on a large scale? In the Future, Will We All Be Freelancers? - Publishing Perspectives; a site which offers reviews of self-published writers, IndieReader's Top 10 Five-star Reviews of Self-Published Books - Publishing Perspectives; and the Zimbabwe Book Fair, once the key event in African publishing, has recently declined. This year, a focus on growing the knowledge economy is giving it new life, The Buzz at the Zimbabwe Book Fair is Growth.
- Getting Your Poetry Published has some suggestions on how to get started with this. 'Don't even try to approach publishers until you have a collection-length amount of material to offer. Your chances will be much better even then if you can point to publication of your poems in magazines. Don't waste any time trying to get a literary agent to represent you... You may feel that it is better to hedge your options by going the self-publishing route. Fortunately this is now very much cheaper than it used to be and the final result is much more satisfactory...'
- From our Writers' Quotes, Philip Larkin: 'It is fatal to decide, intellectually, what good poetry is because you are then in honour bound to try to write it, instead of the poems that only you can write.'
28 July 2015 - What's new
- 'According to some sources, the audiobook market is growing rapidly. Orion audio publisher Pandora White called the sector "the fastest-growing in publishing" and Booktrack is growing exponentially, but is the quality of the recordings being sacrificed in order to achieve the lowest price? The download has injected new life into a rather quiet corner of the book world, so what are the issues?' News Review
- ‘The prize thing was absolutely wonderful. It brings you readers and that's the thing you want with every bone in your body but - how to say this without sounding churlish? - I'm very aware that people will have been saying, "Huh? Really? when it won prizes, so I don't take it as a sign that I've got there yet. I'm still working out how to write books. I need more time...' Katherine Rundell, author of Rooftoppers and the forthcoming The Wolf Wilder, in the Bookseller, provides this week's Comment.
- Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. Services for Self-publishers.
- The USP of WritersServices' Copy editing service is that we send your edited manuscript back to you in two versions - at no extra cost - one showing track changes, so you can see what has been changed, and one with the changes accepted, to use for the printer.
- Our links this week: how about this for a dramatic headline? The ghostwriter, the secret plot and a ‘grave-robbing' Stieg Larsson sequel | Books | The Guardian; every so often, it's kind of instructive to look around at other new media and see how their problems compare to good ol' e-books', In a digital world, movies and books face different and similar problems « TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics; and it's becoming hard for crime-writers to keep up with advances in forensic medicine, Crime writers are the victims as Sherlock's too slow for forensics - Telegraph.
- Some more links: are Amazon actually getting ahead of publishers in terms of helping authors? Another wake-up call from Amazon as they serve author interests better than publishers have - The Shatzkin Files The Shatzkin Files; a headline you don't expect, Is Baby Boomer Lit the Next Hot Genre? - Publishing Perspectives; and an interesting angle as academic publishing is reduced to scale by the internet giants, Thinking about Internet Scale | The Scholarly Kitchen.
- Our series of six articles on writing in different categories covers a wide range of genre writing - Crime, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Romance, Non-fiction, Historical fiction and Memoir and Autobiography. So we've probably got the the genre you are interested in covered.
- 'Books are acts of composition: you compose them. You make music: the music is called fiction.' Ed Doctorow in our Writers' Quotes.
- And the June Magazine is ready!
20 July 2015 - What's new
- For Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror writers, the Hodderscape open submission will soon be open to unagented writers from across the world, presenting a real Writing Opportunity. It closes on 16 August.
- A kind of fever seems to have gripped a large number of book-buyers who have rushed out to buy Harper Lee's ‘new' book Go Set a Watchman, making the book a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. HarperCollins in the States says that the book has broken its own record for the number sold. But why is there such a huge surge of interest? Go Set a Bestseller is this week's News Review.
- Another endorsement: 'I'd like to thank you so much for the reports on my work... I'm going to read the reports over and over, take the time to think and plan, and you can be sure you'll receive the revision a year from now, maybe less. You offer an excellent service for a very fair cost, and I'm grateful to have found you.' Bill Neenan
- Our Comment is from author and agent Bill Clegg: 'When I finish a week of writing, I'm sick of my own head and desperate to get into the work of someone else.(Going between agenting and writing) is like a series of reunions, you're always happy to be where you are.'
- Advice for writers is a way into the riches of our Archive.
- Links of the week: there are plenty of reasons for disliking Amazon, but here are some of them, 5 reasons to wish Amazon an unhappy birthday - Salon.com; a look at successful and integrated ebook publishing, Let the right edition in | The Bookseller; further advice on contracts from the British Society of Authors, UK Society of Authors Advises: Always Compare Contracts; and a wide-ranging and thoughtful article about what's going on on the web and how it affects writers Escaping the new media cargo cult - Boing Boing.
- More links: new publisher Canelo offers authors no advances but high royalties, New Publisher Canelo Offers UK Authors Strong Incentives - Publishing Perspectives; the Prime Writers start a campaign against ageism in publishing, UK Group to Fight Bias Against Older Debut Authors - Publishing Perspectives; once again the Hugo Award has become a battledground, George R R Martin urges fans to vote on Hugo Awards | The Bookseller.
- Rotten Rejections - Most of these are taken from Andre Bernard's wonderful little book Rotten Rejections: The Letters that Publishers Wish They'd Never Sent. This extraordinary collection of rejection letters sent by publishers to writers - many delivered to now famous authors of classic books - will make you laugh and provide comfort in the face of your own struggles to get published. Do send your own rejections.
- 'Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.' Jane Austen in our Writers' Quotes.
13 July 2015 - What's new
- 'At the London Short Story Festival a month ago writers lamented the lack of a publishing market for short stories. With one or two notable exceptions, such as Comma Press, which is publicly funded, publishers do not find it economic to publish short story collections.' News Review asks 'Can short stories find an audience?'
- Our Health Hazards series gives a good basic grounding in Repetitive Stain Injuries such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and advises you what to do about your computer chair and your eyes. Reading this will alert you to the dangers of spending a substantial amount of time at a keyboard.
- 'Most authors are driven to write - would probably write whether or not they were ever published or paid, just for the joy of it. This is their strength and their downfall. With the exception of a canny few who treat art as a business, writers are often reluctant to think of their work as just another product...' Joanne Harris, author of The Gospel of Loki and Chocolat, provides this week's Comment in the Daily Telegraph.
- Our Picture libraries page has a useful list of places to go if you need to source images for your book.
- This week's Writing Opportunity, the fantastic Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2015 is closing on 31 July. It's open to young poets from across the world who are aged 11-17 on the closing date. The top 15 winners are published in an anthology and are invited to attend a week's residential creative writing course at a prestigious Arvon centre or receive a poet residency in their school.
- This week's links: we misssed this in April but thought we should give it some space now, Ten ways self-publishing has changed the books world | Books | The Guardian; over a hundred years after its foundation, Mills and Boon sells 5.5 millions books a year, Mills & Boon: And you thought romance was dead! After 35,000 tender clinches, 30,000 kisses and 10,000 ‘I do's' Mills & Boon is still booming 100 years on | Daily Mail Online; in the week when the Go Set a Watchman embargo has been completely broken by the New York Times, Mike Shatzkin's comments seem on the buttion, Publisher strategies around first serials pretty obviously need to be rethought - The Shatzkin Files The Shatzkin Files; and reflections on the effect on translation of the global dominance of English, Found in Translation - The New York Times.
- More links: the winner of Africa's Caine Prize has decided to share her prize money with the other shortlisted authors, The Caine Prize; why on Earth would you start a literary magazine? The Persistence of Litmags - The New Yorker; and an affectionate piece about the much-loved children's writer and illustrator, Shirley Hughes: 'It's my job with a picture book to slow children down' - Telegraph
- Why your book contract needs vetting - 'You are a first-time author without an agent and you receive a contract to publish your book - just how do you evaluate it? Is it fair or biased against the author by prevailing industry standards? Is your publisher looking out for your interests as well as his own - or wording the clauses in a way only advantageous to the company? Would you, for example, know which rights to grant - for how long and on what terms...' Our contracts expert on why contract vetting is essential if you don't have an agent.
- 'I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters.I find that three or four readings are required to comb out the cliches, line up pronouns with their antecedents, and insure agreement in number between subject and verbs...' James Michener in our Writers' Quotes.
6 July 2015 - What's new
- The news that Scribd is reining back on successful erotica and romance titles exposes the weak link in the subscription model of bookselling. Readers who are addicted to reading these books read them in large quantities and at great speed, so any subscription model which offers as many books as you want for a fee are certainly going to be in trouble...' This week's News Review looks at a technical hitch with subscription services - readers are reading too much!
- ‘With a shortlist so splendid and accomplished, it was not surprising that in the end our final decision came down to taste... The issue of taste is important here because it is one that affects the decision-making process not only for prize judges but for the industry as a whole: and that's something all authors have to come to terms with throughout their careers. You can't please all of the people all of the time - even hugely well-known authors have some books that do better than others...' Our Comment is from Louise Doughty, author of Apple Tree Yard and chair of the judges for the Desmond Elliott Prize.
- ‘Twenty years as a teacher, ten years in educational research and five years of directing an educational charity, and in all that time, I hadn't published any fiction or poetry at all. I'd always had a feeling that if life ever did allow me a clear run at creative writing, I might just be able to do something with it...' Bruce Harris's Writing Short Fiction: A Personal Journey is about how he worked his way towards setting up the fantastic new website Writing Short Fiction.
- We have 24 pages offering hundreds of recommended links to sites, including Interesting Literature, which we've just added, and Writers Online Services.. Share with us any new links you'd recommend.
- There aren't many prizes for playwrights but this week's Writing Opportunity is just that. The Verity Bargate Award 2015 is open to writers resident in the UK or Ireland with fewer than three professional productions and offers £6,000 in respect of an exclusive option to produce the winning play at Soho Theatre, London.
- Our links: an expert looks at how indie authors should spend their promotional money, Should an Author Favor PR or Marketing? - Publishing Perspectives; as we've reported children's publishing is flourishing, but what about encouragement for reading? Boom time for children's books as sales soar, but where are readers? - Telegraph; and a round-up of some of the world's most weird and wonderful bookshops, 10 independent bookshops you should visit worldwide: our readers recommend | Books | The Guardian.
- Are you interested in Getting Your Manuscript Copy Edited? As well as this article we have one from our 19-part Inside Publishing series about Copy editing and proof-reading and we offer a Copy editing service, as well as a Proof-reading service and our special Manuscript Polishing service, which involves more intensive work, 'polishing' and improving the text, and correcting the English if you are writing in English as a second language.
- More links: what's been described as a digital-first "multi-layered story of history and time", Arcadia's vision for a new way of reading | The Bookseller; Gordon Wise had a long stint in publishing before he became an agent, How do I become ... a literary agent | Money | The Guardian; and, of special interest to romance and erotica writers, Scribd cuts romance and erotica titles | Books | The Guardian.
- 'There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write.' Terry Pratchett in our Writers' Quotes.
29 June 2015 - What's new
- 'When John Spurling won the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction recently with The Ten Thousand Things it was much more than a good win against a formidable shortlist, which included Martin Amis, Helen Dunmore, Adam Foulds and Kamila Shamsie. The subject was obscure perhaps to a western audience, the story of Wang Meng, one of his era's great masters of painting and the novel was Spurling's fourth, although it had taken him 15 years to write...' This week's News Review
- 'Becoming a writer is like changing your gender. When I was young, my identity was as a Paki, a mixed-race mongrel boy from nowhere. The idea of having another identity as a writer seemed like a splendid solution to that. My place in the world was different. It created a future for me...' Hanif Kureishi in The Times magazine provides our Comment.
- Our 19-part Inside Publishing series gives you a really useful insider's take on the publishing world, covering everything from subsidiary rights to the world English language market, from advances and royalties to the writer/publisher financial relationship.
- The 2015 Manchester Writing Prize: The Manchester Fiction Prize is our Writing Opportunity this week. Open to all writers across the world aged 16 and over, the prize is £10,000 and there's an entry fee of £17.50. Closing on 25 September. Other Writing Opportunities which are still open.
- Authors often find it difficult to write their own synopsis for submission to publishers, which is where our Synopsis-writing service can help. If you're preparing to self-publish and having difficulty with your blurb, our Blurb-writing service might be what you need.
- Our links this week: Andy Weir, author of the wildly popular sci-fi novel "The Martian," is living the publishing dream, How Andy Weir's The Martian became so successful - Business Insider; Michael Bhaskar asks whether, after all the talk about ebook subscription services, they may be on the point of working, BookBrunch - Subscriptions: a recap, a forecast; an interesting interview with outgoing UK Children's Laureate, Malorie Blackman, Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society The ALCS News Interview: Malorie Blackman; and, from a highly respected guru on author's book marketing, AuthorBuzz Founder M.J. Rose on Book Marketing.
- The web as a research tool is a useful page showing you what a great research tool the web is for writers, helping you find a great many sites packed with information.
- More links: Lucinda Hawksley, great great great granddaughter of Charles Dickens, reflects on copyright law, then and now, Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society Charles Dickens, Copyright Pioneer; after a decade of closures, independent booksellers are optimistic they can turn the page on a story of decline, Indie revival: high street bookshops upbeat about next chapter in story | Books | The Guardian; and Publishing has a new question to ponder this week: what could Taylor Swift do for us? Swift's triumph: she got a tech giant to change its mind. Publishing's Swiftian future | The Bookseller.
- A new addition to our endorsements: 'Today I only want to say, "thank you". DM has done a truly great job. I have worked with her suggestions which have brought clarity and depth to my subject. Her work on my punctuation is brilliant. As I read through the manuscript now, it is like gliding on silk.' Helena Dodds
- 'Life being so short and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.' John Ruskin in our Writers' Quotes.
- The May Magazine is ready!
22 June 2015 - What's new
- The brilliant British author Jim Crace has just won the International 2015 IMPAC Dublin Award, which at €100,000 is the world's largest literary prize for a single work published in English. His 2013 novel Harvest, published by Picador, won out of a shortlist of ten novels. But is he retiring from writing? News Review
- Our article on Working with an agent gives a useful introduction to what you get out of it and how to handle it.
- 'Amazon has done one good thing, which is to make books available to everyone. But they've done it at terrible cost to authors by selling books so cheaply. It gives the impression that books don't cost very much to create...' Our Comment this week is from Philip Pulman, author of His Dark Materials and The Ruby in the Smoke.
- Have you ever wondered why you don't win any of those competitions you put your work in for? Our tips on Entering Competitions might give you some suggestions on how to improve your chances.
- Our links of the week: Mark Billingham on what crime-writing and comedy have in common, Killer timing: why comedy and crime writing share a secret weapon | Books | The Guardian; Futurebook's survey of how much self-publishing there is, but still no agreement, How big is self-publishing - the results | The Bookseller; some astonishingly successful authors point the way, Is This the "Golden Age" for Chinese Web Authors? - Publishing Perspectives; and is the software industry eating publishing for breakfast, How to Survive the Death of the Book | Digital Book World.
- A few more links: inventing a new category of 'embellished' biograpy or memoir, When Authors Embellish: Let's Dub Such Books 'Beautiful Stories'; in the US the Authors Guild has outlined some of the "egregious terms" of current contract boilerplates it plans to address in its Fair Contract Initiative, Guild Calls for Higher Royalties, Contract Limits; and, of particular interest to self-publishing poets, Amazon Changes the Structure of KDP Select.
- Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. Copy editing, including specialist Copy editing for children's work, Poetry Collection Editing, Manuscript Polishing, Blurb-writing, Indexing and Manuscript Typing. Our Services for Self-publishers.
- 'The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think of this as an implicit contract. He's entitled to be entertained, instructed, amused; maybe all three. If he quits in the middle, or puts the book down feeling his time has been wasted, you're in violation.' Larry Niven in our Writers' Quotes.
15 June 2015 - What's new
- This week's Writing Opportunity is the Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2015. Submissions in English are accepted from individuals of any nationality. Entry fee £5 with First Prize £5,000, Second Prize £1,00 and Third Prize £500.
- 'Mike Shatzkin's long piece on his blog gives an update on why the publishing business as we have known it is not going away anytime soon. Shatzkin is one of the most respected but also down-to-earth commentators on the publishing world...' Our News Review gives a summary of his blog.
- 'I think most women are amateur psychiatrists. We're brought up to be like that. We think much more about the whys than most men do: ‘Why has someone done that?' And that is an advantage in writing crime novels.' Our Comment is from Minette Walters, author of The Cellar, in the Guardian.
- How to market your writing services online is a useful article from 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 about selling yourself as a writer. 'Recently someone commented to me that I seem to be doing a pretty good job of promoting my writing services on the internet. I was touched by the observation - we writers get so many rejections that a little praise is especially gratifying. And I began to wonder - what does it take to market yourself successfully as a jobbing writer today?...'
- Links of the week: bestselling novelist Marian Keyes recently called the term "chick lit" derogatory, and now other female writers are agreeing with her, These Female Writers Want To Stop "Chick Lit" Being Used To Describe Work By Women; Mike Shatzkin's influential blog, the subject of this week's News Review, The publishing business as we have known it is not going away anytime soon - The Shatzkin Files The Shatzkin Files; speaking in favour of international authors and broader horizons, UK reading habits an embarrassment, says Edinburgh book festival director | Books | The Guardian; and an affectionate interview with the last of the Beat Poets, At 96, Poet And Beat Publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti Isn't Done Yet : NPR.
- More links: Nielsen: how sef-publishing is changing, Self-Publishing Now More Like Traditional Publishing - Publishing Perspectives; the new UK Children's Laureate is an illustrator who thinks everyone should draw, Chris Riddell, Children's Laureate: 'Everybody can draw - just do it! - Telegraph; and not very good news for Euroean self-publishers, VAT changes are a mere nuisance for huge retailers, but a real blow to self-published authors | Books | The Guardian.
- Does your manuscript need polishing to get it into shape for submission or self-publishing? Or are you just concerned that your English may not be quite up to producing a publishable manuscript? Manuscript Polishing is a service we've designed for writers who want a bit more help than straight copy editing provides.
- 'I suggest that the only books which influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.' E M Forster in our Writers' Quotes.
8 June 2015 - What's new
- No Exit has announced a crime short story competition for unpublished writers. It's open to crime stories of up to 3,000 words, with an entry fee of £5 and it closes on 22 June. This week's Writing Opportunity.
- 'It's been a pretty good surprise for the book trade that in two weeks' time (perfect timing for summer reading) E L James will publish a new book featuring the same characters as Fifty Shades of Grey. This time the story is told from Christian Grey's point of view and the book is simply called ‘Grey'...' Another big bestseller for E L James is our News Review.
- If you are looking for copy editing online, it is difficult to ensure that you are getting a professional copy editor who will do a good job on your manuscript. Very few authors can copy edit their own writing and it is notoriously difficult to spot the errors in your own work. Getting your manuscript copy edited.
- ‘In talking to other writers and getting a bit older and realising how it works, (I discovered) that the gestation period for a new book is very tender - it's like a new shoot, you can't expose it to the light too quickly or it might wither. You'll lose the impetus, you'll lose the belief in it.' Laura Barnett, whose just-published three-pronged first novel, The Versions of Us, has sold in 18 countries, in the Bookseller provides this week's Comment.
- Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl has achieved sales of more than 1m copies recorded by BookScan in the UK. Added to this are her huge international sales, especially after the release of the highly successful film. Gillian Flynn was the subject of our Success Story back in 2013. We have other Success Stories on a wide range of authors, including Darren Shan and Tina Seskis.
- Some of our links this week are further follow-ups to BookExpo in New York: a session on subscription sales, Partners' Corner: BEA 2015 Edition - Publishing Trends; how online publishing platforms have changed things for indie authors, At BEA 2015, E-Books May Help Indie Authors Enter Publishing, But They're Not Ready To Give Up Print Just Yet : T-Lounge : Tech Times; analysis of the last 15 years of winners of six major literary awards, Books about women less likely to win prizes, study finds | Books | The Guardian; and while "times have changed in the world of publishing...the "standard" book contract has not kept up", 'Fair Contract Initiative' from Authors Guild | The Bookseller.
- And more: authors speak out, Major Publishers Are Screwing Readers with High e-book Prices; Ursula K Le Guin's adversarial view of Amazon, Up the Amazon with the BS Machine | Book View Cafe Blog; and Malorie Blackman comes to the end of her stint as UK Children's Laureate, Blackman tells of 'surprise' at laureate 'vitriol' | The Bookseller.
- Your submission package gives you a clear outline of what you should include, to make sure your submission is as strong as possible.
- 'Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.' A A Milne of Winnie-the-Pooh fame, in our Writers' Quotes.
1 June 2015 - What's new
- 'This was a week packed with news, much of it from Book Expo, so this is just a short summary...' News Review ranges across BookExpo - Richard Charkin saying that power was shifting to authors - to Google's latest action and how authors' groups are offering support to their members.
- This week's Writing Opportunity is for girls 11-18 living in the UK. Barbara Taylor Bradford is heading up The Write Stuff 2015, which closes on 3 July. Our listing also shows other Opportunities which are still open.
- Talking to publishers is our 10-part series of interviews and artilces from the editors of various publishing lists, showing you exactly what they're looking for. The 10 cover writing for childen, historical books, young adult, paranormal and parapsychology, self-help and several more, providing an insight into how editors think about building their lists.
- 'At some point, I will get down to actually writing. I don't believe in waiting for inspiration to strike. I'm sure inspiration does arrive at some point, but I would never embarrass it by noticing its arrival or departure...' Anne Enright, author of The Green Road, in the Sunday Times magazine is our Comment.
- 'Discovering our authentic voice, writing with lasting impact, and standing out from the crowd are high priorities for most of us who write. But how do we go about achieving these intentions? Conscious Writing is a new approach to deep writing with full awareness which takes us into the core of what we're really here to write, and in the process, opens the way for us to realise our true potential as authors in the world...' Julia McCutchen is an intuitive creator, writer and mentor who guides people to share their unique gifts through creating, writing and living from a conscious and vibrant connection to Truth. A former international publisher, Julia experienced a life-changing accident in 1999 which triggered a series of major quantum leaps in her spiritual awakening. She subsequently developed a tried and tested holistic approach to access the present and aligned state required for original creative expression in all areas of life, especially writing. She is the founder and creative director of the International Association of Conscious & Creative Writers (IACCW) and the author of two books including, Conscious Writing: Discover Your True Voice Through Mindfulness and More (Hay House). For more information and a free video series visit www.JuliaMcCutchen.com and www.iaccw.com on Conscious Writing.
- Our links: Michael Bhaskar argues that we may be placing too much emphasis on ebook sales growth slowing, BookBrunch - The ebook plateau - what's really going on? a futuristic but rather fey trip into the woods with Margaret Atwood, Into the woods: Margaret Atwood reveals her Future Library book, Scribbler Moon | Books | The Guardian; why do the fabulous techie tools so often fail to deliver, With Publishing Tools Like These, Who Needs Enemies? | TechCrunch; University College London launching their Open Access list, Launch of Open Access UCL Press | The Bookseller.
- More links: Michael Bhaskar (again) arguing that curation is the answer for publishers and a way of dealing with over-abundance, Why Book Abundance Is a Problem and How Publishers Can Fix It : Book Business; we should stop worrying about libraries, Libraries could outlast the internet, head of British Library says - Telegraph; and rather irresitible to anyone who remembers this era in publishing, Jonathan Galassi's new novel, ‘Muse': A Fictional Sendup of the Publishing Industry - WSJ.
- Our expert script editor provides a service for scripts, plays and screenplays. He is a skilled professional with particular expertise in assessing and editing writing for performance. Scriptwriting assessment service.
- New in our Writers' Quotes this week: 'A best-seller was a book which somehow sold well simply because it was selling well.' Daniel J Boorstin
25 May 2015 - What's new
- Our Writing Opportunity this week is the MslexiaStylish and lively site for quarterly UK literary magazine read by 12,000 'committed' women writers. Good range of quality writing, information and advice with news, reviews, competitions and interviews, all presented in a friendly fashion. Praised by Helen Dunmore as 'astute, invigorating and above all an excellent read.' www.mslexia.co.uk Poetry and Pamphlet Prizes, both only open to women and closing on 15 June. The Poetry Prize is £2,000, the Pamphlet Prize winner gets publication of the pamphlet by Seren BooksClick for Seren Books Publishers References listing.
- 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 takes 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!...'
- ‘In talking to other writers and getting a bit older and realising how it works, (I discovered) that the gestation period for a new book is very tender - it's like a new shoot, you can't expose it to the light too quickly or it might wither. You'll lose the impetus, you'll lose the belief in it.' Laura Barnett, whose three-pronged first novel, sold in 18 countries, is The Versions of Us, in the Bookseller, our Comment this week.
- Don't give up the day job makes you think twice about your prospects before launching yourself into being a full-time author. Can you really be sure your writing will support you and yours?
- Independent London publishing house Atlantic has recently had a new managing director, Will Atkinson. He put forward the company's publishing philosophy very clearly in an article for Bookbrunch, which sadly is behind their paywall. It is possible however to quote what he says in his article, ‘Publishing culture and commerce'. News Review.
- Getting ready to publish your book? Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of Services for Self-publishers which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. From Copy editing to Blurb-writing with much else as well.
- Our links this week: novelist Ian McEwan has defended free speech in an address to students at a US college, criticising the authors who pulled out of a PENSupported by eminent writers, this is the English branch of International Pen, which has centres in nearly 100 countries. It fights for freedom of expression and against political censorship. It campaigns for writers harassed, imprisoned and sometimes murdered for their views. http://www.englishpen.org/ event that honoured the Charlie Hebdo journalists, McEwan defends freedom of expression | The Bookseller; publishing is returning to its pre-industrial models in which everyone was a creator and is transforming into a network where emotions matter most, Richard Nash on the Democratization of Publishing; and Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai has won the Man Booker International 2015, Krasznahorkai wins Man Booker International | The Bookseller.
- And more links: thoughts about publishing history and the ending of eras, Publishing Leaders are Temporary Custodians of Their Houses; more on why novels are getting more and more enormous, The Year of the Very Long Novel -- Vulture; and (once you've got past a lot of red carpet stuff), the NY literary scouts who work for film and TV companies, The Next 'Gone Girl'? Meet the 6 NYC Book Scouts Most Likely to Find It - Hollywood Reporter.
- 'Any magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and call it a nightmare, or a witches sabbath or a portrait of the devil; but only a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That's because only a real artist knows the anatomy of the terrible, or the physiology of fear.' H P Lovecraft in our Writers' Quotes.
18 May 2015 - What's new
- 'There's so much talk about the way self-publishing has changed publishing, but has it, really? There's plenty of evidence that, for the authors trying to get themselves taken on by a publisher, nothing much has changed...' Has self-publishing changed publishing? is this week's News Review.
- Our Writing Opportunity this week is an unusual one. The Biographer's Club Tony Lothian Prize 2015 is for uncommissioned first-time writers working on a biography, closing on 31 July. Other current Writing Opportunities.
- A new page entitled Which Report? gives the details of the three reports we offer: the full Editor's Report, the basic Reader's Report and the most substantial Editor's Report Plus. There's also our specialist Children's reports, part of our Children's Editorial Services. If you want a professional editor's assessmen of your work, here's the place to start.
- ‘Yet a writer's life is not limited to the dramatic moment of first exposure or the excitement that greets the new work of the well-established. In particular, as suggested by the phrase "the difficult second novel", things can get tough after first publication. If your first book has gone like the clappers, you'll probably be feeling pressure, both self-generated and from expectant publishers...' Alex Clark provides this week's Comment on "The difficult second novel".
- Do you like writers' quotes? As well as our current Quotes there are pages on More Writers' quotes and Even More Quotes which take you back through the hundreds of quotes in our wonderful selection.
- This week's links: have things really changed? Is the self-publishing stigma fading? | Books | The Guardian; from cultivating spices in India and talking to owls in South Africa to finding ‘fun in hell' in Hungary, Man Booker International prize 2015: the finalists speak | Books | The Guardian; and is there any point in publishing digitally first? Authors debate digital-first publication | The Bookseller.
- And more links: a stong argument for better ebook royalties for authors, Royalties and industry image debated at PA a.g.m | The Bookseller; a passionate plea from the National Poet of Wales, Why Dylan Thomas deserves his international Day | Books | The Guardian; and an insight into how things are changing in scholarly publishing, The Changing Face of STM Publishing.
- Have you got something you'd like to say to our community of writers? My Say gives writers a chance to air their views. So we have Natasha Mostert: There are few things as satisfying as typing THE END to a manuscript, Richard Hall "Write about what you know" and Jae Watson with his 'magic formula'. Contributions should ideally be 200 to 400 words in length and of general interest. Email us.
- 'Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.' Rebecca West in our Writers' Quotes.
- The April Magazine is ready!
11 May 2015 - What's new
- Trends on ebooks show a backwards shift. Whilst in 2012 there was a rapid shift towards ebooks, this has now reversed itself in favour of print books. To some extent this seems to be because ebooks are losing their novelty, but there's a real change in buying patterns, particularly amongst heavy readers. News Review.
- A while ago we thought it might be fun to add some fictionalised stories of how out editorial servoces work. So we have 13 stories, from How an Editor's Report helped Catherine to How Copy editing turned Tony's work into a publishable manuscript and Manuscript Typing helped John to get his father's wartime diary into good shape for publication.
- 'What I love about fantasy is that it is all about the world, and that world can be showcased in so many different ways, be it film, games, books or artwork. That's part of the reason fans feel so passionately about fantasy. There are already 35 fan fictions about the Summoner trilogy on Wattpad, for example.' Taran Mathan, author of just-published Summoner, Book One: The Novice, which has already attracted more than six million reads on Wattpad, in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
- In our archive there are some great serialisations - take a look at How Not to Write a Novel: Confessions of a Midlist Author by David Armstrong: 'Every week, agents and publishers receive hundreds of manuscripts from would-be authors. Of these, fewer than 1% will make it into print. David Armstrong was one of these, his first crime novel, Night's Black Agents, was plucked from the slush pile at a major publisher and published to acclaim...'
- Our links this week: if you're a fan of the author who sadly died this week, this is an interview about her writing which might interest you, BookBrunch - Ruth Rendell on Wexford, mad and bad people, and the vigilance of the writer; true story: In 2007, the Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid was catapulted into the literary spotlight with his second book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. He's now working for Wolff Olins as Chief Storytelling Officer, Why Companies Need Novelists | Fast Company | Business + Innovation; and the prevailing mythology around tech is that the giant internet companies will dominate globally, just as they do nationally, How fast does your e-book grow | The Bookseller.
- Then there's a thoughtful artice about freelance editing services, like those that WritersServices offer, Self-Publishing Boom Boosts Freelance Editing Services | Mediashift | PBS; now it's Australian booksellers' turn to benefit from this author's generosity, James Patterson, world's biggest-selling author, backs bookshops with donation; and one commentator's objections to the legalese which surrounds online book purchases, What if printed books went by ebook rules? | OUPblog.
- Our tips on Entering competitions are worth a look if you're planning to do this. Our Writing Opportunities page is a good place to check out what's around and what's still open.
- 'A merely great intellect can produce prose, but not poetry, not one line.' Edward Thomas in our Writers' Quotes.
4 May 2015 - What's new
- 'If you're writing genre fiction, or planning to, it's important to understand what's working in the market and what's already out there. This is the sort of information you can only get by a close study of publishers' genre lists and by reading as many books in your chosen genre as you can...' News Review on Writing genre fiction.
- Your submission package - 'given the difficulty of getting agents and publishers to take on your work, it's really important to make sure that you present it in the best possible way. Less is more, so don't send a full manuscript, as it's very unlikely to be read. Far better to tempt them with a submission package that will leave them wanting to see the rest of the manuscript'.
- 'For the perennial breed of poets, to be neglected is an occupational hazard. Most of us deserve it. Nobody says most plumbers deserve it, but plumbers have to deliver. It doesn't really matter whether a poet delivers or not. If poets don't come through with the goods, nobody will be affected except them...' Our Comment this week is from Clive James, whose latest poetry collection is Sentenced to Life, in the Observer.
- Tips for writers is our 8-part crash course for writers, taking you from Improving Your Writing to Learn on the Job, from Keep up to date to Submisson to publishers and agents.
- Our Writing Opportunity this week is for the Writers Abroad Anthology 2015: ‘Kaleidoscope'. Contributors must be expat or former expat writers with flash fiction, a short story or poem to submit. Closing 15 June. This page lists other opportunities.
- The promotion of Next Generation Poets 2014 is now complete, except for the British CouncilThis government-supported body is best-known for its activities overseas, but in fact provides a great deal of information which is of interest to writers. http://www.britishcouncil.org/
Their UK Literature Festivals provides a full listing, but this is only as up to date as the information supplied by the individual festival organizers. tour, but if you're interested in brilliant young British poets you can see their videos and a film about the promotion on YouTube. - Our Children's Editorial Services can help you get your work ready for publication or self-publishing. Have you found it difficult to get expert editorial input on your work ? Do you want to know if it has real commercial potential? Or are you planning to self-publish? Two reports and copy editing are avaiable from skilled chidren's editors.
- Links from this week: Jane Friedman - not the publisher - looks at the whole question of finding a literary agent, How to Find a Literary Agent for Your Book | Jane Friedman; how publishers are changing their angle of aproach to the market to zero in on the fans, Book Marketing Today': It's All About the Fans; and, even if they mean Harper Lee's new book, this piece in the Telegraph contains some amazing audiobook stats, Audiobook sales double in five years thanks to downloads and famous faces - Telegraph.
- More links: writers protesting against freedom of expression award, Two dozen writers join Charlie Hebdo PEN award protest | Books | The Guardian; just a schoolgirl but a very determined one, Girl, 8, strikes blow for equality over 'boys only' books | Books | The Guardian; and an insight from the scholarly world, Ask The Chefs: What is Editorial Independence and How Does It Impact Publishing? | The Scholarly Kitchen.
- ‘I write what I would like to read -what I think other women would like to read. If what I write makes a woman in the Canadian mountains cry and she writes and tells me about it, especially if she says, "I read it to Tom when he came in from work and he cried too", I feel I have succeeded.' Kathleen Norris, on the publication of her seventy-eighth book, in our Writers' Quotes.
27 April 2015 - What's new
- The unique Novella Award is open to any writer in the English-speaking world with an entry fee of £17 and a 1st Prize of £1,000 and publication by Sandstone Press. It closes on 15 June. This week's Writing Opportunity.
- ‘We change whilst we are in the midst of writing a book. We change, and I dare say we become better people. A novelist is always wiser when inside a novel than when outside. Stories shape their storytellers as much as storytellers shape their stories...' This week's Comment is from Elif Shafak, author of The Architect's Apprentice and Turkey's bestselling female novelist, in the Observer.
- Are you ready to show your poetry to magazines and publishers, but worried about rejection? Perhaps you're not sure it's ready for submission yet? Or do you just want an expert opinion on your poetry? Our Poetry Critique service can help. There's also our new Poetry Collection Editing service, which is for poets who want help with preparing their poetry collection for self-publishing or submission to publishers.
- Good news on children's books - 'Recent figures from Nielsen BookscanUK bibliographic organisation, describing itself as 'the definitive retail monitoring service for books', which shows UK bestseller lists on its website. http://www.nielsenbookscan.co.uk/ show that children's print books are doing well in eleven out of the twelve countries the research tracks, the exception being India. That means there's a real boom going on in children's books, heartening news for children's writers...' This week's News Review is entitled Children's print book sales booming.
- Suzy Jenvey, vastly experienced children's editorial director and now agent, has written a special series for WritersServices, the four-part The Essential Guide to Writing for Children. The first article looks at the all-important question of age groups and what you should be aware of in writing for each one. The second part is - Before You Write: What is My Story Going to be? The third part deals with Starting to Write and the fourth part is about Submitting Your Work to Agents and Editors.
- Our links this week: There is a big gap in earnings between writers, with a small number - 10% - earning most of the money made by professional authors, 'Huge inequality' in writer earnings | The Bookseller; are publishers right to feel smug about how they've dealt with digital? Book Publishing's Digital Disruption Hasn't Even Started | Digital Book World; a shrewd publishing veteran likens her new business to Knopf in the glory days, Jane Friedman on Open Road Media, Five Years After Launch; how technology is transforming opportunities for publishers and authors, The businesses of books | The Bookseller.
- And a few more links: she's a success now but her book "felt like the last roll of the dice" for her as a writer, The Girl on the Train: how Paula Hawkins wrote ‘the new Gone Girl' | Books | The Guardian; it's been proved time and time again that readers don't buy by publisher, When Will Publishers Learn? Direct to Consumer Doesn't Work; and a personal view from Stephen Page of Faber, London Book Fair's Evolution Reflects Publishing's New Ecology.
- 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 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.'
- ‘If you try to nail anything down, in the novel, either it kills the novel, or the novel gets up and walks away with the nail.' D H Lawrence in our Writers' Quotes.
20 April 2015 - What's new
- After a London Book Fair (LBF) which was all about publishers from across the world talking to each other, a Bookseller article enables us to look in more depth at last week's link Authors call for better communication with publishers | The Bookseller. This week's News Review is about the London Book Fair and how authors are disappointed by publishers.
- Our 19-part Inside Publishing series gives you an insider's take on the publishing world, covering everything from subsidiary rights to the world Engllish language market, from advances and royalties to the writer/publisher financial relationship.
- Our Comment this week is by Akhil Sharma, author of Family Life, which has just won the Folio Prize: ‘If you write only the true things people get bored... ordinary life is shapeless... When I write, I'm here to use everything I can to make this a good book. It's not me expressing my inner soul. It is me using everything that I have, so I can tell this story...'
- Are you interested in Getting Your Manuscript Copy Edited? As well as this article we have one from our Inside Publishing series about Copy editing and proof-reading - and the difference between them - and we offer a Copy editing service, as well as a Proof-reading service and our special Manuscript Polishing service, which involves more intensive work, 'polishing' and improving the text, and correcting the English if you are writing in English as a second language.
- WritersServices editor Kay GaleWritersServices editor who has worked for many years as a freelance editor for number of publishers. is shortlisted for The DFDS Travel Blogger of the Year Award for her engaging website The Single Gourmet Traveller, but you've only got until 24 April if you want to vote for her on this site.
- You've got until 29 May to enter this week's Writing Opportunity, the 2015 University of Canberra Vice Chancellor's International Poetry Prize, one of the richest poetry prizes in the world and open to all poets from across the world.
- Links of the week: a perceptive and well-informed look at publishing from a top London editor, The civil war for books: where is the money going? - Spectator Blogs; why do big novels and series have such a hold on the reader? From Potter to Tartt to Ferrante ‹ Literary Hub; why is listening to audio so compelling as a way of story-telling? This Is Your Brain on Podcasts: Why Audio Storytelling Is So Addictive - The Atlantic; and a fascinating account of how secondhand books got to where they are now, Can you really make a living by selling used books on Amazon for a penny? | Books | The Guardian.
- More links: rather to the surprise of publishing commentators, our biggest trade publisher is getting into subscription after all, Penguin Random House Might Not Understand the Subscription Market, But They're Getting Into It Anyway | Ink, Bits, & Pixels; how books are fighting back, Traditional books on paper open a new chapter of success | Books | The Guardian; and a successful initiative in Africa, As Seen from Uganda, African Writing is Alive and Well.
- Useful pages on the WritersService website include Making Submissions and Finding an Agent.
- 'If you go too far in fantasy and break the string of logic, and become nonsensical, someone will surely remind you of your dereliction....Pound for pound, fantasy makes a tougher opponent for the creative person. 'Richard Matheson in our Writers' Quotes.
13 April 2015 - What's new
- Our Writing Opportunity is The London Magazine's Poetry Competition 2015. Closing on 31 May, it's for poets across the world and there's an entry fee. First Prize: £200, Second Prize: £150 and Third Prize: £100.
- 'This year's Bologna Book Fair reflected the strength of children's publishing worldwide. Although relatively new fairs such as the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair are making ambitious strides in terms of attracting children's publishers, Bologna is unsurpassed in its appeal as the international rights fair for children's books...' Our report from the Bologna Children's Book Fair is in News Review.
- Have you managed to find a publisher for your work and are now enjoying the thrill of knowing that your book will soon be published? If you're wondering what happens next, here is an outline of the processes involved. Preparing for Publication.
- 'It's good not to think too far ahead. If you have got a story that you feel you want to write, just write it...' Kate Hamer, whose 21st century 'Little Red Riding Hood', The Girl in the Red Coat, is tipped to be a bestseller, in the Independent on Sunday, in our Comment column.
- Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. Services for Self-publishers.
- Our links this week: the results of a new survey show what publishers need to do to keep their authors happy, Authors call for better communication with publishers | The Bookseller; famous quotes which have been misattributed, or even just made up, Maya Angelou's misquoted stamp - and other famous lines we all get wrong | Books | The Guardian; and does it really matter much to authors if publishers are engaged in battle with Amazon? How Do Amazon-Publisher Disputes Affect Authors and Readers?
- More links: a careful and detailed article about why you should produce your books as digital files, Twelve Ways to Update Print Book Production Habits | Digital Book World; battle royal has broken out in the SF world, George RR Martin says rightwing lobby has 'broken' Hugo awards | Books | The Guardian; and a well-argued defence of ebooks, What's the matter with ebooks? In our praise for print, we forget the great virtues of digital formats. | USAPP.
- Tom Chalmers of IPPR has written two articles about rights for self-publishers, Self-publishing - the rights way and How to get your book in the hands of an international audience. 'It's a fact that most self-published authors understand the process that takes them from a written manuscript to a published book, but few realise the additional elements that make publishing a profitable business. Rights licensing is arguably the most vital element in this equation. Whether it's selling translation rights, audio rights or optioning the film rights, these all help balance the book's books...'
- 'Much is written of the power of the Press, a power which may last but a day; by comparison little is heard of the power of books, which may endure for generations.' Sir Stanley Unwin, quoted in our Writers' Quotes.
6 April 2015 - What's new
- Two big authors, one American and one British, have moved UK publishers in the last week. Danielle Steel has a new ten-book contract with Pan MacmillanOne of largest fiction and non-fiction book publishers in UK; includes imprints of Pan, Picador and Macmillan Children’s Books and Kate Mosse has a deal for her new trilogy with the same publisher. Our News Review this week is about big authors changing publishers - and why.
- From guest contributor Michael McPherson, Top Free Contests for New Writers. 'Are you a talented writer who wants to get noticed? Then what better way to start your career than participating in writing contests? There are a lot of free online competitions for new writers from all over the world...' and here are five of them.
- Check out our listing of 2015 International Book Fairs to see what's still coming up in 2015.
- ‘Publishing was like throwing stones into a swamp - nothing happened. My aim was altered by that experience. I decided that the big thing was not getting published; the great thing would be to satisfy myself. It was the first time I'd found my voice. I found a way of telling a story that involved inhabiting a consciousness that could float free - it's not omniscient, it's a sort of sprite that can hover here and there... Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials and many other bestsellers, in the Sunday Times, quoted in our Comment column.
- Our listings of 24 categories of recommended links provide a fantastic resource for writers. We've just put in the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society's new online resource, Wise up to Copyright. Do let us know if you would like to suggest some other websites to add.
- First-time author Garth Garston describes Getting my novel published. 'I had done all the textbook advice actions - buying and studying The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, writing a submission cover letter and synopsis plus my first three chapters, and getting my manuscript seriously proof-read. I had had my first rejection after a friend had recommended my first novel to top UK literary agency Curtis BrownSee Curtis Brown listing...'
- Our links this week: fascinating thoughts from an editor's desk, Stet by Me: Thoughts on Editing Fiction from Mandy Brett; the inside track on different genres' politics from Val McDermid, Why crime fiction is leftwing and thrillers are rightwing | Books | The Guardian; and a first report on authors at the Bologna Book Fair, Bologna 2015: Authors in the Aisles and on the Town.
- More links: authors give their own special tributes, Tributes to Sir Terry Pratchett | | Terry Pratchett; a guest post by Matt Kaye on Jane Friedman's website which gives the basics of crowd-funding, What You Need to Know About Crowdfunded Publishing | Jane Friedman; and authors clubbing together to stop an app which blanks out profanities in books, Authors: end to censored versions of books is 'victory for the world of dirt' | Books | The Guardian.
- ‘The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do more, and you are not yet decrepit enough to turn them down.' T S Eliot in our Writers' Quotes.
30 March 2015 - What's new
- 'It's not the first time an author has ‘written' from beyond the grave (Virginia Andrews and Robert Ludlum come to mind) but the just-announced news that, 11 years on, a fourth book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy will be published still strikes a cynical note...' This week's News Review looks at the announcement of the fourth book in Stieg Larsson's 'trilogy'.
- If you want to browse across the WritersServices site, Advice for Writers shows the vast amount of information we have for writers and helps you find what you're looking for.
- 'My belief is that it's all about story and that's not shared by other writers necessarily. Story is the best vehicle to understand anything and that's what makes human beings unique. We make sense of the world by telling stories. I've become firmly of the belief that plotting and the narrative is primary and then anything else - style, tone, dialogue - comes second...' James Graham, playwright and scriptwriter, whose This House was a smash success at the National Theatre in London and whose Coalition was on TV last week, in the Observer, quoted in our Comment column.
- Are you interested in Getting Your Manuscript Copy Edited? As well as this article we have one from our 19-part Inside Publishing series about Copy editing and proof-reading and we offer a Copy editing service, as well as a Proof-reading service and our special Manuscript Polishing service, which involves more intensive work, 'polishing' and improving the text, and correcting the English if you are writing in English as a second language.
- Our links this week: why has the depiction of friendship gone out of fashion? Why modern fiction has turned its back on friendship | Books | The Guardian; the well-known French writer of books for young children offers his advice on writing for children, Grégoire Solotareff on Writing Books for Very Young Readers; and a fascinating look at how rights departments in publishing houses work, To Automate or Not to Automate the Rights Business? - Publishing Perspectives.
- More links: a distinguished translator offers a personal perspectie on the difference between translating children's and adult books, Sarah Ardizzone on Translating Two Worlds: Children's and Adult's; even bestselling authors can have difficulties getting started or writing under another name, JK Rowling reveals frustrations over manuscript rejections | Herald Scotland; and shocking initial findings about how low author advances really are, Median author advance under £6,600 | The Bookseller.
- Michael Legat's Factsheets provide a mine of pithy information on subjects such as Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar, Copyright 'Anything you write is your copyright as soon as you have put it in writing or on disc or recorded it in some other way, provided, of course that it is your own work rather than something which you have copied. However, if the material is written as part of your employment, as is the case with journalists employed by a newspaper or magazine, the copyright belongs to the employer...' and Revising manuscripts.
- 'The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.' Ezra Pound in our Writers' Quotes.
23 March 2015 - What's new
- Our update this week has a Granta magazine open submission, News Review on author brands and why they matter, and the inimitable Mike Shatzkin on Amazon, friend or foe?
- Karen Joy Fowler in this week's Comment makes a totally fair point about the importance of enjoying your writing, and what makes some writers happy is writing a different kind of book each time. But is there any truth in the suggestion that writing similar books is the best way to build a successful writing career? The author as a brand is the subject of this week's News Review.
- You have until 1 April for this week's Writing Opportunity. Granta magazine open submission is for all writers writing with unpublished fiction, non-fiction and poetry whose material is in English.
- An Editor's Advice is a series of seven articles by one of our editors on really useful subjects for writers such as Dialogue, Manuscript presentation and Doing further drafts: 'I have just finished writing a report on a novel. I've pinpointed various areas of weakness and made various suggestions that the writer may or may not wish to follow. But the nub of the report is a recommendation that the writer produce a further draft of the novel rather than trying to submit it to a publisher now. I wonder sometimes how writers feel when they get my reports and see that recommendation...'
- Working with an Agent - 'It can be hard work finding an agent to represent you. Make sure though that, when you set up the relationship, you do so in a professional manner Don't let your eagerness to find representation mean that things are left vague. You will be depending on the agent to process all your income from the books they sell, so you need to have a written record of your arrangement, preferably a contract...'
- ‘I have many feelings about literary awards and they are all tangled together. In general, I like them. I am often pleased, but occasionally outraged, by a particular choice. It's a thoroughly pleasurable kind of outrage though, because the conversation is all about books and takes place among people to whom books matter. Of course, the whole enterprise of declaring one book better than all the others is instantly untenable. But I'm glad that people try. Glad and grateful...' Karen Jay Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, in the Independent on Sunday, quoted in our Comment column.
- Do you have an old typescript or a hand-written manuscript which you can't work on? Or even audio recordings which need typing up? Our Manuscript typing service can do the job for you cheaply and efficiently, so you can get to work on your book..
- Our links this week: from oNe of the very best internatational publishing commentators, Mike Shatzkin, Asking whether Amazon is friend or foe is a simple question that is complicated to answer - The Shatzkin Files The Shatzkin Files; from a writer who is always being asked if he writes on the train, BookBrunch - No work being done; announcements made by three publishing businesses show how companies which have been at the coalface of traditional publishing for some time are looking at remodelling themselves, How to rebuild a publishing business | The Bookseller.
- More links: a publisher's view of online marketing, 5 Tips for Online Book Marketing Today; Hodder & Stoughton is relaunching the website for its science fiction, fantasy and horror community, Hodderscape relaunch and open submissions | The Bookseller; and is this a radically new ebook distribution platform, a new way of thinking? Total BooX: Ebooks for the Way the 21st-Century Reader Reads.
- 'You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won't be able to take a break from being a writer.' Stephen Leigh in our Writers' Quotes.
- Sign up for the free WritersServices newsletter to keep up to date with What's New evey week.
16 March 2015 - What's new
- 'There's been a buzz this week around the question of authors getting paid to appear at festivals. In the UK they largely don't get paid, as they are seen as promoting their books and selling them as well. In fact many festivals get off lightly and even get the publishers to pay the authors' travel costs and accommodation. But do the book sales and publicity justify the work done by authors?...' Should writers be paid for festival appearances? is this week's News Review.
- 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' 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 brief guide to the essentials your self-publishing business needs - because it is a business, even if you only publish one book!'
- ‘Speaking as a writer of genre fiction, there are few sentences that cause more irritation than "these books transcend genre", but if it has any meaning at all, it is this: because of that obvious interconnectedness between the world we inhabit and the world Pratchett invented, the Discworld novels found a readership that stretches well beyond people who would consider themselves fans of fantasy fiction. I always read - and sometimes reread - Pratchett on book tours. They are the perfect antidote to being alone and far from home... Val McDermid on Terry Pratchett in our Comment column.
- Why your book contract needs vetting - 'You are a first-time author without an agent and you receive a contract to publish your book - just how do you evaluate it? Is it fair or biased against the author by prevailing industry standards? Is your publisher looking out for your interests as well as his own - or wording the clauses in a way only advantageous to the company? Would you, for example, know which rights to grant - for how long and on what terms..' Our contracts expert on why contract vetting is essential if you don't have an agent.
- This week's links: Can we declare a moratorium on essays about the death of writing? The death of writing? Not again - LA Times; does Ishiguro despise genre writers? (sounds unlikely), » The Last Holdouts of the Genre Wars: on Kazuo Ishiguro, Ursula K. Le Guin, and the Misuse of Labels; and some amazing figures on the proportion of self-publishers who are women, Self-publishing lets women break book industry's glass ceiling, survey finds | Books | The Guardian.
- And there's more: Who is most important, your agent or your publisher? Authors 'more committed to agent than publisher' | The Bookseller; how publishing has changed radically over the last few years, BookBrunch - Beware of pity; and the third year of The Brunel University African Poetry Prize, a major new poetry prize of £3000 aimed at the development, celebration and promotion of poetry from Africa, SHORTLISTED POETS 2015 | The Brunel University African Poetry Prize.
- Which service should I choose to help me get my work into good shape for submission or self-publishing? Writers coming to WritersServices for help with getting their work into shape for submission or self-publishing often have difficulty with working out which service they should go for. The services have been designed to suit a wide range of requirements, so whatever you want we've probably got it covered.
- ‘What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?' Anthony Trollope in our Writers' Quotes.
9 March 2015 - What's new
- A link to an article on how to make money through sponsorship, the launch of a German challenge to Amazon and a Comment on the writing habits of classic children's author Roald Dahl.
- 'So what are the chances of the just-launched German online book retailer and e-reader, backed by bookstore chains Thalia, Weltbild and Hugendubel, Deutsche Telekom, and giant German publisher Bertelsmann, providing a real challenge to Amazon?' This week's News Review looks at what's happening - is it a challlenge to Amazon at last?
- From our Archive, Writing for Children: Rule Number One - Read More than You Write by Sarah Taylor-Fergusson: 'Author opinion falls into two camps on this one, with some writers maintaining that reading fiction while writing is a very bad thing. To this I might say that if you have been working for years as a published author, and you have that degree of sophistication, dexterity and confidence, then maybe sometimes yes. But for the majority of us who are not at that level...'
- ‘He tended to make light of his work. He didn't like to talk about it and there was nothing of the pained artist about him. The archive shows that in fact he was absolutely painstaking. The archive shows the honing process, the hard graft of writing...' Amanda Conquy, director of the Dahl estate, on Roald Dahl's approach to writing in our Comment column.
- We have a series of seven articles on writing in different categories, covering SF and Fantasy, Crime Fiction, Romance, Historical Fiction, Non-fiction and Memoir, to provide some background on how to approach different genres.
- Links of the week: an affectionate account of first meeting Douglas Adams, 'a very tall man with a big smile and a big slightly crooked nose, all gawky and coltish, as if despite his ridiculous size he was still growing...', Douglas Adams made me a writer: Neil Gaiman salutes his friend and inspiration | Books | The Guardian; a new book which suggests how you can proceed if you really want to make money from your writing, Want to Profit as an Author? Think About Sponsorships; and why ISBN numbers are so important to authors in the long run, Indie Authors Are to Blame for Lack of Meaningful e-Book Data.
- More links: why has it become so fashionable in literary circles to have an unnamed narrator, The Rise of the Nameless Narrator - The New Yorker; nine reasons why print is still preferred over ebooks, Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better; and a surprise challenge to Amazon from German booksellers and publishers, Germany launches an Amazon competitor » MobyLives.
- Authors often find it difficult to write their own synopsis for submission to publishers, which is where our Synopsis-writing service can help. If you're preparing to self-publish and having difficulty with your blurb, our Blurb-writing service might be what you need.
- 'When starting to think about any novel, part of the motive is: I'm going to show them, this time.' Kingsley Amis in our Writers' Quotes.
2 March 2015 - What's new
- 'Do publishing imprints matter? The excellent article by Philip Jones, editor of the Bookseller, in this week's Futurebook, is an interesting examination of imprints and their importance within the publishing business. But it does seem that most authors will be indifferent to the imprint and in a way they're right...' News Review
- The amazing shortlist for the 2015 Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book title of the Year has just been announced - now's your chance to vote for the winner.
- ‘Just because you write a poem, it doesn't mean you have to publish it. If I'm just writing because I happen to have had an idea, I'm completely free to write it, fiddle around with it, take as long as I like, and then I can decide quite a long time afterwards what I want to do with it. There's a freedom in that.' Wendy Cope, author of Family Values and Life, Love and the Archers, in the Observer magazine, quoted in our Comment column.
- Getting Your Poetry Published has some suggestions on how to get started with this. 'Don't even try to approach publishers until you have a collection-length amount of material to offer. Your chances will be much better even then if you can point to publication of your poems in magazines. Don't waste any time trying to get a literary agent to represent you... You may feel that it is better to hedge your options by going the self-publishing route. Fortunately this is now very much cheaper than it used to be and the final result is much more satisfactory...'
- This week's Writing Opportunity is the Tinder Press open submission, closing on 16 March and open to short stories as well as novels. This is a rare chance to submit direct to a literary publisher.
- ‘Twenty years as a teacher, ten years in educational research and five years of directing an educational charity, and in all that time, I hadn't published any fiction or poetry at all. I'd always had a feeling that if life ever did allow me a clear run at creative writing, I might just be able to do something with it. But by 2004, with the charity going nowhere fast, I decided to make my own opportunities rather than wait for them to come to me...' Bruce Harris's Writing Short Fiction: A Personal Journey is about how he worked his way towards setting up the fantastic new website Writing Short Fiction.
- Getting ready to publish your book? Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. From Copy editing to Blurb-writing with much else as well.
- Our links of the week: a strong argument for authors who are being traditionally published knowing about the publishing process, Why Writers Need to Know the Publishing Business; is 50 Shades of Grey acceptable in copyright terms, as well as being a very successful book and film? 50 Shades of Copyright Infringement? and daring to tell it like it is, Why all writers are vain | Books | The Guardian.
- More links: How much do writers get paid for their work? You might be surprised to learn that it is often more than the editors who make that work possible, Kickstarter on How to Pay Writers; do imprints matter and why? The imprint of meaningful things | The Bookseller; and how a pan-African writers' collective is "re-imagining African fiction publishing interesting ways", African Publishing Through African Eyes - Publishing Perspectives.
- 'Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.' Jane Yolen in our Writers' Quotes.
23 February 2015 - What's new
- News Review on the new fashion for open submissions, a Comment from new writer Tony Schumacher, MslexiaStylish and lively site for quarterly UK literary magazine read by 12,000 'committed' women writers. Good range of quality writing, information and advice with news, reviews, competitions and interviews, all presented in a friendly fashion. Praised by Helen Dunmore as 'astute, invigorating and above all an excellent read.' www.mslexia.co.uk's Women's Short Story Competition and links of the week which are thoughtful and sometimes alarming.
- 'Are things changing in terms of publishers accepting submissions or is the latest fashion for ‘open submissions' just a fashion? Big publishers abandoned what was rudely called ‘the slush pile' some years ago, so why are some imprints now having open submission periods, mostly of only two weeks or so?... News Review - Open submission - a fad or an opportunity?
- The Mslexia Women's Short Story Competition 2015 is open to women writers with previously unpublished stories of up to 2,200 words. The entry fee is £10 and it's closing on 16 March - this week's Writing Opportunity also has three free writing workshops, open to everyone.
- Our agent listings cover the UK, US and International, and there's a separate listing for Children's Agents. Here's where you can find out how to submit and what the agency is looking for.
- ‘I think my most stunning failure was that I managed to get a U in my English O level. I was devastated. I cried on my way home, because I thought the one thing I wanted to do, the one dream I'd always had, the one glimmer of hope I could hold on to, had been taken away from me. I wanted to be a writer but I'd blown it...'Our Comment this week is from Tony Schumacher, author of The Darkest Hour, in the Observer magazine.
- A new page entitled Which Report? gives the details of the three reports we offer: the full Editor's Report, the basic Reader's Report and the most substantial Editor's Report Plus. There's also our specialist Children's Copy editing, part of our Children's Editorial Services. If you want a professional editor's assessmen of your work, here's the place to start.
- The web as a research tool is a useful page showing you what a great research tool the web is for writers, helping you find a great many sites packed with information.
- Our links this week: in a thoughtful article Porter Anderson looks at the way we use terms in the book business and proposes a new meaning for Hybrid Publishing, In The Hothouse Of Publishing, Our Terminology May Need Pruning | Thought Catalog; an alarming new report which details a continuing decline in Americans reading, with poetry readership nearly halving, Just 54% of Americans Read a Book Last Year, says NEA - Publishing Perspectives; and an interesting debate between two writers about the importance and role of book reviewing, Is Book Reviewing a Public Service or an Art? - NYTimes.com.
- Also, have you always wondered about that short novel of yours? - Now there's a publisher to champion it, Tor.com Explains Why Novellas Are The Future Of Publishing; does on screen reading enable you to absorb and remember, or is it just the opposite? Why Reading On A Screen Is Bad For Critical Thinking | Naomi S. Baron; and do you mostly only read the first chapter? - a scary report about what subscription services and others are doing with your data, Our Ebooks, Ourselves: What's Happening with Our Ereader Data? - Publishing Trends.
- 'If you go too far in fantasy and break the string of logic, and become nonsensical, someone will surely remind you of your dereliction....Pound for pound, fantasy makes a tougher opponent for the creative person.' Richard Matheson in our Writers' Quotes.
9 February 2015 - What's new
- So which country has the highest number of titles published per head of population? We also have S J Watson on the second novel problem, Blake Morrison on poetry.
- 'When I wrote Before I go to Sleep, I was in a blissful state of being disconnected from anybody else - I wrote it with the hope I could finish it, first of all, and then with the hope that somebody else might like it. But I was writing Second Life knowing that I had editors all over the world that were eager for it. There was a sense of pressure in getting it right. But ultimately I realised I had to just write a book that I loved...' S J Watson, author of Before I go to Sleep and Second Life, in the Observer, quoted in out Comment column.'
- How to market your writing services online is a useful article from 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 about selling yourself as a writer. 'Recently someone commented to me that I seem to be doing a pretty good job of promoting my writing services on the internet. I was touched by the observation - we writers get so many rejections that a little praise is especially gratifying. And I began to wonder - what does it take to market yourself successfully as a jobbing writer today?...'
- 'Figures just released by the International Publishers Association show that Britain produces more books per capita than any other country in the world. Last year 184,000 titles were produced - the equivalent of 2,870 titles per million inhabitants when population is taken into account. These figures only cover books published by publishers and exclude self-published work, which might well change them substantially...' What about other countries? News Review
- Our Picture Libraries page is a good resource for finding picture libraries across the world.
- Our links of the week: Grove Atlantic President and Publisher Morgan Entrekin,with a broad group of publishers, literary magazines and booksellers, is developing a website styled as a Huffington Post for the literary world-a one-stop shop of bookish aggregation, Literary Hub Is a New Home for Book Lovers - WSJ; what Indie publishers, who need it most, don't get from Amazon, Amazon, the greedy giant with small publishers in its grip | Books | The Guardian; whoever thought reading could be so very good for you, Reading for pleasure boosts self-esteem | The Bookseller; Spanish digital marketing company develops new tool, Mylibreto: Spanish Start-up Offers Social Analytics Tool - Publishing Perspectives; and, for some very amusing suggestions in the Comments, The Australian Insults Colleen McCullough in Obit, Inciting Ire.
- Do you have an old typescript or even hand-written manuscript which you can't work on? Or even audio recordings which need typing up? Our Manuscript Typing service can do the job for you cheaply and efficiently.
- ‘At times of crisis or distress, it's poems that people turn to. (Poetry) still has a power to speak to people's feelings, maybe in a way that fiction, because it works in a longer way, can't. There's a little bit of your brain that mourns and grieves that you're not writing poetry, but actually as long as I'm writing something, I'm happy.' Blake Morrison, whose Shingle Street is just published, in our Writers' Quotes.
2 February 2015 - What's new
- Authors take the long view, publishers don't. 'Amazingly, it looks as if many authors are having a longer-term business outlook towards the publishing of their books than traditional publishers have managed to achieve. The latest update of the 2014 Digital Book World and Writer's Digest Author Survey, written up by Dana Beth Weinberg, shows some interesting results. Authors with publishers have higher expectations of their publishers - quite reasonably they expect them to deliver much more than they could do for themselves...' News Review
- 'Discovering our authentic voice, writing with lasting impact, and standing out from the crowd are high priorities for most of us who write. But how do we go about achieving these intentions? Conscious Writing is a new approach to deep writing with full awareness which takes us into the core of what we're really here to write, and in the process, opens the way for us to realise our true potential as authors in the world...' Julia McCutchen is an intuitive creator, writer and mentor who guides people to share their unique gifts through creating, writing and living from a conscious and vibrant connection to Truth. A former international publisher, Julia experienced a life-changing accident in 1999 which triggered a series of major quantum leaps in her spiritual awakening. She subsequently developed a tried and tested holistic approach to access the present and aligned state required for original creative expression in all areas of life, especially writing. She is the founder and creative director of the International Association of Conscious & Creative Writers (IACCW) and the author of two books including, Conscious Writing: Discover Your True Voice Through Mindfulness and More (Hay House). For more information and a free video series visit www.JuliaMcCutchen.com and www.iaccw.com on Conscious Writing
- 'I began my writing career with short stories. I was happy to do so. Then, somewhat to my surprise, I wrote a novel, then another, and another. Short stories meanwhile deserted me - or perhaps I deserted them. I put it in that rather ashamed way because I have no sense of the short story being an inferior form only leading to novels. Both forms seem to me equally rich and viable. Much is made of their differences when actually they have a great deal in common...' Graham Swift, author of Last Orders and England and Other Stories in the Independent on Sunday, quoted in our Comment column.
- The BBC National Short Story Award 2015 is open to British nationals and residents aged 18 years or over, who have a prior record of publication in creative writing in the UK and there's a generous £15,000 for the winner. Closing on 25 February. This week's Writing Opportunity.
- On the same page, the BBC Young Writers' Award is a new prize for young people from 14 to 18, closing on the same day.
- Have you ever wondered why you don't win any of those competitions? Our tips on Entering Competitions.
- Our links: Veteran author Warren Adler offers a "reality check" for would-be authors who believe fame and fortune is just a book away, So You Want to Be a Famous Self-Published Author? so have you ever thought what Tumblr could do for you? The Millions : A Future for Books Online: Tumblr's Reblog Book Club; a surprising figure from India as book business booms, Jaipur BookMark Estimates Indian Publishing Worth $20bn; Digital Book World's survey, the subject of this week's News Review, Authors Playing the Long-Game in Tough Book Market, Survey Finds | Digital Book World; and a free online encyclopedia for 8 to 13-year-olds launched, Orpheus creates online encyclopedia for children | The Bookseller.
- 'The majority of poems one outgrows and outlives, as one outgrows and outlives the majority of human passions.' T S Eliot, the subject of a new biography dealing with the first part of his life, in our Writers' Quotes.
26 January 2015 - What's new
- 'So what are fiction editors looking for in 2015? A handful of British editors have contributed to a recent article in the Bookseller, speaking up for home-grown talent, strong debut novels and - perhaps surprisingly - books in translation... News Review
- Are you interested in Getting Your Manuscript Copy Edited? As well as this article we have one from our 19-part Inside Publishing series about Copy editing and proof-reading and we offer a Copy editing service, as well as a Proof-reading service and our special Manuscript Polishing service, which involves more intensive work, 'polishing' and improving the text, and correcting the English if you are writing in English as a second language.
- 'As I write, it is 5.30pm on a wet Wednesday afternoon, and so far today I have talked once, to my wife, about which of us is going to take our youngest son to football training. I appreciate how lucky I am in my work. I am able to support myself and my family through my writing. I can watch as many YouTube clips as I want. My lunch hour is when my stomach tells me it should be. But on a normal working day, things are very, very quiet around here... Nick Hornby, author of About a Boy and Funny Girl, in the Sunday Times magazine, quoted in our Comment column, in a piece entitled Screenwriting - a collaborative endeavour.
- From our Archive, a two-part serialisation of Linda Strachan's Writing for Children: 'One of the most exciting things about writing for children is the sheer diversity. You have different ages to choose from; you can write picture books, easy readers, short books for more confident readers, or novels - each quite different in length and often in content... Do you want to write for the educational market - books written for use in schools - or would you rather write poetry or plays, a series or a ‘stand alone', or perhaps a picture book for the very young?...'
- Links of the week: Judith Curr's positive view, How Publishers Can Work with Entrepreneur Authors - Publishing Perspectives; a writer's cri-de-coeur, These days, writing isn't a career. It's a rich man's hobby - Telegraph; four people from the centre of the book world debate - Is Amazon a Hero or Monster? - The Daily Beast; the sad story of a languishing genre, Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society RIP Children's Non-Fiction?; a warning about the subscription business, Publishing: Spotify for books | The Economist; and a sardonic comment, Oui, French Readers are Just as E-Trashy as Everyone Else.
- 'Any magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and call it a nightmare, or a witches sabbath or a portrait of the devil; but only a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That's because only a real artist knows the anatomy of the terrible, or the physiology of fear.' H P Lovecraft in our Writers' Quotes.
19 January 2015 - What's new
- Nielsen Children's Book Summit has presented a very encouraging picture of what's going on in the children's book world. Children's sales have been rising steadily and, as previously noted, the sales of children's books in the UK market recently exceeded sales of Adult Fiction. Middle grade and YA Fiction has been doing particularly well. But this News Review looks at the surprise statistic that 80% of YA titles are purchased by adults for themselves.
- You have until 1 February to enter this week's poetry-based Writing Opportunity, The Interpreter's House's Open House 2015, which is open to anyone over 18 with an entry fee of £4 for single poems, £10 for three poems.
- Have you got something you'd like to say to our community of writers? My Say gives writers a chance to air their views about writing and the writer's life. So we have Natasha Mostert: There are few things as satisfying as typing THE END to a manuscript and Richard Hall "Write about what you know" - does this adage always make sense? Contributions should ideally be 200 to 400 words in length and of general interest. Please email them to us.
- ‘I had about 24 hours when I hovered under my covers and was like, "I killed feminism. Why did I do that? Rats... Then I quickly felt comfortable with what I had written. Women shouldn't be expected only to play nurturing, kind caretakers. That's always been part of my goal - to show the dark side of women... Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, in the New York Times, quoted in our Comment column.
- Our expert script editor provides a service for scripts, plays and screenplays. He is a skilled professional with particular expertise in assessing and editing writing for performance. Scriptwriting assessment service
- Links of the week: what's the most difficult book you've ever read? Readability Is a Myth - The Atlantic; looking forward to the coming year, Five Trade Publishing Predictions for 2015; a conversation with Amazon, Amazon Says It's Healthy to Give Publishers, Authors Choice; the author of The Satanic Verses stands up again for free speech, Salman Rushdie, Threatened Over Book, Defends Free Speech - ABC News; the supreme importance of reading to children, Study Finds Reading to Children of All Ages Grooms Them to Read More on Their Own - NYTimes.com; and a contributin from Oxford University Press to the debate on children's books, No, we haven't banned books on pigs - but sensitivity is key in global publishing | Jane Harley | Comment is free | theguardian.com.
- 'Retiring from writing is not to retire from life, but retiring from writing is to avoid the inevitable bitterness which a writing career is bound to deliver as its end product, in almost every case.' Jim Crace in downbeat mode in our Writers' Quotes.
12 January 2015 - What's new
- When David Harsent received the 2014 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry in the elegant surroundings of the Courtyard at the Wallace Collection in London this week, he had won a prize which has recently been increased to £20,000, the richest prize in British poetry. It's appropriate to think of T S Eliot's money going to a contemporary poet through the generosity of the Eliot Estate. Much of this comes from Cats, the hugely successful musical made out of Eliot's beloved children's book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, adapted by Andrew Lloyd Webber and long a global blockbuster. Our News Review this week: 'A poet for dark and dangerous days' wins 2014 T S Eliot Prize.
- Our Latest Writing Opportunity is the Magma Poetry Prize, one for shorter and one for longer poems, both with a first prize of £1,000 and closing on 19 Janaury.
- Our Services for Self-publishers include a complete set of editorial services you may need if you're publishing your own book - Copy editing, Proof-reading, Blurb-writing, Children's Copy editing, Poetry Collection Editing, Indexing and Manuscript Typing.
- 'I began with thinking about how almost all families have such a sense of pride in their specialness, even if they have no real reason to make them feel so proud. I think that every family has stories that they choose. They filter out many of the stories that they could have, and they select one or two to be their family's stories. I'm always interested in why those... why not others? Anne Tyler, author of The Accidental Tourist, talking about her new novel A Spool of Blue Thread in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
- 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 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.'
- Our links this week: it's not Amazon but an overcrowded writing field which is killing writing, Kindle Unlimited and the ongoing commoditization of books - Tech News and Analysis; articles about China from last year's archive from US trade journal Publishers' Weekly, Top 12 Articles of 2014 on Publishing in Asia and South Asia; musings on the writer's life, BookBrunch - A small price to pay for the writing life; a sensational new French novel, Michel Houellebecq and the Charlie Hebdo Attack - Publishing Perspectives; the power of recommendation by the powerful; When Mark Zuckerberg Likes a Book, Sales Soar - NYTimes.com; and some amazing figures, How Much Can Chinese Authors Earn? Millions, Actually - Publishing Perspectives.
- 'All the information you need can be given in dialogue.' The great Elmore Leonard in our Writers' Quotes.
5 January 2015 - What's new
- We've just published our annual listing of books fairs across the world, 2015 International Book Fairs, an update on the most important fairs across the globe. Although these are mainly directed at publishers and booksellers, many also offer author events and other attractions such as festivals for the general public and also events of interest to self-publishers. As indie publishing has grown, so have the seminars and other events catering for authors who are publishing their own book. Even if you're not self-publishing, your local book fair offers a really good opportunity to see what's happening in the book world.
- 'I became a reader overnight. I remember exactly what happened. I was 14 and went to John Menzies newsagent. Every book that had a vaguely smutty blurb I bought... The only exception to the highbrow erotica was Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country. I thought, "This is as boring as shit..." After 40 pages, something started to change...' Alan Warner, author of The Sopranos and Their Lips Talk of Mischief in the Independent on Sunday, quoted in our Comment column.
- Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl has qualified for the Nielsen Book Platinum Award, achieving sales of more than 1m copies recorded by BookScan in the UK. Added to this are her huge international sales, especially after the release of the highly successful film. Gillian Flynn was the subject of our Success Story back in 2013. We have other Success Stories on a wide range of authors.
- Our News Review this week: 'As we enter another new year it seems that the book world is becoming ever more global. Our new list of 2015 International Book Fairs brings home just how many are aspiring to international status and trying to establish themselves as attracting a truly worldwide audience of publishers, booksellers and authors...'
- Still on an international theme, Book Aid International has just reached one million books sent to Africa in its 60th year (They say that for every £2 ($3) you give they can send a new book to Africa.)
- This week's links are strong on year-end lists of articles on particular themes, offering the chance to read up on them if you're interested: a fascinating overview on changes in the academic publishing world, Academic publishing and scholarly communication: a status report | Harvard Magazine Jan-Feb 2015; a range of articles on children's publishing, Publishers Weekly's Top Children's Stories of 2014; so what effect are subscription services having on sales of low-priced ebooks? Ebooks in 2015: Dull new world - Tech News and Analysis; change and stability in the world of global publishers, The World's 56 Largest Book Publishers, 2014; and - related to our Book Aid International link above, Worldreader on Book Donations in the Digital Age - Publishing Perspectives.
- '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.