28 December 2020 - What's new
28 December 2020
- ‘No one reads your book as closely as a translator does, which is something you learn very quickly. I'm in such awe of them. They also read beneath it and around it. They make me consider things I thought I knew the meaning of because I use those words in everyday dialect and that's how the characters express themselves. It's made me go back and research the origins of some of the words...Globalism has allowed books to reach people who have felt excluded from festivals or literary events or readings. I think it's going to be a thing we should uphold and maintain as we go forward even when we can see each other. There's an open-door feeling to it that's really powerful.' Douglas Stuart, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize with Suggie Bain, in Publishing Perspectives.
- From our 19-part Inside Publishing series: on Copyright 'Many writers worry about losing their copyright. Before sending out your manuscript it is always advisable to put a copyright line consisting of the copyright sign ©, the year and your name on the title page...'
On 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...' - Links to articles on well-known authors: William Boyd on 'the strange thrill' he experienced on first reading The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John le Carré didn't invent the spy novel - he joined a tradition and made it new again | John le Carré | The Guardian; the culmination of a two-decade power struggle for ownership of her fictional world, Who Did J.K. Rowling Become? Every night at bedtime, millions of children - pyjamas on, teeth reluctantly brushed - curl up to read or listen to one of her stories, How Julia Donaldson conquered the world, one rhyme at a time | News | The Guardian; and 'How other people live is pretty much all I think about', an author's powerful encounter These Precious Days, By Ann Patchett | Harper's Magazine.
- If you've come to the site looking for a report on your manuscript, how do you work out which one would suit you best? Which Report? includes our new top-of-the range service, the Editor's Report Plus, introduced by popular demand to provide even more detail. This very substantial report takes the form of a chapter-by-chapter breakdown and many writers have found this detail helps them to get their book right. Through our specialist children's editors we can offer reports on children's books.
- Links on writers and writing: art and design professionals have had to both reevaluate their workflow and assess what has been lost and gained, Making Children's Books in the Covid-19 Era; can another author change your character? Lawsuit over 'warmer' Sherlock depicted in Enola Holmes dismissed | Arthur Conan Doyle | The Guardian; are they apolitical fantasy fluff? Author Alyssa Cole on Why Politics Belong in Romance Novels.
- From our Endorsements page: ‘WritersServices editors are not just excellent professionals, they are persons of letters involved in helping the writers who are trying to enter in the world of British books... I am impressed. I am grateful. I'm delighted. Thank you so much.' Daniela Stanciulescu, Paris
- Links from a rapidly-changing publishing world: for the publishing industry, 2020 began with an explosion and ended with a contraction, How a year of publishing protests rocked the industry - Vox; 95 percent of published authors are white, Number-crunching the overwhelming whiteness of the book publishing industry | Boing Boing; the glut of books this season has caused its own problems, The Ten Biggest Literary Stories of the Year ‹ Literary Hub; not the powerhouse agents or the megabestselling authors or the Big Five CEOs, PW's 2020 Person of the Year: The Book Business Worker; and, finally, a mysterious international phishing scam, Why on Earth Is Someone Stealing Unpublished Book Manuscripts? - The New York Times.
- Get your manuscript typed up so that you can revise it, submit it or publish it. Do you need to get your material typed up, but can't face doing the job yourself? We can provide a clean typed version of your work at very competitive rates. Our service offers help for writers who have an old or handwritten manuscript, or audio tapes, which need re-typing before the writer can proceed with submission or publication. Typing manuscripts
- 'Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.' Willa Cather in our Writers' Quotes.
