30 November 2020 - What's new
30 November 2020
- ‘We turn to fiction for the satisfactions that we don't get in real life. In reality you know that if a crime is committed against you they're never going to find out who did it. If your house is broken into they probably won't even show up, and if they do you'll never get your stuff back. If your car is stolen, you'll never see it again. We live with this sort of buzz of frustration and dissatisfaction. So we turn to fiction for clarity and consolation and closure...' Lee Child, author of the 25 Jack Reacher novels, from Killing Floor to The Sentinel, who has recently handed over the writing to his brother.
- From our nineteen-part Inside Publishing series, you can read up on Advances and royalties: 'Publishers usually offer to pay authors advances against royalties. How do you work out how much money you might earn from your book? You need to understand for yourself how advances and royalties work and what they mean for you...'
- From the same series, Copy editing and proof-reading explains the difference between the two. Copy editing is the painstaking job of going through a manuscript line by line to correct the spelling, grammar and punctuation. Proof-reading at a later stage is a separate check through the book when it is set up in pages, before it goes to press or is finalised for ebook publishing.
- Calling all UK self-publishers: The Selfies Book Awards UK 2021 is open to authors who have self-published adult fiction, children's books or adult memoirs/autobiography in the UK between January and December 2020. Entry fee: £25 per title to include a six-month subscription to Bookbrunch. There's a £750 cash prize for each category plus a profile in BookBrunch and the option of a special publishing deal provided by sponsors IngramSpark.
- Our links from publishing, which is experiencing big upheavals: the acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House shows that the industry is headed toward a monopolistic situation, Pretty Soon There'll Be Just One Big Book Publisher Left | The New Republic; the Authors' Guild and other organisations are fighting back, PRH Purchase of S&S Draws Objections; small publishers surviving the pandemic, Implement like hell; and a big shock affecting BookExpo, the biggest annual book fair in America, is being "retired", BookExpo and BookCon Are No More.
- Copy editing services - WritersServices can provide a range of services working on your manuscript, to help you get it ready for submission or self-publishing. We are UK-based and our skilled professional editors have been working on writers' manuscripts for 19 years. We have recently introduced free samples and free assessments on most of these services, please see the individual service page
- If you're interested in short stories, you can read three of the best shortlisted for the Costa Short Story Award and take part in the public vote.
- Links about writing: rather academic but fascinating, The rise and fall of the Oxford School of fantasy literature | Aeon Essays; most of us write the first draft of our memoir chronologically, setting down what happened in order, or thematically, 2 Methods for Structuring Your Memoir; big changes as the organisation commits to diversity, Royal Society of Literature reveals historic changes to improve diversity | Books | The Guardian; and a contracts checklist for when negotiating with a publisher without an agent, Andrew Lownie Literary Agency | Top tips when negotiating contracts.
- From our Endorsements page: '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.
- Links from writers: more on Lee Child, Jack Reacher's good fights - Michael Robbins - Bookforum Magazine; the wondrous Diagram Prize has come up with its latest crazy winner, Let it flow: A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path wins 42nd Diagram Prize | The Bookseller; and 'he would not win the coveted award today because he is a 'white, straight man', Booker Prize winner John Banville slams 'woke' movement as 'a religious cult' | Daily Mail Online.
- If you've got some time on your hands because you're locked down, now might be the time to look through some of the information about the writing world on our page Advice to writers.
- We're looking for experienced typists in the UK for our Typing Manuscripts service, so if you know of anyone who's interested please ask them to get in touch with their cv.
- 'Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance.' Matthew Arnold in our Writers' Quotes.
