5 May 2014 - What's new
5 May 2014
- 'Writing a great book is only part of the picture. Getting it uploaded to Amazon with a great cover, and perhaps printed via POD, isn't the whole picture either. However great your book, however beautiful or useful your product, no one will be able to buy it if they don't know it's there...' In article no 9 of WritersServices Self-publishing Guide, 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 looks at Marketing and Promotion for Indie Authors: Online.
- 'When I first came into publishing, paperbacks seemed the coming thing. Surely it was only a question of time before the power of consumers drove paperbacks to centre stage and ousted those expensive hardbacks? In book auctions most of the money came from the paperback publisher, so it seemed logical to expect that shortly paperbacks would win the day and books would be published straight into paperback.' This week's News Review looks at where paperbacks stand in the era of ebooks.
- Our Talking to publishers series offers nine articles or interviews with editors of different genres and tyes of publishing list.
- ‘Writing can be taught. The desire and will to do it cannot. Living the life of a writer means you're either starving in a garret or you're living a very leisured life. My lifestyle isn't middle class; it's upper class. I don't mean that in a smug way. I don't have the burden pf getting up and going to work...' Irvine Welsh, author of The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins, in The Times, quoted in our Comment column.
- Our Writing Opportunity this week is the Bridport Prize, actually three prizes, for a poem a short story and a flash fiction, with generous first prizes of £5,000 for two of them.. It closes on 31 May and is open to all writers of 16 and over across the world. They've also just announced a first novel prize.
- The first link this week asks the interesting question: Is It O.K. to Mine Real Relationships for Literary Material? - NYTimes.com. Then we have More work, no pay: Why I detest "Literary Citizenship" - Salon.com; Guerrilla marketing for books | Business; How Retailers, Publishers And Indies Can Fix The E-Book Industry; and BookBrunch - The market for ebooks in the UK and US.
- Have you got a contract with a publisher but no agent? Use our expert Contract vetting service to check out that your contract is OK.
- 'A "bestseller" is a celebrity among books. It is a book known primarily (sometimes exclusively) for its well-knowness.' Daniel Boorstin in our Writers' Quotes.
