|
| |
Log of the weekly changes on the site on 2008
This week's changes 2001
2002 2003
2004
2005
2006 2007 2008
2009
Some of the links are broken when items are archived - Please check the
page address (url) and it should be fairly easy to find the original page
or section. The site search facility on each page is also a great way to
trace articles.
22 December 2008
 | This week's
News Review looks
at the responsibility of publishers in the developed world to help the
developing countries get books and access to them through Creative Commons and
the work of the book charities. |
|
| Print
Parameters Thinking about self-publishing? Chas Jones has updated our page
in WritersPrintShop showing what page sizes and extents are available and how
you can now print colour books one copy at a time.
Colour
printing |
|
| ‘Culture, as I have said, belongs to us all, to all humankind. But in
order for this to be true, everyone must be given equal access to culture. The
book, however old-fashioned it may be, is the ideal tool. It is practical, easy
to handle, economical. It does not require any particular technological prowess,
and keeps well in any climate.' Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, winner of the
2008 Nobel Prize for Literature, quoted in our
Comment column. |
|
| Our
Writing Opportunity
this week is the inaugural Mslexia Short Story Competition, open to women
across the world writing in English. It has an £8 entry fee and closes
on 23 January. |
|
| 'For me a poem is a place where one invites someone in. You build a
little house, fix it up real nice. Inside you’ve got a painting on the wall, a
new couch, some knick-knacks and souvenirs, a swell meal all laid out on the
table, and you open the door and hope somebody comes in…' US Poet Laureate
Charles Simic in our Writers' Quotes. |
|
| We won't be updating the site next weekend, but there's a mass of
useful information to read up on over the break. You can find it from
Help for Writers. |
15 December 2008
|
| The
final section of our new 2009 agents' listings comes from the
Children's Writers' and Artists' Yearbook and lists agencies from around the
world specialising in children's writers. |
|
| See our
review of this
extremely useful book - a must for any aspiring children's writer. |
|
| The other new listings cover UK agents,
US agents
and
Agents from the
rest of the world. |
|
| Google
Chrome - Chas Jones reviews Google's new browser
Chrome and shows how its revolutionary new features make it more effective to
use.
He explains how the browser is expanding to become the front page software
through which all other applications are accessed. |
|
| Newspapers' book review sections are under threat as part of the general
pressure on the papers to keep their print editions going. But does this matter
for books? News Review
takes a look. |
|
| 'I think every year we sell fewer books, but every time we do sell a book
now it's for more money... it takes
longer for publishers to make decisions than it used to, and there is a little
less room for flexibility than there was.' Simon Trewin of United Agents in the Bookseller,
quoted in our Comment column. |
|
|
An Editor's Advice
is a useful series is based on the advice Maureen Kincaid Speller, a
long-serving WritersServices freelance editor, has given writers over the years.
The series covers
Dialogue,
doing further
drafts, genre writing,
planning,
points of
view, autobiography and travel and
manuscript presentation. |
|
| 'Books say: she did this because. Life says: she did this. Books are
where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't.' Julian
Barnes in our Writers' Quotes. |
8 December 2008
 | The new Agents' Listings are now available on the site. Coming from the
2009 Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, these listings can be searched and
provide the most up-to-date information about literary agents across the
world: UK agents,
US agents
and
Agents from the
rest of the world. |
|
| The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2009 is highly recommended by major
authors who provide advice for writers in its pages. Benjamin Zephaniah joins Kate Mosse, Bernard Cornwell, J K Rowling and many others. |
|
|
|
Our review of the
Writers' and Artists' Yearbook concluded: 'Highly recommended for all writers and artists, this really is an
essential companion for all writers.' |
|
|
How to market your
writing services online Ghostwriter Joanne Phillips shows you how you
can market yourself online through your own website, optimisation, ezines
and freelance writing websites. Essential reading for writers who
want to promote themselves on the web. |
|
| 'It’s been a torrid week in the US and UK book trades, as
destabilising staff cuts underline the poor situation in retail... the
book trade is on tenterhooks about the outcome of Christmas.'
News Review
looks at job losses and the acquisition of Wisden. |
|
| With such gloom all around, now's the time for writers to
concentrate on improving their work and getting it ready for publication.
Our Advice for writers
page provides access to the mass of information on the site. |
|
| Maybe you can invest in some help to get your work ready for
publication? Our 16 Services
provide everything from Reports to
Submission Critiques,
from Copy editing to
Synopsis writing, for adult
and Children's work. |
|
| 'Cultural identity, it could be argued, is best developed like a
language, at an early age. Children can absorb these ideas before they are
corrupted by the prejudices and complications of the adult world...' Maria Dickenson in the late lamented Publishing News,
quoted in our Comment column. |
|
| 'Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to
make it short.' Henry David Thoreau's wise words are in our
Writers' Quotes. |
|
1 December 2008
|
| Christopher Paolini is a publishing sensation to rival J K Rowling. In
these difficult times his is an inspiring story of raw talent with a large dose
of hard work and a dash of luck. News Review
reports. |
|
|
Paper sizes
Chas Jones's new article in our WritersPrintshop
self-publishing service shows paper sizes and how these relate to book sizes. |
|
| 'The mood of the times is changing. There is a return to be made from
publishing good books but perhaps not sufficient to pay for atriums and
limousines. Could it be that some conglomerates are just too big, too costly
and no longer offer value for money?'
Clare Alexander in the Bookseller, quoted in our
Comment column. |
|
| From our Archives,
MasterClasses
giving useful advice for writers from Anne Fine and Tony Bradman (children's
books), Blake Morrison and Victoria Glendinning (memoirs and biography) and
Deborah Moggach and Andrew Davies (writing for TV). |
|
| 'You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do
nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and
again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will
receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.' Isaac Asimov,
in our Writers' Quotes. |
|
| The
December Magazine is
ready! |
24 November 2008
|
|
News Review looks at how
publishers are going for print on demand to keep backlist in print, and how
online bookselling supports this trend. |
|
| Your
copyright has been updated and we've added a section on interviews.
Use this to check on your copyright, find out what 'fair use' means and what's
in the public domain. |
|
| There's also a new page on
Interviews, which points out the pitfalls and gives a sample interview
release document. |
|
| See also our more general article on
Copyright in
our 19-part Inside Publishing
series,
which gives you an insight to what's going on in publishing.
From
Advances and royalties to
Subsidiary
rights, this is the place to
find the inside story on publishing. |
|
|
'Write about what you know. And embroider the hard facts a little if
absolutely necessary. I don't exaggerate or embellish so much in my
stories since I started writing for the New Yorker because their fact checkers
are as fearsome as their legend suggests.' David Sedaris in
the Observer, quoted in our Comment column. |
|
| We've done an update of our
Links
section, adding lots of new links to our lists of recommended sites for
writers. |
|
| 'When you live and work on your own, as I do, writing takes a long
time. You can keep producing shit and you're always wondering whether you
should stop. I'm so glad I had friends who told me to keep going.' Aravind
Adiga, winner of the 2008 Booker Prize, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
17 November 2008
| Tips
for Writers 5 deals with promoting your book (and yourself), and
explores the many specific ways in which you can promote and sell your own
work. |
| 'The storm clouds are gathering as more economies go into recession.
The book trade looks gloomier in the US than the UK, where Christmas may still
show good sales. News Review
reports. |
|
Colour printing is now available using print on demand, which means you
can print one copy at a time. Chas Jones reports on this technological
breakthrough which means that self-publishers can produce colour books of as
little as 4 and up to 480 pages through our
WritersPrintShop. |
| Saturday Night and Sunday Morning hits 50: 'It's something that
comes from within you, the need to write. You're born with it... As long as I'd had a roof over my head
and food on the table, I would have carried on writing whether I was published
or not.' Alan Sillitoe in The Times, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Robert Kee's Story Seminar is our
Writing Opportunity this week.
The next chance to attend this world-famous seminar is from 29 November to
1 December in London. |
| Join up for our free weekly
newsletter to find out what's new in the book world. |
| 'The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in,
shock-proof shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great
writers had it.' Ernest Hemingway in our
Writers' Quotes. |
10 November 2008
| Chris Meade, the founder of if:book, explores the future of the book and
the creative potential of new media for readers and writers, in his look at
the exciting new possibilities for the book.
if:book - the future of the book |
| 'Perhaps it’s too late to talk about the danger of one company dominating
the market so completely.' News Review looks at the rise and rise of Amazon,
with its 'great price and great service'.
News Review on Amazon. |
| Linotype
- Chas Jones gives an illustrated guide to the mechanical marvel which
turns text into hot metal. The linotype machine allows each line of type to be
cast in hot metal ready to make the printing block. |
| ‘Digital activity is critical to the evolution of publishing and in
children’s we are best placed to break this out because our audience is already
there, growing up with it.' Ann-Janine Murtagh of
HarperCollins Children's Books UK, in Publishing News, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Our latest Writing Opportunity
is for poetry - the Poetry Business's Book and Pamphlet Competition,
which offers publication as a prize. entry open to all poets writing in
English, £24 entry fee. |
| 'To me the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's
about, but the music the words make.' Truman Capote in our
Writers' Quotes. |
3 November 2008
|
|
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy
is the second article in a new series by Chris Holifield which will
cover the major writing genres.
This one looks at Science Fiction and Fantasy
and suggests how you should get started, what special considerations you should
bear in mind and what the market's like. |
|
|
Frankfurt
- Chas Jones reports from the floor of the biggest book fair in
the world:
'I suspect that if you assembled all the literary festivals and book fairs
from around the whole of Europe they could fit into the space occupied by the
Frankfurt Book Fair and there would be room for a few football pitches. The
Frankfurt Book Fair is big.' |
|
|
'When I began, there was just one thing that I wanted to write about, which
was the true devastation of racism on the most vulnerable, the most helpless
unit in the society - a black female and a child.' Toni Morrison in the
Observer, quoted in our Comment
column. |
|
|
If you're trying to get your work ready for publication, have a look at
our 16 Services,
everything from
Reports
to
Scriptwriitng assessment, from
Copy
editing to
Manuscript Polishing. |
|
|
A ground-breaking agreement was reached in New York this week in the case
of the Authors’ Guild and the Association of American Publishers v Google.
Google will make payments totalling $125m... the agreement will allow for the expansion of online access to
millions of in-copyright books from the libraries taking part in Google Book
Search.' News Review has the story. |
|
| 'Avoid agents if you wish to succeed... the literary
parasite is fully recognised as the grossest abuse of modern innovations.'
Spencer C Blackett, 1893, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
|
| The November Magazine is ready! |
27 October 2008
| Tips for
Writers 4 deals with
self-publishing and asks: is it for you? Print on demand has transformed
self-publishing, making it possible to print one copy at a time.
Self-publishing is much more cost-effective, but is it right for you? |
|
1: Improving
your writing,
2: Learn on
the job and 3:
New technology and the Internet are all still available.
|
|
News Review looks at
this year's winner and the tradition of controversy surrounding the Booker -
plus its increasingly global reach into a world market.
|
|
This week's Writing
Opportunity is something a bit different - author Lynn Britney's offer of
$5,000 for a one-page synopsis of the plot for the follow-on to her novel
Christine Kringle. The competition is open to all from 10 to 100,
but must be written in English.
|
|
'At the end of the day, the writer herself is a more valuable brand than
the publishing house and it's time for writers to wake up to this fact.'
Kate Pullinger on Guardian Online is quoted in this week's
Comment.
|
|
Our series Changes in the
book trade looks at how fundamental changes in how it works are affecting writers. The first article is on
Bookselling, the second on
Publishing, the third on
Print on
demand, the
fourth
on Self-publishing - 'really great' or career suicide?, the
fifth
on Writers' routes to their audiences, the
sixth at at Copyright under pressure
and the seventh deals with
Creative Commons.
|
|
'Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such
odious subjects as soon as I can.' Jane Austen in our
Writers' Quotes.
|
20 October 2008
|
| 'In the midst of all the gloom and doom, the Frankfurt Book Fair has been
pretty much business as usual. Writing on the last day of the Fair, visitor
figures are so far up 8.1% on last year, although there has been a slight drop
in exhibitor numbers'. News Review's
report shows how Frankfurt is going global. |
|
|
Review
of the Children's Writers' and Artists' Yearbook updated for 2009
- our reviewer thought this was:
'a fantastically valuable resource for anyone who wants to venture into
this highly specialised area of publishing'. Now updated with new
articles and a foreword by UK Children's Laureate Michael Rosen. |
|
| 'In such times it is much better to be selling books than higher ticket
items... As domestic budgets are squeezed, books benefit from being
an inexpensive form of recreation and indeed a necessity for priorities like
education. Alan Giles, former CEO of HMV, in the Bookseller,
quoted in our Comment column. |
|
|
The Poetry Archive was launched
in 2005 to record living poets for posterity and to bring poetry to a wider
audience. It has recently reached its 100th recording and has also just
released 14 recordings from American poets. UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion
has called it 'a treasure house of information, insight and pleasure'. |
|
| Are you too thinking about audio recording your work or using audio to
promote it? Our section on Podcasting shows how
you can produce your own recordings. Did you know that
you can make an audio book and distribute it for much
less than the cost of printing a book, and it's ideal for poetry and short
stories? |
|
| 'Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for
self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers
that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.' Joseph Brodsky in our
Writers' Quotes. |
13 October 2008
| The third set of our new pages of tips for writers deals with
using technology and the Internet - for research, to get in touch with
other writers, to keep up to date with what's going on, and for blogging
and setting up your own website. |
| Amidst plunging publishers' and booksellers' share prices, are book
sales holding up? News Review
looks at the figures on the eve of the Frankfurt Book Fair. |
| 'First, is the writing truly brilliant? Second, will the
market be accepting of it? And, finally, am I the right person to
make the connections for the book? Simon Trewin in the Bookseller
on what makes an agent say yes. In our
Comment column. |
| Our just-updated
WritersServices Education Resource Centre has been set up
to help students and those providing writing courses. It draws on the
resources of the WritersServices site to deliver nearly 90 pages of
useful material formatted as A4 pages and ready for use as handouts or in
course material.
|
|
This week's
Writing Opportunity
is the 2008 New Writer Prose and Poetry
Prizes, open to all in three categories - fact, fiction and poetry - and
closing on 30 November.
|
|
'Wanting to know an author because you like his work is like wanting to know a duck because you like paté.'
Margaret Atwood, quoted in our
Writers' Quotes.
|
29 September 2008
|
| 'The launch of a new website which encourages everyone to upload videos of
themselves delivering their own definitions of their favourite words could offer
freedom from the dead hand of the past, or be the last straw for pedants,
depending on your point of view.' News
Review reports on the launch of Wordia.com. |
|
|
Story -
Submission Critique - in our latest fictionalised story Australian journalist Ben finds that a
Submission Critique helps him get his submission package into good enough
shape to get his novel taken on by a London agent. |
|
| 'Publishing has always been accused of being desperately
inefficient and often that it's run like a summer fete, but there is
something to be said for the entrepreneurial spirit of the likes of Peter Usborne and Brenda Gardner,
and Barry Cunningham - without whose eye for a good story, of course, this would
be a very different business.' Graham Marks on the Potter phenomenon in the
final issue of Publishing News, in our
Comment column. |
|
| This week's
Writing
Opportunity is the Poetry Society's famous National Poetry
Competition, open to everyone of 17 or over around the world and
closing on 31 October. |
|
| We've updated our statistics on
our newsletter and who subscribes to it, a fascinating look at
subscribers' interaction with the site. |
|
|
Sign up to the weekly
newsletter to keep up to date with what's going on in the book world. |
|
| 'The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be
completely ruthless if he is a good one... If a writer has to rob his
mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number
of old ladies.' William Faulkner, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
22 September 2008
| Tips for writers
2 - the second set of our new pages of tips for writers deals with
'learning on the job' - writers' groups, classes, university courses and
books for writers. |
| See also Tips for Writers 1:
Improve your writing. |
| After what many are calling the most extraordinary week on the stock
market since the Great Crash, how is publishing faring? Can we even begin to
guess what the terrifying events dominating the world’s financial stage might
mean for the international book trade? News
Review investigates. |
| 'In literary fiction, the big awards definitely translate to sales... If you win the Booker, the Costa or the Orange, your name will
be known. But for some reason the Nobel doesn't sell books.' Matt Bates, W H Smith Fiction Buyer, in Writers' Forum,
quoted in our Comment column. |
|
If you're trying to get your work ready for publication, have a look at
our 16 Services,
everything from
Reports
to
Scriptwriitng assessment, from
Copy
editing to
Manuscript Polishing. |
|
Crime writer Brian McGilloway has made it at last. After lots of
rejections he had the good fortune to be taken on by Macmillan New Writing
and now has a two-book contract with the main Macmillan imprint. See our
latest Success story. |
| 'The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page
than the common reader can lap off it with no strain whatsoever on his
habitually slack attention.' Ezra Pound, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
15 September 2008
|
|
News Review on Stephenie Meyer's
decision to halt her Midnight series because her unpublished manuscript
has been pirated on the web, and the Daily Telegraph's serialisation of
Alexander McCall Smith's new novel online. |
|
| In our
Review of The Writer's
Handbook
our reviewer said:
'The Writer’s Handbook does what it says on the tin. It is a useful book
for helping writers to find what they want, and a helpful volume to accompany
you in your search for a writer or agent.' |
|
| Special early bird discount for The Writer's Handbook 2009
one-day event in London on 27
September, if you book by the 19th. |
|
| Read our
Health Hazards series to prevent yourself getting repetitive strain injury
or carpal tunnel syndrome. |
|
| 'What's most exciting about ebooks is not what they can do
at the moment but what they may do in the future... What we're seeing isn't the death of the book,
but the creation of a new art form.' Naomi Alderman, author of Disobedience, in the Observer,
in our Comment Column. |
|
|
In the Old Possum's Children's
Poetry Competition the
Children’s Poetry Bookshelf is asking children aged 7-11 years to write a
poem on the theme of ‘Work’, with cash prizes, books and memberships.
It's interesting to look at
your writing
habits, as shown by a survey we carried out on the site. |
|
| 'It’s never going to be very mainstream. One reason is that poetry
requires concentration, both on the part of the writer and the reader. But
it’s kind of unkillable, poetry. It’s our most ancient artform and I think
it’s more relevant today than ever, because it’s one person saying what they
really believe.' Simon Armitage in our
Writers' Quotes.
|
8 September 2008
|
|
Tips for writers -
the first set of our new pages of tips for writers deals
with improving your writing, including researching your chosen
category, reading widely, redrafting, checking your work for errors
and getting professional advice. |
|
| 'Bloomsbury has dipped into its reputed £50m ($88.32m) Harry Potter war
chest to set up an innovative new publishing venture, Bloomsbury Academic. The
new business will publish a new list online for free, with the venture sustained
by sales to libraries and academic institutions.'
News Review reports. |
|
| Chas Jones provides an illuminating account of how
Traditional book binding works, with some wonderful photos showing
how 'proper' binding is achieved. |
|
|
An Editor's Advice
is a useful series is based on the advice Maureen Kincaid Speller, a
long-serving WritersServices freelance editor, has given writers over the years.
The series covers
Dialogue,
doing further
drafts, genre writing,
planning,
points of
view, autobiography and travel and
manuscript presentation. |
|
| 'When I sat down to write I realised I knew nothing, I felt really ashamed of
myself having been an editor...' Robyn Sisman, author of Hollywood Ending, in the
Bookseller,
quoted in our Comment
column. |
|
|
Sign up
for our newsletter to keep up to date with what's going on in the book
world. |
|
| 'If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all
others: read a lot and write a lot...reading is the creative center of
a writer's life...you cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the
force of your writing until it has been done to you.' Stephen King
in our Writers' Quotes. |
1 September 2008
|
|
Writing Crime Fiction is the
first article in a new series by Chris Holifield which will cover the major
writing genres. The first article looks at the international market for crime
novels and shows what is working for this readership and how you can give your
own crime fiction its best chance of getting published. |
|
| 'The growing market for guidebooks has brought about intense competition
amongst the different travel publishers. Now the twin changes wrought by
people’s concern about their carbon footprint and the global economic downturn
are bringing that era to an end.' News
Review
on the future for travel publishing. |
|
| We publish
the winning
poem in the 2008 Poetry Writers' Yearbook Competition, plus last year's
judge's tips on entering poetry competitions. |
|
| Our own 13 tips on successfully
Entering competitions also provide a useful checklist for competition
entry. |
|
| 'If I were to offer two pieces of advice, it would be to focus on quality
- the story has to be compelling whatever the genre - and to find your
indefinable 'voice'. Sarah Molloy of A M Heath in Writers' Forum, quoted in our
Comment column. |
|
| What is copy editing and how does it differ from proof-reading? Our
article in
Inside
Publishing explains the difference. See also our
Copy editing and
Proof-reading services and
Divided by a common language? American versus British copy editing. |
|
| 'Your book may be a masterpiece but do not suggest that to the
publisher because many of the most hopeless manuscripts that have come his way
have probably been so described by their authors.' Sir Stanley Unwin in
The Truth abut Publishing, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
|
| The September Magazine is ready! |
25 August 2008
| Does page size matter in terms of how many pages your manuscript will be in
book form? The intriguing answer in our
Page sizes
article is - not as much as you might think. |
| Work out your
pagination and do an
rough cost
estimate online in the pages of our our
WritersPrintShop
self-publishing service. |
| 'The book trade is beginning to wonder if books will weather the economic
storm. The received wisdom is that they do well in a recession because they are
small-ticket items, but is this really true?'
News Review
asks: are books recession-proof? |
| 'The internet has changed print... What's the difference between junk email and a letter that has been written to
you? It's relevance. That's what publishers do, add relevance.'
Roger Horton of Taylor & Francis in
the Bookseller, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Our latest Writing Opportunity
is the 2008 Red Planet Writing Competition for a TV script. Open to all
and closing on 30 September. |
| 'The King died and then the Queen died. That is a story. The King died and
then the Queen died of grief. That is a plot.' E M Forster in Aspects of
the Novel, quoted in our Writers
Quotes. |
18 August 2008
|
| 'A new star has burst upon the publishing firmament.
Stephenie Meyer, whose new book Breaking Dawn already has
1.3 million copies in print in the US, recorded the largest-ever
first-day sale when it was published there on August 4th.'
News Review on the latest
superselling author. |
|
|
Review of Writers
and Artists' Yearbook 2009 -
our reviewer concluded that what makes this book an outstandingly good
buy is the many articles about every aspect of getting published and
called it: 'an essential companion for all writers'. |
|
|
Sign up for our weekly
newsletter to keep up to date with what's going on. |
|
|
'America suited the book I wanted to write much more than Britain.
British crime stories tend to by very internal, psychological, claustrophobic,
very limited in terms of geography... I wanted to do something that was more
wide-ranging in terms of geography, empty spaces, distant horizons.' Lee Child,
British author of number one bestseller Nothing to Lose in
the Observer, quoted in our Comment
column.
|
|
|
We've got more than 90 pages on our website about
our self-publishing service,
WritersPrintShop, making this the best online resource for
self-publishers. If you're wondering
whether
self-publishing is for you, this is the place to find out. |
|
| ‘There are three rules for writing a novel.
Unfortunately no-one knows what they are.’ Somerset Maugham, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
11 August 2008
| We've added Manuscript
Polishing and the story of Makito Sato's PhD to the fictionalised stories
which show how our Services can help writers get their work into shape. |
| Also available, stories on the
Reader's Report, the Editor's
Report, Editing,
Contract vetting,
Private publishing and
Self-publishing. |
| The Sony Reader launches soon in the UK, with the international launch of
Amazon's Kindle expected to follow. So is this the autumn when e-books
finally arrive in most of the world? And what effect will they have?
News Review has the story. |
| Here are some of the endorsements we've
received from the millions of writers who have visited the site. |
| 'There has to be a whole-school
approach to reading and enjoyment of books which must include parents. We must
find ways in which parents can enjoy books with children. It must be as
much a part of the education process as doing science or history.' UK Children's Laureate Michael Rosen in the Independent on Sunday,
quoted in our Comment column. |
| 'Every writer has to make an emotional journey from artist sitting in
attic to being part of a business. The writer of a film is like Tinkerbell.
You are only there because people believe in you. The moment they don't,
because you're a pain the arse, you've lost.' Julian Fellowes in our
Writers' Quotes. |
4 August 2008
| The seventh
article in Changes in the Book Trade deals with Creative
Commons, an innovative new way of licensing material which makes it
widely available and also protects and controls the license given.
|
| The first article is on
Bookselling, the second on
Publishing, the third on
Print on
demand, the
fourth
on Self-publishing - 'really great' or career suicide?, the
fifth
on Writers' routes to their audiences and the
sixth at at copyright
under pressure. |
| The closure of Publishing News on 25 July marked the end
of an era in book trade journalism.
News Review looks back over
the years. |
| This week's Writing
Opportunity is the Aeon Short Story Award, open to all and with
the next closing date on 30 September. |
| In our Comment column: 'If this continued, it would not be long
before Amazon got virtually all of the revenue that is presently shared between
author, publisher, retailer, printer and other parties.' Tim Hely-Hutchinson, Group CEO of
Hachette, on Amazon's removal of the buy button, quoted in The Times. |
| Are you thinking
about preparing your manuscript for publication? Maybe it needs
Typing or
Copy editing first? Or
perhaps you need some help with
Rewriting or Manuscript
Polishing (if English is not
your first language). |
| 'Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a
toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master,
then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be
reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the
public.' Winston Churchill, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| The August Magazine is
ready! |
21 July 2008
| 'The past decade has seen the most extraordinary rise in the number and
visibility of literary prizes. They come at us from every direction and seem to
get bigger and more attention-grabbing all the time.'
News Review looks at the
proliferation of book prizes. |
| This week's Writing
Opportunities are The Foyle Young Poets,
Britain's most prestigious poetry
prize for young writers between the ages of 11 and 17, closing on 31 July, and The Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children's
Book Award, a new competition for children's writing, closing in
January. |
| 'Books are the most important thing in life to me... It's a need to process life, instead of just taking what life
throws at you and being passive, a need to take life and make something of it.'
Sophie Hannah in the Independent on Sunday,
quoted in our Comment
column. |
| Are you wondering about how to get your poetry published? Our
article on this will help and you can also read our
review of Chris Hamilton's Emery's 101 Ways to Make Poetry
Sell. |
| It's good news that Google and Ebay have teamed up to reduce
the number of scam emails being sent as junk email. If you
want to take precautions against this email hazard, our article
Phishing
and other hoaxes will show you how. |
| 'Publishing is a very mysterious business. It is hard to
predict what kind of sale or reception a book will have, and
advertising seems to do very little good.' Thomas Wolfe in our
Writers' Quotes. |
14 July 2008
| Read our
Review of The Self-Publishing
Magazine
in which our reviewer concluded:
'You wouldn’t really compare it to the other magazines reviewed here, but for
anyone who is thinking about self-publishing it provides advice and
reassurance.’ |
| 'The stand-off between the Internet retailing giant, Amazon, and the
biggest trade (general) publisher in the UK, Hachette, is continuing.'
News Review looks at Amazon's
plans and how they affect authors. |
| Our latest My Say is Timothy
Hallinan's 'The Writing Session', which offers 6 tips on how to approach
your writing: 'The universe has a vast amount of material to offer
you, free of charge, for your book. If you write regularly, you’ll recognize
that material when it comes along. It could, ultimately, be the thing that
either saves your book or takes it to a higher level.' |
| Robert McCrum in the Observer, quoted in our
Comment column: ‘What I have described are the birth pangs of a golden age. The
market for the printed book is now global; the opportunities for the digital
book are almost unimaginable. To be a writer in the English language today
is to be one of the luckiest people alive.' |
| From our Archive: you can
read the 12 extracts from David
Armstrong's delightfully cynical How Not to Write a Novel: Confessions of a
Midlist Author. |
| 'Nobody asks you to do this. The world out there is not panting after
another novelist. We choose it.'
Paul Auster in our Writers' Quotes. |
7 July 2008
| The sixth article
in our series Changes in the
Book Trade looks at copyright under pressure, as two developments
- digitisation and the Internet concept of everything being free
online - challenge authors' key control of their intellectual
property. |
| In this week's News Review
we look at how the 2007 Cape Town Book Fair shows dynamic growth, but elsewhere in Africa
Book Aid needs support from all of us to deliver books to school-children and
students. |
| This week's Writing
Opportunity is the newly inaugurated Manchester Poetry Prize,
open to poets throughout the world and offering a handsome prize of
£10,000. Closing date 1 August. |
| We all need a bit of positive news in the midst of economic gloom
and this week it's provided by our
Comment from Luke Johnson, CEO of Borders UK: 'There are more books sold than ever before, the market is growing and more
people are reading...
I think the trade should be confident and optimistic.' |
| If you're thinking of getting some help from WritersServices,
Choosing a Service might
help to work out what you want, but if you're ready to submit
Your Submission Package and
Preparing your Manuscript might be what you need. |
| 'Writing a novel without being asked seems a bit like
having a baby when you have nowhere to live.'
Lucy Ellman in our Writers' Quotes. |
30 June 2008
| Wikipedia's 683 million visitors give it a head start against
new competitor Citizendium. News
Review reports on how they're slugging it out. |
| We've carried out a links update and added many new
links of special interest to writers. |
| 'In adult literature there seems to be this pressure to ‘say’
something, especially something that’s ‘never been said before’ but I found I really enjoyed myself when I started to do
it for children.’ Emma Clayton, author of the The Roar, in
Publishing News,
quoted in our Comment
column. |
| If you've been preparing your work for submission, have a
look at our Services to see how we
can help you get
your work in good shape to send out, or look through the hundreds of pages
listed in our Advice for
Writers. |
| Our Writing Opportunity
this week is the Peter Ustinov Screenwriting Award, open to
all non-US writers under the age of 30 and closing on 15 July. |
| 'Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as
much as you please.' Oliver Goldsmith, quoted in our
Writers' Quotes.
|
23 June 2008
| Rights tussles dominate the news, as American publishers look
towards international and e-books for expansion in a declining market.
News Review on the
changing picture. |
| Our latest Writer's
Success story is Jhumpa Lahiri, whose latest collection
Unaccustomed Earth went straight to the top of the American
bestseller lists, even though it is both literary and a collection of
short stories. |
| On the same theme, in our
Comment section: 'Literary fiction gets you the accolades and awards but no
marketing budget, a small print run, and no one can find your books in a
bookstore. Commercial fiction has marketing, advertising, larger print
runs, and you are reaching people which, ultimately, was what I wanted to do.' Jodi Piccoult in the Independent on Sunday. |
| Have you tried our page on
Using the
web as a research tool? There's also
Advanced
Searching to help you make the most of this wonderful resource. |
| There's still just time to enter your story or poem in the
Bridport International Creative Writing Competition
in our latest Writing
Opportunity (closing 30 June). Entry open to all writers over
18 around the world, entry fee £6. |
| Our software reviews
recommend (or don't recommend) a wide range of software specially
designed for writers. |
| And in our Writers' Quotes:
'Without words, without writing and without books there would be no
history, there could be no concept of humanity.' Hermann Hesse |
16 June 2008
| Writers' routes to
their audiences is the fifth article in our new series
Changes in the book trade.
This one explores the difficulties in getting published and offers new
hope through self-publishing and the Internet. |
| Children’s authors have staged a stunning rebellion against age-ranging on
children’s books. More than 50 British authors, led by Philip Pullman and all
five children’s laureates... have launched an extraordinary campaign.
News Review investigates. |
| Our Writing Opportunity
this week is the tempting Daily Mail/Transworld First Novel
Competition, open to UK and Irish residents only and closing on 2
July. |
| 'One of the things you notice is that when you switch on the
television and a student has gone mad with a machine gun on a campus
in America, it's always a writing student...' Hanif Kureishi in
provocative mode at the Hay Festival, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Are you writing a biography or autobiography? Chas Jones's
article suggests how to approach it. |
| Last call for the Poetry Writers' Yearbook's own
competition, closing on 30 June.
Our page includes last year's winning poem and there's an
article by the judge, Gordon Kerr, and another article from the
book on
Epoety and Ezines. |
| 'The way British publishing works is that you go from not being
published no matter how good you are, to being published no matter how
bad you are.'
Tibor Fischer, in our Writers'
Quotes. |
9 June 2008
| Writing for the web is
quite different from writing for the printed page. Our latest checklist shows
you how to write web pages to attract and keep visitors. |
| News Review has the latest
despatch from the Turf Wars, as corporations flex their muscles and US
publishers demand global e-book rights in American authors. |
| 'So why is it that publishers seem to ignore the natural evolutionary
step of adapting their own novels to penetrate an increasingly lucrative
market? It’s down to a clash of cultures.' Andy Briggs on graphic novels
in Publishing News, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| We have two Opportunities ,
mostly for UK writers, this week literaturetraining's bulletin and a writing
course at Godmersham Park, a beautiful house where Jane Austen's brother
lived. |
| Are you trying to get your poetry published?
Our
Review of 101 Ways to Make Poems Sell by Chris Hamilton-Emery of
Salt Publishing said: 'A self-help book for poets... If you’re
serious about selling your poems, this book is a must.'
Books
we've reviewed. |
| Stephen King's advice on writing is: 'If you want to be a writer, you
must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot...reading is
the creative center of a writer's life...you cannot hope to sweep someone else
away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.' In our
Writers' Quotes.
Stephen King |
2 June 2008
| Sherry Rifkin offers
Five Tips for Promoting Your Book Online. She shows you how to
be thoroughly tech-savvy and gives a quick guide to what you can do to
promote your book around the world. |
| ‘Heavy readers’ are changing. Book covers do influence purchase. Three
recent reports relating to book consumers paint a striking picture of changes in
book purchasing. News Review
reports on some striking new trends. |
| Our Writing Opportunity
this week is Sharps, the BBC writersroom TV script-writing
competition, open to residents of UK and Eire and closing on 16 June. |
| If you're trying to get your work ready for publication, have a look at
our 16 Services,
everything from
Reports
to
Scriptwriitng assessment, from
Copy
editing to
Manuscript Polishing. |
| 'Fiction and non-fiction are shelved in separate sections of a bookshop
for good reason. However imaginative its variations, fiction conforms to
amazingly strict narrative criteria.' Lionel Shriver on the
Madeleine McCann case, writing in the Sunday Telegraph,
in our Comment column. |
| From our archive, you can still read excerpts from Evan Marshall's
useful book,
Novel
Writing: 16 Steps to Success, published by A & C Black. |
| 'Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel
with ourselves we make poetry.' W B Yeats in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| The June Magazine is ready! |
26 May 2008
| Is self-publishing 'really great' or career suicide? The
fourth article in
our series Changes in the
book trade looks at the advantages and pitfalls involved in
self-publishing. |
| 'Book lovers are financially astute. They have
appropriate levels of borrowing and have kept their credit cards under
control.' Polly Jaffe at the London Book Fair, in the
Bookseller, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| The Journal of a
Virtually Unpublished Writer, Bob Ritchie's despatches from the
front line, started in 2001
and come right up to late last
year. They make addictive reading. |
| 'Amazon has dominated the headlines in the book trade press over the last
few months, as it has taken a more aggressive approach to its plans for growth.'
News Review has the (quite
alarming) story. |
| Our latest Writing
Opportunity is the new Edwin Morgan International Poetry
Competition, open to all and closing on 2 June, which has a first
prize of £5,000. |
| Will your book have illustrations? Find out how
Picture Libraries work and
browse our list of some of the best ones, with
notes on their special areas. |
| 'To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write
and read comes by nature.' William Shakespeare in our
Writers' Quotes. |
19 May 2008
| How will the digital future affect book publishing? The
second of two articles
completes our report on the seminars on Digitisation at the London
Book Fair. The first article. |
| News Review looks
at Susie Dent's forthcoming Words of the Year, which highlights
new words, and concludes that: 'Writers for whom English is their
native language have a huge advantage in reaching a worldwide market'. |
| This week's Writing
Opportunity is the Rod Hall Memorial Award for a play, worth
£5,000. It's open to UK writers only and closes on 1 June. |
| ‘I try to write so much a day. I set myself a small target, ie
to write for an hour or perhaps 250 words and not to do anything else.
You find once you start that you’ve written for hours or 1,000 words.' Celia Rees, author of Sovay in the Bookseller,
quoted in our Comment
column. |
| Looking for an agent? Use our searchable database to find
the right one for you.
UK,
US
and
International agents are all listed. |
| 'A bad book is as much of a labour to write as a good one; it
comes as sincerely from the author's soul.'
Aldous Huxley in Point Counter Point, quoted in our
Writers' Quotes. |
12 May 2008
|
| What is the digital future?
Digitisation at the London Book Fair is a report on the excellent LBF
seminars on digitisation, the subject of the moment as far as the book world
is concerned. The first of two articles focusing on issues most relevant to
writers. |
|
| 'When it comes to women's fiction, critics have a condescension
chromosome. The demeaning label chick-lit says it all.'
Kathy Lette in The Times,
quoted in our
Comment
column. |
|
| Are print encyclopedias dead? It rather looks as if they might be.
News Review looks at Brockhaus and
Britannica. |
|
| Are you thinking about taking out a subscription to a magazine for
writers?
Our magazine review section
can help you decide which one to go for. |
|
| Our latest new pages cover
Getting your poetry published and putting together
Your
submission package. |
|
| ‘But those who cannot write, and those who can,
All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.’
Alexander Pope from our listing of
Writers' Quotes. |
5 May 2008
|
| J K Rowling's recent appearance in court to protect her
copyright raises key issues relating to copyright infringement and
'passing off'. News
Review investigates. |
|
| Our latest
Success story looks at Colin Cotterill's unusual route to
authorship and his entertaining website, featuring ‘The Writing Chappy’,
‘The Cartooning Chappy’ and ‘The normal having a life Chappy’. |
|
| ‘All prizes have eligibility criteria: nationality, or ethnic origin, or
language, or country of residence, or subject matter, or religion. For those who
see the world in negative terms, prizes celebrate the achievements of one group
at the expense of another.' Kate Mosse defends the Orange Broadband Prize
for Fiction. Quoted in our Comment
column. |
|
|
An Editor's Advice
is a new series is based on the advice Maureen Kincaid Speller, a
long-serving WritersServices freelance editor, has given writers over the years.
The series covers
Dialogue,
doing further
drafts, genre writing,
planning,
points of
view, autobiography and travel and
manuscript presentation. |
|
| Our latest
Writing
opportunity is the slightly elusive 2nd Annual RBA
International Crime Fiction Award, which offers a
substantial125,000 euros (£97,718 or $192,739) in prize money for the
winning crime novel as an advance against publication. |
|
| 'Writing is a dog's
life, but the only life worth living.'
Gustave Flaubert's conclusion can be found in our
Writers' Quotes, along with
hundreds of other interesting remarks. |
|
| The
May magazine is
ready! |
21 April 2008
| Top Ten Tips for
nonfiction writers from Julie
Wheelwright, programme director, MA Creative Writing Nonfiction provides a
helpful checklist for all writers. |
| News Review on the Bologna
and London Book Fairs: 'In summary, these were two lively and upbeat book
fairs, showing that the global book business is in surprisingly strong shape.' |
| We've added some new quotes to
Rotten Rejections On Jack Kerouac: 'His frenetic and scrambled prose perfectly express the feverish travels of
the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don't think so.' |
| Are you considering getting your work copy edited or proof-read?
This article explains the difference. |
| 'Done badly, fantasy is more risible than any other genre, perhaps because
there is such a fine line between heroic endeavour and bathos.' Amanda Craig
in The Times, quoted in our Comment
column. |
| Have you ever thought of setting up your own small business? Ros Jay's
The Golden
Rules of Starting a Small Business is from our archives and is just as
useful now a it was when we first published it. |
| 'Literature, with a capital L, unless preserved by Time, has always been
in a bad way, but books considered as merchandise have not.' Denys Val
Baker in The Author, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
14 April 2008
| The third article in our series Changes in the book trade deals with Print
on demand and the Long Tail, looking at how they are changing the
economics of publishing, enabling backlist to be kept in print and
book buyers to source a vast range of books. |
| Earlier articles dealt with
Bookselling and
Publishing. |
| News Review focuses
on the agency world. Agent Pat Kavanagh says: 'You can’t be
thinking about what’s happening to the share price, or whether
shareholders are going to be cross with you. All that matters is doing
the right job for your writers, even if it means turning something
down that’s very lucrative.’ |
| 'Malorie Blackman and Benjamin Zephaniah may entice a more ethnically mixed
audience, but the answer can’t be black writers for black kids and white for
white. We cannot be cosy about the debate any more.’ Anthony Horowitz, author of Snakehead in the
Bookseller,
quoted in our Comment
column. |
| There's still time to seize our latest
Writing Opportunity,
which is the Templar Poetry Pamphlet & Collection Competition 2008,
open to all poets writing in English and closing on 30 April. |
| If you're trying to get your work ready for publication, have a look at
our 16 Services, everything from
Reports
to
Scriptwriitng assessment, from
Copy
editing to Manuscript Polishing
and including work intended for
Children. |
| 'I've been reading reviews of my stories for twenty-five years, and
can't remember a single useful point in any of them, or the slightest
good advice. The only reviewer who ever made an impression on me was
Skabichevsky, who prophesied that I would die drunk in the bottom of a
ditch.' Anton Chekhov, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
7 April 2008
|
The last extract from The
ABC Checklist for New Writers deals with titles and why they
matter:
'The title of your work is the first thing the editor will read and,
if it doesn’t grab her attention, she may put down your submission in
favour of one more intriguingly titled.' |
| The five earlier extracts deal with
Agents,
Editors,
Keeping
records,
Marketing and
Professionalism. The book
provides an essential guide for writers. |
| The Friday Project goes into liquidation and Borders US puts
itself up for sale. News Review
looks at the latest bad news from the book world. |
| Competing against 8,000 anonymous entries, the Poetry Society's
National Poetry
Competition was won this year by Sinead Morrissey, with a superb
poem, which you can find on this page. |
| Do you need to carry out research for your writing? Here's
how to use
the web as
a research tool, or you could read
our
review of Ann Hoffmann's excellent Research for Writers. |
| ‘I was in the airport lounge at Heathrow, wanting something big and juicy
for the sun lounger and looking in the commercial women’s fiction section.' Novelist Tasmina Perry in The Times
on why she's contributing to the return of the bonkbuster, in our
Comment column. |
| Sign up for our weekly
newsletter to get an update of what's new on the site. |
| As Goethe wrote: 'The world is so great and rich, and life so full
of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.' Find
this and hundreds of interesting thoughts in our
Writers' Quotes. |
31 March 2008
| What is Creative Commons?
When WritersServices first covered Creative Commons in
Inside Publishing, we felt we hadn't explained how it worked as
clearly as we'd hoped to do. Now Frances Pinter, who works as a
consultant on the project, explains this highly significant new
approach to the licensing of rights. |
| 'Skellig was
taken by the first publisher to read it, won a string of prizes, and has been
published in 30 languages. I was an overnight success after almost 20 years.' David Almond in The Times,
quoted in our Comment
column. |
| The
2007 Diagram Prize winner of the prize for the oddest book title of the year -
a barmy winner from a
vintage crop. |
| Won’t anyone stick to what they’re good at? London literary agency PFD
is setting up an agreement with print on demand printer Lightning Source to bring
their authors’ work back into print. News Review
reports. |
| Having problems with Repetitive Strain Injury? Check your
symptoms in our
Health
Hazards series before they get any worse. |
| ‘There’s a lot of
tasteful writing out there – nice, tidy, clean – but sometimes it’s excess,
rawness and the unpolished that work.’ Dan Vyleta, author of Pavel & I,
quoted in our Writers' Quotes. |
24 March 2008
| Less successful writers’ income is under increasing pressure
from the focus on bestsellers and the Internet.
News Review finds some
more positive trends. |
| Our latest success
story shows how Russell Ash's website for his title
Potty, Fartwell and Knob, Extraordinary but True Names of British
People has helped to create a buzz and make it into a bestseller. |
| 'My aim, as a poet in the community, is always the same: to make people go away
thinking ‘Is that what poetry is? I can do that!’' Ian McMillan's article on The Poet in the
Community: A little adventure on 57 Productions’ website, is quoted from in
our Comment column. |
| Our Writing Opportunity
this week is the Dylan Thomas Prize for Young Writers who for a fee of
£100 can submit commercially published work in a number of genres for
the £60,000 prize. |
| If you've been brushing up your work over the break, have a
look at our Services to help you get
your work ready for submission or look through the hundreds of pages
listed in our Advice for
Writers. |
| And the last word goes to Francois-Rene, Vicomte de Chateaubriand, in
our Writers' Quotes: An
original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody
can imitate.'
|
17 March 2008
|
Professionalism is the
subject of the fourth extract from the ABC Checklist for New Writers,
an indispensable reference for every writer. |
| Half of all book sales in the UK are at a discount but 6% more
books were sold in 2007 than in 2006.
News Review also has good news
on book sales and the Internet. |
| The shortlist for the wonderful
Diagram Prize for 2007 has been announced, giving us a whacky selection of the
oddest titles of the year. |
| 'Why pay £16.99 ($35) for a novel by
someone you've never heard of when you could buy three or four paperbacks for
the same price?' Scott Pack of the Friday Project on the hardback/paperback
debate in the Bookseller, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Two opportunities directed to UK Black and Minority ethnic
writers are the focus of this week's
Writing Opportunities. |
| The 19-part Inside Publishing
series gives you an insight to what's going on in publishing. From
Advances and royalties to
Copyright, this is the place to
find the inside story on publishing. |
| 'I dislike modern
memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost
their memories, or have never done anything worth remembering.' Oscar Wilde
in our Writers' Quotes. |
10 March 2008
| The second article in our new series
Changes in the
book trade deals with
Publishing. Chris Holifield looks at the book trade and
investigates how fundamental changes in how it works are affecting
writers. |
| Do reading promotions work?
News Review looks at the UK's World Book Day and the National Year
of Reading and examines some figures which show that Quick Reads have
changed attitudes to books. |
| Sign up for our newsletter
to keep up to date with new stuff on the site. |
| 'We whine a lot, but it's not so hard. You stay in fancy
hotels, and go to signings where people buy your books and want your
autograph and tell you lots of nice things…' Harlan Coben on
authors on the road in Publishing News, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Open to all unpublished writers writing in English, the fiendishly
complicated Bookhabit Competition provides our latest
Writing Opportunity. |
| Are you looking for a book to help with your writing? Our
WritersBookStall lists over 200 titles, indexed by subject and available from Amazon, which
could help you on your way. |
| Jane Austen on the novel: 'Oh it is only a novel... In
short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are
displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the
happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit
and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.' In our
Writers' Quotes. |
3 March 2008
|
Marketing:
how to promote your book is the fourth extract from the ABC Checklist for New Writers,
an indispensable reference for the budding writer. |
| C S Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the best
children’s book of all time, according to a recent poll conducted by the British charity Booktrust.
News Review looks at
how old favourites live on. |
| Our latest
Links update has refreshed our 21
sections of links reviews and listings, which range from Writers
Organisations to Writers' Web Resources. They've have been updated
with some useful new sites. |
| Peter Carey in The Times on teaching creative writing, quoted in our
Comment column.: 'I tell them to forget about the business… They'll figure it out in the end. If they haven't got talent, you're
not going to give it to them, but they will have it because you've chosen them.'
|
| Our new Writing
Opportunity is the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition,
open to all women, to be judged by Carol Ann Duffy and closing on 25
April. |
| Michael Legat's superb
Factsheets provide a superb brief introduction to writing. From
Revision to Plagiarism and
Copyright to
Plotting the novel. |
|
‘I don’t believe in
writers’ block. Plumbers don’t get plumbers’ block. Why should writing be
the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working.’ Philip Pullman, in our
Writers'
Quotes.
|
|
The March
Magazine is ready!
|
25 February 2008
|
Have you ever wondered whether there’s any
point in Entering
competitions? Someone must be winning, but why is it somehow never
you? Our checklist helps you to review how you approach
competitions, to see if you can achieve a better result. |
|
'The recent news of the $300m (£153m) Amazon purchase of Audible, the
digital audiobooks site, has made it the market leader.'
News Review looks at the
implications of Amazon's acquisition and also reports on the smash
success of cellphone novels in Japan. |
|
We've updated many of the the 90+ pages about
our self-publishing service,
WritersPrintShop, making this the best online resource for
self-publishers. If you're wondering
whether
self-publishing is for you, this is the place to find out. |
| 'When most books are sold on the net as downloads, how will
this change their content? My hunch is that will finally spell the end of the novel.' Mark Booth
in the Independent on Sunday on how the new literary form will
arise on the Internet. |
| Our Writers'
opportunity this week is the latest in Julia McCutchen's
innovative series of of teleseminar interviews, available
anywhere in the world down the phone. This one deals with How
to Promote Your Writing Online. |
| In case this is all too much new technology, our pages on
Finding an Agent and
Working with an Agent may be what you're looking for. |
| And there's Dorothy Parker in reflective mode, in our
Writers' Quotes:
'Why, after all, should readers never be harrowed? Surely there is
enough happiness in life without having to go to books for it.' |
18 February 2008
| The third of six extracts from The ABC Checklist for New Writers by Lorraine Mace and
Maureen Vincent-Northam
gives essential but unglamorous advice on Keeping Records - why you need to
keep on top of submissions and financial information. |
| 'The e-book arrives - or does it? This week has seen two big publishers announcing initiatives to prepare
for the e-book world. At the same time, battle has been joined on e-book
royalties.' News Review reports. |
| Have you ever thought about setting up your own blog? This week's
Writing Opportunity links
to advice on doing just that. |
| 'You can't mess around - everything has to be plausible and has to have
happened, in some form, in the real world. So, I like my books to be
open-ended.' Stephen Leather, on writing thrillers in our
Comment column. |
| Are you trying to publish your poetry? If so, our
review of 101 Ways to Make
Poems Sell by publisher Chris Hamilton-Emery and our article on
Getting your poetry
published might be what you're looking for. |
| 'Writing well is at one and the same time good thinking, good feeling
and good expression; it is having wit, soul and taste, all together.'
George-Louis Leclerc, Comte du Buffon, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| Sign up for our free newsletter to
keep up to date with the book world. |
11 February 2008
| Changes in the book
trade is a new series by Chris Holifield
which looks at the book trade and investigates how fundamental changes
in how it works are affecting writers. The first article deals
with Bookselling. |
| 'The writers have fought their corner and established their
importance to the entertainment industry, as well as their key role as
content-originators who must be paid for their contribution.'
News Review on the end of
the Writers' Guild strike. |
| 'Publishers are suspicious of activities they don't engage in themselves, and
it is increasingly up to the author/agent to prove an unfamiliar market
exists.' Alison Baverstock, author of How to Market Books, in
Publishing News, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Our WritersBookstall offers over
200 books for writers, so it's a good place to find a book to help you
work on your writing. |
| Our latest Writing
Opportunity is the Peterloo Poetry Competition, open to all and
closing date 1 March 2008. |
|
'Writers must fortify themselves with pride and egotism as best
they can. The process is analogous to using sandbags and loose timbers
to protect a house against flood. Writers are vulnerable creatures
like anyone else. For what do they have in reality? Not sandbags, not
timbers. Just a flimsy reputation and a name.' Brian Aldiss,
quoted in our Writers' Quotes. |
4 February 2008
| The second extract from The ABC Checklist for New Writers deals with
Editors - who they are and what they do
and provides a useful summary covering book and magazine editors. |
| The Association of Writers and Writing Programs now has 400 US colleges and
universities as members. News Review
looks at the worldwide boom in creative
writing courses. |
| Following on from last week's article on how to use
Google
placemarks,
Chas Jones shows you how to
add
overlays to Google Earth, using photos or creating a tour of your
chosen location. |
| If you're trying to get your work ready for publication, have a look at
our 16 Services, everything from
Reports
to
Scriptwriitng assessment, from
Copy
editing to Manuscript Polishing. |
| 'Finding an agent can be even harder than finding a publisher...' Mandy Little, MD of Watson Little in the Sunday Times,
quoted in our Comment columm. |
| This week's Writing Opportunity
is the Chapter One Novel Competition, open to UK residents, closing date 29
February. |
|
‘A writer is a maker,
not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but
himself, his family and his friends.’ W H Auden, discussing literary biography,
in our Writers' Quotes. |
| The February Magazine is
ready! |
28 January 2008
|
|
International Book Fairs
2008 - our newly-updated list of 2008 book fairs around the world.
|
|
|
Google Placemarks - Google’s wonderful earth
mapping offers you a way to supply a graphic to mark a particular
location, say a venue for an event you are organising, or where you
live. Chas Jones shows you how to use it. |
|
|
'Joan Brady, the distinguished author of Theory of War, which won
the Whitbread Book of the Year in 1993, has made the astonishing claim that the
fumes from a factory next door to her home made her writing more downmarket.'
News Review reports. |
|
|
'For children who have difficulty with reading or just aren't interested,
books based on familiar programming can be the vital hook that turns them into
readers.'
Sally Floyer in the Bookseller on TV tie-ins and reading,
quoted in our Comment
column. |
|
|
Just a reminder that there's still time to enter our own Poetry
Writers' Yearbook
Competition,
closing on 31 January. |
|
|
Our
Reviews section covers many books of interest to writers,
including
our
Review of 101 Ways to Make Poems Sell.
We said: 'A self-help book for poets, providing 101 suggestions about how
develop your career as a poet and sell your work. If you’re
serious about selling your poems, this book is a must.'
|
|
|
Our latest
Writing
Opportunity is the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger
Competition 2008, open to all and closing on 15 February. |
|
|
'You who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities and think
long and hard on what your powers are equal to and what they are
unable to perform.' Horace, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
21 January 2008
| This week we feature the first of six extracts
from a useful new book,
The ABC Checklist for New Writers: How
to Open Doors and Get Noticed the First Time Around
by Lorraine Mace and
Maureen Vincent-Northam:
Agents - When and how to approach
them |
| The latest figures show growth in indie booksellers and their sales.
The Independent Alliance has shown a way forward for smaller publishers.
News Review looks at the good news and how it affects writers. |
| In our latest My Say shortly-to-be-published American author
Wendy Walker
on her path to the writer's life as a stay-home mom:
'How was I going to write an entire novel in the midst of the sleepless nights
and frenetic days that constituted my life? It was, ironically, from this
core-shaking doubt that the four characters in my first novel were born.' |
| 'The sorry fact is that the conventional publishing industry is currently
running round like a headless chicken, giving readers what they think it
wants, and getting it wrong, and losing money hand over fist. ' Fay
Weldon castigating publishers in Writing and Education, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Sign up for our free newsletter to
keep in touch with what's new on the site and the latest news from the book
world. |
| And Gunter Grass, in our Writers'
Quotes, has the last word: 'Even bad books are books and therefore
sacred.' |
14 January 2008
|
| 'The current controversy surrounding cuts in grants to regularly-funded
organisations by Arts Council England has raised the interesting question of
whether publishing should be publicly funded.'
News Review investigates state
funding for literature. |
|
|
Our
competition sponsored by the Poetry Writers' Yearbook is still running
till 31st January. |
|
| A & C Black are running
their own competition
related to the book. |
|
| You can also read the excellent poem by last year's winner and
an article by the
judge, the book's editor Gordon Kerr, on entering competitions. |
|
| 'It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, that is our phoenix, that
represents us at our best, and at our most creative.' Doris Lessing, in her Nobel Laureate's address,
quoted in our
Comment
column. |
|
| Hot off the press,
the
winner of the T S Eliot Prize for Poetry, chosen on 14th January
from nearly a hundred poetry collections published during the year. |
|
| 'Writing is not a job description. A great deal of it is luck.
Don't do it if you are not a gambler because a lot of people devote many
years of their lives to it (for little reward). I think people become
writers because they are compulsive wordsmiths.' Margaret Atwood in
The Times, quoted in our
Writers' Quotes. |
7 January 2008
| Bob's last column for
WritersServices reflects on writing and the Internet: 'Still haven’t
broken through my writer’s block. No longer even sure I want to. Why
write? What’s writing for? Have absolutely no idea. How can one add
anything worthwhile to the work of writers like Oscar Wilde? Yet the
internet grows more vast by the minute with the words of the millions who
are certain their opinions are worth airing.' In his
Journal. |
| 'Christmas 2007 was not the
disaster that had been feared in the book trade.'
News Review looks at how books
might fare in a recession. |
| Our second Writer's
Success Story is Janey Jones' Princess Poppy series of children's
books. |
| 'At the beginning there were people who said "She only got this deal
because she's his daughter." Cecelia Ahern, daughter of the Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern,
on having a famous father, in the
Bookseller. In our Comment
column. |
| Are you a creative writing tutor or student? Our
Education
Resource Centre contains nearly 80 pages
formatted ready for use as handouts or in course material, freely
available as downloads from the site. |
|
'I have nothing to declare except my genius.' Oscar Wilde, on
passing through the New York Customs House, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
1 January 2008
| Bob wanders round London,
thinking about the British Library and comes up with a Big Idea: 'Any
individual who requires ID must simply memorize a single unique publication
from the British Library... Literacy will, of necessity, become universal.'
In his Journal. |
| News Review looks at the ongoing
hunger for books and the success of Book Aid International, BookCrossings
and BookMooch. |
| We've added some new entries to our Rotten Rejections, which show how
famous authors' books were initially rejected by publishers. On Carrie by Stephen King:'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative
utopias. They do not sell.' |
| 'There are four wars raging today that are changing the nature of
publishing and putting us in the driver's seat: discoverability, print on demand (PoD), repositories,
and e-ink readers. Evan Schnittman of OUP in Publishing News, quoted
in our Comment column. |
| This week's Writing
Opportunity is Chapter One Promotions Novel Writing
Competition, closing date 29 February 2008. |
| If you've been working on your book over the holiday and are now
ready to submit, here are some guidelines on
Preparing Your Manuscript and putting together
Your
Submission Package. |
|
'When you read a book,
you're totally lost in your own private world, and society says that's a
good and a wonderful thing. But if you play a game by yourself, it's this
weird, f***ed-up socially damaging activity.' Douglas Coupland, in our
Writers'
Quotes. |
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