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26 July 2010

bullet John Jenkins' July column - John's view is that 'you can do everything with dialogue: let your characters tell the story'. He illustrates what he means by this and how you should go about it in his July column.
bulletInspired by Colin Robinson's recent article in The Nation, News Review takes another look at Amazon, still growing fast and now the largest bookseller in the world, with all that entails. Are they using their power wisely? What effect do they have on publishers? There's a stop press too, relating to the latest big story on e-books.
bullet The English language publishing world - in the face of a changing situation as English becomes ever more established as the international language, Chris Holifield has revised this article in the Inside Publishing series, which consists of 19 articles which take you inside the publishing world.
bullet‘Any bookseller who might be considering whether to order more copies of Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel, which (in May) took the Independent Foreign Fiction prize, should look at this week's charts. Astonishingly, translations currently account for 40 per cent of Britain's top-ten bestsellers.' Boyd Tonkin, Literary Editor of the Independent in our Comment column..
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Latest changes in the book trade 7: in the latest part of this series, Chris Holifield looked at the subject of Creative Commons and how these special licenses might transform authors' capacity to the license use of their books for all sorts of purposes.
The rest of the series covers Bookselling, Publishing,  Print on Demand and the Long Tail, Self-publishing - career suicide or 'really great', Writers' Routes to their audiences and Copyright.
bullet'Poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written, he may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.' T S Eliot in our Writers' Quotes.

19 July 2010

News Review looks at the big international publishing companies and what a recent study shows about how they have fared in the rankings in the last year. Trade publishing is not top of the charts and it is the companies which have a global approach which have grown the most. But waht difference does this make to writers?
'I think there was what people sometimes call 'a gap in the market' because I wanted to get away from the fantasy and sensationalism of James Bond and the Ludlum-esque stuff... after a while too much fantasy has a bludgeoning effect: you accept that the guy can fly, or defuse a bomb with bare hands, or whatever.' Jason Elliot, author of The Network, in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
Tips for Writers is our latest 8-part series for writers: Improving your writing, Learning on the job, New technology and the Internet, Self-publishing - is it for you?,   Promoting your writing (and yourself), Other kinds of writing, Keep up to date and Submission to publishers and agents
Our Writing Opportunity this week is the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition, open to women only and closing soon, on the 26 July. First prize is £5 for up to three poems.
Our checklist on Entering competitions helps you to review how you approach competitions and to make sure you give yourself the best possible chance of winning.
'The writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master - something that at times strangely wills and works for itself.' Charlotte Bronte in our Writers' Quotes.

12 July 2010

bullet Do you want to make a Table of Contents for your book? It looks good to provide one, especially when you prepare a large document. It does not take long and the benefits make it well worth doing. If you are using Microsoft Word, or most other word-processing packages, it is remarkably easy to get a professional-looking table which is generated for you by the software. Not only will the table look good but the headings are ‘active’; so people reading the document on a computer can click on the TOC and jump to the place in the text.  Chas Jones shows you how.
bullet'Following on from our look at prizes and what effect they have last week, this week’s column will be devoted to new prizes. There has been a proliferation of new ones launched over the last few years, so there’s quite a lot to evaluate. Some of them focus on new work but only a proportion of them are open for entries from unpublished writers.' News Review looks at new prizes.
bulletOur latest Writing Opportunity is the Luke Bitmead Writer's Bursary, in memory of the young author Luke Bitmead. The top prize is a publishing contract with Legend Press, as well as a cheque for £2500.
bullet'Only now that the book is out have I fully realized what the most frightening part of the is process is. The questions: How will the reading public respond? Do ads work? Do people even read much anymore, beyond vampire books? Is the sophomore slump real? Is the sales rank on Amazon.com a true indicator?... I want people to buy and read my book, but the reasons for this want lie not in sales rank or blog hits. The reasons lie where they always have for the artist. If we do our job right, writers can, in the words of Muhammad Ali, shake up the world.' Glenn Taylor, author of The Marrowbone Marble Company on Publishing Perspectives in our Comment column.
bulletDoes your book need copy editing, either to prepare it for submission or so that you can self-publish with confidence? Our team of skilled copy editors is ready to help. Here's an article about UK and American copy editing and another about the difference between proof-reading and copy editing.
bullet'And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.'
Sylvia Plath in our Writers' Quotes.

5 July 2010

bulletNew review of The Writing Workshop Notebook by Alan Ziegler - our reviewer Maureen Kincaid Speller concluded that: 'This is an unconventional book about writing, inspirational as much as it is practical, and focusing on an aspect of the writing process that isn’t much discussed. It would, I think, prove a valuable addition to the writing bookshelf if you are at all interested in the workshopping process and what it involves.'
bullet'The literary world is awash with literary prizes, with new ones being set up every year. But what effect do these prizes have and do they actually sell more books?... The answer is mixed. Some of the biggest prizes do have a major effect on sales but others have surprisingly little impact. The €100,000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, which bills itself as the world’s largest prize for a single novel, was won recently by a novel in translation which will probably not sell in really significant numbers...' News Review investigates.
bulletBob's Journal of a Virtually Unpublished Writer offers entertaining insights into the life of an aspiring writer. It's a WritersServices exclusive and you can go back to the start in 2001 and right through to its end in December 2007, when he reflected: '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.'

This year’s Bulwer-Lytton Prize, the annual award for the worst opening sentence, has gone to Molly Ringle's comparison of a lovers' kiss with the sucking of a thirsty rodent. Given annually since 1982, the competition, sponsored by the English department at San Jose State University, is inspired by the melodramatic first sentence of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford.

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'A multi-media strategy pays richer dividends to busy, versatile authors for whom film adaptations, TV slots, press columns and the like come easily. For focused literary types who simply want the best deal for their words, other agents still keep faith with books alone.' Boyd Tonkin, Literary Editor, in the Independent, on literary agents, quoted in our Comment column.

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Thinking about subscribing to a writers' magazine?  Our Magazine Reviews  offer a unique service, guiding you through what's available for writers: Writers' News, Mslexia, Writers' Forum, Writer's Digest, Scriptwriter and Self-Publishing Magazine.

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'Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.' A A Milne in our Writers' Quotes.

21 June 2010

bullet'An article in a recent edition of the Bookseller has highlighted the ongoing pressure on acquisitions in publishing houses, which has now become acute. Helen Garnons-Williams, Bloomsbury fiction editorial director said: "Our entire business is based on confidence, whether among the publishers or the agents, and pretty much everyone is wobbling because no one knows what will sell." Auctions have often faltered because the recession is causing a massive loss of confidence and publishers are becoming increasingly risk-averse.' News Review has the story.
bulletOur Writing Opportunity this week is the wonderful new prize for unpublished novels set up by Terry Pratchett and Transworld Publishers. Called The Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now Prize it is for a publishing contract with Trnasworld with a £20,000 advance.
bullet Why do non-fiction books need an index? In The Ins and Outs of Indexing Joanne Phillips provides an answer, explains why it's a specialist job and why computers can't achieve the same result as a skilled indexer.
bulletOur skilled Indexing service. Are you an author planning to compile your own index? Have you been asked by your publisher to provide an index for your book? Or are you self-publishing your work? If so, don’t let your readers down by offering them a sub-standard index. A professional index will set your work apart from other self-published books.
bullet'I've always loved short stories. The process is probably less anxious than writing a novel. There's something about the intensity of a short story that I love... You can reinvent them all the time (whereas) with the novel there's the huge weight of tradition. There's something about modern life that suits the short story. It's a bit snipped up and jagged and raw and I think stories are like that...' Michele Roberts, author of Mud, in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletThe winners of the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets have just been announced. Selima Hill won the Michael Marks Poetry Award for her pamphlet Advice on Wearing Animal Prints and HappenStance won the Michael Marks Publishers’ Award on the basis of their publishing programme in 2009. More on Poetry Bookshop Online, including the Chair of the Judges' fantastic speech, and from the British Library.
bulletAn 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.
bullet'Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.' Mark Twain in our Writers' Quotes.

14 June 2010

bulletOur reviewer, Maureen Kincaid Speller, said of the The Arvon Book of Life Writing by Sally Cline and Carole Angier: 'Many people want to write about someone’s life, perhaps their own, and there are courses to suit every level of interest, from university masters degrees to local college qualifications'  and concluded that it was: 'a brisk and helpful guide on how to set about writing a life story... It is a sensible account of life writing from experienced practitioners of what is both art and craft, and I recommend it!'
bullet'A major recent study led by Nevada University has showed that regular access to books in the home had a direct effect on children’s long-term educational achievement. Involving 70,000 people in 27 countries, it showed that the effect of having 500 books in the home was to increase by three years the length of time that these children subsequently spent in education.' News Review reports.
bulletZoe Jenny has just published her first novel written in English, The Sky is Changing.  She is the author of The Pollen Room, written at the age of 23, which was translated into 27 languages and is the best-selling debut Swiss novel of all time. Zoe wrote a My Say article for us on writing in a new language, Cutting the Cord.
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'Books are not dead. They may appear besieged, ever more so as fragile retailers hunker down to re-examine their own business models. There may be fewer new titles published over the next several years...  but I am confident that the book business will evolve, as it has done for hundreds of years, and will occupy a considerable position as a ongoing and valued medium.' Laurence Orbach, CEO of Quarto, in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.

bulletTips for Writers  is our new series for writers and covers: Improving your writing, Learning on the job, New technology and the Internet, Self-publishing - is it for you?,  Promoting your writing (and yourself), Other kinds of writing, Keep up to date and Submission to publishers and agents
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'The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and good bad books, create in one's mind a sort of false map of the world, a series of fabulous countries into which one can retreat at odd moments throughout the rest of life, and which in some cases can even survive a visit to the real countries which they are supposed to represent.' George Orwell in our Writers' Quotes.

7 June 2010

John Jenkins' June column looks at the recent decision by Rupert Murdoch to take the Times Online private.  But will this work, or are we all just too used to getting things for free online?
'The excitement surrounding the arrival of the i-Pad in countries outside the US has caught the attention of the media, reinforcing the idea that a mass audience is waiting to buy one and start using it to read e-books. The arrival of the Kindle aroused similar expectations and many articles presaging the end of the printed book... ‘Reading the Future’, the Bookseller’s third annual survey into what readers and book-buyers are thinking, contradicts this view and shows that the publishing world is much more focused on e-books than book-buyers are.' News Review  investigates.
Our Contract vetting service may be just what you need if you've got an agreement with a publisher but are now faced with dealing with the contract.  Our contracts expert can advise and help you make sure you get a good deal.
Our Writing Opportunity this week is the Writer's Bureau Poetry and Short Story Competition, with prizes of £1,000, a £5 entry fee and closing on 30 June.
 'I do try and remember what it was like writing books in the void, back when I had to worry about whether they were even going to see print. That was not a good place. I am very grateful not to be there. I feel I not only narrowly escaped obscurity but also having to give up writing novels altogether, which would have broken my heart. It is easy to be blase about having a bigger audience. I don't take it for granted.' Lionel Shriver, whose new book is So Much For That, in the Sunday Telegraph's Seven.
Our surveys, which are responses from people coming to the site, have some fascinating information which has been garnered over the years. We look at your reading and writing habits, and what you think about the future of publishing.
'All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?' Philip Pullman in our Writers' Quotes.

31 May 2010

bullet London Book Fair 2010: Masterclass - Organising author events -Amanda Pollard, illustrator of An Illustrated History of 1066, attends a London Book Fair Masterclass to find out what part authors can play in organising their own bookshop events.
bullet'Stieg Larsson notwithstanding, what are the chances of a translated author selling well in the big English-speaking markets of the US and the UK? The received wisdom has always been that translations into English are tough going financially, with it proving virtually impossible to make the figures work without an English-language publisher on both sides of the Atlantic to pay for the costs of translation.' News Review looks at writers in translation in the headlines.
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Our Writing Opportunity this week is The Tony Lothian Biographers' Club Prize, for an  uncommissioned first-time writer working on a biography. The First Prize is £2,000, there's an entrance fee of £10 and the closing date 1 August 2010.

bullet'I know it's somewhat of an unpopular opinion, but I think it's unrealistic to expect that you can support yourself solely as a writer in this economy... In the end, the better you make the book, the better the chances that you'll get a healthy advance, and the harder you work with your publisher to promote the book by publishing stories or nonfiction essays to raise your profile, by blogging and keeping your website active, by thinking outside of the box in terms of marketing and publicity, the better your book will do. But at the end of the day it's the quality of the work that matters the most.' US agent Julie Barer on mediabistro, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletWe're proud of the good things writers have said about our site and have collected them together on an Endorsements page.
bullet'All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?' Philip Pullman on writers' block in our Writers' Quotes.

24 May 2010

bullet'The Penguin Group and the Pearson Foundation have launched an interesting new charitable venture, designed both to get children reading and to encourage them to become charitable givers. When a child reads a book online, they are able to donate another book to be sent to a reading charity and can choose from four options as to where their this book is sent. The site is free, so the child can read a book, as well as giving one. News Review reports.
bulletWiFi - Chas Jones looks at technical issues relating to WiFi, explains how it works and investigates the security issues which are involved.
bullet'My job is to entertain. There is a contract between the reader and the writer. The readers give me their hard-earned cash and I have to entertain them... It's my role to come up with the goods. I work in an entertainment industry. I tell stories, people read them and enjoy the stories, so I get paid, and get to write more stories...'  Jasper Fforde, author of Shades of Gray, in the Independent on Sunday, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletOur listing of International Book Fairs gives you the basic information about book fairs across the world and links to their sites.
bulletThis week's Writing Opportunity is the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook events for emerging writers in London: The Insider Guide to Hot to Get Published Saturday 19th June, 10am-4.30pm and Submitting Your Manuscript Wednesday 7 & 14 July 2010, 6-9pm.
bulletOur self-publishing site, WritersPrintshop, provides a first-rate service and, if you're still just thinking about it, there's over 90 pages about self-publishing, providing the fullest information available on the web.
bullet'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 life to it. I think people become writers because they are compulsive wordsmiths.' Margaret Atwood in our Writers' Quotes.

17 May 2010

Dark Web - Charles Jones looks at the fascinating subject of the dark web and asks why you might want to make your website invisible.
'The case of Robin Price, a Devon-based literary agent who has just appeared in court charged with stealing over half a million pounds from a number of clients, is a salutary one for unpublished authors. Over a period of several years, Price had bamboozled sums as large as £293,603 out of hopeful authors... ' News Review looks at fraudulent agents and why you should beware of vanity publishers.
The BBC National Short Story Award 2010 is this week's Writing Opportunity. It's the fifth year of this award for a single short story and the first prize is £15,000. The closing date is 18th June 2010.
Our 19-part Inside Publishing series offers a unique insider's look at the publishing industry and explains how it works, with articles on Advances and Royalties, the English language publishing world, Children's publishing and much more.
'This analogy between music and books is something that keeps popping up. Many people are saying that digital file sharing "killed" the music industry and that if the book industry isn’t careful, the same thing will happen to publishing. But the book industry is not the music industry... Books... are already their own device with no need for any sort of player.' Mark Leslie in The Mark, quoted in our Comment column.
Interested in writers' software? There's a number of packages which can help you with your writing reviewed in our Writers' Software section.
‘If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?' Emily Dickinson in our Writers' Quotes.

10 May 2010

bulletJohn Jenkins' May column looks at how to kickstart writing a biography or family history, now a very popular thing to write and something you can easily set out to do. His May column shows how to get yourself started with websites, books and magazines.
bullet'Every so often a completely unknown writer hits the headlines after years of trying to break through and the dream come true provides fresh hope for many others. Recently it was the turn of Australian Rebecca James, whose new book Beautiful Malice was sold to Allen & Unwin, making her literally cry with joy. The timing couldn’t have been more propitious, as she and her partner had just closed down their struggling kitchen design business. This was just the beginning though. A week later Faber acquired the UK rights, then the German auction went through the roof. News Review reports.
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 USB: Chas Jones guides us through this useful gadget: 'Released in April of the millennium year, this connection has been a part of a revolution in the way we connect items to our computers. Before USB connecting was an unreliable process but coupled with the arrival of USB we had versions of Window that could support 'plug and play' which made the business of attaching things to your computer at least an order of magnitude simpler.... '
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Rotten Rejections lists the famous writers who had their work rejected: The Diary of Anne Frank (‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’) and Lust for Life by Irving Stone (which was rejected 16 times, but found a publisher and went on to sell about 25 million copies) was pronounced: ‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’
bullet'The sudden rush of Kindles, tablets and readers strikes me as strangely illogical.  Reading is supposed to be in danger, in decline.  And yet somehow these devices are going to make it more attractive... Call me old-fashioned or just call me old. But you can keep your e-book ancillaries. Stories are enough for me.' Anthony Horowitz, author of The Power of the Necropolis in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletDoes your book need copy editing, either to prepare it for submission or so that you can self-publish with confidence? Our team of skilled copy editors is ready to help. Here's an article about UK and American copy editing and another about the difference between proof-reading and copy editing.
bullet'I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all, they are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.' Somerset Maugham in our Writers' Quotes.

3 May 2010

bullet'Unable to make it across the Atlantic to deliver a speech in London because of the ash, Mike Shatzkin asked someone else to deliver his speech and it can be found on his blog. And uncomfortable it certainly is this time. In a sobering analysis of the next 20 years, he says there is one inexorable truth: ‘The price consumers will be willing to pay for content is going to go down because of the laws of supply and demand.’ News Review investigates.
bulletThe Digital Rights Management debate - Chas Jones looks at the way the views on  digital rights management are changing.  Is generosity a good sales strategy and what about piracy?
bulletReady to submit? Our page on Making submissions helps guide you through the process and Your Submission Package shows you what to send.
bullet'Writing fiction is inevitably much more personal.  Not necessarily autobiographical, but much closer to your way of seeing the world, and much more demanding.  I find it much harder... It’s a personal form of expression as opposed to a screenplay where I think you’re second-guessing the director or the producer or the audience.’ David Nicholls, author of One Day and many TV scripts, in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletAre you a poet who is trying to get your work published? Have a look at Getting your poetry published and there's also a review of Chris Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publshing's 101 Ways to Make Poems Sell, the best book on the subject.
bulletThere's just time to enter this week's Writing Opportunity if you hurry.  The Templar Poetry Pamphlet and Collection Prizes close on 8 May and have an entry fee of £18 and you can enter online.
bullet'The art of writing is to explain the complications of the human soul with the simplicity that can be universally understood.' Allan Sillitoe, author of Saturday Night and Saturday Morning, who died last week, in our Writers' Quotes.

26 April 2010

'It’s been a rather surreal week in the publishing world, as the suspension of flights destroyed what was to have been the best London Book Fair ever... The second half of the week has been enlivened by the extraordinary story of Orlando Figes, distinguished historian known for his books on Russia. Poisonous reviews of his rivals’ books had been posted anonymously on Amazon, but using the pen-name ‘Historian’ aka Orlando-Birkbeck’.' News Review reports.
Our latest Success story is that of Rosie Alison, who has just been shortlisted for the all-female 2010 Orange Prize for fiction with her first novel, a great vindication for this author whose first book was eight years in the writing.
If you want editorial input from our professional editors, have a look at our Services, especially our Editor's Report,  Submission Critique and Children's Services.  Also available is Copy editing, Manuscript Typing and our new service, Indexing.
'We're back to who can tell the best story. Will it be you, about your own life? Or will you let others tell your story for you? Literature offers us all, writers and readers, the best method of discovering and retelling the changing story of ourselves. The story is both journey and surprise. And as everyone knows, even the past is altered, depending on, not the facts, but the interpretation.' Jeanette Winterson on her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, in The Times, quoted in our Comment column.
Are you writing poetry but finding it difficult to get it published? Look at our page on  Getting your poetry published.
'Once a book has been declared a bestseller, its sales accelerate - like the freshwater polyp the best seller breeds from itself - and the book-buyer can happily accept the judgement of the great majority.' Frank Muir, in our Writers' Quotes.
 

19 April 2010

bulletNew agents' listings - our brand-new, up-to-date agents' listings have been compiled from agents' own websites and other information they publish about what they're looking for. You can use them to research which agents to submit to. The listings cover UK and US agents, with separate listings for children's agents in the UK, and international agents from all over the world.
bulletUse these listings to find the right agent for your work and then our pages on Finding an Agent, Making submissions and Your submission package will help with your submissions.
bullet Become a biographer - Chas Jones looks at why you might decide to become a biographer, covering searching out the right subject, dealing with celebrity and whether you should make your book fact or fiction, footnote of history or a piece of literature.
bulletAlso on the site are Writing a biography or autobiography and Writing Memoir or Autobiography.
bullet'The subject of this week’s News Review was to have been the London Book Fair (LBF) how it has grown in importance and numbers and what its role is in relation to other international book fairs. But nature, with supreme indifference to the problems of human beings, has decreed that the volcanic eruption in Iceland should make it impossible for anyone to fly in and out of the UK... ' News Review reports on how this disaster is affecting the Fair.
bulletRead Michael Legat's 19 incredibly useful 19 Factsheets on everything from plotting your novel to publishers' contracts.
bullet'The electronic book offers me a convenient extra way to read while on the move. Given a good enough screen I am sure that I will use it, and I certainly like the idea of being able to buy and download difficult-to-locate texts at any time of the day or night. This may also be the device that will allow newspapers and magazines to survive as revenue-earning businesses. But I do not expect to stop using physical books.' Lisa Jardine in 'A Point of View' on BBC Radio Four, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletOur checklist on Entering competitions helps you to review how you approach competitions and to make sure you give yourself the best possible chance of winning.
bullet‘If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.’ Isaac Asimov in our Writers' Quotes, the best listing on the web.

12 April 2010

bullet Online advertising for writers - Chas Jones looks at how writers can benefit from using the web as an advertising medium, including using Google ads and display ads to promote your book online.
bullet‘It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world -- it's going to be a game changer’, said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. ‘iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad’. But is it really game over for Amazon's Kindle, and how are e-books faring anyway? News Review reports.
bulletIn John Jenkins' April column he ruminates on what writers can learn from the great Anthony Trollope and concludes: His success is an inspiration to those who feel they have failed early in life and fear failure more than failure itself...  he would set himself a target of 5,000 words a day – or 28,000 words a week – and keep to it.
bulletSelf-publish your way through the recession - Our article by Chris Holifield, first published in The Self-Publishing Magazine, looks at what's going on in the publishing world and why it might make sense to consider self-publishing.
bullet'You could argue that all novels stand or fall on how convincing and engaging their plot and characters are, but with crime fiction and thrillers these ingredients don't just underpin the story: they are the story.' Stephanie Merritt, aka S J Parris, the author of Heresy, in the Observer, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletWhat does it take to market yourself successfully as a jobbing writer today? Joanne Phillips provides the answer, which is that the internet is a fertile ground for writers. You just need to know how to make it work for you...
bullet'I think readers who aren’t used to reading contemporary poetry are surprised to find it’s about our world now, our experience; it talks about movies and pop music and stuff. It’s not some fuddy-duddy thing, and most of it contains a good deal of imaginative brilliance. My experience is that when people read contemporary poetry they are engaged and interested in a way they did not expect to be.' John Stammers in our Writers' Quotes.

5 April 2010

bulletThis year’s National Poetry Competition (which actually has an international entry although it is run by the UK Poetry Society) has been won by Helen Dunmore for her poem ‘The Malarkey’. Better known as a novelist, Dunmore has produced nine poetry collections and a number of novels. This poem was submitted on impulse just before the closing date, so it was a great surprise for the poet when she won the £5,000 prize. News Review reports.
bulletIf you're thinking about making sound recordings of your work, either podcasts or an audiobook, take a look at our Audio Publishing section.
bulletThe 2009 Diagram Prize winner, of the wonderfully barmy Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year for 2009 has just been announced.  And here's where you can find the shortlist.
bulletHave you looked at our Problem Page? You can send in your own problem to us, but this one is pretty interesting because it's about problems with finding an agent.
bullet'What keeps you writing is that you don't ever enter a place that feels like home at last. You're still going uphill. There's still a little glowing light in the distance that you're trying to get to.' Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time in the Daily Telegraph, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletWe've just updated our very useful Printing and Publishing Glossary.
bullet'The "greatness" of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards.' T S Eliot in our Writers' Quotes.

22 March 2010

bulletChas Jones looks at the tricky subject of Defamation , the defences against it, defamation and free speech, and how it works in different parts of the world. It's all too easy to defame someone, so authors should be wary about the risks.
bulletAt the report back from the annual UK Books and Consumers report this week, Book Marketing Limited’s Research Director Steve Bohme pointed out some interesting changes in consumer behaviour relating to books. Nearly half of all book purchases were gift purchases, an increase from one-third in 2005, a stunning proportion which shows that books have not lost their attraction as gifts... Purchases were down 4% in 2009, compared with 2005. News Review reports.
bulletHilary Mantel is the subject of our latest Success Story. After 25 years of writing and eleven books published it's good to that winning the Booker has transformed the career of this excellent writer. Wolf Hall has now sold 196,463 copies in the UK alone and it is being widely translated.
bulletTips for Writers is our latest 8-part series for writers: Improving your writing, Learning on the job, New technology and the Internet, Self-publishing - is it for you?,   Promoting your writing (and yourself), Other kinds of writing, Keep up to date and Submission to publishers and agents
bullet'(Historical novels) are just novels that have a past location and are therefore not swept away by the tide of present day life so fast.  This is the great agony of trying to capture the present in a novel - it's a very slow thing to write and present life moves on in a hideously unexpected and overtaking kind of way.' Rose Tremain, whose new novel is Trespass, in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
bullet'Writing is a dog's life, but the only one worth living.' Gustave Flaubert in our Writers' Quotes.
 

15 March 2010

bulletOur latest review covers the 4th Edition of Giles Clark and Angus Phillips' Inside Book Publishing. Reviewer Chris Holifield commented that it had been substantially revised and that it 'provides an excellent introduction to anyone with a professional interest in publishing...  No writer equipped with this book need ever feel like an ignorant outsider again.'
bullet'This year’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair runs from 23 to 26 March and provides a good opportunity to have a look at the children’s publishing industry. Not everything in the garden is lovely but children’s trade (general) publishing is undoubtedly doing a lot better than its adult counterpart.' News Review on the biggest children's book fair.
bulletIf you want editorial input from our professional editors, have a look at our Services, especially our Editor's Report,  Submission Critique and Children's Services.  Also available is Copy editing, Manuscript Typing and our new service, Indexing.
bullet'Whatever the future, a new generation of agents and publishers sees the old publishing model as broken. There must, they say, be a marriage between virtual and old text worlds. This generation speaks the jargon of "disintermediation" (roughly, commercial streamlining). The boom days are over. Writers will have to adapt.' Robert McCrum in the Guardian, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletOur latest Writing Opportunity is the Bridport Prize, with prizes for poetry, short stories and flash fiction. Entry is open to everyone over 16, there are entry fees and the closing date is 30 June 2010.
bulletWhat does it take to market yourself successfully as a jobbing writer today? Joanne Phillips provides the answer, which is that the internet is a fertile ground for writers. You just need to know how to make it work for you...
bullet‘It really is most extraordinary, having lived all these years as a cheerful but inconspicuous blue-stockinged, gray-haired, backseat publishing lady, to become a sort of show- stopper.’ Diana Athill, 92-year-old author of Somewhere Towards the End in our Writers' Quotes.

8 March 2010

bulletLatest changes in the book trade 7: in the latest part of this series, Chris Holifield looks at the subject of Creative Commons and how these special licenses might transform authors' capacity to the license use of their books for all sorts of purposes.
bulletThe rest of the series covers Bookselling, Publishing,  Print on Demand and the Long Tail, Self-publishing - career suicide or 'really great', Writers' Routes to their audiences and Copyright.
bulletJohn Jenkins' March column covers the writing of memoirs and shows how his students have approached writing in this genre. He then provides an elegant essay on the semi-colon.
bullet'The staggering number of 285,000 new titles and editions were self-published and published by community presses in the US last year, balanced against a slightly lower figure of 275,000 coming from traditional publishing houses... The Nielsen figures for the UK are 133,224, quite modest by comparison... So, what do these huge figures mean for authors? At a time when it’s increasingly hard to get published, why are there so many titles coming out? The main answer of course is self-publishing and print on demand in general. News Review reports.
bulletAn 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.
bullet'If you feel sorry for publishers spare a thought – and a dime – for writers, on whose shoulders this huge, discounting, rights-trading, jargon-babbling profiteering melée rests. As things are, the writer’s share of a book that sells for £10, after his or her agent’s fee, hovers between 35p and 40p: more than 95% is kept by the agent, publisher and retailer.' Henry Porter in the Guardian, quoted in our Comment column.
bullet'The writer's intention hasn't anything to do with what he achieves. The intent to earn money or the intent to be famous or the intent to be great doesn't matter in the end. Just what comes out.' Lillian Hellman in our Writers' Quotes.

1 March 2010

bullet Writing Memoir and Autobiography  - if you want to write a memoir you’re in good company – lots of writers want to try their hand at this category. In the latest in our new Categories series Chris Holifield looks at how to set about writing your memoir and how to publish it.
bulletOther articles in the series are Writing Historical Fiction, Writing Romance, Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy,  Writing Crime Fiction and Writing non-fiction.
bullet'Quick Reads recently surveyed over 30,000 of their readers and found that 100% said Quick Reads had made a positive impact on their lives. 88% were more confident and 41% felt their job prospects had improved since reading a Quick Read. Significantly, in terms of encouraging book reading, 82% said they were more likely to read another book after reading a Quick Read.' News Review investigates Quick Reads with World Book Day coming up on 4 March.
bullet Real Time Web for Old Time Books: the Benefit of Social Media for Publishers and Authors - Fauzia Burke explores the online activities you can do in real time -- from status updates on Facebook, to microblogging on Twitter to uploading photos and videos on other social media sites. If you want to explore how social networking can help you market your book, her article provides a starting-point.
bulletDoes your manuscript need Copy editing?  Do you know the difference between copy editing and proof-reading?  Divided by a common language - are you wondering about the difference between American and British copy editing?
bullet‘Books are not a threatened species. They are ordinary features of the ordinary world... Should we, who read books and believe that books and the stories within them contain such power, be surprised that kids read, that books survive? Of course not.  We should be celebrating these facts.’ David Almond, author of Skellig, in The Times, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletFrom our archive, five excerpts from Inspired Creative Writing by Alexander Gordon Smith from the brisk and entertaining 52 Brilliant Ideas series.
bullet'If you steal from one author, it's research; if you steal from many, it's research.' Wilson Mizner in our Writers' Quotes.
bulletThe March Magazine is here!

22 February 2010

bullet‘I am saddened that yet another claim has been made that I have taken material from another source to write Harry. The fact is I had never heard of the author or the book before the first accusation by those connected to the author's estate in 2004; I have certainly never read the book.' J K Rowling. News Review looks at the latest plagiarism claim.
bullet The 2009 Diagram Prize shortlist - Click through to find the shortlist for the oddest title of the year. Will it be Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter or Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich?  Your chance to place your vote on the Bookseller website.
bullet'I think John Irving said in an interview something which nobody says about writing, which is that writing is sitting down and typing that sentence, and that sentence creates the next sentence and the character grows and the story grows from the physical act of typing what is going on in your head.' Deborah Moggach in Scriptwriter, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletMy Say 9 is from Zoe Jenny, who was born in Switzerland but is shortly publishing her first book written in English: 'Now that I am writing in English I have to start all over again, earning my credentials in a new market. I am essentially back to square one. But maybe that is the most exciting place to be.'
bullet The latest addition to our fictionalised stories about our services - how Alison used our children's editorial services to get her magic unicorn story right.
bulletPlus how an Editor's Report helped Catherine, How Copy editing turned Tony's work into a publishable manuscript, how Makito benefited from Manuscript Polishing to get his PhD into shape, Self-publishing helped promote Annie's cake business and how Manuscript Typing helped John to get his father's wartime diary into good shape for publication.
bulletThinking about subscribing to a writers' magazine?  Our Magazine Reviews  offer a unique service, guiding you through what's available for writers: Writers' News, Mslexia, Writers' Forum, Writer's Digest, Scriptwriter and Self-Publishing Magazine.
bullet'Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for.' Mark Twain in our Writers' Quotes.

15 February 2010

bulletLatest changes in the book trade 6: in the sixth part of this revised overview of what's going on in the book world, Chris Holifield tackles the thorny and currently highly contentious subject of copyright.
bulletAs e-books move into the mainstream and the parties involved in the Google Settlement continue to slug it out, copyright is at the centre of publishers' and authors' anxieties. Is this the end of the slush-pile?  News Review looks at the problems facing unpublished authors who are trying to get their work into print.
bullet Is a creative writing degree really worth it? Having completed a creative writing degree, Josh Spears thought he would become a bestselling writer or at least be able to get a job. Neither of these has happened, so was it worth it and would he advise other writers to put themselves through the course?
bulletThe great writers and the canon... The idea of what constitutes literary value has changed or become less consensual.  It’s harder to establish what is good and what is not, and that is one of the things that forms the canon.  Barnes, Amis, McEwan were the last people through the door, and then the door closed, and then the building fell down.’ Giles Foden, author of Turbulence, in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
bullet Why do non-fiction books need an index? In The Ins and Outs of Indexing Joanne Phillips provides an answer, explains why it's a specialist job and why computers can't achieve the same result as a skilled indexer.
bulletOur new Indexing service. Are you an author planning to compile your own index? Have you been asked by your publisher to provide an index for your book? Or are you self-publishing your work? If so, don’t let your readers down by offering them a sub-standard index. A professional index will set your work apart from other self-published books.
bullet

'This (writing) is the love of your life. It's what I want to do when I wake up. Nothing feels so absorbing, so fulfilling.' Martin Amis, in our Writers' Quotes. 

8 February 2010

bullet Don't procrastinate! - 'Do you find it difficult to get started on your writing? Is it always easier to put off finishing that research/ starting that novel/embarking on the second draft? You are not alone, for many writers suffer from procrastination.' Chris Holifield looks at how to get yourself going.
bulletFigures for 2009 just released by the big UK publishers show just how tough a time they had and what a difficult book market we’ve had in the past year. Seven of the top UK publishers had negative sales growth last year... The only one of the top four to do well was the market leader Hachette and that was because of Stephenie Meyer, whose £29.4m ($46m) of sales accounted for an extraordinary 10.2% of the group’s total UK sales. News Review reflects on what all this means for authors.
bullet Poem for Haiti - from Gillian Clarke, National Poet for Wales, a beautiful poem which is a lament for Haiti.
bullet‘Every agent has their own style.  Ed Victor goes to a party and signs up someone.  Luigi Bonomi goes and talks to a film company or football agent.  But I like doing it this way (through his website) because it brings in interesting books, often ordinary people doing extraordinary things. I love the range and serendipity…' Andrew Lownie on finding agency clients through the web, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletOur review of FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions from ambitious writers and the answers by John Jenkins, our columnist and the former editor of Writers’ Forum, is packed with answers to all the questions you have ever thought of asking. Chris Holifield's review concludes that: 'All in all, this is a valuable resource, especially for the new writer, but also for anyone who has tried to work their way through the writing jungle.'
bulletIf you want editorial input from our professional editors, have a look at our Services, especially our Editor's Report,  Submission Critique and Children's Services.  Also available is Copy editing, Manuscript Typing and our new service, Indexing.
bullet'The ideal audience the poet imagines consists of the beautiful who go to bed with him, the powerful who invite him to dinner and tell him secrets of state, and his fellow-poets. The actual audience he gets consists of myopic schoolteachers, pimply young men who eat in cafeterias, and his fellow-poets. This means, in fact, he writes for his fellow-poets.' W H Auden in our Writers' Quotes.

1 February 2010

bulletNews Review looks at the battle of the titans which has just commenced: 'This has been one of those weeks when there’s been so much happening that it’s difficult to cover it in a single column. Apple has broken the news of its iPad and, amidst the buzz about that, Amazon has already started to fight back. This could be a turning-point and how publishing, books and authors come out of all this is hard to predict...'
bulletIn his latest column John Jenkins deals with the famous piece of advice to writers: 'Show, don't tell'. If you've ever wondered exactly what this means in practice, John's examples provide a quick tutorial and will help you to make your own writing work much better.
bulletBob's Journal of a Virtually Unpublished Writer offers entertaining insights into the life of an aspiring writer. It's a WritersServices exclusive and you can go back to the start in 2001 and right through to its end in December 2007, when he reflected: '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.'
bullet‘According to Amazon Kindle's vice-president, Ian Freed, the success of the Kindle signals the end of physical books: 'The only question is does it take three years, five years or 20 years?' I remain to be persuaded that e-readers are capable of matching the varied activities we engage in when reading. More is required to satisfy the dedicated reader than replicating the content and appearance of a printed book, or emulating the action of "turning pages" using a tap on a touch-sensitive screen.' Lisa Jardine in A Point of View on BBC Radio Four, quoted in our Comment column.
bulletIs your progress as a writer stymied by the fact that you have old typewritten or even handwritten manuscripts that you can't face retyping onto a computer?  Our Typing service can help with this.
bulletThis week's Writing Opportunity is the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets, offering £5,000 for a poetry pamphlet published in the UK in 2009. Self-published work is eligible.
bullet'The very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it.' John Ruskin in our Writers' Quotes.
bulletThe new February Magazine is ready!
 

25 January 2010

International Book Fairs 2010 - our updated line-up of the year's book fairs across the world, a unique feature of the site which is much in demand.  Is there a book fair near you?  It might be worth planning to attend it if so.
'So are agents really feeling the pinch now? Long regarded as the fats cats of the industry, there are signs that the London agency constituency is really beginning to join in the pain. You cannot escape the conclusion that there will be redundancies, closures and mergers of agencies... some of the larger agencies have become quite big businesses and they will find it difficult to sustain their cost bases. News Review examines the latest news from the agency world.
There's just time still to enter the Cardiff International Poetry Competition 2010 if you do it online. It closes on 29 January, so hurry! This week's Writing Opportunity has a prize of £5,000 and is open to all.
'We all know the adage of 'everyone has a book in them' - but how many truly have the commitment, courage, tenacity - and skills - to write a series of novels? Writing a novel is not about ‘burning ambition’ - where ambition is solely about publication or money or fame. For a novel to be a good novel - and worthy of the generous readers who part with their cash to buy it - it can only arise from the author’s absolute desire to write that story out of their  system - and being blessed with the necessary talent to do so...' Freya North, in a Bookseller blog, quoted in our Comment column.
Sell, don't tell: Some do’s and don’ts if you want to sell a script.  If you want to turn your book, dream or idea into a performance script for film, stage or radio, it is going to be a very tough pitch. There are some pretty strict ‘rules’ which you need to follow if you are to maximise your chance of success. Read Chas Jones' two part article.
'Most people do not believe in anything very much and our greatest poetry is given to us by those who do.' Cyril Connolly in our Writers' Quotes.
 

18 January 2010

There's better news from the UK book trade. 2009 was down just 1.2% down in value and only 0.5% down in volume in a year which has seen a contraction in the overall economy of 5%, so the book trade can justifiably claim that book sales have held up reasonably well. News Review reports.
This week's Writing Opportunity is the Biscuit International Short Story Prize 2010 for stories of 1000-5000 words. The deadline is 14th April 2010, it's open to all and there's a £10/£11 entry fee, so get writing!
The winner of the 2009 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry is announced!
‘Self-publishing has taken a huge leap forward in recent years. It’s always existed, but with all the technological changes from desk-top publishing systems to POD to blogging and so forth it’s now more acceptable than ever before... The trend is hardly surprising: mainstream publishers have cut back and cut back, so that even authors who had niche titles published and might have been in print for some years now find it harder and harder to keep their books available.' Eileen Campbell, Mind, Body and Spirit expert and author of 6 books, in Bookbrunch, quoted in our Comment column.
Thinking about publishing your own book? Is self-publishing for you? helps you think this through and our WritersPrintShop provides the best writers' resource on self-publishing on the web, 90 pages of information, as well as a first-rate service.
Here are answers to the essential questions: How much will it cost?   How long will it take? & How much might you earn?
'One man is as good as another until he has written a book.' Benjamin Jowett in our Writers' Quotes.
 

11 January 2010

bullet'Americans are buying fewer books because of the economic downturn, and purchase cheaper books when they do buy...  Knocking on the head a favourite publishing theory that books do well in recession, only 2% of consumers said that they were choosing to buy books as an alternative to more expensive kinds of entertainment. So, green shoots of recovery notwithstanding, the American book trade is still experiencing tough times.' News Review looks at the American book business.
bulletJohn Jenkins' January column looks at a Robert Altman film, The Gingerbread Man, based on a discarded story by John Grisham: 'Although it wasn’t Grisham’s best story, I enjoyed it. But the moral of this story is: never throw anything away. I realise that Grisham could probably sell his laundry list to a publisher but for your new year resolution, dip down into that drawer and see what you can salvage. You may find a gem. And after you have done that go through stories and features you have sold in the UK and see if you can sell them on for the American and other rights.'
bullet'So you want to write historical fiction? Your timing is good, because historical fiction is fashionable again after many years in the doldrums. In fact it’s so popular that it has virtually reinvented itself as a category...' The latest article in Chris Holifield's Categories series explores the market and approaches to Writing Historical Fiction.  
bulletOther articles in the series cover Writing Romance, Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, Writing Crime Fiction and Writing Non-fiction.
bullet 'My life changed when I took control of my time.  Instead of waiting for inspiration to strike, I sit down to write for three hours every day.  It's much more effective - it's about giving yourself the space for creativity to come. Esther Freud, author of Love Falls in the Sunday Times' Style magazine, quoted in our Comment column.
bullet We were very honoured recently that the British Library asked to archive www.writersservices.com in its web archive, where you can find it at British Library web archive. The UK Web Archive is a corpus of websites selected by leading UK institutions for their historical, social and cultural significance in the UK. Also listed in this article on their archive are other international web archives.
bullet'I have never know any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.'
Baron de Montesquieu in our Writers' Quotes.
bulletThe January Magazine is here!

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