September 2004
The website for writers
News Review
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The astonishing fact that this year’s favourite for the Booker, David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas (Sceptre) has the hottest bookmaker odds ever (5 to 4) highlights the way in which the Man Booker Prize now commands attention outside the book world.
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What's the point of World Book Day? On World Book Day 2004 the Online Festival had 1.4 million hits from 78 different countries; by the end of March this amounted to 3.3 million hits from 100 countries.
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A European Union survey shows British publishers' turnover has overtaken Germany. ‘Book sales remain resilient, despite the availability of a wide range of other media.’
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‘Chaos has broken out… in no other major European country is the gap so deep between the language of the people and the language of literature.’ Germans reject 'new spelling'.
Comment
- 'Falling for a subject is more gradual than falling in love, though it soon gains something of the same irrational and fascinated compulsion.' Hattie Ellison on her book Sweetness and Light: the Mysterious History of the Honey Bee
- Talking about publishing for teenagers, 'You have to keep up with the times. There are always 14-year-old girls, but every three or four years, they are going to be completely different.' Brenda Gardner, founder of Piccadilly Press in Publishing News'
- In the past 10 years an axe has been taken to the crime lists of all the biggest publishers... At the same time crime writing has achieved greater credibility among the lit crit brigade, thanks to a new generation of gifted writers working within the genre…’' Danuta Kean in the Bookseller
- '..the closer to the essence of things the writer gets, the closer he edges towards literature.' Justin Cartwright writing in the Independent on Sunday.
Writers' Quotes
- ‘The most crucial thing is to learn the craft: how to string
sentences together, how to make your dialogue sound like real people, how
to properly pace a story, how to develop interesting characters.’
Stephen Coonts
How Not to Write a Novel; Confessions of a Midlist Author
Our sixth excerpt from David Armstrong's entertaining book:
On the importance of getting the first draft written and the secret joys of being a writer.
' I write almost every day. Not only do I recognise the need for the discipline of doing it, but frankly, if I'm not writing, I don't feel 'whole'. To put it another way, I might be miserable when I'm doing it, but I'm definitely miserable when I'm not.'
The Golden Rules for Starting a Small Business
Have you ever dreamed of starting your own business? Do you want to know what it's like? I mean, what it`s really like? Check out the White Ladder Press's 35 Golden Rules, gleaned from their publishing start-up.
Links update
Our latest update to our selected Links provides 25 new sites of interest to writers from Guardian Unlimited to Ask about Writing and the rather entertaining Which Book?
Poster
This month's new poster is More Wisdom from the Experts, including Murphy’s Fourth Law:
'If it is possible for several things to go wrong, the one that will
cause the most damage is the one that will actually go wrong.'
Bob's Journal goes into its 4th volume
Bob's now on his seventh EastEnders script.
'Most travel writers do not write in order to reveal their innermost selves, they write in order to express their opinions about everyone else.'
Agency listings
New this week - the UK, US and international agents' listings from the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook
Writing and publishing a biography
Chas Jones draws on his own experience to offer advice on how to go about it.
John Jenkins's advice to writers: 'If you want to know something about writing, study Graham Greene and everything about him.'
All in the Editor's View from the Editor of
Writers' Forum magazine.We Watch the web for writers
Our latest article updates our piece on Trojan horses with the latest scams
WritersPrintShop
Our design, print and distribution service for self-publishers.
NAWG 2004
Report on the National Association of Writers' Groups get-together in Durham
WritersServices.com Magazine September
2004
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