October 2005
The website for writers
News Review
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Seven million adults in the UK have serious problems with reading and two million can barely read. News Review looks at the new World Book Day Quick Reads initiative.
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Frankfurt Book Fair and the globalisation of the publishing business
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The Man Booker Prize - a triumph for a distinguished author or 'the worst, certainly the most perverse, and perhaps the most indefensible choice in the 36-year history of the contest' News Review looks at the furore surrounding this year's Prize.
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News Review looks all the activity surrounding the short story and wonders whether it will succeed in changing people's perceptions and creating a readership for them.
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News Review examines how National Poetry Day and the relaunch of the Children's Poetry Bookshelf are working to make poetry fun. 'And does all this activity make a difference? Well, yes, it really does.'
Comment
- 'Being a romance writer is good and bad news... these are the books women are buying. I know I’m not going to change the world but I am going to brighten your weekend.’ Debbie Macomber
- 'What makes an agent decide to take on a new client?... 'You've just got to fall for it in such a big way that you're bowled over, you have to run with it, it thrills you.'Sophie Hicks of the Ed Victor Agency in Publishing News
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'You’ve got to think of your reader – even if you haven’t got one yet. For so many people, the act of writing seems to be enough and I don’t think it should be.’ Charlotte Bingham in Writers' Forum
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'We need to remind our country that we have an enormous rich and living heritage of writing and illustration for children. It is second to none in the world. Philip Pullman in the Bookseller
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'We need to broaden, not narrow, the gates through which new books, new authors and new ideas must pass before readers can find them.' Anthony Cheetham in the Bookselller on why we need an independent Ottakar's
Writers' Quote
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'The book trade is a spiritual barometer of a nation's well-being.'
John Buchan
Google Print
Invasion of copyright or service to authors? Chas Jones looks at the Google Print controversy and explains why WritersPrintShop will be offering this as a facility for writers using our self-publishing service.
WritersPrintShop
Our design, print and distribution service for self-publishers. The latest addition to the service is our WritersPrintShop online bookshop, which will sell your book for you on the Internet as soon as it's published.
Writing Handbooks
Novel Writing by Evan Marshall
The fourth very helpful excerpt from this title from the A & C Black Writing Handbooks series looks at Getting Off to the Right start by understanding the classic structure of the novel and determining your novel's ideal length:
'OK, you have your target genre, a story idea and some characters. Why not just start writing? Because without some kind of plan, a map of the route your story will take, you’re practically guaranteed to start with a bang and, sooner or later, look up and say, ‘Now what?’
New software review
Check out our latest review:
'Attaché can help you to organise your sketches, ideas, exercises and essays in a way that will help you extract articles. Attaché is not going to help you write your literary novel but it might be excellent for a work of non-fiction.'
New Competition
Our new competition draws on the 2006 Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, which supplies the agents' listings on the WritersServices site. The entrant who gets all three questions right will win copies of the new edition of the book.
New Coaching Service
Julia McCutchen, author of The Writer's Journey: From Inspiration to Publication joins WritersServices this week with the launch of our new Coaching service. This new service offers you the opportunity to develop your writing with the benefit of individual feedback, personal guidance and practical advice.
How coaching can help writers
If you're wondering what exactly coaching is, Julia article shows you how individual coaching can help a writer by giving the opportunity to work with a publishing professional who has inside knowledge of what publishers and agents are looking for.
Julia believes that given the right circumstances, we can all access our true writer’s voice and have a deeply rewarding experience of writing.
The Writer's Journey: From Inspiration to Publication
Buy Julia's book online through WritersServices. For more details.
Our Editorial Services for writers
Check out the 15 different editorial services we offer, from Reports to Copy editing, Typing to Contract vetting. Our latest new service is Coaching (see this page).
Bob's Journal goes into its 4th volume
There is a big difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it when it come to writing Bob confides in his diary. And now the government is inventing 'virtual crime' how can real fiction compete.
'We are in the world of intending to commit a crime, the world of Minority Report, the world of pre-crime.'
WritersPrintShop
We have revamped our WritersPrintShop website with lots more information. If you're thinking about self-publishing, this is the place to find out what's involved. If you're ready to go ahead, our high quality service is second to none and there's an economy version for those who want to tackle some of the work themselves. You can estimate the cost.
Getting the most our of MS Word
We know that 90% of you use MS 'Word', so we have a new series showing how to use some of the more obscure, but potentially useful, facilities. We start off with Auto-correcting.
The agents' listings from the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2006 have just been put up on the site. There's the usual fully updated list of UK agents and also a new list of international agents, which range from Australia to Russia, from Germany to South Africa, and naturally includes a large section on American agents.
Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2006
The new edition has the latest listings of publishers around the world and 57 articles about getting published, making it 'a must for established and aspiring writers'. (Society of Authors)
Try our new survey
See below
John Jenkins on why Neil Simon's story of signing away the rights on Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple was a mistake; why writers should always back up: Terry Pratchett's tips about being a writer; and the battle for Ottakar's:
'As Simon writes: From that day I never received a penny royalties from these two works. My children will never see the money nor my grandchildren. Nobody stole it from me but I just wish that the business manager from Paramount had been my business manager.'
The Editor's View, written by the Editor of
Writers' Forum magazine.We Watch the web for writers
Checking your email header
Chas Jones shows you how to work out where your email has come from to help you identify - and be on guard against - spammers.
Most recent Magazines
WritersServices.com Magazine October
2005
Competitions
Try the survey
Can you spare a moment to tell us what you think of future formats for the written word?