November 2007
The website for writers
News Review
- 'So have we arrived at what Evan Schnittman, Oxford University Press’s VP of Business Development, called in this week's Publishing News ‘the most significant moment in the history of e-books’? News Review on Amazon's Kindle.
- 'We are no longer trying to entice people who don’t really want to buy the hardback to do so.’ Is this the paperback revolution at last? News Review investigates Picador's move to paperback.
- At midnight on Saturday the Writers Guild of America, representing 12,000 writers, went on strike, demanding an increase in the fees writers receive from residuals and new technology. News Review investigates.
- Why is there a compulsive need to write about dreadful real-life murders? And why are their perpetrators sometimes so keen to unveil their crimes? News Review looks at O J Simpson and Krystian Bala.
- News Review on the e-book: 'But when Amazon’s Kindle is launched we should see the answer to the questions which have been hanging in the air for several years: Will the e-book have a real impact on traditional book sales? Is this the future for books?'
Comment
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'There is no scientific proof that you will become a better, wiser person if you plough your way through Dostoevsky...' Nick Hornby in The Times
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'A great irony of creative nonfiction is that one of its chief assets is also one of its chief liabilities. The fact is that in nonfiction, everything actually happened. It’s all true.' Richard Goodman on writing creative nonfiction in The Writer’s Chronicle.
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'"You're quite good are telling stories - why don't you make one up?" So I screwed my courage to the sticking place. At the end of the session they all shouted: 'Oh, sir!' They wanted more. In one afternoon I understood what it is to be a storyteller.' Michael Morpurgo
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‘A poem is direct, and charged with energy. Its language is not clichéd nor second-hand. Its meaning, whether force or revelation, or slow truth, is something we can actually use.' Jeanette Winterson in her wonderful column in The Times.
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'Biography is still, all too often, viewed as the skill of finding as many facts as possible and assembling them into a definitive likeness, as if each piece of paper, each interview, were a clue leading to a solution.' Laura Thompson, author of Agatha Christie: An English Mystery
Writers' Quote
'There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.'
Anthony Trollope
Our Editorial Services for writers
Check out the 16 different editorial services we offer, from Reports to Copy editing, Typing to Rewriting.
Audio formats
Chas Jones' latest article helps you choose the best of the many available audio formats to use in your own sound recording.
It's part of our new Audio Publishing section, which guides you through recording your own work.
Poetry Writers Yearbook
The new 2008 edition of this essential book for poets gives detailed listings of publishing companies, events and competitions, and helps you to survive and thrive as a poet.
The Internet provides poets with an exciting new outlet for their poetry. with the publisher's permission we are reprinting an excellent article from the new edition.
Kostas Hrisos, founder and editor of poetry ezine, Interpoetry, provides a useful and practical guide to the fast-growing world of the poetry ezine and epoetry.
Review of The Handbook of Creative Writing
Our reviewer concluded on this ambitious book:
'This is a serious handbook for people who approach the business of writing in a particular fashion, for whom simply ‘doing’ isn’t quite enough; it’s for people who need to know ‘why’ as well as ‘how’. On that basis, I have no hesitation in recommending it.'
T S Eliot Prize for Poetry
The shortlist for the 2007 T S Eliot Prize, 'the world's top poetry award' (Irish Independent) has just been announced and the Shadowing Scheme has now started.
Oxfam Life Lines 2
Oxfam have just launched the second Life Lines CD featuring 56 poets reading their own work.
Review of the Children's Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2008
Our updated review of the new edition concluded that it provided 'superb listings of publishers and agents specialising in children's books across the world' and that it is still 'a fantastically valuable resource for anyone who wants to venture into this highly specialised area of publishing'.
An Editor's Advice
This new series is based on the advice Maureen Kincaid Speller, a long-serving WritersServices freelance editor, has given writers over the years. It deals with the most common problems she has encountered in the manuscripts which cross her desk.
The series covers Dialogue, Doing further drafts, genre writing, planning, points of view, autobiography and presentation.
Bob's Journal goes into its 7th volume
Bob on correct English, writers' rooms, tv toga docu-dramas, endings and writers' motivation:
'Why do aspiring writers want to write? Because we want to give up our jobs, because we want to be rich, because we want to be famous, because we have a burning need to entertain – lots of reasons, of course, but they all essentially boil down to one: we think it will make us happier.' But he concludes: 'Maybe we aspiring writers should spend more time reading psychology books. And be more careful what we wish for.'
The Writer/Publisher Financial Relationship
The latest new article in our 19-part Inside Publishing series deals with the tricky financial relationship between writers and publishers and gives useful advice on how to approach it.
Macmillan New Writing
'With around 80 submissions a week and 7,000 manuscripts sent in to date, MNW is not short of material but is still looking for more good manuscripts.'
Chris Holifield takes a look at this ground-breaking imprint which is looking for submissions from unpublished writers.
Choosing a Service
Are you having difficulty deciding which service might be right for you? This useful new article by Chris Holifield offers advice on what to go for, depending on what stage you are at with your writing.
Help for Writers
Check out this page to find links to the huge number of useful articles on this site.
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 for yourself.
We Watch the web for writers
See also Making submissions for how to approach publishers and agents.
Getting your poetry published
Are you keen to get your poetry published but don't know where to start? Our new article helps you to look at the best approach to help you make your way into print.
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Previous serials & extracts
WritersServices.com Magazine November 2007