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6 April 2015 - What's new

6 April 2015
  • Two big authors, one American and one British, have moved UK publishers in the last week. Danielle Steel has a new ten-book contract with Pan MacmillanOne of largest fiction and non-fiction book publishers in UK; includes imprints of Pan, Picador and Macmillan Children’s Books and Kate Mosse has a deal for her new trilogy with the same publisher. Our News Review this week is about big authors changing publishers - and why.
  • From guest contributor Michael McPherson, Top Free Contests for New Writers. 'Are you a talented writer who wants to get noticed? Then what better way to start your career than participating in writing contests? There are a lot of free online competitions for new writers from all over the world...' and here are five of them.
  • Check out our listing of 2015 International Book Fairs to see what's still coming up in 2015.
  • ‘Publishing was like throwing stones into a swamp - nothing happened. My aim was altered by that experience. I decided that the big thing was not getting published; the great thing would be to satisfy myself. It was the first time I'd found my voice. I found a way of telling a story that involved inhabiting a consciousness that could float free - it's not omniscient, it's a sort of sprite that can hover here and there... Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials and many other bestsellers, in the Sunday Times, quoted in our Comment column.
  • Our listings of 24 categories of recommended links provide a fantastic resource for writers. We've just put in the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society's new online resource, Wise up to Copyright. Do let us know if you would like to suggest some other websites to add.
  • First-time author Garth Garston describes Getting my novel published. 'I had done all the textbook advice actions - buying and studying The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, writing a submission cover letter and synopsis plus my first three chapters, and getting my manuscript seriously proof-read. I had had my first rejection after a friend had recommended my first novel to top UK literary agency Curtis BrownSee Curtis Brown listing...'
  • Our links this week: fascinating thoughts from an editor's desk, Stet by Me: Thoughts on Editing Fiction from Mandy Brett; the inside track on different genres' politics from Val McDermid, Why crime fiction is leftwing and thrillers are rightwing | Books | The Guardian; and a first report on authors at the Bologna Book Fair, Bologna 2015: Authors in the Aisles and on the Town.
  • More links: authors give their own special tributes, Tributes to Sir Terry Pratchett | | Terry Pratchett; a guest post by Matt Kaye on Jane Friedman's website which gives the basics of crowd-funding, What You Need to Know About Crowdfunded Publishing | Jane Friedman; and authors clubbing together to stop an app which blanks out profanities in books, Authors: end to censored versions of books is 'victory for the world of dirt' | Books | The Guardian.
  • ‘The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do more, and you are not yet decrepit enough to turn them down.' T S Eliot in our Writers' Quotes.