10 February 2014

'Online communities are the way things are going. Publishers have been trying to establish communities of readers to sell books to for some time, but now an author blogger has called for them to set up communities of writers too, and perhaps even communities of publishers and freelances as well. Publishers have been thinking about communities of readers for some time, as they try to develop relationships direct with their consumers...' News Review
An Editor's Advice is a seven-part series from Maureen Kincaid Speller a reviewer, writer, editor and former librarian, is our book reviewer and also works for WritersServices as a freelance editor., a longstanding WritersServices freelance editor. Starting with Dialogue and moving on to Another draft, this very practical series ends with Presentation.
The late Norman Mailer in our Comment column: 'It's very bad to write a novel by act of will. I can do a book of nonfiction that way - just sign the contract and do the book because, provided the topic has some meaning for me, I know I can do it. A novel is more like falling in love...'
Joanne PhillipsUK-based freelance writer and ghostwriter. She has had articles published in national writing magazines, and has ghostwritten books on subjects as diverse as hairdressing and keeping chickens. Visit her at www.joannephillips.co.uk latest article in her very practical ten-part WritersServies Guide to Self-publishing deals with Ebooks: Distributing to Other Eretailers 'Now we've explored how to format your book for Kindle and upload to the Amazon KDP platform, it's time to look at the virtual shelves of other eretailers. There are two options here: upload to each eretailer direct, or use a distributor like Smashwords to do it for you...'
Our links of the week: first something quite way out: Sensory Fiction: Books That Let You Feel What The Characters Do | WUWF, India's Buoyant Book Market Attracts More Foreign Deals | Publishing Perspectives, the quite worrying news that Adobe has Killed e-Readers | Good E-Reader - eBook and Digital Publishing News and, a new twist on Creative Writing courses - First self-publishing MA offers DIY education | Books | theguardian.com.
We're delighted that our Writing Opportunity thiis week is the unique and newly set up 2014 Manchester Writing for Children Prize for poets trying to make thier way in this genre. Hurry because it closes on 28 February. Open to all, with a £12 entry fee.
To go alongside our new Poetry Collection Editing service, and our Poetry Critique, there's Getting your Poetry published and 101 ways to make poems sell.
'The historian records, but the novelist creates.' E M Forster's magisterial words in our Writers' Quotes.