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16 April 2012 - What's new

16 April 2012
  • 'At the beginning of the week it looked like the London Book Fair would be the story of the week. But by mid-week a tsunami had swept through the book world and there was only one story dominating the headlines. In a move which may ultimately affect publishing across the world, the American Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging that Apple and five publishers (Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins) conspired to limit competition for the pricing of e-books when they moved to the agency model in early 2010 in a "collective effort to end retail price competition by coordinating their transition to an agency model across all retailers".  News Review reports on this astonishing week.
  • A Library in Your Living Room - Oxford University Press have just announced that public libraries in England, Wales and Scotland will be able to provide library users with access to a myriad of fantastic reference works and language collections. Anyone with membership to these libraries will be able to use their library card to get instant free access in the library or at home.
  • Is your progress as a writer stymied by the fact that you have old typewritten or even handwritten manuscripts that you can't face retyping onto a computer?  Our Typing service can help with this.
  • 'Before my first book, Cityboy, was published I had foolishly assumed that an author's job was to write books. What a naïve buffoon I was! Having had three books published, it is now clear that writing stuff is only half the battle… at best. Unless you are already an established author or have written something so outrageously fantastic that it makes Catch-22 look like insipid balderdash you need to get out there and promote the hell out of it. Geraint Anderson, author of just-published Just Business, quoted in our Comment column.
  • Our reviewer, Maureen Kincaid SpellerMaureen Kincaid Speller a reviewer, writer, editor and former librarian, is our book reviewer and also works for WritersServices as a freelance editor., said of the The Arvon Book of Life Writing by Sally Cline and Carole Angier: 'Many people want to write about someone’s life, perhaps their own, and there are courses to suit every level of interest, from university masters degrees to local college qualifications'  and concluded that it was: 'a brisk and helpful guide on how to set about writing a life story... It is a sensible account of life writing from experienced practitioners of what is both art and craft, and I recommend it!'
  • Our Writing Opportunity this week is The Global Short Story Competition, with a monthly prize leading up to an annual one, open to writers across the world and with an entry fee of £5.
  • 'I don't know much about creative writing programmes. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.' Doris Lessing in our  Writers' Quotes.