What's New in 2015
- News Review on the new fashion for open submissions, a Comment from new writer Tony Schumacher, MslexiaStylish and lively site for quarterly UK literary magazine read by 12,000 'committed' women writers. Good range of quality writing, information and advice with news, reviews, competitions and interviews, all presented in a friendly fashion. Praised by Helen Dunmore as 'astute, invigorating and above all an excellent read.' www.mslexia.co.uk's Women's Short Story Competition and links of the week which are thoughtful and sometimes alarming.
- 'Are things changing in terms of publishers accepting submissions or is the latest fashion for ‘open submissions' just a fashion? Big publishers abandoned what was rudely called ‘the slush pile' some years ago, so why are some imprints now having open submission periods, mostly of only two weeks or so?... News Review - Open submission - a fad or an opportunity?
- The Mslexia Women's Short Story Competition 2015 is open to women writers with previously unpublished stories of up to 2,200 words. The entry fee is £10 and it's closing on 16 March - this week's Writing Opportunity also has three free writing workshops, open to everyone.
- Our agent listings cover the UK, US and International, and there's a separate listing for Children's Agents. Here's where you can find out how to submit and what the agency is looking for.
- ‘I think my most stunning failure was that I managed to get a U in my English O level. I was devastated. I cried on my way home, because I thought the one thing I wanted to do, the one dream I'd always had, the one glimmer of hope I could hold on to, had been taken away from me. I wanted to be a writer but I'd blown it...'Our Comment this week is from Tony Schumacher, author of The Darkest Hour, in the Observer magazine.
- A new page entitled Which Report? gives the details of the three reports we offer: the full Editor's Report, the basic Reader's Report and the most substantial Editor's Report Plus. There's also our specialist Children's Copy editing, part of our Children's Editorial Services. If you want a professional editor's assessmen of your work, here's the place to start.
- The web as a research tool is a useful page showing you what a great research tool the web is for writers, helping you find a great many sites packed with information.
- Our links this week: in a thoughtful article Porter Anderson looks at the way we use terms in the book business and proposes a new meaning for Hybrid Publishing, In The Hothouse Of Publishing, Our Terminology May Need Pruning | Thought Catalog; an alarming new report which details a continuing decline in Americans reading, with poetry readership nearly halving, Just 54% of Americans Read a Book Last Year, says NEA - Publishing Perspectives; and an interesting debate between two writers about the importance and role of book reviewing, Is Book Reviewing a Public Service or an Art? - NYTimes.com.
- Also, have you always wondered about that short novel of yours? - Now there's a publisher to champion it, Tor.com Explains Why Novellas Are The Future Of Publishing; does on screen reading enable you to absorb and remember, or is it just the opposite? Why Reading On A Screen Is Bad For Critical Thinking | Naomi S. Baron; and do you mostly only read the first chapter? - a scary report about what subscription services and others are doing with your data, Our Ebooks, Ourselves: What's Happening with Our Ereader Data? - Publishing Trends.
- 'If you go too far in fantasy and break the string of logic, and become nonsensical, someone will surely remind you of your dereliction....Pound for pound, fantasy makes a tougher opponent for the creative person.' Richard Matheson in our Writers' Quotes.
- So which country has the highest number of titles published per head of population? We also have S J Watson on the second novel problem, Blake Morrison on poetry.
- 'When I wrote Before I go to Sleep, I was in a blissful state of being disconnected from anybody else - I wrote it with the hope I could finish it, first of all, and then with the hope that somebody else might like it. But I was writing Second Life knowing that I had editors all over the world that were eager for it. There was a sense of pressure in getting it right. But ultimately I realised I had to just write a book that I loved...' S J Watson, author of Before I go to Sleep and Second Life, in the Observer, quoted in out Comment column.'
- How to market your writing services online is a useful article from 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 about selling yourself as a writer. 'Recently someone commented to me that I seem to be doing a pretty good job of promoting my writing services on the internet. I was touched by the observation - we writers get so many rejections that a little praise is especially gratifying. And I began to wonder - what does it take to market yourself successfully as a jobbing writer today?...'
- 'Figures just released by the International Publishers Association show that Britain produces more books per capita than any other country in the world. Last year 184,000 titles were produced - the equivalent of 2,870 titles per million inhabitants when population is taken into account. These figures only cover books published by publishers and exclude self-published work, which might well change them substantially...' What about other countries? News Review
- Our Picture Libraries page is a good resource for finding picture libraries across the world.
- Our links of the week: Grove Atlantic President and Publisher Morgan Entrekin,with a broad group of publishers, literary magazines and booksellers, is developing a website styled as a Huffington Post for the literary world-a one-stop shop of bookish aggregation, Literary Hub Is a New Home for Book Lovers - WSJ; what Indie publishers, who need it most, don't get from Amazon, Amazon, the greedy giant with small publishers in its grip | Books | The Guardian; whoever thought reading could be so very good for you, Reading for pleasure boosts self-esteem | The Bookseller; Spanish digital marketing company develops new tool, Mylibreto: Spanish Start-up Offers Social Analytics Tool - Publishing Perspectives; and, for some very amusing suggestions in the Comments, The Australian Insults Colleen McCullough in Obit, Inciting Ire.
- Do you have an old typescript or even hand-written manuscript which you can't work on? Or even audio recordings which need typing up? Our Manuscript Typing service can do the job for you cheaply and efficiently.
- ‘At times of crisis or distress, it's poems that people turn to. (Poetry) still has a power to speak to people's feelings, maybe in a way that fiction, because it works in a longer way, can't. There's a little bit of your brain that mourns and grieves that you're not writing poetry, but actually as long as I'm writing something, I'm happy.' Blake Morrison, whose Shingle Street is just published, in our Writers' Quotes.
- Authors take the long view, publishers don't. 'Amazingly, it looks as if many authors are having a longer-term business outlook towards the publishing of their books than traditional publishers have managed to achieve. The latest update of the 2014 Digital Book World and Writer's Digest Author Survey, written up by Dana Beth Weinberg, shows some interesting results. Authors with publishers have higher expectations of their publishers - quite reasonably they expect them to deliver much more than they could do for themselves...' News Review
- 'Discovering our authentic voice, writing with lasting impact, and standing out from the crowd are high priorities for most of us who write. But how do we go about achieving these intentions? Conscious Writing is a new approach to deep writing with full awareness which takes us into the core of what we're really here to write, and in the process, opens the way for us to realise our true potential as authors in the world...' Julia McCutchen
is an intuitive creator, writer and mentor who guides people to share their unique gifts through creating, writing and living from a conscious and vibrant connection to Truth. A former international publisher, Julia experienced a life-changing accident in 1999 which triggered a series of major quantum leaps in her spiritual awakening. She subsequently developed a tried and tested holistic approach to access the present and aligned state required for original creative expression in all areas of life, especially writing. She is the founder and creative director of the International Association of Conscious & Creative Writers (IACCW) and the author of two books including, Conscious Writing: Discover Your True Voice Through Mindfulness and More (Hay House). For more information and a free video series visit www.JuliaMcCutchen.com and www.iaccw.com on Conscious Writing
- 'I began my writing career with short stories. I was happy to do so. Then, somewhat to my surprise, I wrote a novel, then another, and another. Short stories meanwhile deserted me - or perhaps I deserted them. I put it in that rather ashamed way because I have no sense of the short story being an inferior form only leading to novels. Both forms seem to me equally rich and viable. Much is made of their differences when actually they have a great deal in common...' Graham Swift, author of Last Orders and England and Other Stories in the Independent on Sunday, quoted in our Comment column.
- The BBC National Short Story Award 2015 is open to British nationals and residents aged 18 years or over, who have a prior record of publication in creative writing in the UK and there's a generous £15,000 for the winner. Closing on 25 February. This week's Writing Opportunity.
- On the same page, the BBC Young Writers' Award is a new prize for young people from 14 to 18, closing on the same day.
- Have you ever wondered why you don't win any of those competitions? Our tips on Entering Competitions.
- Our links: Veteran author Warren Adler offers a "reality check" for would-be authors who believe fame and fortune is just a book away, So You Want to Be a Famous Self-Published Author? so have you ever thought what Tumblr could do for you? The Millions : A Future for Books Online: Tumblr's Reblog Book Club; a surprising figure from India as book business booms, Jaipur BookMark Estimates Indian Publishing Worth $20bn; Digital Book World's survey, the subject of this week's News Review, Authors Playing the Long-Game in Tough Book Market, Survey Finds | Digital Book World; and a free online encyclopedia for 8 to 13-year-olds launched, Orpheus creates online encyclopedia for children | The Bookseller.
- 'The majority of poems one outgrows and outlives, as one outgrows and outlives the majority of human passions.' T S Eliot, the subject of a new biography dealing with the first part of his life, in our Writers' Quotes.
