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21 January 2013 - What's new

21 January 2013
  • 'For some time the market for writing has been in demonstrable good health in the UK, with a large audience buying a great number of books. From the rise of Waterstones in the 1980s, through the mass-market explosion of the 90s, and more recently the arrival of writing for the web and the ebook with the new self-publishing model, UK readers have been a substantial, various audience with an appetite for books and reading...' News Review on the current situation in the book world.
  • Driven to Distraction: Writers and Social Media - Jonathan Franzen famously wrote that 'it's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection is writing good fiction', and many writers are open about blocking sites that harm their productivity. But with eight out of ten people in Britain now having access to the internet, and social media sites growing at an alarming rate, social media can be an effective and useful tool for writers to promote themselves. This article by Kylie Grantwriter and Library Assistant; her novel in progress-The House That We Built-shortlisted for The Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2011 and her short stories have been published both in print and online; she blogs at http://bedsheetsandbiscuitcrumbs.blogspot.co.uk/ and couldn't live without custard creams or coffee highlights ways in which writers can utilise the two main social media sites, and reach out to an ever growing creative online community without it getting in the way of the writing itself.'
  • This week's topical links are: Penguin Random House merger begins a new chapter for publishing and Why Do Most Writers Start with Novels?
  • 'There is an idea that the birth of the self-published writer implies the death of the agent and publisher (sometimes one and the same person, nowadays). It's not uncommon to hear it said that editors in big corporations are so pressured by the bottom line and bean-counting suits that they no longer take risks: only the editor/owner of a little independent press can afford to take a chance on a new writer or support him/her through the long-term business of establishing a reputation and growing sales... Iain Finlayson, author of Blood Month in Bookbrunch, quoted in our Comment column.
  • Our Inside Publishing series provides a helpful introduction to publishing for authors. This extremely useful 19-part series has been revised to take account of changes in the publishing world. Advances and royalties, The Relationship between agents and publishers, Subsidiary rights, The English-speaking publishing world, The Marketing department and The Financial relationship between writers and publishers can all be found on the site.
  • 'An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next and schoolmasters ever after.' F Scott Fitzgerald in our Writers' Quotes.