Streaming services are still eager to acquire TV and film rights to books despite reports of a decrease in the number of subscribers but are now more focused on known backlist IP that is less risky, agents and producers say.
Books and magazine articles have long provided the IP Hollywood depends on, but until recently, authors played little role in the process. Now, lit agencies and publishers are changing the rules and shortening the page-to-screen pipeline.
Last week, Sara Gran and I had an hour-long conversation on Zoom. We were supposed to be talking about her new publishing company, Dreamland Books, and its first release, Gran's novel The Book of the Most Precious Substance. Instead, our conversation ended up touching on almost every hot button topic in the genre, from gender politics to publishing issues. Read more
When author and illustrator Ariella Elovic drafted her book proposal for Cheeky: A Head-to-Toe Memoir, she never considered that the graphic memoir about body acceptance might one day become a television series. Read more
If you want a preview of next year's Emmy Awards, just take a walk past your local bookstore. According to data drawn from Publishers Marketplace, the industry's clearinghouse for news and self-reported book deals, literary adaptations to television have been on a steady climb. Read more
Having her nonfiction book of essays, "Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman," turned into a streaming scripted comedy in 2019 checked many boxes for Lindy West. Read more
Eight of Barbara Taylor Bradford's novels are to be made into TV dramas after the author secured a major deal with independent film company The Forge.
The deal was brokered by Bradford's media agent, Luke Speed, on behalf of Jonathan Lloyd of the Curtis Brown GroupRepresents screenwriters and specialises in film and TV. Commission : 15-20%.
Website includes submission guidelines. Also represents directors, designers and actors.
Stephen King has written some of the most beloved horror novels in the history of popular fiction, and many have been turned into equally acclaimed and successful films. Movies like "Carrie," "Stand by Me" and "The Shawshank Redemption" have more than earned esteemed spots within the cinematic canon. Others - "Maximum Overdrive," "Thinner," "The Dark Tower" - have not. Read more
As the latest step in its efforts to become a global entertainment giant, Wattpad Corp., which began as an online platform that allows writers to self-publish, is starting to develop TV and film projects based on fiction that has appeared on their website.
Culture is a slippery concept; it's one of those terms we all know the meaning of until we actually think about it. For the writer, culture can be a two-edged sword: ignore it and your story lacks depth, colour and context; focus too much on it and you risk bamboozling - or worse, boring - your reader into putting the book down. Read more
Unpublished authors 18 years old or over resident in the UK.
Entry fee £8
Prize:
Book contract with HQ with advance of £7,500 and agent representation
The Primadonna Prize for unsigned and un-agented authors will, for the first time, offer the winner a book contract with HQ with an advance of £7,500 for world English rights. Read more
‘It's a big part of the job. Being able to put yourself in their shoes is really important. I'm not a writer, but I watch a lot of author content online and I read a lot of stuff from authors. Having that perspective is really important for me to be able to give my authors context. Their emotions are important. If they're disappointed we didn't sell, so am I.
Something interesting has been going on in publishing this year. Not the thumping increases in overall revenue - up 5 per cent to £6.7 billion across digital and physical books in the UK and Ireland. And not the surge in export markets: despite Brexit, exports are up 8 per cent to English language domains. Read more
People from many different industries have watched the rapid erosion of Twitter. While it remains up and running as of this date, millions of people have abandoned or shut down their accounts for reasons ranging from owner Elon Musk's reinstatement of former president Donald Trump's account to overall disenchantment with the role social media plays in our lives.
"Everyone always asks, so here you go," Aaliyah Aroha wrote in the caption of what would go on to become one of her most popular TikTok videos. She appears, lip-syncing to a song from the app-favorite Unofficial Bridgerton Musical and holding a stack of books, as the words "Enemies to Lovers book recommendations" float overhead. Read more
It was a dreary day in October, and the baby that was supposed to have arrived was already late. Maybe that means nothing to you, but to me, it meant that my out-of-office had long ago gone up and instead of holding my new baby, I was Googling the rates of stillbirth for post-term infants and the mortality rate of the women who carried them. Read more
At 91, Robert Gottlieb is perhaps the most acclaimed book editor of his time. He started out in 1955 and has been working in publishing ever since - serving as editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker. The list of authors he's edited include Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison, John le Carré, Katharine Graham, Bill Clinton, Nora Ephron and Michael Crichton.
Author and screenwriter Fay Weldon has died "peacefully" at the age of 91, her agent Georgina Capel has confirmed.
The writer was best known for her novels exploring society and class. She penned more than 30, including The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (Sceptre) and Praxis (Coronet), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Happy New Year, book lovers! For me, January 1st came and went like a flash, and my TBR pile hasn't budged one iota since the start of 2022. Not ONE. SINGLE. MILLIMETER. In fact, it's grown even taller. And the pileup on my e-reader? At this stage it's reached monumental proportions-a traffic jam of delectable books just waiting to be unleashed.
'Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was stabbed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire; then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to be a writer -and if so, why?