October 2006 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• A Creative Commons license has worked well for the Friday Project on Tom Reynolds’ Blood, Sweat and Tea. The  free download has led to 20,000 downloads but sales of nearly 30,000 copies.


• 'If Sobol manages to get the 50,000 entries that they reckon will constitute the cut-off, the competition will earn $4,250,000, a very good return for setting up a small website, doing a bit of judging and awarding a $100,000 prize.'


• News Review looks at last week's Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two., the biggest annual gathering of publishers in the world.


• As a teenager growing up in Brazil in the late seventies, Orlando Paes Filho dreamt up the idea of Angus, now coming to fruition as a seven-volume epic tale spanning twelve centuries of human history. News Review investigates.


• News Review on Oxfam's new bookshop: 'For many people, donating unwanted books to an international charity which will use them to raise money is a good way of dealing with the stacks of books they are never going to read again. Supporting Oxfam makes them feel good too.'

Comment

• 'Women need the grown-up fairy stories of romantic fiction in order to make the random cruelty of everyday life more bearable.' Daisy Goodwin in the Sunday Times, talking about  her TV series, Reader, I Married Him.


• Even experienced publishers sometimes throw caution to the winds after being caught up in the excitement of a bidding war conducted via frenzied conversations in a crowded hall.' Anne Louise Fisher, London literary scout


• 'The more critically successful a writer becomes, the more need there is for a strong editor.  To think otherwise risks artistic suicide.' Alan Garner, author of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen in The Times


• 'Publishers need to make their sites more welcoming and rewarding to those tiny percentages of readers who do visit.'  Peter Collingridge in the Bookseller

Writers' Quote

• 'Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.'
   The Bible: Ecclesiastes