November 2010 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• 'So, what has changed in the world of short stories? Well, the biggest change is that the internet has made short stories more viable by creating the possibility of publishing them online and using the internet to find an audience for them. Because of the brief form, short stories can be read online or even printed out, which, just like poetry, gives them a head-start over novels. The short form also suits a time-pressured audience with an increasingly short attention span.' News Review looks at what's happening.
• 'A recent posting on Publishing Perspectives took the reader to their article on Pitchapalooza, written by authors David Henry Sterry and his wife Arielle Eckstut, the duo known as The Book Doctors. The Book Doctors invented ‘Putting Your Passion Into Print’, now known as Pitchapalooza. This is an American Idol for books, where writers get one minute to pitch their books to a panel of book professionals. The panel then critiques their idea, evaluating everything from character to plot, presentation to marketing, title to comparative books, befriending booksellers to finding an agent... ' News Review reports.
• 'E-book sales are astonishing'. So, given publishers' latest focus, are readers switching to e-books at a staggering speed and is the whole market for books set to change radically within a short space of time? The evidence for this is actually a bit contradictory. News Review takes a look at the latest studies.
• 'So what’s the situation with the UK’s small funded literature sector in the light of the enormous cuts which were announced last week by the new coalition government? Literature is very much the poor relation when it comes to Arts Council funding, with theatre, music and art all taking very much larger slices of the pie. Arguing, quite reasonably, that literary fiction is quite well provided for by commercial publishing houses, most of the literature money is spent on poetry, with a small amount going to pay for the publication of literary translations and some to programmes to support and develop writers.' News Review investigates.
• 'The recent Children’s Bookseller Conference in London focused on a part of the publishing industry in relatively good health. Children’s book sales have suffered less than adult books as a result of the recession and they are only down 2% in the UK against an overall figure of 4%. To be fair, this is partly because the sales of the Stephenie Meyer titles (which are categorised as young adult) have bumped them up, but there is still a greater sense of confidence in the children’s sector...' News Review reports.

Comment

• 'I always look back to that and tell people if I had given up then, if I had said well I tried it and I'm not good enough, it didn't work out, I would still be practising law right now... I think so much of whatever we do in life is about hard work and it's about luck... Emma Giffin, author of Heart of the Matter in the Bookseller.
• 'I always look back to that and tell people if I had given up then, if I had said well I tried it and I'm not good enough, it didn't work out, I would still be practising law right now... I think so much of whatever we do in life is about hard work and it's about luck... Emma Giffin, author of Heart of the Matter in the Bookseller.
• 'Fundamentally, though, the need for publishers endures, even if not in their current form. Readers will be best served by publishers who can marry the best of what is sometimes labelled "legacy" publishing to the new means of developing and delivering what readers want and writers need. And if that marriage is achieved, then the persistent reporting of the death of old publishing will continue to be mere exaggeration.’Stephen Page, MD of Faber and FaberClick for Faber and Faber Publishers References listing, in the Guardian blog.
• 'Of course, it didn't hurt that we had begun to write fiction that's hugely enjoyable to read. And maybe that's the key part of the answer.  Maybe our present success has something to do with escaping from the weight of misery that was at the heart of The Well of Loneliness: the tradition Radclyffe Hall established of writing about crippled and damaged lives...' Val McDermid in the Independent on Sunday on making lesbianism mainstream.
• Poet to crime writer: 'Both have a massive preoccupation with structure. In a poem, every word has to be in the right relation to every other word. In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters three and 11.' Sophie Hannah in the Independent on Sunday
• 'I can think of no end of talented authors who are today poorly or even negligently represented. Is it fair to deny them the possibility of better representation simply because the more atherosclerotic parts of our industry consider competition to be ungentlemanly? The lifeblood of business is competition. Other industries thrive on it: we can too. Peter Cox of Redhammer Management

  Specialises in works with international potential.

  Unpublished authors must be professional in their approach and have major international potential, ideally book, film and/or TV.

  Submissions via agents website

  Children's clients include Donna Ballman, Peggy Brusseau, Gary Bushell, Brian Clegg, Maria (MG) Harris, Lucy Johnson, Amanda Lees, Michelle Paver, Kellie Santin, David Yelland.

  and Litopia, in the Bookseller.

Writers' Quote

‘I will never stop writing. People often ask when I will retire, but I say it’s none of their business. Writing defines who I am. I love the feeling of holding a finished book in my hands, and then I can’t wait to start the great adventure of writing the next one.’
Barbara Taylor Bradford