April 2015 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• Good news on children's books - 'Recent figures from Nielsen BookscanUK bibliographic organisation, describing itself as 'the definitive retail monitoring service for books', which shows UK bestseller lists on its website. http://www.nielsenbookscan.co.uk/ show that children's print books are doing well in eleven out of the twelve countries the research tracks, the exception being India. That means there's a real boom going on in children's books, heartening news for children's writers...' This week's News Review is entitled Children's print book sales booming.
• After a London Book Fair (LBF) which was all about publishers from across the world talking to each other, a Bookseller article enables us to look in more depth at last week's link Authors call for better communication with publishers | The Bookseller. This week's News Review is about the London Book Fair and how authors are disappointed by publishers.
• 'This year's Bologna Book Fair reflected the strength of children's publishing worldwide. Although relatively new fairs such as the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair are making ambitious strides in terms of attracting children's publishers, Bologna is unsurpassed in its appeal as the international rights fair for children's books...' Our report from the Bologna Children's Book Fair is in News Review.
• Two big authors, one American and one British, have moved UK publishers in the last week. Danielle Steel has a new ten-book contract with Pan MacmillanOne of largest fiction and non-fiction book publishers in UK; includes imprints of Pan, Picador and Macmillan Children’s Books and Kate Mosse has a deal for her new trilogy with the same publisher. Our News Review this week is about big authors changing publishers - and why.
• 'It's not the first time an author has ‘written' from beyond the grave (Virginia Andrews and Robert Ludlum come to mind) but the just-announced news that, 11 years on, a fourth book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy will be published still strikes a cynical note...' This week's News Review looks at the announcement of the fourth book in Stieg Larsson's 'trilogy'.

Comment

• ‘We change whilst we are in the midst of writing a book. We change, and I dare say we become better people. A novelist is always wiser when inside a novel than when outside. Stories shape their storytellers as much as storytellers shape their stories...' This week's Comment is from Elif Shafak, author of The Architect's Apprentice and Turkey's bestselling female novelist, in the Observer.
• Our Comment this week is by Akhil Sharma, author of Family Life, which has just won the Folio Prize: ‘If you write only the true things people get bored... ordinary life is shapeless... When I write, I'm here to use everything I can to make this a good book. It's not me expressing my inner soul. It is me using everything that I have, so I can tell this story...'
• ‘Publishing was like throwing stones into a swamp - nothing happened. My aim was altered by that experience. I decided that the big thing was not getting published; the great thing would be to satisfy myself. It was the first time I'd found my voice. I found a way of telling a story that involved inhabiting a consciousness that could float free - it's not omniscient, it's a sort of sprite that can hover here and there... Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials and many other bestsellers, in the Sunday Times, quoted in our Comment column.
• 'It's good not to think too far ahead. If you have got a story that you feel you want to write, just write it...' Kate Hamer, whose 21st century 'Little Red Riding Hood', The Girl in the Red Coat, is tipped to be a bestseller, in the Independent on Sunday, in our Comment column.
• 'Do publishing imprints matter? The excellent article by Philip Jones, editor of the Bookseller, in this week's Futurebook, is an interesting examination of imprints and their importance within the publishing business. But it does seem that most authors will be indifferent to the imprint and in a way they're right...'

Quote

'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