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27 April 2015 - What's new

27 April 2015
  • The unique Novella Award is open to any writer in the English-speaking world with an entry fee of £17 and a 1st Prize of £1,000 and publication by Sandstone Press. It closes on 15 June. This week's Writing Opportunity.
  • ‘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.
  • Are you ready to show your poetry to magazines and publishers, but worried about rejection? Perhaps you're not sure it's ready for submission yet? Or do you just want an expert opinion on your poetry? Our Poetry Critique service can help. There's also our new Poetry Collection Editing service, which is for poets who want help with preparing their poetry collection for self-publishing or submission to publishers.
  • 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.
  • Suzy Jenvey, vastly experienced children's editorial director and now agent, has written a special series for WritersServices, the four-part The Essential Guide to Writing for Children. The first article looks at the all-important question of age groups and what you should be aware of in writing for each one. The second part is - Before You Write: What is My Story Going to be? The third part deals with Starting to Write and the fourth part is about Submitting Your Work to Agents and Editors.
  • Our links this week: There is a big gap in earnings between writers, with a small number - 10% - earning most of the money made by professional authors, 'Huge inequality' in writer earnings | The Bookseller; are publishers right to feel smug about how they've dealt with digital? Book Publishing's Digital Disruption Hasn't Even Started | Digital Book World; a shrewd publishing veteran likens her new business to Knopf in the glory days, Jane Friedman on Open Road Media, Five Years After Launch; how technology is transforming opportunities for publishers and authors, The businesses of books | The Bookseller.
  • And a few more links: she's a success now but her book "felt like the last roll of the dice" for her as a writer, The Girl on the Train: how Paula Hawkins wrote ‘the new Gone Girl' | Books | The Guardian; it's been proved time and time again that readers don't buy by publisher, When Will Publishers Learn? Direct to Consumer Doesn't Work; and a personal view from Stephen Page of Faber, London Book Fair's Evolution Reflects Publishing's New Ecology.
  • Bob's Journal is a long-running column from writer Bob Ritchie described by fellow EastEnders script-writer Pippa McCarthy: 'Just discovered your web page... I've just spent the last hour crying with laughter with periodic yelps of 'been there!'... I'm going to make my entire family read your diary. Then perhaps will understand own bizarre behaviour every time I start a script... Anyway, will shut up now but just wanted to say you have cheered me up no end. It's brilliant.'
  • ‘If you try to nail anything down, in the novel, either it kills the novel, or the novel gets up and walks away with the nail.' D H Lawrence in our Writers' Quotes.