29 February 2016 - What's new
29 February 2016
- The editor of the new imprint in our Talking to pubishers series explains in the new, eleventh article what her new list is looking for - 'the freshest thinkers and the most successful practitioners in the areas of marketing, management, economics, finance and accounting, sustainable and ethical business, heart business, people management, leadership, motivation, biographies, business recovery and development and personal/executive development'.
- In the other ten articles in the Talking to publishers series the editors of each imprint provide a specific brief for what they're looking for. There's Top Hat historical fiction, for instance, where the editor says: 'Periodically we are told that the historical novel is dead - and then along comes Hilary Mantel winning the Man Booker for the second time, setting reading fashion on its head again...'
- ‘Writer's block is a reluctance to make decisions. You're trying to keep your options open and hoping a simple idea comes along, so it's hard to commit to one. My wife once told me, as I was having trouble getting going, "That's because you're trying to write the book, and you just need to write a book..." Our Comment is from Christopher Brookmyre, author of Quite Ugly One Morning and Black Widow in the Independent on Sunday.
- Writing Biography & Autobiography is a serialisation from our archive of the book by Brian D Osborne published by A & C BlackClick for A & C Black Publishers Publishers References listing. In the first excerpt, 'Managing the matters of truth and objectivity', the author says: 'Just as you need to remember that letters, reports, census forms, legal documents and so forth were not created simply for our convenience, so you also need to remember that what is written in them may not be true...'
- 'The latest fashion in women's writing is explored in an article we provide a link to this week. The authors think that the rash of bestselling books with ‘Girl' in the title are appealing to a female crime fiction audience and they're probably right, but these books are also the heirs to a longer tradition...' News Review
- The Mslexia Women's Short Story Competition 2016 is open to women from all over the world with a story written in English. First Prize is £2,000 plus a week's writing retreat at Anam Cara and a day with a Virago editor. Our listing of Writing Opportunities.
- Our links: is there a link between finishing reading a book and your age, or if you are a child? How Does Age Affect Reading? | Digital Book World; what happens when a writer's tv series is far ahead of the book he is writing? George RR Martin: Game of Thrones twist will appear in books, not TV show | Books | The Guardian; more on the monoculture that persists when there's no diversity, "You Will Be Tokenized": Speaking Out about the State of Diversity in Publishing | Brooklyn Magazine; and celebrating one small publisher who has shown how you can survive and thrive, BookBrunch - Independent Publisher Focus: Salt on the Silver Age of the small press.
- Do you want some help with your writing but don't quite know what you want? Are you a bit puzzled by the various services on offer, and not sure what to go for? This article will show you how to work out which is the right editorial service for you. Choosing a service.
- More links: the usual amazing crop of extraordinary titles, so completely weird you can hardly believe they're real, Diagram Prize: Oddest Book Titles of the Year battle it out | The Bookseller; why are two books so influential that other new books are constantly compared to them? The 'Girl' In The Title: More Than A Marketing Trend: NPR; is there a tech solution to writing and editing? Growth curve: Reedsy | The Bookseller.
- 'Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum.' Vladimir Nabokov in our Writers' Quotes.
