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15 January 2018 - What's new

15 January 2018
  • A story in the Bookseller, unfortunately behind the paywall, has provided encouragement for short story writers this week. Short story collections have sold 692,087 units or £5.88m in value in the UK during 2017. This is up 32% by volume and 45% by value over 2016. News Review
  • 'T. S. Eliot said to me "There's only one way a poet can develop his actual writing - apart from self-criticism & continual practice. And that is by reading other poetry aloud - and it doesn't matter whether he understands it or not (i.e. even if it is in another language.) What matters, above all, is educating the ear."...' Ted Hughes, giving advice to his 18 year-old daughter Frieda on becoming a poet, provides our Comment.
  • From our 19-part Inside Publishing series: on Copyright 'Many writers worry about losing their copyright. Before sending out your manuscript it is always advisable to put a copyright line consisting of the copyright sign ©, the year and your name on the title page...'
  • On The Writer/Publisher Financial Relationship: 'There's no escaping the fact that publishers and authors are essentially in an adversarial position. Even in the very best and most supportive publisher/writer relationships there is the tension caused by the fact that authors would like to earn as much as possible from their writing and publishers to pay as little as they can get away with...'
  • The White Review Short Story Prize 2018 closes on 1 March. It's open to writers resident in Britain and Ireland who have yet to secure a publishing deal, with an entry fee of £15 but some low income exclusions. The prize is £2,500.
  • 'Hardly any authors can copy edit their own writing. It is notoriously difficult to spot the errors in your own work. So professional copy editing does make sense, either if you are trying to give your work its best chance when submitting it or, even more crucially, if you are planning to self-publish...' Getting your manuscript copy edited
  • Our links: can novels do interiority and the drama of the mind infinitely better than TV and film do? The Novelist's Complicity; Sue Grafton made her wishes clear: Her best-selling mystery series would die when she did, These authors risk the wrath of readers to keep book franchises alive; a poet who is the first literate person in his family, hailed as ‘the definitive arrival of a significant voice', TS Eliot prize goes to Ocean Vuong's 'compellingly assured' debut collection.
  • 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...'
  • More links: a Curtis BrownSee Curtis Brown listing literary super-agent on the biggest threat to books today, Jonny Geller: the future of books; was this copyright infrigement? WikiLeaks shared the full ‘Fire and Fury' book online. Here's why that may be a problem; and time spent on marketing means less time for writing, Ten Tips for Autopilot E-book Marketing.
  • From the inimitable Kenneth Tynan:'A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.' In our Writers' Quotes.