10 September 2012 - What's new
10 September 2012
- 'At the 2012 Edinburgh World Writers conference, the author China Mieville suggested that one way of safeguarding the future of writing might be a minimum wage for authors: "For the great majority of people who write, it would mean an improvement in their situation, an ability to write full-time. For a few it would mean an income cut, but you know what? It was a good run."'... News Review reports.
- Blurb-writing Our new service is for anyone who is having difficulty producing their cover or jacket copy and may be especially helpful for self-publishers. Let our skilled editor/writers do the job for you, so that you end up with a professional blurb.
- Links to this week's top stories Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world: On Publishing Punditry and Trying to Hit a Moving Target; The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy; and UK's BookMachine: Meetups and Social Media Networking for Publishers.
- 'I've never worked out what the actual rate of pay is for writing - I think it would be too depressing. It took me three and a half years to write the first book, which worked out at ten grand a year, which is not too bad. That was just the advance...' Evie Wyld, author of After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, quoted in our Comment column.
- Writing for the web is a particular skill. Is it something you need to learn? Jakob Nielsen's study has been extracted from to give you the key points on how to go about this.
- 'Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.' Colette's advice in our Writers' Quotes.
