13 December 2021 - What's new
13 December 2021
- "I never give advice to young writers. They don't need someone to tell them to write something every day. The one thing I will say is: have fun with it. Don't listen to all these authors who tell you that writing is such hard work... If you go into it thinking that, it's going to be a chore for you. If you instead go, "Hey! Look at me writing. I'm creating something! I'm having a good time!" that's the way to go. Writing is a lot easier when you have that attitude." R.L.Stine, celebrated author of dozens of children's books, many in the horror genre, who died recently.
- An Editor's Advice is a series of seven articles by one of our editors on really useful subjects for writers such as Manuscript presentation, Dialogue, Doing further drafts and Planning: 'So, you need to provide good-sized margins, double-spacing, Times New Roman or Courier, and not at a microscopic point size. This applies as much for on-screen reading as for reading on paper. Why? Because editors and readers are human rather than automata, and we do not have bionic eyes. We read a lot every day. Well-spaced text in a typeface and point size that are easy on the eye make all the difference between a pleasant day's work and hours of agony.'
- '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. But how are you supposed to tell who will do a good job, when the editorial services on the web all sound pretty much the same and it's tempting to go for the cheapest?' Getting your manuscript copy edited
- The Selfies Book Awards UK 2022 is open to authors who have self-published adult fiction, children's books or adult memoirs/autobiography in the UK between January and December 2021. Entry fee: £30 per title to include a six-month subscription to Bookbrunch. There's a £750 cash prize for each category plus other prizes. Closing on 3 January.
- Other competitions which are still open.
- Links from the publishing world: would it really affect most authors? PRH Fires Back at the DoJ's Effort to Stop Its S&S Purchase; 'in an article claiming to include every genre, romance was nowhere to be seen', RNA 'demands respect' as romantic fiction excluded from Sunday Times best books list | The Bookseller; the publishing industry had an unexpectedly good year in 2020, but what's next? Michael Pietsch Looks at Publishing's (Near) Future; booksellers have kept readers around the UK going throughout a series of lockdowns, Crowdfunding offers the UK's independent booksellers a pandemic lifeline | Books | The Guardian; and more crowd-funding,this time for a literary magazine, The White Review launches £10k crowdfunder to support its future | The Bookseller.
- Our Children's Editorial Services help you to get your children's book ready for publication or self-publishing. Have you found it difficult to get expert editorial input on your work ? Do you want to know if it might find a publisher? Or are you planning to self-publish?
- A new entry to our Endorsements page: 'The copy-editor perfectly captured the spirit of my story, making not only pertinent corrections, but also a string of brilliant suggestions and comments that inspired me to improve the text on my own. So happy I chose Writers Services. Rasmus, Chile.'
- Links for writers: Why would someone like me want to write about trauma? Why would anyone read it? The Psychology of Reading and Writing Crime Fiction ‹ CrimeReads; 37 books which have sold more than 150 million copies around the world, 'Interview with a Vampire' Author Anne Rice Dies at Age 80; "I write my first draft in longhand," Robert Caro's Journalism Lessons | The New Republic; isn't it astonishing that someone working for the other side would have two Russian flags in their apartment? The Story of Espionage Is (Often) the Story of Incompetence ‹ CrimeReads.
- Are you thinking of submitting your book to an agent? Try our Finding an Agent page or Your Submission package.
- More links from writers: lost - the lovely, easy flow - the gush, often - of language, The Ironic Twist of Age: What It's Like to Keep Writing at 91 ‹ Literary Hub; it's difficult to predict whether a book will be a hit, Millions of Followers? For Book Sales, ‘It's Unreliable'; there will always be another James Bond movie, James Bond: acclaimed writers explain how they would reinvent 007 | James Bond | The Guardian; and for English speakers, there seems to be an expectation that the entire world should be instantly legible, Why Book Translators Are Fighting for More Credit.
- Get your manuscript typed up! Do you need to get your material typed up, but can't face doing the job yourself? We can provide a clean typed version of your work at very competitive rates. Our Typing manuscripts service offers help for writers who have an old or handwritten manuscript which needs re-typing before the writer can proceed with revision, submission or publication.
- 'The biggest mistake you can make as an author is to think while writing "What does the reader wants to hear"? Because unique worlds & characters are built inside an individual mind. And also your readers do not know what they want to read until they read it.' Laura Chouette in our Writers' Quotes.
