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13 January 2014 - What's new

13 January 2014
  • News Review looks at whether authors prefer traditional publishing to self-publishing. Dana Beth Weinberg has written about the recently-released figures showing that most American authors prefer traditional publishing to self-publishing: ‘ The recent Digital Book World and Writer's Digest Author Survey showed that among the authors surveyed who had completed manuscripts, surprisingly few expressed a preference to indie publish their latest ones.
  • Talking to Publishers 7 is an interview with Barbara Ford-Hammond, publisher of 6th BooksAn Imprint Of John Hunt Publishing. Investigations, explanations and deliberations on the paranormal, supernatural, explainable or unexplainable. Titles cover everything included within parapsychology: how to, lifestyles, alternative medicine, beliefs, myths and theories. The 6th reader is an intelligent seeker of information and challenge. The 6th author delivers exactly that., which focuses on Paranormal and Parapsychology. 'I am pleased to receive all books that fit the imprint but any that teach something new or in different ways are always pleasing. The whole paranormal and parapsychological genre is so fascinating that I am a bit nervous saying one thing... but there is a lot of interest in anything to do with ‘the afterlife'...'
  • Sinead Morrissey wins the T S Eliot Prize The Poetry Book SocietySpecialist book club founded by T S Eliot in 1953, which aims to offer the best new poetry published in the UK and Ireland. Members buy at 25% discount. The PBS has a handsome new website at  www.poetrybooks.co.uk, which awards the T S Eliot Prize for Poetry, announced the winner on 13 January at an elegant award ceremony in the Courtyard of the Wallace Collection in London.
  • 'I think that a crime novel - like any story - succeeds or fails on the basis of character. Creating and sustaining a main character with whom the reader makes empathetic connection is the biggest ball you must juggle when you are writing one of these things. It is also the most difficult task, Your protagonist is the driver of your car. The reader has got to want to get in the car with him and trust him, but still not know where the car is going to go.' Michael Connelly, author of The Gods of Guilt and many other thrillers, quoted in our Comment column.
  • Our links this week include one more set of predictions for the New Year, 2014 Book Publishing Industry Predictions -- Increased Competition Between Traditional Publishers and Indie Authors | Mark Coker, the article which links to this week's News Review, 2014 Author Survey: Indie Authors and Others Prefer Traditional Publishing...Slightly | Digital Book World, Nicholas Clee, Co-Editor of Bookbrunch writing in the New Statesman on the good things about Amazon, Nathan Filer and The Shock of the Fall: Real work is grist to a good novelist's mill - Telegraph, on why writers should keep working in the workplace and - hard to believe this - Scientists find secret to writing a best-selling novel - Telegraph.
  • Our fictionalised stories show how our services have helped writers give you some idea of what they can do. Scriptwriting assessment story - 'Sarah had always been fascinated by the cinema. As a little girl going to see a film was her favourite treat and she was also interested in how movies got to be made. Her own favourites were the films with really good stories, like Titantic and Avatar, but she also liked the ones which were based on books, like Lord of the Rings and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...' Other writers' stories.
  • Innovative and successful UK children's publisher Chicken House has announced Open Coop, an open submission day on 25 January for authors with a completed novel for 8-12 year-olds. You'll need to hurry to take advantage of this week's Writing Opportunity.
  • 'Writers aren't like plumbers. If you're a plumber, you fix one person's boiler in the morning, then you go and fix another in the afternoon. I didn't want to write a book unless I had something new to say - and it was good to live a little in between.' Lucy Hughes-Hallett, who has just won the Costa Biography Award, in the Guardian, quoted inour Writers' Quotes.