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13 March 2017 - What's new

13 March 2017
  • 'A generally buoyant picture has emerged from the London Book Fair, which showed an international publishing business in relatively good shape and double-digit growth in the all-important number of pre-registered visitors to the Fair. The mood of optimism was stoked by the low pound and several new developments. The international book world flocked to London to the second most important global fair after Frankfurt to talk to other publishers and to do deals on upcoming books. Authors were also catered for with a wide range of seminars but did not catch the LBF headlines in the same way...' News Review
  • The 11th Aesthetica Creative Writing Award is open to all with an entry fee of £12 for poetry entries and £18 for short fiction and £1,000 for each winner. It closes on 31 August.
  • Here's a detailed article on how to prepare Your submission package - 'Given the difficulty of getting agents and publishers to take on your work, it's really important to make sure that you present it in the best possible way. Less is more, so don't send a full manuscript, as it's very unlikely to be read. Far better to tempt them with a submission package that will leave them wanting to see the rest of the manuscript...'
  • The editor of the new imprint in our Talking to pubishers series explains in the 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'.
  • And, in one of the earlier articles in the series, Talking to publishers 2 Suzanne Ruthven of Compass BooksAn Imprint Of John Hunt Publishing. Focuses on practical and informative ‘how-to’ books for writers interviews her colleague Autumn Barlow, publisher of the new Top Hat historical fiction imprint at John Hunt PublishingExplore the "Our Imprints" section to learn more about our uniquely qualified publishers and their supporting teams. : '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...' These articles show the way editors think and what they're looking for.
  • 'Outside the bubble of hype are authors in various genres quietly working away with large and valuable readerships. They are producing books and working in areas that might raise eyebrows or even a hint of derision at many acquisitions meetings. Yet readers still love it, they will keep coming back for more. In this respect then I think the ebook market can buck mainstream fashion; and the entire book market is all the better for it...' Our Comment is from Michael Bhaskar, Co-Founder of Canelo and author of Curation: The Power of Selection in a World of Excess and is from in PW's London Show Daily 15 March, which is sadly not available online.
  • Links from the London Book Fair: in 2016, British consumers bought more books in all formats - print, digital and audio - than in 2015. And they spent more money on them too, At London Book Fair's Quantum Conference: Stakes and Statistics; what's not to like about fairly strong sales in the UK and the US, with literature in translation growing, children's and digital audio surging, and print books - and bookshops - looking especially resurgent, London Book Fair 2017: For Publishers, Business Is Booming, but Brexit Means Uncertainty; a rookie author's account of what she learnt at the Fair, 10 Writer Learnings From The London Book Fair 2017 #WritersLife #LBF17 #Writer | BlondeWriteMore; and you can navigate from this link to Readers, writers and rejection slips in Publishers WeeklyInternational news website of book publishing and bookselling including business news, reviews, bestseller lists, commentaries http://www.publishersweekly.com/' s Fair Daily to find this article by Nick Wells, Publishers Weekly - LBF Show Daily March 15, 2017 - Page 28-29.
  • If you've come to the site looking for a report on your manuscript, how do you work out which one would suit you best? Which Report? includes our new top-of-the range service, the Editor's Report Plus, introduced by popular demand to provide even more detail. This very substantial report takes the form of a chapter-by-chapter breakdown and many writers have found this detailed approach helps them to get their book right.
  • More links, taking us away from the London Book Fair: placing beautifully drawn characters in a series of self-contained episodic conundrums was groundbreaking, anticipating the blockbuster movie franchises and TV series to come, How I Learned to Create an Effective Sherlock Holmes Pastiche | Literary Hub; Passion! Risk! Zombie Erotica! Two sisters learn just how far they're willing to go to empower women and bring lustful love stories to the masses, A Look Inside America's First Romance and Erotica-Only Bookstore - VICE; and why a bestselling writer on children's food decided to go indie to achieve higher royalties, Annabel Karmel goes self-publishing for next title | The Bookseller.
  • If you are trying to get your work into shape for publication, or for self-publishing, there's plenty of advice on the WritersServices website which will help. Advice for Writers takes you to the links.
  • 'If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.' Stephen King in our Writers' Quotes.