17 August 2015 - What's new
17 August 2015
- Our new article How to get your book translated into English (without it costing the earth) asks writers with a manuscript which needs translating: "if your English is good enough, what about translating your book yourself, and then getting your translation polished and copy edited by a professional editor who is a native English speaker?" This could be a cost-effective way of reaching the international English-speaking market.
- 'One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily. In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone.' Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in an interview in Writers at Work, in our Comment column.
- Suzy Jenvey, vastly experienced children's editorial director and now agent, has written a special series for WritersServices, the four-part The Essential Guide to Writing for Children. The first article looks at the all-important question of age groups and what you should be aware of in writing for each one. The second part is - Before You Write: What is My Story Going to be? The third part deals with Starting to Write and the fourth part is about Submitting Your Work to Agents and Editors.
- As many in the northern hemisphere are still sunning themselves (or sitting out the rain if they're in the UK), the book trade is hotting up for the autumn. In the UK it looks as if 8 October will be Super Thursday, when the combination of big books being launched reaches its peak. News Review this week is looking forward to the autumn.
- Our Poetry Critique service and Poetry Collection Editing might help you to work out where you've got to with your poetry. Do you want to make sure that your poetry is as good as it can be before you go ahead with submitting to magazines or websites, or do you want help to prepare a collection?
- Our links of the week: how ebooks might be changing the way we read - and even the way we write, Ebooks are changing the way we read, and the way novelists write | Comment is free | The Guardian; the Wall Street Journal thinks we are about to have an explosion of reading on phones, The Rise of Phone Reading - WSJ; determination really can get you there, Delhi Tea Seller Finds Success As Author on Amazon - Publishing Perspectives; and the answer back to the challenge of last week about communities supporting writers appears to be 'no', Can digital community support writing, really? | The Bookseller.
- Our Publishing Glossary is a really helpful way of finding your way about the business.
- More links: quoting Virginia Woolf in "How Should One Read a Book?", this takes a literay approach to writing, When the page is broken: Who writes the books? | The Bookseller; one author's day-to-day experience of living the dream of becoming a writer, Down, Up, Down Again: The Diary of a Debut Author - Publishing Perspectives; and Frankfurt has proudly announced a link to Shakespeare in the 1622 fair catalogue, which listed Shakespeare's First Folio, no less! How the Frankfurt Book Fair Helped Launch Shakespeare - Publishing Perspectives.
- 'One of the conditions for reading what is good is that we must not read what is bad; for life is short and time and energy are limited.' Arthur Schopenhauer provides this week's quote in our Writers' Quotes.
