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18 March 2013 - What's new

18 March 2013
  • 'In a column written for the Bookseller, agent Peter Straus, who is MD of Rogers, Coleridge and White and also President of the UK Association of Authors Agents, has questioned whether it makes sense any longer for publishers to insist on signing contracts for the legal term of copyright. For publishers this has been an important consideration, giving them the control of a book for the full term of copyright unless it goes out of print and is not reprinted...' News Review takes a further look at agents.
  • Our links of the week: Modern authors feel a 'commercial obligation' to write about sex, Julian Barnes says, and World Book Day 2013: Parents still find time to read to their children, despite leading increasingly busy lives.
  • 'Even if you are a bestseller you feel insecure because it is all so unpredictable. You think, are people still going to go out and buy this? I'm just as insecure for my new book as I was for my first one. Patricia Cornwell in the Sunday Telegraph's Seven, quoted in our Comment column.
  • Writing Opportunity: there's still just time to answer the 2013 call for submissions from Cinnamon Press, with a deadline of 31 March 2013. They have nine slots to fill for books that will be published in 2015 and are looking for poetry collections, short story collections or full-length fiction
  • Our 2013 list of International Book Fairs provides a note of book fairs near you which you might like to attend.
  • 'The ability of fiction to develop creativity, to analyze the human psyche, help you understand people - it's critical. It's as important as vitamins or anything else. To me, it's the core of the intellectual health of human beings.' Helen Zell, who has just donated $50m to support the University of Michigan's graduate writing program, in our Writers' Quotes.