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20 July 2015 - What's new

20 July 2015
  • For Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror writers, the Hodderscape open submission will soon be open to unagented writers from across the world, presenting a real Writing Opportunity. It closes on 16 August.
  • A kind of fever seems to have gripped a large number of book-buyers who have rushed out to buy Harper Lee's ‘new' book Go Set a Watchman, making the book a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. HarperCollins in the States says that the book has broken its own record for the number sold. But why is there such a huge surge of interest? Go Set a Bestseller is this week's News Review.
  • Another endorsement: 'I'd like to thank you so much for the reports on my work... I'm going to read the reports over and over, take the time to think and plan, and you can be sure you'll receive the revision a year from now, maybe less. You offer an excellent service for a very fair cost, and I'm grateful to have found you.' Bill Neenan
  • Our Comment is from author and agent Bill Clegg: 'When I finish a week of writing, I'm sick of my own head and desperate to get into the work of someone else.(Going between agenting and writing) is like a series of reunions, you're always happy to be where you are.'
  • Advice for writers is a way into the riches of our Archive.
  • Links of the week: there are plenty of reasons for disliking Amazon, but here are some of them, 5 reasons to wish Amazon an unhappy birthday - Salon.com; a look at successful and integrated ebook publishing, Let the right edition in | The Bookseller; further advice on contracts from the British Society of Authors, UK Society of Authors Advises: Always Compare Contracts; and a wide-ranging and thoughtful article about what's going on on the web and how it affects writers Escaping the new media cargo cult - Boing Boing.
  • More links: new publisher Canelo offers authors no advances but high royalties, New Publisher Canelo Offers UK Authors Strong Incentives - Publishing Perspectives; the Prime Writers start a campaign against ageism in publishing, UK Group to Fight Bias Against Older Debut Authors - Publishing Perspectives; once again the Hugo Award has become a battledground, George R R Martin urges fans to vote on Hugo Awards | The Bookseller.
  • Rotten Rejections - Most of these are taken from Andre Bernard's wonderful little book Rotten Rejections: The Letters that Publishers Wish They'd Never Sent. This extraordinary collection of rejection letters sent by publishers to writers - many delivered to now famous authors of classic books - will make you laugh and provide comfort in the face of your own struggles to get published. Do send your own rejections.
  • 'Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.' Jane Austen in our Writers' Quotes.