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27 January 2014 - What's new

January 2014
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20 January 2014 - What's new

January 2014

'As well as being the season for book industry leaders to forecast what kind of year they think we're going to have, it's also been a time when editors are looking into crystal balls. They're not coming up with many answers and most trends seem to be a continuation of what's already happening...' News Review on So what do editors want?

WritersServices Self-publishing Guide 5 looks at Cover Design Know-how: Tips from a top designer on how to make your indie cover look professional and stand out from the crowd. Joanne PhillipsUK-based freelance writer and ghostwriter. She has had articles published in national writing magazines, and has ghostwritten books on subjects as diverse as hairdressing and keeping chickens. Visit her at www.joannephillips.co.uk  asked designer Chris Howard for the lowdown on cover know-how, startiing with 'What makes the perfect book cover?' and going on to 'What mistakes do self-publishing authors make when designing their own covers?'

Joanne Phillips has also written a useful article on The Business of Writing: 'Writing is undoubtedly a creative art. Whether we are working on the next Booker Prize winner or ghostwriting blog posts, writers need to be original, imaginative and inspired. But writing is also a business, with invoices to raise, accounts to be submitted and records to be kept. Writers, like artists, can find themselves floundering when it comes to the 'business end' of the job. Read on for our easy-to-follow guide to the business of writing...'

This week's links to topical stories: BookBrunch - Why I self-published my business book, Erotic Romance Book Sales Still Sizzle | Publishing Perspectives, The loss leader | FutureBook, which gives a historical perspective on what's happening in the book world now, BookBrunch - Creative Writing courses - about more than simply publication and Men Don't Read Fiction? BULL! - Writing on the Ether | Porter Anderson.

‘All writers have to be readers first. When I was eight I got encephalitis and was seriously ill; I spent a year-and-a-half in bed recuperating. I ended up reading what was on my bookshelf from one end to the other, and when I finished, I went back and read them all again: I must have read the Pippi Longstocking books, The Secret Garden and the Moomin books more than 30 times.' Maggie O'Farrell, author of Instructions for a Heatwave in the Independent on Sunday, in our Comment column.

Thi week's Writing Opportunity is the 2014 Cinnamon Poetry Pamphlet Prizes, which are open to all poets, published and beginners, with 4 prizes of £150 each, and are just one of the enhanced prizes offered by this publisher for writing of all kinds.

Michael Legat's Factsheets are a series of specially commissioned information-packed Factsheets for WritersServices, which cover the essentials for writers from a former publisher, novelist and author of 12 books on writing. For a quick update on First and Last Pages,  Literary Agents or Shall I be Famous? Shall I be Rich?, and much more, this is the place to look.

'A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.' Dylan Thomas in our Writers' Quotes.

13 January 2014 - What's new

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.

6 January 2014 - What's new

January 2014