What's New in 2015
- 'Lizzie Kremer's amusing article about being a nerd, which we link to this week, disguises a greater truth about agents, which is that behind the showmanship and flair that many of the better-known and possibly more successful ones show there is a great deal of attention paid to the detail of their clients' affairs, particularly their royalty statements and subsidiary rights sales...' News Review on agents.
- Have you got something you'd like to say to our community of writers? My Say gives writers a chance to air their views about writing and the writer's life. So we have Zoe Jenny on learning to write in another language - and loving it, Dominae Primus with a paean of praise for WritersServices and Wendy Walker with How a Stay-Home-Mom Became a Writer. Contributions should ideally be 200 to 400 words in length and of general interest. Please email them to us.
- Our Comment is from Robert Harris, author of Dictator, Pompeii and many other historical novels, in the Bookseller: ‘I wouldn't have gone back to the period, if I hadn't felt it had something to say to us. You have a double benefit (when you write a historical novel): you re-create that world for the reader, yet at the same time it's a commentary on our own time: whatever you select to write is inevitably trying to hold up a mirror to our own age, whether consciously or unconsciously...'
- 'You are a first-time author without an agent and you receive a contract to publish your book - just how do you evaluate it? Is it fair or biased against the author by prevailing industry standards? Is your publisher looking out for your interests as well as his own - or wording the clauses in a way only advantageous to the company?' Why your book contract needs vetting.
- Our links: an audacious attempt to extend the copyright in Anne Frank's book, Does Anne Frank Copyright Extension Rewrite History? - Publishing Perspectives; a useful article for anyone who is self-publishing a book with illustrations, The Indie Authors' Guide to Self-Publishing Art Books; all agents love to make a lot of money for an author: to find a book which sets their heart racing and to work all day and all night sending it to publishers, so they can feel the excitement too; to use their skills to make a fantastic deal or thirty fantastic deals, Hi, I'm Lizzy, I'll be your nerd today: The detail of publishing | Publishing for Humans; and the latest manifesto - 'We need to change the way we think about our books, A manifesto for new formats | The Bookseller.
- Have you managed to find a publisher for your work and are now enjoying the thrill of knowing that your book will soon be published? If you're wondering what happens next or just dreaming of being in that situation, Preparing for Publication gives an outline of the processes involved.
- More links: Collins Dictionaries in the UK has declared "binge-watch" its "word of the year" for 2015, following the public's appetite for watching episodes of series like House of Cards and Breaking Bad back to back, Forget Binge-Watching, Try Encouraging Binge-Reading; for the first time in 17 years, the Guardian First Book Award has been won by a poet, Guardian first book award 2015 goes to poet Andrew McMillan | Books | The Guardian; and Call it "Goldfinching", after Vanity Fair's 2014 yes-but-is-it-art interrogation as to whether Donna Tartt's Pulitzer prize-winning, mega-bestselling book The Goldfinch is or is not literature, If you enjoyed a good book and you're a woman, the critics think you're wrong | Jennifer Weiner | Comment is free | The Guardian.
- The September Magazine is ready!
- From our Writers' Quotes: 'When you take stuff from one writer, it's plagiarism; but when you take it from many writers, it's research.' William Mizner
- The new Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers' Award for literary fiction has been set up in memory of the distinguished literary agent. It is open to writers residing in the British Commonwealth and Eire. For this Writing Opportunity there's no entry fee, the prize is £10,000 and the closing date is 31 January 2016.
- For anyone thinking about or embarked on self-publishing, our ten-part WritersServices Self-Publishing Guide by 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 is an essential starting-point, taking you through the process step-by-step. 'Self-publishing has changed so much over the past few years it's hard to believe it was once looked down upon by the publishing industry as the last resort of the vain and desperate. At the time of writing many self-publishing authors are identifying with the term ‘indie author', which acknowledges that to professionally publish today, you don't actually have to do everything yourself!...'
- 'The news from the independent publishing sector is good. The UK Independent Publishers Guild has just published its first report into the independent sector in the UK. What it shows is a thriving picture, with 600 independent publishers and just 15% of the respondents saying that their business is contracting...' Our News Review looks at good news from indie publishers.
- 'Hardly any authors can copy edit their own writing. It is notoriously difficult to spot the errors in your own work. So professional copy editing does make sense, either if you are trying to give your work its best chance when submitting it or, even more crucially, if you are planning to self-publish...' Getting your manuscript copy edited
- ‘Short story is a terrible term, I much prefer the French term conte. I looked up the word "short" in the OED, and it is almost always used pejoratively. Short stories are nearer poetry than anything...' Jane Gardam, whose 10th short story collection The Stories recently won the Charleston-Chichester Award for a Lifetime's Excellence in' Short Fiction, in our Comment column.
- Our links: Alison Waines didn't expect her two-year-old psychological thriller to hit it big, Loved the Novel About a Girl on a Train? You May Have Read the Wrong Book - WSJ; for many readers, no matter where they come from, the collective childhood experience begins with the line "Once upon a time", but what if you have no siblings? BookBrunch - China and the second child; whilst the journals market is seeing significant growth for open access publication, what about monographs? A manifesto for the open book | The Bookseller; and when you hear about networking platforms or building a presence on social media, authors generally talk about Facebook, Twitter, and blogging straight away. Sometimes podcasting and Pinterest are mentioned. But Instagram? 5 Ways to Use Instagram as an Author | Jane Friedman.
- Have you ever wondered why you don't win any of those competitions? Our tips on Entering Competitions.
- More links: a major effort to get people reading, BBC Launches Campaign Promoting Reading - Publishing Perspectives; The free "Future Visions" anthology imagines the implications of quantum computing, machine learning, and more, Microsoft gets into sci-fi publishing with research-inspired short stories | PCWorld; and the sweat, the groans, the spasming muscles, the licked ears and other bits, the pendulous breasts and other bits; it can only be time for the bad sex prize, Bad sex in fiction award 2015: Morrissey goes head to head with Erica Jong | Books | The Guardian.
- 'I write because I cannot NOT write.' A styish double negative from Charlotte Bronte from our Writers' Quotes.
- The fuss that's been sparked off by the recent publication of Philip Henscher's selection of short Stories in The Penguin Book of the British Short Story suggests that short stories may be achieving more traction and visibility than they did even a few years ago. The 90 short stories included in the two volumes come from the eighteenth century (Daniel Defoe) up to the present day (Zadie Smith). Henscher trawled trough thousands of short stories by hundreds of writers. Top authors such as Rose Tremain, Julian Barnes and William Boyd, surprisingly, didn't make the cut. Our News Review.
- Another poetry Writing Opportunity, the Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize 2015, is open to all unpublished poems and you can enter as many poems as you like. 1st Prize €10,000, entry fee €12 per poem and closing on 31 December.
- Tips for writers is our 8-part crash course for writers, taking you from Improving Your Writing to Learn on the Job, from Keep up to date to Submisson to publishers and agents. 'Think about the market for your book. Research the category and read widely to see what other published writers in this area are doing. Which writers are successful and why? Visit bookshops and analyse what you find there. If you are reading this you are probably already writing, but it really is worth thinking right from the beginning about your readers, as that makes it far more likely you'll eventually find them...'
- ‘It is a mark of the importance that still attaches itself to biography as an art form that practically every example of it that appears in a publisher's catalogue tends to cause offence to someone... All this raises the associated questions: who is the biographer writing for, and to whom is he or she ultimately responsible? If the answer to the first question hangs tantalisingly out of reach, the second's answer is "the subject". D J Taylor in the Independent on Sunday provides this week's Comment.
- Working with an Agent - 'It can be hard work finding an agent to represent you. Make sure though that, when you set up the relationship, you do so in a professional manner Don't let your eagerness to find representation mean that things are left vague. You will be depending on the agent to process all your income from the books they sell, so you need to have a written record of your arrangement, preferably a contract...'
- Our links: a new generation of young, digitally astute poets whose loyal online followings have helped catapault them onto the bestseller lists, Web Poets' Society: New Breed Succeeds in Taking Verse Viral - The New York Times; a long but extremely thorough article about how to get published in a literary magazine, The Ultimate Guide To Getting Published In A Literary Magazine; Alec Ross argues that the future of the book industry lies in a combination of data compression technology and cryptography, Data Encryption, Cryptography are Keys to the Future of the Book - Publishing Perspectives; and there tends to be a lot of crossover between the U.K. and American children's book markets, but are there types of books that tend to be "too American" for the UK market? PW Talks with Global Kids Connect Speaker Ginger Clark.
- 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.
- More links: what happens when you start wanting to rewrite your already-published book? Writers on the pain of hindsight in publishing: 'It's like a bad breakup - you have to move on' | Books | The Guardian; Born-digital millennial readers are a slippery bunch. Reports indicate that this generation is equally engaged in content in both print and digital formats. But one thing is clear: more readers are going to discover and read books - as well as related content - on their phones and tablets, Bastei Lübbe Targets Millennials With New Mobile Platform - Publishing Perspectives; and - a long piece again - the Mexican-American writer Jennifer Clement was elected as the first female president of PENSupported by eminent writers, this is the English branch of International Pen, which has centres in nearly 100 countries. It fights for freedom of expression and against political censorship. It campaigns for writers harassed, imprisoned and sometimes murdered for their views. http://www.englishpen.org/ International, With First Female President, PEN International Looks to the Future - Publishing Perspectives.
- And it was the great Elmore Leonard who said: 'All the information you need can be given in dialogue.' From our Writers' Quotes.
- The August Magazine is ready, giving you access to a month's worth of fascinating recent material.
- The recent Digital Census 2015 revealed some surprises in the responses. In the book trade in general there's been much talk of a slowdown and reversal in the speed of ebook adoption, accompanied by a revival in the fortunes of print. So what exactly did the Census reveal? Digital Census has plenty of surprises is the title of this week's News Review.
- Our series of six articles on writing in different categories covers a wide range of genre writing - Crime, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Romance, Non-fiction, Historical fiction and Memoir and Autobiography. So, if you're a genre writer, we've probably got an article on the genre you are interested in.
- The Brunel University African Poetry Prize 2016 is open to poets who were born in Africa, or who are nationals of an African country, or whose parents are African and who have not yet had a full-length collection published. It closes on 30 November and the prize is £3,000 - and a lot of kudos.
- 'Well, I wrote one and nobody wanted it. I wrote a second and nobody wanted it. I wrote the third and nobody wanted it. And then I went back to the newspaper to see if I could get a job. I thought, you've really failed. Like usual. Loser, loser, loser...' Patricia Cornwell, whose latest book is Depraved Heart, in the Observer magazine provides our Comment, Becoming a writer, the hard way.
- Which service should I choose to help me get my work into good shape for submission or self-publishing? This is the question our page Which service? answers and it then goes on to give a quick rundown on our 20 editorial services for writers, which we think is the biggest you can find on the internet.
- Our links: so what exactly do you feel you owe your readers? What Do Writers Owe Readers? ‹ Literary Hub; Michael Bhaskar argues that a saturated market and retail consolidation will drive change in publishing over the next five years, BookBrunch - Publishing 2020: the next five years; "Books in translation" is not a genre. It just means books from other languages. These behave like books written in English, BookBrunch - Taking stock: literature in translation; and Recording an audiobook well, as opposed to merely mechanically, is as much a performance as a stage play or a film, says Nicholas Jones in BookBrunch - Reproducing the inner voice.
- Advice for Writers is a really useful page which takes you into our archive and helps you explore our 5,000 pages of information for writers.
- More links: the author of Harry Potter is writing for children again, JK Rowling: I'm writing a children's book under my own name - Telegraph; if you think you've gotten over the practice of sounding words out, you're probably wrong. Although people watching you read will see you read silently and without moving your lips, part of you is still sounding out the words, You Will Always Read Like a Child, According to Science; and Jessica Faulkner on a programme that opens doors to literacy, learning and a lifetime of opportunity, BookBrunch - Book Aid International's Children's Corners.
- New in our Writers' Quotes, 'You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.' Larry Niven
- 'I remember telling myself that I had yet to live an interesting life. What could this twenty-something woman who'd lived only in Massachusetts write about? Weren't there enough poems singing the praises of New England leaves? I decided to stop writing. I needed to go out and extend the margins of my world before I'd know anything worthy of a poem...' Susan Rich provides this week's Comment.
- Our Writing Opportunity is Discovery Day Online 2015 on 26 November, which is open to anyone on Twitter. It's the opportunity to take part in four consecutive sessions which will show you how to find a literary agent and give advice on routes to becoming a published author, run by agencies Curtis BrownSee Curtis Brown listing and Conville and Walsh.
- Getting ready to publish your book? Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. From Copy editing to Blurb-writing with much else as well. There's also our new Translation editing service.
- To self-publish or to go for a publisher? To publish your own book confidently as an indie author or to feel that only a publisher will be able to give you what you want? Views on this are gradually changing and the major success of self-publishing authors - who often then turn to traditional publishers - has altered a lot of writers' views on the subject. Self-publishing or traditional publishing, which is best? is this week's News Review.
- Have you got something you'd like to say to our community of writers? My Say gives writers a chance to air their views about writing and the writer's life. So we have Natasha Mostert: There are few things as satisfying as typing THE END to a manuscript; Richard Hall "Write about what you know" - does this adage always make sense? and Jae Watson's Magic formula. Contributions should ideally be 200 to 400 words in length and of general interest. Please email them to us.
- Our links: an unpublished author writes with great clarity on how to go about it, The Holy Trinity of Success: write like an angel, market like a demon and be a lovely human being, | Jo Hogan Writes; an interview with the inspiring Jane Friedman of Open Road, who is busy reinventing backlist publishing for the digital age, Jane Friedman on bringing books 'back to life' | The Bookseller; John Bond reports on a new generation of writers for whom self-publishing is a matter of choice, BookBrunch - Outliers, not outsiders; and the rather shocking idea that writers should pay to be considered by literary magazines, Should Literary Journals Charge Writers for Submissions? - The Atlantic.
- This elegant and intriguing pictograph of Old World Language Families has been drawn to my attention by the poet George Szirtes, who has an excellent blog about poetry.
- More links: from a publishers' point of view but still interesting as a summary of possibilities in Africa, BookBrunch - Africa rising: digital opportunities; American novelist Joshua Cohen is setting himself a larger target - of the internet at large - as he embarks on an a mission to reinterpret Dickens' debut live online, In Rewriting Dickens Live Online, Author Critiques the Internet Age - Publishing Perspectives; and the Women's Media Group chew things over, The Latest Trends in YA Publishing.
- And from our Writers' Quotes: 'Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance too: bad luck, loss, pain. If you make something out of it, then you've no longer been bested by these events.' Louise Glück.
