What's New in 2016
- The editor of the new imprint in our Talking to pubishers series explains in the new, eleventh article what her new list is looking for - 'the freshest thinkers and the most successful practitioners in the areas of marketing, management, economics, finance and accounting, sustainable and ethical business, heart business, people management, leadership, motivation, biographies, business recovery and development and personal/executive development'.
- In the other ten articles in the Talking to publishers series the editors of each imprint provide a specific brief for what they're looking for. There's Top Hat historical fiction, for instance, where the editor says: 'Periodically we are told that the historical novel is dead - and then along comes Hilary Mantel winning the Man Booker for the second time, setting reading fashion on its head again...'
- ‘Writer's block is a reluctance to make decisions. You're trying to keep your options open and hoping a simple idea comes along, so it's hard to commit to one. My wife once told me, as I was having trouble getting going, "That's because you're trying to write the book, and you just need to write a book..." Our Comment is from Christopher Brookmyre, author of Quite Ugly One Morning and Black Widow in the Independent on Sunday.
- Writing Biography & Autobiography is a serialisation from our archive of the book by Brian D Osborne published by A & C BlackClick for A & C Black Publishers Publishers References listing. In the first excerpt, 'Managing the matters of truth and objectivity', the author says: 'Just as you need to remember that letters, reports, census forms, legal documents and so forth were not created simply for our convenience, so you also need to remember that what is written in them may not be true...'
- 'The latest fashion in women's writing is explored in an article we provide a link to this week. The authors think that the rash of bestselling books with ‘Girl' in the title are appealing to a female crime fiction audience and they're probably right, but these books are also the heirs to a longer tradition...' News Review
- The Mslexia Women's Short Story Competition 2016 is open to women from all over the world with a story written in English. First Prize is £2,000 plus a week's writing retreat at Anam Cara and a day with a Virago editor. Our listing of Writing Opportunities.
- Our links: is there a link between finishing reading a book and your age, or if you are a child? How Does Age Affect Reading? | Digital Book World; what happens when a writer's tv series is far ahead of the book he is writing? George RR Martin: Game of Thrones twist will appear in books, not TV show | Books | The Guardian; more on the monoculture that persists when there's no diversity, "You Will Be Tokenized": Speaking Out about the State of Diversity in Publishing | Brooklyn Magazine; and celebrating one small publisher who has shown how you can survive and thrive, BookBrunch - Independent Publisher Focus: Salt on the Silver Age of the small press.
- Do you want some help with your writing but don't quite know what you want? Are you a bit puzzled by the various services on offer, and not sure what to go for? This article will show you how to work out which is the right editorial service for you. Choosing a service.
- More links: the usual amazing crop of extraordinary titles, so completely weird you can hardly believe they're real, Diagram Prize: Oddest Book Titles of the Year battle it out | The Bookseller; why are two books so influential that other new books are constantly compared to them? The 'Girl' In The Title: More Than A Marketing Trend: NPR; is there a tech solution to writing and editing? Growth curve: Reedsy | The Bookseller.
- 'Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum.' Vladimir Nabokov in our Writers' Quotes.
- The Basil Bunting Poetry Award 2016 has a First Prize of £1,000, a Second Prize of £750 and a Third Prize of £250. It closes on 7 March and is open to all poets writing in English. The up-to-date picture on Writing Opportunities.
- 'Nick Clee asks in this week's Bookbrunch if you need to transcend a prize to win it, inspired by the Costa win by Frances Hardinge's children's book. In this age of proliferating book prizes it's a reasonable question to ask, but does anyone really think that literary prizes should be thrown open to those who are writing, for instance, category romance or horror fiction?...' This week's News Review.
- Our 19-part Inside Publishing series gives you an insider's take on the publishing world, covering everything from subsidiary rights to the world English language market, from advances and royalties to the writer/publisher financial relationship. 'There's no escaping the fact that publishers and authors are essentially in an adversarial position. Even in the very best and most supportive publisher/writer relationships there is the tension caused by the fact that authors would like to earn as much as possible from their writing and publishers to pay as little as they can get away with. Understanding this is part of working your way through the relationship so as to come out of it in the way that best suits you as the writer...'
- ‘I knew this book would be my last chance and admit that before I wrote it, and even in the early stages, there was a fair amount of despair. People, like I was, are intrigued by what they see or imagine on a travel route. I'm sure, too, that Rachel's weaknesses as an unusual and troubled person, can be identified with...' Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on a Train, which shot to the top of the bestseller lists in the UK and US when it was published last year, provides this week's Comment.
- Our links: does the class system really make a difference to writers? How The Literary Class System Is Impoverishing Literature | Literary Hub; making academic journals freely available, Why one woman stole 47 million academic papers - and made them all free to read - Vox; what made one mother turn to writing for children, Shirley Hughes's Dogger: one of the greatest picture books ever | Children's books | The Guardian; and do gender and other demographic factors actually affect reading? Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, But What About Readers? | Digital Book World.
- Which Report? gives the details of the three reports we offer: the full Editor's Report, the basic Reader's Report and the most substantial Editor's Report Plus. There's also our specialist Children's reports, part of our Children's Editorial Services. If you want a professional editor's assessmen of your work, here's the place to start.
- More links: a good article to read if you're thinking of publishing your own book, Self-publishing a book: 25 things you need to know - CNET; how digital platforms are transforming the selling of rights for authors and publishers - or are they? Rights Platforms: Can Digital Match the Human Touch? - Publishing Perspectives; and prizes and genres, BookBrunch - Do you have to 'transcend' a genre to win a prize?
- Your submission package and how to put it together - 'given the difficulty of getting agents and publishers to take on your work, it's really important to make sure that you present it in the best possible way. Less is more, so don't send a full manuscript, as it's very unlikely to be read. Far better to tempt them with a submission package that will leave them wanting to see the rest of the manuscript'.
- 'To be a literary agent: it's a modest job. But it's a job that's important for the writer. It's a position that you take the right decision for your clients. And the problem is that the ego [of the agents] can get in the way. It's very important that the agency is a person, one person. It's not about money.' Super-agent Carmen Balcells, not long before she died, in this week's Writers' Quotes.
- 'A survey carried out by Booktrust in association with the Open University has found that children of 0-8 prefer reading print books, rather than ebooks. An astounding 76% showed a preference for print books for reading for pleasure and 69% prefer print books for educational reading too...' News Review
- ‘Novelists are often asked which of their characters is them, as if imagination has no part to play. Most of us will answer that characters develop out of the need of the story itself. So my Cassie and her murderous actions are necessary in The Taxidermist's Daughter for the plot to work. She's not me, any more than is Freddie in The Winter Ghosts or Alais in Labyrinth...' Our Comment this week is from Kate Mosse, author of The Taxidermist's Daughter and Labyrinth, in the Sunday Times.
- An Editor's Advice is a series of seven articles by one of our editors on really useful subjects for writers such as Dialogue, Manuscript presentation and Doing further drafts: 'I have just finished writing a report on a novel. I've pinpointed various areas of weakness and made various suggestions that the writer may or may not wish to follow. But the nub of the report is a recommendation that the writer produce a further draft of the novel rather than trying to submit it to a publisher now. I wonder sometimes how writers feel when they get my reports and see that recommendation...'
- Our links: rather alarming figures about how the attention of readers decays while they are progressing through an ebook, Start Strong or Lose Your Readers | Digital Book World; the diamond anniversary of Avon Books, History and Historicals: At 75, Avon Romances the Readers - Publishing Perspectives; so are self-published books doing much better than everyone thinks, or is it an illusion, Digital Arachnid: What Does Author Earnings Say to the Industry? - Publishing Perspectives; and an interview with a bestselling author of fiction whose real love is poetry, BookBrunch - Of grief and desire: Louis de Bernières on love poetry.
- '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
- More links: paid reviews - is the books business a kind of temple based on our regard for literature, or just everyday commerce, Inviting Your Criticism of Criticism: The Paid Reviews Debate - Publishing Perspectives; a fascinating article about a new submission vehicle; Startup of the week: Publishizer | The Bookseller; and a dour picture of the difficulties authors are facing Down Under, Falling book prices could force authors to abandon their keyboards.
- ‘Twenty years as a teacher, ten years in educational research and five years of directing an educational charity, and in all that time, I hadn't published any fiction or poetry at all. I'd always had a feeling that if life ever did allow me a clear run at creative writing, I might just be able to do something with it...' Bruce Harris's Writing Short Fiction: A Personal Journey is about how he worked his way towards setting up the fantastic website Writing Short Fiction. Under new management now, it's well worth visiting if you're interested in short story writing.
- 'Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write. If all feels hopeless, if that famous 'inspiration' will not come, write. If you are a genius, you'll make your own rules, but if not - and the odds are against it - go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper - write.' J B Priestley in our Writers' Quotes.
- 'According to a study funded by the Quick Reads sponsor Galaxy, 27% of the British population have been inspired by a book to make ‘positive life changes' and 41% of regular readers regard the habit as a better antidote to stress than meeting friends... News Review on the power of reading.
- ‘Like a lot of authors I have galloping imposter syndrome: as far as I'm concerned I have cunningly infiltrated the writing community. With each book that gets published I have this dread fear that I'm going to be found out. Certainly when The Lie Tree was published, I thought: ‘This time they'll see through me for the fraud I am.' Things have not panned out as I expected!...'Frances Hardinge, winner of the 2015 Costa Book of the Year 2015 with The Lie Tree, in the Guardian, provides this week's Comment.
- 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.
- Our Writing Opportunity this week is the BBC National Short Story Award 2016 - open to UK residents or nationals, aged 18 or over, who have a history of publication in creative writing. Cash prizes of up to £15,000, and a slot for your story to be read on the BBC.
- Have you translated your work into English? Or do you have a translation that someone else has done? Now you need to make sure it's good enough to publish, or send to a publisher. If you need help to get your work into perfect condition, our new service, Translation Editing, is for you. Acknowledging the growth of world English, this new service is designed for the many non-native English speakers throughout the world who want to publish their work in English.
- Our links: the internet enables anyone to be an author with access to an audience and increasing numbers of people are discovering that they can earn an income from their own ebooks, How do I become... an ebook writer? | Money | The Guardian; from content creation to manuscript acquisition to distribution to sales, How publishing startups use tech tactics to thrive in the digital era - TechRepublic; the emergence of smartphones and tablets - enabling so-called "mobile reading" - promises to make India a nation of translations, Indian Publishers Rely on Local Authors and Translation; and a specific guide to casting, producing and directing your own audiobook, 5 Steps to Creating a Great Audiobook | Jane Friedman.
- Our article on Working with an agent gives a useful introduction to what you get out of it and how to handle it.
- More links: who would have thought that the much bigger issue around diversity in publishing was the huge imbalance of women? Lee and Low Survey: Diversity in Publishing; so what's really going on in publishing? The (Real) Future of Publishing | Digital Book World; and how is Nigeria's literary scene changing? Emma Shercliff, a publisher based in the nation's capital, Abuja, takes a look, The changing face of Nigerian literature | British Council.
- 'As a total neophyte as a writer, I have been doing a huge amount of research suddenly as to what services are available to writers, on both sides of the Atlantic, and am amazed that you are able to have someone read a whole book and give a serious critique for just 180 pounds. I think that is incredible value for money, compared to other similar services that appear to be available out there. I hope to be back to you again for more assistance, once I've cleaned up my work! Martin Humphries, Vancouver, BC, Canada on our Endorsements page.
- 'Poetry is a necessity of life. It is a function of poetry to locate those zones inside us that would be free, and declare them so.' C D Wright, who died this week, in our Writers Quotes.
