What's New in 2016
- The power of authors to influence their publishers was shown this week when Penguin Random House UKPenguin Random House have more than 50 creative and autonomous imprints, publishing the very best books for all audiences, covering fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s books, autobiographies and much more. Click for Random House UK Publishers References listing, which was formed four years ago when Penguin and Random House merged to form the biggest international trade publisher with turnover of £2.4bn, had to climb down after announcing that it had terminated its formal relationship with Unite and the National Union of JournalistsRepresents British journalists and photographers. Has a useful list of links to media resources. http://media.gn.apc.org/The site links to a NUJ freelance fees site. News Review.
- Although there's only £500 prize money involved, the CWA Debut Dagger 2017 is well worth entering because of the promotion involved. Only unpublished authors are eligible and there's an entry fee of £30 + VAT, closing on 17 February.
- Are you a self-publisher? Do you want your book to be properly published? There's no reason why a self-publisher shouldn't have as good a chance of finding an audience as an author whose book is coming out from a publisher. But what really lets their work down is if it hasn't been professionally copy edited. Effectively a self-publisher who goes ahead without copy editing is just publishing a manuscript, a work-in-progress which readers will react against because of all the errors. Copy editing for self-publishers
- 'I wrote just three chapters to start with and sent them to ten agents. I received nine rejection letter in quick succession, but then the tenth letter arrived and it was an agent wanting to see the complete book. That changed everything. I moved in with my boyfriend to save on rent, took a part-time job and began writing two-and-a-half days a week...' Lisa Jewell, author of Ralph's Party, I Found You and ten other novels in our Comment column.
- From Tom Chalmers of IPR, two articles about rights for self-publishers, Self-publishing - the rights way and How to get your book in the hands of an international audience. 'It's a fact that most self-published authors understand the process that takes them from a written manuscript to a published book, but few realise the additional elements that make publishing a profitable business. Rights licensing is arguably the most vital element in this equation. Whether it's selling translation rights, audio rights or optioning the film rights, these all help balance the book's books...'
- Our links: an invaluable list for those getting started as writers, How to Be a Writer: 10 Tips from Rebecca Solnit | Literary Hub; the almost sacrilegious suggestion that a box set might be 'better' than a novel, Does Westworld tell a truer story than a novel can? | Books | The Guardian; why print books are better for you, Science Says You Should Still Keep Reading Print Books Over e-Books | GOOD; and a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how reviewers work, 10 Things You Didn't Know About How the NY Times Book Review Works | Literary Hub.
- Our Publishing Glossary is a really helpful way of finding your way about the business.
- More links: for years, I knew Octavia E. Butler, the famed African American science fiction and fantasy writer, by her first name only, Public Books - My Neighbor Octavia; the astounding economic impact of Amazon and what it really means to be a bookseller, Bookselling in the 21st Century: The Perils of Shopping Local | Literary Hub; and what does winning prizes really do to small publishers? Small Press, Big Prize: Inside Brooklyn Arts Press.
- To find a mass of useful material on the site, try this page - Advice for Writers.
- 'Sheer egoism... Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen - in short, with the whole top crust of humanity.' George Orwell in our Writers' Quotes.
- Poetry is not often the focus of attention, but this week we've chosen to feature two links to substantial articles which look at the state of poetry and how poets can be supported, from different sides of the Atlantic. Both are worth reading by anyone who is concerned about the state of the poetry world. News Review
- The Mogford Food and Drink Short Story Prize is something different and perhaps appropriate for the festive season. It's open to all writers from across the world with a £10 entry fee, a prize of £10,000 and closes on 15 January.
- Our Children's Editorial Services can help you get your work ready for publication or self-publishing. Have you found it difficult to get expert editorial input on your work ? Do you want to know if it has real commercial potential? Or are you planning to self-publish? Two reports and copy editing are available from our particularly highly-skilled children's editors, including essential advice on age groups and vocabulary.
- Our links: now here's a novelist with an innate talent to cause outrage, A conversation with Martin Amis - Livemint; when novelists move to big publishers once they hit the big time, you have to wonder - Are small publishers doing all the hard work for the big ones? | Books | The Guardian; why is this author driven to write such dark stories? BookBrunch - Why we love psychological suspense; and how do you write across different genres? Idra Novey, Hannah Sanghee Park, Gregory Pardlo, and Mark Richard Talk to Olivia Clare About Multiple Genres - Los Angeles Review of Books.
- 'The agent works for the writer. He's the writer's interpreter, business adviser, and ideally the stable element in the writer's life - always available at the end of the phone, always ready to read and respond. The agent is the gardener on an author's estate. A writer is like a convict, spending a good part of their time in solitary confinement. So the writer is idiosyncratic, a-socialized, isolated, insecure...' Andrew Wylie, aka ‘The Jackal', of The Wylie Agency, speaking at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, provides this week's Comment on the role of the literary agent.
- Our article on 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: a very helpful to-do list to guide your self-publishing project to completion, from a real authority, The Self-Publishing Checklist: Editorial, Production, Distribution; a single book created the "bodice ripper" as a concept and cultural phenomenon, 1972's The Flame and the Flower, The Sweet, Savage Sexual Revolution That Set the Romance Novel Free; a friend recently said to me, "Poetry is the non-profit of literature", How Do We Pay the Poets? | Literary Hub; and poetry and poetry publishing in the UK, Public Poetry - Like This Press.
- 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.
- Continuing the poetry theme with this week's Writers' Quotes: 'A poet, any real poet, is simply an alchemist who transmutes his cynicism regarding human beings into an optimism regarding the moon, the stars, the heavens, and the flowers, to say nothing of spring, love, and dogs.' George Jean Nathan.
- ‘I wrote my first mystery novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, when I was 26. It was turned down by, I don't know, thirty or more publishers. Then it was bought and went on to win the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Obviously, and I know this from experience, perseverance is key to making it as a writer. You have to be able to accept rejection and keep going. If you know that it's what you want to do, then you need to make it happen. No one else will make it happen for you...' Our Comment this week comes from James Patterson, author of Cross the Line and many other novels, whose sales amount to 350million + books.
- It's a measure of the growing interest in short stories, amongst both writers and readers, that Costa launched its short story prize in 2012 and that the public is currently invited to read and listen to the shortlisted stories selected from over 1,000 entries on the Costa Book Awards website, and to take part in the public vote. News Review
- 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...'
- Our Poetry Critique service and Poetry Collection Editing service might help you to work out where you've got to with your poetry. Do you want to make sure that your poetry is as good as it can be before you go ahead with submitting to competitions, magazines or websites, or do you want help to prepare a collection? Our Poetry Collection Editing service is unique and is a real help when what you need is editorial advice on preparing your collection for self-publishing or submission.
- Our links: everyone may have a book in them, but what about a bestselling one? Periodically a book comes out of nowhere that captures the imagination - and the public's money - to become a break-out hit, The Bestseller Experiment: can you deliberately write a blockbuster book? | Books | The Guardian; is "the book market in secular decline" or does a brighter future beckon? - a report from the Futurebook conference, #FutureBook16: The future of the book is... human | The Bookseller; from the bestselling crime writer who is publishing her 30th book this year, Val McDermid: ‘It Doesn't Get Easier, It Gets Harder!' | Literary Hub; and Tim Parks asks an important question of readers: "Do we need to finish [books]?" What Does It Mean to Have ‘Read' a Book? | Read It Forward.
- 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: did you know that "the three top languages combined, English, German and French, account for roughly four in five translations recorded"? Diversity in Translation, a New Report from Europe; how self-published writers can get their books into neighborhood bookshops, How Indie Authors Can Sell Their Print Books at Local Bookstores - DBW; and the spokesperson for this year's Bad Sex in Fiction Award explains why literary copulation is so often terrible, Putting Penis to Paper: When Sex Writing Goes Terribly Wrong | Broadly.
- 'The test of a writer is whether you want to read him again years after he should by the rules be dated.' Raymond Chandler provides this week's Writers' Quote.
