What's New in 2017
- The recent death of Colin Dexter has produced plaudits from fellow-authors and editors alike. In the UK he was one of our best-loved crime writers inspiring a uniquely affectionate response amongst readers and the publishing world alike. Quoted in Bookbrunch, fellow crime writer Peter James praised him highly: 'I think Colin Dexter truly changed both the landscape of British crime fiction and also its stature in the canon of literature...' News Review on the Death of a crime writer.
- Our Comment is some advice from Selina Walker, Publisher of Century and Arrow, which starts with: 'Once you have your idea for a story, write yourself a rough outline and You will need to work out who your characters are, what type of ‘journey' you're taking them on, what's going to kick their story into gear (your opening), and how it's going to end...'
- From our nineteen-part Inside Publishing series, you can read up on Advances and royalties: 'Publishers usually offer to pay authors advances against royalties. How do you work out how much money you might earn from your book? You need to understand for yourself how advances and royalties work and what they mean for you...'
- From the same series, Copy editing and proof-reading explains the difference between the two 'Proof-reading is a separate activity from copy editing and should always be done afterwards as part of a final check that the text is in good order. Traditionally, proof-reading was done at galley stage, when the text was set up in type but not yet made into pages...'
- Our links of the week: several years ago, as an aspiring novelist with stardust in my eyes, I used to spend most of my waking hours in Yahoo's Books and Literature chatroom in the company of fellow aspiring writers, Why publishers might reject your next book, even if it's a good one; Vancouver-based author Sharon Rowse was thrilled when after years of trying she finally landed a book deal with a New York publisher, 'It's no longer about the vanity press': self-publishing gains respect - and sales - British Columbia - CBC News; the giant online retailer is trying to take advantage of millions of Amazon.com customer ratings and reviews and use its big data to offer in-store customers new ways to discover and purchase popular books, both physical and digital, Amazon Books opens new Chicago neighborhood location - Business Insider; and, a fun piece, there are millions of books in the world (and almost definitely hundreds of millions - last they checked, Google had the count at 129,864,880, and that was seven years ago), How Many Books Will You Read Before You Die? | Literary Hub.
- Are you writing for the children's market? 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? Our Children's Editorial Services provide three levels of report, so you can get your work assessed, and Copy editing by specialist children's editors.
- More links: a cri-de-coeur from an editor at Writer's Digest who is also an aspiring author, Every Writer Needs an Editor, Especially if that Writer is Also an Editor; another article about the way publishers are signing up celebrities to write children's books, How celebrity deals are shutting children's authors out of their own trade | Books | The Guardian; and a fascinating picture of the revered editor of authors such as Ian McEwan and Margaret Atwood, who as the wife of Gay Talese, is also one half of one of publishing's most glamorous and mysterious couples, How Nan Talese Blazed Her Pioneering Path through the Publishing Boys' Club | Vanity Fair.
- If you are submitting your work to an agent or directly to a publishing house, check through our guidelines to give it its best chance. Making Submissions.
- From our Writers' Quotes this gem from Jean Rhys: 'All of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person.'
- 'I used to worry that I'd run out of ideas. But as I get older I know it's not ideas; it's energy. As long as the job involves words and story - and it's what I really want to do - I'll give it a go. I enjoy the contrasts between the different forms. Writing a film script is so different to writing a novel, I find it quite easy to give proper attention to both in the same working day...' Roddy Doyle, author of The Commitments and The Guts provides this week's Comment from Bookbrunch.
- 'World Poetry Day has been marked by the publication of some encouraging sales figures from the UK, showing sales up 16% on last year in the first quarter. But a lot of these sales seem to be driven by social media and to feature poets who are appealing to a young female audience. Rupi Kaur's self-published Milk and Honey, which was mentioned on WritersServices last September in link to an article entitled How To Sell Nearly a Half-Million Copies of a Poetry Book, is a case in point and her sales spiked after International Women's Day... News Review on World Poetry Day and new ebook platform Bookgrail.
- 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 and Planning: 'The idea of planning doesn't fit well with the idea of the writer as inspired genius, frantically scribbling away. However, I am willing to bet that, no matter what they would have you think, most successful writers plan as much as they write. They just don't tell you about it. The biggest objection that most inexperienced writers raise when someone broaches the delicate matter of planning is that it will get in the way of their inventive powers. A plan will be like a straitjacket. They'll be stuck with this plan and if they come up with a good idea along the way, they will not be able to use it. They are genuinely horrified at the thought...'
- The International Rubery Book Award 2017 is open to all books by indie writers, self-published authors and books published by independent presses. Entry fee £36 and First Prize £1500 plus guaranteed read by London agent MBA.
- 'Are you writing for the children's market? 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? Over the last few years there has been an increasing emphasis on children's writing, previously the Cinderella of the publishing world. Opportunities are now much greater and there are many children's writers who command big audiences...' Our experienced children's editors can help you get your children's book ready for submission or publication. Children's Editorial Services.
- Our links: the first of two links marking World Poetry Day, "This" - each poem telling a small part of a larger story - "isn't the way to be writing a book of poems, like those ones you wrote before." Jacob Polley: ‘I'm a fool as a writer - you have to take risks' | Books | The Guardian; what does an anthology of poems do? It lets you - it makes you - experience in words the feelings of others. And then it makes you do it again, poet Nick Laird on Why poetry is the perfect weapon to fight Donald Trump | Books | The Guardian; I was extremely lucky. I've had a biographical fiction manuscript accepted and published as a novel, 4 Questions to Ask Before Writing Your Life's Story | The Huffington Post; and (with apologies for Guardian overkill) I knew I needed help to avoid it being just a stack of paper that sat in my bedside drawer, How to finish a novel: tracking a book's progress from idea to completion | Books | The Guardian.
- Do you need to get your material typed up, but can't face doing the job yourself? We can provide a clean typed version of your work at very competitive rates. Our service offers help for writers who have an old or handwritten manuscript, or audio tapes, which need re-typing before the writer can proceed with submission or publication. Typing Manuscripts
- More links: Earlier this month, my nine-year-old son came home from his bilingual school in Shanghai having vandalized his Mandarin textbook, Children's Books and China's Crackdown on Western Ideology - The New Yorker; as an author and social media marketer, I spend a lot of time thinking about the intersection of books and social media, Stop Focusing on Follower Count: 5 Better Approaches for Improving Social Media Use | Jane Friedman; and it's a bit of an advertorial but nonetheles interesting, What Goodreads' Explosive Growth Means for Writers and the Broader Economy.
- ‘First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it... Revision is one of the true pleasures of writing.' Bernard Malamud in our Writers' Quotes.
- 'A generally buoyant picture has emerged from the London Book Fair, which showed an international publishing business in relatively good shape and double-digit growth in the all-important number of pre-registered visitors to the Fair. The mood of optimism was stoked by the low pound and several new developments. The international book world flocked to London to the second most important global fair after Frankfurt to talk to other publishers and to do deals on upcoming books. Authors were also catered for with a wide range of seminars but did not catch the LBF headlines in the same way...' News Review
- The 11th Aesthetica Creative Writing Award is open to all with an entry fee of £12 for poetry entries and £18 for short fiction and £1,000 for each winner. It closes on 31 August.
- Here's a detailed article on how to prepare Your submission package - '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...'
- The editor of the new imprint in our Talking to pubishers series explains in the 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'.
- And, in one of the earlier articles in the series, Talking to publishers 2 Suzanne Ruthven of Compass BooksAn Imprint Of John Hunt Publishing.
Focuses on practical and informative ‘how-to’ books for writers interviews her colleague Autumn Barlow, publisher of the new Top Hat historical fiction imprint at John Hunt PublishingExplore the "Our Imprints" section to learn more about our uniquely qualified publishers and their supporting teams.
: '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...' These articles show the way editors think and what they're looking for.
- 'Outside the bubble of hype are authors in various genres quietly working away with large and valuable readerships. They are producing books and working in areas that might raise eyebrows or even a hint of derision at many acquisitions meetings. Yet readers still love it, they will keep coming back for more. In this respect then I think the ebook market can buck mainstream fashion; and the entire book market is all the better for it...' Our Comment is from Michael Bhaskar, Co-Founder of Canelo and author of Curation: The Power of Selection in a World of Excess and is from in PW's London Show Daily 15 March, which is sadly not available online.
- Links from the London Book Fair: in 2016, British consumers bought more books in all formats - print, digital and audio - than in 2015. And they spent more money on them too, At London Book Fair's Quantum Conference: Stakes and Statistics; what's not to like about fairly strong sales in the UK and the US, with literature in translation growing, children's and digital audio surging, and print books - and bookshops - looking especially resurgent, London Book Fair 2017: For Publishers, Business Is Booming, but Brexit Means Uncertainty; a rookie author's account of what she learnt at the Fair, 10 Writer Learnings From The London Book Fair 2017 #WritersLife #LBF17 #Writer | BlondeWriteMore; and you can navigate from this link to Readers, writers and rejection slips in Publishers WeeklyInternational news website of book publishing and bookselling including business news, reviews, bestseller lists, commentaries http://www.publishersweekly.com/' s Fair Daily to find this article by Nick Wells, Publishers Weekly - LBF Show Daily March 15, 2017 - Page 28-29.
- If you've come to the site looking for a report on your manuscript, how do you work out which one would suit you best? Which Report? includes our new top-of-the range service, the Editor's Report Plus, introduced by popular demand to provide even more detail. This very substantial report takes the form of a chapter-by-chapter breakdown and many writers have found this detailed approach helps them to get their book right.
- More links, taking us away from the London Book Fair: placing beautifully drawn characters in a series of self-contained episodic conundrums was groundbreaking, anticipating the blockbuster movie franchises and TV series to come, How I Learned to Create an Effective Sherlock Holmes Pastiche | Literary Hub; Passion! Risk! Zombie Erotica! Two sisters learn just how far they're willing to go to empower women and bring lustful love stories to the masses, A Look Inside America's First Romance and Erotica-Only Bookstore - VICE; and why a bestselling writer on children's food decided to go indie to achieve higher royalties, Annabel Karmel goes self-publishing for next title | The Bookseller.
- If you are trying to get your work into shape for publication, or for self-publishing, there's plenty of advice on the WritersServices website which will help. Advice for Writers takes you to the links.
- 'If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.' Stephen King in our Writers' Quotes.
- Our new page this week is Our Services for Writers, listing all 20 editorial services offered by WritersServices, the widest range available on the web.
- 'Hachette UK's acquisition of Bookouture is the biggest publishing news of the week, showing how traditional publishers are acquiring the talent and technical nous to enable them to profit from the digital revolution...' But this is a publisher authors can submit directly to. News Review
- Two more articles from our 20-part Inside Publishing series: The Relationship between Publishers and Agents - 'Why do publishers need agents? Actually they don't need them, although they have come to rely on them. In many ways publishers would prefer to deal direct with unagented authors. It's authors who need agents. Writers need someone to sell their work and then to look after their relationship with their publishers...' Subsidiary Rights - 'My first job in publishing was in a subsidiary rights department. I'm ashamed to admit that I accepted the job without having much idea what subsidiary rights were. Many writers may feel just as vague about this part of publishing, so here's a quick breakdown...'
- ‘If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories...' Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse 5 and Breakfast of Champions provides this week's Comment.
- It's a common enough fantasy for writers: maybe now I can leave that dreary job and devote myself whole-heartedly to writing. But how practical is it? Is it something you can realistically aspire to, or just a distant fantasy? What are your chances of making your dream come true? Don't give up the day job.
- Our links: editor to author, if I had to reduce to one word what caused me to leave book publishing, it would be this: Dread, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Market and Just Write | Literary Hub; what do you think of when you think about investing in yourself? How to Adopt an Authorpreneur Attitude | The Huffington Post; Terry Pratchett's novels refused to conform to the binary either/or thinking of the traditional publishing world, Be More Terry | The Bookseller; and, an elegaic, beautifully written article, What is left behind by a life? Helen Dunmore: facing mortality and what we leave behind | Books | The Guardian.
- '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: even for the technically challenged amongst us - little did I realise just how much learning code would teach me about language of the other kind, Learning to code can transform your writing, not just your website | The Bookseller; I was in my 50s before I even attempted to pen a novel, and without any background or training in creative writing, Writing As A Second Career; driving home the glaring inability for authors to make a decent living, Sucks for us: Why Barack and Michelle Obama's $65 million book deal is the last thing we need - Salon.com; and 'She went on to write of all the things she was told not to', Sharon Olds, America's Brave Poet of the Body | Literary Hub.
- Getting your poetry published: Poets are naturally keen to see their work in print but it's actually quite hard to get a first collection taken on by a publisher. This is because most poetry lists are pretty small... Publishers are cautious about what they take on and there are good reasons for this. Poetry is not in general given much space in bookshops and it is difficult to find poetry sections that go much beyond some bestselling backlist and a few new volumes from well-known names. So should you self-publish?
- '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 in our Writers' Quotes.
