What's New in 2018
- 'Writers remember everything... especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar...' Stephen King, author of more than 60 novels and countless novellas, short stories and screenplays, whose most recent novel is The Outsider. Our Comment.
- Have you been working on your book over the holidays? Are you now ready to submit to publishers or to self-publish? We offer the widest range of editorial services on the web, tailored to writers' requirements and carried out by our professional editors, Our Services for writers.
- If you're planning to submit to agents, you'll want to get your submission package into good shape before getting started, to give your book its best chance.
- Our links this week: sales double in five years, as commercial success for audiobooks has coincided with a creative flourishing, Narrator of 133-hour audiobook proclaims boom in 'evolving art' | Books | The Guardian; this year, we were obliged to say goodbye to far too many literary luminaries, as well as a few pretty complicated figures, Notable Literary Deaths in 2018 | Literary Hub; the rise of online has helped revive the second-hand book market, but what impact has it had on traditional, second-hand book shops? The booming trade in second-hand books - BBC News; what happens to a song lyric when it lands on the page? When song lyrics become literature; and good news for physical books, the UK print market has grown in value again, Print market posts fourth consecutive year of value growth | The Bookseller.
- Writing Biography & Autobiography is a serialisation from our Archives 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...'
- More links: spy novels rank in a special class of literature in which the real and the imaginary can be mixed in any proportion, so long as both are present, A Brief History of Spy Fiction | CrimeReads; what are we not allowed to do or say when writing for teenagers? Is Any Topic Off Limits When You Write for Teenagers? Maybe Just One - The New York Times; tens of thousands of books just became legal to download for free in 2019, Where to Download All the Books That Just Entered the Public Domain; reading gives children the very skills they need to succeed at school, at work and in life, If we want our children to thrive, teaching them to read is not enough - they must learn to enjoy it | The Independent.
- From Margaret Atwood in our Writers' Quotes: 'There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine - "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté.'
- And a happy and productive New Year to you all!
- 'I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up...' George R R Martin, author of a vast number of novels, short stories, scripts and screenplays, including most famously Game of Thrones. Our Comment.
- From our Endorsements page: 'I've used two services with this company: The Editor's Plus Report and the Writer's Edit. I am completely satisfied with the service I received and said service has led to the completion and publication of my first novel: Lightforce. I would recommend any of these services to any aspiring author.' Jason Handleman, author of Lightforce (Everything Changes Book 1).
- It's not often we hear about a completely new prize, but this one, from the Leeds University Poetry Centre, has just been launched. The prestigious Brotherton Poetry Prize is open to anyone in the world over the age of 18 who hasn't yet published a full collection of poems. The entry fee is £10 and the First Prize is £1,000, with 4 runners-up getting £200. Closing 4 March.
- The Inside Publishing series consists of 19 articles giving you an insider's view of publishing. The English Language Publishing World looks at the traditional way in which international English-language publishing has been split between UK and US publishers. Why does the world get divided up into publishing territories? How has this come about? How does it affect authors? Then there's 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...'
- Our links: there are moments when being a lover of literary minimalism can feel like being part of a secret society, Why Doesn't America Love the Novella? - Electric Literature; like most authors who don't sell a million books a year, I have a day job, Is Taking a Writing Sabbatical Worth the Time Away? How do you deal with a big disappointment? What Authors Should Do When Their Publisher Closes; and how do you distinguish between an agent who is unfit for the job - and an agent who is fit for the job but a mismatch for a particular client, and vice versa, Switching Literary Agents; Two Agents Offer Advice | Jane Friedman.
- The most recent addition to our range of reports is the Editor's Report Plus, a substantial report which offers chapter-by-chapter commentary on your manuscript, with a helpful blueprint for any further work which is recommended. It gives you the kind of expert advice which is usually only available from an in-house editor, which is why it has quickly become our most popular report.
- More links: the passage of time is relentless, but It's Never Too Late to Start (or Finally Finish) Your Novel | Literary Hub; children's book sales account for 25% of the market, which is why Authors protest as children's books account for 7% of Christmas newspaper coverage | The Bookseller; the latest in the saga of agent Selwa Anthony, Literary agent ordered to pay $500,000 to Australian author Kate Morton after lawsuit loss | Books | The Guardian; if a book is good, if it's artful, entertaining, and informative, should it matter who the author is? Literary Hoaxes and the Ethics of Authorship | The New Yorker.
- 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. Alternatively, email us and we'll do our best to help.
- From our Writers' Quotes: 'No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o'clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons.' Ishmael Reed
- 'I've always thought that writing poetry has very little to do with the intellect. It's not something one can explain and chat about very easily: certainly not about the making of it. It's very resistant to explanation. It comes from a place that is occult, in the sense of being hidden. It attends to some of our deepest anxieties and hopes in the same way that dreams do...' Robin Robertson, who has published six poetry collections, and whose latest book, The Long Take, has just won the Goldsmiths Prize. He is also an editor at Jonathan Cape, in the Observer. Our Comment.
- Tips for writers is our 8-part crash course for writers who are starting out, taking you from Promoting Your Writing (and Yourself), from Self-publishing: is it for you? to Keep up to date and Submission 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...'
- In an interesting initiative involving the London-based Hachette Children's Group, sister company Orion and 22 of their authors, they have worked together to run advertisements in their books encouraging readers to share the love of reading with children. News Review reports on publishers and authors working together on this children's reading initiative. News Review.
- Last year we launched the Writer's edit, a top-level new service for writers who want line-editing as well as copy editing. Does your manuscript need high-level input from an editor to help you get it into the best possible shape for submission or self-publishing? This may be the service for you, offering the kind of editing which publishers' senior editors used to do in-house on their authors' manuscripts and which is now hard to find. Our other copy editing services.
- Our links: dealing with a tricky problem for writers, I'll Bet You Think This Story's about You: When People Keep Finding Themselves in Your Fiction - The Millions; Amazon continues to expand far beyond its current terrifying $1tn etail presence, grabbing an even bigger piece of the bookselling pie, Amazon is more dangerous than ever-and publishers need a plan | The Bookseller; an SF author who wants to talk about cities, N.K. Jemisin Is Trying to Keep the World From Ending - GQ; and the average American reads 12 or 13 books a year, but with over 3 million books in print, the choices they face are staggering, A data scientist cracks the code to landing on the New York Times Best Seller list - MarketWatch.
- Finding an agent, our tips for this key search: 'There are two types of agency: purely literary and multi-media agents. Look carefully at the entries and consider whether you would prefer to be represented by a big professional agency with all-singing, all-dancing film and TV departments to back up the book agents, or whether you would be better served by a small independent agency...'
- More links: in American poetry, politics was the domain of the few and the fearless, Political Poetry Is Hot Again. The Poet Laureate Explores Why, and How. - The New York Times; the 11 biggest-earning authors sold 24.5 million print books combined in the U.S. during our scoring period, logging $283 million, World's Highest-Paid Authors 2018: Michael Wolff Joins List Thanks To 'Fire And Fury'; female authors have managed to avoid including bad sex scenes in their novels this year - at least according to the Literary Review, Haruki Murakami and James Frey lead all-male shortlist for bad sex award | Books | The Guardian.
- From our Writers' Quotes, Cornelia Funke: 'Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?'