What's New in 2019
- 'I only really care about my readers. But I've always been irritated by the lazy assumption among critics that what I do is somehow easier than what ‘literary' novelists do. It's actually quite the reverse - to write something to please millions is obviously harder than doing something that only has to please thousands. I also think that genre writers have a greater responsibility. A literary reader has no expectation that everything they read is going to be great...' Lee Child, author of the 23 Jack Reacher novels, most recently Past Tense, in Books magazine. Our Comment
- Bob's Journal is a long-running column from writer Bob Ritchie described by fellow EastEnders script-writer Pippa McCarthy: 'Just discovered your web page... I've just spent the last hour crying with laughter with periodic yelps of 'been there!'... I'm going to make my entire family read your diary. Then perhaps will understand own bizarre behaviour every time I start a script... Anyway, will shut up now but just wanted to say you have cheered me up no end. It's brilliant.'
- As well as our highly-regarded Copy editing service, which will help you prepare your manuscript for submission or self-publishing, we have Manuscript Polishing, which provides a higher-level polishing service, English Language Editing for those for whom English is not their native language and our new Writer's edit, providing line-editing. Get the right level of editorial support for your needs. Contact us to discuss what you want and take advantage of our free samples - and written assessments on most of these services.
- Our links: for almost two years after my first book was published, I did not write a single new thing, Maybe the Secret to Writing is Not Writing? | Literary Hub; what's the difference between an unforgettable crime thriller and the sort of thriller that retreats into the remote fissures of your brain? The 5 Essential Elements of Unforgettable Crime Thrillers | CrimeReads; it sounded like a book, or a film, or something, a cool story, It sounded like a novel - so I wrote it; and joining their tribe seems simple enough: Get a book, read it, and voilà! Why Do Some People Love Reading? - The Atlantic.
- WritersServices editor Kay GaleWritersServices editor who has worked for many years as a freelance editor for number of publishers. on The Slush pile: 'When I started working in publishing over thirty years ago it was part of my job to check through the pile of unsolicited manuscripts that arrived on a daily basis, and like every other enthusiastic young editorial assistant, I dreamed of finding the next bestseller in the ‘slush pile'. I was soon disillusioned...'
- More links: for decades, Mighty Girls have devoured her works, Protecting "The Books That Will Never Be Written": Judy Blume's Fight Against Censorship | A Mighty Girl; publishing is the business of creating books and selling them to readers. And yet, for some reason we aren't supposed to talk about the latter, Everything You Wanted to Know about Book Sales (But Were Afraid to Ask) - Electric Literature; and this summer, author Megan Miranda won the publishing lottery, Reese's Book Club is publishing's secret weapon - Vox.
- Have you ever wondered why you don't win any of those competitions? What can you do to improve your chances? Our tipsheet on Entering Competitions.
- ‘The crime novel should have a compelling and credible plot, characters who are more than stereotypes, good writing and the creative integration of setting, narrative, characterisation and theme. To put it simply, a good detective story should be a good novel.' P D James in our Writers' Quotes.
- 'Every time you write a poem you start again. Sometimes things happen quickly, sometimes it can take years for a poem to find its proper mode of habitation. I think as writers we enter into a contract of trust, with ourselves, with our friends, with our editors, with our readers, when sending a poem out. Yes, practically, we have to think about stopping work on a poem. But isn't it more about when a poem is properly ready to be part of a useful exchange? Deryn Rees-Jones, poet and author of The Memory Tree, Signs Round a Dead Body and Quiver, and editor of Modern Women Poets, in the PBS's Poetips. Our Comment.
- My Say gives writers a chance to air their views about writing and the writer's life. So we have Dominae Primus on her impressions of Writersservices, now and then, Richard Hall on "Write about what you know" - does this adage always make sense? Mary Garden on Writer's Block. Send us your contributions, ideally 200 to 400 words in length and of general interest. Please email them to us.
- Closing on 21 October, the Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2019 is open to all poets internationally. The entry fee is £5/€6/$7 per poem and the 1st Prize is £2,000, 2nd Prize £1,000 and 3rd Prize £500 plus 20 commendeds.
- Are you getting ready to publish your book - perhaps planning to self-publish? WritersServices offers a suite of nine services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. Services for Self-publishers
- Our links: "Write every day, every second of the day. Is this a joke? Everyone Writes. But Is Everyone a Writer? - The New York Times; are they "punishing an author for her human rights advocacy", Hundreds of authors protest after Kamila Shamsie's book award is revoked | Books | The Guardian; turning around the fortunes of Barnes & Noble, B&N's James Daunt Isn't Daunted At All; in an era plagued by deep fakes and online disinformation campaigns, we still tend to trust what we read in books. But should we? It's a Fact: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry - The New York Times; and everyone wants to write a book, or to say they have written a book. Publishing a book is still an honour, a point of pride, An Agent Explains the Ins and Outs of Book Deals - Electric Literature.
- Are you thinking of submitting your book to an agent? Try our Finding an Agent page or Your Submission package. Our Submission critique service may also help, as it's essential to get your package into the best possible shape before you start submitting.
- More links: the new Waterstones Children's Laureate on why children's engagement with books must be encouraged at every opportunity, Cressida Cowell warns industry will become 'dead in the water' without school libraries | The Bookseller; publishers allege copyright infringement, the audiobook company asserts fair use, Points, Counterpoints: The Publishers v. Audible Lawsuit Lines Are Drawn; the Chocolat author urges publishers to support existing writers in their careers rather than pursuing one debut after another, Joanne Harris speaks out against publishing's focus on debuts | The Bookseller; and after two decades of immense popularity, this style of storytelling fell out of fashion, The Golden Age Detective Fiction Renaissance | CrimeReads.
- Advice for Writers is a really useful page which takes you into our archive and helps you explore over 7,000 pages of information for writers.
- In our Writers' Quotes: 'It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.' Vita Sackville-West
- ‘Sometimes I feel like I talk about these things too dramatically. I'm sure some writers might read this and go, "For f*** sake you just published a book. Get over yourself." But you have to understand - before, there was none of it, then everything changed... It's changed my life, and made it so interesting and exciting. So happy, on a cellular level... When your first book is a bestseller is our Comment from Jessie Burton, author of just-published The Confession, The Muse and her bestselling first novel The Miniaturist in the Sunday Times' Culture.
- 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 the 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...'
- Closing on 9 December, the Nobrow Short Story Competition is open to all writers of 18 and over internationally with an unpublished and not yet submitted story or creative non-fiction piece. There's no entry fee. Winning stories will go into a book and the overall winner will receive £2,000, with all selected contributors receiving £150 and two complimentary copies of the book.
- Other competitions we've covered on the site which are still open.
- As well as our highly-regarded Copy editing service, which will help you prepare your manuscript for submission or self-publishing, we have Manuscript Polishing, which provides a higher-level polishing service, English Language Editing for those for whom English is not their native language and our new Writer's edit, providing line-editing. Get the right level of editorial support for your needs at a sensible price. Contact us to discuss what you want and take advantage of our free samples - and written assessments on most of these services.
- Our links: how do writers manage - or deploy - the distractions? 'I have to put my phone in the wardrobe': how do authors deal with social media? | Books | The Guardian; one day not long ago in a college class I was teaching, some of my students couldn't find the page I was talking about in the reading, Opinion | Steal This Book? There's a Price - The New York Times; Sleepless in Seattle, the starry-eyed, bi-coastal love story written and directed by Nora Ephron in 1993, is a strange bird, The Best 1990s Rom-Coms Are Detective Stories in Disguise | CrimeReads; and increasingly, people of the book are also people of the cloud, Books Won't Die.
- 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.
- More links: as self-publishing services have proliferated, promising all variety of benefits and recipes for boosting sales, it's more important than ever for indie authors to have a discerning eye when seeking out assistance, DIY: How to Avoid Self-Publishing Scams; from a successful children's publisher, Questions for: Kate Wilson; encountering a legendary editor, On the Rare Decency of Susan Kamil | Literary Hub; beautiful objects that would be there for hundreds of years but weren't flashy like stained glass or carvings or floor tiles, Tracy Chevalier Is Threading the Past.
- Authors often find it difficult to write their own synopsis for submission to publishers, which is where our Synopsis-writing service can help. If you're preparing to self-publish and having difficulty with your blurb, our Blurb-writing service from a professional copy-writer will make your book stand out.
- John Steinbeck in our Writers' Quotes: 'Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.'
- 'I put my whole soul into this book, but I didn't allow myself to hope that it would lead to anything. In fact I firmly hedged my bets against it having any success at all, because it would have been too painful to hope and then be disappointed. But then this happens, and I'm proven miraculously, incredibly, joyously wrong...' 'Success is not particularly good for creativity' is our Comment this week from from Jessica Love, winner of the £5,000 Klaus Flugge award for illustrated books for her picture book about a trans child, Julian Is a Mermaid, in the Guardian.
- 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. 'Indie authors access the same professional services as traditional publishing houses. They employ freelance editors, proofreaders and cover designers. They have their work professionally formatted for ebooks and typeset for print. They may use service providers to manage some or all of the publishing tasks, or they may go it alone...' Articles include Choose Your Self-publishing Route and Marketing and Promotion for Indie Authors: Online.
- From the same author, The Business of writing, 'Writing is undoubtedly a creative art. Whether we are working on the next Booker Prize winner or ghostwriting blog posts, writers need to be original, imaginative and inspired. But writing is also a business, with invoices to raise, accounts to be submitted and records to be kept. Writers, like artists, can find themselves floundering when it comes to the ‘business end' of the job.'
- This is the biggie, the very prestigious National Poetry Competition 2019, which closes on 31 October. It's open internationally to all poets who are 17 or over with an entry fee of £7 for the first poem and £4 for subsequent poems. The First Prize is £5,000, Second Prize £2,000, Third Prize £1,000 and 7 Commendations £200, but there's also a lot of kudos attached to being a winner.
- Our links: an interview with an irrepressible and very popular author, Stephen King: ‘I have outlived most of my critics. It gives me great pleasure' | Books | The Guardian; some sharp insights into the publishing business, A Book Biz Insider's Letter to a (Future) Assistant; video continues to grow in popularity and importance - with the original video sharing platform YouTube now the second most visited website in the world, The future of video in publishing | The Bookseller; and just this week, a Catholic elementary school in Tennessee removed the books from its library, When We Ban Books Like 'Harry Potter,' Students Lose Out On More Than Magic | HuffPost UK.
- If you're looking for a report on your manuscript, how do you work out which one of our three reports 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 detail helps them to get their book right. Through our specialist children's editors we can offer reports on children's books.
- More links: an early decision which can have a long-term impact with little or no chance for fixing or correcting, short of re-publishing, Why Self-Publishing Authors Should Consider Establishing Their Own Imprint | Jane Friedman; what can books published during wartime tell us about ourselves? The Crime Novels of WWII | CrimeReads; he sold only 4 books, Just Because Walt Whitman Self-Published, Doesn't Mean You Should, Too | Literary Hub; and the backlash against modern "culture warriors", Enid Blyton had racist views. But I still read her | Sian Cain | Opinion | The Guardian.
- Meg Rosoff in our Writers' Quotes: 'Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.'
- For quotes fans we have further superb collections in More Writers' Quotes and Even More Quotes.
- 'The book trade tends to get into a publishing bubble. Readers don't understand why they have to wait for the audio book or ebook; a simultaneous release is very important for them. Whenever a new format launches, we as the publishing industry acquire new audiences, and that's important... I think we've become slightly hijacked in the industry by an obsession with schedules and that it should take 13 months to bring a book to market...' Our Comment comes from Amanda Ridout, founder of new publisher Boldwood Books, in Bookbrunch.
- If you are not a native English speaker but you want to publish your book in English to make it available to the international market, what do you do? If your English is good enough, what about writing it in English or translating your book into English yourself, and then getting your translation polished and copy edited by a professional editor who is a native English speaker? The result should be a publishable manuscript at a relatively low cost, provided by our English Language Editing Service. Our article How to get your book translated into English (without it costing the earth) shows you how.
- The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2020 is open to Commonwealth writers with unpublished stories in 11 Commonwealth languages. There's no entry fee. The overall winner gets £5,000, five regional winners £2,500. Closing on 1 November.
- Our links: a three-book deal and a film option at Universal Pictures, A Debut Middle-Grade Author's Life-Changing Tweet; a physical book is good for much more than reading, Reader, I Googled It | The New Yorker; a 1,000-page plus novel - but the narrative occupies a mere eight sentences - is amongst other more famous novelists' work, The Booker prize shortlist resists easy reading | Books | The Guardian; and turning back to poetry, How Barbara Kingsolver reignited her love affair with words - The Washington Post.
- 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 of our 20 editorial services for writers, the biggest range you can find on the internet.
- More links: oh, the heyday of publishing - big desks, lots of cash, martini-soused three-hour lunches, trying to appease your government, From Animal Farm to Catch-22: the most regrettable rejections in the history of publishing | Books | The Guardian; where has all the Horror gone? A Lot of Sci-Fi and Fantasy is Horror Despite the Label | Houston Press; impressive signs of a book trade that's flourishing, US publishers' revenues up 6.9% | The Bookseller; and Amazon has stepped back following last week's threat from publishers, Audible Will Exclude Publishers' Works from Captions Program - For Now.
- From our Endorsements page: '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.
- 'As for ‘Write what you know,' I was regularly told this as a beginner. I think it's a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it's my duty to testify about them.' the inimitable Ursula K. Le Guin in our Writers' Quotes.