26 November 2018 - What's new
26 November 2018
- ‘Sean and I have written psychological thrillers together under the name of Nicci French for nearly 25 years now - a quarter of a century of collaborating, of entering the other's imagination and exploring the world together. Writing is hard: writing with another person is really, really hard...' Nicci Gerrard, who with her husband Sean French has written Day of the Dead and an astonishing 21 other highly successful novels under the pseudonym Nicci French in the Observer. Our Comment
- An entry on our Endorsements page: ‘The site covers EVERYTHING a new writer, established writer, or a wannabe writer could possibly want or need to know.' Hester Mundis, author many books, including My Chimp Friday, Heart Songs For Animal Lovers and The Vitamin Bible.
- The Spread the Word Life Writing Prize 2019 is open to emerging writers living in the UK aged 18 or over. There's no entry fee and the first prize winner gets £1,500 and other prizes. Closing 1 February.
- Other live Writing Opportunities.
- 'You are a first-time author without an agent and you receive a contract to publish your book - just how do you evaluate it? Is it fair or biased against the author by prevailing industry standards? Is your publisher looking out for your interests as well as his own - or wording the clauses in a way only advantageous to the company?' Why your book contract needs vetting.
- Our links: we put a tremendous amount of stock in endings, George R. R. Martin Might Never Finish A Song of Ice and Fire, and That's OK - The B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog; there are few literary feats more magical - and more mysterious to those of us unfamiliar with the language of the source text, 10 Literary Translators on the Art of Translation | Literary Hub; authors with strong brands enjoy numerous marketing advantages over those whose brands are weaker, Seven Author Branding Tips; and when she was a budding 19-year-old writer, she bought a secondhand German typewriter for 20 dollars. Steel recently completed her 174th book on that same machine, Danielle Steel Talks Her 174th Book & Secret To Success.
- '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: when her book went viral on publication, it helped that she was prepared, How To Turn A Viral Article Into A Published Book; it will be set 15 years after Offred's ambiguous final scene in the acclaimed 1985-published novel, Atwood to publish sequel to The Handmaid's Tale in 2019 | The Bookseller; and news of the winner, Full boil: foreign language entry wins 2018 Diagram Prize | The Bookseller.
- 'No one was going to stop me from writing and no one had to really guide me towards science fiction. It was natural, really, that I would take that interest.' Octavia E. Butler in our Writers' Quotes.
