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29 July 2013 - What's new

29 July 2013
  • 'Ebook sales growth in the UK seems to be flattening this year. A recent Bowker study showed that digital is taking a much greater proportion of the fiction market than of narrative non-fiction, as in the US... This week's News Review
  • Maria Maloney of Our Street BooksAn Imprint Of John Hunt Publishing. For children of all ages, deliver a potent mix of fantastic, rip-roaring adventure and fantasy stories to excite the imagination; spiritual fiction to help the mind and the heart grow; humorous stories to make the funny bone grow; historical tales to evolve interest; and all manner of subjects that stretch imagination, grab attention, inform, inspire and keep the pages turning. Our subjects include Non-fiction and Fiction, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Religious, Spiritual, Historical, Adventure, Social Issues, Humour, Folk Tales and more. on Writing for and about children in Talking to Publishers 3: 'Speak directly to the children on their own level and not at them or down to them. It is helpful if you have an educational background or write from experience. Ensure you aim the style of language at the appropriate age group. Sophisticated language won't suit the very young for instance. We often get picture books for children 3-6 with language more suited to teenagers.'
  • 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..'
  • 'On the internet everyone is writing. There is a great flowering of writing. Going in to Knopf (his US publisher) today is not like going into a publisher 50 years ago. That world is changing... 'You're lucky if a book stays in print for 30 or 40 years. James Salter, author of All That Is is, in the Observer, quoted in our Comment column.
  • Our Writing Opportunity this week is the new Harvill Secker Crime Writing Competition, closing on 30 November.  It's open to entrants from all over the world and the prize is publication by Harvill Secker with a £5,000 advance.
  • We have some particularly interesting links this week in our topical links section.
  • ‘To write good SF today...you must push further and harder, reach deeper into your own mind until you break through into the strange and terrible country wherein live your own dreams.' Gardner Dozois in our Writers' Quotes.