30 April 2018 - What's new
30 April 2018
- 'The sale of Waterstones to activist hedge fund Elliott Advisers has been widely welcomed in the book trade and is very much in the interests of writers. Like Barnes & Noble in the US, the British bookstore chain occupies a key position in terms of chain bookselling. The difference is that Waterstones has benefited from having James Daunt in charge for a number of years and, although there have been painful cuts, not least to a level of management in the stores, Daunt's efforts have been widely admired by publishers and seen as enabling the bookshop sector to continue to benefit from being able to deal with one big chain of ‘proper' bookshops...' News Review
- The December Magazine is just launched and has some useful links: HOW IMPORTANT IS THE FIRST DRAFT TO YOUR NOVEL? An Author Photo Is Worth a Thousand Words, 6 Things About Self-Publishing You Will Be Tempted To Overlook, But Shouldn't and Science fiction triggers 'poorer reading', study finds.
- The Booklife Prize 2018 is open to all in six categories - Romance/Erotica; Mystery/Thriller; Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror; General Fiction; Memoir/Autobiography; YA/Middle Grade. The entry fee is a hefty $99 but there's a Grand Prize of $5,000 and a Critic's Report of your work is included as part of the deal. Closing 31 August.
- 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. 'In this series of articles we'll be looking in more detail at the various self-publishing routes currently available to new indie authors. When you first start out on your indie journey, the array of options can be overwhelming...'
- 'I discovered that if I trusted my subconscious, or imagination, whatever you want to call it, and if I made the characters as real and honest as I could, then no matter how complex the pattern being woven, my subconscious would find ways to tie it together - often doing things far more complicated and sophisticated than I could with brute conscious effort...' Tad Williams, author of 20 fantasy novels, including the Witchwood, Bobby Dollar and Shadowmarch series, and three short story collections. Our Comment.
- 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.
- Our links: an uplifting sense of energy, optimism and experimentation amongst writers, 5 questions aspiring authors should ask themselves now | The Bookseller; a now successful writer on how she started out, Sarah Perry on her struggle to become a writer: ‘I was poor and getting poorer' | Books | The Guardian; latest figures show international sales of children's books still good, Children's book sales, home and away; and my own mental script: "If I write it, The New York Times bestseller list will come." How to Become a Bestseller with Money, Luck, or Work (Mostly Work) | Jane Friedman.
- Getting Your Poetry Published has some suggestions on how to get started with this. 'Don't even try to approach publishers until you have a collection-length amount of material to offer. Your chances will be much better even then if you can point to publication of your poems in magazines. Don't waste any time trying to get a literary agent to represent you...'
- More links: Print books are dead! EbooksDigital bookstore selling wide range of ebooks in 50 categories from Hildegard of Bingen to How to Write a Dirty Story and showing how the range of ebooks available is growing. are dead! People don't read any more! Writers as readers, publishers as curators; should a succesful author be asked to provide a 'blurb'? Take it from me: never judge a book by the blurb on its cover | Emma Brockes | Opinion | The Guardian; an author's complaint about being her work being categorised as 'chick-lit', Jojo Moyes: modern dating is a 'road of misery' - BBC News; so what should poets sound like when reading their work? An Algorithmic Investigation of the Highfalutin 'Poet Voice' - Atlas Obscura.
- Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish, which includes Copy editing, Blurb-writing, Poetry Collection Editing, Typing manuscripts. Our Services for Self-publishers are just a few of the 20 services on offer.
- 'There is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to write clearly, no key that unlocks the door, no inflexible rules by which the young writer may steer his course. He will often find himself steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.' E B White in our Writers' Quotes.
