7 March 2016 - What's new
7 March 2016
- Ebook sales plunged in October 2015, with adult books dropping 22% in one month, compared to children's ebooks which went down a whopping 44.7%. As we've discussed elsewhere, the children's market has a strong preference for print books, with both parents and children preferring them. News Review looks at the way ebooks are finding their level.
- It's a common enough fantasy for writers: maybe now I can leave that dreary job and devote myself whole-heartedly to writing... Perhaps you've even been indulging in it as you lay on the beach this summer, or more likely spent your precious holiday working on your latest novel. But how practical is it? Is it something you can realistically aspire to, or just a distant fantasy? What are your chances of making your dream come true? Don't give up the day job.
- ‘I can't talk to people. I'm very shy. It feels like an enormous restriction in my life, like I'm exploding because I can't express anything. But if I'm writing then I don't have that problem. For me, literature is a place where I can gain some freedom, to write whatever I want...' Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of My Struggle, a six-part autobiographical sequence which has been an international literary sensation provides this week's Comment, Writing bestsellers about your inner life.
- 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 might be what you need.
- Our links: an author who thought a big prize win was a hoax, Helen Garner learns of $207,000 literary prize win after checking junk email | Books | The Guardian; from the highly regarded Hungarian/English poet, ten ways of thinking about poetry, George Szirtes - TEN PROPOSITIONS ABOUT POETRY; a prizewinning translator explains how he taps into the "rhythm" of each book he translates, Translator Burton Pike Accepts 2016 Friedrich Ulfers Prize; and who gets to decide which works make the cut? At What Point Does a Novel Become Literature? | Mental Floss UK.
- Translation is always difficult but if 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 translating your book 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. How to get your book translated into English (without it costing the earth)
- More links: from the perspective of an internationally prominent children's illustrator, Axel Scheffler: the Gruffalo wouldn't exist without UK in EU | Books | The Guardian; your tallest TBR pile nearly collapsed on your cat the other day. You're out of both bookshelf space and space for more bookshelves, 16 Reasons To Be Proud Of Being A Book Hoarder; how a big prize can overshadow everything else, Man Booker Prize has an unhealthy effect on the market, says author Deborah Moggagh | News | Culture | The Independent.
- 'There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.' Franz Kafka in our Writers' Quotes.
