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'World Book Night is practically upon us, and
thousands in the UK will help celebrate it this coming Saturday, 5 March. This
year the organisers have broken away from the traditional Quick Reads and book
tokens for children - although the traditional programmes are still there - to
go for a much larger promotion.' News Review reports.
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'Borders’ filing for bankruptcy this week was the
expected outcome of the long slow decline of the second-biggest US bookstore
chain, as it gradually ran out of impetus and money. The book retailer has been struggling for months, with
Ingram as the chain's main supplier of books, and most publishers putting them
on stop. Borders had proposed that publishers receive interest-bearing notes
instead of payment but publishers, not surprisingly, were cool on that proposal.'
News Review on this week's bad news.
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'The big questions about creative writing courses still remain, although
there’s no doubt about their popularity, nor that the universities and colleges
see them as real money-spinners. There are now a huge number of writing courses
in America - no less that 1,000 - and, after a slower start, about 100
postgraduate courses in the UK catering for the creative writing student.' News Review asks whether creative writing courses are worth it.
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'In the light of everything else going on in Egypt,
it’s perhaps a small thing that the Cairo International Book Fair was cancelled
a few days ago. China was to be the guest of honour and its large delegation of
it 248 publishers and 10,000 books was withdrawn at the last minute. President
Mubarak, now with other things on his mind, was to have opened the Fair.' News Review on events in Cairo.
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'Amazon has just announced that ebooks for its Kindle are now outselling
paperbacks... For bricks and mortar booksellers, the news from Amazon was almost
totally bad. The rapid increase in ebook sales as the Kindle gains market share
is due to the ease with which people can download ebooks on to their devices. In
the US a large proportion of paperback buyers are opting for ebooks instead. But
it also shows that Amazon are getting a much bigger proportion of the e-book
market than they have of the paperback market.' News Review reports.
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'The balance of power has permanently, irreversibly
shifted from the media companies to the tech firms.
Let's imagine some bolder moves from the publishing
industry. Perhaps multiple publishers could band together in opposition,
starving the App Store of content until better terms can be negotiated. Or maybe
they could seek to challenge Apple on antitrust grounds. Either might prove
effective in leading to slightly better terms for publishers.' Pete Cashmore
founder and CEO of Mashable
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'With a biographical novel you've got the basic
structure of the life, you've got a mass of facts. The problem is to find a
novel-shaped story to tell, there's no point telling the biographical story,
it's been done… David Lodge, author of A Man of Parts on H G Wells,
in the Bookseller.
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'When I see films made
from books, I make a huge effort not to remember the book. It's important to see
the film as a film. Of course, it's easier with an old book. If it's Wuthering
Heights or something, it's like going to the theatre and seeing another version;
it might as well be Chekhov. This book (Never Let Me Go) came out in
2006, so it's harder to do that. But it's a movie. Every discussion shouldn't be
dominated by comparison with the novel... Kazuo Ishiguro, the film of whose
book Never Let Me Go has just been released, in the Evening
Standard.
-
'The fact of the
matter is that author events will take over your life if you let them. Being
invited to Edinburgh these days is like entering the royal enclosure at Ascot.
If you haven't sat sipping whisky in that yurt, you haven't arrived - and it's
not just other pen-pushers that you'll meet. Politicians, sportsmen,
celebrities... they don't need to have written or even ghost-written a book.
Talking about books seems to be a bigger business than reading them...'
Anthony Horowitz in the Bookseller.
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‘Publishers are
relevant. We have practical expertise and, of course, money. We give our authors
advances which enable them to concentrate on their work in hand… My idea of hell
is a website with 80,000 self-published works on it – some of which might be
jewels, but, frankly, who's got the time? What people want is selection and
frankly that's what we do.' Gail Rebuck, CEO of Random House UK, in the Guardian.
'The Iliad is only great
because all life is a battle, the Odyssey because all life is a journey,
the Book of Job because all life is a riddle.'
G K Chesterton
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The Creative Process
'We came close to inventing a quantum theory of
creativity during a poetry reading by Professor Philip Gross of Glamorgan
University at Kellogg College, Oxford.
Rather like Schrodinger’s cat, the debate that
followed suggested how the creative process was changed, if not actually killed
off, when it is examined. Does the keeping of notebooks, for example, change the
quality of the creative impulse that the words try to capture?'
Applying
text style
In this useful article, Chas Jones shows you how to
apply text style to your manuscript. All word processors offer you the chance to
apply a layout style to sections of the text. When preparing your manuscript for
submission or for the printer, this is how to go about it.
John Jenkins' February column
In this month's column John Jenkins deals with the
all-important subject of creating characters. How good are you are
creating characters? John shows you how to go about this.
The 2011
T S Eliot Prize
The winner of this year's Prize has just been
announced. It's been a fantastic shortlist and the Readings in the Royal
Festival Hall were a glittering success, attracting an audience twice as big as
last year's event.
International Book Fairs 2011
Bang up to date, our list of the key international
books fairs for 2011. Some are growing in this competitive sector, some
have vanished, and others are still a bit vague, but here's the list as it
stands at present.
My e-book reader
Chas Jones relates his own experience with a new
e-book reader and looks at what's going on in the e-reader world.
What is bandwidth?
Chas Jones investigates: 'High bandwidth has been
likened to a multi-lane highway. This is a poor physical analogy because the
carrying capacity is increased by packing the digits nose to tail rather than
side by side but it will do.'
Great review of WritersServices
We're complimented by Stuart Aken's review of our site in his blog:
'It is the Resources pages that really make this site stand out from the
crowd. Here you’ll find reviews of books and software, listings of agents,
self-publishing facts, educational matters, health and safety advice, and
there’s a new feature, reviewing writing magazines. You’ll see there is a
great deal of information on this site. It’s well presented and easily
navigated, which is as well, considering the number of pages. It’s a site I
browse often and I think you’ll benefit from a good look at this one.'
Read more.
This month John looks at the eternally
fascinating question of rejection and how some successful writers have overcome
it.
He also quotes from our
Rotton Rejections page.
Writing Memoir and
Autobiography
Writing
Historical Fiction
Writing Romance
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy
Writing Crime Fiction
Writing non-fiction
Are you having difficulty deciding which service might be right for you?
This useful new article by Chris Holifield offers advice on what to go for,
depending on what stage you are at with your writing.
Our huge section on technology and the web, and how writers can make use of
them, takes you from beginner-level articles to advanced technology.
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Here's the shortlist for the 2010 Diagram Prize.
It looks like it's going to be another strong year.
My favourite competition of the year is run by columnist Horace Bent in the
Bookseller (the UK book trade weekly) with input from dedicated odd title
hunters from all over the world.
The prize, set up in association with the
Diagram Group, has been running since 1978 and is a joyous celebration of the
barmy side of publishing.
Publicising
your book
Gaining publicity is one of the biggest hurdles a new fiction or non-fiction
writer faces. After all, without it, no-one will even know your book exists.
Here, media agent Alison Smith-Squire offers some top tips…
Writing
Historical Fiction
Our revised article on Writing Historical
Fiction brings this subject up to date.
Other articles cover
Writing Crime Fiction,
Writing Science Fiction and
Fantasy, Writing Romance,
Writing Non-fiction
and
Writing Memoir and
Autobiography.
Inside Publishing
series
This extremely useful 19-part series is in the
midst of being revised to take account of changes in the publishing world. The
introduction, How the publishing business
works,
Advances and royalties,
The Relationship between agents and
publishers,
Subsidiary rights,
The English-speaking publishing
world and
The Marketing
department have all just been brought up-to-date.
This second week we're on to
The Frankfurt Book Fair,
the Sales Department,
the Production Department,
Pricing and
Distribution.
And the third week it's
Books clubs and
Direct selling. The fourth
covers Creative Commons.
Agents'
listings
Our agents'
listings have been compiled from agents' own websites and other
information they publish about what they're looking for. You can use
them to research which agents to submit to.
The listings cover UK and US agents,
with separate listings for children's agents in the UK, and
international agents from all over the world.
Improving your writing, Learning on the job, New
technology and the Internet,
Self-publishing - is it for you?,
Promoting your writing (and yourself), Other kinds of writing, Keep up to date
and Submission to
publishers and agents
Previous magazines:
August 2010
July 2010
Magazine index
Check out this page to find links to the huge number of useful articles on this site,
including Finding an Agent
and Making Submissions.
WritersPrintShop
If you're thinking
about self-publishing, this is the place to find out what's
involved. If you're ready to go ahead, our high quality service is second
to none and there's an economy version for those who want to
tackle some of the work themselves. You can
estimate
the cost for yourself.
Our book review section
Previous magazines:
January 2011
Magazine index
Our Editorial
Services for writers
Check out the 17 different editorial services we offer, from Reports to
Copy editing, Typing to Rewriting. |
