|
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Log of the weekly changes on the site on 2006
This week's changes 2001
2002 2003
2004 2005
2006 2007
2008 2009
Some of the links are broken when items are archived - Please check the
page address (url) and it should be fairly easy to find the original page
or section. The site search facility on each page is also a great way to
trace articles.
18 December 2006
 | Free 20 minute telephone coaching session with Julia McCutchen if
you register for any of the individual Coaching service packages by Friday 9
February 2007, as we relaunch our Coaching
service. |
| 'The competition amongst publishers for these big celebrity memoirs is
ferocious, meaning that they carry a high price tag.'
News Review investigates the celebrity
book market. |
| 'I like reading thrillers and I don't know why the literary world is
sometimes snobbish about them. Vikram Chandra, author of Sacred Games
in the Bookseller, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Our latest Writer's Opportunity is the
Beowulf Poetry Prize with a
£10,000 first prize, open to poets writing in English wherever they live. |
| Working on your manuscript over the holidays? Our
Help for Writers gives you access to
the mass of helpful information of the site. |
| Aldous Huxley in our Writers'
Quotes: 'That was the chief difference between literature and life. In
books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace people is high; in
reality, very low.' |
11 December 2006
 | Bob's on broadband at
last and making progress on his thriller too: 'Having good week on TV
thriller. Writing four or five pages a day on average... have
finally trained myself not to go back over scenes already written, but
just to keep going doggedly on.' In his
Journal. |
|
|
How does
email get from one place to the other? Are you baffled by email
error codes and wondering what SMTP actually stands for? Our latest
Writers Web
Watch article will fill you in. |
|
|
The Guardian First Book Award boosts short
stories with Chinese writer Yiyun Li’s
collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.
News Review reports. |
|
|
We'll be supporting
Oxfam's bookshops as a
Christmas charity this year. |
|
|
'But
please, if you're reading a book that's killing you, put it down and read
something else, just as you would reach for the remote if you weren't enjoying a
television programme. Nick Hornby in the Sunday Telegraph,
quoted in our
Comment
column. |
|
|
Are you planning to work on your book over the
holiday? Our article on
The web as a research tool can help.
Family Research provides useful
links for UK researchers and
Advanced searching offers high-level tips. |
|
|
'A woman must have money and a room of her own
if she is to write fiction.' Virginia Woolf, in our
Writers Quotes. |
4 December
| The changing face of
publishing -
the 4th in Tom Chalmers' series about what a publisher is looking for:
'Writers shouldn’t be deluded into thinking they can just write a good
thriller, send it around and they will get an offer to get it
published over lunch with an editor.' |
| A warning about 'participatory media', the short story and
freedom of speech from John Jenkins
of Writers' Forum: 'These organizations are intent on
filling their online sites and hard copy publications on the cheap.' |
| 'Academic
publishing may not look particularly sexy, but in a richer, better-educated
world it is no bad place to be.' Bookseller editorial, quoted
in our Comment column. |
| 'His Alfie’s Adventures series, which follow
the time-travelling adventures of seven-year-old Alfie and his dog, has already
sold 320,000 copies, largely due to a deal with Virgin Airlines.'
News Review looks at
successes in children's writing. |
| If you need a book to help with your writing, check out our
Review section. New ones include
Writing fantasy and science fiction and
The Right Way to Write, Publish
and Sell Your Book |
| 'Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and
the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers
can meet on terms of absolute intimacy.' Paul Auster, quoted in
our Writers' Quotes. |
27 November 2006
|
| Bob's RSI has receded and work
on his thriller is going well: 'Seem to have reached the stage where the plot
has its own momentum... Characters keep wanting to say things I don’t want
them to. They want to go off on tangents, like people in real life.' In
his Journal. |
|
| 'Covered in blood' - News Review
looks at O J Simpson's If I Did It and the media storm it caused. |
|
|
Where next for the web
- Web 2.0 is the next development for the
Internet, and then there's Web 3.0. So what does it all mean? |
|
| 'Books transported me to a place that was filled with endless
possibilities, and it was all so much better than whatever it was I was doing in
real life.' Jennifer Kaufman, quoted in our
Comment column. |
|
| Check out the
endorsements
from those who have used the site and our Services. |
|
| Spam has increased by 300% over the last 4 months. To protect yourself
from this pest, read our article on
Spam and find out
how to deal with it. |
|
| 'The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.'
Blaise Pascal, in our Writers'
Quotes. |
20 November 2006
|
|
Vanity publishing, the latest in the
Inside Publishing series on how to avoid being conned by the vanity
publishers. |
|
| There are 16 other articles, including
Subsidiary
rights and
Children's publishing | to help you
get the inside track.
 | The last week has seen the sales announced of Blackwell and Readers Digest
in an ongoing frenzy of company acquisitions.
News Review reports. |
|
| Check out our
Links, subdivided into 18
sections and with many new recommended sites. |
|
| 'I could not have written Equinox had it not
been for those 25 non-fiction titles that preceded it. ' Michael White in
Publishing News, quoted in our
Comment column. |
|
| Worried about online banking fraud after recent scary headlines?
Read our article
on Phishing and other online hoaxes to learn how to keep
yourself safe. |
|
| 'If a publisher declines your manuscript, remember it is merely the
decision of one fallible human being, and try another.' Sir Stanley Unwin,
in our Writers' Quotes. |
13 November 2006
| Bob on getting inspiration from
Holbein's portraits - suddenly replaced by the crushing pain of RSI: 'Partner
examines wrist, diagnoses repetitive strain injury and prescribes immobility
for at least a week.' In his
Journal. |
| News Review looks at audio,
which has: 'huge potential to grow its profile, reach new markets and
cross-fertilise print and digital publishing. The key is to treat audio as it
own medium rather than a lesser version of a book.’ The Bookseller |
|
T S Eliot Prize 2006 - this year's shortlist has just been announced and
there's also a new School Shadowing Scheme, the first for a major poetry
prize. |
|
'In 2006 the novelist has become a cross between a commercial traveller and
an itinerant preacher... in just over a generation the novel has gone public in the most
astounding way.' Robert McCrum, in the Observer, quoted in our
Comment column. |
|
Our latest Writing Opportunity
is the Open Short Story Competition, with a prize of £2,500. |
| Our editor Kay Gale has launched her own
website so
check it out if you're interested in homeopathy. |
| 'The more you say, the less people remember. the fewer the words, the
greater the profit.'
Francoois Fenelon, from our Writers'
Quotes. |
6 November 2006
| The third in our series From a publisher's desk deals with
The Writers' x-factor:'Think about what you offer that no one else does
and concentrate on developing this.'
|
| News Review reports on the latest agency scam involving Hill & Hill - a
curious case involving fantasy comments from publishers. |
| Writers' Forum Column
John Jenkins on Julian Barnes',
how authors choose titles and whether men can write romance:'Put it this way, are there any greater romances than Romeo and
Juliet, Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary?' |
| Quoted in our Comment column, John Makinson of Penguin:
'We are concerned about the messages that are being sent to consumers
about the value of books if we just price promote everything at the expense of
other forms of promotional activity…' |
| Check out our new audio
section, now updated. Record your
own work using the facilities built into your computer. Start now with
Preparing your story and
How to
start recording. |
| Our latest Writers' Opportunity
is the Poetry Writers' Yearbook own competition. Unlike the
WritersServices' one, this one calls
for writing a poem! |
| 'Once writing has become your major vice and greatest
pleasure only death can stop it.' Ernest Hemingway, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
30 October 2006
| Our new
competition spirits you into
the the world of poetry. Enter now and win a copy of the
brand-new Poetry Writers'
Yearbook. |
| A Creative Commons license has worked well for the Friday Project on Tom
Reynolds’ Blood, Sweat and Tea. The free download has led to
20,000 downloads but sales of nearly 30,000 copies.
News Review investigates. |
| Bob on not
reading books you're bored by and what's fashionable in writing:
'So, a few suggestions for today’s fashion-conscious novelist: going
up, bipolarity, going down, autism; going up, cricket, going down,
football; going up, grandmothers who do, going down...' In his
Journal. |
| 'Women need the grown-up fairy stories of romantic fiction in order to make
the random cruelty of everyday life more bearable.' Daisy Goodwin in our
Comment column in a Sunday Times
article about her TV series, Reader, I Married Him. |
| 'Of making many books there is no end; and much study is
a weariness of the flesh.' The Bible: Ecclesiastes - in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| Sign up for
our newsletter to keep up to date
with what's new at WritersServices. |
16 October 2006
| The new Poetry
Writers' Yearbook has just been published and is a must for
poets. |
| 'If Sobol manages to get the 50,000 entries that they reckon
will constitute the cut-off, the competition will earn $4,250,000'
News Review investigates the
Sobol Award. |
| What is
RSS? Our latest Writers Web Watch article explains this
'Push' technology which allows new web content
to be sent to you if you have expressed an interest. |
| 'Even experienced publishers sometimes throw
caution to the winds after being caught up in the excitement of a bidding war
conducted via frenzied conversations in a crowded hall.' Anne Louise Fisher,
London literary scout, quoted in our Comment
column. |
| Are you considering
self-publishing? Check out our
WritersPrintShop self-publishing service for writers, which uses
Print on demand to provide a
cost-effective quality service. We can
sell your book
online for you too. |
| 'Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty
bloodless substitute for life.' Robert Louis Stevenson, quoted in
our Writers' Quotes |
9 October 2006
|
|
Bob on Peter Pan
in Scarlet, 'sequelizing' and what help it might offer him:
'Then remind myself of vow made to myself few weeks ago: no getting
sidetracked by other projects until this TV thriller is done... Can’t
even finish off my own work, let alone someone else’s.' In his
Journal. |
|
|
News Review looks at
last week's Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest annual gathering of
publishers in the world. |
|
|
Deleting Data - the latest new article in our
Writers Web
Watch deals with deleting data from magnetic disks: 'At
the end of its useful life, or whenever you plan to pass a computer
on, it is vital to ‘scrub’ the data off the hard disk. This is a task
to be taken seriously.' |
|
| 'The more
critically successful a writer becomes, the more need there is for a strong
editor. To think otherwise risks artistic suicide.' Alan Garner,
author of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen in The Times,
quoted in our Comment
column. |
|
| Do you need help with your writing? Included in our
16 services for writers
are Copy editing
(including for American English) and
Manuscript Polishing, to
bring your English up to scratch for publication. |
|
| 'Unfortunately many young writers are more concerned with fame
than with their own work... It's much more important to write than to
be written about.' Gabriel Garcia Marquez in our
Writers' Quotes. |
|
| There's still time to enter for
The 2006 New Writer Prizes,
but you've only got only till the end of November. |
2 October 2006
|
The view from a publisher's desk is the second in a series of
articles by Tom Chalmers, MD of Legend Press, giving a publisher's
view of the submission process and what a publisher is looking for.
This month: Judging a book by its submission package. |
| As a teenager growing up in Brazil in the late seventies, Orlando Paes Filho dreamt up the idea of
Angus, now coming to fruition as
a seven-volume epic tale spanning twelve centuries of human history.
News Review investigates. |
| John Jenkins of Writers
Forum asks where are the new spy thriller writers and says the
success of authors like Marisha Pressl and Michael Cox show that
reading writers' books is not the only way: 'a good
instruction book can short circuit your improvement as a writer. But
really you teach yourself.' |
| 'Publishers need to make their sites more welcoming and
rewarding to those tiny percentages of readers who do visit.' Peter Collingridge in the Bookseller,
quoted in our Comment column. |
| We've got no less than three
Writing Opportunities for short story competitions this week, so
get writing! |
| Check out our 16 editorial services to help you get your work
ready for publication, from the
Editor's Report to
Copy editing
and from
Children's Reports to
Scriptwriting. |
| 'Literature is the art of writing something that will be read
twice.' Cyril Connolly, in our
Writers' Quotes |
25 September 2006
| Enter
our Competition to win a free pass to Screenwriting Expo 5! There's
still time to get to Los Angeles for Screenwriting Expo 5, the
world's biggest convention for screenwriters, so enter now! |
| Bob has lived
to write another day and ruminates on places, and how writers
have insulted them: 'And the lack of any confirmed descendants of
Shakespeare shouldn’t prevent the Stratford-on-Avon town council from
apologising on his behalf to Denmark for Hamlet, to Verona for Romeo
and Juliet, to Venice for Othello...' In his
Journal. |
| News Review on
Oxfam's new bookshop: 'For many people,
donating unwanted books to an international charity which will use them to raise
money is a good way of dealing with the stacks of books they are never going to
read again. Supporting Oxfam makes them feel good too.' |
| 'Whoever originally came up with the idea of putting writers in
front of readers must've been taking a real punt.' Graham Marks,
Children's editor of Publishing News in our
Comment column |
| We've updated our handy
glossary of publishing and printing terms, so if you
think 'body text' sounds a bit risque, want know what a 'run
on' is, or the meaning of the proof-readers' term 'stet',
this is where to look. |
| From the great Kurt Vonnegut: 'My relatives say that they are
glad I'm rich, but that they simply cannot read me.' Quoted in our
Writers' Quotes. |
18 September 2006
| Maureen Kincaid Speller reviews
The Art of Punctuation: 'He
invites writers to look at the way in which they construct sentences,
and to do so with minute attention... Lukeman has an extremely keen and
sensitive eye for sentence structure and a neat way of explaining
things.' |
| We've just put up a page of the
complimentary things people have said about the WritersServices, such as Megan's
comment: ‘I love visiting your web site each week for updates - there is just so much
fantastic information there.’ |
| 'One can argue critically from entrenched
positions with an open mind. One can compromise. One can agree, gracefully, to
go with majority opinion. So it was.’
John Sutherland on chairing last year's Man Booker, in our
Comment
column. |
| News Review looks at
The Long Tail, and what it means for books, as well as the way
that this trendy new title has been promoted on the web. |
| Check out our new audio section. This shows you how to record your
work using the facilities built into your computer. You can start with
Preparing your story and
How to
start recording. |
| 'Writing is just having a sheet of paper, a pen and not a shadow of an
idea of what you are going to say.' Francoise Sagan, quoted in our
Writers' Quotes. |
11 September 2006
| Bob thinks he's broken through
his writer's block, but then finds it's back again, and so is a sinister
threat to his health: 'Feel unconsciousness creep relentlessly over me like
a spreading black oil slick... But before slip irretrievably into coma,
resolve if ever recover from this, will change my life. Will write every day.
Will do a minimum number of words. Will set myself a timetable and stick to
it. Yes, I will…' From his Journal. |
| News Review looks at prospects
for the autumn in the book world and quotes from the Bookseller: ‘It is
publishers who have the most to fear this Christmas. With so many high
six-figure and seven-figure sums already gambled, expectations are perilously
over-inflated.' |
| The Editor of Writers' Forum
on Anthony Horowitz's success; Penguin's list of the top 100 classics and
the Crime Writers' Association's assertion that it does not benefit from
the Duncan Lawrie awards:
'No gain to the CWA? What’s the value of the publicity? You could probably
measure it in thousands of pounds... The £20,000 Duncan Lawrie dagger is
said to be the world’s biggest prize for crime fiction.' |
| From our Comment column: 'We have
reached a point where many big publishers source 95 per cent of their new
books from agents and many of those agents will no longer view unsolicited
work. When you have such a rich seam of new writing in this country, much of
it just a few clicks away on the internet, this is a travesty.' Scott
Pack, of Waterstone's, now with the Friday Project, in The Times |
| This week's Writing Opportunity
is the Children's Poetry Bookshelf National Write-A-Poem Competition for 7-11
year-olds, with free entry, so encourage all those young poets at home or
school to get writing! |
|
Bennett Cerf, co-founder of Random House, on writers:
'Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was stabbed by
a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a
woman's name out of a satire; then wrote a piece so that she could still be
recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do
you still want to be a writer - and if so, why?' From our
Writers' Quotes.
|
4 September 2006
|
| New on the site - the bang up-to-date 2007 Writers' and Artists'
Yearbook worldwide agency listings. Check out the
UK and Ireland,
US and
International agencies lists |
|
| Writers' and
Artists' Yearbook 2007 is the 100th edition of this extremely useful book,
which the Society of Authors calls 'A must for established and aspiring
writers.' |
|
|
Ian Rankin's Foreword to
the book shows how the bestselling crime writer used the book to help him
find a publisher: 'Getting into print requires nerve, stamina, luck,
stubbornness and talent. Even established authors can feel as though they’re
climbing a mountain. Think of the Writers and Artists’ Yearbook as your sherpa.' |
|
|
The view from a publisher's desk
is the first in a new series of articles by Tom Chalmers, MD of Legend
Press, giving a publisher's view of the submission process and what a
publisher is looking for. This month: What a publisher wants from
submissions and what a writer can do about it. |
|
| 'The Beijing International Book Fair... has provided a fascinating window on a booming book market... This vast
market is of particular interest to international publishers because of the
thirst to learn and read in English, and to adopt Western culture and patterns
of consumption.' News Review
investigates. |
|
|
'We tell ourselves stories in order to live' is
Joan Didion's take on why we write in our
Writers' Quotes. |
|
| Our latest
Writing opportunity
is the English Association's Fellows' Prize for a poem on the theme of
'Reading'. |
|
| 'After it became an international bestseller, I sat at my computer and saw nothing on the screen but the six
figures of the advance for my second book fading in and out with an eerie
whistle like the titles of a junk sc-fi TV series…' Celia Brayfield on the
second novel trap, in The Times, quoted in our
Comment column. |
21 August 2006
| 'It had become a bestseller thanks to direct, personal communication
with potential readers that has been made possible by the Internet.'
News Review looks at Anthony
Thornton's account of how he promoted his bestselling book online. |
| Bob finds his own writing being affected by his holiday reading, as
he lazes on a Sicilian beach: 'Unfortunately, halfway through the second paragraph, in the annoying
manner of works over which I pretend I have creative control, plot veers off
in entirely unexpected direction... With great effort of will, force myself
to concentrate on plot and character. Can always delete the abstract nouns
later.' In his Journal. |
| John Jenkins' Editor's View, from the Editor of
Writers'
Forum magazine:
'Day by day self-publishing improves. The books are
frequently indistinguishable from mainline publishers and the quality of the
writing, particularly when authors have had their work professionally
edited, has reached new standards...' |
| 'If you're going to get scared, you can't become a publisher... we have
to be as businesslike as larger publishers - it's just as important for
independents to make money.' Andrew Franklin, MD of Profile Books, in
The Bookseller, quoted in our Comment
column. |
| We are saddened this week to hear of the early death of Richard Craze,
the inspirational small independent UK publisher who set up White Ladder Press
five years ago. In 2003 we printed an
extract
from The White Ladder Diaries, by his widow Ros Jay, which sets out
the Golden Rules for starting a small business. |
| If you need to source photos for your book, check out
How
picture libraries work, our useful list of links to picture libraries,
many of which now provide an excellent online service. |
| 'All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their
motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle,
like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a
thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor
understand.' George Orwell, quoted in our
Writers' Quotes. |
7 August 2006
|
New this week is an excerpt from
Alison Baverstock's new title, Is there a
book in you? Many feel the desire to write very strongly.
Yet how do you know whether there is a book in you? The author explores
the key questions you should ask yourself. |
| ‘The language does belong to everybody, but the way things are
going, there will be just a small elite that’s been trained how to use it
effectively. That can’t be right. We’ll be back in the Middle Ages.’ Truss
tackles the comma in her new children's book, Why Commas Really Do Make a
Difference in this week's News Review. |
|
All computer devices on a network need a channel to allow them to communicate
with each other. But what about
computer ports, which are 'virtual' or software
assigned ports? Our new article explains how they work. |
|
'I think that the best books are often written within the pressures of
daily life. What is happening is that creative writing courses are
promulgating the idea that you have to be a professional writer, but that is not
true and it is increasingly hard to be…' Heather Holden Brown in Mslexia,
quoted in our Comment column. |
|
'Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather
and a little music out of doors, played by somebody I do not know.' John
Keats, in a letter to Fanny Keats, from our
Writers' Quotes. |
|
If you're using the summer to work on your manuscript,
don't forget there are 16 editorial services to help you get your work ready
for publication, from the Editor's Report
to Manuscript Polishing and from
Children's Reports to
Scriptwriting. |
|
The August Magazine is
here! |
31 July 2006
| Review of ScriptWriter magazine: 'So
if you’re serious about writing scripts and want a thoughtful magazine which
will help you achieve your goal - whilst providing food for thought and some
wide-ranging and interesting articles - this magazine could be the one for
you.' |
| Check out our other magazine
reviews to decide which one is right for you -
Writers' Forum,
Writer's Digest,
Writers' News and
Mslexia. |
| 'The facts are brutal: unless you produce the kind of assured bestsellers that
will encourage your publishers to pay for chain-store promotions, you have no
guaranteed sales... if an author wants his to find its readers, he has to go out
there and grab them.' Will Self in the Sunday Telegraph's Seven,
quoted in our Comment column. |
|
Preparing images for your book The latest addition to our
WritersPrintShop self-publishing service is an article on getting images of
all kinds ready for your book - useful for any author planning illustrations
for their work. |
| 'As affluence has increased readers’ ability to buy the books they
want to read, the libraries’ ageing stock has relegated them to a lower level of
use for readers, many of whom will only use a library if they have to.'
News Review
reports on the continuing decline in the libraries. |
| 'I suppose in the world of publication 40 million buyers cannot be wrong.'
From our Writers' Quotes, Mr Justice Peter Smith, comprehensively dismissing Baigent and Leigh's case that
Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code had infringed their copyright in The Holy Blood
and the Holy Grail. (The authors are now taking their case to the Court of
Appeal.)
|
24 July 2006
| Bob is pleased with Anthony
Horovitz's success, enjoys the new word foosh (an invented medical
term meaning to Fall On OutStretched Hand) and takes comfort from
Chekhov's view on happiness. In his
Journal. |
| 'After the dotcom boom and bust it was easy for the book trade to think it
could go back to business as usual. It has taken six years for the huge
potential of the Internet to become apparent to everyone – and to smash that
thinking to pieces.' News Review
looks at poor sales from the chains. |
|
Optimising the user experience - content is king. If a browser can’t
reach where or what they want within 30 seconds they will abandon that site
or search. Our new article looks at how to attract and hold on to visitors. |
| 'A novel has an energy of its own. In that sense, it is like
riding a horse. It talks back to you. It isn't always
transient. Sometimes, you wrestle with it.' Jane Smiley, author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Novel in the Observer,
quoted in our Comment column. |
| 'Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,, and some few
to be chewed and digested.' Francis Bacon in his Essays of 1625,
in our Writers Quotes. |
| Have you got a problem we could help you with? Why not write in
to our Problem page and we can publish
your answer online? |
| Feel like something to lift your spirits? Try the 2005
Diagram Prize for the Oddest
Title of the Year. |
17 July 2006
12 July 2006
|
Our latest survey investigated
your book-buying habits, and found that the author's name is the most
important factor influencing book purchase.
|
| Bob on writers' earnings from their writing and Hitchcock's cool
profit of $67,000 from a story he bought from Jack Trevor Story. He was later asked to sign over the rights in perpetuity and replied: '"I have no intention of maintaining Alfred Hitchcock in his old age."
Which is encouraging news for all of us innocents. Even writers can learn.'
In his Journal. |
| Emma Darwin is about to get published. But her first novel,
The Mathematics of Love isn’t actually the first she’s written, but
the seventh. News Review looks at her success and at how Macmillan's
New Writing list is giving writers a chance. |
| Which books to take on holiday? 'The ensuing challenge is one that
all book-lovers should light on with something approaching glee. You know
you want something good, something engrossing, something that will hold your
attention.
Alex Clark in the Observer, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| 'Write as often as possible, not with the idea at once of getting into print,
but as if you were learning an instrument.' J B Priestley, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| Confused by the difference between
copy editing and proof-reading? Or wondering about
American English copy editing? Our
Copy editing service can handle both. |
3 July 2006
| Read the last excerpt from Alexander Gordon Smith's stimulating
Inspired Creative Writing from the brisk and entertaining 52
Brilliant Ideas series is about learning to let go: 'As writers, we often
like to write for ourselves, but show me a writer who says they don’t ever
want to be published and I’ll show you a fibber.' |
| Celebrating Africa - News Review
reports on the highly successful inaugural Cape Town Book Fair and other
book-related initiatives and writers' news from the continent. |
| 'It's possible to punch above your size and weight and get the kind of
coverage much larger houses receive.' Philip Gwyn Jones of new UK publisher
Portabello on small publisher power, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Did you know that if somebody can record
the keys you are pressing, they can discover almost everything that you are
doing on the computer? Read our article on
Keylogging
to find out how to protect yourself. |
| John Jenkins on how books are promoted through the chains and how Catherine Cookson's life
translated into sales of 100 million books. 'Her life story far eclipsed
the gritty plots of her books.' The Editor's View
from the Editor of
Writers'
Forum magazine. |
| 'The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the
sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and
delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.' Somerset
Maugham, quoted in our Writers'
Quotes. |
| Podcasting is the word of the moment... Use our
new audio section
to record your work using the
facilities built into your computer. You can start with
Preparing your story and
How to
start recording. It's easier than you
think, so get recording! We'll provide a site for you to podcast your
work soon. |
| The July Magazine is ready! |
26 June 2006
| Selling adaptations of books
to the film industry - a report from the London Book Fair on how to make
the most out of selling film rights in your book and writing the script. |
| Bob on football
(inevitably) in literature and why he feels less driven: 'Maybe it’s a
rationalisation of the year-long writer’s block have been suffering, but
realise I no longer feel, well, driven... Remember reading once that
Colin Dexter worked every day at his ‘proper’ job, came home, wrote a page
of his current Morse, then went down the pub. Now, that sounds more like
it.' In his Journal. |
| ‘Multiplatform’ marketing, digital rights and print on demand change
the way authors' intellectual property can be exploited.
News Review investigates. |
| 'What is the X-factor that turns a book into a bestseller? They
don't just happen by chance... At
the centre of their efforts is the author, who nowadays has to put as much work
into selling themselves as they did into writing their book. ' Danuta
Kean in the Independent on Sunday in our
Comment column. |
| 'Every author's fairy godmother should provide him not only with a pen but
also with a blue pencil.' F L Lucas in Style, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| Are you considering
self-publishing?
Check out our WritersPrintShop
self-publishing service for writers, which uses
Print on demand to provide a
cost-effective quality service.
We can sell your book
online for you too. |
19 June 2006
|
|
'So, who says reading is dead? Surely all this is cause for great
optimism about the future of the book. In this age of TV celebrity and mass
communication through the Internet, authors are still heroes to a great many
people.' News Review investigates. |
|
|
'Sometimes I fear that some writers want to get published more than they
want to write. Being a successful writer is a long apprenticeship.' Julia Bell in Mslexia,
quoted in our Comment column. |
|
|
We all get too much email. All good email
programmes provide a tool to help you sort the incoming stream and filter your
spam. Five
steps to a quieter inbox. |
|
|
If you are in the mood to learn some new computing tricks,
see what your word
processor can deliver. |
|
|
'If you caricature friends in your first novel they will be upset, but
if you don't they will feel betrayed.' Mordecai Richler in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| | |
12 June 2006
| 'A good day for devil-worshippers, cabbalists, believers in the Da
Vinci code and other loonies... Bob on
Bertrand Russell and Lady Ottoline Morrell, the importance of names, the
remake of the Omen and the significance of 6/6/6. In his
Journal. |
| German publishers are taking Google to court. French publishers have
threatened legal action. But is Google winning the battle for hearts and
minds? News Review investigates. |
| Napster and other disasters - what publishing could learn from the
music business, a report from the London Book Fair -
Lessons from the Music Industry. |
| Plus A History of Music
Copying, from Edison's first recording of a human voice in 1877 to Napster
being forced to stop its activities in 2001. |
| 'The tensions between taste and commerce have perhaps never been more
stark than they are at present.' Peter Robinson of newly set up Robinson Literary Agency in Publishing News,
quoted in our Comment column. |
| Our latest Writers' opportunity
is the 2006 The New Writer magazine Prose and Poetry prizes, closing date not
till 30 November. |
| And from this year's Orange prizewinner ‘I have read everything on the shortlist and I know its quality is
incredible. Every writer has aspects of style I genuinely covet. They are
extraordinary women and extraordinary writers.’
Zadie Smith, author of On Beauty, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| Check out our great Links listings, with
18 sections from Writers' Online Services
to Software for writers. |
5 June 2006
| Who’s the daddy: character or plot? Like it or not, it’s your characters that drive your work. Getting
them right will make the difference between writing a masterpiece and an
episode of Days of Our Lives. The 5th
excerpt from Inspired Creative Writing. |
| Is this ‘a land grab in continental Europe based on the thinnest of legal and
business pretences’? News Review looks
at the Brits v American publishers on the question of Europe. |
|
'What do you call a gathering of romantic novelists? One like the
300 gathered at the Savoy Hotel for the annual presentation award for the
romantic novel of the year. A chapter. . .a folio. . .how about a volume?'
The Editor of Writers' Forum |
| 'Americans simply don't consider books (or culture generally) to be that newsworthy or debatable... Therefore, America seems like a place where you can only write a bestseller
or a flop - you're either on Oprah, or you're not.' American author Wesley
Stace in Publishing News, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| How to look after your books -
Repair of books covers coping with pests, materials and disaster
recovery. See also
Care
of books,
History of paper and
Properties of Paper |
| Writers' opportunities this
week include the Winchester Writers Conference and the first Screenwriters'
Conference, both in the UK. |
| 'Don't ever get to feeling important about yourself... an editor can only get
as much out of an author as the author has in him.'
Celebrated American editor Maxwell Perkins, speaking to editors, quoted in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| The June Magazine is ready. |
29 May 2006
| Chas Jones's latest article on
Books for the visually impaired explores the issue of what's
available, with many useful links. For self-publishers, it's easy to
make your book available in large print if you wish to do so. |
| 'Just when those in the book trade had resigned themselves to huge annual
growth in the numbers of books published, US figures have plummeted, although UK
numbers continue to soar. ' News
Review looks at an astonishing discrepancy. |
| Check out the latest article in
Writers' Web Watch, which shows you how you can use the facilities of
the
Google Desktop to get the latest news, weather, share prices, maps and
much more. |
| 'It is easy to understand the mindset of those who feel
uncomfortable with reading... But reading is generally looked on as a
pleasure even by those who avoid it - a pleasure to some but not for them.' Ruth Rendell, writing about her Quick Read The Thief in the Sunday
Telegraph, quoted in our Comment column. |
| The latest Writers'
opportunities are from the National Association of Writers in
Education, which has announced 81 residencies for writers which will
research and provide hard evidence for the effect of the work writers
do in schools; and from the Arvon Foundation, whose latest new
course is for performance poets. |
| Logan Pearsall Smith seemed to have the right idea when he said
'People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.' Find it in
our Writers' Quotes,
along with a great many other thought-provoking quotes from writers
down the ages. |
| Our Writers' Bookstall has over 200 titles, helpfully classified
and available from Amazon. So if you want a book to help you write your
SF novel,
or finish your
screenplay, this is the place to look. |
22 May
|
|
Bob ponders on names and
where authors get them from, looks at TV reviews and applies a literary
quiz to himself: 'Most overrated writer? Anyone who got a six-figure
advance for their first novel in the last twenty years.’ In his
Journal. |
|
| 'The allegation of large-scale plagiarism has raised its ugly head in a
too-good-to-be-true story of a young writer who appeared to be writing well
rather too well for her age. ' News Review
reports on Kaavya Viswanathan. |
|
|
Care
of books -the third part of our series on looking after your books
shows you how to store, handle and shelve them. It joins parts one and
two,
History of paper and
Properties of Paper |
|
| 'Trips to the library with my mother are, in my memory, even
more thrilling than trips to the sweet shop, and when I got my eldest
daughter a library card I felt as though I had bought her citizenship of that
same fabulous world.’ J K Rowling, in support of the innovative
Love Libraries scheme. In our
Comment column. |
|
|
Free Verse - why have so few
new Black and Asian poets been published in the UK in the past 10 years
and why is poetry publishing so far behind the amazingly diverse world of
fiction? A new report investigates. |
|
|
What poets can do to develop
their writing Helpful advice for all poets from the Free Verse report,
suggesting how to work towards publication. |
|
| 'All books are either dreams or swords. You can cut, or you can drug,
with words.'
Amy Lowell, in our Writers' Quotes. |
|
| Check out our reviews of
software for writers, which include
newnovelist,
Writer's Blocks and a page of
Scriptwriting Software. |
15 May 2006
| Our new page on Your
submission package shows you how to put your material together and
what to submit. It's essential reading to make sure you give your
work its best chance. Our
Submission Critique
service can also help with getting it into good shape. |
| News Review investigates
audio downloads. 'The audiobook market is set to jump into the new world of downloadable
sound to meet the demands of the iPod generation... ‘many
people who wouldn’t have previously considered buying an audiobook as a CD or
tape said they would be interested in downloading one.’ Paul Smithson of
Spoken Network. |
| Check out our new audio site, which shows how to record your own work. Here's how to
get started. |
| If you don't know the meaning of 'fair use' or 'the public domain,
or even how copyright copes with the digital world, our
Copyright briefing gives you a quick update. |
| Comment on ghostwriting: 'It's not our job to be objective and even-handed. We're there to be
passionately subjective, fighting as hard to put across our clients' stories as
any barrister in any courtroom.' Andrew Croft, ghostwriter-extraordinaire,
in the Sunday Telegraph |
| New Writing Ventures'
Prizes' closing date is on 31 May, so act now if you want to enter and
are an English writer who has not yet published a full-length work. |
| 'A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write
fiction.' Virginia Woolf in A Room of One's Own, in our
Writers' Quotes. |
8 May 2006
| We're launching our
new audio section
this weekend. This shows you how to record your work using the
facilities built into your computer. You can start with
Preparing your story and
How to
start recording. It's easier than you
think, so get recording! We'll provide a site for you to podcast your
work soon. |
| Bob decides to work on a conspiracy thriller like
The Da Vinci Code,
but his writers' group is not impressed. It 'may not be entirely original, but it has a beginning, middle and end and
includes all the requisite steps of The Hero’s Journey. How can it fail?’ In
his Journal. |
| News Review looks at the
book fair wars, with the surprise announcement this week that the
Frankfurt Book Fair is setting up a direct competitor to the London Book
Fair in its new home in London’s Docklands. |
| 'The law is therefore as everyone thought it was. Unless you copy
the means of expression of facts and ideas, you do not breach copyright.'
David Hooper in Publishing News , commenting on the outcome of the Da
Vinci Code case, quoted in our Comment
column. |
| I can't think of any one film that improved on a good novel, but I
can think of many good films that came from very bad novels.' Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
in our Writers' Quotes. |
| Sign up for our weekly newsletter
to keep up-to-date with what's new at WritersServices! |
1 May 2006
| The 4th excerpt from Inspired Creative Writing is about
style and learning to write naturally, developing your own style
rather than trying to copy other people's: 'The style you choose
to write in can say an awful lot about you. Don’t be shy and don’t be
false, just act natural: like your sense of dress, your writing style
should be personal and unique to you.' |
| News Review looks at the
latest twist in the Ottakars/Waterstone's saga and the heartening view of
the latest bidders for Waterstone's that: 'Our offer reflects our
optimism about books... book sales are going up each year by 5%…
Books are still a big deal in the public imagination.' |
|
Properties of Paper Did you know that a book has to adapt to its
environment and in the process can change shape? The second part in our
series about Looking after your books looks at what paper consists of.
See also part one,
A brief
history of paper |
| 'A publisher's job is to add value to the work they are about to
bring into the world. An existing brand or franchise requires a great
deal less risk and effort than an unknown author or a difficult subject.'
Anthony Cheetham in the Bookseller, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| John Jenkins of Writers'
Forum on the banning of smoking, students' problems with the use of
English and Bloomsbury's huge Harry Potter profits: 'The
seventh and final book in the series is being written by J K now but the
backlist, paperbacks and franchises will keep the bandwagon rolling...
Wasn’t Bloomsbury the company which had so much faith in Potter that the
first print run was only 500? ' |
| 'When you start, the world of publishing seems like a great
cathedral citadel of talent, resisting attempts to let you inside.
It isn't like that at all. It may be more difficult now, and take
longer than when I started to write, but there's a great, empty warehouse
out there looking for simple talent.' Alan Garner, writing in
1987, quoted in our Writers' Quotes. |
| The May Magazine is ready! |
24 April 2006
| Bob on the use of parentheses,
those convenient but tricky little things: 'Discover in passing that one use of
parenthesis is similar to a way in which teenage girls use ‘like’...'
In his Journal. |
| Are they 'killing literature' in Australia, or is the decline in
the number of literary novels published just another
instance of the effects of globalisation? News
Review investigates. |
| The latest in our series on using MS Word shows you how to add
Headers and
Footers, an essential task for numbering your manuscript pages. Other
articles show you how to use
Auto-correct
and how to Make
an index. |
| 'Writing is a discipline, much like playing a musical instrument; it requires
constant practice and honing of skills. For this reason, I write seven
days a week.' Dan Brown, in the Bookseller, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| ‘The blog is certainly another tool for writers out there to break their
way in. But being a blogger does not make you a great writer.' Julie Powell, who has just won the Blooker, our
Writers' Quotes. |
| Our latest Writers'
Opportunity is to submit a 9,000 to12,000 word story for a new
anthology to be published by Legend Press. |
| Interested in publishing your own work? Our fictionalised stories
give an insight into how this works. Check out
Annie's cake book and
David and Rebecca's family history. |
10 April 2006
| Bob on buying, rather than
borrowing, books and whether it would be worth adopting a pseudonym: 'The main
problem with choosing a name that hints at a writer who is not only more
famous but also more skilled is that it reminds one’s readers how much less of
a writer one is in comparison.' In his
Journal. |
| A
brief history of paper is the first in our new series about Looking
after your books. Did you know that paper was invented by the Chinese in
2,400 BCE or that rag-based papers are much superior to those made from
wood-pulp? |
| UK book sales grow by 8%, with a boom in children's sales, and the
supermarkets' and online share of the total soaring.
News Review looks at the latest
Books and the Consumer study. |
| 'What constitutes a snippet? We might begin by stipulating that no
snippet shall be as large as a full witticism.' Roy Blount Jr, humorist, the new president of the Authors Guild of America,
on how to handle Google. Quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Do you know how many commons forms of fraud there are? How does
email fraud work and how can you protect yourself against identity theft? To
save yourself from the fraudsters, read Michael Challiner's article on
Fraud. |
| ‘Poets will never be the highest-paid writers in the world. Instead,
poetry will go on cutting a hand-made path through the mass-market insanity.
For me, anyway, that path is the one that leads to the Chapel of the Grail.’ Jeanette
Winterson, quoted in our Writers'
Quotes. |
| Are you worried about
Repetitive Strain
Injury or
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome? Our seven-part
Health Hazards
series look at the particular problems which can affect writers. |
3 April 2006
| Our reviewer felt that Patricia Fry's
The Right Way to Write, Sell and Publish Your Book
is useful for all writers: 'What
makes this 300 page book worth reading is that it is approachable. Most writers already know what they have to do, but Patricia Fry
makes it easy to own up to the parts of the business of being a writer
you tend to ignore and what to do about it.' |
| 'People
everywhere love stories and want to hear about hopes, dreams, disappointments,
misunderstandings, rewards, loss - the human lot.' Maeve Binchy on why she is part of Quick Reads, in The Times,
quoted in our Comment column. |
| The 3rd excerpt from Inspired Creative Writing from the 52 Brilliant Ideas series is
about learning to
see the world in a new light, taking in all the detail: 'Look at things you wouldn’t normally look at and see them in a
new light... It may be a cliché, but there is a story
behind everything. Your job as a writer is to look for the detail that brings
that story to light. ' |
| News Review on the Bologna
Book Fair:'The focus at the world’s biggest children’s book fair has shifted from
co-editions to fiction and film deals, with film scouts much in evidence.'
|
|
Writers' Forum Column
John Jenkins on the Orange Prize longlist, whether crime or
romance sells best, and the centenary of one our of our best-loved poet
laureates, John Betjeman:'As a poet he never took himself too seriously but his satire had the
sharpness of Swift. The dagger was concealed beneath calculated fogeyish
charm.' |
| 'There is no measure or limit to this fever for writing; every
one must be an author; some out of vanity to acquire celebrity and raise
up a name, others for the sake of lucre and gain.' Martin Luther
showing that nothing changes in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| Check out over 25 reviews on
books for writers and our substantial
software review section. |
27 March 2006
| Masterclasses at the London Book Fair: Writing for children Excellent
advice from Philip Ardagh, Meg Rosoff, Siobhan Dowd and Geraldine McAughrean,
who said: ‘Don’t write about what you know about, write about what you
don’t know about, taking children to a place they’ve never been to
before’. |
| Bob on 'picking and mixing our
own programmes off the internet', his writer's block and ghost-writing:
'What is it about writing that makes celebrities such liars? Probably because
no one wants to admit they can’t do it. Everyone can write. How
difficult can it be to knock off a book?' In his
Journal. |
| ‘The heart says Olympia, the head says ExCel.’ The Bookseller.
News Review looks at book fairs in
general and the debate surrounding the new Docklands venue for the London Book
Fair. |
| 'Books
have to be a product infused with permanency. We've got to get back to the
experiential side, where it's not the throwaway supermarket item you don't
really care about but something you have a deep connection to.' Rick
Vanzura of Borders in Publishing News, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| If you're a fiction or creative non-fiction writer, or a poet, check
out our latest Writers' Opportunity, the New Ventures Writing Prize, which is the only literary prize
that significantly recognises unpublished writers with both cash prizes and
individually tailored career opportunities. |
| 'I am taxed with being a plagiarist, when I am least conscious of being
one; but I am not very scrupulous, I own, when I have a good idea, how I came
into possession of it.' Lord Byron, quoted in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| If you're fed up with having your manuscript sent back to you,
cheer yourself up with our Rotten Rejections
page, which shows that it happened to John le Carre, George Orwell and Stephen
King as well... |
20 March 2006
| We report on The Fiction
Masterclass at the London Book Fair featuring Sara Paretsky, Margaret
Atwood (‘My feeling is, do whatever you like, then worry afterwards about
what you’re going to do with it.’) and Joanna Trollope (‘I do
set myself so many words a week… a few thousand…') |
| 'Many writers may not realise how very profoundly print on demand
technology is changing the publishing world... As it gets harder to find a
publisher, more and more authors are deciding to try publishing their own
work. News Review looks at POD
and self-publishing. |
| Check out the winner of the
2006 Diagram Prize for the Oddest title of the Year, which had hot
competition from a barmy shortlist... |
| ' Read, read, read. Then find a
story that moves you and write it from the heart, for yourself - not for
some imaginary reader. Never think there is a formula - there isn't. Nicholas Evans, bestselling author of The Horse Whisperer and The
Divide, in Writers' Forum, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Our poster collection offers some
good printable posters, including
Writers on Writing and
Getting it wrong. If you're in more serious mode, check out our Health
Hazards series to avoid the health problems writers are prone to. |
| 'A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought
without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off
in your face.... It is one of the few havens remaining where [your] mind can
get both provocation and privacy.' Edward P. Morgan in our
Writers' Quotes. |
13 March 2006
| Our first report from the London Book Fair Masterclasses is on
Screenwriting. Share
insights from Deborah Moggach, Tim Firth, Amy Johnson and Christopher Hampton
if you're tackling this challenging genre. |
| Bob on his writing group,
TV soaps, Dan Brown and his own TV script: 'Is it just me, or is all TV
gradually turning into soap opera? Even non-drama is turning into soap opera –
Just the Two of Us, The X Factor, Fame Academy, Girl Cops, any
programme fronted by Professor Winston...’ From his
Journal. |
| Willie Anderson of bookseller John Smith:
'Central buying sends out several messages, some of them may even be
unintentional: One: this is what you are going
to sell whether you like it or not. Two: we don't trust you in your shop
to know what you should be selling. Three: we know your local
market better than you do...' Reprinted from Publishing News
in our Comment column. |
| News Review reports on a
discussion of 21st century issues at the London Book Fair: 'The book chains are caught in a pincer
movement, with Amazon at one end of the spectrum, offering range, and catering
for heavy book-buyers who know what they want. The supermarkets are grabbing
market share at the other end.' |
| There's an insight into A
Writer's Life in the Ukraine from Farida Mestek, whose
novel is
excerpted in our free Writers' Showcase. |
| Can you be remarkable in 50 words? Simply write 50 words on something
that is remarkable about your everyday life to get your story published in the
second of Legend Press’ short story series. See
Writers' Opportunities 11.
|
| 'When people, women included, hear that you are writing, they assume
that it is simply a hobby to fill in the time between doing the washing-up and
the ironing. It couldn't possibly be a profession.' Rachel Billington,
quoted in our Writers' Quotes. |
6 March 2006
| We're delighted to say that our visitor figures have soared to 45,000 a
week and are currently growing a massive 4% a week. |
| The 2nd excerpt from
Alexander Gordon Smith's stimulating Inspired Creative Writing
is on getting started: 'Without an inspirational seed
for your novel, screenplay or poem you are like a knight in armour with no
monster to slay and no sweetheart to rescue.' |
| Copyright infringement or 'drawing on history?
News Review has another look at the
case involving Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, now before the High Court. |
|
Your comments
from our survey on self-publishing - Some fascinating quotes expressing
both your hostility to self-publishing and your enthusiasm for it. |
|
'The hardcover imprints work as signposts for people within the world of publishing - they direct authors and agents as to who is buying what and where a book will
fit.' Juliet Annan of Penguin on her start-up imprint Fig Tree in the
Daily Telegraph, in our Comment
column. |
|
Check out our 16 different
Editorial
Services, which go all the way from
Reports to
Submission Critiques,
services for Children's Writing, Scriptwriting Assessment,
Copy editing and
Coaching. |
| Writers' Forum
Column John Jenkins on the great Daphne du Maurier, recommended reading
lists for children from Andrew Motion, Philip Pullman and J K Rowling, and
A Night at The Majestic: 'Can you imagine what it would have been like to
be at a dinner party attended by Joyce, Proust, Diaghilev, Stravinsky and
Picasso?' |
| 'Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only
death can stop it.' Ernest Hemingway, in our
Writers' Quotes.
|
27 February 2006
| Bob on writing groups,
golden ages and men-only book groups: 'Over past week have discovered
something about myself: find it almost impossible to write if I know I’m not
going to be paid for it... In a month or so shall have been writing this
diary for five years. Unfortunately have also been writing my TV
thriller for nearly two.' In his Journal. |
| 'Thursday 2 March is the ninth annual World Book Day... the headlines are going to be grabbed by the wonderful Quick Reads
programme, which is a well coordinated campaign to get more people reading.'
News Review looks at a
ground-breaking world Book Day. |
| The
shortlist for the 2005 Diagram Prize Check out the completely barmy best
entries for the craziest book titles of the year, from the Bookseller.
|
| 'I write biographies because I am fascinated by people – by their
infinite resourcefulness, by their mystery and power, by the strange patterns
their lives make – and because they give me better plots than any novel I
could invent.' Hilary Spurling, winner of the Whitbread Prize for Matisse the Master,
in Writers’ Forum,
quoted in our Comment column. |
| 'Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy,
there is still a part of me that says, 'God, this is fascinating!' Jane
Smiley, quoted in our Writers' Quotes. |
| Impressed by the success of self-published writers? If you're
Just thinking about it,
we have a whole section on self-publishing in our
WritersPrintshop, so you can read up on it and work out for yourself
how much it costs and what's involved. |
20 February 2006
|
Our new
Review
of Writing fantasy and science fiction 'an excellent guide for
anyone interested in writing and publishing science fiction and fantasy. Lisa
Tuttle knows the genres and the industry incredibly well and draws on her own
wealth of experience to provide exactly the right kind of information and
advice for the budding writer.' |
| Have you ever wondered what a PDF file is - and how you can get it to
read to you? Chas Jones explains the software.
About Adobe
Acrobat. |
| 'Does the recently-announced Sony Reader finally herald the breakthrough on
the e-book technology front many have been anticipating?'
News Review asks whether
publishers are ready to meet the challenge. |
| Check out our Coaching Service,
which offers you the opportunity to develop your writing with the benefit of
individual feedback, personal guidance and practical advice. If you're wondering exactly what coaching is, Julia McCutchen's article,
How coaching can
help writers, shows you how individual coaching can help a writer to access
their true writer’s voice and have a deeply
rewarding experience of writing. |
| ‘If you write something that you know well, from the heart and your
soul, it will live, somehow. It may not live in your lifetime, but it will
survive.' Mel Brooks, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| There's still time to book on the
London
Book Fair Masterclasses on Saturday 4th March at ExCel, the Fair’s new venue in Docklands. Led by top authors, the London Book Fair/Daily
Mail Masterclasses are running again this year in conjunction with The Arvon
Foundation. |
| 'I simply don't know how anyone can write at great speed, and only for
the money's sake.' Feodor Dostoevsky, in our
Writers' Quotes
|
13 February 2006
| Check out the results of our
latest survey on your attitudes to the future of self-publishing -
two-thirds of the respondents would consider it. |
| In a lightning swoop which was kept remarkably secret from all but a
handful of people, the French publishing giant Hachette Livre has now acquired
Time-Warner Publishing, with implications for its companies in the UK, US and
Australia. News Review looks at the
latest news. |
| Bob on predicting bestsellers
and the golden age of film. Is this a golden age for writers too? 'An
American academic has developed a software program which can predict a
bestseller merely from its title. Having known quite a few programmers in my
time, somehow doubt this.' In his
Journal. |
| 'When I came into publishing in the 1980s, it was a world in which
publishers pushed
books through the marketplace; it is now a world in which retailers pull
books through.' Derek Johns, outgoing President of the Association of
Authors' Agents, in a speech reprinted in Publishing News, in our
Comment column. |
| Calling all aspiring biographers, our latest writing opportunity is
this year's Biographers' Club
Prize. You have until August to enter. |
| Asked if editors were no more than failed writers: 'Perhaps - but so
are most writers.' T S Eliot in our
Writers' Quotes. |
6 February 2006
| Starting this week, our new serial
from Inspired Creative Writing by
Alexander Gordon Smith. Over the next few months we'll be offering
excerpts from this stimulating book, part of the brisk and entertaining 52
Brilliant Ideas series. This month, the Introduction and Limbering Up. |
| Our new survey investigates your book-buying habits to find out how we
approach the acquiring of books. |
| 'Across the English-speaking world, the fate of bookselling chains is
inextricably bound up with that of authors, although the Internet is now
offering a real alternative in terms of reaching the market.'
News Review looks at the latest news
in the Wottakar's battle. |
| John Jenkins on why Agatha Christie grips her readers, Maya
Angelou's wonderful autobiography and the judging of literary prizes.
The Editor's View, from the Editor of
Writers'
Forum magazine. |
| ‘You have to be able to edit your own work. Write every day even if
it’s rubbish, because it’s always better to have something to work on than to
have nothing. Sara Waters, whose new book The Night Watch is just
out, in Writers’ Forum, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Interested in historical fiction? Our latest
Writers' Opportunity is the Writing Historical Fiction weekend in Lincoln, 24-26 March. |
| 'As regards plot I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to
have no plots. And as I think a plot desirable and almost necessary, I have
this extra grudge against life.' Ivy
Compton-Burnett in our Writers' Quotes. |
| And the February Magazine is ready! |
30 January 2006
| Bob on EastEnders,
e-books and writing whilst drunk: 'Despite having been crossed off the list
over six months ago, still am asked what’s going to happen to Sharon and
Phil...' (but) 'They don’t want to hear that the exciting world on which they
eavesdrop every other day is actually a fiction invented by people like me.'
In his Journal, now entering its
fifth year. |
| Review of Whitesmoke
software: 'So, if you are looking for a tool to
improve your productivity writing business emails and short letters,
Whitesmoke has a great deal to offer.' |
| News Review reports on UK authors, agents and publishers working
together on digitisation. ‘We’re going to have
to change our perceptions of time and timeliness if we are to succeed in helping
our authors reach out to readers electronically as well as in print – and the
authors will need to work with us to achieve this.’ Richard Charkin in his
blog. |
| ‘It's been a hard slog... You can have a bestseller after a year or
50 years - but by then it's too late.' Pete Ayrton of Serpent's Tail on setting up a small publishing house, in the
Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column. |
| If you're studying or teaching creative writing, check out our
Educational Resource section, which offers
nearly 80 downloadable pages of information. |
| 'If a publisher declines your manuscript, remember it is merely the
decision of one fallible human being, and try another.'
Sir Stanley Unwin, quoted in our
Writers' Quotes |
23 January 2006
|
Readability scores Chas Jones looks at the various ways of measuring
readability, an important consideration for any writer, and shows how MS Word
can help. |
| News Review has taken the
unusual step of reporting on the same story two weeks running because it
appears that the general conclusion we reached last week was wrong, but
concludes by asking: 'What price truth over celebrity?' |
|
London
Book Fair Masterclasses Led by top authors, the London Book Fair/Daily
Mail Masterclasses are running again this year in conjunction with The Arvon
Foundation. The LBF is much earlier this year, so the Masterclasses are on
Saturday 4th March at ExCel, the Fair’s new venue in Docklands. |
| ‘I think book retailing passed a tipping point this Christmas, from
‘competitive’ to ‘ludicrous’ pricing. That tipping point was when bestsellers
were sold at less than half price. Nigel Jones of Ottakar’s
in Publishing News, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| Check out our 16 different Editorial
Services, which go all the way from
Reports to
Rewriting and include
Submission Critiques,
services for Children's Writing, Scriptwriting Assessment,
Copy editing and
Coaching. |
| 'There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there
have been no societies that did not tell stories.'
Ursula K Le Guin, quoted in our Writers'
Quotes. |
16 January 2006
9 January 2006
|
American copy editing Divided by a common language -
American copy editing versus English. Chris Holifield looks at the needs of
American and British writers, and also considers what kind of copy editing you
might want if you are writing in English but it is not your native language. |
| Bob reflects in his
Journal on the philosophy of
language, celebrity authors and work on his current script: 'Wake with idea
for brilliant new opening scene for TV thriller. Before breakfast tap bare
bones into script... How is it that the more I work on this script, the
further away I seem from finishing it? Now that is a paradox.' |
| 'The profession of letters is, after all, the only one in which one can
make no money without being ridiculous.' Jules Renard, quoted in our
Writers' Quotes. |
| 'The trial of the distinguished Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk has raised
fundamental issues relating to writers’ freedom of speech in a frightening
instance of nationalism run riot and embodied in law.'
News Review investigates. |
| In our WritersPrintShop you can find
the complete rundown on self-publishing. Find out all you need to know from
What is Self-publishing? to
Your copyright, from
Working out an estimate to
How to market your book, and from
How long will it take? to
How much will it cost? |
| If you're Just thinking about it,
here are some further pages on self-publishing. |
| 'Stories go back as far as humankind, for the good reason that the
world is incomprehensible without them. By establishing relationships
between things, a story permits meaning and memory.' Simon Caulkin,
writing in the Observer, quoted in our
Comment column. |
2 January 2006
| News Review looks at 2005 and the
prospects for 2006: 'in the UK this will by then (2020) give us more authors
than nurses, soldiers and miners combined. For writers the future really is
going to look very different from the past.' |
| We have revised our list of
International Book Fairs for 2006. check it out to see if there's one
you can get to, as it's a good time to see the publishing world in action. |
| ‘If you want to write you have to put in the hours. There’s no short cut…
It never ceases to amaze me how many writers insist on writing stuff they don’t
have a hope in hell of getting published.' Carole Matthews, author of
The Sweetest Taboo, in Writers’ Forum, quoted in our
Comment column. |
| 'From the moment I picked it up, until the moment I laid it down, I was
convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.'
Groucho Marx in our Writers' Quotes. |
| Are you thinking of taking out a subscription to a writers' magazine?
Check out our reviews of Writers'
Forum, Writers' Digest, Writers News and Mslexia to find the right
one for you. |
| Our new Magazine is ready! Happy
New Year to all our visitors. |
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