12 February 2024 - What's new
12 February 2024
- ‘I didn't set out to write a novel about the future. Most of my novels have been set in the past, which for me is the space of the greatest mystery and enlightenment. The future, if I thought about it, seemed by contrast thin and predictable. We know that people will be hotter, more opinionated and less well-informed; but in 30 years' time, I thought, they're also likely to still be preoccupied by money, sex and how their football team is getting on. So my new novel, The Seventh Son, didn't start out as "future-fi" or "near-fi", let alone as sci-fi. But the future crept up on me as I wrote, in terms intriguing, and sometimes more comic, than I'd imagined...' Sebastian Faulks, author of his new book The Seventh Sun, Birdsong, Charlotte Gray and 17 other novels and anthologies, in the Sunday Times.
- 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' revised version of the Writersservices Self-publishing Guide 4 is new on the site and shows you how to move on to ebooks: Formatting for Kindle: 'Last time we looked at KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) and how self-publishing authors can upload their books to Amazon directly. Now we're going to focus on one key thing: formatting your ebook for Kindle. Once your book has been edited and proofread, it's time to create an ebook. Remember, ebooks have fluid, or ‘reflowable' text, which means there are no fixed pages and the reader - using the e-reading device of their choice - can change things like font size, orientation and line spacing...'
- The BBC National Short Story Award 2024 closes on 18 March. This big award is open to British nationals and UK residents, aged 18 years or over. There is no entry fee. The winner gets £15,000 and 4 shortlisted authors are awarded £600. There's also considerable publicity.
- If you're looking for a report on your manuscript, how do you work out which one of our three reports would suit you best? Which Report? includes our latest top-of-the range service, the Editor's Report Plus, introduced by popular demand to provide even more detail. This very substantial report takes the form of a chapter-by-chapter breakdown and many writers have found that this detail helps them to get their book right. Through our specialist children's editors we can offer reports on children's books.
- Writers' links: bagging a top literary agent is not always the golden key to success - I've had three of them, so I should know, Getting published: thirty years of hurt; print continues to serve both ends of the marketplace, but it's hard to see the wider digital market as a failure, The Bookseller - Editor's Letter - Premium print; it's 9:30 on a freezing Monday night in January and there's a line stretching down the block outside of the Book Club Bar in the East Village of Manhattan, How Sarah J. Maas Built a Sprawling Fantasy Multiverse | TIME; and a new posthumous picture book by by the great children's author - Mino the Magician waves his wand and, poof, a rabbit appears, Maurice Sendak's new children's picture book 'Ten Little Rabbits' : NPR
- From our Endorsements page: 'I've used two services with this company: The Editor's Plus Report and the Writer's Edit. I am completely satisfied with the service I received and said service has led to the completion and publication of my first novel: Lightforce. I would recommend any of these services to any aspiring author.' Jason Handleman, author of Lightforce (Everything Changes Book 1)
- An essential read for children's authors is Suzy Jenvey's special series for WritersServices, the four-part Essential Guide to Writing for Children. The first article looks at the all-important question of age groups and what you should be aware of in writing for each one. The second part is Before You Write: What is My Story Going to be? The third part deals with Starting to Write and the fourth part is about Submitting Your Work to Agents and Editors. This series by a hugely experienced children's editorial director and agent helps you get started on your own story or develop what you're already working on.
- Our Children's Editorial Services offer three levels of report and copy editing from specialist children's editors. Use their expertise to help get your work ready for publication in this tricky but potentially huge market.
- Links about tech developments: over millennia publishing has cycled through scepticism, experimentation, iteration, improvement and ultimate acceptance of new technologies, 10 ways AI is transforming book publishing for the better; George Walkley reports on a year of thinking about AI in publishing, Not such artificial innovation; did you know what the stats are about self-publishing? Self-Publishing Facts and Figures; and most agents say it is still too early to have a realistic sense of its impact on revenue, The Bookseller - News - Spotify's impact on author incomes uncertain, say trade insiders.
- Our Services for Writers is just a list of the 22 services we offer, which we think is the largest on the web.
- Have you managed to find a publisher for your work and are now enjoying the thrill of knowing that your book will soon be published? If you're wondering what happens next, here is an outline of the processes involved. Preparing for Publication
- Writing Memoir - If you want to write a memoir or autobiography, you're in good company - lots of writers want to try their hand at this category. As with other non-fiction books, do give some thought to your market before you start, if you can. Although writers often actually write their memoir and then think about what to do with it later, it does help to know who you're writing it for, so it's a good thing to sort this out in your own mind at an early stage if you can...'
- Links to writers stories: her first novel The City of Stardust (Hodderscape) bagged the number one spot in its launch week, The Bookseller - Bestsellers - Box clever: Georgia Summers' subscription-boosted The City of Stardust débuts at number one; 'I cherish this august institution. Moving with the times doesn't mean sidelining fellows - or devaluing the society's principles, I will defend the Royal Society of Literature against all attacks. It is more alive than ever | Bernardine Evaristo | The Guardian; last year ended #HEA (that's happily ever after) for Romance & Sagas, as sales continued an upward BookTok-boosted momentum to hit £62.4m, The Bookseller - Spotlight - Love is in the air as sales surge; and a fascinating study of why a good old-fashioned book is better for your mental health, The Case for Paper: Books vs. E-Readers | Psychology Today United Kingdom.
- Advice for Writers is a really useful page which takes you into our archive and helps you explore our more than 9,000 pages of information for writers.
- Our unique new service is The Cutting Edit. So you have finished your book, but it is too long; how do you go about reducing the word count without losing important parts of your work? We're here to help. Our experienced editors will work with you to reduce the word count of your book while preserving the main narrative elements and your individual style. This service is available for both fiction and non-fiction, and it's a dual service - as we reduce the word count of your manuscript we also copy edit it as part of the job.
- Writing Biography & Autobiography is a serialisation from our Archives of the book by Brian D Osborne published by A & C BlackClick for A & C Black Publishers Publishers References listing. In the first excerpt, Managing the matters of truth and objectivity, the author says: 'Just as you need to remember that letters, reports, census forms, legal documents and so forth were not created simply for our convenience, so you also need to remember that what is written in them may not be true...'
- Our last set of links are from the publishing world: book sales boom as readers escape the ‘oversaturation and noise of the wild west digital landscape', ‘Reading is so sexy': gen Z turns to physical books and libraries | Books | The Guardian; the trade has predicted a "far buzzier" London Book Fair (LBF) for 2024 with a return to pre-Covid attendance and a particularly strong American presence, with some major auctions already under way in the lead-up, The Bookseller - News - Bolstered US presence sees editors and agents excited for 'buzzier' London Book Fair 2024; driven by higher revenues as well as lower manufacturing, freight and distribution costs, The Bookseller - News - HarperCollins global revenues grow 4% driven by higher digital sales; and accusations of censorship in the voting process for the 2023 Hugo Awards, Resignations, Censures Follow in Wake of Hugo Awards Controversy.
- Writing for Children: Rule No One - Read More than You Write 'To this I might say that if you have been working for years as a published author, and you have that degree of sophistication, dexterity and confidence, then maybe sometimes yes. But for the majority of us who are not at that level... Many other authors, however, believe the opposite to be true, that reading and being well-read is essential to good writing, and it is this argument that I am exploring here...'
- From our Writers' Quotes: 'The English language is an arsenal of weapons. If you are going to brandish them without checking to see whether or not they are loaded, you must expect to have them explode in your face from time to time.'
