What's New in 2014

• 'Two extremely different but very successful novels have launched new book-writing careers. On the more traditional side there is Milena Busquets' This Too Shall Pass, a thinly-fictionalised second novel about her relationship with her mother, the publisher Esther Busquets, who developed the Catalan family publishing house, Lumen, into a successful business with an international reputation for literary publishing, and died in 2012. Milena's book is now sold in 26 countries and will be publishing in the UK and the US next spring...' News Review
• This week's Writing Opportunity is the Skylark Literary Magical Competition for new, unagented and unpublished fiction authors who are writing for middle-grade (aged 8-12) readers. It's closing on 24 December.
• Our Children's Editorial Services offer a Reader's and Editor's Report and Copy editing, all from expert children's editors.
• Thinking of becoming an indie author and publishing your own book? 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' fantastically useful WritersServices Self-publishing Guide consists of ten articles which guide you through self-publishing from the writer's point of view, with many useful tips and a lot of good up-to-the-minute advice.
• 'I grew up in London for the first 10 years, then my parents divorced, which was agonising. But it was while I was at boarding-school that I made the connection between putting my mind into some imaginative world and finding solace for homesickness and sadness. If I did that, I felt better. It would be like crying. I discovered this miraculous thing that has held true all my life, which is that writing can take me out of myself to such an extent that it's a great palliative for bad times. Rose Tremain, author of Restoration and The American Lover, in the Sunday Times magazine, quoted in our Comment  column.
• The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, the subject of our last Success Story, has been chosen by British chain Waterstones as its Book of the Year. See our other Success Stories, which over the years have included newcomers like Evie Wyld and big sellers such as Darren Shan.
• Links of the week: a riveting and rather scary interview, which makes essential reading, Andrew Keen's dark web | The Bookseller; a major breakthrough for scientists, academisc and students, Nature.com research papers made freely shareable | The Bookseller; are publishers only buying bestsellers? Are book publishers blockbustering themselves into oblivion? - The Globe and Mail; a new appraoch of writers helping each other, Mentoring helps close publishing 'chasm' | The Bookseller; does it make sense to combine bookshops and libraries, Deborah Emin's Theory: Integrating Libraries and Bookstores; and that annual jolly, the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.
• 'Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.' Leonard Cohen in our Writers' Quotes.

• A new article in the Talking to publishers series covers How-to books for experienced writers - by experienced writers: 'In reality, no writer can exist for ever in a comfort cocoon of familiar marketplaces since editors are constantly changing, publishers frequently alter their focus, and all too often published authors find themselves redundant. That's why it's necessary for relatively new or middle list authors to be constantly re-inventing themselves to stay ahead of these market changes...'
• To find out what editors are looking for, have a look at the Talking to publishers series, with contributions from the editors of lists which deal with books for writers, children's books, Young Adult, a paranormal list and Christian AlternativeAn Imprint Of John Hunt Publishing. A space at the edge where the light shines through..
• 'Two interesting pieces of news from the last week show that publishing - of both the traditional and the new variety - is stronger than you might think. In China the second Shanghai International Children's Book Fair has attracted 250 exhibitors from 25 countries, with 6,000 Chinese and international business visitors and 20,000 Chinese consumers expected to attend This new Fair offers a real challenge to the international children's rights fair in Bologna...' News Review
• From our Archive: 'Indeed, what is a ‘book life'? Author Jeff VanderMeer sees the ‘book' as any creative project requiring text, be it a traditional print book, an e-book or a podcast. The aim is to do things that support that book life in a positive way rather than undermining it. And the point of Booklife is to provide a strategic and tactical guide to being a writer in contemporary times. It is not a how-to guide to creating a blog or website, nor is it an instructional manual about writing. Instead, Booklife is a more subtle examination of the business of being a writer, intended to help the reader to create a modus operandi that works for them' Our reviewer looks at Jeff VanderMeer's Booklife.
• ‘Beginners' failures are often the result of trying to work with strong feelings and ideas without having found the images to embody them, or without even knowing how to find the words and string them together. Ignorance of English vocabulary and grammar is a considerable liability to a writer of English. The best cure for it is, I believe, reading. Ursula K Le Guin , author of the classic The Left Hand of Darkness and Dancing at the Edge of the World on Brain Picking, quoted in our Comment column.
• To find a mass of useful material on the site, try this page - Advice for Writers.
• This week's links: a summary from authors' rights campaigner Hugh Howey, Amazon and Hachette Come to Terms | Hugh Howey; the views of a bestselling author, Dan Brown on the Writing Life as a Global Megaseller - Publishing Perspectives; views from the future front, Curiouser and curiouser: What we discovered at FutureBook 2014 | The Bookseller; a new perspective on SF, Virtual Sci-Fi Book Festival Makes Backlist Sexy Again - Publishing Perspectives; and, for light relief, Shortlist Announced for 2014 Bad Sex in Fiction Award.
• 'The trouble with science fiction is that you can write about everything: time, space, all the future, all the past, all of the universe, any kind of creature imaginable. That's too big. It provides no focus for the artist. An artist needs, in order to function, some narrowing of focus. Read more.' Philip Klass in our Writers' Quotes.

• Latest figures from the States suggest that readers are not parting with their print books, in spite of the growth in ebook sales, which have reached $8.5 billion in value worldwide. In the US the figures show that 23% of all male adult readers and 33% of females ones read ebooks. But global print still stands at $53.9 billion so there's a lot of catching up for ebooks to do to overtake, let alone wipe out, print books. News Review on why American readers are loyal to print.
• ‘My audience is someone similar to who I was when I got started with serious reading: a young person - I was 19 - who can simply read... My students at Columbia I teach to read. If you can be a good reader and can think that reading and literature are great pursuits, you can perhaps teach yourself to write. This week's Comment is from Richard Ford, author of Let Me Be Frank With You in the Observer.
• Talking to publishers is our nine-part series of interviews and artilces from the editors of various publishing lists lists, showing you exactly what they're looking for. The nine cover historical books, young adult, self-help and several more.
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is the ITV This Morning Novel Writing Competition, run with Curtis BrownSee Curtis Brown listing and with representation by them offered. It's open only to UK residents though and you'll need to move fast as it closes on 14 November.
• Top Ten Tips for Non-fiction writers is a useful checklist from a creative wriitng teacher.
• This week's links: 23 authors from the Andrew Lownie Agency write about their own work habits, What Are Your Writing Habits? - Publishing Perspectives; a longer view on Amazon, Seattle News and Events | The Perks, Pitfalls, and Paradoxes of Amazon Publishing; the publishing industry is only now feeling the force of technological change, The ebook industry needs to make reading more social; the changing market in English-language publishing, Hot Button Issues for English-Language Publishers in 2014 - Publishing Perspectives; and a useful look at children's international rights, Expanding the Foreign Rights Market for Children's Books.
• And from the cynical but accurate P D James in our Writers Quotes: 'Publishers don't nurse you,; they buy and sell you.'

• 'Some encouraging publishing-related figures have emerged this week. The number of books published worldwide in 2013 was an astounding 28 million, raising the question of whether there are enough readers - and buyers - for them all. In the US there were 390,000 ISBNs for self-published books and 300,000 for trade (general) books...' This week's News Review.
• From our Archive, 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 has written a useful article on The Business of Writing: 'Writing is undoubtedly a creative art. Whether we are working on the next Booker Prize winner or ghostwriting blog posts, writers need to be original, imaginative and inspired. But writing is also a business, with invoices to raise, accounts to be submitted and records to be kept. Writers, like artists, can find themselves floundering when it comes to the 'business end' of the job. Read on for our easy-to-follow guide to the business of writing...'
• 'I've a pretty good idea of what the story is and where it's going. The trouble is that, though you've laboured to create these characters and thought of plausible things for them to do, they take on lives of their own. I've often thought that writing fiction was like industrial management. Sometimes I've felt like putting thumbscrews on my employees to prevent them messing up on my plans...' Michael Frayn, author of Noises Off and Matchbox Theatre, in The Times, quoted in our Comment column.
• Our Health Hazards series looks at all the particular dangers faced by writers, from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome to Looking after your eyes and advises on how to position your desk and chair. This really is essential reading for anyone who spends a lot of time at the computer.
• This week's links: a thoughtful and encouraging piece from Michael Bhaskar, BookBrunch - Content is still king, and technology has not dethroned it; the view from Australia, BBC News - Man Booker win a boon for Australia literature; how far and how fast is self-publishing going to go? How Soon Will the Majority of Books Be Self-Published? - Publishing Perspectives; so which side do you support in the Amazon/Hachette dispute, Vox on Amazon: Way off-base, not entirely wrong - Salon.com; and criticism for Amazon from prominent New York Times writer, Influential Krugman says Amazon 'hurts America' | The Bookseller.
• 'One of my many theories about short stories is that their titles and first lines ought to be memorable, because if not memorable they will not be remembered, and if not remembered the stories will not be reprinted (because no one can find them).' Damon Knight in our Writers' Quotes.

• This week's update is pretty much focused on the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two., with the Man Booker Prize also finding its place and The Brunel University African Poetry Prize 2015 is our Writing Opportunity.
• 'Frankfurt was much more ‘business as usual' than anyone might have predicted. With just a few less visitors than last year, the mood was pretty upbeat, with a lot of solid rights business being done. Apart from the very real ongoing anxiety about the Amazon/Hachette dispute - no big publisher feels safe from the feeling that they might, and probably will be, next, - there's the progress of the digital revolution and, surprisingly, publishers seem to have taken things very much in their stride...' News Review
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is the The Brunel University African Poetry Prize 2015, open to poets who were born in Africa, or who are nationals of an African country, or whose parents are African. The winner gets £3,000 and it closes on 30 November.
• Our list of other opportunities which have not yet closed.
• Our tips on Entering competitions are well worth a look if this is something you want to do.
• Our Comment this week is from David Nicholls, author of One Day and Us: 'I think the worst thing you can do when you start to write is think: "Will this make sense in Brazil?" I actively tried not to write in a way that felt unnatural or to twist things, cut out cultural references, alter the sense of humour, or have any of those cliched notions about what might appeal to a French audience or a Spanish audience. I am aware of the expectations of people in Sweden and Brazil and the US, but it's crazy to let them interfere...'
• Just announced, the winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize, Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which was based on his father's experiences in WW2. There's a great piece from the shortlisted authors in the Guardian, talking about why they wrote their books, Man Booker prize: the six shortlisted authors reveal the story behind the book | Books | The Guardian.
• If you've picked up on the furore surrounding the film of Gone Girl - or even already seen it - you might be interested in our Success story on the author Gillian Flynn.
• Other links this week include: publishers' real anxiety about Amazon Kindle's newly-launched subscription service, Publishers consult lawyers over Kindle Unlimited | The Bookseller; and two 'editorials' from Publishing Perspectives at the Frankfurt Book Fair, When Publishing Begins to Look Like a Bad Relationship | Publishing Perspectives and Editorial from Frankfurt: Collaborate! Innovate! Evolve! Create! | Publishing Perspectives.
• 'Use your imagination. Trust me, your lives are not interesting. Don't write them down.' W B Kinsella in our Writers' Quotes.

• This week we take a look at some encouraging signs in the book world, including an improvement in print sales, and feature the National Poetry CompetitionAnnual poetry prize run by the UK-based Poetry Society established in 1978; accepts entries from all over the world; over 10,000 poems submitted each year.
• The book trade internationally does seem to have turned the corner after a difficult few years when a major format change at the same time as a deep global recession turned everything upside down... Bookshops are working out new ways of surviving, with a focus on events, local authors, school supply and so on. No doubt the fallout will continue but in the UK and US there are definite signs of more bookshops surviving and is the online competitors to Amazon who are having a hard time. Our News Review this week covers the good news that print book sales have recovered a bit, while children's leads the way.
• We've added the prize-winning Guardian children's books site to our recommended links to children's sites, but would welcome other suggestions for this section or any of the 23 other listings, which include Writers Online Services.
• This week's Writing Opportunity is the 2014 National Poetry Competition 2014, which closes on 31 October. With a first prize of £5,000 and an entry fee of £6, it is open to all poets from around the world.
• 'Publishing is the process of getting an author's thoughts and ideas to the mind of a reader. Book publishing was carried out in the traditional manner for so long that everyone began to believe that publishers, agents, publicists and bookshops were essential to the process. The multiplicity of options brought about by the digital age remind us that there are only two constants in the process: the author and the reader...' Nicola Solomon, CEO of the UK Society of Authors in the Bookseller in this week's Comment.
• Do you have an old typescript or even hand-written manuscript which you can't work on? Or even audio recordings which need typing up? Our manuscript typing service can do the job for you cheaply and efficiently.
• This week's links to topical stories: Futurebook's digital Survey, Measure for measure: the Digital Census since 2009 | FutureBook; should  Agent Hunter have the right to demand that literary agents should be transparent, Row over literary agents' 'transparency' | The Bookseller; the prize-winning site about children's books, Guardian children's books site scoops World Young Reader prize | Books | theguardian.com; should famous authors be allowed to write stories about famous dead people, Mantel defends Thatcher story | The Bookseller; and a surprising preference for print amongst young people, Nearly three quarters of young people prefer print | The Bookseller.
• 'Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.' Francoise Sagan in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'John Lewis of the Bookseller has argued strongly that the paperback edition is still a major factor in book sales and what's more that its position doesn't seem to be changing in the face of ebook sales nearly as much as had originally been assumed, now that things are settling down. What's surprising about this is that the paperback edition is coming out 6-12 months after the hardback and ebook are available. Even more important in terms of sales, you would expect the ebook to completely cannibalise the paperback sales as it's invariably not only available sooner but also considerably cheaper...' News Review on why paperbacks still have legs.
• Ever wanted to understand what's involved in indexing? The Ins & Outs of Indexing 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 show how you could do it yourself or what you might gain by having a professional tackle the job.
• ‘I write by hand, then type it up. When I've finished a scene, I'll read it and, if it needs editing, I write all over it, then retype it. I fax the copy to a typist, who puts it on a disc, and she faxes it back, then I edit it again. When I start a new novel I already have the story in my head, including the ending, so I begin by doing an outline and then write it consecutively - page one is always page one...' Barbara Taylor Bradford, author of A Woman of Substance and Cavendon Hall, in The Times, quoted in our Comment column.
• Michael Legat's Factsheets are short introductions for writers from the former publisher, novelist and author of 12 books on writing. These specially commissioned information-packed lists from our Archives  cover the essentials for writers. From Research to Revision, Plagiarism to Copyright, Legat always has something pithy but on the nail to contribute.
• Publishing Perspectives are offering a Frankfurt Preview which provides an intriguing look into what goes on at the Fair.
• Our links this week: the Bookseller's trenchant article on paperbacks, Pulp fiction | FutureBook; Margaret Atwood's new work will remain unseen for a century | Books | theguardian.com; why would you think publishers fact-check? Book Publishing, Not Fact-Checking - The Atlantic; a really useful guide, 5 Steps to Increasing Your Book's Marketability with Research | Publishing Perspectives; and, about a well-deservedly popular author, Kate Mosse: my skill is storytelling, not literary fiction | Books | The Observer.
• 'Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.' Barbara Kingsolver in our Writers' Quotes.

• This week: why your book contract needs vetting, News Review on open submissions, writing opportunity The Big Idea and the link to an article on whether TV writers as such exist any more.
• 'It looks as if open submissions are here to stay. Publishers, having for many years tried to stem the tide of unsolicited submissions, are now openly soliciting them within a time-limited and often genre- specific framework. Some publishers have always worked this way. Harlequin Mills and Boon has been an example, encouraging unsolicited manuscripts in specific sub-genres of romance and going to some pains to encourage authors to send in what they were looking for to add to each of their lists. But most publishers have made it clear that they will not accept unsolicited submissions...' Our News Review this week is entitled Open submissions give writers a chance
• If you're a UK resident of 13 or over, you've got until 2nd September to enter this week's Writing Opportunity, The Big Idea, for a chance to win £1,000 plus the opportunity to see your idea come to life, with one overall winner offered the prize of a publishing contract and the promise of their idea being nurtured, developed and written by a well-known author.
• Why your book contract needs vetting - 'You are a first-time author without an agent and you receive a contract to publish your book - just how do you evaluate it? Is it fair or biased against the author by prevailing industry standards? Is your publisher looking out for your interests as well as his own - or wording the clauses in a way only advantageous to the company? Would you, for example, know which rights to grant - for how long and on what terms..' Our contracts expert on why contract vetting is essential if you don't have an agent.
• For an overview of our nineteen services, which range from Editor's Report to Copy editing, from Submission Critique to Blurb-writing, try Which service?
• In response to one commentator, Melanie A, who said the "publishing business is corrupt, sick and almost dead", Child stated: "When you say the publishing business is corrupt, sick, and almost dead, you're completely wrong. Yes, it's cautious and careful, as a result of the recession you mention, and the changing entertainment environment you note, and contracts are certainly stricter, but it's vibrant, optimistic, profitable, energetic, full of very smart people, most of them young, most of them women, and I find it a very pleasant place to work (but then, I came from television.) Lee Child, author of 19 Jack Reacher novels, including Personal, after appearing on UK's Newsnight TV programme, quoted in our Comment column.
• Our Tips for writers series is a succinct but useful 8-part series which starts with Improve your writing and ends with Submission to agents and publishers.
• Our links this week: no-one really writes for TV any more, Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society - A TV writer? What's that?; the real lowdown on book tours, Dumps and Death Threats, Hecklers and Vindication: True Tales from Today's DIY Book Tour - The Daily Beast; crowd-funding arrives in the book world, Publishers Turn to the Crowd to Find the Next Best Seller - NYTimes.com; how to use publishing's secret weapon, What is Your Book Community? | Publishing Perspectives; and what price film adaptations of novels, The Hunger Games vs. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | Publishing Perspectives.
• 'Confronted by an absolutely infuriating review it is sometimes helpful for the victim to do a little personal research on the critic. Is there any truth to the rumor that he had no formal education beyond the age of eleven? In any event, is he able to construct a simple English sentence? Do his participles dangle? When moved to lyricism does he write "I had a fun time"? Jean Kerr in our Writers' Quotes.

• Now it's open warfare, as described in our News Review, and in our Comment column, Sara Paretsky says 'My greatest feat is that stories will stop coming to me.'Our links include a knowledgeable article on historical fiction and an interview with an agent.
• The Amazon/Hachette dispute has now caused a large group of authors to band together to protest about how Amazon's actions are affecting their sales. Authors Unlimited printed a letter in Sunday's New York Times. They have accused Amazon of boycotting their books by refusing to accept pre-orders, not discounting their books, slowing the delivery of their books (in some cases to several weeks) and suggesting on some Hachette authors' pages that they might prefer to buy something else. Authors United v Readers United (aka Amazon) is the title of this week's News Review.
• ‘Crime fiction is the natural medium for writing about social justice. I used to write books about an environmental concern or a healthcare concern, but I was beginning to be tiresome, so now I tend to make those issues part of the backdrop to a crime story instead...' Sara Paretsky, author of 16 novels including Critical Mass, in the Independent on Sunday, quoted in our Comment column.
• What a publisher wants - The view from a publisher's desk No 1 - the first in a series of four articles by Tom Chalmers, MD of Legend Press, giving a publisher's view of the submission process and what a publisher is looking for. Also available: Judging a book by its covering letter and synopsis, The writer's X-Factor and The changing face of publishing.
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is the HarperCollins Killer Reads open submission. HC is launching a new digital-first crime and thriller list, which will begin publication with the best finds from an open submission held this summer. Killer Reads will invite unagented submissions from 29th August to 14th September, in all crime genres from police procedurals to high-concept thrillers
• Our listing of Writing Opportunities on the site will give you a view according to what is still open and a list according to when it was added to the site.
• Do you want to get a professional editor's opinion on your manuscript? Our reports range from the Editor's Report to the more detailed Editor's Report Plus or the shorter Reader's Report, with a range of special editorial support on children's writing from our children's editors.
• Our links this week: Authors United ramps up Amazon campaign | The Bookseller; Setting Expectations Before You Publish Your Book | Publishing Perspectives; Historical fiction can speak very clearly to the present and the past | Books | theguardian.com; and Literary Agent Q&A: Taryn Fagerness | Publishing Perspectives.
• The July Magazine is ready, giving you an overview of the last month.
• 'The literary world is made up of little confederacies, each looking upon its own members as the lights of the universe; and considering all others as mere transient meteors, doomed to soon fall and be forgotten, while its own luminaries are to shine steadily into immortality.' Washington Irving in our Writers' Quotes.

• Our latest new article is The Business of Writing for Self-publishing Authors and we also have a focus on poetry this week in our News Review and links, as well as the Hot Key Books Young Writers Prize 2014, a superb opportunity for 18-25 writers from all over the world to  have a chance at a big prize and publication by one of the UK's newest children's publishers.
• 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, author of our WritersServices Self-publishng Guide and of The Business of Writing, has now turned her attention to self-publishers with The Business of Writing for Self-publishing Authors. 'Self-publishing authors - also known as ‘indie' authors or author-publishers - have had a steep learning curve these past few years. Getting to grips with the various sales channels available to them, producing top quality ebooks and paperbacks, and finding a place in mainstream outlets have left many writers struggling to keep up with the paperwork. What follows is brief guide to the essentials your self-publishing business needs - because it is a business, even if you only publish one book!'
• As two of this week's links demonstrate, poetry is contradictory in its audience and reach. A huge audience is interested in poetry - more than one million people read poems at poets.org each year. But on the other hand poetry book sales, in the US as elsewhere, are meagre for all but the very best-known poets. How is it that an artform which seems central to literature, offering distilled language and meaning in a succinct form, can be so easily ignored by many in the mainstream? In theory this should be poetry's moment, for the short form is perfect for the Internet. News Review
• Have you ever wondered whether there's any point in entering competitions? Someone must be winning, but why is it somehow never you? It might be worth reviewing how you approach competitions, to see if you can achieve a better result. Entering competitions.
• 'I'm amazingly fortunate to have a chance to write a second book that people will be interested in reading because they liked the first. It would be awfully pessimistic if an author with enthusiastic potential readers sat around in anguish...The book has your chromosomes all the way through it, you feel squeamish about someone critiquing your inner life...' Tom Rachman, author of The Imperfectionists and The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, in the Evening Standard, quoted in our Comment column.
• Are you a young writer aged 18-25 writing YA? There's a brilliant opportunity this week in the Hot Key Young Writers Prize, where the prize is £10,000 and a publishing contract with Hot Key. Closing on 16 August, so you need to get moving.
• We have two llinks this week which cast a clear light on poetry, Poetry Matters | Academy of American Poets and a wide-ranging look at poetry in America, The Millions : Americans Love Poetry, But Not Poetry Books. Then there's the latest on the Man Booker longlist, Man Booker 2014: more global, less diverse | Books | The Guardian; Self-publishing surging to 31% of ebook market, claims report | Books | theguardian.com; and a new second-hand books initiative which will pay royalties to authors, Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society Do the right thing Bookbarn International.
• Our Glossary of Acronyms is a good way of finding your way through these confusing initials.
• 'To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone - just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over.' John Hersey in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer, with art by Jeremy Zerfoss (and many others), is unlike any other writing instruction manual I have ever seen. Heavily illustrated with fantastical paintings and specially commissioned illustrations, it is, in VanderMeer's own words, ‘a kind of cabinet of curiosities that stimulates your imagination'. It reflects VanderMeer's own belief that ‘an organic approach to writing should be coupled with a systematic practice and testing to improve your fiction'. It is also, quite simply, a very beautiful object, gorgeous to look at, its contents by turns playful and inspirational.' Maureen Kincaid Speller a reviewer, writer, editor and former librarian, is our book reviewer and also works for WritersServices as a freelance editor. reviews Jeff VanderMeer's new book.
• In 2013 11.5% of professional authors, defined as those who dedicate the majority of their time to writing, earned their income solely from writing. This is down from 40% in 2005, when a typical writer's income was £12,330 ($21,090). Worse still, the typical income of all writers now is just £4,000 ($6,841), a paltry amount and well below the minimum wage. A `new study just published by ALCS (the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society) has shown that the typical income of a UK writer is just £11,000 ($18,815) a year. The figures show a sharp decline in the number of full-time writers. Writers struggle to make a living is this week's  News Review story.
• Are you a poet? We have two services which might be of interest to you - Poetry Critique Service for up to 150 lines of poetry and Poetry Collection Editing, which is for anyone who wants to get a collection into shape for self-publishing or submission to publishers.
• Eimear McBride, winner of the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, in our Comment column: ‘I think they (the judges) were excited by the language and by the emotional impact of the story. They must have been looking for something different because certainly the book isn't written in a conventional way... Being a writer who was not published for nearly ten years isn't a great path. It's very hard to spend most of your adult life feeling like a failure...'
• This week's links: Mark McCrum on why as a pubished author he decided to self-publish, BookBrunch - Going it alone; how the format affects how you read, What Does Your Brain Like Better: Paper or Ebooks? | Publishing Perspectives; black literary writers with African roots seem to be doing better than African-American writers, Are African Writers Trumping African-American Authors? | Publishing Perspectives; agent John Saddler asks if we should care about the demise of publishers BookBrunch - Is Amazon destroying publishing - and if so, does it matter? and crime writer Val McDermid on how things have changed for authors, McDermid: 'could not build writing career today' | The Bookseller.
• Our agent listings cover the UK, US and International, and there's a separate listing for Children's Agents.
• 'Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.' John Keats in our Writers' Quotes

• Richard Hall, author of Theatres of War, chooses in his My Say to ask the question: "Write about what you know" - does this adage always make sense? 'For those planning a contemporary novel it may be sound advice to write about what you know. But what about writers of historical novels? They cannot have personal knowledge of anything before the recent past...' Other columns from writers in our My Say series. If you have something you'd like share with us about your writing, please send your article to us.
• Our Blurb-writing service is just what you want if you're a self-publisher struggling to write your own. Our Synopsis-writing service may be able to help when you've got stuck trying to put together your synopsis. Or perhaps you'de like a report on your screenplay, tv script or play from our Scriptwriting Assessment service?
• 'A week or two back we linked to a recent article in Publishing Perspectives, Yawn No More: Americans and the Market for Foreign Fiction, about the annual BEABookExpo America, commonly referred to within the book publishing industry as BEA. The largest annual book trade fair in the United States Global Market Forum, this year focusing on books in translation. It showed that progress is being made to overcome American publishers' traditional reluctance to take on translated work from the rest of the world. Various different publishing models are being tried, which is important since the extra costs of translation have to be recouped somewhere...' News Review - at last, a mini-boom in translations.
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is the exciting New Children's Author Prize 2015, set up by the National Literacy TrustUK-based organisation which has campaigned since 1993 to improve literacy standards across all age groups. Excellent research information and details of the many initiatives the charity is currently involved in. www.literacytrust.org.uk. It also has a useful page of news stories on UK literacy, which links to newsletter http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/TheLibrary.aspx and Bloomsbury Children's Publishing. You need to be a UK citizen and the closing date is 30 September, although entries received by 30 June need only pay a £15 entry fee.The Prize is a publishing contract with Bloomsbury, along with an advance of £5,000 and an exclusive print run of the new author's work.
• Our 19-part Inside Publishing series gives you an insider's take on the publishing world, covering everything from subsidiary rights to the world Engllish language market, from advances and royalties to what the sales department does.
• This week's links: Author Tim Parks on the uncertain future of long novels, firstly in his blog which sparked it off, Reading: The Struggle by Tim Parks | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books and then in an article in the Independent, Internet spells end of long, complex literary novels, says author Tim Parks - News - Books - The Independent. Then there's Molly Flatt's thoughtful report from Writing in a Digital Age, BookBrunch - Shaping the twenty-first century writing life; more on Amazon-Hachette, Amazon is not your best friend: Why self-published authors should side with Hachette - Salon.com; the international story on Wattpad, How Developing Markets Fuel Wattpad's Explosive Growth | Publishing Perspectives; and 6 Reasons Why English Writers Should Self-publish in Germany | Publishing Perspectives.
• ‘I never wanted to be a writer. At first I wanted to be a violinist but I just wasn't good enough. My love of stories came, I suppose, from my father, who used to read books to me like King Solomon's Mines. I've loved adventure books ever since. Writing historical fiction means I do lots of research, so my study's covered in notes and bits of paper. It helps me get under the skin of my subjects...' Kate Mosse, author of Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel in The Times, quoted in our Comment column.
• Our page of New Articles on the site helps you make sure you've seen the new material we've put up, but you can also find it on the Magazine page.
• 'This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it rejected. Consider that you've addressed it 'to the editor who can appreciate my work' and it has simply come back stamped "Not at this address". Just keep looking for the right address.' Barbara Kingsolver in our Writers Quotes.
  

• First we take a look at the extraordinary Eimear McBride - and a very encouraging story for writers. Then there's The Moth International Story Competition 2014 and a Comment from Matt Carr, a children's author who turned reluctantly to self-publishing. We've got several links of the week, still on the Amazon/Hachette story but with new angles, and Poetry International on poetry in translation.
• Eimear McBride's A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is having an extraordinary impact. Now that it's won the new Bailey Women's Prize (successor to last year's Women's Fiction Prize and the Orange Prize), there seems to be no stopping the author... But it took her nine years to find a publisher and then it was a tiny start-up, Galley Beggar Press, which quickly set up the book as a co-publication on the paperback and ebook rights with Faber, once it was shortlisted for the Folio Prize. News Review
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is The Moth International Short Story Prize 2014, closing on 30 June and open to all.
• Are you interested in Getting Your Manuscript Copy Edited? As well as this article we have one from Inside Publishing about Copy editing and proof-reading and we offer a Copy editing service, as well as Proof-reading and Manuscript Polishing, which involves more intensive work, 'polishing' and improving the text, and correcting the English if you are writing in English as a second language.
• 'I never thought I'd self-publish a book, because for me it has all the hallmarks of delusional desperation. But after my children's book, The Tale of Russell the Sacred Crow, was rejected a few times for one reason or another, I had some commission from my printer and I thought I might as well have a go. Nowadays you really don't need to self-publish a novel or biography, you can just whack it up on the internet for the whole world to see, but a children's picture book is different.' Matt Carr writing about his his self-publishing experience in the Bookseller, quoted in our Comment column.
• On getting published: The long and winding road - Colin MurrayColin joined Penguin Books after university. He has over the years worked for a number of the major publishing houses in senior editorial positions. His particular interests, apart from sailing, are science fiction, fantasy, crime and thrillers., WritersServices freelance editor, reflects on the tortuous path to publication of his first novel: 'Of course I should have known better. I'm a grown man who has spent a large part of his adult life in publishing watching the excitement and enthusiasm bleed from the young and talented as disappointments and rejections follow hard upon each other. I have even added to those rejections and disappointments, and watched the bright-eyed and smiling become morose and world weary...'
• Our links this week mostly seem to centre on the ongoing Amazon/Hachette battle and the ramifications for publishers and authors: on the important enemies Amazon has made of some major authors, Amazon's New, Powerful Enemies; the contrary view The war on Amazon is Big Publishing's 1% moment. What about other writers? | Barry Eisler | Commentisfree | The Guardian; and the effect this book world fight is having on authors Authors Getting Screwed by Amazon-Hachette Showdown | Digital Book World. For lighter relief there's a humourous article on the new Penguin Random House logo, complete with a poem, PRH's New Identity: Goodbye to Some Famous Bricks and Mortar | Publishing Perspectives and a short piece from Poetry International, just starting now in Rotterdam, giving links to other material on their site, Poetry in translation - Poetry International.
• Poet Michael Symmons Roberts in our Writers' Quotes: 'Any good writer is a good reader first. There's no substitute for being steeped in the great work of the past, and reading the work of your contemporaries. It's an obvious piece of advice, but no less true for that.'

• 'In an article in the print edition of the Bookseller, Philip Gwyn Jones offered a clear-sighted analysis of the current model of funding literary writing. He is the former publisher of Granta, a very highly-regarded editor with msses of experience in this area and the independence currently to call it like it is. Gwynn Jones says that serious non-fiction publishing is in trouble and that publishers are simply not prepared to come up with the advances which will enable writers to spend the time they need researching their books, perhaps over several years. News Review
• We've added two brilliant new links to our big listing of 24 pages of links to recommended sites for writers, Life Cycle of a Book and Life Cycle of a Book in Translation. Both have videos of young publishing professionals explaining their part in the process.
• ‘There's a paradox as a writer where you're encouraged to put everything of yourself in your books, to take things to the furthest extreme, to hold back nothing. But when you're talking in your own voice, you have to reassure people that you share their values and agree with them about everything and nobody need be perturbed by the content of the book because we're in this consensus about how we see each other and see art.' Ned Beauman, author of Glow and the youngest of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, in the Independent on Sunday, quoted in our Comment column.
• The web as a research tool is a useful page showing you what a great research tool the web is for writers.
• Our links this week: more on the debate about literary fiction, Self-publishing will save literary fiction | Hugh Howey; a look at how Harlequin is faring and its prospects under its new owners, Harlequin Romance Tries to Adjust to Changing Times | Publishing Perspectives; this week's BEABookExpo America, commonly referred to within the book publishing industry as BEA. The largest annual book trade fair in the United States - Self-Publishers Go to the Library: SELF-e at BEA's Author Hub | Publishing Perspectives; the shameful joys of the franchise novel ... and why the force is with them | Books | theguardian.com; how an open submission process led to success, Former East Kilbride News reporter secures publishing deal - Daily Record; and, as anxiety deepens across the publishing world about this problem, AAR Calls Out Amazon in Hachette Dispute.
• This week's Writing Opportunity is the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2014, for women only, closing on 31 May and with a £2,000 First Prize. Mslexia are also offering their Pamphlet Competition, with the same closing date.
• Are you sturggling to get someone to look at your poetry?  Our Poetry Critique service for 150 lines of poetry and our Poetry Collection editing, to help you prepare your collection for submission or self-publishing, might be able to help.
• 'I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss - you can't do it alone.' John Cheever in our Writers' Quotes.

• This week we continue our look at book formats with the hardback, an extraordinary survivor; offer some wide-ranging links to articles on the web, including two on translation, one of them about poetry, and much looking into crystal balls on the future of writing and publishing; and our Writing Opportunity is an unusual open submission month.
• Hardbacks, rather than ebooks, are the wild cards of the publishing industry. Who would have thought that they would survive and prosper in the age of the ebook? Wouldn't you assume that hardbacks would simply fade away once they were so radically undercut on price by ebooks, never mind paperbacks? News Review this week: Hardbacks - still a success story
• We've got an interesting kind of Writing Opportunity this week, Penguin Random House UKPenguin Random House have more than 50 creative and autonomous imprints, publishing the very best books for all audiences, covering fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s books, autobiographies and much more. Click for Random House UK Publishers References listing's literary imprint Jonathan Cape is having an open submission month  in June, a real chance for aspiring literary novelists to get their foot in the door.
• Getting your manuscript copy edited is a useful page about why you need to do this. Our copy editing service uses professional editors to make sure you get a good result. Check out this page for other Editorial Services for Self-publishers.
• ‘I think as you get older you realise you will die with projects unfinished. I have long been conscious about the fact that when you have the idea for a story that does not mean you are ready to write it. I wanted to write the Thomas Cromwell books right at the beginning of my career as a writer. He was not ready to come out into the light and I wasn't ready for him. Hilary Mantel, two-time Booker Prize winner and author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies in the Observer, quoted in our Comment column.
• Our links this week: the curious question about why publishers were not alert to self-publishing, Why Major Publishers Missed the Boat on Self-Publishing; a thoughtful piece on how publishers find translators, How Can Publishers and Translators Meet More Efficiently? | Publishing Perspectives; a useful overview of publishing, Publishing's messy re-mix | FutureBook; the challenge of digital, Bridging the Gap: Why Publishing's Future is at Risk | Publishing Perspectives; more on translation, Is Poetry More Difficult to Translate Than Prose? | Publishing Perspectives; and Charlie Redmayne, CEO of HarperCollins UK on how publishing companies can do better, BookBrunch - Bigger, better, faster.
• Do you need to write for the web, perhaps for your own website or material to promote your book? Our page on Writing for the web provides a basic outline on how to go about it.
• 'To write fiction, one needs a whole series of inspirations about people in an actual environment, and then a whole lot of work on the basis of those inspirations.' Aldous Huxley in our Writers Quotes.

• This week we're pleased to add the second part of The Essential Guide to Writing for Children 2 - Before You Write: What is My Story Going to be? Suzy Jenvey starts with: 'However short your potential story is, you will still need to start with a clear idea of who it is aimed at, and how the characters and story will develop. Here are some basic rules that you should follow in the planning stage...' and ends with 'Don't be tempted to ‘ambulance-chase' - i.e. to write a story similar to something that has just been hugely successful. Publishers are looking for genuine originals.'
• 'The UK's first ever Young Adult Literature Convention will take place at the London Film and comic Con 2014 from 12 to 13 July. This gives authors who are writing for a YA audience the chance to meet other authors, to take part in a host of author events with publisher stands promoting new and upcoming titles. The UK children's Laureate, Malorie Blackman, has put her weight behind the convention and will act as curator and director but the truth is that it's quite late in the day for YA books to start enjoying this amount of attention. News Review
• We've added Sheenagh Pugh's writing blog to our Writers' Blogs but would really like to have some suggestions of other writers' blogs we could add to this section. In the meatime there's a wealth of links in 24 separate lists linking us to hundreds of recommended sites. Please email us with any suggestions.
• How far apart are crime writing and poetry? 'I have been interested in both equally all my life. All through childhood I wrote verses and mysteries. There is, for me, one connection: Structure. My poetry is metrical, rhyming. My crime novels are highly structured. I never start out with a dead body. I start out with an impossible scenario. Opening questions should be mysterious, weird, intriguing and contain the seeds of the solution. The structure has to be meticulous - I'm a structure freak...' Sophie Hannah, author of nine novels, including The Telling Error and five poetry collections, in the Observer, quoted in our Comment column.
• Our WritersServices Glossary gives an A-Z search which will list all mentions of a topic or reference on the site and provides an easy way of exploring the archive.
• Our links of the week: from Sam Edenborough a thoughtful piece about the changing role of the agent - BookBrunch - Authors, agents and self-publishing; science fiction love it or hate it (most of us) The Underrated, Universal Appeal of Science Fiction - Chris Beckett - The Atlantic; the latest on amazon's finances BBC News - Amazon revenue up but offset by increasing expenses; a very personal view of YA Lamp Lighters and Seed Sowers: Tomorrow's YA | Publishing Perspectives and the latest strange story from fan fiction Vampire Writer L.J. Smith Bites Back - WSJ.com.
• Do you have a problem with writing your own synopsis for your submission package? Our Synopsis-writing service can help. Or, perhaps if you're self-publishing, you need help with writing your blurb?
• 'Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.''Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.' Molière in our Writers' Quotes.

• Many of you are interested in children's writing and we're thrilled to launch a new series by Suzy Jenvey, vastly experienced children's editorial director and now agent, called The 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: 'Children's publishers divide their editorial departments according to age group. The editors and designers in each division are expert at the language, content, word length and style for their particular age group. As a children's writer, you have to aim for a specific age group, and show through your writing that you understand the requirements...'
• 'Last week was dominated by the London Book Fair and it's good to be able to report a very buzzy fair, with confidence returning and a mass of business being done. LBF is a rights fair and has increasingly come to be the major book fair of the spring, balancing the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. in the autumn. The American BookExpo is much larger but is essentially focused on the huge US domestic market. London is easy to get to for publishers from many European countries but also increasingly a magnet for publishers from much further afield, such as Japan, China, Brazil and (this year's LBF Focus) Korea...' This week's News Review looks at LBF.
• This week's Writing Opportunity is The Guardian Legend Self-Published Book of the Month, open to all self-publishers but you'll have to move fast as this month's Competition closes on 18 April.
• We have list of Writing Opportunities, which can be viewed in closing date order from this page.
• This week's Comment on writing poetry comes from Simon Armitage, whose latest books are The Death of King Arthur and Black Roses, in The Times: 'I don't dedicate my day to poetry like you would do with a job. You can't get yourself a office and sit there from 9 to 5 writing poems - it just doesn't work. With prose I can knock it out, but it's an effort to write poems because they're so intense. You need a lot of energy and stamina and patience to just sit there and fall under a poem's spell. I'm not casual with my poetry, though. When I'm engaged and writing poems I'm completely disciplined and deadly serious. I really mean it...'
• Our links of the week: firstly an amazing translation publisher, Archipelago Books: 10 Years, 100 Titles, 26 Languages | Publishing Perspectives; more talk about the future of literary agents, Paper Lantern Lit and the Rise of the Hybrid Agent; a thoughtful piece from the London Book Fair, LBF's Digital Minds: The Golden Age or End of the Book? | Publishing Perspectives; and, from the Bookseller's Futurebook, always an interesting and often provocative blog, The end of the beginning | FutureBook.
• Writing Non-fiction? Have a look at our Top Ten Tips for Nonfiction Writers, written by Julie Wheelwright, programme director, MA Creative Writing Nonfiction, City University, London.
• Are you thinking of submitting your book to an agent?  Try our Finding an Agent page or your Submission package. Our Submission critique service may also help.
• 'It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes...' Gustave Flaubert in our Writers' Quotes.

• A recent Bookseller interview with Tom Weldon, now CEO of Penguin Random House UKPenguin Random House have more than 50 creative and autonomous imprints, publishing the very best books for all audiences, covering fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s books, autobiographies and much more. Click for Random House UK Publishers References listing, suggested that the big publishers have accommodated ebooks and are actually doing quite well. He was positive about maintaining the different imprints, which must be good news for writers: ‘We need to protect and nurture the diverse centres of publishing excellence. We want them to get on and do their own thing...' News Review
• This year's Diagram Prize winner is announced!
• From our Archive there's the serialisation of How Not to Write a Novel: Confessions of a Midlist Author by David Armstrong: 'Every week, agents and publishers receive hundreds of manuscripts from would-be authors. Of these, fewer than 1% will make it into print. David Armstrong was one of these, his first crime novel, Night's Black Agents, was plucked from the slush pile at a major publisher and published to acclaim. So far, so good. But what rapidly became clear to Armstrong was that being a published novelist is not always as glamorous as it seems from the outside...'
• This week's links: a report from the Twitter Fiction Festival BookBrunch - Behind the hashtag - genuine creativity and innovation; an article on those key opening lines of a novel How technology distractions are making novels' first lines even more important - Telegraph; from the New York Times, a look at how poorly children from diverse backgrounds are served in books The Apartheid of Children's Literature - NYTimes.com; the Amazon debate rumbles on Why Book Publishers Need to Think Like Amazon | Publishing Perspectives; and a positive report on Quick Reads Tech gives strugglers the confidence to read more | Books | The Observer.
• A Printer's View 1 is the first in a series of occasional articles looking at self-publishing from the printing perspective. In Self-publishing? How do you prepare your files for print? Andy EdmonsonManaging Director, Purely Digital, a quality digital printing service based in Derby; over 20 years' experience in printing industry; written for various publications including Print Week and popular blog Just Creative, Managing Director at Purely Digital, looks at this central question. 'You've considered the arguments for and against self-publishing and decided that it's the best option for you. Great; you've got over one of the many difficult hurdles of getting your book out to the world, the next step is to transform the files on your computer into a physical printed book.
• 'Dickens is the best example of someone who, I think, did what I do, or what I try to do, which is to take a difficult or contentious moral or social issue and get people to think about it through fiction. You see highbrow reviews of highbrow books that no one has ever heard of. You see what awards are given at the National Book Awards. But I really wonder 500 years from now, or even 100 years from now, what's going to stick around? Is it going to be those books, or is it going to be, as we've seen in the past, what was read widely...' Jodie Piccoult, author of The Storyteller, in The Times., quoted in our Comment column.
  
• 'Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.' Leonard Cohen in our Writers' Quotes.

• Do creative writing courses work? 'Following on from Hanif Kureishi's attack on creative writing courses this week, this old chestnut of a question has turned up again. Kureishi has dismissed creative writing courses as "a waste of time" and said he would never have gone on one himself, despite the fact that he currently teaches a writing course at Kingston University.' News Review investigates.
• In Joanne PHillips' fantastically useful WritersServices Guide to Self-publishing we're now up to  the eighth article, which deals with 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.: Pricing Strategies for Indie Authors: 'Never has price been a more essential factor in the success or popularity of a particular title. With prices for ebooks ranging from completely free to upwards of £6/$10, ebook pricing is a minefield for the indie author...'
• ‘My initial career conformed to my original notion of authorship. You wrote a book, you struggled to get it published, if you were lucky you found a kindly editor who paid you a bit of money, and later perhaps you'd be paid for another book. And so on. In the meantime you did other things like secretary work or journalism to make a bit more. But then, between 2007 and 2010, everything changed.,. Being a writer stopped being the way it had been for ages - the way I expected it to be - and became something different...'Joanna Kavenna interviewed by Robert McCrum in the Observer for his article From bestseller to bust: is this the end of an author's life? | Books | The Observer in our Comment column.
• WritersServices editor Kay GaleWritersServices editor who has worked for many years as a freelance editor for number of publishers. on The Slush-pile: 'When I started working in publishing over thirty years ago it was part of my job to check through the pile of unsolicited manuscripts that arrived on a daily basis, and like every other enthusiastic young editorial assistant, I dreamed of finding the next bestseller in the ‘slush pile'. I was soon disillusioned..' 
• Our links this week: Danuta Kean on why writers should be paid Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society The Price Ain't Right, the director of World Book Day on the brilliant Quick Reads BookBrunch - World Book Day: Helping non-readers to climb their first mountain, Anna Metcalfe's calm and self-effacing article on prizes and Creative Writting BookBrunch - Longlists, shortlists and lists of other kinds and, a much angrier article, Kureishi slams creative writing courses | The Bookseller.
• Our Tips series is an 8-part series which starts with Improve your writing and ends with Submission to agents and publishers.
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is the The CWA Margery Allingham Short Story Competition for Unpublished Stories 2014. You'll need to move fast to get your story into this competition, as it closes on 16 March.
• Garth Gunston, the author of Getting my novel published has further intriguing news - his book has been set up for crowd-funding to raise the money for a film.
• 'To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone - just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over....' John Hersey in our Writers' Quotes.

• In the seventh part of the WritersServices Self-publishing Guide 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 deals with Print on Demand for Indies: 'Print On Demand - or POD - is exactly that: a service whereby your book is printed only when it has been ordered, either by a bookshop or an online retailer. POD is an alternative to offset printing, where it is usually only economical to print large quantities of books. If a publisher, or author, is certain they can sell thousands of copies in a short space of time, a book will be printed in bulk and shipped out to distributors ready to be sold in bookshops or via online stores. But if there is not this immediate demand - as is often the case with self-published titles - POD is used instead...'
• There's been a wide-ranging debate this week sparked off by Hugh Howey's report on authors' earnings from ebooks, including an article by Mark Coker in Publishers WeeklyInternational news website of book publishing and bookselling including business news, reviews, bestseller lists, commentaries http://www.publishersweekly.com/ Hugh Howey and the Indie Author Revolt. Can Hugh Howey lead an indie author revolt? Based on Amazon's hourly ebook bestseller lists, Howey has made some large claims about the shift to self-publishing and the end of big publishers' control of the publishing model. But Howey's argument is based on the figures Amazon releases and these are essentially a marketing tool, controlled by the site and intended to sell as may ebooks as possible and to further Amazon's aims of increasing the share of Kindle Direct Publishing and Amazon's own publishing lists...' News Review
• 'Fiction springs irresponsible and unfettered from every soil. A novel is an entertainment, worked over, calculated, staged, shaped. Yet its genesis is always in the writer's real pleasures, enthusiasms, griefs and confusions. Writing one is quite unlike journalism. In earlier novels the rags of my real preoccupations kept surfacing unexpectedly, interwoven into brand new garments. Threads come in from all directions: the sea, the spiritual poverty of modern education, variety artistes, idealistic organic farmers, the modern military, unrequited love, Venice, Transsexualism, late Shakespeare. So it was probably inevitable that the most intense and disastrous experience of all would provoke a fictional mother and a fictional grief: both real and unreal...' Our Comment this week is from Libby Purves, author of Shadow Child and Acting Up, in The Times.
• Our links this week are firstly the two Hugh Howey articles mentioned in News Review - The 7k Report - Author Earnings and Hugh Howey and the Indie Author Revolt - Self-publishing: is it killing the mainstream? | Books | theguardian.com, more on self-publishign from Anne Charnock, BookBrunch - A calculated risk led to success for A Calculated Life, another author setting up her own rights-seller Lynda La Plante forms own rights company | The Bookseller, Cornerstone buys four from self-published Tracy Bloom | The Bookseller and an interesting perspective from Futurebook, The fall of the house of books | FutureBook.
• Ten Top Tips for Nonfiction writers from Julie Wainwright is a helpful checklist.
• 'Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents and everyone is writing a book.' Cicero, circa 43 BC, in our Writers' Quotes.

• 'Online communities are the way things are going. Publishers have been trying to establish communities of readers to sell books to for some time, but now an author blogger has called for them to set up communities of writers too, and perhaps even communities of publishers and freelances as well. Publishers have been thinking about communities of readers for some time, as they try to develop relationships direct with their consumers...' News Review
• An Editor's Advice is a seven-part series from Maureen Kincaid Speller a reviewer, writer, editor and former librarian, is our book reviewer and also works for WritersServices as a freelance editor., a longstanding WritersServices freelance editor. Starting with Dialogue and moving on to Another draft, this very practical series ends with Presentation.
• The late Norman Mailer in our Comment column: 'It's very bad to write a novel by act of will. I can do a book of nonfiction that way - just sign the contract and do the book because, provided the topic has some meaning for me, I know I can do it. A novel is more like falling in love...'
• 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 latest article in her very practical ten-part WritersServies Guide to Self-publishing deals with Ebooks: Distributing to Other Eretailers 'Now we've explored how to format your book for Kindle and upload to the Amazon KDP platform, it's time to look at the virtual shelves of other eretailers. There are two options here: upload to each eretailer direct, or use a distributor like Smashwords to do it for you...'
• Our links of the week: first something quite way out: Sensory Fiction: Books That Let You Feel What The Characters Do | WUWF, India's Buoyant Book Market Attracts More Foreign Deals | Publishing Perspectives, the quite worrying news that Adobe has Killed e-Readers | Good E-Reader - eBook and Digital Publishing News and, a new twist on Creative Writing courses - First self-publishing MA offers DIY education | Books | theguardian.com.
• We're delighted that our Writing Opportunity thiis week is the unique and newly set up 2014 Manchester Writing for Children Prize for poets trying to make thier way in this genre. Hurry because it closes on 28 February. Open to all, with a £12 entry fee.
• To go alongside our new Poetry Collection Editing service, and our Poetry Critique, there's Getting your Poetry published and 101 ways to make poems sell.
• 'The historian records, but the novelist creates.' E M Forster's magisterial words in our Writers' Quotes.

• WritersServices Guide to Self-publishing 5 is about 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.: Distributing to Other Eretailers. 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: 'Now we've explored how to format your book for Kindle and upload to the Amazon KDP platform, it's time to look at the virtual shelves of other eretailers. There are two options here: upload to each eretailer direct, or use a distributor like Smashwords to do it for you. Why Sell Across Other Platforms? Amazon is not the only fruit! Although the Kindle ereader and Kindle apps do seem to be taking the lion's share of the market, many readers are using the Nook or Kobo devices instead, or are reading on their iPads and iPhones via the iBooks app on the Apple store. If you make your book available to Kindle users only, you are missing out on a section of the market...' The series to date.
• News Review asks: Are brands in decline? 'As recent figures have shown, this last year has shown the lowest sales for brand name authors for five years. It's easy to assume from this figure that it's all over for the big brands, in print at least, but the truth is that they have shown their durability over many years. Brands do come and go and no-one stays at the top forever. New authors come to the forefront and, although the older brands may not be so visible, they do still provide the mainstay of many publishers' lists. Every time a brand-name author has a new book, their whole backlist - backlist which may consist of a great many titles - gets a boost...'
• Our listing of 2014 International Book Fairs is invaluable if you're planning a visit to one near you.
• Our Writing Opportunity this week is the 2014 Cardiff International Poetry Competition, which offers one of the largest monetary prizes for a poetry competition of its kind. First prize is £5,000, there's an entry fee of £15 and it closes on 14 March.
• 'This is certainly not the writer's life I anticipated when I opened that first acceptance latter, when I first met someone who'd read me. This isn't what I aimed for when I sneaked out short stories between working in all kinds of centres and hospitals and facilities. The workshops taught me that you move beyond your fears, find the words to name yourself, make demands, celebrate joys, protest pains, then you can start to move your world. I grew up as a writer seeing that language is a monumental force, that it constantly works upon us, for good and ill, that it can redefine us, rehearse the changes we want, establish our humanity...' A L Kennedy, author of What Becomes? in The Times, quoted in our Comment column.
• Links of the week: after a surprise First Novel win, Costa Book Prize 2013: Why Nathan Filer deserves his win - Telegraph, in Bread and Roses | Hugh Howey stands up for writers, the social networks tell it like it is in Quill & Quire » Twitter trend declares 2014 the year of reading women and where are we all going? Issues on the Ether: Profit-Sharing Authors | Publishing Perspectives.
• 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...'
• 'There is an element of autobiography in all fiction in that pain or distress, or pleasure, is based on the author's own. But in my case that is as far as it goes. My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so, I am a storyteller.' William Trevor in our Writers' Quotes.

'As well as being the season for book industry leaders to forecast what kind of year they think we're going to have, it's also been a time when editors are looking into crystal balls. They're not coming up with many answers and most trends seem to be a continuation of what's already happening...' News Review on So what do editors want?

WritersServices Self-publishing Guide 5 looks at Cover Design Know-how: Tips from a top designer on how to make your indie cover look professional and stand out from the crowd. 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  asked designer Chris Howard for the lowdown on cover know-how, startiing with 'What makes the perfect book cover?' and going on to 'What mistakes do self-publishing authors make when designing their own covers?'

Joanne Phillips has also written a useful article on The Business of Writing: 'Writing is undoubtedly a creative art. Whether we are working on the next Booker Prize winner or ghostwriting blog posts, writers need to be original, imaginative and inspired. But writing is also a business, with invoices to raise, accounts to be submitted and records to be kept. Writers, like artists, can find themselves floundering when it comes to the 'business end' of the job. Read on for our easy-to-follow guide to the business of writing...'

This week's links to topical stories: BookBrunch - Why I self-published my business book, Erotic Romance Book Sales Still Sizzle | Publishing Perspectives, The loss leader | FutureBook, which gives a historical perspective on what's happening in the book world now, BookBrunch - Creative Writing courses - about more than simply publication and Men Don't Read Fiction? BULL! - Writing on the Ether | Porter Anderson.

‘All writers have to be readers first. When I was eight I got encephalitis and was seriously ill; I spent a year-and-a-half in bed recuperating. I ended up reading what was on my bookshelf from one end to the other, and when I finished, I went back and read them all again: I must have read the Pippi Longstocking books, The Secret Garden and the Moomin books more than 30 times.' Maggie O'Farrell, author of Instructions for a Heatwave in the Independent on Sunday, in our Comment column.

Thi week's Writing Opportunity is the 2014 Cinnamon Poetry Pamphlet Prizes, which are open to all poets, published and beginners, with 4 prizes of £150 each, and are just one of the enhanced prizes offered by this publisher for writing of all kinds.

Michael Legat's Factsheets are a series of specially commissioned information-packed Factsheets for WritersServices, which cover the essentials for writers from a former publisher, novelist and author of 12 books on writing. For a quick update on First and Last Pages,  Literary Agents or Shall I be Famous? Shall I be Rich?, and much more, this is the place to look.

'A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.' Dylan Thomas in our Writers' Quotes.