March 2004 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• There's been a sea change in the way reference material is accessed...
• The London Book Fair comes of age, a busy fair with visitor figures up 7%.
• ‘I am utterly astonished. The phrase “beyond my wildest dreams” has now taken on meaning for me.’ Charles Chadwick on being published at 71.  We looks at two older breakthrough writers.
• World Book Days - what do they offer?

Comment

• 'If publishing is to save itself from being a mere arm of the movie industry, executives must realize that they cannot divine a book's success through money tendered at contract time.' Robert Weil
• 'The time-honoured device of royalties to an author being expressed as a percentage of different discounts worked well in a different era. It has become a wildly unfair anachronism in our new century.'         The late Giles Gordon
• 'I’m interested in what it’s like to be a woman, a mother, a friend, a lover, to fear, to hope, to love.’  Rose Tremain
• '...it's the story, stupid. The story has to come first, it's the heart of the thing. Michael Morpurgo, newly-appointed Children's Laureate

Writers' Quotes

‘If I could read a book, I'd definitely read one of yours.'  Paris Hilton, currently selling her own book, to Jackie Collins.