November 2004 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• News Review looks at how the romantic novel has been forced to change, giving a new twist to the ‘boy meets girl’ plot - 'Girl saves the world and also meets boy’
• Edinburgh's proud title of first World City of Literature looks like providing something to live up to. See News Review.
• ‘In this climate of fear, the only way I can find the courage to continue speaking is from the knowledge that I belong to a community of writers' Sara Paretsky inspires News Review to ask if there really is a community of writers.
• ‘Public libraries are on the verge of extinction. Action is needed now to halt their decline and renew their role in cultural life.’ Tim Coates
• Will authors threaten legal action? News Review looks at the unprecedented situation in which Penguin may be asked to compensate authors for loss of sales due to the publisher's acute warehouse problems.

Comment

• 'Children's writing is the Zeitgeist...  When I was a child, the choice of titles was really limited. It's important that children like reading and the more choice there is for them, the better.' Philip Kerr, author of The Children of the Lamp in the Bookseller.
• 'We really must get wise to what the supermarkets are doing.'  Richard Barker in the Bookseller
• 'People think they can knock off a few words and watch them transform, like magic, into something they call a poem.' Christina Patterson on the craft of poetry in the Independent
• 'It’s a Catch 22 situation. The more successful you are, the less time you have to write.' Ian Rankin on author tours, in the Bookseller.
• 'The investment in an illustrated book, the picture acquisition cost, the production, the design, is much, much greater than, let's say, a novel.' Jamie Camplin of Thames & Hudson, in Publishing News, on publishing illustrated books.

Writers' Quotes

• 'It would be no loss to the world if most of the writers now writing had been strangled at birth.'       Rebecca West (at the 1962 Edinburgh Festival Writers' conference)

Print on Demand self-publishing

'An author willing to gamble on this self-publishing model can make ten times as much per book sold as compared with royalty income from a major trade house.' We reprint an article from Foner Books showing how, unless your books are bestsellers, publishing your own book can make much more money for you.