November 2009 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• 'The troubled British book chain Borders went into administration last week. The chain, which had been the subject of a management buyout in July, proved unable to trade its way through the recession. It was already in the process of closing down its Book Etc stores when the end came.' News Review reports on further turmoil on the high street.


• So what's the Google  Settlement all about? You may be thoroughly bored with  it, but this is a battle of the titans as Google and Amazon square up to each other and the Settlement  has a significant impact on authors’ rights.  News Review looks at what both sides have been claiming.


• 'The New Google Settlement  looks like a reasonable resolution of a thorny set of problems. Bowing to pressure from foreign governments and the US Department of Justice, the revised Settlement presented to the district Court in New York shortly before midnight on Friday limits the scope of the scheme to works registered with the US Copyright OfficeThe US copyright office has information on its website about how to register and what advantages there are in doing so. www.copyright.gov/register/ and books published in the UK, Canada and Australia.' News Review reports.


• News Review looks at 'the tragic saga of a bestselling author', the story of Stieg Larrson, who died suddenly just as he was becoming a megaseller His girlfriend of 30 years has been disinherited and it is just like an episode out of one of Larsson’s own books.


• 'These are nervous times in the book world. Too much seems to be happening too fast and no-one is sure what it means or where we’re all going to end up.'   News Review looks at the the pace of change in e-books and internet selling.

Comment

• 'The main thing the music business didn’t realise at first is that digitalisation isn’t about distributing the same content in another way.  It changes the way people consume content and what is consumed.' Danny Ryan, intellectual property specialist at LEGC, in the Bookseller


• 'In his essay Politics and the English Language George Orwell set out a series of rules for writing that are worth repeating in full... I would add three more tips:  3. Write. As much as you can.  The more you do the better you'll get at it. Damian Whitworth in The Times


• 'It's my belief that the relationship between writer and reader is a love relationship.  How do you make someone love you?  You present yourself at your best, your most alive, your fullest, your most considerate.  An author must be love-flushed: you must give them you most comfortable chair; you want to give the reader the seat nearest the fire, the best wine and food.  It's a sort of hospitality gesture.' Martin Amis in the Sunday Times


• ‘I’ve always felt that I have tried to give women of a particular generation a voice.  I do think chick list has potentially been very powerful as it has looked at things like our awful relationship with our bodies, our relationship with food, with the beauty industry, our relationship with work – the fact that we’re still not equal…' Marian Keyes, author of The Brightest Star in the Sky, in the Bookseller


• 'But, actually, I think the most significant thing about the Reader is not the issue of convenience, but its potential for transforming non-regular readers’ relationship with books... We know there is a problem with literacy rates in the UK.  If we are to solve it, we need to be more imaginative.  We need to accept that the tools are not what matters – voice, print, audio – but the narrative itself.  And acknowledge that, for some, a resistance to the physical book itself is a problem.’ Kate Mosse in the Bookseller

Writers' Quote

'Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.'
  William Wordsworth