September 2010 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• 'Can creative writing courses really open up the world of writing to the students who pay heavily for the privilege of taking them? As students begin the return to college or university across the northern hemisphere, this seems a good time to examine whether or not creative writing courses earn their keep...' News Review investigates.
• News Review reports on recent studies of bestsellerdom: 'So, what does it mean for authors? Well, the strongest message from all this is that people buy books by author brand. They’re affected by bestsellerdom, which tends to be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as bestsellers get more display space and marketing spend, in the attempt to turn them into ever greater bestsellers, which means they sell more.'
• 'Keith Ogoreck, Senior VP for Marketing for Author Solutions, has made a rather astounding prediction in book editor Alan Rinzler's blog on Forbes. He suggests that big publishers like Random House could one day ‘cede the midlist to a vast army of self-published authors’.  His theory is that the 80% of publishers’ lists which make up what is known as the midlist – literary fiction, cookbooks, self-help books and presumably a lot of genre fiction publishing, they’d just cherry pick from self-published authors who had already tested the market by publishing their book and shown a track-record of success.' News Review looks at some predictions of the future
• 'Television Book Clubs are back in the news again with much talk about Oprah’s new choice and the relaunch of the Richard and Judy Book club in the UK. Richard and Judy presided over a real phenomenon, with the launch of their highly successful book club on Channel 4 in 2004. Over the last six years the titles in their club have sold in excess of 10 million copies and generated over £60m (nearly $93m) million in book sales, turning at least eight authors into multi-millionaires and throwing a welcome spotlight onto new writers.' News Review reports.

Comment

• 'When I was a child, we lived in a two-up, two down. We had no bath - it was a tin tub in the back yard. The toilet was at the end of the yard. The first six years of my life, we used to go over the road twice a day and fetch water from the well. We were too poor to own books. However, every night we were read a story, and those stories came from books, and those books came from the library... Pie Corbett, in an interview on 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 website
• 'A writer's passion, his belief in his work, is what keeps him going through those long, dark stretches when it seems as if no one is ever going to get it. But if a writer has got himself out there - just a toe in the water - then readers' passions come into play too, and in the age of Amazon and e-readers independent booksellers still have a huge role to play.' Erica Wagner in The Times
• ‘Some people think they know what my books are about when they haven’t read them. They feel I’m in favour of bad behaviour or swearing.  Some even think I write about drugs.  There’s nothing of that kind.  Mostly, my books are about outsiders, kids who don’t fit in.  I feel they’re quite moral tales, although they do show that there are things even loving parents can’t always protect children from.  Children recognize the truth of that… Jacqueline Wilson

Writers' Quote

'Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.'
Charles Caleb Colton

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