November 2011 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• 'A review of the UK children’s publishing scene by Caroline Horn in this week’s Bookseller provides an interesting picture of a part of the publishing business which is in pretty good shape. There is a strong feeling in the trade that the focus has shifted to bestsellers, bestselling authors and brand-name series. This makes it hard for new authors to get a sympathetic view taken of their work. The view is that nobody is interested in unknowns unless they are likely to be instant bestseller material.' News Review takes a look.


• 'Many of us who have worked in the publishing business have long expected hardbacks to be superseded by paperbacks. But over the years hardbacks have been surprisingly durable in their grip on the book-buyer, with various come-backs affecting how much they are produced. Although it’s obviously going against normal pricing rules, the more expensive hardback edition survives partly because of the gift market and partly because readers don’t want to wait to read their favourite novelist. But why not publish that novel straight into paperback? News Review muses on the latest trend.


• 'Certain genre areas of fiction publishing seem to be coming into their own in a big way at the moment, which is good news if that’s the area you write in. Science fiction and fantasy are particularly popular. Last month major SFF author Terry Pratchett’s new novel became the fastest selling adult hardback novel by a British novelist since records began, selling no less than 31,094 copies in its first full week... News Review looks at the boom in genre publishing.


• 'Amazon has been much in the news this last week. After the announcement of it first big purchase for its new publishing arm at 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., which sent tremors through the publishing world, it is now consolidating its position on e-books. The deal in question may have garnered the book for Amazon because of the high ebook royalty offered. But the question is going to be whether the company can get the book into the book trade – or will Amazon sales be enough? News Review reports.

 Comment

• 'We've arrived at this place where we just thoughtlessly plunge towards whatever the thing is that will allow us to make less of an effort. We know we're diminishing experience. We know that it was richer to walk to the store, talk to the bookseller, maybe meet your neighbour than it is to click online. But we can't stop ourselves...' Nicole Krauss, author of Great House, in the Observer


• ‘The world does not have tidy endings. The world does not have neat connections. It is not filled with epiphanies that work perfectly at the moment that you need them...' Dennis Lehane, author of Moonlight Mile in The Independent on Sunday.


• 'Books have always been defined by their physical presence. Those under 50,000 words do not give customers value for money, books much over 200,000 words are cumbersome to read and prohibitively expensive to produce. 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. make those rules redundant. Piers Blofeld, agent at Sheil Land, in the Bookseller.


• 'There's just too much stress on authors. The business model seems to be that publishers want a book a year. I wanted to spend time on my novels, but that isn't economically viable... Steph Swainston, fantasy author, who is abandoning writing to become a chemistry teacher, in the Independent on Sunday.


• 'Peter (Kravitz - her editor) said to me, I'll give you money for this. It had never occurred to me that anyone would give you money for writing: I thought writers were wealthy people who just wrote things out of the goodness of their heart and gave them as gifts. Janice Galloway, author of All Made Up, in the Guardian

Writers' Quote

'The majority of poems one outgrows and outlives, as one outgrows and outlives the majority of human passions.'
T S Eliot