Help for writers

WritersServices offers a huge range of free information and help for writers and published authors

Check out our endorsements to see what other writers have had to say about the site.

Our latest site statistics update.

How to improve your writing

• Check out Advice for Writers for links to over 65 useful pages on the site. The latest are The Ins and Outs of Indexing, Sell, don't tell - a two-part article on how to pitch your script,How to market your writing services online, Writing for the web, Top Ten Tips for nonfiction writers, Choosing a Service, Getting your manuscript copy edited and  Getting your poetry published.
• Read our new 7-part series An Editor's Advice, by Maureen Kincaid Speller a reviewer, writer, editor and former librarian, is our book reviewer and also works for WritersServices as a freelance editor., which deals with the most common problems she has encountered in the manuscripts which cross her desk.
• Read Michael Legat’s 19 Factsheets on everything from plotting your novel to publishers’ contracts.
• Use our editorial services to let our expert editors help you get your work ready for publication.  These cover everything from Reader's and Editor's Reports to Copy editing. A recently-introduced service is our Poetry Critique. You could start by looking at Which service? Our latest new service is Blurb-writing.
• Our latest new service is Indexing, a must for most non-fiction books, and then there's our three-tier Children's Editorial Services and Synopsis Writing, to help you get your submission package ready, Typing and Manuscript Polishing, which acknowledges the growth of world English and helps non-native speakers get their work into shape.
• If you are preparing your PhD for submission, you might feel you need our PhD editing service.
• Our fictionalised stories show you how the services work.
• Trawl our WritersBookstall for the right book to improve your writing, 200 books in all - covering every kind of writing from Fantasy to Writing a memoir.
• Use our new writers' magazine reviews to find one to subscribe to. Just added: Self Publishing Magazine.
• Take a look at our Education Resource Centre, nearly 80 pages of downloadable information set up for writing course organisers and students.

How to get published

• There's a useful new page on Getting your poetry published.
• Check out our new page on putting together Your submission package.
• Look through our newly-updated 2010 UK and US literary agency listings, bringing you hundreds of detailed listings of UK, US and international agents
• Work your way through our tips for Finding an Agent, essential reading for anyone who is looking for one.
• The Slush-pile - advice from an editor on how to get through it.
• Consider using our new Submission Critique Service to get your submission package into good shape before you send it out.
• If you have used our services and the editor reports favourably on your work, we will recommend it to agents we know.
• Check out our advice on Avoiding Rejection and Submissions.
• Working with an agent shows you how to get the most out of this key relationship.
• Try our Problem page to see if we've dealt with your problem.
• Explore our WritersBookstall to find a book which will give you the answer to your problem.
• Use our Contract Vetting service to make sure you know what you’re signing.
• Once you have a publisher, Preparing for Publication guides you through the next steps and tells you what to expect.
• If you have an old typescript, use our new Scanning service to get it onto your computer so you can prepare it for submission or publication.
• If your problem is a handwritten manuscript or you can't face re-typing a messy one, our Manuscript typing service can get it into pristine shape.

Keep up to date on books and publishing

• Bookmark

  Online resource supporting families of children with reading difficulties.  Useful site which explains what can affect children's ability to read and has a helpful page of advice on choosing books for children. www.bookmark.org.uk

  our weekly News Review or subscribe to our email newsletter.
• Read our Inside Publishing series, which gives you the lowdown on royalties, subsidiary rights and what’s really going on in publishing.  The latest article is on The Writer/Publisher Financial Relationship.
• See if you can get to any of the International Book Fairs we've listed.
• Watch out for vanity publishers.

How to raise money

• The business of writing by Joanne PhillipsUK-based freelance writer and ghostwriter. She has had articles published in national writing magazines, and has ghostwritten books on subjects as diverse as hairdressing and keeping chickens. Visit her at www.joannephillips.co.uk helps you deal with tax, national insurance and other business matters connected with being a writer.
• Sell your book to a publisher (see How to get Published above).
• Look at the possibility of self-publishing 

Information on everything for the writer

• Check out our carefully selected Links to link you up to the world. Constantly updated with new poetry sites.
• Become a biographer shows how to tackle this tricky form of writing.
• Our new list of free online Keyboard skills courses shows you how you can learn to touch-type.
• Read our writers’ reviews of books on writing.
• The latest new one is The Creative Writing Handbook.
• Our Writers' Software section offers links, a page of script-writing software and our latest software review on Indexing Software.
• Look through our agency listings, for information on which agent to submit your work to.
• Our new checklist on Entering competitions helps you to review how you approach competitions.
• Use our Site map to find all the sections available on the site.

Enjoy some light relief

• Examine the truly bizarre but authentic Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year.
• Follow the triumphs and disasters of an unpublished writer’s life in Bob G Ritchie’s Journal of a Virtually Unpublished Writer
• Enjoy the silly mistakes publishers have made in turning down writers' work in our Rotten Rejections page.
• Check out our pages of Writers' quotations

Publish your own book

• Check out WritersPrintShop - which now has a streamlined structure and lower prices!  Clear guidance on self-publishing, including the difficult questions answered in our new FAQs.
• Read up on Private Publishing if you want your book printed but don’t want to sell it.
• Hand over most of the hard work to our design and production service.
• Limit your costs through Print on Demand and get worldwide distribution.
• Are you out of print?   An inexpensive way of reprinting your own book - or any other title you may want to get back into print.
• Have your own large print edition of your book.
• Read the new article on Print on Demand in our Inside Publishing series to find out what it is and how it works.
• Check out our new review of How to Market Books if you're planning to publish your own.

Wary of new technology?

• Browse through our Web How-to - a just-expanded and revised section on how your computer works, with introductory pages on the Internet for new surfers, master-classes for the more technically minded and discussion of  issues affecting the web (latest are  Looking after your mouse and Spyware on how cookies can provide advertisers with information and what you can do to stop them).
• A new series, Quality v Quantity, looks first at the invisible world of the web.
• A useful section deals with using the web as a research tool.
• Try not to avoid Health Hazards’ warnings about what the computer can do to you...

Contact other Writers

• Use our new My Say page to write about something you want to communicate to other writers.

Make your writing available on the web

• Get feedback from other writers and from readers.
• Join our community of writers' groups.

And much more…