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10 March 2014 - What's new

10 March 2014
  • Do creative writing courses work? 'Following on from Hanif Kureishi's attack on creative writing courses this week, this old chestnut of a question has turned up again. Kureishi has dismissed creative writing courses as "a waste of time" and said he would never have gone on one himself, despite the fact that he currently teaches a writing course at Kingston University.' News Review investigates.
  • In Joanne PHillips' fantastically useful WritersServices Guide to Self-publishing we're now up to  the eighth article, which deals with 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.: Pricing Strategies for Indie Authors: 'Never has price been a more essential factor in the success or popularity of a particular title. With prices for ebooks ranging from completely free to upwards of £6/$10, ebook pricing is a minefield for the indie author...'
  • ‘My initial career conformed to my original notion of authorship. You wrote a book, you struggled to get it published, if you were lucky you found a kindly editor who paid you a bit of money, and later perhaps you'd be paid for another book. And so on. In the meantime you did other things like secretary work or journalism to make a bit more. But then, between 2007 and 2010, everything changed.,. Being a writer stopped being the way it had been for ages - the way I expected it to be - and became something different...'Joanna Kavenna interviewed by Robert McCrum in the Observer for his article From bestseller to bust: is this the end of an author's life? | Books | The Observer in our Comment column.
  • WritersServices editor Kay GaleWritersServices editor who has worked for many years as a freelance editor for number of publishers. on The Slush-pile: 'When I started working in publishing over thirty years ago it was part of my job to check through the pile of unsolicited manuscripts that arrived on a daily basis, and like every other enthusiastic young editorial assistant, I dreamed of finding the next bestseller in the ‘slush pile'. I was soon disillusioned..' 
  • Our links this week: Danuta Kean on why writers should be paid Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society The Price Ain't Right, the director of World Book Day on the brilliant Quick Reads BookBrunch - World Book Day: Helping non-readers to climb their first mountain, Anna Metcalfe's calm and self-effacing article on prizes and Creative Writting BookBrunch - Longlists, shortlists and lists of other kinds and, a much angrier article, Kureishi slams creative writing courses | The Bookseller.
  • Our Tips series is an 8-part series which starts with Improve your writing and ends with Submission to agents and publishers.
  • Our Writing Opportunity this week is the The CWA Margery Allingham Short Story Competition for Unpublished Stories 2014. You'll need to move fast to get your story into this competition, as it closes on 16 March.
  • Garth Gunston, the author of Getting my novel published has further intriguing news - his book has been set up for crowd-funding to raise the money for a film.
  • 'To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone - just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over....' John Hersey in our Writers' Quotes.