12 March 2018 - What's new
12 March 2018
- Our new page Copy editing services covers our six services working on writers' manuscripts, a range which includes our top of the range Writer's Edit and Translation editing. We have just introduced free samples and free short written assessments on most of these services, which are provided by our skilled professional editors.
- ‘Books begin to feel more and more like a new counter-culture. There seems a new power animating books that was absent for many years, and that has to do with the form. It's said that reality has outstripped fiction but I don't think that's true. We need fiction more than ever to define reality afresh...' Our Comment is from Richard Flanagan, author of The Narrow Road to the Deep South, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2014, First Person and four other novels, in the Bookseller.
- From our 19-part Inside Publishing series, Subsidiary Rights: 'My first job in publishing was in a subsidiary rights department. I'm ashamed to admit that I accepted the job without having much idea what subsidiary rights were. Many writers may feel just as vague about this part of publishing, so here's a quick breakdown...' and Vanity Publishing: 'It is natural for writers to be eager to get published but it pays to be wary of the vanity publishers who will take your money and give you very little in return...' Vanity publishing is quite distinct from Self-publishing, you need to be aware of the differences.
- Deviant Minds is a competition open to unagented and unpublished crime or thriller writers who were born or are resident in the UK or Ireland. The prize is representation by A M Heath and digital publication by Corvus and it closes on 27 April.
- Other current Writing Opportunities.
- If you need to get your material typed up, but can't face doing the job yourself, Typing manuscripts is a service for writers who have an old or handwritten manuscript or audio tapes, which need typing before they can proceed with reworking, submission or publication.
- Our links: the real lowdown on short stories, Complete fiction: why 'the short story renaissance' is a myth | Books | The Guardian; wait, sometimes for months, for your dream agent to request the entire book, When Do You Need an Agent? A Novelist Reveals All; a crucial part of introducing new books and new authors to a wider readership, How to Build an Author Platform Through Email Lists; and women are used to living off scraps that fall from the table, whether we're being patronised by politicians touting for our votes, The books world is sexist - and a one day promotion isn't enough to fix it | Books | The Guardian.
- 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...'
- More links: when a writer dies that family's troubles have only just begun, Up in smoke: should an author's dying wishes be obeyed? | Books | The Guardian; her debut novel was initially rejected by British publishers but has won one of the world's richest literary prize, The Manchester-based author who's won a life-changing $165k book prize - BBC News; clubs which exist entirely online and almost entirely on Instagram, Celebrity book clubs: Reese Witherspoon and Emma Roberts are changing the game | EW.com; and Romance writing has done the impossible. Hard to say how this even happened, but... it's gotten whiter, Tall, dark, and handsome --- but not too dark, ok? » MobyLives.
- 'The long-lived books of tomorrow are concealed somewhere amongst the so-far unpublished MSS of today.' Philip Unwin in our Writers' Quotes.
