15 July 2024

‘Even if you are writing stark realism, I think there is magic in this age group, because they are at an age at which possibility is at its most colossal. They are still on the brink of becoming the person that they will be, and there is magic inherent there. I wanted to say to children, "I think you have been underestimated. I think you have in you a capacity for boldness, and for adventure, and for valiance - qualities that the world has not always saluted in children..."' Katherine Rundell, the author of 9 books, including Rooftoppers, The Girl Savage, published in the US as Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms, Impossible Creatures and Super-Infinite: The Transformation of John Donne in Publishers WeeklyInternational news website of book publishing and bookselling including business news, reviews, bestseller lists, commentaries http://www.publishersweekly.com/.
If you're looking for a report on your manuscript, how do you work out which one of our three reports would suit you best? Which Report? includes our latest top-of-the-range service, the Editor's Report Plus, introduced by popular demand to provide even more detail. This very substantial report takes the form of a chapter-by-chapter breakdown and many writers have found that this detail helps them to get their book right. Through our specialist children's editors we can offer reports on children's books.
The Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2024 is open to all and closes on 31 August. The entry fee for Poetry entries is £12 and for Short Fiction entries it's £18. £2,500 is awarded to both the Poetry and Short Fiction winners and publication in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Anthology, plus many other prizes.
The My Say series gives writers a chance to write about their writing lives, so we have: My Say 7 Timothy Hallinan on the Writing Session, My Say 11 by Natasha Mostert, 'There are few things as satisfying as typing THE END to a manuscript' and My Say 12 by Richard Hall: '"Write about what you know" - does this adage always make sense? For those planning a contemporary novel it may be sound advice to write about what you know. But what about writers of historical novels? They cannot have personal knowledge of anything before the recent past. So for historical fiction should we take the adage to mean "know'"in the sense of having academic knowledge of the subject, from reading and other research?...' Contributions should ideally be 300 to 500 words in length and of general interest. Please email them to us.
Our first set of links: a huge increase in the adult fantasy category, With Fantasy on Fire, Print Book Sales Are Catching Up to 2023; you don't often find a new poetry editor talking about her list, The Bookseller - News - Chatto's Sarah Howe reveals plans for poetry list; it's essential to build trust between a publicist and a writer, The Bookseller - News - Managing authors' expectations is key during publication, M&P audience hears; for Arielle, discovering romance novels was like uncovering a new world, Romance novels are shaping teenagers' views on love, relationships - thanks to social media - ABC News; and lots of books qualify as comfort reads - but what makes cozy distinctive is that it offers sanctuary, The Rise of Cozy Fantasy - Reactor.
Veteran editor Maureen Kincaid Speller a reviewer, writer, editor and former librarian, is our book reviewer and also works for WritersServices as a freelance editor.'s 7-part series An Editor's Advice includes Points of View: 'Not so long ago, I read what ought to have been a really exciting novel filled with drama, action, treachery and romance. Or it would have been but for one thing. I saw none of this drama, I only heard about it later. Why was that? It was because the author had decided to use a first-person viewpoint character and, unfortunately ‘I' was nowhere near any of the action... In fact, ‘I' was in a bunker halfway up a mountainside, having rather a dull time of it all while mayhem broke out elsewhere. As the reader, I had to stick with ‘I' and likewise, I had a pretty boring time. It is a great temptation for the inexperienced author to write from the first-person viewpoint because it somehow seems easier to imagine oneself directly into a situation and to write about how things might seem from that point of view...'
‘Absolutely first class job! Very professional. Thank you very much indeed. Wish I'd found you before, it would certainly have saved me a lot of unnecessary headaches. I'll now bin the rest of the editors I've so far dealt with, and hope to keep contact with you.' Steven Kocsis in our Endorsements page.
Links about reading, book clubs and festivals: three famous readers hold immense influence over the publishing industry. Their recommendations can make or break a book, How Celebrity Book Clubs Actually Work; Cassidy Grady's Sunday reading series ‘Confessions' seeks fresh avenues for creative expression in wake of pandemic, ‘It's a snowball effect': the gen Z niche reading event making waves in New York | New York | The Guardian; having been crowned UK Children's Laureate, he's on a mission to show kids that books will change their lives, ‘Reading's in danger': Frank Cottrell-Boyce on books, kids - and the explosive power of Heidi | Books | The Guardian; Trevor Dolby on a glorious, inspiring week in Wiltshire, Chalke Valley: bringing history alive; encouraging research, The Bookseller - News - Children's reading remains a top priority for UK public despite challenges, new PA survey shows; and large-scale, algorithmic bookselling will never outlive the necessity of local stores like ours, Bookshops will never die. That's why I bought one on Gumtree five years ago - and we're still here | Culture | The Guardian.
Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. Get your manuscript ready for publication - Services for Self-publishers.
Why has my manuscript been rejected? It is demoralising to get your manuscript rejected by publishers or agents. Here are some of the reasons why this happens and suggestions of what you can do about it. Avoiding rejection
Links to writers' stories: how he went from working as a computer programmer in 1980s New York City to writing the iconic Devil in a Blue Dress, My First Thriller: Walter Mosley ‹ CrimeReads; Patrick Worrall on writing about Europe's dark past - as it threatens to return, Torturing my heroine; and April Henry on successfully channeling family history and criminal tendencies into fiction, I Come From a Long Line of Criminals ‹ CrimeReads.
Are you struggling to get someone to look at your poetry? Our Poetry Critique service for up to 150 lines of poetry can help. Our Poetry Collection Editing, unique to Writersservices, edits your collection to prepare it for submission or self-publishing. Both can provide the professional editorial input you need. We've just edited our first poetry collection which was a translation, so the service was a combination of Poetry Collection editing and English Language Editing.
From Tom Chalmers, formerly of IPR, two articles about rights for self-publishers, Self-publishing - the rights way and How to get your book in the hands of an international audience. 'It's a fact that most self-published authors understand the process that takes them from a written manuscript to a published book, but few realise the additional elements that make publishing a profitable business. Rights licensing is arguably the most vital element in this equation. Whether it's selling translation rights, audio rights or optioning the film rights, these all help balance the book's books...'
Our last set of links are about publishing and AI: after the UK election result, The Bookseller - News - Labour landslide: put 'profound challenges' of AI and intellectual property rights high up on agenda, author bodies urge new government; how Artifical Intelligence can help sell more books, Part 2: 5 Ways AI Can Transform How Publishing Sells Books; for this year's trends, look to last year's hits. Rinse and repeat, The Bookseller - Editor's Letter - The book trade: open for business; and while at the sales conference of Jonathan Ball Publishers, a veteran publisher sizes up the South African book market, Richard Charkin: 'Where the Lion Feeds'.
Are you ready to submit your synopsis and sample chapters to agents or publishers, but worried about whether you are presenting your work in the best possible way? It's dispiriting to receive rejections just because your submission package is not up to scratch. Our Submission Critique has helped many authors to improve their submission packages, helping them to get published.
'Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.' Ray Bradbury in our Writers' Quotes.