18 August 2014 - What's new
18 August 2014
- This week, the 2015 Sunday Times EFG short Story Award, News Review looks at film options and how many British novels have been made into big films, Ian Rankin on money and, from our links, how reading print increases comprehension compared with reading digital.
- 'The truth is that many a film option, much publicised at the time it was sold, has subsequently disappeared into the sand. The investment in a feature film, particularly a Hollywood one, is so great that studios are exceedingly cautious about which options they pick up and run with. On the plus side though, the track-record of a bestselling book, especially one with a distinctive plot, can give it ‘legs' in a way that nothing else can. The studios have a ready-made audience and storyline, all they need to do is to commission a screenplay and then they're ready to start making the film.' Our News Review this week on What are your chances of getting your book made into a film?
- Our Writing Opportunity this week is the 2015 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. It is open to writers of any nationality, entrants just have to show a previous record of publication in creative writing in the UK and Ireland, and the prize is £30,000.
- ‘I never started writing thinking I would make a lot of money out of it. Most of the writers I knew in the early days had day jobs. When I started making a bit of money from it that was nice. When it became a full-time occupation that was lovely. So the money was a bonus, really. Ian Rankin, author of Saints of the Shadow Bible and many other Rebus novels in the Sunday Telegraph.
- Are you planning to self-publish and thinking about copy editing? Our page on Copy editing for self-publishers may help to give you the background.
- In our links: an acount of flourishing self-publishing in China, In China, You Don't Need a Publisher to Rake in the Big Yuan | Publishing Perspectives; how writers are losing out, Streaming of books threatens to sell readers down the river | Books | The Observer; a fascinating study of the difference between reading print and digitally, Reading Print Versus Digital Increases Comprehension: Study - GalleyCat; a review of a documentary on the book business and teh culture of reading, Review: Out of Print, a Film by Vivienne Roumani | Publishing Perspectives; and the most clearly written account of the Amazon/Hachette dispute we've found, Amazon vs Hachette: today books, tomorrow the world - Telegraph.
- A useful page for finding your way amongst the hundreds of articles on the site is Advice for Writers.
- 'Only a person with a Best Seller mind can write Best Sellers.' Aldous Huxley in our Writers' Quotes.
