What's New in 2019
- Do genre writers receive adequate respect from the literary establishment? ‘Everything's upside down. They assume that to do something that appeals to a huge audience is somehow easier than to do something that appeals to a tiny audience. Because we do a book a year people think you just crank a handle and out it comes. All my peers are smart, intelligent, well-informed, interested in the world; everybody puts in a huge amount of effort. It's not easy to do. This peculiar assumption that it is needs to be laid to rest. As Henry James said, "Easy reading is hard writing."' Lee Child, author of 36 novels, including the highly successful Jack Reacher series and ranging from Blue Moon to Killing Floor, in The Times magazine. Our Comment.
- From 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, The Business of Writing for Self-publishing authors offers terrific advice for all writers: 'Self-publishing authors - also known as ‘indie' authors or author-publishers - have had a steep learning curve these past few years. Getting to grips with the various sales channels available to them, producing top quality ebooks and paperbacks, and finding a place in mainstream outlets have left many writers struggling to keep up with the paperwork. What follows is a brief guide to the essentials your self-publishing business needs - because it is a business, even if you only publish one book!'
- Wicked Young Writers 2020 is open to 5-25 year-old writers in the UK. There's no entry fee. Each winner gets four tickets to see the London production of WICKED at the Apollo Victoria Theatre + meet cast members after the show along with an exclusive backstage tour and £50 worth of books/eBooks tokens to spend. Closing 2 March.
- For anyone thinking about or embarked on self-publishing, our ten-part WritersServices Self-Publishing Guide - also by Joanne Phillips - is an essential starting-point, taking you through the process step-by-step. 'Indie authors access the same professional services as traditional publishing houses. They employ freelance editors, proofreaders and cover designers. They have their work professionally formatted for ebooks and typeset for print. They may use service providers to manage some or all of the publishing tasks, or they may go it alone...' Articles include Choose Your Self-publishing Route and Marketing and Promotion for Indie Authors: Online.
- Our links: after 20 years of writing, my first novel finally entered the world in August of 2019, Lessons: The Less-Traveled Road to Getting a Book Published - The Millions; "All money made by the band goes back to the band", Advice for Women with Book Advances; in Australia indigenous literature has been one of the top-performing categories for local booksellers in 2019, Indigenous books going global as local, international sellers notice spike; and - how things have changed - until the 2010s, if you were reading, it generally meant you weren't doing it online, What Tweets and Emojis Did to the Novel - The New York Times.
- Last year we launched the Writer's edit, a top-level new service for writers who want line-editing as well as copy editing. Does your manuscript need high-level input from an editor to help you get it into the best possible shape for submission or self-publishing? This may be the service for you, offering the kind of editing which publishers' senior editors used to do in-house on their authors' manuscripts and which is now hard to find. Our other copy editing services.
- More links: Lady Oracle is both the title of a Margaret Atwood novel (1976, very funny) and the author's unofficial epithet, Margaret Atwood on the Relevance of The Handmaid's Tale; his first title was Unreliable Memoirs - it was an immediate bestseller and went on to sell over a million copies, Clive James dies at 80; a last poetry book will come next year | The Bookseller; a story of copyright and licensing infringement that sheds light on the exploitative nature of one of Egypt's most respected publishers, Naguib Mahfouz's Daughter Fights to Preserve Her Father's Legacy | Literary Hub; and my writing has always been a part of me, much like my disability, but for a long time I kept the two things stubbornly separate, A Writer's Wheels.
- For quotes fans we have superb collections in More Writers' Quotes and Even More Quotes.
- And this week, in our Writers' Quotes, from British poet Karen McCarthy Woolf: 'Poetry is a communicative art and also one that has the capacity to disrupt through its relationship with grammar, music and form.'
- ‘What really annoys me are the ones who write to say, I am doing your book for my final examinations and could you please tell me what the meaning of it is. I find it just so staggering - that you're supposed to explain the meaning of your book to some total stranger! If I knew what the meanings of my books were, I wouldn't have bothered to write them.' Our Comment is from Margaret Drabble, author of 20 novels, including The Dark Flood Rises, A Summer Bird-Cage, The Needle's Eye and The Ice Age.
- From our 19-part Inside Publishing series: on Copyright: 'Many writers worry about losing their copyright. Before sending out your manuscript it is always advisable to put a copyright line consisting of the copyright sign ©, the year and your name on the title page...'
- On The Writer/Publisher Financial Relationship: 'There's no escaping the fact that publishers and authors are essentially in an adversarial position. Even in the very best and most supportive publisher/writer relationships there is the tension caused by the fact that authors would like to earn as much as possible from their writing and publishers to pay as little as they can get away with...'
- Advice for Writers is a really useful page which takes you into our archive and helps you explore over 7,500 pages of information for writers.
- Our links: in two decades the audiobook market has grown from a publishing industry side hustle into a huge global business, 'Your throat hurts. Your brain hurts': the secret life of the audiobook star | Books | The Guardian; how do you stand out? Presentations (true for any author), 6 Tips for Securing Speaking Engagements as a Self-Published Author | Jane Friedman; the Chinese children's book market is immense (with 370 million people under the age of 18), Shanghai Children's Book Fair Gets Bigger and More Ambitious; and the new British Poet Laureate's prize for a collection that focuses on the environment, Simon Armitage: ‘Nature has come back to the centre of poetry' | Books | The Guardian.
- As well as our highly-regarded Copy editing service, which will help you prepare your manuscript for submission or self-publishing, we have Manuscript Polishing, which provides a higher-level polishing service, English Language Editing for those for whom English is not their native language and our new Writer's edit, providing line-editing. Get the right level of editorial support for your needs. Contact us to discuss what you want and take advantage of our free samples - and written assessments - on most of these services.
- More links: the big political books have been huge bestsellers, Why the Publishing Industry Just Can't Quit Donald Trump Jr. and Company | Vanity Fair; a new service designed to help self-published authors reach readers, BookLife Launches Paid Review Service for Self-Pubbed Books; a new biography about the writer, 10 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About C.S. Lewis; and Book Aid InternationalSupplies much-needed books to developing countries, raising funds from publishers and general public; 'Reverse Book Club' is masterly idea-for just £5 ($10) month you can provide 48 books to go to where they're most needed steams ahead, Books for 10 Million.
- If you are submitting your work to an agent or directly to a publishing house, check through our guidelines to give it its best chance. Making Submissions.
- From the late Fran Lebowitz in our Writers' Quotes: 'All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. It's much more relaxing to actually write.'
- ‘Before the actual placing of words on pages, The Testaments was written partly in the minds of the readers of its predecessor, The Handmaid's Tale, who kept asking what happened after the end of that novel. Thirty-five years is a long time to think about possible answers, and the answers have changed as society itself has changed and as possibilities have become actualities...' Margaret Atwood, author of The Testaments, The Handmaid's Tale, Lady Oracle, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace and 12 other novels, as well as poetry books, children's books and non-fiction, in the Sunday Times' Culture. Our Comment.
- Tips for writers is our 8-part crash course for writers who are starting out, taking you from Promoting Your Writing (and Yourself) to Self-publishing: is it for you? from Keep up to date to Submission to publishers and agents. 'Think about the market for your book. Research the category and read widely to see what other published writers in this area are doing. Which writers are successful and why? Visit bookshops and analyse what you find there. If you are reading this you are probably already writing, but it really is worth thinking right from the beginning about your readers, as that makes it far more likely you'll eventually find them...'
- The Moth Poetry Prize 2019 is open internationally to all poets over 16 for an unpublished poem. Entry fee €15 per poem. The First Prize is €10,000 and three shortlisted poets will get €1,000. Closing on 31 December.
- If you've come to the site looking for a report on your manuscript, how do you work out which one would suit you best? We have three different reports and also a set of reports for children's writers. Which report?
- Our links: writing a memoir is not the same as writing an autobiography, 7 Common Mistakes in First-Time Memoir | Jane Friedman; a fun format, as performers and writers ask her about inspiration, sex and guinea pigs, Phoebe Waller-Bridge: ‘There was an alternative ending to Fleabag ... but I'll never tell' | Books | The Guardian; perhaps it's not fair to say so, but this is a surprising outcome for one of the trickiest publishing areas and the world's biggest online book retailer, Translations Pay Off for Amazon; on the trail of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the origins of modern anti-Semitism, 26 Years Later, Nicholas Meyer Is Returning to Sherlock Holmes. Why Now? | CrimeReads; and it was 'as if Milton and Blake had rewritten the Narnia books. I knew it would change the imagination of generations', Philip Pullman: a tribute to the enchanter.
- Our page of Picture library links provides a good starting-point for finding an image for your book, whether it's for the cover or inside. Gograph was added a while ago with its 18 million stock links.
- 'You are a first-time author without an agent and you receive a contract to publish your book - just how do you evaluate it? Is it fair or biased against the author by prevailing industry standards? Is your publisher looking out for your interests as well as his own - or wording the clauses in a way only advantageous to the company?' Why your book contract needs vetting.
- More links: just the author's personal advice, Lydia Davis: Ten of My Recommendations for Good Writing Habits | Literary Hub; an enchanting article, How a Harry Potter Illustrator Brings the Magical to Life - The New York Times; what if you love to write, you want to be a writer, but you don't feel that something sufficiently monumental has happened to you? Kurt Vonnegut's Advice for the Impatient Writer | Literary Hub; and, a sad reversal after last week's good news, Outrage after Turkish journalist re-arrested a week after his release | World news | The Guardian.
- Have you managed to find a publisher for your work and are now enjoying the thrill of knowing that your book will soon be published? If you're wondering what happens next or just dreaming of being in that situation, Preparing for Publication gives an outline of what's involved.
- 'To present a whole world that doesn't exist and make it seem real, we have to more or less pretend we're polymaths. That's just the act of all good writing.' William Gibson's contribution to our Writers' Quotes.
- ‘When the last autumn of Dickens's life was over, he continued to work through his final winter and into spring. This is how all of us writers give away the days and years and decades of our lives in exchange for stacks of paper with scratches and squiggles on them. And when Death calls, how many of us would trade all those pages, all that squandered lifetime-worth of painfully achieved scratches and squiggles, for just one more day, one more fully lived and experienced day?... ' Dan Simmons, author of 37 horror, science fiction, fantasy and historical novels and collections of short stories, including Drood, Hyperion and The Terror. Our Comment.
- From our nineteen-part Inside Publishing series, you can read up on Advances and royalties: 'Publishers usually offer to pay authors advances against royalties. How do you work out how much money you might earn from your book? You need to understand for yourself how advances and royalties work and what they mean for you...'
- From the same series, Copy editing and proof-reading explains the difference between the two: 'Proof-reading is a separate activity from copy editing and should always be done afterwards as part of a final check that the text is in good order. Traditionally, proof-reading was done at galley stage, when the text was set up in type but not yet made into pages...'
- The Bookbrunch Selfies Awards 2020 is for self-published titles published since January 2018, and entries will be accepted from authors based in the UK who are predominantly or only self-published. There is an entrance fee of £25+VAT per title, and all those submitting work will receive six-month subscriptions to BookBrunch. The winners will get £1,000 in each category and other prizes.
- WritersServices can provide a range of services working on your manuscript, to help you get it ready for submission or self-publishing. We are UK-based, offer exceptional value and our skilled professional editors have been working on writers' manuscripts for 17 years. We have just introduced free samples and free assessments on most of these services, please see the individual service page. Copy editing services.
- Our links: Jane Friedman argues that the secret to selling a book is understanding its readers and how to deliver on their expectations, No Clear Readership, No Clear Sales; what's behind our heightened connection with children's books? Why the books we read as children are the ones that shape our psyche | Books | The Guardian; book publishing has changed dramatically over the last twenty years, Intellectual Property: The Big Picture for Authors | Jane Friedman; and how do you tackle writers block? I don't believe in writer's block, Bernardine Evaristo on the Illusion of Writer's Block | Literary Hub.
- Why your book contract needs vetting - 'You are a first-time author without an agent and you receive a contract to publish your book - just how do you evaluate it? Is it fair or biased against the author by prevailing industry standards? Is your publisher looking out for your interests as well as his own - or wording the clauses in a way only advantageous to the company? Would you, for example, know which rights to grant - for how long and on what terms...' Our contracts expert on why contract vetting is essential if you don't have an agent.
- More links: should only writers from marginalized backgrounds tell stories about people who share their cultural histories? Who Gave You the Right to Tell That Story? What interests me most is that I think the different eco-systems within publishing are settling down somewhat, Questions for: John Bond; lost or found languages, Conlangers invent languages for science, pleasure-and the occasional hoax; his prison memoir I Will Never See the World Again, was longlisted for the £50,000 Baillie Gifford prize in September, Jailed Turkish author Ahmet Altan freed after three years | Books | The Guardian.
- Are you thinking of submitting your book to an agent? Try our Finding an Agent page or Your Submission package. Our Submission critique service may also help, as it's essential to get your package into the best possible shape before you start submitting.
- 'It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.' P D James in our Writers' Quotes.