What's New in 2020
- ‘I do feel that the world in which I grew up and have lived all my life is ending. And that's true in all the countries that I've cared about in my life and written about: India, England and here. What I thought was the given, how the places worked, has changed in all three cases...' Salman Rushdie, author of Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses, Quichotte and Shame in The Times. Our Comment.
- An endorsement from Anthony Fitzgerald for our English Language Editing Service: 'The result? A book that reads like it's written by a native speaker for only 13% of the price a complete translation would have costed. Thank you, writersservices.'
- Closing on 28 February, the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition 2020. It's open to all cartoonists, and writers and artists working as a team, who have not previously published a full-length graphic work and are resident in the UK. Entry fee £10. The prize is publication on the Myriad list.
- Four other live Writing opportunities.
- Tips for writers is our 8-part crash course for writers who are starting out, taking you from Improving your writing to Self-publishing: is it for you? to Keep up to date and Submission to publishers and agents. 'Be prepared to redraft your work and to rethink it. Many new writers assume that their work will immediately be ready for publication, but the truth is that many highly successful writers produced several drafts of their first work before they got it published.' and 'When you've got your work into the best state you can, put it on one side for a few weeks and then look at it afresh. You'll be amazed what difference a fresh eye will make.'
- Our links: based on what you're seeing here, should I bother to pursue this? How to Tell If You Have What It Takes to Succeed as a Writer | Jane Friedman; for the first time since 2011, the news about book publishing has seemed less than dire (an interesting article in spite of the strange title), Smorgasbords Don't Have Bottoms | Issue 36 | n+1; Netflix's adaptation of his Witcher series is a sensation, Toss a Coin to Your Author: PW Talks with Andrzej Sapkowski; in his 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun, William Faulkner famously wrote that "The past is never dead. It's not even past." What We Write About When We Write About the Past | CrimeReads; and, surprising news perhaps, UK Publishers Association Study: Women Hold 55 Percent of Top Roles.
- 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: "Anyone can be a critic." It's a common lament these days, now that the book review landscape is changing, Everyone Can Be a Book Reviewer. Should They Be? | Literary Hub (there's a riposte below); "My writing has always been where I've gone to work through my problems," In N.K. Jemisin's Next Trilogy, the City Is On Fire; why is literary Twitter piling on Jeanine Cummins' book? American Dirt controversy, explained; although I've been reviewing books for half a century, this little treatise caused me to do some anxious head-scratching, Inside the Critics' Circle by Phillipa K Chong review - rickety scaffolding | Books | The Guardian.
- 'It's a common enough fantasy for writers: maybe now I can leave that dreary job and devote myself whole-heartedly to writing... But how practical is it? Is it something you can realistically aspire to, or just a distant fantasy? What are your chances of making your dream come true? Don't give up the day job.
- 'If you're going to be a writer you have to be one of the great ones... After all, there are better ways to starve to death.' Gabriel Garcia Marquez in our Writers' Quotes.
- ‘The biggest kick is reading something new and exciting and then getting other people to share your enthusiasm... Beyond all the cant and hypocrisy in publishing, that's what it's all about... I have always found comfort in the confines of a book or a manuscript, Reading is how I spend most of my time and is still the most joyful aspect of my day. I want to be remembered not as an editor or publisher, but as a reader...' Sonny Mehta, Publisher of Knopf, who died recently. Our Comment.
- 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...'
- The Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize 2020 represents a brilliant opportunity for writers. It's open to writers of any nationality writing in English and the entry fee is £20 but there are two prizes with £15,000 for the winner of each prize, plus a publishing deal with Bonnier for Best Unpublished Manuscript. Closing 2 March.
- Our copy editing services for writers. 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 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.
- 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: now the giant retailer is breaking into publishing with bestselling authors, Can Amazon Finally Crack the Bestseller Code? | The New Republic; from the doyenne of a particular type of black women's lit, Terry McMillan, Thwarter of Book Biz Gatekeepers, Has a New Novel; should the subject matter, & their titles, be treated with a little more thought & consideration? Can a work of fiction about the Holocaust be inaccurate? Romance narratives served as a kind of template for my own early love-affairs, Thrillers Pick Up Where Romance Leaves Off | CrimeReads; and 32 years of writing V.C. Andrews, How to Be a Ghostwriter.
- How to get your book translated into English (without it costing the earth) asks writers who are not native English speakers with a manuscript which needs polishing or translating: "if your English is good enough, what about translating your book yourself or writing in English, and then getting your work polished and copy edited by a professional editor who is a native English speaker?" This could be a cost-effective way of reaching the international English-speaking market.
- More links: the dominance of women in the book trade is most apparent in fiction... It wasn't always thus - obviously, In Publishing, Women Routinely Make Blockbusters - The Atlantic; a new spate of science-fiction and fantasy novels are quietly and gracefully opting instead to imagine worlds where homophobia does not exist, 'Why would I close the door to a queer person?' LGBTQ fantasy comes of age | Books | The Guardian; in more than 40 years as a journalist, I've interviewed some terrifying people, The True Crime Story That Changed My Life | CrimeReads.
- 'Sometimes the ideas just come to me. Other times I have to sweat and almost bleed to make ideas come. It's a mysterious process, but I hope I never find out exactly how it works. I like a mystery, as you may have noticed.' J K Rowling in our Writers' Quotes.
- If quotes are your thing we have a large collection in our Archive, More Writers' Quotes and Even More Quotes.
- ‘Writers make everybody nervous but we terrify Silly Service workers. Our apartments always look like a front for something, and no matter how carefully we tidy up for guests we always seem to miss the note card that says, "Margaret has to die soon." We own the kind of books that spies use to construct codes, like The Letters of Mme. de Sevigne, and we are the only people in the world who write oxymoron in the margin of the Bible...' Florence King, author of Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady and nine other books in our Comment.
- Our 19 Factsheets from the legendary Michael Legat are full of tips for the new writer or anyone who is trying to get their book published. From Literary agents to Copyright, from Libel to Submissions, this series is full of essential background information.
- Closing on 24 January, so you need to be quick about this one - Emma Press's open submission 2020. Calling for poetry pamphlet submissions and for children's poetry collection submissions. It's open to all poets internationally and the entry fee is £10. The prizes are publication.
- Other competitions which are still open.
- Are you struggling to get someone to look at your poetry? Our Poetry Critique service for 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 may feel you need.
- Our links: home to a vast warehouse of illegally pirated books, E-book piracy on LinkedIn SlideShare hurts smaller authors; in this decade, writers have found themselves at an unsettling and unpredictable moment in publishing as well as history, The New Rude Masters of Fantasy & Science Fiction - and Romance | The World Remains Mysterious; the Norwegian crime writer has sold more than 33m books worldwide, Jo Nesbø: ‘We should talk about violence against women' | Books | The Guardian; it is the nature of progress that what is now cutting-edge will, with the passing of time, become traditional, Reviving the Traditional Mystery for a 21st Century Audience | CrimeReads; and I realised I'm here now: I'm black British, TS Eliot prize-winner Roger Robinson: ‘I want these poems to help people to practise empathy' | Books | The Guardian.
- From our Endorsements page: 'Please extend my gratitude to the editor for his/her thoughtful and detailed edit. I could not ask for better work! Its value far exceeded the cost.' Jim, Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA)
- More links: a scary report - the mature stage of a book-to-film boom that is quietly transforming how Americans read and tell stories - and not for the better, They Made a Movie Out of It | James Pogue; are indie authors relying too much on Amazon? Indie Means Indie | Fiction Notes; the Olof Palme prize, an award given for an "outstanding achievement" in the spirit of the assassinated Swedish prime minister, John le Carré wins $100,000 prize for 'contribution to democracy' | Books | The Guardian; and a cheering story from a small bookshop, Oh what a night! Twitter brings £1,000 worth of orders to empty bookshop | Books | The Guardian.
- 'If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research.' Wilson Mizner in our Writers' Quotes.
- ‘"I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can...' Anne Lamott, author of seven non-fiction books, and the forthcoming Hallelujah Anyway, and two novels, Imperfect Birds and Rosie. Our Comment.
- For anyone thinking about or embarked on self-publishing, our ten-part WritersServices Self-Publishing Guide by 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 is an essential starting-point, taking you through the process step-by-step. 'Self-publishing has changed so much over the past few years it's hard to believe it was once looked down upon by the publishing industry as the last resort of the vain and desperate. At the time of writing many self-publishing authors are identifying with the term ‘indie author', which acknowledges that to professionally publish today, you don't actually have to do everything yourself!' Articles include Formatting your book for Kindle and Marketing and Promotion for Indie Authors: Online.
- 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 a native language, our new Writer's edit, providing line-editing, and Proof-reading. Get the right level of editorial support for your needs. Our low-cost services represent exceptionally good value. Contact us to discuss what you want.
- Our links: audiobooks are having a moment - is the book you listen to now an artform in its own right? asks Clare Thorp, BBC - Culture - Audiobooks: The rise and rise of the books you don't read; nothing about the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott's perennial best seller particularly stuck with me, This Is ‘Little Women' for a New Era - The New York Times; this generation of kids has access to an abundance of digital information and technology from a very young age, How technology will change the future of workforces; and William Golding might just as well have been talking about today's publishing industry, Turning Pages: The struggle to find what readers really want.
- 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? Which Report? includes our new 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 this detail helps them to get their book right. Through our specialist children's editors we can offer reports on children's books.
- More links: the most basic way to imply time passing is to announce the time, Chuck Palahniuk on the Importance of Not Boring Your Reader | Literary Hub; this sparked an uproar across the publishing world, White romance novelist in racism row says she was used | Books | The Guardian; which led to a controversy over bias and a lack of transparency at the Romance Writers of America, RWA Cancels 2020 RITA Awards; and a slow reader who decided to track her reading, Why I'll Never Read a Book a Week Ever Again - The Millions.
- Advice for Writers is a really useful page which takes you into our archive and helps you explore our more than 7,000 pages of information for writers.
- 'The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not.' Kurt Vonnegut in our Writers' Quotes.