What's New in 2023
- ‘It's a big part of the job. Being able to put yourself in their shoes is really important. I'm not a writer, but I watch a lot of author content online and I read a lot of stuff from authors. Having that perspective is really important for me to be able to give my authors context. Their emotions are important. If they're disappointed we didn't sell, so am I. Being able to sit in that space is important, but my job as an agent is to move the author from despair to strategy, asking questions like: what are we doing to do next? What do we learn from this? It's a skill to sit in the darkness with them, and to get ourselves out into what's next... Hannah Schofield, literary agent at LBA in London, in Bookbrunch.
- Our Worldbuilding series continues. Worldbuilding 4 deals with technology: 'There is a scene in Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Ark where Jones is suddenly faced with a ninja swordsman. The ninja performs an elaborate show-off routine with his sword, preparing for the kill; Jones takes out a revolver and shoots him. It's a neat comic episode, but it could also stand as a caveat for writers of fantasy fiction: get your technology right or your epic may turn into a comedy...'
- 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, using our English Language Editing service.
- The BBC National Short Story Award 2023 has now opened and closes on 13 March. It is open to British nationals and UK residents, aged 18 years or over. There's no entry fee. The winner gets £15,000 and four 4 shortlisted authors get £600. They will all benefit from excellent publicity.
- For other opportunities, including the Carcanet open submissions window for poetry submissions, see this page.
- Links to news from the publishing world: an excellent insider's view of the recent attempted publishing merger, Markus Dohle's Failed Bid to Eat Simon & Schuster; a well-argued article about publishing v self-publishing, When a publisher might not do as good a job as a self-publishing author - The Idea Logical Company; the latest trends in US book sales; The Bookseller - News - US sales of print books dropped 6.5% in 2022 but adult fiction sees increase; a review of the world in publishing from a veteran publisher, Richard Charkin: A Selective Year-End Assessment of Publishing; a terrifying picture of where book censorship could lead, A Perfectly Inoffensive School Library.
- From our 19-part Inside Publishing series, The Relationship between Publishers and Agents: 'Why do publishers need agents? Actually they don't need them, although they have come to rely on them. In many ways publishers would prefer to deal direct with unagented authors. It's authors who need agents. Writers need someone to sell their work and then to look after their relationship with their publishers....'
- From the same series, Marketing: 'If you are looking into publishing from the outside, it helps to understand the different functions of the publisher's internal departments. The last few years has seen the inexorable rise of the marketing department in ‘trade' or general publishing. This is part of the increasing dominance of publishing by sales and marketing, as the more traditional editorial control over publishing decisions has diminished sharply...'
- Our 22 Services for Writers offers links to all our editorial services - the biggest range on the web.
- Links to writers' stories: What began with an innocent flirtation quickly devolved into a full-blown affair, Unguilty Pleasures: My Year of Reading Romance Novels ‹ Literary Hub; how important is it where you are when you're writing, A Thin Place: Carole Johnstone on Moving to Scotland's Outer Hebrides ‹ CrimeReads; "My grandmother said, ‘Hungry dogs run faster,'" says the 75-year-old. "I've always been a hungry dog." How Author James Patterson Writes 31 Books at the Same Time | GQ; the book I came back to, Philip Pullman: ‘I had to grow up before I could cope with Middlemarch' | Philip Pullman | The Guardian.
- 'I cannot emphasise enough my gratitude to writerservices.com. I more or less expected that they would treat me and my texts professionally - after all, this is what the site offers. What I haven't expected was the extra mile they were prepared to go on my behalf, their beautiful attention to both the letter and the spirit of what I had to say. My manuscript has now found an agent - a happy development in which they have definitely played a role. All I can say is that if I ever produce anything else, I will definitely be their client again.' Sveta, Windsor, UK, on our Endorsements page.
- 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 may feel you need.
- How to prepare your prelim pages: There is a set order for the pages at the beginning of a book (known in the business as 'prelims') and you will need to send them to the designer with the rest of the manuscript for them to work on if you are self-publishing. Here we provide detailed instructions for preparing your prelim pages, according to standard publishing practice.
- More from writers: Happy New Year, book lovers! TBR Pile Threatening to Topple? Let Go of the Guilt . . . ‹ CrimeReads; best known for her novels exploring society and class, The Bookseller - News - Celebrated novelist Fay Weldon dies, aged 91; UK Authors' Earnings and Contracts 2022: A Survey of 60,000 Writers, Surveying the Profession(s), How Much Do UK Writers Earn? and, perhaps the most acclaimed book editor of his time, Robert Gottlieb edited Caro, le Carré and 'Catch-22' but is OK being 'unseen' : NPR.
- Rotten Rejections provides a note of the things publishers wish they'd never said: on Animal Farm by George Orwell ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA' and Carrie by Stephen King 'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'
- Have you ever wondered why you don't win any of those competitions? What can you do to improve your chances? Our tipsheet on Entering Competitions.
- A miscellany of links: I sought solace in crime fiction, Men Are the Most Likely Victims of Homicide. Why Do Crime Writers Kill So Many Women? ‹ CrimeReads; Aaliyah Aroha's video, posted to her account, now has 2.5 million views and more than 431,000 likes, BookTok trope-ification debate: How hashtagging titles is affecting authors and readers; people from many different industries have watched the rapid erosion of Twitter... but for me, Twitter has and always will be a platform that helped me find my way in book publishing, Finding Connection on Twitter; in 2022, translation has become a disruptive innovation in what has been termed a monoglot and insular world, Gains in translation for fiction readers and publishers - The Irish Times.
- ‘I cannot find any patience for those people who believe that you start writing when you sit down at your desk and pick up your pen and finish writing when you put down your pen again; a writer is always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing.' Shirley Jackson in our Writers' Quotes.
- What are the most interesting trends in publishing? 'Marrying the Victorian tradition of serialisation with the best of modern interactive technology has been one. In terms of the actual content of the books that are being published, it is keeping some sort of equilibrium between the virtues of free speech and protecting sensitivities. The descendants of those who inscribed words in forest clearings or the catacombs in Rome, or wrote clandestinely in Siberian gulags, now have an unprecedented scope for freedom of expression, a limitless potential audience... Alan Samson, Non-fiction Publisher at Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Random House UKPenguin Random House have more than 50 creative and autonomous imprints, publishing the very best books for all audiences, covering fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s books, autobiographies and much more. Click for Random House UK Publishers References listing, in Bookbrunch.
- From our 19-part Inside Publishing series, Copy editing and proof-reading explains the difference between the two. 'Copy editing is the painstaking job of going through a manuscript line by line to correct the spelling, grammar and punctuation. Proof-reading at a later stage is a separate check through the book when it is set up in pages, before it goes to press or is finalised for ebook publishing.'
- From the same series, 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... Post a copy of your manuscript to yourself and then keep it in the date-stamped envelope.'
- Closing on 10 February, The Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize 2023 is open to unpublished and unagented female writers, aged 21 or over, who live in the UK or Ireland. The entry fee is £12 and the winner gets £1,500 and guidance and support from literary agent and sponsor Peters Fraser Dunlop.
- WritersServices offers a wide range of editorial services to help you prepare your manuscript for submission to an agent or publisher, or for self-publication. Our team of expert editors has years of experience in helping and advising authors; we can help you to bring your work to a professional level of excellence. All our editing services offer competitive rates and excellent value for money. If you are not sure which of our editing services you require, we can assess your manuscript, and recommend the service that is most appropriate to your needs. Copy editing services.
- We have some excellent links this week. First, from the publishing and bookselling world: the MD of the UK Booksellers Association, The Bookseller - News - Publishers must support bookshops if they're to survive ‘brutal' 2023, Halls warns; after a three-year hiatus caused by the pandemic, an examination of US publishing remuneration, The PW Publishing Industry Salary Survey 2022; and a look into the used book trade, Napoleonic Conspiracy Theories, Unsociable Shabbiness, and More Occupational Hazards of the Second-Hand Book Trade ‹ Literary Hub.
- 'I used Writers' Services for Editor's Reports three times while I was writing my first novel, The Killing Code, and I must say that their professionalism and expertise was truly impressive. Prices are reasonable and I credit them with helping me to hone my book to a high standard. It's now a top seller on Amazon lists for the thrillers and action/adventure categories, and receiving excellent reviews. Thank you Chris and your team!' Craig Hurren on our Endorsements page.
- How Literary Agents Work - an article written exclusively for Writersservices by literary agent Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media in New York: 'I have often heard that authors are interested in how literary agents work. It is very simple: a literary agent exists to provide services to authors...' A short but clear summary of what agents do.
- Links from writers: an author sticking up for entertaining the reader: The Bookseller - Author Interviews - Eleanor Catton | 'The moral development of people in plotted novels where people make choices is fascinating and important'; a new author who is well on the way to selling more books in 2022 than Stephen King, James Patterson and John Grisham, PW 2022 Notable: Colleen Hoover; "I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for that book." My First Thriller: S.A. Cosby ‹ CrimeReads; "I had the door burst open. And really, almost literally, in came Vera", The Bookseller - Author Interviews - Ann Cleeves | I just didn't fit in, I heard someone on the bus saying I looked like I'd just come off the farm'.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- Links from innovators: if you had told me I could make money by writing on the internet a few years ago, I would've laughed, Online Writing: Grow Your Audience in 2023 | The Writing Cooperative; on December 16th, 1901, 35-year-old Beatrix Potter printed 250 copies of a book that she had written and illustrated herself, Beatrix Potter, tired of rejection, self-publishes her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit; the history of self-publishing, like that of publishing itself, is a history of access, Just Do It (Yourself): A History of Self-Publishing; and writing about the attempted merger made me realize just how different the various areas of publishing are now, Business Musings: Tea Leaves: Year in Review 2022 Part 4 - Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
- Our new series The Pedant: how to make your editor happy covers the fields of Accents, Dialogue tags, the use of bold, italics and capital letters in prose fiction, Formats and fonts and The trouble with 'as'. If you want to improve your writing and make your presentation of your manuscript more professional, this series shows the way.
- Do you want some help with your writing but don't know quite what you want? Choosing a service can help you work out which service is right for you, or you could just email us.
- More links from writers: why would I bother switching genres after so many years writing successful fiction? What Memoir Writing Taught Me About Myself; for all mystery-lovers, YOUR GUIDE TO NOT GETTING MURDERED IN AN ENGLISH COUNTRY MANOR HOUSE ‹ CrimeReads; you'll understand the immensity of building out a book from nothing, Catapult | Finding the Secret Door Into Your Novel | Julia Fine; and a Berlin tale with a nod to Hitchcock and a fascinating basis in the memoirs of Stasi spy chiefs, Paul Vidich on the Pleasures of the Literary Spy Novel and the Ethical Ambiguities of the Late Cold War ‹ CrimeReads.
- Get some professional help. If you're self-publishing, you need good quality copy for the cover. Our Blurb-writing service can provide a professionally written piece of cover copy. Submitting to agents but finding it difficult to write your own synopsis? Commission a Synopsis which will present your manuscript in the best possible light for submission.
- So what's wrong with PDFs? 'If you need your file to be edited, PDF is not the ideal format; in fact, it is practically the worst format you can choose. Why? Precisely because PDFs are designed not to be tampered with or changed. When you stop to think about it, editing is no more or less than a process of changing - and correcting - your file...'
- ‘I cannot find any patience for those people who believe that you start writing when you sit down at your desk and pick up your pen and finish writing when you put down your pen again; a writer is always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing.' Shirley Jackson in our Writers' Quotes.
