What's New in 2023
- 'For God's sake, never use a metaphor and then explain it... You can assume a world from so little and readers will. So I'm more interested in economy than encyclopaedism, in how little you can get away with rather than how much you can cram in...' M John Harrison, author of The Pastel City, Light, Nova Swing, A Storm of Wings and the Virconium sequence, amongst his 16 novels and short story collections, in an interview about his new book, Wish I was Here, in The Times.
- An Editor's Advice is a series of seven articles by one of our editors on really useful subjects for writers such as Manuscript presentation, Dialogue, Doing further drafts and Planning: 'The idea of planning doesn't fit well with the idea of the writer as inspired genius, frantically scribbling away. However, I am willing to bet that, no matter what they would have you think, most successful writers plan as much as they write. They just don't tell you about it. The biggest objection that most inexperienced writers raise when someone broaches the delicate matter of planning is that it will get in the way of their inventive powers. A plan will be like a straitjacket. They'll be stuck with this plan and if they come up with a good idea along the way, they will not be able to use it. They are genuinely horrified at the thought...'
- The Moth Short Story Prize 2023 closes on 30 June and is open to all writers over 16. The entry fee is €15 per story. 1st prize €3,000, 2nd prize week-long writing retreat at Circle of Misse in France plus €250 travel stipend, 3rd prize €1,000.
- Are you getting ready to publish your book - perhaps planning to self-publish? WritersServices offers a suite of nine services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. Services for Self-publishers
- Other prizes and competitions which are still open till the end of May.
- Links on writing and the writer's craft: we're living in a time when readers don't have to tolerate anything less than a dramtic start, For Today's Crime Novels, the Stakes Are High, Right from the First Sentence ‹ CrimeReads; the benefit of writing in different genres and styles, How Screenwriting Can Help You Write Stronger Fiction ‹ Literary Hub; sitting in my bedroom, reading, disappearing into those impossibly glamorous worlds , On not holidaying on a superyacht; and the best piece of advice writers ever received, How do You Write Compelling Characters? Find the Source of Their Pain ‹ CrimeReads.
- An enthusiastice endorsement from Nancy Jarzombek, Belmont, Massachusetts: 'Thank you! I received the comments - most eagerly awaited - and just sped-read through now. When everyone is off to school I will go back to read through all of the details. It gives me much to think about. I'm most grateful for the thoughtful and articulate response. It's fantastic!'
- 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.
- Links about the tech upheaval affecting writers: creative artificial intelligence provokes a strange mixture of contempt and dread, The Future of Writing Is a Lot Like Hip-Hop - The Atlantic; its classic search engine has had an AI makeover, Google's New AI-Powered Search Is Going to Look Very Different; exploring automation of the book business's pitches to readers, ‘Beowulf is lit AF' - could ChatGPT really write good book blurbs? | Books | The Guardian; getting to a demographic with a willingness to pay for news, "More adults use it than Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok or Reddit": How LinkedIn is increasingly driving content discovery for publishers | What's New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News; and preventing today's chatbots discussing taboo topics, Anthropic explains how Claude's AI constitution protects it against adversarial inputs | Engadget.
- Health Hazards is our special series about the various health risks for writers, including the dreaded Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. If you know you've been spending too much time at a keyboard, it's worth making sure you're being careful about how you're sitting, your eyes and your wrists.
- If you need to clear copyright for your book, Clearing Copyright shows you how to do this: 'Copyright provides a framework for trading in intellectual property. In practice it protects the author's position and ensures that the publisher is able to take on the risk of publication in the knowledge that the publisher's rights are protected. In effect authors, (the originators of intellectual property) sub-license their rights through their book contracts to different parties in individual territories and in specific forms...'
- 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 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. Get in touch to let us know how we can help.
- Links from the publishing and bookselling world: a fascinating article about different reading tastes, Why is Serious Nonfiction in the US Taken More Seriously Than in the UK? ‹ Literary Hub; would fewer books work better for publishers? The Bookseller - Comment - The 'publishing less' conundrum; the latest on the US book chain, The Bookseller - News - Daunt reveals home truths about 'evolving' Barnes & Noble; and more on bookshops, Good news: there are more bookstores in the US this year than last. ‹ Literary Hub.
- Tips for writers 6 is about other kinds of writing which can extend your writing and develop your writing skills, such as short stories for magazines, anthologies, competitions and short story websites. Although it's still hard to get a collection of short stories published, individual stories are another matter. If you really see yourself as a fiction writer and can't come up with the goods on non-fiction, then research the possibilities for short stories and get writing. Very short stories are currently in vogue and are working particularly well on the web.
- Avoid rejection - it is demoralising to get your manuscript rejected by publishers or agents. To put it into perspective, you may find it helpful to go through some of the reasons why this happens and to see what we suggest you can do about it.
- A miscellany of links: a new trend in handling authors' estates, The Bookseller - News - Intellectual property rights of Wilbur Smith's novels put up for sale; the author said it 'was not meant to please everybody - only children', Where the Wild Things Are: The greatest children's book ever - BBC Culture; he was as interested in how stylishly the thought was expressed as in what it was expressing, Martin Amis: he stamped his style over a generation of writers and readers | Books | The Guardian; less than a year after an attempt on his life, Salman Rushdie says 'attack on books' in Florida 'has never been more dangerous' | CNN.
- Our publishing and printing glossary is a useful reference tool.
- 'Language leads a double life - and so does the novelist. You chat with family and friends, you attend to your correspondence, you consult menus and shopping lists, you observe road signs, and so on. Then you enter your study, where language exists in quite another form - as the stuff of patterned artifice.' Martin Amis, who died this week, in our Writers' Quotes.
- 'There isn't always a correlation between the greatest works of fiction and the biggest sellers. If that was the case, David Almond would be selling a million copies. Sometimes it's a happy coincidence that something you're working on seems to be doing well elsewhere. But I try not to join the dots, because the single most important thing is writing the book that you want. That's what I try and do, first and foremost... I'm obsessed with underdogs. The kids I was working with had been written off, and they had experienced horrific things that the vast majority of the population won't go through as long as they live. That is something that fundamentally really drives my writing...' Phil Earle, author of When the Sky Falls, While the Storm Rages, Demolition Dad and 16 other books for children, and 6 for older readers, in Bookbrunch.
- This week we have the first in a new series, Ask the Editor 1: What genre is my book? 'I am asked this question surprisingly often. I say surprising because one might assume, most of the time, that the genre of a book is obvious. And, most of the time, it is relatively obvious; authors tend to aim their efforts at specific markets. But once in a while, you come across a book that defies simple classification. In this article, I will look briefly at the main genre categories in fiction, and then zoom in on the problem of books that cross genre boundaries or don't neatly fit the criteria of the publishing industry...'
- 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.
- Links from the tech world: a huge and growing headache for human authors, Amazon Is Being Flooded With Books Entirely Written by AI; will computers supplant audiobook readers? Unlikely, says Nicholas Jones, The art of the pause; after aggressively promoting its new lifestyle social media platform Lemon8 in the US, TikTok's parent ByteDance eyes a new chapter in book publishing | TechCrunch; and this week BookTok creators considered how many self-published authors are on the platform, The Bookseller - Books - Books on BookTok: how prevalent are self-published authors?
- The 2023 Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition is open to unpublished, unagented children's writers based anywhere in the world. Entry fee £20. The prize is a publishing contract with Chicken House with an advance of £10,000, plus the offer of representation from literary agent Davinia Andrew-Lynch of Andlyn. This year also sees the introduction of the Lime Pictures New Storyteller Award, a bespoke prize sponsored by leading TV production company Lime Pictures, awarded to the submission which shows the greatest TV development potential. The winner will receive a £7,500 publishing contract plus an offer of representation. Lime Pictures will receive an exclusive first look at all shortlisted manuscripts
- Authors often find it difficult to write their own synopsis for submission to agents and publishers, which is where our Synopsis-writing service can help. If you're preparing to self-publish and having difficulty with your blurb, our Blurb-writing service will make your book stand out.
- 'I want to thank Chris and the team at Writers Services for their help and tolerance. My first submission of my rough draft came back with an extremely useful critique. I restructured, rewrote and resubmitted - and got excellent feedback which has helped me to revise the book by highlighting the weaknesses and the development needed... the help received so far is already paying dividends. I have just signed with an agent on the strength of the latest draft.' Patrick Cox in our Endorsements.
- Links from writers: their union represents approximately 11,500 people who write the Hollywood shows and movies we watch in theaters and at home, WGA strike 2023: Hollywood's writers walked off the job. What happens now? - Vox; was it hard, writing your first real book? Stop Acting Like YA Writers Aren't Real Authors ‹ CrimeReads; so I thought I'd put the app to the test against my usual internet searches, Using ChatGPT for Book Research? Take Exceeding Care | Jane Friedman; and attempts to suppress works of literature tend to have the opposite effect, The big idea: what if censoring books only makes them more popular? | Books | The Guardian.
- WritersServices offers a comprehensive range of editorial services for authors writing for the children's book market. All our services are carried out to the highest professional standard and offer competitive rates and excellent value for money. Writing for children is not an easy option. It requires sound writing skills, originality, a clear understanding of the target audience and a good grasp of the market. Our expert editors are specialists in writing for children, and they will help you make your work the best it can be. Children's Editorial Services.
- 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.
- Working with an agent: 'Don't ever take on an agent you don't like or don't trust, however desperate you may feel. You have to be able to work with them in what should be an extremely important relationship for you as a writer. You must also feel confident that they are competent, enthusiastic about your work and can be trusted, both in terms of the advice they offer and in relation to handling your money...'
- Links from publishing: a round-up from the London book fair, taking in the essentials of what the publishing landscape will look like for the next 12 months, Meals and deals: five biggest trends from London book fair 2023 | London book fair | The Guardian; publishers are not hiring enough people - or quickly enough, The Bookseller - Comment - Publishing's hiring problem: the agent's view; haven't we always been stretched? The Bookseller - Comment - Publishing's hiring problem: the editor's view; book prices have not kept pace with inflation and earnings, RRPs are rising but books have never been cheaper; and a new study of trends in children's reading, The Bookseller - News - Children reading more but enjoyment and comprehension on the decline, research suggests.
- 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.
- Writing Biography & Autobiography is a serialisation from our Archives of the book by Brian D Osborne published by A & C BlackClick for A & C Black Publishers Publishers References listing. In the first excerpt, 'Managing the matters of truth and objectivity', the author says: 'Just as you need to remember that letters, reports, census forms, legal documents and so forth were not created simply for our convenience, so you also need to remember that what is written in them may not be true...'
- Our 5th Tips for Writers focuses on How to promote your book (and yourself): 'These days social media offer a huge opportunity to publicise your book. Facebook and Twitter have been good places to publicise your work for some years, but it's increasingly important to think about BookTok, TikTok and Instragram as well. Even if social media don't come naturally to you, it's really worth giving them a go...'
- Links to writers' stories: all told, he completed 34 books, 31 of them either Inspector Banks novels or related short story collections, Peter Robinson, Remembered ‹ CrimeReads; how her boookshop marketing manager has leveraged the platform to promote the bookstore - and what a microcelebrity Patchett herself has become on the app, Ann Patchett: Author, Bookstore Owner, and BookTok Influencer; it's not just hard to get published, but also hard staying published, Q&A: author Jo Thomas; and bringing her own long-running series to an end and reflecting on how other authors have done it, Elly Griffiths on Knowing When to Say Goodbye ‹ CrimeReads.
- Our 22 Services for Writers is just a list of our writers' editorial services, which we think is the most comprehensive in the world.
- If you need to clear copyright for your book, Clearing Copyright shows you how to do this: 'Copyright provides a framework for trading in intellectual property. In practice it protects the author's position and ensures that the publisher is able to take on the risk of publication in the knowledge that the publisher's rights are protected. In effect authors, (the originators of intellectual property) sub-license their rights through their book contracts to different parties in individual territories and in specific forms...'
- 'If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.' Charles Darwin in our Writers' Quotes.
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