September 2024
- ‘It's difficult, perhaps impossible, to write a character well in the past who is not a projection back of modern sensibilities. My defence would be that the 16th century was the time when rational, sceptical inquiry was beginning. This was the age of the humanists: we're leaving medieval thought patterns behind. I'm not saying a man like Shardlake did exist then, but he could have, when even 20 years earlier he couldn't. That's enough for me...' C J Sansom, who died in April and was the author of the seven-volume Shardlake series - Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, Heartstone, Lamentation and Tombland - and Dominion and Winter in Madrid, in the Guardian.
- Ask the Editor 13: Beginnings... is the latest addition to this series: 'How to begin? That innocuous little question can be rather troubling. The beginning of a book in particular feels critical; this is where you get the chance to capture the reader's attention but, equally, it is the most likely place to lose them. In this article I will look at some simple strategies for opening a book. These are principles rather than rules and by no means set in stone; good writers tend to test the rules and boundaries of a genre as a matter of creative course. But they may save you a good deal of futile agonising at a crucial juncture in your writing journey...'
- The 12 other articles in the Ask the Editor series cover subjects as diverse as Writing non-fiction, How I assess a manuscript and The submission letter.
- 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? answers this question. The Reader's Report is a short, introductory report. The Editor's Report offers more detail. The Editor's Report Plus, which we introduced comparatively recently, is our most popular report and offers an overview and a detailed chapter-by-chapter report, which makes it the most substantial of the three and can help the writer by providing a framework for further work.
- If you are a children's writer then we have our Children's Editorial services, a suite of services specially for you, carried out by one of our skilled children's writers. This includes reports and copy editing.
- Our first set of links are from the publishing world: a truly shocking story, The Bookseller - News - Authors report 'worst ever delays' with advances and royalties as some forced to survive on loans - survey; an author shares the emotional impact of late royalty payments, The Bookseller - Comment - A royal mess; after rising costs and sluggish sales cut into profits at HarperCollins, Lagardère Publishing, and Penguin Random House in the first half of 2023, operating margins have bounced back for all three, Big Publishers Saw Earnings Rebound in the First Half of 2024; and programme to scan and lend print library books is copyright infringement, Appeals Court Upholds Decision Against Internet Archive's Book Scanning Program.
- More publishing links: the new horror-dedicated publisher launching next year is reportedly off to a strong start, The Bookseller - News - New horror publisher Black Crow Books aiming to open up 'booming' genre to everyone; and we developed fantasy, sci-fi and more children's, TikTok meets Tolkien: how the Folio Society attracted gen Z readers | Books | The Guardian.
- From our Endorsements page: 'The copy-editor perfectly captured the spirit of my story, making not only pertinent corrections, but also a string of brilliant suggestions and comments that inspired me to improve the text on my own. So happy I chose Writers Services.' Rasmus, Chile.
- Our English Language Editing Service is specially designed to help non-native speakers of English to find success in the international publishing market. With the rapid rise of English as a world language, an increasing number of authors who are not native English speakers, or who speak English as a second language, are writing in English. You may require extra help to take your work to a professional standard. Our specialist editors have years of experience working with authors writing in English as a second language. We can help you to bring your work to a native level of fluency, and a professional level of excellence.
- So you want to be a romance writer? You've made an interesting choice because, although a lot of people scoff at romance, it is the most stable genre of all and has continued to keep its faithful readers when other categories have changed radically and sometimes lost their audiences. It has changed a bit in recent years and embraced a more complex story, sometimes with more explicit sex in it, but essentially this is a category which marches on, providing happy endings, when all around it the world has changed. Writing romance
- Links to writers' stories: when I was asked to write The Shortest History of Japan, it seemed the perfect opportunity to pull together all my love and knowledge of the country, From the world's first pots to Cool Japan; after 14 novels into my career as an author, here are my tips for surviving the rollercoaster ride, The Bookseller - Comment - Emotional resilience for authors; forensic anthropologist turned author Clea Koff on how her work has inspired her debut novel, Silent Evidence, Confessions from the other side of the crime scene tape; and her third novel, The Secrets of Flowers, tells the story of a trainee florist who begins to research the flowers on the Titanic, Q&A: novelist Sally Page.
- An excerpt from Bob Ritchie's Journal of a Virtually Unpublished Writer, written exclusively for WritersServices: 'Worrying about money. In The Observer Julie Myerson writes about swanning off to Milan for a five-star shopping and eating weekend. Jealously wonder if her novels really earn that kind of money or if she lives with a banker. John Updike once said that no one ever wrote for any reason other than to make money. Suspect on the contrary that in my case I made more out of writing when I was what the Japanese call a salaryman. As an employee in IT I once had to write a massive technical manual with a total intended readership of six. A depressing calculation tells me I was paid about £5000 a copy. Think maybe I should go back to a proper job...'
- So you have finished your book, but you know it is too long; how do you go about reducing the word count without losing important parts of your work? We're here to help. Our experienced editors will work with you to reduce the word count of your book while preserving the main narrative elements and your individual style. This service is available for both fiction and non-fiction. The Cutting edit is just one of our eight copy editing services.
- Show rather than tell. With narrative nonfiction writing you should have plenty of opportunities to develop drama. New writers often give far too much information too quickly. Borrow from fiction by dropping hints about the unfolding drama, use foreshadowing, develop timing and by building characters. Top Ten Tips for Nonfiction Writers.
- Links on AI and tech: 'Artificial Intelligence has the capacity to radically improve the responsiveness and effectiveness of public services and turbocharge economic growth. However, we must not let AI shape us - we must shape AI.' The Bookseller - News - International AI treaty: ALCS calls on government to go further and protect 'mass violation' of creatives' rights; one day in 2017 I had a realisation that seems obvious now but had the power to shock back then: almost everything I did was being mediated by computer code, I learned the language of computer programming in my 50s - here's what I discovered | Technology | The Guardian; and why authors in Zimbabwe are channelling Dickens by serialising their novels through the messaging app, The rise of the WhatsApp novelists | The Week UK.
- Our 19 part Inside Publishing series provides a useful guide to the publishing world. Inside Publishing The Frankfurt Book Fair starts with: 'Book fairs are an important part of the way publishing works. No book fair is more central to the publishing year than the giant annual international get-together known as the Frankfurt Book Fair...'. On Vanity Publishing: 'It is natural for writers to be eager to get published but it pays to be wary of the vanity publishers who will take your money and give you very little in return. The term ‘vanity' was coined by campaigner Jonathan Clifford in 1959 to cover this kind of activity where the author is effectively conned into paying over a sometimes quite substantial sum by the publisher's willingness to publish their book...'
- 'Why would you, as an unpublished writer, want to find an agent? Agents use their contacts and knowledge of the publishing business on their clients' behalf, selling their work and then continuing to look after their authors' interests...' Finding an agent
- We all know that computers can do everything far better than mere humans, right? In this computer age we are (understandably) turning more and more tasks over to computers... but very few works of non-fiction can do without an index of some description. From the simple cookery book to the mammoth legal tome, each book has a reader, and each reader will at some point want to look something up in the book. The Ins and Outs of Indexing
- Miscellaneous links: books, comics, films, video games... does it matter how children discover stories? Can fairytales and fantasy compete with Fortnite? How to get kids reading at any age | Children and teenagers | The Guardian; over the past decade or so we've seen space for book coverage at general media outlets decline overall, Author Profiles Are No Replacement for Book Criticism But I Love Them Anyway ‹ Literary Hub; this author remembers well the years she couldn't imagine receiving such honors, 'Demon Copperhead' author Barbara Kingsolver to receive National Book Award for lifetime achievement | AP News; so what's happenuing in book covers? The New Trend In Book Covers Is Old-Timey Animals | Defector; and more than 180 council-run libraries have either closed or been handed over to volunteer groups in the UK since 2016, Public libraries in 'crisis' as councils cut services - BBC News.
- 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...'
- 'Anybody who claims that one genre is categorically superior to all others must be ready and able to defend their prejudice. And that involves knowing what the ‘inferior' genres actually consist of, their nature and their forms of excellence. It involves reading them.' Ursula K. Le Guin in our Writers' Quotes.
