21 January 2019 - What's new
21 January 2019
- 'Your book is special to you and may one day be to other people but at the moment it is just another submission. Authors need to remember that agents are inundated with submissions. Most have full lists already and need to concentrate on their existing clients. Of course we are looking for new talent but the chances of selling books from the slush pile are small...' Andrew Lownie of his eponymous agency on how best to present yourself to an agent. Our Comment
- 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. Do get in touch if we can help.
- The Borough Press and The Good Literary Agency have an unusual open submissions closing on 31 March. It's open to UK residents and British Citizens (including those residing abroad) without a literary agent and of black, Asian or minority ethnic background. There's no entry fee and the prize is a £10,000 publishing contract, agency representation and mentoring from writer Nikesh Shukla.
- There are a good number of other Writing Opportunities still open.
- An essential read for children's authors is Suzy Jenvey's special series for WritersServices, the four-part Essential Guide to Writing for Children. The first article looks at the all-important question of age groups and what you should be aware of in writing for each one. The second part is - Before You Write: What is My Story Going to be? The third part deals with Starting to Write and the fourth part is about Submitting Your Work to Agents and Editors. This series by a hugely experienced children's editorial director and agent helps you get started on your own story or develop what you're already working on.
- Are you writing for children? Our Children's Editorial Services can help you get your work ready for publication or self-publishing. Have you found it difficult to get expert editorial input on your work ? Do you want to know if it has real commercial potential? Or are you planning to self-publish? Three reports and copy editing are available from our highly-skilled children's editors, including essential advice on age groups and vocabulary.
- Our links: the rise of "liber non grata", Corporate Censorship Is a Serious, and Mostly Invisible, Threat to Publishing; author and self-publishing entrepreneur Michael Anderle on how it's done, Helping Indie Authors Help Themselves; a passion for politics, particularly among teenagers and young millennials, is fuelling a dramatic growth in the popularity of poetry, Poetry sales soar as political millennials search for clarity | Books | The Guardian; and the litany of bookshops that have disappeared from the UK's high streets over the last two decades is long and sobering: chains such as Ottakars, Books etc, Dillons and Borders, and more than 1,000 independents, Independent bookshops grow for second year after 20-year decline | Books | The Guardian.
- If you are trying to get your work into shape for publication, or for self-publishing, there's plenty of advice on the WritersServices website which you may find useful. Advice for Writers provides a summary.
- More links: bestselling urban fantasy novelist Sherrilyn Kenyon, author of the chart-topping Dark-Hunter series, is suing her husband Lawrence R Kenyon II, as well as two individuals employed by the Kenyons, for up to $20m (£15.5m), Sherrilyn Kenyon accuses husband of 'Shakespearean plot' to poison her | Books | The Guardian; the Slowdown, from U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, the Poetry Foundation, and American Public Media, Could a Daily Poetry Podcast Save Your Mental Health? 1.28 million books to libraries, schools, prisons, hospitals, and refugee camps in 25 countries, Book Aid International 2018 Reports Biggest Year Yet, in Africa and Middle East.
- 'You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.' Junot Diaz in our Writers' Quotes.
