23 January 2017 - What's new
23 January 2017
- Some nervousness has been expressed by authors and staff in the last few days about the impending purchase by Bertelsmann of part of the Pearson share of Penguin Random House, but is there really much reason to feel anxious about this? News Review.
- The Bodley Head/Financial Times Essay Prize 2016 is open to anyone across the world between 18-35 years old. No entry fee. £1,000 plus several other good prizes and it closes on 29 January.
- Which service should I choose to help me get my work into good shape for submission or self-publishing? This is the question our page Which service? answers and it then goes on to give a quick rundown on our 20 editorial services for writers, which we think is the biggest range you can find on the internet.
- ‘She probably went too far in putting out a fake autobiography. Which is like an invitation: expose me.' (referring to Frantumaglia, which is about to be published in English - not an autobiography as such, but a collection of letters, essays, interviews and the like.) "But she's not committed a crime. Nor do I feel that she was a bad person to write under a pseudonym..' Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale and Maddaddam on Elena Ferrante in the Guardian provides this week's Comment.
- Tips for writers is our 8-part crash course for writers, taking you from Improve Your Writing to Promoting Your Writing (and Yourself), from Self-publishing: is it for you? to Submission to publishers and agents. 'Think about the market for your book. Research the category and read widely to see what other published writers in this area are doing. Which writers are successful and why? Visit bookshops and analyse what you find there. If you are reading this you are probably already writing, but it really is worth thinking right from the beginning about your readers, as that makes it far more likely you'll eventually find them...'
- Our links: some really helpful insights into your writing, What Being an Editor Taught Me About Writing | Literary Hub; how podcasts are transforming the world of reviewing and can help promote your book, The Millions : Podcasts and Literary Criticism - The Millions; an author's story about dogged persistence against the odds, On Selling Your First Novel After 11 Years | Literary Hub; and the 2016 T S Eliot Prize-winner on writing poetry and fiction, Jacob Polley: ‘If I'm writing a poem, I should be kept busy doing anything other than writing' | Books | The Guardian.
- Why your book contract needs vetting - 'You are a first-time author without an agent and you receive a contract to publish your book - just how do you evaluate it? Is it fair or biased against the author by prevailing industry standards? Is your publisher looking out for your interests as well as his own - or wording the clauses in a way only advantageous to the company? Would you, for example, know which rights to grant - for how long and on what terms...' Our contracts expert on why contract vetting is essential if you don't have an agent.
- More links: a legal complaint from four literary estates, representing a pantheon of influential 20th-century novelists, Author Who Turns Classics Into Children's Books Is Sued - The New York Times; interesting insights into what readers, agents and publshers are looking for at Digital Book World 2017, Digital Book World Asks: What Do the Readers and the Gatekeepers Want? - Publishing Trends; how can a psychologist help writers, 5 Things Psychology Can Teach Writers - WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®; and, from Africa, a unique way of selling books, Books on the Go in Ethiopia: What Keeps Addis Ababa Reading.
- From our Writers' Quotes: 'A page of Addison or of Irving will teach more of style than a whole manual of rules, whilst a story of Poe's will impress upon the mind a more vivid notion of powerful and correct description and narration than will ten dry chapters of a bulky textbook.' from H P Lovecraft.
