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29 October 2012 - What's new

29 October 2012
  • Our new Poetry Critique service Set up in response to popular demand, our new service provides a line-by-line critique on up to 150 lines of poetry from our expert editor, plus advice on marketing your poems. If you've been writing poems, but have no idea if they're any good, or just want to make sure they're the best they can be, this service can help you.
  • 'There's no doubt about the top story this week. The news that Random House and Penguin are negotiating a merger came out of the blue. Both companies are large, with Random House currently the biggest UK publisher with 16.2% of book sales, and Penguin with 10.9%, giving them a combined 27.1%. In the US the merger would give the combined entity slightly less of the total at 25%...' News Review reports.
  • Getting your manuscript copy edited - if you are looking for copy editing online, it is difficult to ensure that you are getting a professional copy editor who will do a good job on your manuscript. WritersServices has now made its copy editing service unique, as it will offer as standard TWO versions of your script, one prepared using 'track changes' and one with all the changes accepted.
  • Links to this week's top stories Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world: How to write a book in 30 days; Debating Ten Ways to Save the Book Publishing Industry and Atwood and Alderman collaborate on Zombie series for Wattpad.
  • 'These days, almost everybody I meet who's not already a writer wants to become one. Recent Society of Authors statistics show that only seven percent of all writers in this country make a reasonable living (which means that 93 percent do not, as compared with 85 per cent of actors who do not) and yet there's a general clamour to scramble into this strange and lonely arena... Rose Tremain in the Sunday Telegraph, quoted in our Comment column.
  • Joanne PhillipsUK-based freelance writer and ghostwriter. She has had articles published in national writing magazines, and has ghostwritten books on subjects as diverse as hairdressing and keeping chickens. Visit her at www.joannephillips.co.uk has written a useful article on The Business of Writing: 'Writing is undoubtedly a creative art. Whether we are working on the next Booker Prize winner or ghostwriting blog posts, writers need to be original, imaginative and inspired. But writing is also a business, with invoices to raise, accounts to be submitted and records to be kept. Writers, like artists, can find themselves floundering when it comes to the 'business end' of the job. Read on for our easy-to-follow guide to the business of writing...'
  • The shortlist for the 2012 T S Eliot Prize has just been announced, with ten top poets on the list for the Prize, the winner of which will be announced in January.
  • 'The world is a peculiar place, but it has nothing on the world of books. This is largely a fantasy world in which the pecking order goes as follows: If you can't cope with life, write about it; if you can't write, publish; if you can't get a job in publishing, become a literary agent; if you are a failed literary agent - God help you!' Colin Haycraft, then publisher of Duckworth, in our Writers' Quotes.