4 April 2022 - What's new
4 April 2022
- The more I know about the characters, the easier it is to find the humour. How do I make it more exciting, funnier, more heartwarming? I'm aways asking myself these questions. The message of the book is finding friends who accept you for who you really are. It's about loving people even when it's hard, about doing the right thing even when it's scary.' A F Steadman, whose debut children's novel Skandar and the Unicorn Thief, the first in a five-book fantasy series, is published this month, in the Bookseller.
- Tips for writers is our 8-part crash course for writers who are starting out, taking you from Promoting Your Writing (and Yourself) to Self-publishing: is it for you? from Keep up to date to Submission to publishers and agents. 'Be prepared to redraft your work and to rethink it. Many new writers assume that their work will immediately be ready for publication, but the truth is that many highly successful writers produced several drafts of their first work before they got it published.' and 'When you've got your work into the best state you can, put it on one side for a few weeks and then look at it afresh. You'll be amazed what difference a fresh eye will make.'
- 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
- Links from publishing: the first in-person fair for three years, London Book Fair 2022: Back to Britain; a spirit of international collaboration was in the air, The Bookseller - News - Excitement and international buzz in the air as publishers flock to LBF; some progress, but still a way to go, The Bookseller - News - Progress made on diversity but socio-economic background still 'major barrier', PA survey finds; and a graphic account from the front line, Ukraine's Vivat Publishing House Fights to Survive.
- From our Endorsements page: 'I cannot emphasise enough my gratitude to writerservices.com. I more or less expected that they would treat me and my texts professionally - after all, this is what the site offers. What I haven't expected was the extra mile they were prepared to go on my behalf, their beautiful attention to both the letter and the spirit of what I had to say. My manuscript has now found an agent - a happy development in which they have definitely played a role. All I can say is that if I ever produce anything else, I will definitely be their client again.' Sveta, Windsor, UK
- Advice for Writers is a really useful page which takes you into our archive and helps you explore our more than 8,000 pages of information for writers.
- Links from the Society of Authors and bookselling: a clash between personal views and organisational responsibility, The Bookseller - News - Philip Pullman quits as Society of Authors president in wake of Kate Clanchy criticism; customers can receive a full refund within 14 days of purchase, even if they have read every word, depriving authors of royalties from those sales, The Bookseller - News - SoA calls on Amazon to cut e-books refund window as petition against policy passes 33,000; in order for bookstores to thrive in the 21st century, we must rethink the whole enterprise, The endurance of good bookstores; and maybe booksellers have been written off too soon, Bookstores Tap Nostalgia for Borders, Barnes & Nobles - Bloomberg.
- If you are not a native English speaker but you want to publish your book in English to make it available to the international market, what do you do? If your English is good enough, what about writing it in English or translating your book into English yourself, and then getting your translation polished and copy edited by a professional editor who is a native English speaker? The result should be a publishable manuscript at a relatively low cost, provided by our English Language Editing Service. How to get your book translated into English (without it costing the earth).
- Links from writers and about genres: labels are fraught, but they are "highly useful" and we "actually need them more than ever", How Important Is Genre When Pitching and Promoting Your Book? | Jane Friedman; writing books that sell, How Writing a Serialized Novel Helped Carley Moore Connect With the World During a Time of Disconnection ‹ Literary Hub; is this a new genre? The Disaffected Narrators of Internet Gothic Fiction; and a fascinating account of how new covers - and a TV series - worked, Bridgerton's Netflix book covers reflect changing attitudes toward romance over the years.
- Have you ever wondered whether there's any point in entering competitions? Someone must be winning, but why is it somehow never you? Here's some tips to help you achieve a better result. Entering competitions.
- And finally, more links from writers: "Writing is a business and a business needs to be promoted or it will fail."My Tips on Public Speaking for Authors - Caroline James Author Blog; the ways adult gatekeepers encourage girls to read books about boys but discourage, prevent, or even shame boys from reading about girls, Soapbox: Have We Solved the Problem of Boy Books and Girl Books? How are stories about diversity, sexuality and even contemporary world events being deemed inappropriate for younger readers? ‘Out of touch': children's authors describe increasing censorship of books on diversity | Books | The Guardian; a poet describes how her poem reached a huge audience, When Poetry Goes Viral; and in the global refugee crisis millions of young people are in need of books, Book Aid International: now more than ever, books are a lifeline.
- Rotten Rejections provides a note of the things publishers wish they'd never said: on Animal Farm by George Orwell ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA' and Carrie by Stephen King 'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'
- 'Writing after many years becomes a place you can hide. Because you acquire a certain amount of craft, it allows you to do something while not revealing yourself.' Anne Carson in our Writers' Quotes.
