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5 August 2019 - What's new

5 August 2019
  • ‘The best advice on writing drama was given to me by Barrie Keefe, wondrous playwright and screenwriter of The Long Good Friday. His guidance was simple: "Write great parts for actors." A brilliant actor is a dramatist's strongest weapon. And remember, as you stay at home writing, actors have to be in make-up at 5am, in the pouring rain, miles from home, standing around for twelve hours to shoot three minutes of screen time. Make it worth their while.' Chris Chibnall, television writer and producer, whose credits include Torchwood, Broadchurch and Doctor Who. Our Comment.
  • Last year we launched the Writer's edit, a top-level new service for writers who want line-editing as well as copy editing. Does your manuscript need high-level input from an editor to help you get it into the best possible shape for submission or self-publishing? This may be the service for you, offering the kind of editing which publishers' senior editors used to do in-house on their authors' manuscripts and which is now hard to find. Our other copy editing services.
  • Closing on 6 September, the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2019 is open in two categories to both new and established poets aged 18 and over from across the globe. Its unique English as an Additional Language category is open to all poets aged 18 and over who write in English as an Additional Language. It costs £5 to submit one poem or £4 per poem for more than three entries. Winners in each category will receive £1,000 and both runners up will be awarded £200.
  • From our 19-part Inside Publishing series: on Copyright 'Many writers worry about losing their copyright. Before sending out your manuscript it is always advisable to put a copyright line consisting of the copyright sign ©, the year and your name on the title page...'
  • On The Writer/Publisher Financial Relationship: 'There's no escaping the fact that publishers and authors are essentially in an adversarial position. Even in the very best and most supportive publisher/writer relationships there is the tension caused by the fact that authors would like to earn as much as possible from their writing and publishers to pay as little as they can get away with...'
  • There's a good crop of links this week in spite of the summer lull in the northern hemisphere: the consensus is that it's a positive move for bookselling in the US as Daunt takes over the biggest chain, Elliott Completes Purchase of B&N; Margaret Busby says she was 'my literary inspiration, the person who I wished I could become', 'Rest, Toni Morrison. You were magnificent'; leading writers on the great American author | Books | The Guardian; weaving something abstract and ultra-modern into the oldest kind of story, Towards a New Canon of Technothrillers | CrimeReads; and I've come to realize that the writers I actually see most of myself in are the other members of my writing group, Is It Okay If I Don't Care About Making Money from Writing? - Electric Literature.
  • If you are submitting your work to an agent or directly to a publishing house, check through our guidelines to give it its best chance. Making Submissions.
  • More links: "The reason Horrible Histories has been a success is I'm a fiction author. I published 50 fiction books before I turned to Horrible Histories." Horrible Histories: Author Terry Deary on being 'a fish out of water' - BBC News; the sales of crime and thriller fiction began their serious climb at more or less the same time as its launch, Crime Club at 50 (issues); a good summary of this significant case, Lady Chatterley's legal case: how the book changed the meaning of obscene | Law | The Guardian; a fascinating look at how the very young make book choices, What I Learned From Tracking My Toddler's Reading | Book Riot.
  • Have you been working on your book? Are you now ready to submit to publishers or to self-publish? We offer the widest range of editorial services on the web, tailored to writers' requirements and carried out by our professional editors, Our Services for writers.
  • 'Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant - you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place. Trust your demon.' Roger Zelazny in our Writers' Quotes.