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'As if there wasn’t enough change going on in the
publishing world at the moment, the British government has decided to take a
hand in academic publishing, having just concluded that a new model would work
better. For years publishers have undertaken this kind of scholarly publishing
which is financed by book and journal sales, yet now government minister David
Willetts is suggesting that open access is the way forward.' News Review on
academic publishing.
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'J K Rowling’s Pottermore site seems to have
succeeded all expectations. The ebook store has sold £3m ($4.83) worth of Harry
Potter ebooks in its first month. Sales appear to have been driven by
pent-up demand and sales values are high because many fans are buying the
complete ebook bundle, which is priced at £38.64 ($62.25)...' News Review
reports.
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'An article in a recent edition of the Bookseller
focused on the London agency Conville and Walsh, a relative newcomer to the
agency business but a successful one. How is the world of agenting being
affected by the changes in the book world, and what impact does this have on
writers? News Review reports on agenting in a changing world.
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'Erotica, romance, crime and fantasy bullish - So what do these four areas of genre publishing have
in common? Well, they’re all in demand at the moment, in some cases after a
period in the doldrums. How much is this down to ebooks? Well, hard to say, but
with romance in particular this is certainly part of the equation.' News
Review looks at genre publishing.
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'I wouldn't use the word "fun" to
describe the process (of writing). It's like someone has said "OK, you have to
scrub St Paul's Cathedral. Now here's your toothbrush."... George R R Martin, author of Dance with
Dragons 2: After the Feast and many other bestsellers, in The
Times.
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‘Although it may sound surprising, neither Amazon
nor Apple are 2.0 oriented companies. And this is their weakest point. Both
were born at the end of the analog era and although their corporate cultures may
be highly innovative, their strategic focus is still very traditional. Both have
created totally restricted ecosystems that only permit limited co-operation with
other companies.'
Javier Celaya in Publishing Perspectives.
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'I want to make sure that a reader could figure out
every twist in the book from what went before. I try really hard to give
those clues and suggestions double or triple meanings and steer (the reader) in
a different direction. But the opportunity, if one chose to figure out what was
going to happen, should be there...' Jeffrey Deaver, author of XO and 29 other
thrillers, in the Bookseller
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‘This has been a tumultuous year for the book
business, a time of profound change in the way books are distributed and read.
It is no exaggeration to say that the widespread acceptance of digital devices
and a simultaneous contraction of shelf-space in stores qualify as a historic
shift...' Peter Osnos, founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs Books in
The Atlantic
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‘I don’t believe in writer’s block. Think about
it—when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn’t it
always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer’s
block is having too much time on your hands. If you have a limited amount of
time to write, you just sit down and do it... ' Jodi Piccoult, author of
Lone Wolf
'When writing a novel a
writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a
caricature.'
Ernest Hemingway
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Links to recent 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 a book is born
It doesn’t matter what e-books cost to make
Serious Non-fiction in the Digital Age
Links to stories of last
week
Academics accused of undermining studies by
racing to publish their works as popular histories
The digital-only model is cool for cats - and
even Shakespeare
The Objects of Our
Obsession: On the E vs. P Debate
Set up your
own blog
In order to be in the best position to promote
yourself and your writing, it’s well worth setting up a blog. In case you find
this idea a bit alien, here’s why you should take the trouble to do this.
A blog offers you the
opportunity to start building an audience for your work and the chance to
experiment with writing about yourself and with different kinds of writing.
Many successful writers’ blogs start with a small readership of family and
friends, but build a good audience over the years. Relax and just write what
comes naturally, it makes sense for your blog to be more informal, more personal
than a standard piece of non-fiction writing and more lively than a slice of
autobiography, as there are no conventions that go with it.
Previous magazines:
February
March
April
Magazine index
Writing Memoir and
Autobiography
Writing
Historical Fiction
Writing Romance
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy
Writing Crime Fiction
Writing non-fiction
We Watch the web for
writers
Our huge section on technology and the web, and how writers can make use of
them, takes you from beginner-level articles to advanced technology.
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A Library in
Your Living Room
Oxford University Press have just announced
that public libraries in England, Wales and Scotland will be able to provide
library users with access to a myriad of fantastic reference works and language
collections. Anyone with membership to these libraries will be able to use their
library card to get instant free access in the library or at home.
Update to our links
Our 23 lists of recommended links have just been
updated with many new links to sites of special interest to writers. these range
from
Writers Online
Services
to Picture libraries
and from Software for writers
to
Writers Magazines & Sites.
There's a new Writers' Blogs
listing which needs populating, so please send your
suggestions in.
Help for Writers
Use this page as a springboard to over 2,000
pages on the site.
The winner has just been announced of this
year's Diagram Prize. Ranging from Mr Andoh's Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese
Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge to Estonian Sock Patterns All Around
the World, this is a vintage year.
Our new service is for anyone who is having
difficulty producing their cover or jacket copy and may be especially helpful
for self-publishers. Let our skilled editor/writers do the job for you, so that
you end up with a professional blurb.
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.
Writing
Historical Fiction
Our revised article on Writing Historical
Fiction brings this subject up to date.
Other articles cover
Writing Crime Fiction,
Writing Science Fiction and
Fantasy, Writing Romance,
Writing Non-fiction
and
Writing Memoir and
Autobiography.
Our Editorial
Services for writers
Check out the 18 different editorial services we offer, from Reports to
Copy editing, Typing to Rewriting. Check out this page to find links to the huge number of useful articles on this site,
including Finding an Agent
and Making Submissions.
Choosing
a Service
Are you having difficulty deciding which service might be right for you?
This useful article by Chris Holifield offers advice on what to go for,
depending on what stage you are at with your writing.
Our book review section
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