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'Can creative writing courses really open up the
world of writing to the students who pay heavily for the privilege of taking
them? As students begin the return to college or university across the northern
hemisphere, this seems a good time to examine whether or not creative writing
courses earn their keep...' News Review investigates.
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News Review reports on recent studies of bestsellerdom:
'So, what does it mean for authors? Well, the
strongest message from all this is that people buy books by author brand.
They’re affected by bestsellerdom, which tends to be a bit of a self-fulfilling
prophecy, as bestsellers get more display space and marketing spend, in the
attempt to turn them into ever greater bestsellers, which means they sell more.'
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'Keith
Ogoreck, Senior VP for Marketing for Author Solutions, has made a rather
astounding prediction in book editor Alan Rinzler's blog on Forbes.
He
suggests that big publishers like Random House could one day ‘cede the midlist
to a vast army of self-published authors’. His theory is that the 80% of
publishers’ lists which make up what is known as the midlist – literary fiction,
cookbooks, self-help books and presumably a lot of genre fiction publishing,
they’d just cherry pick from self-published authors who had already tested the
market by publishing their book and shown a track-record of success.' News
Review looks at some predictions of the future.
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'Television Book Clubs are back in the news again
with much talk about Oprah’s new choice and the relaunch of the Richard and Judy
Book club in the UK. Richard and Judy presided over a real phenomenon, with
the launch of their highly successful book club on Channel 4 in 2004. Over
the last six years the titles in their club have sold in excess of 10 million
copies and generated over £60m (nearly $93m) million in book sales,
turning at least eight authors into multi-millionaires and throwing a welcome
spotlight onto new writers.' News Review reports.
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'When I was a child,
we lived in a two-up, two down. We had no bath - it was a tin tub in the back
yard. The toilet was at the end of the yard. The first six years of my life, we
used to go over the road twice a day and fetch water from the well. We were too
poor to own books. However, every night we were read a story, and those stories
came from books, and those books came from the library... Pie Corbett, in an
interview on the National Literacy Trust website
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'A writer's passion,
his belief in his work, is what keeps him going through those long, dark
stretches when it seems as if no one is ever going to get it. But if a writer
has got himself out there - just a toe in the water - then readers' passions
come into play too, and in the age of Amazon and e-readers independent
booksellers still have a huge role to play.' Erica Wagner in The Times
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‘Some
people think they know what my books are about when they haven’t read them. They
feel I’m in favour of bad behaviour or swearing. Some even think I write
about drugs. There’s nothing of that kind. Mostly, my books are about
outsiders, kids who don’t fit in. I feel they’re quite moral tales, although
they do show that there are things even loving parents can’t always protect
children from. Children recognize the truth of that… Jacqueline Wilson
'Justice to my readers
compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice
to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have
nothing to say.'
Charles Caleb Colton
Our Editorial
Services for writers
Check out the 17 different editorial services we offer, from Reports to
Copy editing, Typing to Rewriting.
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Reaching new poetry audiences
The Poetry Book Society has just announced the launch of two major new websites,
www.poetrybookshoponline.com and
www.poetrybooks.co.uk, which will provide a substantial way for poetry
readers to find out about poetry and to buy poetry books and CDs. It’s becoming
ever harder to find a decent selection of poetry in bookshops, so these new
sites offer a good way of finding out about the latest new poetry - and much
more - and buying it.
Great review of WritersServices
We're complimented by Stuart Aken's review of our site in his blog
for 27 July:
'It is the Resources pages that really make this site stand out from the
crowd. Here you’ll find reviews of books and software, listings of agents,
self-publishing facts, educational matters, health and safety advice, and
there’s a new feature, reviewing writing magazines. You’ll see there is a
great deal of information on this site. It’s well presented and easily
navigated, which is as well, considering the number of pages. It’s a site I
browse often and I think you’ll benefit from a good look at this one.'
Read more.
In the face of a changing situation as
English becomes ever more established as the international language,
Chris Holifield has revised this article in the
Inside Publishing series, which
consists of 19 articles which take you inside the publishing world.
Our reviewer Maureen Kincaid Speller
concluded that: 'This is an unconventional book about writing,
inspirational as much as it is practical, and focusing on an aspect of
the writing process that isn’t much discussed. It would, I think, prove
a valuable addition to the writing bookshelf if you are at all
interested in the workshopping process and what it involves.'
Ever fancied a bet on the Booker? John
reviews the field and offers his own caustic comments on the whole process.
Writing Memoir and
Autobiography
Writing
Historical Fiction
Writing Romance
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy
Writing Crime Fiction
Writing non-fiction
Are you having difficulty deciding which service might be right for you?
This useful new article by Chris Holifield offers advice on what to go for,
depending on what stage you are at with your writing.
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.
If you're thinking
about self-publishing, this is the place to find out what's
involved. If you're ready to go ahead, our high quality service is second
to none and there's an economy version for those who want to
tackle some of the work themselves. You can
estimate
the cost for yourself.
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This extremely useful 19-part series is in the
midst of being revised to take account of changes in the publishing world. The
introduction, How the publishing business
works,
Advances and royalties,
The Relationship between agents and
publishers, Subsidiary rights,
The English-speaking publishing
world and The Marketing
department have all just been brought up-to-date.
John tells the inspiring story of Joe Delaney,
whose agent suggested he should switch to writing for children, which he did
with the Wardstone Chronicle series.
The first book,
The Spook’s Apprentice, spent seven weeks in the bestseller’s
charts, was translated into 12 languages and landed a film deal with Warner
Brothers.
Dominae Primus writes about initial and
continuing impressions of WritersServices, which she calls: 'a useful and user friendly website
for both writers and aspiring writers... You could say that
Writersservices.com is akin to a writers’ magazine minus the subscription
fees.'
Do you want to make a Table of contents
for your book? It looks good to provide one, especially when you prepare
a large document. It does not take long and the benefits make it well
worth doing.
If you are using Microsoft Word, or most other word-processing packages,
it is remarkably easy to get a professional-looking table which is
generated for you by the software. Not only will the table look good but
the headings are ‘active’; so people reading the document on a computer
can click on the TOC and jump to the place in the text.
Chas Jones shows you how.
Our reviewer, Maureen Kincaid Speller,
concluded that it was: 'a brisk and helpful guide on how to set about
writing a life story... It is a sensible account of life writing from
experienced practitioners of what is both art and craft, and I recommend
it!'
Our agents'
listings have been compiled from agents' own websites and other
information they publish about what they're looking for. You can use
them to research which agents to submit to.
The listings cover UK and US agents,
with separate listings for children's agents in the UK, and
international agents from all over the world.
Improving your writing, Learning on the job, New
technology and the Internet,
Self-publishing - is it for you?,
Promoting your writing (and yourself), Other kinds of writing, Keep up to date
and Submission to
publishers and agents
Previous magazines:
August 2010
July 2010
Magazine index
Check out this page to find links to the huge number of useful articles on this site,
including Finding an Agent
and Making Submissions.
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