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18 July 2016 - What's new

18 July 2016
  • 'Writing isn't generally a lucrative source of income; only a few, exceptional writers reach the income levels associated with the best-sellers. Rather, most of us write because we can make a modest living, or even supplement our day jobs, doing something about which we feel passionately...' Melissa Scott, SF and Fantasy writer, author of Trouble and Her Friends and Conceiving the Heavens: Creating the Science Fiction Novel provides our Comment.
  • Tell any young poet you know about the fabulous Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2016, which is open till 31 July to young poets aged 11-17 from across the world. No entry fee. Winners will have their poems published in the annual Foyle Anthology and will attend a week-long intensive residential Arvon course where they will develop their creative writing skills alongside fellow poets.
  • Other Writing Opportunities are The BookLife Prize in Fiction and the MslexiaStylish and lively site for quarterly UK literary magazine read by 12,000 'committed' women writers. Good range of quality writing, information and advice with news, reviews, competitions and interviews, all presented in a friendly fashion. Praised by Helen Dunmore as 'astute, invigorating and above all an excellent read.' www.mslexia.co.uk Children's Novel Competition 2016.
  • Are you getting ready to publish your book? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. Our nine Services for Self-publishers include Copy editing, Translation editing, Poetry Collection Editing and Blurb-writing.
  • 'There was a time when the main concern of writers coming to the site was how to find a publisher. That's when series such as Inside Publishing were created in order to answer the demand for information about publishing, so that writers could find out about what actually went on behind the scenes. Then there was the era of early self-publishing, when it all seemed a terrific gamble and somehow not very respectable, a refuge for the desperate who couldn't find a publisher to take on their book...' News Review
  • First excerpt - How to Open Doors and Get Noticed the First Time Around is from The ABC Checklist for New Writers, the first of a six-part series of extracts from this useful book by Lorraine Mace and Maureen Vincent-Northam. 'Plenty of authors have sold their books directly to a publisher, but there are a number of benefits in acquiring the services of an agent. Agents are well informed about market trends, able to assess your work and offer it to the most suitable publisher. They will advise, check over your publishing contract and negotiate the best terms on your behalf. So when is the right time to approach an agent and how do you go about it?...'
  • Our links: the two major English language publishing markets have different entertainment-genre priorities. The Americans love love. For the Brits, good literature is murder, Crime Fiction Pays in the UK: Is It About the Setting? Why a freelance writer decided to self-publish, Focus on Your Writing: Tips from an Indie Author; might the future involve a lot more publishing/games business interactivity? Developing a new relationship between book people and games | The Bookseller; and a book's unlikely rise, from underground hit to Big Five-published novel, due predominantly to the marketing efforts of its anonymous author, How 'Diary of an Oxygen Thief' Went from Self-Published Obscurity to Bestsellerdom.
  • Ever wanted to understand what's involved in indexing? The Ins & Outs of Indexing by 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 show how you could produce an index for your non-fiction book yourself or what you might gain by having a professional tackle the job.
  • More links: 'I want a huge catalog of self-published books, nonfiction and novels. I want a massive, raving fanbase full of ideal readers who buy all my books. I want a traditional publisher to come to me with a million-dollar book deal...', Why I'm Writing And Publishing 9 New Books This Year; Twenty-four years after moving to Germany as an au pair, Dodua Otoo not only still lives in Germany, but has just won the Ingeborg Bachmann prize - for the first and only short story she has ever written in the language of her adopted homeland, Black British writer wins major German-language fiction award | Books | The Guardian; and an author with two objectives, to deconstruct the incredibly popular Grip Lit genre 'so I could capture the elements that readers have come to love' and  to base the plot on the current, real world issue of memory science and trauma treatments in the context of a crime, BookBrunch - How grip lit grabs readers.
  • 'If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.' The late, great Elmore Leonard in our Writers' Quotes.