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2 January 2017 - What's new

2 January 2017
  • ‘I never felt like I was getting at the truth. I wanted to be told the truth. So when I write for young people I write for the young person I was. And it's only now that I find I have a lot of compassion for that kid and the things that he was worrying about. I was a really anxious kid, and I just needed someone to talk to about it, and nobody would...' Our Comment comes from Patrick Ness, author of A Monster Calls (just released as a film for which he wrote the screenplay), Chaos Walking and Class (a BBC series).
  • In a rare opportunity, Pavilion Poetry, the new imprint of Liverpool University Press, is open for submissions to poets with unpublished first full-length collections only. Submit by post by 31 January.
  • A few weeks ago 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.
  • Amongst the predictions springing up as we move into the new year, a hard figure is the most astonishing. The slowing-down of ebook sales is well-documented but it is quite startling that the first figure of 2017 is that the UK print market sold 195 million books in 2016, an increase of almost 7% on 2015, and volume increased by 4.5%. News Review on The publishing world as 2016 turns into 2017.
  • It's just the right time of year for our Health Hazards series, which looks at all the particular dangers faced by writers, from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome to Looking after your eyes, and advises on how to position your desk and chair. This really is essential reading for anyone who spends a lot of time at the computer.
  • Our links: this has been a year of major change and we have lost many great authors, Notable Literary Deaths in 2016 | Literary Hub; the newest developments, achievements and emerging classics in the world of chiseled prose, The State of Flash Fiction; but haven't prize wins been benefting small publishers? On eve of Costa awards, experts warn that top books prizes are harming fiction | Books | The Guardian; and Tom Chalmers looks at the predictions he made last year, Revisiting My 2016 Predictions for the Book Publishing Industry - DBW.
  • Do you want some help with your writing but don't quite know what you want? Are you a bit puzzled by the various services on offer, and not sure what to go for? Choosing a service can help you work out which service is right for you.
  • More links: a wide-ranging exploration of the impulses, movements, and unique voices in twentieth century science fiction, The Rise of Science Fiction from Pulp Mags to Cyberpunk; 'the female writers whose work has most recently come in for enthusiastic appraisal are by no means a homogeneous group', 2016 - a year of celebrating women writers | Books | The Guardian; and 'Reading a book is best done in solitude without a zillion bits and bytes of digital distraction nibbling in from the sidelines', The future is digital book discovery, not distracting gimmicks | The Bookseller.
  • 'Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.' Willa Cather in our Writers' Quotes.
  • And if quotes are your bag, then there's More Writers' Quotes and Even More Quotes, with the many hundreds of wonderful quotes we have featured over the years.