2 June 2014 - What's new
2 June 2014
- This week there's a heavy focus on the story which is gripping the book world - the fight going on between Amazon and Hachette. We've also got the thrid part of Suzy Jenvey's series, of interest to children's writers, and a new Horror Prize as our Writing Opportunity. All that and an insightful Comment and characteristic quote from Ionesco.
- The third part of Suzy Jenvey's The Essential Guide to Writing for Children deals with Starting to Write: 'Once you have started writing, never lose sight of that fact that your readers are children; your narrative and description should be different in certain aspects from adult writing.' Part 1 deals with Which age group should I write for? and Part 2 Before You Write: What is My Story Going to be?
- ‘Content is king, and it will remain king - tech will come and go... It's not I don't believe in tech, I do. But I also know that content is king. Not to quote Rupert Murdoch, but he used to say: ‘You have to own the pipes, but if you don't have anything flowing through it, what are the pipes going to do? ' We developed technology to market and sell our content, but the technology doesn't come first. You got to have the content and then get the technology behind it...' Jane Friedman, CEO of backlist ebook publisher Open Road Media, quoted in our Comment column.
- We're delighted that Richard Hall's Theatres of War was announced as the winner of The People's Book Prize (Fiction) 2013/14 at the awards ceremony last week. This is a highly competitive prize and we're really thrilled by his success. Richard came to WritersServices as an author with an earlier draft of Theatres of War and we helped advise him on further work on his novel and his submission package.
- 'The book world is poised on a knife-edge as the dispute between Amazon and Hachette continues, with no end in sight. It provided an oppressive feeling at BookExpo AmericaBookExpo America, commonly referred to within the book publishing industry as BEA. The largest annual book trade fair in the United States, just ended in New York. American Booksellers Association chief executive Oren Teicher, at the organisation's general meeting, said unequivocally that the industry was 'being held hostage by a company far more interested in selling flat-screen TVs, diapers and groceries... prepared to sacrifice a diverse publishing ecosystem to achieve retail dominance. That's not good for anyone...' News Review
- The James Herbert Award for Horror Writing 2014 is an new prize in this genre. Although it is only open to horror novels written in English and published in the UK between 1st January 2014 and 31st December 2014. (Self-published novels are not eligible) we thought its unique focus made it worth mentioning, in spite of our usual policy of only listing prizes which are open to unpublishied writers.
- An Editor's Advice is a series of seven articles on really useful subjects for writers such as Dialogue, Doing further drafts and Manuscript presentation.
- This week's bumper crop of links relate especially to the Amazon/Hachette story: Smashwords: Amazon's Hachette Dispute Foreshadows What's Next for Indie Authors, How the Amazon-Hachette Fight Could Shape the Future of Ideas - Jeremy Greenfield - The Atlantic and Read four of the most important paragraphs I'll ever write. | The Official James Patterson Website. Then there's Rights Sales as Soft Power | Publishing Perspectives, On Crowdfunding Books: When People Vote with Their Money | Publishing Perspectives and, translation being a favourite focus at the moment - When It Comes to Translation, It's a Small World After All | Publishing Perspectives.
- 'A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.' Eugene Ionesco in our Writers' Quotes.
