28 April 2025 - What's new
28 April 2025
- 'With readers there's a genuine connection if they love a book, and that makes my heart soar. I have readers from very different backgrounds who would not necessarily break bread together, so the fact they are reading the same book means so much to me. When we read, we journey into someone else's existence, we become more open-minded or ready to connect with someone we might have regarded as other until then. I think in that sense literature really can transform minds and hearts...' Elif Shafak, the author of eight novels, including The Forty Rules of Love, The Architect's Apprentice and There are Rivers in the Sea in Bookbrunch.
- Our 8 UK-based Copy editing services specialise in writers' needs, offering competitive rates and providing highly experienced professional editors. We offer a wide range of editorial services to help you prepare your manuscript for submission to an agent or publisher, or for self-publication. Our team of expert editors has years of experience in helping and advising authors; we can help you to bring your work to a professional level of excellence. Most of our editing services offer a free sample and they are all excellent value for money.
- Our first set of links covers writers' issues: author Linda Newbery on self-publishing her new novel, The One True Thing, Is self publishing the way forward for sustainable publishing? Short novels are dominating awards. Should writers care? The Bookseller - Comment - Does size matter? The author of The Echoing Shore tells BookBrunch about writing as a labour of love, the importance of setting, and his next project, Q&A: author and Selfies Award winner Jason Mann; and the author of Beyond the Secret Lake, which won the Selfies Award, tells BookBrunch about her inspirations, research, and why she chose to self-publish, Q&A: author and Selfies Award winner Karen Inglis.
- The Moth Short Story Prize 2025 is open till 30 June. It is open to all writers over 16. The entry fee is €15 per story. The 1st prize is €3,000, the 2nd prize a week-long writing retreat at Circle of Misse in France plus travel stipend, 3rd prize €1,000.
- Our 22 Services for Writers - just some links to our services, which we think is the most wide-ranging on the web.
- Have you managed to find a publisher for your work and are you now enjoying the thrill of knowing that your book will soon be published? If you're wondering what happens next, here is a helpful outline of the processes involved. Preparing for publication
- Links on AI: The Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies filed an amicus brief on April 11 supporting authors in their class action lawsuit against Meta for copyright infringement related to AI training. AAP Files Amicus Brief in Meta AI Copyright Case; "a significant development" in the licensing of content for generative AI, Publishers' Licensing Services and Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society create ‘pioneering' AI licence; last month, I prompted Meta AI with a question: "Is it okay to use pirated books to train AI?" The machine's response was unequivocal. "Using pirated books to train AI is not okay," This Is How Meta AI Staffers Deemed More Than 7 Million Books to Have No "Economic Value" | Vanity Fair; and a pioneering alternative to the opt-out system proposed by the government is supported by publishers and writers and is set to be available for use this summer, Collective licence to ensure UK authors get paid for works used to train AI | Books | The Guardian.
- 'I'd like to thank you so much for the reports on my work... I'm going to read the reports over and over, take the time to think and plan, and you can be sure you'll receive the revision a year from now, maybe less. You offer an excellent service for a very fair cost, and I'm grateful to have found you.' Bill Neenan on our Endorsements page.
- The Pedant: How to make your editor happy 7: Close encounters of the word kind is the latest addition to this series by a seasoned editor: 'To coin a rather hackneyed online expression, I tried a paraphrasing tool so you don't have to. And my experience suggests that you probably don't want to. Whatever a paraphrasing tool is for, it's definitely not for writers; though it might, alas, be an invaluable gift for plagiarists. This was not a comprehensive survey of the available tools; I have instead provided a snapshot...'
- The Pedant series covers a range of subject-matter to help improve your writing and avoid common errors: Accents and dialects, Dialogue tags, The use of bold, italics and capital letters, Spoilt for choice: formats and fonts, The trouble with ‘as, What's all the fuss over hyphens? Close encounters of the word kind and Grammar rants.
- Our final set of links comes from publishing: Gen Zers and millennials are putting creative twists on book clubs, The hottest new social scene might be a book club; the book-posting operations have had a huge market impact, but will publishing their own titles cost them their serendipitous magic? A new chapter for publishing? Book subscription services launch their own titles | Books | The Guardian; a new study from the U.K. adds to the growing body of work documenting the challenges adults increasingly face when it comes to reading, U.K. Study Finds ‘Growing Reading Crisis; skewed interpretations of classic works are feeding the dark visions of tech moguls, from Musk to Thiel, The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world? | Science fiction books | The Guardian; "It seems a curious choice, I suppose, to take a world of such huge stakes and instead focus on the small things" Robert Jackson Bennett On Crafting a Fantasy Murder Mystery ‹ CrimeReads; what began as a cozy nook on the corner of the internet, has quickly transformed into a global phenomenon, The Power Of BookTok: Why TikTok's Book Community Is Driving A New Era In Publishing.
- So what's wrong with PDFs? 'If you need your file to be edited, PDF is not the ideal format; in fact, it is practically the worst format you can choose. Why? Precisely because PDFs are designed not to be tampered with or changed. When you stop to think about it, editing is no more or less than a process of changing - and correcting - your file...'
- Are you having difficulty writing a blurb for the cover of your book? Our Blurb-writing service can give your book a professional look. What about your synopsis - often a tricky task for a writer? Our Synopsis-writing service can provide a synopsis of whatever length you need for your submissions.
- 'Books are comforting, maybe especially when you're growing up, because reading a story that has a main character you can identify with, and - crucially - an ending you already know, is cathartic.' Gal Beckerman in our Writers' Quotes.
