6 March 2017 - What's new
6 March 2017
- Our new page this week is Our Services for Writers, listing all 20 editorial services offered by WritersServices, the widest range available on the web.
- 'Hachette UK's acquisition of Bookouture is the biggest publishing news of the week, showing how traditional publishers are acquiring the talent and technical nous to enable them to profit from the digital revolution...' But this is a publisher authors can submit directly to. News Review
- Two more articles from our 20-part Inside Publishing series: The Relationship between Publishers and Agents - 'Why do publishers need agents? Actually they don't need them, although they have come to rely on them. In many ways publishers would prefer to deal direct with unagented authors. It's authors who need agents. Writers need someone to sell their work and then to look after their relationship with their publishers...' Subsidiary Rights - 'My first job in publishing was in a subsidiary rights department. I'm ashamed to admit that I accepted the job without having much idea what subsidiary rights were. Many writers may feel just as vague about this part of publishing, so here's a quick breakdown...'
- ‘If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories...' Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse 5 and Breakfast of Champions provides this week's Comment.
- It's a common enough fantasy for writers: maybe now I can leave that dreary job and devote myself whole-heartedly to writing. But how practical is it? Is it something you can realistically aspire to, or just a distant fantasy? What are your chances of making your dream come true? Don't give up the day job.
- Our links: editor to author, if I had to reduce to one word what caused me to leave book publishing, it would be this: Dread, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Market and Just Write | Literary Hub; what do you think of when you think about investing in yourself? How to Adopt an Authorpreneur Attitude | The Huffington Post; Terry Pratchett's novels refused to conform to the binary either/or thinking of the traditional publishing world, Be More Terry | The Bookseller; and, an elegaic, beautifully written article, What is left behind by a life? Helen Dunmore: facing mortality and what we leave behind | Books | The Guardian.
- 'Hardly any authors can copy edit their own writing. It is notoriously difficult to spot the errors in your own work. So professional copy editing does make sense, either if you are trying to give your work its best chance when submitting it or, even more crucially, if you are planning to self-publish...' Getting your manuscript copy edited
- More links: even for the technically challenged amongst us - little did I realise just how much learning code would teach me about language of the other kind, Learning to code can transform your writing, not just your website | The Bookseller; I was in my 50s before I even attempted to pen a novel, and without any background or training in creative writing, Writing As A Second Career; driving home the glaring inability for authors to make a decent living, Sucks for us: Why Barack and Michelle Obama's $65 million book deal is the last thing we need - Salon.com; and 'She went on to write of all the things she was told not to', Sharon Olds, America's Brave Poet of the Body | Literary Hub.
- Getting your poetry published: Poets are naturally keen to see their work in print but it's actually quite hard to get a first collection taken on by a publisher. This is because most poetry lists are pretty small... Publishers are cautious about what they take on and there are good reasons for this. Poetry is not in general given much space in bookshops and it is difficult to find poetry sections that go much beyond some bestselling backlist and a few new volumes from well-known names. So should you self-publish?
- 'Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance too: bad luck, loss, pain. If you make something out of it, then you've no longer been bested by these events.' Louise Glück in our Writers' Quotes.
