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'Although there were fears that the Bologna Children’s Book Fair was going
to be less busy this year as a result of the recession, the most important
annual rights fair for children’s publishers seems to have been business as
usual.' News Review on Bologna and children's books.
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News Review looks at libraries and how cuts in funding and book budgets
are balanced by successful promotions. We argue that we should support them
because libraries are a prerequisite of a civilised society.
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'How is the economic slowdown affecting books? We’ve managed to stay off
the subject of the recession for over two months, so now is the time to have
another look at how it is affecting the book business. The first thing to say is that things look bleaker in the US than they do
in the UK, although no-one is having a particularly comfortable time... News
Review finds that the news from the sharp end is not all bad.
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News Review summarises the triumphs of World Book Day 2009, including
Reading Aroud the World, Books to Talk about and Quick Reads
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News Review looks at the recent relaunch of the Kindle and what it means
for the book business, with its challenge to the traditional book and possible
infringement of authors' audio rights.
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'Writing is a very emotional thing, especially when words come in a way
that you know is right. At the
heart of the writer’s life there can be a great sweetness. And it’s also a
great adventure: your whole life, from book to book, is a constant adventure.’ Graham Swift in the Observer.
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'It is through the power and music and magic of stories and poems that
children can expand their own intellectual curiosity, develop the empathy and
awareness that they will need to tackle the complexities of their own emotions,
of the human condition in which they find themselves.' Michael Morpurgo in
The Times.
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'If backlist sales decline significantly - notwithstanding the
questionable "Long Tail" argument - will publishers have to rely on frontlist
and ancillary revenues?... We're in an industry that produces perhaps
100,000 new consumer titles every year. We publish as many consumer titles in a
day as Hollywood releases movies in a year, each supported by marketing budgets
book publishers cannot emulate.' Lawrence Orbach CEO of Quarto, in the Bookseller
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'I think readers who aren’t used to reading contemporary poetry are
surprised to find it’s about our world now, our experience; it talks about
movies and pop music and stuff. It’s not some fuddy-duddy thing, and most of it
contains a good deal of imaginative brilliance.'
John Stammers, poet
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'Just get it all down without being too
self-conscious. I carried a notebook, but I kept losing it; so I just
store ideas in my head. With the first draft you should get it all out,
then revise later. I never know what will happen when I sit down and
that's what keeps me hooked on writing. I want to know how it will end.' Catherine Alliott
on her own writing and her advice to writers, in the Sunday
Telegraph's Stella
'This before all: ask yourself in the quietest hour
of your night: must I write? Dig down into yourself for a deep answer. And
if this should be in the affirmative, if you may meet this solemn question
with a strong and simple, I must, then build your life according to this
necessity.'
Rainer Maria Rilke
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WritersServices editor Kay Gale has many years of experience dealing with
the slush-pile. Here are her tips on how to get your submission
through it.
The eighth and final set of our new pages of tips for writers deals with
the all-important subject of submissions to publishers and agents.
Tips for Writers 1: Improving your
writing
Tips for Writers 2: Learning on the job
Tips for Writers 3: New technology
and the Internet
Tips for Writers 4: Self-publishing - is
it for you?
Tips for Writers
5: Promoting your writing (and yourself)
Tips for Writers 6: Other kinds of writing
Tips for Writers 7: Keep up to date
Think how much learning to touch-type would speed up your typing and help
you avoid errors! Our new list of free and very cheap software makes
it easy to access what's available online.
‘There were times when I wondered if it was really worth it as I kept
getting kicked down. But you have to really believe in what you're doing –
it was my dream. I knew from the age of about 14 that I wanted to be a
writer and I was writing short stories and was encouraged by teachers...
I was drawn to children's fiction because it gave me the opportunity to both
write and illustrate.'
The latest in our series shows how John used our Manuscript Typing
service to get his father's George's wartime diary typed up and ready for
submission to publishers.
Our index of other
fictionalised stories, which cover the
Reader's report,
Editor's Report,
Copy editing,
Self-publishing and
many more.
Our annual updated listing of the world's book fairs is now available on the
site.
Ghostwriter Joanne Phillips shows you how you can market yourself online
through your own website, optimisation, ezines and freelance writing websites.
Essential reading for any writer who wants to promote themself on the web.
See also our more general article on
Copyright in
our Inside
Publishing series and our article Print
on demand and the Long Tail in Changes in
Publishing.
Are you having difficulty deciding which service might be right for you?
This useful new article by Chris Holifield offers advice on what to go for,
depending on what stage you are at with your writing.
Check out this page to find links to the huge number of useful articles on this site,
including Finding an Agent
and Making Submissions.
Our huge section on technology and the web, and how writers can make use of
them, takes you from beginner-level articles to advanced technology.
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New Categories series
This is the third article in a new series by Chris Holifield which will cover
the major writing genres. It looks at romance, which is dominated in the UK and
the US by Mills and Boon Harlequin, which brings out 120 books a month.
Study their guidelines before you get started or at least before you submit to
them.
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy looks at Science Fiction and Fantasy
and suggests how you should get started, what special considerations you should
bear in mind and what the market's like.
Writing Crime Fiction looks at the international market for crime novels and
shows what is working for this readership and how you can give your own crime
fiction its best chance of getting published.
Seamus Heaney won the ninth David Cohen Prize for Literature this week, while
Eric Carle celebrated the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Here's the winner and shortlist for the 2008
Diagram Prize. It's been another strong year.
So, was it Baboon Metaphysics, Strip and Knit with Style or
The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-miligram Containers of Fromage
Frais?
Some do’s and don’ts if you want to sell a script
If you want to turn your book, dream or idea into a performance script
for film, stage or radio, it is going to be a very tough pitch. There
are a some pretty strict ‘rules’ which you need to follow if you are to
maximise your chance of success. Chas Jones's two part article shows you how
to make a successful pitch. Part 1
and Part 2
Agents' Listings
The new agents' listings are now available on the site. Coming from
the 2009 Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, these listings can be
searched and provide the most up-to-date information about literary agents
across the world:
UK
agents
US
agents
Agents
from the rest of the world
Children's specialist agents
Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2009
Our review of
the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook
This new series by Chris Holifield looks at the book trade and
investigates how fundamental changes in how it works are affecting writers.
The first article is on Bookselling, the second on
Publishing, the third on
Print on
demand, the fourth on Self-publishing - 'really great' or career suicide?, the fifth on
Writers' routes to their audiences, the sixth at at
copyright under pressure and the seventh deals with
Creative
Commons.
Our Editorial
Services for writers
Check out the 16 different editorial services we offer, from Reports to
Copy editing, Typing to Rewriting.
If you're thinking
about self-publishing,
this is the place to find out what's
involved. If you're ready to go ahead, our high quality service is second
to none and there's an economy version for those who want to
tackle some of the work themselves. You can
estimate
the cost for yourself.
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