Job opening: Acquiring Editor
publishersweekly.com – Tuesday April 19, 2016
To acquire 15 to 18 new books a year and to follow each book through development and delivery, and then assist the team in editing, design, production, marketing and publicity, and sales. To seek out the best books in Timber’s categories (gardening, nature, and regional), as well as to find books that help Timber broaden its commercial appeal in a variety of categories.
Are most romance novels badly written?
theguardian.com – Monday April 18, 2016
Isabel Allende more than annoyed crime fiction writers a couple of years ago when, after writing her first mystery Ripper, she said that “I’m not a fan of mysteries” because they are “too gruesome, too violent, too dark; there’s no redemption there”. Instead, Allende said, she decided to “take the genre, write a mystery that is faithful to the formula and to what the readers expect, but it is a joke”.
Can creative writing be taught? Irish authors give their answers
irishtimes.com – Monday April 18, 2016
“Why are you here? Why aren’t you sitting at home writing?” John Steinbeck once asked a group of students he was tutoring in the art of fiction. As with other crafts, his point was that writers learn to write by writing. You don’t become a good cook by reading recipes, you don’t learn to drive by watching Top Gear, and you don’t sit in a classroom and emerge a few semesters later with the formula to the next Booker.
The sweet rewards of self-publishing
echo.net.au – Monday April 18, 2016
Innovative self-publishing company Captain Honey are partnering with Byron Writer’s Festival to provide a venue at this year’s event exclusively for self-published authors.
The marquee will be an opportunity for self-published authors to showcase and sell their books, share their experiences and insights into the process with the public, and meet other self-published authors. Ahead of their Information night at the Byron Writer’s centre on Wednesday, Roz Hopkins of Captain Honey answered a few questions about the project and how authors can get involved.
My writing day: Hilary Mantel
theguardian.com – Saturday April 16, 2016
Some writers claim to extrude a book at an even rate like toothpaste from a tube, or to build a story like a wall, so many feet per day. They sit at their desk and knock off their word quota, then frisk into their leisured evening, preening themselves.
This is so alien to me that it might be another trade entirely. Writing lectures or reviews – any kind of non-fiction – seems to me a job like any job: allocate your time, marshall your resources, just get on with it. But fiction makes me the servant of a process that has no clear beginning and end or method of measuring achievement. I don’t write in sequence. I may have a dozen versions of a single scene. I might spend a week threading an image through a story, but moving the narrative not an inch. A book grows according to a subtle and deep-laid plan. At the end, I see what the plan was.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Friday April 15, 2016
Publishes: Essays; Fiction; Nonfiction; Poetry; Reviews
Areas include: Criticism; Literature; Short Stories
Markets: Adult
Preferred styles: Literary
Send fiction up to 5,000 words, or poetry of any length (prefers to see at least three pages). Also publishes critical essays, books reviews, and review essays, but query by email before submitting nonfiction.
Kobo Expands Kobo Writing Life Services
digitalbookworld.com – Thursday April 14, 2016
Kobo announced Wednesday the expansion of its Kobo Writing Life services for self-published authors, which include cover design, ebook conversion and copyrighting.
Want to write a good children's book? Here are 7 tips to guide you
today.com – Tuesday April 12, 2016
I have one of those jobs I don't really talk about at cocktail parties — especially around suburban parents with young children.
Because, when I tell them I am a published children's book author, I start the count — 3…2…1...— just waiting for the inevitable question:
"You write children's books? I have a children's book! Can I send it to you?"
What most people don't know is that editors receive more picture book manuscripts than any other genre. Why? Because it seems so easy to do. Well, despite popular belief, writing books for small people who can't even read is actually really hard.
Why writing diverse children's books is tough
theguardian.com – Tuesday April 12, 2016
What’s the point of having another shoddily-realised feisty girl or two-dimensional token wheelchair sidekick to add to the massive pile of rubbish attempts at diversity? Author Ross Montgomery on why it’s hard to write diverse – but that’s no excuse not to.
Pullman urges publishers to examine their role
thebookseller.com – Monday April 11, 2016
Publishers need to ask themselves what are they offering writers and readers that other agencies cannot provide, author Philip Pullman told delegates at the International Publishers Congress yesterday (Sunday 10th April).
“If I was a publisher I’d be looking very carefully at what we do and what we don’t do," Pullman said. "I’d be asking: what is it that makes me necessary to writers and readers, storytellers and their audience? Could it be done by anyone else? Would it make any difference if it wasn’t done at all?”
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