Announcing the Winner of the 2020 QueryLetter.com Writing Contest
queryletter.com – Sunday January 3, 2021
We at QueryLetter.com love a good blurb that compels us to read the book. Capturing people’s attention in as few words as possible is the name of the game.
A few months ago, we launched a writing contest that is all about book blurbs. The basis of the competition is simple: Write a blurb about a completely made-up, nonexistent book that would make people want to read the story. The person with the best blurb would win $500.
Zoom Book Tours: 5 Authors on Publishing in a Pandemic
wired.com – Friday January 1, 2021
WRITING A BOOK is a lonely pursuit, one that can take years of solitary work. Selling a book is another story. Authors give talks in cramped storefronts, schmooze at luncheons, and learn to casually discuss their belabored creative project as commercial content. The publicity circuit can be dispiriting, sleazy, and exhausting. It can also be exhilarating, liberating, and fun—a chance for people who spend a lot of time alone with their thoughts to feel like someone’s heard them. This year, releasing a book into the world became another task largely undertaken solo, at home, staring at a screen. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the publishing industry to reimagine its process for convincing people to buy its latest offerings. Even the industry’s fanciest nights, like the National Book Awards gala, took place as digital events, with participants glammed up and sitting at home.
WIRED asked the writers behind five of our favorite 2020 tomes to tell us what it was like to release a book during quarantine. Here’s what they said.
Will the PRH–S&S Combination Be Too Big?
publishersweekly.com – Sunday December 13, 2020
It seemed impossible that the acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House the day before Thanksgiving could be overshadowed by a bigger industry event, but that is what happened when book publishing’s long-running trade show and convention, most recently known as BookExpo, was canceled. As the buzz about the end of BookExpo has cooled down, industry members continue to digest the news of PRH’s pending purchase of S&S, the nation’s largest and third-largest trade book publishers, respectively.
When the acquisition was announced, the Authors Guild, the American Booksellers Association, and the Association of American Literary Agents (formerly the AAR) all issued statements that were critical of the deal. While each organization had a particular take, all shared one thing in common: they were concerned about the increasing consolidation within trade publishing.
Sign on the Dotted Line
By G. Miki Hayden
Instructor at Writer's Digest University online and private writing coach
firstwriter.com – Saturday December 12, 2020
I just sign blank contracts for books and whatever strikes me as a good idea is what I write about.
~ Roger Zelazny
Contracts seem daunting because the language they are written in is arcane and the contract terms are ones you’ll have to live with, probably a while beyond the life of the book. In this case, fear is a good thing. We should regard the contract with a certain amount of trepidation and not simply sign because we’re drooling with eagerness to be published.
New Literary Agent Listing: Rosemary Scoular
firstwriter.com – Friday December 11, 2020
Focuses on nonfiction, from food writing to history, popular science, travel and adventure, politics and investigative journalism, the arts and memoir of all kinds.
Kick 2020 goodbye: Enter our haiku writing contest
cleveland.com – Thursday December 10, 2020
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Thanksgiving is gone, the holidays are around the corner, and New Year’s – New Year’s! – is coming soon.
Face it: 2021 cannot get here fast enough.
The year was barely under way when ‘Wuhan’ was added to our geographic lexicon as coronavirus spread its tentacles across the globe. The virus brought illness, deaths, cancellations, shelter-at-home orders and squabbling politicians. It’s going to remain with us for a while, but we can get in one last shot before the year is out.
Please, Give Us the Bad Sex Writing
thecut.com – Thursday December 10, 2020
Every year since 1993, the industrious editors at the British magazine the Literary Review have sat down with steaming cuppas and pored over some of the most wretched sex writing in fiction from the past year, seeking out the “most outstandingly awful scene of sexual description.” And then, once they’ve identified the most appalling passage — which, in the past, have included the phrase “a coil of excrement” and used the word “cum” seven times — they bestow the writer responsible for it the honorable Bad Sex in Fiction Award.
While all the passages that the editors consider — which they deliver in the form of a shortlist — unfailingly inspire revulsion, every year we look forward to learning what men think sex is. But this year, we will be denied this rich source of both disgust and joy: The magazine has called off the prize.
At the start of this year, I could barely sell my writing. These 10 online classes, books, and podcasts helped me get published in The New York Times and land 2 literary agents.
businessinsider.com – Thursday December 10, 2020
At the beginning of 2020, I was half a year out of college and already burned out. I was rejected from dozens of writing jobs, barely published anywhere, and unclear as to what editors were looking for. As a first-generation immigrant, I wasn't sure I could navigate the hurdles of the American publishing world, and I wondered whether writing was a viable career choice at all.
10 months later, I've written for major news outlets including The New York Times and The Washington Post, and have even been signed on to write a book with two literary agencies: Folio in the US and Peony in the UK and Asia.
Welbeck acquires mental health publisher Trigger
thebookseller.com – Thursday December 10, 2020
Welbeck Publishing Group has become the majority owner of the mental health and wellbeing publisher, Trigger Publishing.
Welbeck said it will build on Trigger’s founder, Adam Shaw’s vision "to enhance the footprint in mental health publishing" across all channels and on a worldwide basis.
As part of the deal, Jo Lal, publisher of Trigger, and Lyndsey Mayhew, sales and marketing lead, will move across to Welbeck.
New Literary Agent Listing: Sandra Pareja
firstwriter.com – Thursday December 10, 2020
Looking for authentic, unconventional literary voices in fiction, nonfiction and sometimes poetry. Query by email.
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