
Self-Editing Tips for Writers: Polishing Your Manuscript Like a Pro
rollingstone.com – Friday November 22, 2024

In an era where everyone with a laptop thinks they’re destined for literary stardom, the art of self-editing remains the secret weapon separating the amateurs from the pros. Think of it as the literary equivalent of mixing a track — you’ve got the raw recording, but now it’s time to clean up those frequencies and make it sing.
The first draft is merely the beginning. The real magic happens in revision. But how do you approach editing your own work when you’re too close to see its flaws? Here’s our greatest hits compilation of editing techniques that actually work.
Kill Your Darlings (No Really, Do It)
Writers inevitably fall in love with their more purple passages. But if that beautifully crafted paragraph isn’t moving the story forward, it’s got to go. Create a ‘darlings’ document where you can paste your precious deleted sections. Think of it as having a B-sides album — those cuts might work somewhere else.

6 Magazines for Memoirists
subclub.substack.com – Friday November 22, 2024

I asked the Sub Club-al (…ugh) what list I should make this week and Shannan immediately said memoir because as we know, everyone and their mother is writing a memoir. But that doesn't mean it's easy to find magazines for memoir excerpts or essays. Nonfiction, even creative nonfiction, comes in so many sub-genres and forms that it can be tricky to judge what a magazine means when they say they publish it. The magazines on this list are open to submissions of memoir, and many of them are open to other forms of nonfiction as well, including hybrid forms of personal writing, criticism, and social analysis.

Microsoft launches imprint that aims to be faster than traditional book publishing
theguardian.com – Thursday November 21, 2024

Named after an Intel microprocessor, 8080 Books aims to ‘shorten the lag between the final manuscript and the book’s arrival in the marketplace’
Microsoft has launched a new book imprint with the aim of printing faster than traditional publishers.
Named after an Intel microprocessor, 8080 Books will publish titles focused on technology, science and business.
The imprint aims to “accelerate the publishing process, shortening the lag between the final manuscript and the book’s arrival in the marketplace,” reads a company statement.
“Technology has quickened the pace of almost every industry except publishing,” it adds. “We know that more important ideas and arguments can travel faster than they do at the moment. Can they travel too fast? Of course, that already happens in abundance, but we seek to strike the right balance.”

New Book Publisher Listing: Tippermuir Books Ltd
firstwriter.com – Thursday November 21, 2024

Our mission is to add to the cultural life of Scotland by publishing interesting and worthy books in English and Scots. The company’s strength is our smallness (actually, we are not that small anymore) and love of the written word. We publish books that appeal to us and/or we feel are important culturally, socially, and most importantly, because they are great reads.

Itching to write a book? AI publisher Spines wants to make a deal
techcrunch.com – Tuesday November 19, 2024

Generative AI has upended how we write things, or even if we write at all. Now a startup wants to be the main character in the next chapter of that story: AI that replaces the role of the publisher.
Spines is a self-publishing platform that claims that — thanks to being powered by artificial intelligence — it can do all the work of a publisher, and do it faster and cheaper. That task list includes editing a piece of writing, providing suggestions to improve it, and giving users a frank projection on who might read the published work; providing options for cover design and layout; and distributing the finished product in e-book or print-on-demand formats.
Spines’ pitch is that work that might have otherwise taken six to 18 months at a traditional publisher can now be completed in two to three weeks.
“Our innovation is in the process of production,” said CEO and co-founder Yehuda Niv.

Write For Us: Share Your Magazine Insights With Our Audience
gigwise.com – Tuesday November 19, 2024

Who We Are
Welcome to Gigwise, your go-to platform for the latest news, insights, and trends in the world of magazine publishing and editorial content. We provide in-depth analysis, expert opinions, and success stories from magazine professionals and innovative publishers alike.
What We’re Looking For
We’re seeking enthusiastic writers to contribute articles on Magazine Publishing and Editorial Content. If you’re passionate about sharing knowledge, insights, and advice on creating, curating, or transforming magazine content, we’d love to feature your work.
Here are some topic examples that align with our theme:

New Publisher Listing: Captivate Press
firstwriter.com – Tuesday November 19, 2024

We are accepting manuscripts from writers in the U.S. and Canada only and are particularly interested in writers who have an advance social media presence. Please do not send Sci-fi, Smutty Romance, or Thrillers. We accept un-agented submissions. We do not require exclusive submissions. Please be sure that your manuscript is properly formatted according to basic manuscript format guidelines.

A Bag Full of Trouble: How I Found My Way Into My Debut Novel
lithub.com – Monday November 18, 2024

Bryan VanDyke on the Importance of Spontaneity and Chaos in the Writing Process
Some time ago–a decade at least, but it feels longer–a literary agent read a manuscript that I’d written and told me that she loved it, loved my style, but the book felt too calculated, too much like a math problem. It didn’t lack heart per se, she said, but it felt too much like a clocked thing, too neat.
I carried this criticism around with me for a long time. I did not sell the book that she read, despite a lot of trying, which was disappointing but not all that unusual in the long arc of my writing career to that point.
I had reached a moment as a writer where it was obvious I needed to adjust something, to change my approach in order to get a different outcome. But how does someone whose work is marked by its meditative qualities shed the sense that those qualities are at work without losing, well, everything that makes his voice feel like his own?
I didn’t start a new novel for six years—the longest fallow period of my fiction-writing life. I flirted with and abandoned a few projects, always early in the gameplay of composition. This wasn’t traditional writer’s block. I knew what I wanted to write and how to do it, but that was sort of the problem. The clarity of my intention was a bright sun that burnt off all but what I intended–and I needed something unexpected to take root.
In the spring of 2018 I was on garden leave—a fancy euphemism for laid-off—from my job as a digital strategist at a bank, and I needed to figure out my next professional move. All I really wanted to do was take one more go at novel writing. I was pretty sure that I’d never write a book that got published; still, old habits (and aspirations) don’t go into the night quietly.
Barnes & Noble announces the sale of Sterling Publishing to Hachette Book Group
barnesandnobleinc.com – Monday November 18, 2024
Barnes & Noble announces today the sale of Sterling Publishing Co. Inc. to Hachette Book Group. The publisher was acquired by Barnes & Noble in 2003 and now includes adult imprints Union Square & Co., Puzzlewright Press, Sterling Ethos and Spark Notes, as well the children’s imprints Union Square Kids and Boxer Books; and the gift and stationery publishers Knock Knock and Em & Friends. It is the publisher of New York Times bestselling author/illustrator Mo Willems, recent New York Times bestselling authors Caroline Chambers and Dan Pelosi, and acclaimed authors Melissa Blair, L.S. Stratton, and Dusti Bowling, among others, as well as a dynamic program of literary classics.
Sterling has been led by Emily Meehan since 2021 who oversaw the rebranding in January 2022 to Union Square & Co., influenced by its New York City’s Union Square Park headquarters. The company will remain under the leadership of Emily, who will report into Ben Sevier, President and Publisher of the Grand Central Publishing Group, a division of Hachette Book Group. All Sterling Publishing Co. Inc.’s staff, publishing assets and trademarks will transfer to Hachette Book Group.

Jamie Oliver’s pulped fiction brings shame on British publishers
telegraph.co.uk – Sunday November 17, 2024

The furore surrounding the TV chef’s latest book for children is pathetic – the industry should be fearless, not cowardly
I have in my hands a rare thing. Not an unsigned one, as the old gag goes, but even rarer: an un-pulped one.
For there we’ve been, myself and the oldest of my second crop of children (he’s six) on his bed in the evening reading. It’s a weighty tome but with lots of pictures and endless action. It’s been a break from the norm; a diet of Roald Dahl, The Famous Five, a lot of Paddington and Just William, the latter to which we howl with laughter.
And while he’s quite enjoyed it, I’ve struggled. For Jamie Oliver’s latest tome, Billy and the Epic Escape, does not perform that trick of the greatest of children’s book authors and engage both grown-up and kid. But, then again, I don’t think Roald Dahl ever knocked up a blinding peri peri chicken. Renaissance men are a rarity in this world, so for this Jamie Oliver, chef, restaurateur and campaigner, can be forgiven.
But as we neared the end of the book, news came that what we thought was a safe bedtime adventure turns out to be an atrocious insult, a book of outrageous offence, of gross insensitivity and reckless ignorance.
For there, within those pages, was written something so dire that the book had suddenly been withdrawn from books shops in this country and around the world. Shelves and tables were cleared, vans dispatched to collect the dastardly tomes and great piles in warehouses were removed. Pulped presumably, and then I trust, as Jamie has his finger on the pulse of sustainability, used to help ferment the night soil of developing countries or as fuel to power the schools of the underprivileged.
What was this transgression, this appalling act of insensitivity? And how on earth could it have come from the pen of a guy quite so nice as Jamie?
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