James Patterson: ‘I've got too many ideas to write all my books myself!'
express.co.uk – Sunday July 28, 2019
THE WORLD'S biggest-selling thriller writer has told how he relies on an army of co-authors to create his books - because he has too many stories in him to write them all himself.
James Patterson has a 4in-thick file where he stores the torrent of ideas pouring out of him every day. He says: "I have so many stories to tell. There are only so many books you can put out there and I could not possibly do all of them myself, so this is one of the attractions of co-writing." By outlining the plots and using emerging talent to write the first draft, which he then edits and rewrites, Patterson has become a one-man publishing phenomenon. With more than 200 adult and children's books to his name, he has sold 385 million copies across the globe.
Hooray for Hollywood
By G. Miki Hayden
Instructor at Writer's Digest University online and private writing coach
firstwriter.com – Sunday July 28, 2019
The movies didn't spoil my books. They're still on the shelves.—James M. Cain, author of The Postman Rings Twice
One writer told me that she had been advised to hold onto the film rights to the book she’s currently making an effort to place. I looked at her blankly. Discussing the sale of film rights to an unsold book is a pretty minuscule—not to say completely irrelevant—consideration. Sell the book first. Moreover, very few books are optioned for film, much less actually turned into one. That said, of course you want to keep whatever rights you are able to, or as large a percentage of them as you can, but never let that be a dealbreaker.
Publishizer Is Building An International Virtual Agency
publishersweekly.com – Saturday July 27, 2019
Can a nomadic Australian tech entrepreneur transform literary agenting? Guy Vincent thinks he can. Vincent says that in 2013 he was living in Singapore and working for Tien Wah Press, one of the region’s largest printers, when his friend Jackie Treagus asked for help publishing her book—a pocked-size cookbook for adventurers titled The Backpacker Chef. Vincent helped Treagus raise $5,220 through crowdfunding, garnering 522 preorders, and thus Publishizer was born.
Fast forward six years and Publishizer has become, Vincent says, “the world’s first crowdfunding literary agency.” He is speaking via phone from Amsterdam, where he lives after moving from Singapore to Bali, then Peru and New York City. The company is based in the Netherlands due to a $420,000 investment from Netherlands-based Arches Capital, which built on an earlier $100,000 investment from 500 Startups, a startup accelerator in Silicon Valley.
Initially, Publishizer launched its own crowdfunding platform to fund books that would then be self-published, taking 5% of the money raised as a fee for the service. As the company grew, it began seeing that publishers were interested in acquiring books that had garnered more than 500 preorders on the platform and began placing books with publishers on behalf of authors. Today, Publishizer takes a fee of 30% of the crowdfunding campaign’s earnings, but it gets no cut of any ensuing publishing deal, and authors are also free to sign up agents and publishers on their own.
Buchwald Becomes Second ATA Literary Agency to Sign Writers Guild Agreement
hollywoodreporter.com – Saturday July 27, 2019
Mid-tier talent agency Buchwald has become the second literary agency to break ranks with the Association of Talent Agents and sign a so-called franchise agreement with the Writers Guild of America, just three days after the WGA signed a smaller shop, Kaplan Stahler, and three weeks after the guild sidelined the ATA with a cease-and-desist letter that ended joint talks.
The news, which broke Thursday in a WGA member email, marks a victory for the union in its campaign to reshape agency business practices, particularly around packaging fees and affiliate production, and is likely to increase pressure on other mid-tier firms to sign as well.
WGA Launches Staffing And Development Platform For Agentless Writers
deadline.com – Friday July 26, 2019
The WGA has launched its new Staffing and Development Platform to help writers without agents find work. The platform is part of the guild’s ongoing efforts to outlast the talent agencies in its standoff with the Association of Talent Agents, now in its 104th day.
Details of the platform were outlined to guild members in a new WGA video featuring WGA West board members Angelina Burnett and Michele Mulroney, who also serve on the agency negotiating committee.
“We’re consolidating the tools already in use, like the portal and the weekly memos with newly developed tools and we’re calling it the Staffing and Development Platform” Mulroney said. “This platform will provide all sorts of ways for producers and writers to share and access information about one another. It will help connect you to open writing assignments and development opportunities.”
Is the Internet Making Writing Better?
newyorker.com – Friday July 26, 2019
A common refrain from writers on Twitter is that writing is hard. Often, this insight is accompanied by the rueful observation that tweeting is easy. This is, of course, the difference between informal and formal expression, between language that serves as a loose and intuitive vehicle for thought and language into which one must wrestle one’s thought like a parent forcing his squirming kid into a car seat. We’ve long had both formal and informal modes of speech. The first pours from political orators; the second winds around friends at a bar. But, as the linguist Gretchen McCulloch reveals in “Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language,” her effervescent study of how the digital world is transfiguring English, informal writing is relatively new. Most writing used to be regulated (or self-regulated); there were postcards and diary entries, but even those had standards. It’s only with the rise of the Internet that a truly casual, willfully ephemeral prose has ascended—and become central to daily life.
McCulloch begins with a taxonomy; different cohorts of users have different linguistic tells. “Pre Internet People” (think grandparents) tend to avoid acronyms like “ttyl”—mostly because they don’t know acronyms like “ttyl.” “Semi Internet People,” who logged on, in the late nineteen-nineties and early two-thousands, as adults, are more likely to type “LOL” than “lol”; they don’t view digital conversation as the place for tonal subtlety. “Full Internet People,” who grew up with AOL Instant Messenger and joined Facebook as young adults, are fluent in text-speak but perhaps less steeped in the grammar of newer platforms like Snapchat and WhatsApp. (McCulloch identifies a source of mutual misunderstanding between Full Internet People, who “infer emotional meaning” in symbols like the ellipsis, and Semi Internet People, who perceive such additions as straightforward bits of sentence structure.) Finally, there are “Post Internet People,” who joined Facebook after, rather than before, their parents. They’re the ones to watch: the digital avant-garde.
Library E-Book Lending Poses Rising Problem for Publishing Industry
wsj.com – Friday July 26, 2019
One of the country’s largest book publishers is changing the way it sells e-books to libraries, whose increasingly popular digital-book borrowing apps are taking a toll on its sales.
Macmillan, whose recent hits include Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” and James Comey’s “A Higher Loyalty,” plans to limit each library system’s access to only one digital copy of each new book it publishes in the first eight weeks of the book’s release.
The move comes as borrowing e-books from local libraries has become easier than ever and as other leading publishers have adjusted their terms.
Abrams Artists Lit Agents Brad Rosenfeld, Paul Weitzman & Karen Kirkland Exit to Launch New WGA Signatory Agency
deadline.com – Thursday July 25, 2019
Veteran literary agents Brad Rosenfeld and Paul Weitzman are leaving Abrams Artists Agency after a 4.5-year stint as VPs and co-heads of the literary division. Partnered with fellow Abrams lit agent Karen Kirkland, the trio have launched a new agency, Culture Creative Entertainment, which has become a WGAsignatory, signing the guild’s new franchise agreement.
According to the principals, CCE will initially focus on writers and directors but will expand to include other areas of representation as they grow.
The move comes more than 100 days into the standoff between the Writers Guild of America and the Association of Talent Agents, which led to more than 7,000 writers firing their agents, including those represented by Abrams Artists.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Wednesday July 24, 2019
Publishes: Fiction;
Areas include: Fantasy; Sci-Fi; Short Stories;
Markets: Adult
Publishes speculative fiction stories from 100 to 1,500 words, including science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, etc. Send submissions through online submissions system.
London's Coda Agency rebrands as Paradigm
iq-mag.net – Tuesday July 23, 2019
After five years as partners, London’s Coda Agency has formally merged into its Los Angeles-based parent company, Paradigm Talent Agency, becoming Paradigm London, the companies announced this morning (22 July).
Coda partners Alex Hardee, Tom Schroeder, James Whitting and Dave Hallybone will continue to lead the London office, now under the Paradigm banner.
Prior to becoming one agency, Paradigm and Coda hared more than 500 clients. Paradigm’s roster of globally represented artists includes Halsey, Imagine Dragons, Janet Jackson, Billie Eilish, Kacey Musgraves, Tiësto, Liam Gallagher, Missy Elliott, Shawn Mendes, Sia, Kenny Chesney, Jess Glynne, Charli XCX, Bastille and Sturgill Simpson.
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