Marjacq to push further into the heart of the action in its 45th year
thebookseller.com – Sunday July 29, 2018
Despite concerns about the "Spotification of literature" and the unknowns of Brexit, Marjacq’s director Guy Herbert is in an upbeat mood as he welcomes me to the central London office of the boutique literary agency, which turns 45 this year.
What follows is a more chaotic interview than the average company profile for The Bookseller, as his six-agent team piles into the small meeting space along with their leader. We are forced to conduct the interview in two stages as there are not enough chairs to fit all the staff in, but the conversation that follows is peppered with the words "collegiate" and "collaborative", and it is clear that these phrases are not merely paying lip service.
Inspiration or plagiarism? Writing hackles raised in Boston dispute
bostonglobe.com – Friday July 27, 2018
Good artists copy, but great artists steal, or so the old saying goes. But the truth may be far more complicated, as shown by a recent case of alleged plagiarism that rattled through Boston’s literary scene.
Accusations arose in June that a small section of a piece of short fiction chosen by the Boston Book Festival for its annual One City One Story program contained material lifted from another, real-life source. The group is planning to distribute now slightly modified copies of the work for free starting in late August.
The story, “The Kindest,” by Boston writer Sonya Larson, involves a kidney donation and was published last year in American Short Fiction to praise and acclaim. The objections, raised by a former friend of Larson who said the writer had lifted material from her Facebook post, eventually triggered legal and ethical inquiries, as well as questions of when and how it is acceptable for the stuff of real life — someone else’s life in particular — to be transformed into art.
This Piece Of Writing Advice From 'Ron Carlson Writes A Story' Transformed My Creative Process For The Better
bustle.com – Friday July 27, 2018
For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a writer in some capacity or another. Growing up, I spent all the free time I had working on angsty teenage love poems and cringe-worthy romance stories that were in reality just thinly veiled fantasies about whoever I had a crush on that week. Back then, the words flowed out of me almost seamlessly, but as I got older, I found that writing — and I mean really writing, actually working on a novel — is a lot more difficult than it seemed a decade ago when I still believed every idea I had was pure gold and every word I put on paper was absolutely genius. It had a lot to do with my confidence, or a lack thereof and my fear of creating something terrible, embarrassing, or just plain boring. For years, I found myself starting a project with the highest of hopes, only to abandon it after a few hundred words, convinced there was no way that what I was writing was could ever become an actual work of literary art. That is, until I picked up a slim writing guide that held within its pages advice from author Ron Carlson that transformed my writing process for the better.
No, you probably don’t have a book in you
theoutline.com – Friday July 27, 2018
Has anyone ever said you should write a book? Maybe extraordinary things have happened to you, and they say you should write a memoir. Or you have an extremely vivid imagination, and they say you should write a novel. Maybe your kids are endlessly entertained at bedtime, and they say you should write a children’s book. Perhaps you just know how everything should be and imagine your essay collection will set the world straight.
Everyone has a book in them, right?
I hate to break it to you but everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them.
A Published Author Told Me To Stop Writing Fan Fiction — But The Lunar Chronicles Author Marissa Meyer Disagrees
bustle.com – Wednesday July 25, 2018
"If you ever wanted to be a published author, you need to stop writing fan fiction immediately."
I blinked, wondering how I'd gotten from standing in line for a snorkel at the beach to having my entire geeky world upended in one sentence. Several minutes earlier I'd struck up a conversation with the woman in front of me, who turned out to be a published author. It was January of 2016, so I was about 15,000 words deep into what would eventually become a monstrous, novel-length fan fiction sequel to The Force Awakens, and was so hopped up on having someone to talk writing with that I told her as much.
Cue the existential crisis.
2 Big Book Writing Myths That Will Keep You From Achieving Big Profits
entrepreneur.com – Wednesday July 25, 2018
When my first book was published, I thought it would be an overnight success based purely on the topic and the fact that I knew the world needed it. My genius marketingplan was to simply publish it. If it exists on the internet, people will find it, right?
As you can imagine, that didn't work. It's a bit like showing up to a party, not knowing anyone, trying to make a grand entrance and having zero people pay attention. In fact, it was a lot like that. Hardly anyone blinked an eye or turned their head when my book became available.
Undeterred, I decided that the ticket to my success was that coveted Amazonbestseller ribbon. That will solve all my problems, I thought.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Wednesday July 25, 2018
Publishes: Essays; Fiction; Nonfiction; Poetry;
Areas include: Short Stories;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Literary
Literary and visual arts magazine published each spring. Founded in 1976 as a print publication. Online only since 2012. Prefers email submissions, but will accept submissions by post. See website for full guidelines.
US audio booms by 29% but overall publishing sales dip
thebookseller.com – Tuesday July 24, 2018
American publishers’ total industry sales dipped slightly in 2017, but audio downloads continued to boom, rising by 28.8% year-on-year.
The Association of American Publishers' (AAP) annual StatShot puts 2017’s industry sales at $26.23bn, showing a slight decline from $26.27bn the year before.
The figures contain publishers’ net revenues from trade, higher education, course materials, school instructional materials, professional books and university press, across all formats from all distribution channels and do not represent retailer or consumer sales figures.
How to write your first novel, according to experts
standard.co.uk – Friday July 20, 2018
Everyone’s got a novel inside them, right? According to Richard Skinner, director of the fiction programme at the highly-esteemed Faber Academy, and author of one of several new books offering advice to aspiring novelists, while this may be true, “very few manage to arrange themselves and their lives well enough to get it out”.
Thank goodness for that, judging from the mountains of novels that do get written, mostly rather badly, which daily arrive at literary editors’ offices by the sackload. If ever there was a good reason to keep it inside you forever, a week spent watching how ruthlessly we dispatch books like so much waste paper should do the trick.
But that’s not the prevailing wisdom. Nowadays, even if mainstream publishers reject your manuscript, you can still be a novelist, thanks to the proliferation of self-publishing companies and creative writing courses, both booming businesses.
Robertson to leave Faber to start new literary agency
thebookseller.com – Friday July 20, 2018
Charlotte Robertson, sales and marketing director and paperback publisher at Faber, is to leave the company to become managing director of a new literary agency in association with Arlington Management.
Robertson will leave the company at the end of the year and start her own literary agency with Arlington Management, a talent agency which represents people such as Kirstie Allsopp and Ben Fogle. Faber will announce plans regarding the appointment of a successor in due course.
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