5 tips for debut authors
artshub.co.uk – Tuesday July 2, 2024
Phew. So, by way of the traditional route, you managed to write the book, find a publisher and get it published. So all you have to do now is relax, sit back and bask in the acclaim and glowing reviews right? Not quite. Here are a few things you’ve probably haven’t thought of in your debut outing.
Be prepared to drive a lot of publicity yourself
Unless you’ve signed up with a big publisher with a generous marketing budget that’s slated to newbies (rare, many of them are reserved for household names), a lot of the publicity is expected to be done by you. This means that, even if you are assigned a publicist to help you navigate the publicity trail, you are still expected to initiate some cold-selling of your own.
Your publicist only has a limited contract with which to help, so now is the time to brainstorm any professional literary contacts you have to assist in spreading news about your work. For instance, do you know anyone who has a books podcast? Do you have any friends who are BookTokers who can feature your book? Maybe set up a Facebook account devoted to your book, so people can find out any information about your invitations to bookshops and festivals. If you want to expand the coverage of your book, it’s prudent to show initiative and do your own networking and not rely solely on your publisher to do all the legwork.
How a budding Italian-American author trying to get a literary agent pretended to be a Korean writer called 'Kim Chi' - sparking comparisons to hit thriller Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
dailymail.co.uk – Tuesday June 25, 2024
An Italian-American author who pretended to be a Korean writer called Kim Chi is at the centre of the latest literary scandal - which has sparked comparisons to hit thriller Yellowface, in which a white woman steals an Asian novelist's transcript and passes it off as her own.
Kim Crisci, who misled readers about her heritage, has since apologised for 'deceiving people with false implications' and 'breaking all sense of decency' - before 'removing herself from the writing community'.
The furore was uncovered by fellow author Lanchi Le, who was in a Discord server with Kim - after becoming suspicious following comments she made about Vietnamese culture.
Could you write a crime novel? Candice Fox has some advice for would-be authors
abc.net.au – Saturday June 22, 2024
Australian crime fiction is in its golden era, and many people think they could be part of it. So what about you?
You've always thought of writing a novel – maybe in retirement, or when you take that big redundancy. How hard could it possibly be? A couple of hours per day hammering the keyboard, a few more staring out the window, waiting for the muse, cup of tea in hand. Then you smash together a slow-burn mystery about a small town with big secrets in what – six months? – and get it out there.
Set it somewhere nobody's ever heard of, population under 200, delightful pie shop. Or better yet, a fictional town named after your neighbour's dog.
Before you know it, you're bumping elbows with UK best-selling author Anna Downes at the signing table at some literary festival and nodding across the green room to Australian comedian and author Benjamin Stevenson. You've got a lanyard with 'Artist' on it and an 8 o'clock spot on the radio. You're an Aussie crime fiction star.
As you might have guessed, it's not that simple. But I have some insider knowledge that could help you along your way.
Simons and Heathfield launch Greenstone Literary Agency
thebookseller.com – Saturday June 22, 2024
Tanera Simons and Laura Heathfield, both previously of Darley Anderson and Associates, have launched Greenstone Literary Agency.
Greenstone Literary will specialise in commercial fiction including romance, rom-com, crime & thriller, and book club fiction, as well as select non-fiction. The name Greenstone is inspired by Greenstone Point, a place of personal connection to Tanera that also reflects the agency’s ethos of providing a strong and constant foundation for authors while remaining dynamic and adaptive to the changing market.
Greenstone launches with 15 authors including Sunday Times bestsellers Beth O’Leary and Sally Page and Radio 2 Bookclub pick, Tammye Huf. Sophie White, Mandy Baggot, Emma Steele, Ally Zetterberg, Claire McCauley, Kate Smith and Claire Frost also join Simons and Heathfield at their new venture.
Bloody Scotland reveals full line-up for its 13th Festival ... beginning Friday 13th!
stirling.gov.uk – Thursday June 20, 2024
Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival, which launched in 2012, will be one of the cornerstones of Stirling's 900th anniversary celebrations when it takes place in September.
The 13th festival begins, appropriately, on Friday 13th and has a stellar line-up of international crime writers and fun events including Friday 13th Fright Night, The Wickedest Link, Karaoke at the Coo and The True Crime Walking Tour.
The opening reception at The Golden Lion Hotel will include the presentation of two major literary prizes – The McIlvanney Prize and The Bloody Scotland Debut Prize - with Bloody Scotland cocktails courtesy of Stirling Distillery and, afterwards, the Stirling & District Schools Pipe Band will lead a procession from the Golden Lion to the Albert Halls.
Last week Bloody Scotland revealed five headliners appearing at the festival in their inaugural ‘sneaky peek’ and today the rest of the programme has been revealed as audiences also get the opportunity to mark the establishment of Stirling as a Royal Burgh in 1124.
If you're worried about how AI will affect your job, the world of copywriters may offer a glimpse of the future.
bbc.com – Monday June 17, 2024
Writer Benjamin Miller – not his real name – was thriving in early 2023. He led a team of more than 60 writers and editors, publishing blog posts and articles to promote a tech company that packages and resells data on everything from real estate to used cars. "It was really engaging work," Miller says, a chance to flex his creativity and collaborate with experts on a variety of subjects. But one day, Miller's manager told him about a new project. "They wanted to use AI to cut down on costs," he says. (Miller signed a non-disclosure agreement, and asked the BBC to withhold his and the company's name.)
A month later, the business introduced an automated system. Miller's manager would plug a headline for an article into an online form, an AI model would generate an outline based on that title, and Miller would get an alert on his computer. Instead of coming up with their own ideas, his writers would create articles around those outlines, and Miller would do a final edit before the stories were published. Miller only had a few months to adapt before he got news of a second layer of automation. Going forward, ChatGPT would write the articles in their entirety, and most of his team was fired. The few people remaining were left with an even less creative task: editing ChatGPT's subpar text to make it sound more human.
By 2024, the company laid off the rest of Miller's team, and he was alone. "All of a sudden I was just doing everyone's job," Miller says. Every day, he'd open the AI-written documents to fix the robot's formulaic mistakes, churning out the work that used to employ dozens of people.
Did You Know This?
By G. Miki Hayden
Instructor at Writer's Digest University online and private writing coach
firstwriter.com – Monday June 17, 2024
I was thinking about what to tell you from my many years of being in this writing game. Maybe you know a few of the following, or maybe not.
You need a Kindle, though perhaps you already have one. Good. This is important. I bought mine so many years ago I don’t remember the version and I need a new exterior cover. Oh well. The great thing is that these devices last and last.
New Literary Agent Listing: Steph Thwaites
firstwriter.com – Monday June 17, 2024
Represents a broad range of writers from debut authors to literary estates, number one and Sunday Times bestselling authors and prize winners writing quality commercial fiction and non-fiction, short stories, YA novels and middle grade fiction. She is currently seeking commercial fiction, thrillers, book-group fiction, romantic comedy and family dramas.
WRITING TODAY: The Realities of Running a New Playwriting Competition
bbc.com – Sunday June 16, 2024
For the last twelve years I’ve co-run Papatango, a theatre company (and registered charity) devoted to opening pathways into playwriting, especially for people who might otherwise have no access to theatre. My entire working life has coincided with austerity, seemingly bouncing from recession to recession, cutbacks piled on cutbacks, so it’s never been easy – but in the last couple of years, the challenges facing the arts, and the new writing sector especially, have exploded. Ironically – or, perhaps, consequently – our greatest successes have come in this period, notching up Olivier, Critics’ Circle, OffWestEnd and South Bank Sky Arts awards as well as a place in The Stage 25 list of industry leaders. That’s pretty good for a small company with no core funding, making world premieres with little known, often debut, writers. We veer from frowning anxiously over spreadsheets to smiling awkwardly at award ceremonies – but most people only see the successes, not the struggle.
That prompted me to share a transparent account on social media of what it takes to run an open call-out for new writing, and what the pressures and risks are. Despite these, we believe giving voice to new writers is more important in hard times than ever. But if we don’t understand the existential challenge facing such opportunities, we risk losing them. So here it is, an insight into Papatango, warts and all…
Publishing perils: why small isn’t always beautiful
thearticle.com – Sunday June 16, 2024
Sorting through a cupboard beneath the stairs, I discovered that many spare copies of my older books had suffered seriously from damp and would have to be thrown out. A few are salvageable, but not many. Beneath these it looks as if old opera programmes and copies of the Wide World which was edited by my grandfather, Victor Pit-Kethley, will have to meet a similar fate. It is sad, but at least many other copies of my old books were read elsewhere and have probably been better preserved by others around the world.
It has a parallel with a publishing disaster I have suffered in the last year. It is time to analyse what went wrong and see if anything can be salvaged. The main component in this disaster is the overpricing of my book, Washing Amethysts in the Bidet. An expensive printer and a lot of illustrations lay at the heart of this. The text could have stood alone without all the images. I have just checked the prices it is being offered for on various Amazon sites. Currently it is £41.38 in the UK, my chief market, €56.33 in Europe and $36.11 in the US. This is a normal size paperback. It is not a coffee table book. And of course, almost nobody wants to buy at those prices. A friend in Tasmania who was keen to read it found out that it would have cost her about £70 including postage. When I signed the contract a few years ago most of the paperbacks produced by this firm were circa £10. I had no way of knowing this was going to happen. Perhaps pricing is an element that should be covered in literary contracts, but it isn’t.
Across my 45 years or so of writing, my experiences of publishing have been very varied. With the largest publishers there was always a high level of competence. You had regular royalty statements and you got answers to letters or emails. This is not always true of the independents.
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