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Writers' Newsletter

Issue #216
March 2021

News

Some of this month's news for writers from around the web.

Small Press of the Year regional and country winners unveiled

Small Press of the Year regional and country winners unveiled

thebookseller.com – Thursday March 18, 2021

The nine winners of the regional and country round of the British Book Awards Small Press of the Year accolade have been revealed. Presented for the third time in 2021, and sponsored by the CPI Group, the award celebrates the diversity of small presses in the UK and Ireland. This year’s winners include publishers from County Kildare in Ireland, Hackney in London, Leicester, Sheffield, Cardiff, Beaminster in Dorset, and Edinburgh.

[Read the full article]

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Fengdu Novel Launches Its First Writing Contest to Promote Growth of Fantasy Authors

prnewswire.com – Monday March 15, 2021

SHANGHAI, March 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- CooTek (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE: CTK) ("CooTek" or the "Company"), a fast-growing global mobile internet company, today announced to launch the first "Fengdu Cup" Fantasy Literature Writing Contest by Fengdu Novel, CooTek's reading platform for free and original online literature, calling on online literature writers across China to actively create excellent works.

The contest opens submission from March 1 to August 31, 2021, and mainly collect works themed around the metaphysical fantasy genre. The goal is to select top-quality online literary content and potential writers and provide them with high-traffic premium platform to present their talent. The most outstanding works of this contest will not only win access to Fengdu Novel's traffic but also opportunities to further nurture the IP content.

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Northeast Indie Publishers Stuck with Their Niches in 2020

Northeast Indie Publishers Stuck with Their Niches in 2020

publishersweekly.com – Sunday March 14, 2021

New England’s independent publishers are known for carving out strong niches and holding steadfast to them, come what may. The extraordinary forces of the last year—pandemic, protests, and climate change—put that model to the test, and for five publishers it appears that strategy paid off.

At the outset of the pandemic, sales took a nosedive at Interlink Publishing Group in Northampton, Mass., as traditional sales channels collapsed. “Most independent booksellers canceled their orders for our spring list, Amazon suspended ordering for a month, and international trade came to a complete halt,” said founder and publisher Michel Moushabeck. “It was a very scary time.”

Sales rebounded in fall, however, and Interlink ended the year up 8% over 2019. Moushabeck attributed the gains to a list that cultivated a dedicated audience who sought out the publisher’s brand of international cultural histories, fiction, cookbooks, and children’s books through new avenues. He helped readers find those new sales channels, including direct-to-home ordering, by writing two customer newsletters a week and ramping up social media.

[Read the full article]

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Listings

A selection of the new listings added to firstwriter.com this month.

New Magazine Listing: The Tusculum Review

New Magazine Listing: The Tusculum Review

firstwriter.com – Monday March 15, 2021

We seek well-crafted writing that takes risks. We publish work in and between all genres: poetry, fiction, essays, and plays--we appreciate work in experimental and traditional modes. We accept prose submissions of less than 6,000 words (24 double-spaced pages) and poetry submissions under 10 pages. We publish scripts in the 10-minute format (10 pages).

[See the full listing]


New Publisher Listing: Deep Overstock Publishing

New Publisher Listing: Deep Overstock Publishing

firstwriter.com – Tuesday March 2, 2021

Publishes full-length novels and longer works by booksellers and book industry workers.

[See the full listing]


New Literary Agent Listing: Delia Berrigan Fakis

New Literary Agent Listing: Delia Berrigan Fakis

firstwriter.com – Friday March 19, 2021

Most interested in representing adult nonfiction, but will also consider select fiction and children's picture books.

[See the full listing]


Click here for more of this month's new listings >

Articles

Some of this month's articles for writers from around the web.

How to decide when to ‘rescue’ your darlings and other writing tips

How to decide when to ‘rescue’ your darlings and other writing tips

poynter.org – Saturday March 20, 2021

Although I have been unable to teach in-person writing workshops during the pandemic, my Zoom teachings have been zooming. Almost all of these virtual workshops have been pro-bono, but I have received rewards beyond money. A favorite activity is “visiting” a writing class, especially one that is using one of my writing books as a text. I have fun, play a little music, and get treated like Obama or Springsteen.

In other years, I would have walked across the street from the Poynter Institute to visit a class at the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida. Instead, I taught this week, in my new mode, from a computer perched on our dining room table.

The day before the class, the teacher, veteran journalist Janet Keeler, submitted a list of questions from the students who had been studying my most recent book “Murder Your Darlings: And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser.” In short, it’s a writing book about writing books.

The questions were so good, I was inspired to sit down for an hour or so and answer them in writing. Those questions and answers, lightly edited for clarity, may be of use to you in your own work. I hope so.

[Read the full article]

Still Stuck at Home? It Might Be Time to Work on That Novel.

Still Stuck at Home? It Might Be Time to Work on That Novel.

nytimes.com – Thursday March 18, 2021

It was another Covid-era Wednesday night, another Zoom call, but for the entire hour, nobody spoke.

None of the attendees even looked at each other. All eight of their heads were tilted down, their pens and the corners of their notebooks occasionally bobbing into view of the laptop cameras.

These writers were gathered, virtually, for their weekly accountability session, a variation on the traditional writing group that replaces discussions and feedback with focused quiet time. Some of these informal gatherings have flourished as people who once shied away from writing groups — because of the time commitment, commute or intimidation factor of a room full of aspiring authors — are finding that the pandemic has lowered the barriers to entry.

[Read the full article]

Know thy reader

Know thy reader

thebookseller.com – Friday March 12, 2021

With the levelling off of e-book sales, many have begun to wonder whether the book publishing industry will be spared the kinds of disruption experienced by other sectors of the media industries. But the digital transformation of the book publishing industry was never fundamentally about e-books anyway: e-books turned out to be just another format by which publishers could deliver their content to readers, not the game-changer that many thought (or feared) it would be. The big question that the digital revolution posed to book publishers is just as pressing today as it was a decade ago: it’s the question of how publishers understand who their ‘customers’ are, and how they relate to and interact with them. 

For most of the 500-year history of the book publishing industry, publishers understood their customers to be retailers: publishers were a B2B business, selling books to retailers, and they knew very little about the ultimate customers of their books, the readers. The digital revolution has forced publishers to think again about this model and to consider whether there might be something to be gained by becoming more reader-centric. This fundamental shift in publishers’ self-understanding is likely to be one of the most significant and enduring consequences of the digital revolution in publishing. 

[Read the full article]

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