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Writers' NewsletterIssue #263
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firstwriter.com – Saturday January 25, 2025
Following last month's release of the print edition of firstwriter.com's 2025 edition of its Writers' Handbook, the digital editions are now also available from various outlets around the world. These include:
For the full and up-to-date buying options available for both the print and digital editions, see the JP&A Dyson website by clicking here.
Order your copy now to get access to full contact details for over 1,500 literary agents and agencies, book publishers, and magazines, as well as free access to the firstwriter.com website, with over 7,000 markets for your writing, including dozens of constantly changing competitions.
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News |
Some of this month's news for writers from around the web.
vox.com – Tuesday February 11, 2025
For the past few months, publishing has been consumed with debate over that ever-divisive topic: blurbs, those breathless little testimonials from other writers that appear on the back of a book’s cover, which hardly anyone likes to write and even fewer people like to ask for.
One big author and one major publisher announced within weeks of each other that they were through with the practice of blurbs, and the resulting conversation threw publishing into a tizzy. In the process, it provided a new lens on who has access to clout and resources in an increasingly precarious industry.
Authors traditionally set out to procure blurbs after their books have been accepted by publishers and gone through the editorial process, but before the books have been finalized, typeset, and printed. At that point, some combination of author, editor, and publicist reaches out to other writers, ideally famous ones, and ask them to read the manuscript and write a few nice words to go on the back of the published book.
International Copyright RegistrationRegister your copyright online for instant copyright protection in more than 160 different countries worldwide. |
thebookseller.com – Sunday February 9, 2025
HarperCollins has opened applications to its Author Academy, from which 200 aspiring authors have graduated since January 2021. Applications open today (7th February), and close on Monday, 24th February. The six-week course runs from 9th May.
The academy is now lead by Ken Wilson-Max, publisher of HCCB imprint Kumusha Books, and offers free training to writers and designers from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds to help them "gain the knowledge and skills to succeed in fiction, non-fiction and children’s books".
In previous years students have learnt directly from the experience of authors through a series of Q&As including Jamila Gavin, Sarah Morgan, June Sarpong, Rebecca F Kuang and Charles Cumming. After the course, students will be mentored by members of the HarperCollins team and join the Author Academy alumni network. They also have the opportunity to submit a manuscript for consideration by HarperCollins’ editorial team.
Writers' Handbook 2025 - Out Now!
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ca.news.yahoo.com – Thursday February 6, 2025
Casarotto Ramsay & Associates has brought in two agents including one who reps the likes of Essex Serpent writer Anna Symon and Get Millie Black’s Lydia Adetunji.
Tanya Tillett and Kara Fitzpatrick have joined as Senior Agent and Theater Agent respectively. Tillett, who has previously worked for The Agency and the Knight Hall Agency, reps the likes of Symon, Adetunji and Grace Ofori-Attah, who wrote recent James Norton-starrer Playing Nice. She will report to Casarotto Head of Film & Television Jodi Shields.
Click here for the rest of this month's news > |
Listings |
A selection of the new listings added to firstwriter.com this month.
firstwriter.com – Wednesday February 5, 2025
Our ethos is producing beautiful books with a sense of place. Whether it’s coffee table design-led non-fiction or a beautifully written memoir, we’re interested in hearing from those who are passionate about their specialist subject. We’re not worried about mass-market appeal; it’s the niche interests explained through intricate narrative that we’re interested in most. We strongly believe in the power of a beautifully produced book. Print and design is at the heart of everything we do. It’s our heritage. From creative endpapers and beautiful jackets to gorgeous illustration and typesetting, we take pride in even the smallest details.
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firstwriter.com – Tuesday February 4, 2025
Publishes flash narratives up to 1,000 words. We do not consider poetry. We consider reviews of flash collections, essays on craft, and articles on teaching flash for the blog.
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firstwriter.com – Friday February 14, 2025
I'm a recovering academic. After several years of academic research in the humanities and teaching writing and history, I realized academia wasn't for me, but I always loved sharing good stories with others. I wanted a job that would still let me do that, so I pursued a career in publishing. I represent a range of nonfiction and fiction genres.
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Click here for more of this month's new listings > |
Articles |
Some of this month's articles for writers from around the web.
telegraph.co.uk – Thursday January 30, 2025
It seemed a laudable enough aim. When The Good Literary Agency was launched in late 2017 with more than £500,000 of funding from Arts Council England (ACE), its mission was to identify exceptional writers who identified as black and minority ethnic, working class, disabled or LGBTQ, nurturing their work and ultimately getting them book deals.
Certainly its two founders, author Nikesh Shukla – who edited the 2016 groundbreaking essay collection The Good Immigrant, featuring the likes of Riz Ahmed and Nish Kumar – and literary agent Julia Kingsford, seemed to have the necessary credentials.
Then ACE literature director Sarah Crown described the duo as “ideally placed to make a direct and meaningful intervention in this area.”
”We are glad to be able to support them as they go forward,” she added. And yet, seven years and £1.28 million of allocated public money later, The Good Literary Agency has announced “with great sadness” that it has made the decision to close at the end of March. All staff are being made redundant, the future of all their authors and agents is up in the air.
Put simply, despite vast grants being handed out to TGLA – two awards totalling £379,959 were made in 2021 and it won NPO (National Portfolio Organisation) status in 2023, meaning it would receive £152,542 annually until 2026 – Shukla and Kingsford still couldn’t make their idea work as a viable business.
litreactor.com – Thursday February 6, 2025
When the newly reformed LitReactor asked if I’d be interested in writing a how-to article on novellas, my knee-jerk answer (to myself) was: “How the hell should I know?” It’s a strange answer, one I should probably unpack with my therapist at some point, because — putting my own neuroses aside — I do know how to write them.
As of 2025, I’ve written five novellas: Bones Are Made To Be Broken, Standalone, How We Broke (with Bracken MacLeod), The Only Way Out Is Through, and You Can’t Save What Isn’t There — and only one of them was a whoopsie-daisy, didn’t see a novella there, son. With the other four, it was deliberate action; I wasn’t creating a short story or developing a novel, I was writing a novella, and I knew it.
On that note, allow me to show you how it’s done.
thebookseller.com – Thursday February 6, 2025
Imprints are great business, but is their prestige and value getting diluted as they proliferate?
For decades now, the ‘Big Five’ publishers have been swelling in size by amassing a huge number of imprints: names under which they publish that each focus on a specific genre, market or type of book. Some, such as Virago or Fourth Estate, used to be independent publishers, but many, such as Hachette’s Brazen Books or Penguin’s Fern Press, began within these larger organisations. The question is, does the industry have too many imprints and do they influence how readers behave?
A good place to start, perhaps, is with Penguin Random House, home to the largest collection of imprints in the UK. Its website states that the company owns "300 editorially and creatively independent publishing imprints... together, our imprints publish over 70,000 digital and 15,000 print titles annually, with more than 100,000 eBooks available worldwide".
Take a moment to process those numbers. In the UK, the average number of books a person reads each year is 10. Given the sheer scale of PRH’s operation, it’s not surprising that dividing itself up into imprints is helpful: they form an infrastructure that maintains variety in this behemoth company.
Click here for the rest of this month's articles > |
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