Writers' Newsletter
Issue #267
June 2025
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News |
Some of this month's news for writers from around the web.
New Writing Contest Offers $100,000 and Publishing Support to Aspiring Writers
booktrib.com – Thursday June 5, 2025
Do you dream of being a novelist but lack the resources or motivation? Well, this groundbreaking writing contest may be just what you need!
Enter for a chance to win $100,000 and make your dream novel a reality. And the best part? All you need to do is write three pages.
“The Next Big Story” is designed to discover fresh new talent, including occasional readers who need encouragement to begin, individuals with limited time or means, and those who have been historically overlooked by the publishing industry.
Chosen by a panel of high-profile judges, the winner will receive $100,000 along with a year of support from The Novelry team to develop their idea for a novel into a fully realized book.
The Novelry is an online creative writing school with an in-house editorial team of former Big Five publishing editors linked to literary agencies. We had a chance to talk with The Novelry’s founder, Louise Dean, about The Next Big Story.
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“If I wasn’t so f*cking angry, I’d laugh”: Boundless delays author payments
printweek.com – Wednesday June 4, 2025
Boundless, the post-pre-pack reincarnation of crowd-funded publisher Unbound, will delay paying owed royalties to authors until it is “cash stable”, according to The Bookseller.
Authors were informed of the decision in an email from Boundless CEO Archna Sharma, who took the reins of Unbound shortly before its administration in a doomed attempt to revive the publisher’s fortunes.
Newco Boundless, which will operate like a traditional publisher, will be unable to pay historic royalties unless it “survives and thrives”, the email read.
“This decision, while incredibly difficult, reflects the reality of the company’s cash position. We simply do not have the cash at the moment to make further historic goodwill payments. What cash we have is focused on paying the salaries of our employees, ensuring our current committed publishing programme is a success, and ensuring all royalties arising from the inception of this new company are paid on time,” Sharma said.
She added: "We are acutely aware of the disappointment this causes for authors and partners, and for the delayed timing of this message as we were trying until the last minute to avoid this outcome. We do not take these delays lightly. This is not a matter of choice, but of survival."
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Readers Annoyed When Fantasy Novel Accidentally Leaves AI Prompt in Published Version, Showing Request to Copy Another Writer's Style
futurism.com – Sunday May 25, 2025
Readers were annoyed to discover something galling: evidence that an author used AI, right in the middle of a novel.
The novel, titled "Darkhollow Academy : Year 2," penned by author Lena McDonald, falls under a romance subgenre called "reverse harem," which conventionally follows a female protagonist with multiple male partners.
But as eagle-eyed fans of the genre were irritated to discover, the author left glaringly obvious evidence of not only using an AI chatbot to write portions of the book — but also of a naked attempt to copy the style of a real fellow writer.
"I've rewritten the passage to align more with J. Bree's style, which features more tension, gritty undertones, and raw emotional subtext beneath the supernatural elements," a since-deleted passage in chapter three of the novel reads, as seen in screenshots posted to the ReverseHarem subreddit earlier this month.
J. Bree is the human author of an internationally bestselling series of romance and fantasy novels.
The instance is yet another illustration of how Amazon is being flooded with self-published AI slop, a trend that has been going on ever since the tech went mainstream a few years ago. It's a real problem for human authors, too, with AI-generated books drowning out their work in search results pages.
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Writers' Handbook 2025 - Out Now!
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Listings |
A selection of the new listings added to firstwriter.com this month.
New Magazine Listing: And Other Poems
firstwriter.com – Friday June 20, 2025
Online magazine publishing poems and essays on poetry. Accepts essay submissions year-round. Open to poetry submissions in January, May, and September.
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New Literary Agent Listing: Helen Lane
firstwriter.com – Thursday June 19, 2025
Represents Adult (and select YA) genre fiction. She is presently only open to Adult Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, Romantasy, Fantasy Romance.
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New Publisher Listing: Radio Society of Great Britain
firstwriter.com – Wednesday June 18, 2025
Publishes books for amateur radio enthusiasts.
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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.
Kate McKean on the Nuts and Bolts of the Query Letter
lithub.com – Friday June 20, 2025
A query letter is a cover letter. That’s it. I know it’s not that simple, but I really want to take away some of its power. Yes, sometimes that’s all an agent will see of your work. Yes, that means it has to do a lot in a little space. But trust that agents recognize how hard this part is, and we know how to spot something interesting through all your nervousness and posturing and meaningless typos.
I like to break down queries into several smaller parts so you can tackle them one by one, and then make it your own.
Salutation
First, we start with a salutation. This is a letter, after all. You should address it to someone. Dear Kate is an acceptable salutation. Yes! Even my first name! I don’t care.
If you are not comfortable with that, you can write Dear Ms. McKean. If you are not sure of an agent’s gender, honorific, or marital status, you can write Dear Kate McKean. All fine options! Just avoid assuming a gender binary or anyone’s marital status. Please do not write To Whom It May Concern or Dear Agent. That just makes me feel like another number on your list. If you spell an agent’s name wrong or use the wrong honorific, just take a deep breath. It’s OK! Typos happen! Lots of people think my name is Kate McLean for some reason. We understand. Do not fall on your sword in follow-up emails. You may send an apology email if you must, but queries are hard and we are all human. Try better next time.
What Writing For Kids Taught Me About Killing Off Adults
crimereads.com – Thursday June 19, 2025
In writing for children, suspense often takes the form of whispers. A note slipped across a desk. A shift in a friend’s tone. A secret whispered during a sleepover. When I dove into writing an adult thriller, those whispers darkened into something more sinister: gaslighting, betrayal, sabotage. Humans hurting other humans on purpose, in terribly cruel ways. Are You My Mother? is a far cry from The Perfect Mother, to be sure, but leaping from one genre to the other wasn’t as arduous as you might think. In many ways, writing for kids taught me exactly what I needed to know to write for adults, especially when it came to thrillers.
The tools, after all, are remarkably similar. It’s the stakes—and the monsters—that change.
Pacing Is Non-Negotiable
Young readers are merciless. If a book fails to grip them right off the bat, that’s it. They’re done. In writing middle grade and YA novels, I learned this quickly. Each scene had to earn its place. Every page had to pull its weight. Long internal monologues or quiet ruminations? Forget it. Momentum was king.
This same discipline became essential when I turned to writing a thriller. In this genre, pace isn’t simply about avoiding boredom; it’s about tension. The plot must press forward, dragging the reader along whether they like it or not. Whether it’s a dead body on page one or a marriage unraveling by chapter three, the story’s engine has to stay hot. Writing for kids taught me how to keep that engine running. When in doubt, I cut ruthlessly, the way years of facing impatient twelve-year-olds trained me to do.
My advice to young writers
thecritic.co.uk – Sunday June 15, 2025
You are, let us say, a “young writer” on the south side of 40, chastened by the findings of the latest industry survey — these show that the mean authorial salary is around £7,000 p.a. — but with your first book contract lying on the desk before you.
The Secret Author would like to congratulate you, whilst proffering a few tips on how you might be able to sustain the career on which you have so optimistically embarked.
Civility is all. The old adage about being polite to the people you meet on the way up as you may very probably meet them again on the way down was never truer than on Grub Street.
Have a smile ready for the shy girl checking the proofs at the Literary Review: she will doubtless end up editing Vogue. The junior assistant who brings in the tea at Front Row is almost guaranteed to be controller of Radio Four 30 years hence.
The same rule applies to book reviewing. The author of the feeble novel you trashed in 2019 will, inevitably, be judging the literary prize for which your darling work is entered in 2029; no slight is so mild that it won’t be repaid with interest decades down the line. The Secret Author is still having trouble with a woman whose book he made the mistake of mildly disliking back in 1995.
Watch your politics. Whatever your private ideological leanings, always publicly proclaim an attachment to the left-liberal Guardian/New Statesman/London Review of Books line. Nobody ever got anywhere in the modern literary world by saying that they voted for Brexit or claiming that Nigel Farage is unfairly maligned.
Similarly, make sure you return publishers’ diversity surveys with all the right boxes ticked. If you were privately educated and went to Oxbridge, either keep quiet about it, make wry, self-deprecating excuses, or say things like “at least at college you could meet real people for the first time”.
Notwithstanding the previous paragraph, always try to write for right-wing newspapers and magazines instead of left-wing ones. The former pay better, do so on time, tend not to muck you about editorially and give better parties.
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