Writers' Newsletter
Issue #203
February 2020
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News |
Some of this month's news for writers from around the web.
Here’s why you'll want to enter Filmarket Hub's Pilot Contest
filmdaily.co – Sunday February 16, 2020
Here at Film Daily, we’re all about supporting screenwriters. We also love a good screenwriting contest! That’s why we, along with our friends at online marketplace Filmarket Hub, are thrilled to announce the launch of their new screenwriting competition focused on English language TV pilots.
The competition will be open until the 31st March 2020, after which the six semi-finalists, three finalists and the winning pilot will be announced throughout the month of June.
International Copyright RegistrationRegister your copyright online for instant copyright protection in more than 160 different countries worldwide. |
Amazon-owned Audible and major publishers settle lawsuit over audiobook translation feature
geekwire.com – Monday February 10, 2020
Amazon-owned Audible and a group of major book publishers settled a copyright lawsuit filed last year over a feature called Captions that transcribes audiobooks to text.
The settlement between Audible and the seven publishers that sued the company last year — Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Chronicle Books and Scholastic — is sealed. However, a proposed dismissal and injunction document filed last week says Audible is barred from “creating, generating, reproducing … written text derived from the audiobook versions of Publishers’ Works for any product or service created or offered by Audible,” unless it gets authorization first.
Writers' Handbook 2025 - Out Now!
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Creative writing challenge for young people launched alongside UK Tour of ‘A Monster Calls'
aboutmanchester.co.uk – Monday February 3, 2020
A creative writing challenge has been launched alongside the UK Tour of A Monster Calls, based on the critically-acclaimed novel by Patrick Ness. The Monster Writing Challenge is a creative writing challenge seeking short stories inspired by the show and written by young people aged 10-25.
The challenge is open to individuals, school groups and community groups – anyone who has a story to tell. Each submission must be no more than 500 words and inspired by any of the themes that are present in A Monster Calls. These include family, grief, hidden emotions, truth, people are complicated, bereavement and friendship.
The deadline for submissions from those in the North West is Thursday 20 February ahead of the show’s run at The Lowry from Tue 25 – Sat 29 February.
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Listings |
A selection of the new listings added to firstwriter.com this month.
New Literary Agent Listing: Jessica Friedman
firstwriter.com – Friday February 7, 2020
Represents literary fiction and nonfiction. Interested in distinctive voices and writing that challenges the expected -- stylistically, formally, or otherwise. Particularly drawn to incisive, voice-driven writing and underrepresented narratives.
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New Publisher Listing
firstwriter.com – Wednesday January 29, 2020
Publishes: Fiction; Nonfiction; Reference;
Areas include: Autobiography; Biography; Short Stories;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Literary
Publishes novels (all genres accepted, but with a literary bent), memoirs / biographies / autobiographies, creative nonfiction, and writing / publishing reference books, and short story collections. Send query by email with first ten pages and author bio.
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New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Friday February 14, 2020
Publishes: Articles; Essays; Fiction; Nonfiction; Poetry;
Areas include: Culture; Humour; Politics; Short Stories;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Satirical
Describes itself as "America's leading voice of interesting and unexpected left-wing political criticism, cultural analysis, short stories, poems and art". Submit pitch using online form on website.
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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.
More city, less village
thebookseller.com – Saturday February 22, 2020
Last month at the Association of Authors’ Agents (AAA) a.g.m., I stepped down from AAA Committee after six years, the last two in the role of president. I am proud to have worked for a trade association whose value for its members is unquestionable. I am not referring to our informative or social events, or our advocacy for agents and authors to publishers and in the public sphere, though they are great. Rather, to the fact that —because any cowboy can call themselves a literary agent—membership of the AAA is the only simple way for an agent to convey their seriousness and reliability as a professional. All our agencies commit to abide by our Code of Practice and its associated guidelines, you see.
Beyond that joint commitment, and our fiduciary duty to put our clients’ interests first, the AAA is a pretty broad church in many enjoyable ways. But although many AAA members are actively engaged in the project of making our profession more inclusive, we are still an undeniably white, middle-class group, for the most part.
5 Tips For Writing Interesting Characters
thenerddaily.com – Sunday February 16, 2020
There is an abundance of writing advice articles out there that you can get from social media or the internet, all with different tips and suggestions to help you on your writing journey. For me, I think these five tips can help you plan out and write a character well, even if you don’t actually write them until later.
1. Don’t presume that you know everything about your character.
People automatically assume that you should know every single thing about your character, because it makes sense, since you’re the writer and you’ll need to expand on them throughout your story. What people don’t know is that your character is allowed to keep their secrets, especially since they will develop throughout the series, naturally.
Maybe your character has a fear of rejection… Their backstory may be planned by you, but there may be quirks to their character which can lead you to a totally different backstory later, told by your character and told to you as well.
What is the difference between traditional publishing, self publishing?
pe.com – Friday February 14, 2020
I used to imagine myself standing at a forked path, manuscript in hand, wondering whether to pursue self-publishing or traditional. I pored over websites analyzing the pros and cons of each.
What these resources don’t convey, though, is that these are not the only two publishing routes that exist, and that increasingly, other options are blurring the boundaries between what seemed like two distinct choices.
Traditional publishing used to just be “publishing.” There were a limited number of people in the world who had access to the physical resources needed to print and distribute a book so they acted as gatekeepers. Of course, people have hand-written and distributed writing for a long time, but publishing houses, with Richard Hoe’s patent of the first rotary press in 1846, could circulate paperbacks, introduced to the United States only one year earlier.
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