Writers' Newsletter
Issue #271
October 2025
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News |
Some of this month's news for writers from around the web.
Certified organic and AI-free: New stamp for human-written books launches
theguardian.com – Thursday October 16, 2025
As machine-made books flood online marketplaces, a new UK initiative is introducing an Organic Literature stamp to help readers identify books created by real authors
A new UK start-up is taking aim at the growing wave of AI-generated books, launching an initiative to verify and label human-written works.
Books By People has launched an “Organic Literature” certification, partnering with an initial group of independent publishing houses.
The scheme will involve Organic Literature stamps being placed on books written by humans, with only limited AI use permitted for tasks such as formatting or idea generation.
The start-up, founded by rare books specialist Esme Dennys along with Conrad Young and Gavin Johnston, said it plans to expand globally in 2026.
The first certified title will be Telenovela by Gonzalo C Garcia, publishing this November by Galley Beggar Press, one of the founding publishing partners. Other partners include Bluemoose Books, Snowbooks, Scorpius Books and Bedford Square Publishers.
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The World’s Largest Publishers, 2025
publishersweekly.com – Thursday October 16, 2025
After a seven-year run, the RELX Group has given up its title as the world’s largest book publisher, displaced by Thomson Reuters. The Canadian-based legal and professional publisher had a solid 2024, with revenue rising 6%, to $6.43 billion. After a flat 2023, sales at RELX slipped slightly in 2024, falling about 1%, to $6.2 billion for the STM and legal publisher.
This year’s top 10 publisher list also includes a new addition, as McGraw Hill returns. The educational and professional publisher had been excluded for a number of years when its private equity owners refused to provide any financial data. But in July, MH returned to the public markets and according to its prospectus, the company had total sales in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025 of $2.10 billion, up 7% from fiscal 2024. The performance was good enough to put the publisher in seventh place on the ranking.
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The inaugural Romance Writing Festival in Bournemouth
greatbritishlife.co.uk – Wednesday October 15, 2025
Dominic Wong, director of the Bournemouth Writing Festival, reveals the authors launching their books at the inaugural Romance Writing Festival in Bournemouth this month
Romance Writing Festival
Sunday Times bestselling authors Milly Johnson and Paige Toon will headline the inaugural Romance Writing Festival, taking place in Bournemouth on October 18. They join fellow Sunday Times bestseller Katie Fforde on an impressive programme featuring award-winning authors, editors, literary agents, and publishers.
This one-day event is dedicated to romance writing, offering a mix of panel discussions, workshops, and networking opportunities. Attendees can also book one-to-one sessions with agents and editors or take part in free activities designed to inspire writers at all stages of their journey.
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Writers' Handbook 2027 - Out Now!
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Listings |
A selection of the new listings added to firstwriter.com this month.
New Magazine Listing: The Lincoln Review
firstwriter.com – Thursday October 16, 2025
Welcomes original, unpublished work from both established and emerging contributors, with a particular interest in voices from marginalised and underrepresented communities including BAME, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, and disabled creatives. Submissions are invited annually between 1 September and 1 March and may include flash fiction, essays, creative nonfiction (each up to 2000 words), poetry (up to four poems), comics (up to seven pages), and portfolios of art or photography (up to six pieces). Book reviews and interviews are considered by prior query. Simultaneous submissions are accepted with notification upon acceptance elsewhere. Current students and staff of the university are ineligible, and alumni or former employees must observe a three-year embargo before submitting.
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New Publisher Listing: Stanley/Barker
firstwriter.com – Tuesday October 14, 2025
Founded in London in 2014 with the intention of bringing a considered list of beautiful photobooks of substance and depth into the world. Each book is produced with the utmost care and craftsmanship by a host of renowned artisans: from designers, typographers, and illustrators to binders and printers all collaborating to actualise an artist's individual vision.
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New Literary Agent Listing: Seb Flatau
firstwriter.com – Monday October 6, 2025
Represents writers for film and television across numerous genres, with a particular affinity for scripts that are character-driven and grounded in human connection. He takes a collaborative approach to script development, working with the writer to help bring a project into commercial shape.
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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.
Why trauma writers lie to us – The market wants uncomplicated stories
unherd.com – Tuesday October 14, 2025
As a longtime teacher of memoir writing who closely observes trends in the genre, I’ve recently been thinking of an episode involving a student I worked with in the late 2010s. “F.” had studied with me over several years. At one point, she took a long absence, confiding in me that she’d unearthed some childhood trauma and was taking the time to address it. Eventually, she sent me an essay she’d written during her leave. In it, F. described herself as a child in the care of indifferent adults who had been coerced into sexual acts with persons known to her. The essay contained disturbing details, cutting dialogue, and careful scene work. Overall, it was gripping, horrific — a good story, in narrative terms.
But I didn’t believe it at all. At most, I’d give it a 2% chance of being true.
I didn’t believe this student’s story was true because I’d read it before. A year or two earlier, a student in a workshop — a class in which F. was also enrolled — had written a nearly identical account of her own childhood assault. Her story was profoundly disturbing, a difficult story to get out of my mind. I wasn’t surprised it had affected F. in that way, too. But this was bizarre: F. had coopted her classmate’s story, one she knew I’d read, and claimed it as her own.
Get Creative: On writing a TV show - where do ideas come from?
rte.ie – Monday October 13, 2025
Ever dreamed of writing a TV show but didn't know where to start? Now's the perfect time to pick up your pen (or keyboard) and dive in - no experience needed, just your imagination.
In a new series, screenwriter Ray Lawlor - creator of RTÉ's popular black comedy series Obituary - offers some tips for the budding TV writer...
Like it or not, the job of a screenwriter is to relentlessly come up with one great idea after another. Ideas that inspire people to invest millions, and crews to work terrible hours. So: where do those ideas come from? And how do you take something summed up in a pithy single line and transform it into six hours of television?
Over the following series of articles, I'll use my own series Obituary (returning for a second season on RTÉ One on October 14th) to guide you through the process of creating a TV show, from initial spark to complete series.
When I first set out to write a TV show, I studied the best series around and asked what they had in common. The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad quickly stood out. I realised these shows were built around the jobs of their main characters: Tony Soprano was a mob boss, Don Draper an ad man, and Walter White made meth.
Publishing wants debut authors to produce bestsellers. What happens if they don't?
cbc.ca – Wednesday October 8, 2025
When a debut author doesn't produce a bestselling book, it may signal the end of a career. This is due to the publishing industry's increasing obsession with books' sales data, even though the numbers are often inaccurate.
What happens when the publishing industry focuses more on milking authors for cash rather than nurturing their craft? Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud discusses this conundrum with ECW Press editor Jen Sookfong Lee and writer Tajja Isen, who wrote an article for The Walrus about publishing's data obsession.
Elamin: Tajja, on the one hand, it makes sense that if your first book is not a success, they have a harder time selling the next one. It makes sense that publishers are a little bit cautious to go, "Should we take a risk on this writer again?" But you point out that this hasn't always been the case, Toni Morrison being a good example of this. Do you want to talk about the story of her first novel?
Tajja: So her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was very modestly published. The publisher didn't have massive expectations for it. It sold maybe 1,500 [or] 2,000 copies. And a few years later, it actually went out of print. And at the time, Morrison was working in publishing, very strapped for cash. And she happened to be working in the same building as Robert Gottlieb, who later became her editor, and he happened to have read the first novel and thought, "Hey, there's something to this writer. She's got some chops." He kept her in-house and published her second novel, published her third. And it was her third novel, with Song of Solomon, where she really broke out. So it was because her editor was able to nurture her across books that she had this incredible career that reshaped literature.
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