Earning a living as a writer is as likely as winning the lottery. Instead of writing books and persuading others to buy them, find out what people want to write, then do it for themPhilip Pullman: professional writers set to become ‘an endangered species’ due to low wagesI left school with a burning urge to lead the life of a writer: travelling like Byron, feted like Wilde before his fall, creating laughter like Wodehouse and crafting sentences like Nabokov. I had no professional contacts, so I wrote my masterpieces speculatively, and every path I went down ended with a rejection slip or total silence. The perceived wisdom then, as now, was that earning a living as a writer was about as likely as winning a lottery.Then I discovered the secret of marketing: instead of writing things and trying to persuade people to buy them, I would find out what writing services people needed and offer to provide them. So, at the same time as begging publishers and editors for commissions, I made myself available to anyone who might want to write an article or a book but did not feel able to do it for themselves. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2016-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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From the shock and awe of labour to domestic isolation, a wave of recent novels captures the transformative nature of being a motherThey say nothing prepares you. Before having my baby, I approached the literature of motherhood as though I were about to sit an exam. If my studies tempered the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-20 11:00:01 UTC ]
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The football broadcaster and podcast mogul keeps tweeting about the Israel-Gaza war, despite arguing with friends and getting into hot water with the BBC. What drives him?Gary Lineker has asked me to meet him at his house in Barnes at 2.30pm. It’s a miserable wet day in London, so I give myself... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-20 07:00:52 UTC ]
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The award-winning science fiction author, whose short story “Bears Discover Fire” swept the genre's major awards in 1990, died on January 10 following a recent cancer diagnosis. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-17 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Public libraries need to prepare for what's happening at school libraries to happen to them. That, plus this week's book censorship news. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-01-12 11:40:00 UTC ]
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Lisa Marie Presley's posthumous memoir will hit shelves later this year, with the help of her daughter Riley Keough, who picked up the pieces. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-01-11 20:25:14 UTC ]
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In her essay for PW, author E.L. Shen reflects on the experience of losing her father as a teenager and the catharsis of writing about grief in her forthcoming book for middle graders, 'Maybe It's a Sign.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-11 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The 2022 Survey of Literary Translators' Working Conditions collected data on income, royalties, copyright, and more from the responses of nearly 300 literary translators in the United States. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-08 05:00:00 UTC ]
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My longtime girlfriend is a longtime bookseller. Her relationship with bookselling predates ours three times over. It is a surprisingly taxing career path—one that asks of the body, and of the mind. There are the bad days, where she brings home the classic bookseller gripes: failed hand-sells,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-01-05 09:56:55 UTC ]
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Rushdie’s book about the incident will be published in April, but the delay ‘will not change the ultimate outcome’ of the trial says district attorneyThe trial of the man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie has been postponed because of the publication of the author’s memoir about the attack.A... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-04 13:18:47 UTC ]
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Greta Livraria in Lisbon and Rare Birds in Edinburgh are among the new stores dedicated to women’s writingWith its neatly arranged tables and shelves laden with books written by women, Greta Livraria’s small space masks its big ambitions. Since opening earlier this year, the bookstore in Lisbon... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-12-28 05:00:25 UTC ]
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In his last annual letter to authors as Hachettte Book Group CEO, Michael Pietsch hit on a number of topics, including the publisher’s steps to improve its marketing efforts. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-26 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Norfolk-based crime writer JM Dalgliesh topped the Amazon and Kindle bestsellers before being signed by a traditional publisher In 2018, JM Dalgliesh was a stay-at-home father when he sent his first crime novel to six literary agents, only to receive polite rejection letters – or no response at... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-12-17 09:00:23 UTC ]
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If you want inspiration for the new year, the nonfiction section has a self-care title that promises a meditative reading and a graphic novel about the Latinx leaders who changed the history of the U.S. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-12-13 18:42:26 UTC ]
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First-time author Cait Corrain has apologized on X and announced she is going to rehab after losing her book deal and agent for 'review bombing' on Goodreads. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-12-12 22:43:34 UTC ]
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A recent study assesses school library staffing realities, shedding light on difficult decisions facing administrators. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-08 05:00:00 UTC ]
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These prolific children's book authors have written hundreds of books over decades working in the publishing industry! Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-12-07 11:30:00 UTC ]
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A CBC News investigation has found at least 2,500 copyrighted books written by more than 1,200 Canadian and Québécois authors were shared online as part of a massive — and now defunct — dataset used to train artificial intelligence. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2023-12-07 09:00:49 UTC ]
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Chanel Miller’s next book after her prize-winning memoir “Know My Name” will help fulfill a longtime dream to write and illustrate children’s stories Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2023-12-06 14:46:03 UTC ]
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In “Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair,” Rosa Lowinger writes with compassion about the dislocation her parents experienced after leaving Cuba for the U.S. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2023-12-05 17:16:16 UTC ]
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I asked ChatGPT to improve my latest novel and lost no sleep over the results. But I do worry about diverse voices being crowded out This summer two worlds – literature and technology – collided. News stories began appearing about authors suing OpenAI and Meta for using their works to train... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-12-01 06:00:07 UTC ]
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