Q and A with Faber editor, Sarah Savitt

By Kirsty | July 23, 2010

1/What’s your job title?

Editor at Faber & Faber

 

2/What are you working on at the moment?

I’ve just published Louise Doughty’s amazing novel WHATEVER YOU LOVE and am now thinking about how to make the paperback massive! I’m also editing a great debut novel and have just bought an exciting non-fiction book but neither has been officially announced yet so I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell you…

 

3/What one book would you have liked to have published?

That’s hard. The first thing that came to mind was THE CORRECTIONS by Jonathan Franzen, partly because I just read and loved his new novel, FREEDOM. His characters are breathtakingly real.

 

4/What are you looking for?

I’m looking for fiction that combines wonderful storytelling with brilliant writing, and non-fiction that is accessible and provocative.

 

5/What defines Faber?

Faber is about quality, a love of reading, and being a home for writers.

 

6/What author would you like to invite round for tea?

Alice Munro - I’ve been reading her since I was a teenager and I feel like she helped me grow up.

 

7/What inspires you in an author?

An author’s writing is always the most important - and inspiring - thing for me. But I do admire writers who are both sure of themselves and can take on board the ideas of others.

 

8/What top tip could you give to a first time author?

There’s no need to rush - your first published novel may be the fifth one you actually write.

 

And a brief publishing biog.

Sarah Savitt has worked in publishing for seven years and is currently an editor at Faber, where her authors include Louise Doughty, Maria McCann and Kat Banyard. Her first job was Publicity Assistant at HarperCollins and she then worked for David Godwin Associates and Abner Stein before joining Faber in 2007.

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There’s a publishing lesson in every book

By Kirsty | July 22, 2010

LondonWritersClub Live in July

We gathered on a very hot and sticky evening to hear Scott Pack, Publisher of The Friday Project. It was a fascinating and truly inspiring couple of hours.

He brought a stack of books, invited the audience to shout out the title they found interesting, and for each one told us the publishing moral or lesson behind it.

Here’s a precis of what he had to say:


1/The Atheists Guide to Xmas

Lesson: How twitter can work

Out of the 42 writers in this compilation, 36 were on twitter. Some weeks before the book was launched – on the hottest day in September – all the writers tweeted during one day and the book went from over 200k on Amazon to no.11 on the bestseller list.

The book sold 2000 in the first week – 1500 of those copies were sold on Amazon. It gave the book a wonderful headstart and shot up the rankings. The real gain here is that additional orders came from retailers who wouldn’t have stocked it otherwise.

Scott will do the same thing for the paperback this year.

He commissioned the book on the basis that the atheist bus campaign that worked so well.

Check out this website - payforthattweet.com – you give someone something for free if they tweet about your book etc.

2/Shit my dad says by Justin Halpern

Lesson: we, as readers, are still very territorial

Started with blog/tweet about things the author’s dad said. It became enormous quickly and now sells 40k copies a day in US and is being made into a film. In the UK its doing ok only a minor hit.

So why is it working in the US and not in the UK? People still buy books from where they are from is the simple answer.

3/When I was Five I Killed Myself by Howard Buten

Lesson: the strangeness of the publishing world

Written by an American (professional clown) living in France. It has been read by 1 in 10 people in France and is the French Catcher in the Rye. But it’s not in print in the UK.

Why mention this book? It shows the weirdness of publishing world. Why was it so big in France and not in the US or the UK. Perhaps, the answer is luck and timing. Canongate – a great publisher – did it here and it failed.

4/Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Lesson: reviews don’t sell copies but news stories and blogs can

Reviews don’t have an impact Scott claimed to much derision. Often people can’t find books that have been reviewed on the bookshelves. When Scott was at Waterstones, it was decided they must display all reviewed books. It was Waterstones least successful promotion ever! Scott’s research into the effectiveness showed the following:

A good review would sell only a few more dozen copies than without the review.

The broadsheets are reviewing books that people just don’t want to read.

Features or news stories sell far more copies - 1500 copies from one news story generated by Waterstones and placed in the Saturday Independent.

When Scott explained that reviews didn’t sell books to publishers, he was told ‘we produce hardbacks to get a good quote for the paperback’.

Having a newspaper column and building up a good blog following does sell books. This is what the author of Bad Science did and he built up his following over time.

5/The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Lesson: word of mouth is still the best way of shifting copies

This book was translates from the French. It had been longer on the French bestseller list than the Da Vinci Code. It was published in the UK by a small publisher called Gallic Books (they publish commercial French books). They sold 15/20k in hardback and only took one ad in the Bookseller. They couldn’t afford marketing or advertising so relied on word of mouth and this happened very quickly. A few thousand copies were sold in the first week. Now they have sold over 100k in paperback.

Word of mouth is still the biggest factor in sales for any book

6/The Number Mysteries by Marcus du Sautoy

Lesson: use the internet in books to sell copies

Bring the internet into books rather than other way around – this book does this using QR codes or two dimensional bar codes.

The author wanted to get people excited about numbers and interested in maths in a playful way.

7/Imagine This by Sade Adeniran

Lesson: self published books can succeed

Lesson: don’t give up if you don’t get a book deal and are absolutely sure you have something well written. You can self publish.

Imagine this was written by a young Brit/Nigerian woman and self published. She put excerpts on her site and kept on plugging away to promote.

Big in Africa, It has not been published in UK although it was short listed and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize. It has been published across Africa but it is still self- published here as she was selling so many copies. She now has an agent and will find a trade publisher for her future books.

Top tips for Self Publishing:

Ask yourself what are you trying to achieve?

Look like a trade published book not an amateur one.

Please get advice on self-publishing and get it copyedited.

Tell us here what help you need. http://londonwritersclub.com/about/contact/

Get a good cover. We recommend trade book designer David Eldridge - twoassociates.co.uk

Scott wrote an open letter to SP authors on his blog. Worth checking out if you are interested going down that route.

At the Book Fair, Scott ran an ‘Audience with Scott pack’ - 10 mins speed dating with self published authors. He would always be able to guess what was the self-published book – as the it was the heaviest because the best paper had been used. Trade publishers don’t use the best quality paper so perhaps your money is better spent on getting a good cover. Make it look like other books in its genre.

8/Crooked by Kristin Hersch

Lesson: think imaginatively to create interesting books

The Friday Project has published Kristin Hersch’s new album as a book – if you buy the book, you are able to ‘unlock’ the website where you can download her new album plus have access to lots of other extras. Its all about genuinely thinking about how we can use the digital world in a new way.

HMV love it because they can sell the book – her audience can only get it physically and it is not on Itunes. She is also selling about 100 copies at each concert.

Fans can also pay $30/year to get free music/ free gig etc. via her site and it’s a great example of a subscription model.

9/Blood Sweat and Tea by Tom Reynolds

Lesson: You can sell more books by giving something away.

If you want the ebook of the physical copy you can have it for free. They do this because the think it will lead to more sales. To date over 30k copies of the book have sold.

10/Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke

Lesson: think about a cheap ebook as a way to kickstart sales

This book didn’t really work as the publisher couldn’t get it stocked as a kids book. So they produced an ebook for 99p. It stayed in the top spot in Waterstones and was a great piece of marketing. Only 99p, we think readers, thought it’s heap, why not give it a go!

Won an award for best first kids novel so now stocked as kids book. So there’s another lesson in there which is that the direct route to what you want to achieve is not the only one.

11/Crap MPs

Lesson: you can still sell stuff just through the independent bookshops.

Scott thought this book would work as everyone hated MPs (then – height of expenses scandal - and now) but Waterstones and other bookshops wouldn’t touch it so Scott get the Reps on board and they sold it to independent bookstores.

12/All My Friends are Superheros

Lesson: you can still sell by word of mouth and it remains the best way to achieve high sales.

This book has a unique concept and is a beautiful story.

Moral: 10k sold through word of mouth.

Find Scott here:

www.thefridayproject.com

http://meandmybigmouth.typepad.com/

And follow him on Twitter:

@firebookswap

@meandmybigmouth

@fridayproject

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How writing a blog can sell books

By Kirsty | July 4, 2010

How can a blog help to sell your book?

A week ago, I had a meeting with a publisher – I was pitching a book and telling them what great hits the author had with their blog. They said, ‘yes, well blog stats don’t lead to sales’ – I only wish I had the presence of mind, to explain the sales funnel to them.

So what’s a sales funnel?  Business people have been using it as a sales model for years (thank you John Williams who first explained it to me) but I want to explain how it could be applied to publishing and selling books.

Right a funnel – bigger at one end than the other. Bigger at the top end, than the bottom. Sales Funnel

 

 

A sales funnel is a series of steps through which you put each of your potential buyers. For authors, the buyers are the potential readers of their book. The idea of the funnel is for people to enter your world ie the funnel at the top and for you to keep them in the funnel.

Let’s start at the top – this is where people enter – this is the free part – could be your blog or perhaps, Twitter or Linkedin – whatever happens it must be free. Its stuff thats relatively easy to do - on a daily or weekly basis - and reaches masses. The important thing is you are giving away content for free – it has value and the potential reader of your book starts to trust you.  Don’t blog on your lunch (unless you are going to write a cookery book). Think of your blog as a marketing tool (as well as great practice for the writing process) – it is at the start of the publishing process. You might not have written a single word of your book but if you have a blog and already getting visitors to your site on a regular basis, you are starting your marketing process. Can’t be bad.

So that’s the free part. Imagine you are getting 10k viewers per month, now you need at least 10% of those viewers to sign up to your list – so you can capture their email addresses. Offer an exclusive ‘give-away’ item – could be some exclusive content, a download, or the promise of a monthly ezine. Or think about giving away a short ebook or first chapter to your book.

Its inevitable that some people will leave your funnel at this point – they might not  have even been looking for you (!) – but the important thing is you have still 1k visitors who have signed up and you have their contact details. They are still in your funnel.

You need to carry on getting people to sign up to your list and keeping in contact with your list on a regular basis. It may take 12 months to get a really healthy number of people in the funnel, ready and willing to be moved on to the next stage.  They will be getting used to you, your writing, your voice so by the time your book comes out, they will happy to buy it.

Not everyone on your database with buy your book but if you have 5000 on your database after 12 months, 25% of those might just buy your book. So that’s 1250 people to kick-start the sales.

And of course, the funnel is a continual process – people will keep coming in the top via your blog and free content, and will follow through to your book. Each month, some people will move from one point in the funnel to the next. So you will have constant flow of individuals at different points in your funnel.

The funnel works up and down so if your readers enter your world at any other point you will be able to keep them in your orbit. If you meet at a festival, they’re in your realm, they buy a book. or just stay in your realm until they’re ready or they might even tell a friend about you who does buy a book (or talk about you on Twitter or their blog and so reach their database).

 

If you are canny, you can take people along to a more expensive product – what about a limited edition? Or a book with enhanced media (downloads, apps etc). Again, you will lose a percentage of people but there will still be a band of followers right through to the end point.

So to recap, the funnel works by taking your readers by the hand and leading through a series of steps - beginning with a completely free, non-commital blog right through to your book (and beyond!). 

1/Free content via blog

2/Give away to capture email addresses

3/Your book

4/More expensive products e.g. enhanced book, limited edition

And what happens when people leave the funnel? Well, you take them by the hand, pop them in the top again and lead them to buy your second book!

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How to get a million for your debut novel

By Kirsty | June 25, 2010

 A debut novel sold last month to Pan Macmillan by the American author, Vanessa Diffenbaugh, called The Language of Flowers. Pan Macmillan won the nine-publisher UK auction for a six-figure sum. The novel has already been sold in the States for more than $1 million and there have been auctions in every major territory.
It tells the story of a young woman, Victoria, who has grown up in a San Francisco children’s home and been traumatised by a series of failed adoptions. She gets the chance to become a florist, and learns to help her customers through the long forgotten “language of flowers”, a Victorian-era form of communication in which each flower and floral arrangement conveys a specific meaning. A love story develops, while in a series of flashbacks the story of Victoria’s painful childhood unfolds.
 

Whilst I was reading the press release, I tried to unpick the reasons why (without actually reading the novel) it had been sold for such a big sum, and why there was so much interest in the book and the author. So these are my thoughts:

1/Great writing & great story

2/Commercial hook - you can explain the book in two three sentences.

3/There is light and dark in the book - through the language of flowers and the darker undercurrents of the painful childhood, Vanessa, has created a more complicated novel than at first appears. This will give it longevity - it has a purpose and a meaning.

4/Universal appeal - rights have sold all round the world - the story is not specific to one country

5/The author is an activist who has worked with at risk young people, including homeless and foster children.  She and her husband are also foster parents. So there is a great wealth of experience for her to draw on plus there is a back story which will interest the media - and in turn, readers.

So perhaps, when you are writing your novel, look at other debut novels that are being bought by editors - you can find this information in the Bookseller and other rights reports - and ask yourself *why*. Do keep an eye on other debut novels that are being bought by editors - it’s important to be as aware of the market, as you are of your writing.

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Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head. ~From the movie Finding Forrester

By Jacq | June 11, 2010

 

 

 

How true this is.

We all write differently and though some get het up about their way being the right way, whether you are a beginner, an intermediate or a published author you’re entitled to do it your way.

I’d even say it’s essential to find and do it your way; try to do it ‘the right way’ and you’ll always be paddling upstream.

Why do I agree we should write our first draft with our heart  and re-write with our heads?

Because it’s tough to get all the way to the end of a book if you’re trying to get it perfect first time. The questions I hear over and over are: how many words should I write, how long should each chapter be? when should I edit? This stuff is important but it can wait; don’t worry about it unduly in the first draft.

I’m not saying don’t plan. Every writer must decide what degree of planning works for them. But if you give yourself permission to just write, to get into the flow of it, to get stuff off your chest you’ll get your first draft without killing yourself over each phrase.

Let’s say you chose a particular theme because of an event in your life or because you’re wildly passionate about something. In your first draft you should be free to write all the stuff that made the subject worth writing about. Don’t hold back and see where it takes you.

When it comes to your second draft, you’ll see which bits were necessary for you to write - cathartic perhaps - but not necessary for the book.  Using your head this time you’ll take out anything that doesn’t work. And it will feel okay to do that as you’ll have let it all hang out in the first draft.

I see how being free to play in a first draft yields results. This week, being told that what writers really need is help while they’re writing,  I held my first Supported Writing Session and I was amazed at the results. One blocked, yet talented novelist felt free to leave her first draft of Chapter 1 and went on to write 1,000 words. A non-fiction writer developed her chapter outline, her introduction and wrote the blurb and synopsis.  Another non-fiction writer, got validation that his first draft was on the right track and saw how he could restructure his book in the second to really make it zeitgeisty.

So I urge you to enjoy your first draft, to get carried away, to really enjoy it. Save your editing hand for your second draft and tackle it head on.

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May LWC Live with Andrew Crofts

By Kirsty | May 27, 2010

We shared a fascinating evening with the ghost writer Andrew Crofts at May’s LWC Live. He was inspiring, funny and informative. For those of you that missed the evening, here are some notes:

 

Andrew started writing as a 16 year old and although his first novel was rejected by publishers, he wasn’t daunted and came to London as a 17 year old, determined to write and be a writer. He wrote to publishers, magazines – anyone who hired writers.  In the early 70’s many new magazines were hungry for editorial so he got lots of commissions from travel, business and marketing magazines.

 

Marketing is the difference between an author who can earn a living from writing, and one who can’t.

 

This was his biggest piece of advice; he gave a good analogy to explain his point. Think about a carpenter – he could spend all year working on one piece – creating the perfect piece. But then at the end of the year, he would need to find someone to buy the piece – at a high price (to cover the year’s wages). But if the same carpenter knocked on doors – asking people if they had any jobs, offering himself as a carpenter with skills to sell, rather than pieces, then the work would flood in. Plus – and an added bonus – the carpenter could spent a night a week making the beautiful piece he always wanted to.

 

So Andrew became a writer-for-hire. What’s so great about being a ghost-writer?

 

  • all the material is one place – no need to research
  • the publisher is usually already in place
  • delight in finding out new things, entering new worlds and having access to these worlds
  • you don’t have to promote the book – you can literally move on to a new project when the final sentence is written

 

Who needs a ghost-writer?

  • people who have stories to tell or the expertise to share but don’t have the time or skill to write a book
  • people who have an audience but can’t write

 

Andrew likened ghost-writing to writing a monologue within a play – albeit a long monologue!

 

His first ‘job’ was for a business man, which then was followed by the story of a girl from Birmingham who had been sold by her father as a child bride in the Yemen. She has spent 8 years in the Yemen, together with her sister and wanted to build a platform and raise the funds to get her sister. Andrew received one low offer from a publisher but this then snowballed with a French publisher offering a large advance, and then 18 other foreign territories following. The book, Sold, became a bestseller throughout Europe and to date has sold over 4 million copies.

 

This gave Andrew the confidence to place a weekly ad – for twenty years – in the industry magazine, The Bookseller. This was his calling card and by having the ad in every week, it gave continuity to his promotion – whenever anyone needed a ghostwriter, they knew who to call.

 

Andrew doesn’t have one agent – but instead goes with the subject’s agent. He feels it is important for there to be just one agent for both the subject and the ghost writer.

 

The books he has ghost written can be split into four groups:

 

1/ Memoirs of ordinary people with extraordinary experiences

2/ Show business/celebrities

3/ Expert books

4/ International rich

 

The skills needed for a ghost-writer are:

  • you must be able to see a story from the mass of information
  • you must be able to see a narrative arc – a beginning, middle and end
  • you must be un-opinionated
  • you must listen to the story completely and put across the story well
  • you must be trustworthy

 

Andrew will always give the person the ability to change anything they want to once the first draft is written. He will stay with the subject for two to three days solidly – this will produce 12-15 hours of recording which will produce the first draft.

 

The first draft will produce 30k words, and then will be embellished by Andrew to produce 50-60k words. He will then send the manuscript to the subject to make comments on – and after meeting then once more, the word count will be around 80k. The manuscript will then be sent to the agent and publisher for comments. This usually takes 3 months.

 

He always has projects on the go – in different stages – this enables him to make a living from ghost-writing.

 

He’s a very talented ghostwriter and a wonderful speaker. Look out for a mention of him in The Ghost, by Robert Harris, now a feature film.

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The Importance of Daydreaming by Sam Taylor

By Kirsty | May 26, 2010

 

LWC: Thank you to author, Sam Taylor, for this guest blog on the Importance of Daydreaming.

 

It’s one of my most vivid childhood memories: the sarcastic adult voice, my classmates’ mocking laughter, dragging me rudely from the daydream into which I had, without meaning to, retreated. All my early life, I was told that I must concentrate, snap out of it, come back to the land of the living. (Even if, to the seven-year-old me, the land inside my mind seemed infinitely more alive than that grey, sterile classroom.)

 

When I’m tutoring creative-writing courses, however, the one thing I will never do is try to stop my students from daydreaming. It would be like giving them an inkless pen and telling them to write. Daydreaming is the root, the wellspring of all fiction. You might need the rational side of your brain to work out the complexities of a plot or to edit your messy first draft, but no one can ‘think up’ a novel in a cold, logical way.

 

Imaginative stories of all kinds (novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, narrative poems) come from somewhere deep inside us: a place that can only be reached through the suspension of thought. That’s why all children are natural storytellers. It is something that is educated out of us, and anyone who wishes to write fiction needs to retread the path to their childhood; to remember the glorious liberty, the magical release, the infinite possibilities of daydreaming.

 

So if you’re sitting in one of my courses and I see that tell-tale faraway look in your eyes, don’t worry – I’m not going to rap you on the knuckles with a ruler. Because daydreaming, for a writer, is not a distraction or a waste of time: it’s the beginning of the story.

 

Sam Taylor is the author of three novels, the first of which – The Republic of Trees – has been adapted into a film (All Good Children) which was premiered at this year’s Cannes Festival. He lives in southwest France, near the Pyrenees, where he offers a series of summer writing holidays. To find out more, go to www.french-workshop.com

 

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I’ve found my perfect writing number and it’s 45

By Kirsty | May 21, 2010

by Jacqueline Burns, literary agent and co-founder of London Writers’ Club

How do you get your writing done?

 

I write every day but I don’t always find it easy.

 

I’ve had 3 books published and have co-written 3 e-books to be published soon.

Under my bed, I have a children’s book, a notebook full of partly-sketched out fiction ideas, 10,000 words of a Serious Novel, and two almost complete, non-fiction books.

 

As you can see there’s too much going on under the bed and more that should be published.  Writing never ends it seems.

 

I know I’m not the only one who has unfinished writing projects on the go. I have to commit time and end dates for my books or they just don’t happen.

 

Writers always want to know how others do it so here are my musings on the where, when and how of writing. 

 

 

When?

 

For me, it’s first thing in the morning before email is logged onto or last thing at night with a large glass of red wine. The risks of writing nonsense aside, I find the latter is more productive and less of an exercise in perfection.  I’m just easier on my self and my writing, when the day is nearly done.

 

Bookseller blogger Ben Johncock is working on his first novel and he writes at 5am. Respect Ben. I could never do that, unless I’ve been up all night and stay up to see the dawn, doing anything before 7am seems obscene.

 

 

How often do you write?

 

This is starting to sound like a Cosmo sex survey.

 

Answer: every day!

 

I used to wait until I could block off a whole day in my diary before I would write, now I know that nothing is more likely to stop me writing than the pressure of a whole day in which to write.

 

I’ve found my perfect number and it is 45. 

 

Just 45 minutes on the timer and I go for it, without fear or worry, I just get it done.  I find my 45 mins every day and my word count is building.  Sometimes I do more than one session, the point is, I don’t feel under pressure and the length of time suits me perfectly.

 

No cups of tea, no peeing, no human or techno contact of any sort until I’ve done my 45.  Try it. Find your magic number.

 

Or if you don’t have 45 minutes, try just 10 minutes a day.  Here’s an inspiring tale of success in just 10 minutes a day:

 

Singer Harriet Goodwin cut back on touring because she had small children and then stumbled on her second career, as a children’s writer: she woke up one morning, convinced that a dream she’d had was the plot for a novel. “I dreamed,” she says, “that a boy crashed through the surface of the earth into this ghostly underworld.”

 

She began writing for 10 minutes a day, when her children were napping or at school.

 

The resulting novel, The Boy Who Fell Down Exit 43, became a book of the month in Borders last year, and was shortlisted for last year’s Blue Peter award; Goodwin is now working on a second book in a shed at the bottom of her garden. She still gives concerts, and finds that the writing complements her singing. “They fit beautifully,” she says. “I might be in my shed for four hours and then think, eurgh, my brain’s stiff. So I’ll go downstairs to the piano and sing some Schubert or Handel, and find it a fantastic release.”

 

Full article: The Guardian

 

 

 

The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.  ~Agatha Christie

 

Planning

 

With a huge number of books to her name you’d have to agree with Agatha Christie.  Often the best ideas for your book will come when you’re not actually writing it. In bed, on the bus, talking about your book or doing housework, they’re all good times to have a think about your book.

 

With 10 minutes a day writing plus planning or thinking time when you’re busy doing something else you will get there.

 

Keep a synopsis handy - just a few pages describing what happens in your book and a chapter plan.  Make this your masterplan and keep it up-to-date whenver you have a new idea or make a change.

 

 

Editing

 

Some people swear by writing the first draft all the way through and then editing. I prefer to write and edit each chapter. Not heavily, not perfectly but just so that it feels ‘good enough for now’ before I move on to the next chapter.

 

My editing is done on screen and then every now and then I’ll print off a hard copy and schlep to a café to work on - with my phone turned off.

 

 

 

Excuses?

 

 I don’t believe in writer’s block.  It’s more like sometimes the fear or the sheer difficulty of writing gets in the way.  That’s not to say that those things don’t cause paralysis but I just have to look at it for it is and ignore those barriers at times. 

 

Whenever I’m really tired or think my book’s not working that’s when I push a bit harder and mostly I get back into flow before I know it.   If it really isn’t working that day after an extra push, I don’t worry about it and just leave it for the day.  It’s not worth giving too much attention to it or giving myself a hard time about it.

 

That’s not to say I’ve not abandoned projects or sought advice when I’m in trouble. I’m lucky to have many writing and publishing friends and colleagues.

 

I do share my experiences as a fellow writer, agent - and previously as a commissioning editor - as much as I’m able to.   London Writers Club Live events are intended to help writers’ with quick advice on the spot.

 

I’ve also just launched intensive writing sessions to give feedback, advice and goal setting to help writers push through problems and finish their writing.   

Supported Writing Sessions

 

Whatever suits you best, I hope you find your magic writing number and keep on writing.

 

Jacqueline Burns

 

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Got to be in it, to win it

By Kirsty | May 20, 2010

 

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There are two ways to score an agent – be the hunter or be hunted. You can follow the traditional route of submitting your work to a list of literary agents – target them well, following the submission guidelines and be sure to always check for spelling mistakes. Or you can be discovered – you can create your own platforms and get agents pursuing you. So where do creative writing competitions come into this?

 

Writing competitions are important to writers for the following reasons:

1/You get writing – nothing like a competition to focus your writing and to give you a deadline.

2/You get noticed – the judges are often publishers, agents and industry professionals. You might just catch the eye of an agent – even if you don’t win. Also, the winners are often listed on websites/industry magazines and those listings will be followed by agents and publishers on the look out for new talent.

3/You can become part of the writing community – immerse yourself in the writing community and you will feel supported by your fellow writers. Network and feel inspired.

4/You will get used to sharing your work – too often writers feel timid about showing their work to others – by entering competitions you will begin to lose this insecurity.

5/You will get used to deadlines and guidelines – this is great practice for the real world of publishing. It will also help you with your novel writing. By setting daily word counts and deadlines, you will become more focused and professional about your writing.

 

 

So how do you win a contest?

1/Check out the contest – make sure it’s legit – if there is an entry fee ensure that the prize isn’t dependent upon the number of entrants. And how does the entry fee compare to the prize – no point paying a fee of £10 if the prize is only £50.

What’s the prize? Check the small print. How many years has the competition been running? Old competitions come with prestige, new ones come with opportunities.

2/Check out the judges? If they are publishers – check out who they publish? If they are agents, who do they represent? Try and work out what their personal preferences are. Find out who the past winners were – try and read their winning entries.

3/Ensure you follow the guidelines – subject, word count, format – all are vital. Your entry will be put in the ‘reject’ pile if you don’t abide by the rules. Come in under the word count – if the word count is 2k, don’t feel you have to come in exactly on 2k.

4/Don’t be sloppy – read and recheck your work for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors etc. Proof your work.

5/Get others to read your work, before you submit it – ask friends or colleagues for frank and honest feedback. Tell them to give you constructive criticism and feedback. And take their advice on board (even if you don’t agree with it or change things).

6/Do your research – find out what competitions are on and where – even keep a file with possible entries in.

7/Make your writing, the best you can – rewrite and revise if you need to. Remember most of the entries won’t get read more than once. Don’t enter something that you wouldn’t be proud of – perhaps, an obvious point, but you need to realise that your entry might well be posted up on a website for all to see.

8/Astound the judges with your first paragraph – short stories don’t need warming up – they aren’t long enough. They must be sprints to the finish line – so every step needs to be perfectly formed.

9/Be true to your own style and writing – if you win and are discovered by an agent, you want your winning entry to reflect your own style of writing so don’t write just to win. Be authentic and true.

10/Be unusual – don’t follow the usual plotlines. Give the judges something to think about – memorable lines, memorable characters, something different.

11/Ensure your entry has undertones – even a simple story of 1,500 words can carry great meaning and go beyond the simple narrative.

12/Don’t give up – keep going. Don’t give up on the first jump. You can enter more than one competition at a time (but not with the same story) and just because you get rejected once, that might change the next time around.

 

Above all have fun, have fun with your writing and with entering competitions. See them as practice, as a means to getting your head above the others – and getting noticed. Sprinkle a bit of glitter on to your entry (not literally) and be bold – you never know what might happen.

 

Check out the website: winning words for regular updates of writing competitions

 

 

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Say ‘bah’ to writer’s block

By Kirsty | May 14, 2010

Guest blogger, and writer and journalist, Deborah Dooley, runs rural writer retreats in deepest North Devon - expect support and homemade cake - and the time and space you need to write. Deborah has written this week’s guest blog on the dreaded writer’s block.

“I read an article the other day about a woman who reacted in an interesting way to her husband’s announcement that he no longer loved her and was leaving the family home. She simply said no. She remained firm, and in the end he saw the error of his ways, apologised, and they resumed their life together.

Whether or not you agree with her approach, it clearly worked on some level, and it reminds me very much of my own take on what’s commonly known as writer’s block, defined by Wikipedia as ‘a condition in which an author loses the ability to produce new work’. Wiki goes on to observe that some blocked writers are unable to work for years on end. Hmmm. Well call me old fashioned – but doesn’t that make them an ex writer?

I’ve never had writer’s block. As a jobbing writer/journalist with a family to support, for me, it would have been nothing short of disastrous. And in the current economic climate there’s no change there. Work isn’t as plentiful as it once was, and I can’t afford to miss a job. So, in the same way that our rejected heroine simply refused to acknowledge her errant husband’s change of heart, so do I deny the existence of writers block – at least in my world. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had times when, with a deadline looming, my brain turns to mush and the only words that spring to mind are either profane or those of one syllable. But faced with the choice of  a) sending the ed an email saying ‘sorry, blocked today (thereby ensuring another kind of block – on future employment) or b) mentally slapping myself, having another mug of coffee and bashing out the damn thing in time to attach the invoice along with it, I did what any writer worth the battery in her or his laptop would have done – I plumped for the latter. Every time. And while the more artistic among us may feel that this kind of writing to order sits oddly with the sort of creative writing so heavily reliant on the presence of the – often elusive - muse, it is, nevertheless, writing. And that has to be better than not writing.

Visitors to our writers retreat are rarely blocked. They want to make the most of their stay with us, so they write like there’s no tomorrow. But a couple of writers have had trouble getting started, and while I wouldn’t let them use the w and b words (bad for the psyche), I did acknowledge their problem. Happily, the remedy was simple. We sat down at the kitchen table, with tea and fat slices of home made banana bread, and laptops and notebooks. We ate and drank and talked, and gradually talking led to writing.

That was it. They were writing.

To any writer troubled with writer’s block, I’d advise them not to give it house room. Think of it as an indulgence that you can’t afford – in any sense of the word. Swear at it, stomp around a bit, drink coffee, drink wine, eat cake, talk to yourself – whatever you need to do to get things moving. But for no more than five minutes. Then sit down and write. Just write. Trust me, the rest will follow.”

Contact Deborah here for details of her retreats.

 

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