The Hack: Archive's Writers' News

THE HACK

A new US small press publisher, Pugalicious Press are looking for eSubmissions for what they term Middle Grade and Young Adult books as well as graphic novels. In the first instance they request an email query with a small sample of your work embedded in the text of the email - do not send attachments until requested to do so. Visit the website for more details.


US eStar Books reopen their door to submissions from 1 July 2012. The company are seeking paranormal and fantasy themed books with believable characters. Previously published books will be considered as long as they are out of print with all rights reverted to the author.


William Boyd is the new official James Bond author and will release his first 007 adventure, with the full support of Ian Fleming Publications, in 2013. The work is as yet untitled.


British music newspaper, NME is to publish its first overseas edition which will be a monthly print edition in India.

Hatchette UK have acquired the world rights to the Enid Blyton estate

Former Waterstones Manager Tim Coates is the main man behind Bilbary a new joint UK/US company that plan to offer all the eBooks in the world to subscribers of its new eBook rental service. The new service, which is seen as a serious rival to Amazon, is to launch soon with some 750,000 titles available.


The Field Magazine edited by Jonathan Young is a country sports magazine which is looking for contributors. The magazine is especially interested in hearing from writers with a good knowledge of fly fishing and hunting with working dogs.


Fandom Forever is a new SF eMagazine edited by Knud Larn and published from Denmark. English language submissions are especially welcome.

The Hack - WRITERS' NEWS

First we had eBooks and now we have AromaBooks - Smellessence is a new imprint who are gearing up to publish a range of scented books using a new technology based on micro-encapsulation. One of the titles planned for the launch is The Story of the Famous Farter and the book will feature a powerful fart smell on its last page.

"This advanced technology and the smells it creates are so real they take children's reading to a magical new level. We wanted to inject some fun into the reading experience and this is a powerful way to do just that. We are very excited to launch The Splotz! as the first range - it's a fun, playful and original concept we have created with the potential to expand beyond books." Perminder Mann, Managing Director


Coming anniversaries that could help freelancers pitch topical articles - 1 July 1972 saw the first Gay Pride march in England, 5th July 2007 and smoking was banned in public places in England and also on the same day in 1937 Spam was launched, not the computer variety but the tinned meat. 12th July 1962 saw the Rolling Stones play their first concert. 14th July will see the 100th anniversary of protest singer Woody Guthrie's birth.


Despite the new opportunities opened by digital publishing it seems that most new writers are not optimistic about the future. The Writers' Workshop polled 323 aspiring novelists and a massive 93% felt that things were getting harder for the new writer.


Children's book, Trash was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Prize in 2012 before being banned from the list because of violent scenes and swearing. However the author, Andy Mulligan can now stick two fingers up to Blue Peter after the book was shortlisted on the prestigious Carnegie Medal Prize.

Kate Lyall Grant has left Simon and Schuster and now takes over the role of publisher at Severn House. This gives her overall control of the entire list where crime fiction is especially popular.

Andrew Harrison, former editor of The Word, is now editor at Q Magazine.

Let's hear it for Pontypridd - author Dave Lewis has seen his first novel, CTRL - ALT- DELETE published onto the Kindle platform. I've read this book and can say that it's an excellent Welsh set crime novel with some insights into the shady side of the online world. Find it at Amazon.


Pan Macmillian have become the first major publisher to launch a digital only list in Australia where eBooks are booming. The imprint, Momentum launches with more than twenty titles.

HarperCollins have sold its teen writing website, Inkpop to Figment for an undisclosed sum.

The Enfield Gazette joins the growing list of newspapers that have become digital only.

Redstone Science Fiction has just reopened for submissions.














 

Archive's Writers' News Roundup

Glossy magazine, The Stylist has joined forces with Faber Publishing to find the hottest new talent in crime writing. The are looking for an unpublished crime novel with a female protagonist and the first prize is publication with an advance payment of £5,000. Bestselling author, Ruth Rendell is among the judges so you'll have to impress. Details HERE



Top SF publisher Angry Robot are having an Open Door reading period between 16-30 April. This means the company who only usually accept subs from agents will now look at work direct from the author. I'm a bit late reporting this news but details are HERE

Piatkus have launched a new eBook line for romantic fiction - Piatkus Entice are operating now and will transfer the most popular eBooks to print.

Classic Cars Magazine are actively looking for writers with a good knowledge of the classic car lifestyle. Find them HERE

Black Lyon Publishing are a new US based publisher who publish their books simultaneously as eBooks and mass market paperbacks. They specialise in romance fiction and you can find details Here Looking for the best in romance and literary love stories? At Black Lyon, we selectively publish novels by some of the most talented multi-published and new authors around. Check back each month for new titles - each available in trade paperback and ebook formats.

Australian SF magazine, Aurealis have stopped publishing in print and as of issue 45 will become a digital only magazine. The title also has a new submission manager in Crisetta Macleod - she says she is looking for twice as many stories as usual as the magazine plans to increase its output. Find details Here

Archive's Writing News

Amazon are to launch yet another imprint - 47 North will focus on fantasy, sf and horror for both print and Kindle. At the time of writing several name authors have been announced as publishing with the imprint and these include Greg Bear, Neal Stephenson and Dave Duncan. The imprint is activelly seeking submissions and details can be obtained from AmazonPublishing-PR@amazon.com

The Phoenix is a new weekly comic book aimed for children which is seeking script ideas - The Phoenix really is very different to any other comic. Think of us as a TV studio – ‘transmitting’ all kinds of wonderful stories over the course of a year. Some funny, some thrilling, some magical, some moving – and all entertaining and memorable, and much more involving! Details HERE



 Eminent Malayalam writer Sukumar Azhikode, who dominated Kerala's cultural scene as a literary critic, orator, academic and journalist for over five decades, died at a private hospital yersterday.

NBC News will launch NBC Publishing, the company announced Monday, using its own television assets as a starting point for e-books. NBC Publishing will begin as a digital-only publisher; although the title of its first e-book is not yet announced, the company says it will be released in February. NBC Publishing plans to release about 30 titles each year. They will be released as text e-books and enhanced e-books that include multimedia that can be seen on tablets like the iPad and Kindle Fire.

Archive's Writer's News

Future Publishing have announced the launch of a new title, Practical Photoshop which will be open to freelance submissions. The publisher have also revamped their title DVD & Blu Ray Review. Future are a publisher very open to outside submissions - find them HERE


Enchanted is a recently launched new age magazine that are looking for,what they call, Magical contributions. Find them HERE

Susan Watt has joined Quercus where she will set up a new imprint called Heron Books. Susan was previously a publishing director at Harper Collins.


UK digital book sales increased from  £4m to £16m in 2010, a new report from the Publisher's Association has revealed.

This year's Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel award shortlist has been revealed with debut novelist William Ryan sitting on the list alongside better known names. The full shortlist for this year's awards is:
From The Dead by Mark Billingham (Sphere)
• Blood Harvest by SJ Bolton (Corgi Books)
• 61 Hours by Lee Child (Bantam Books)
• Dark Blood by Stuart MacBride (Harper Fiction)
• The Holy Thief by William Ryan (Pan Books)
• The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor (Michael Joseph)

First Contact: Digital Science Fiction is a monthly anthology of SF stories by professional writers. It is published on all eBook formats and is gaining a good reputation with readers. The editors are looking for stories between 3,500 and 7,500 words but contributors are advised to read several issues before sending anything in. Payment is five US cents per word.
Full details here


An yet another new market for the sci-fi writer is Schrodinger's Mouse - a new US ezine and print magazine. Details HERE



Vintage Script is a new print magazine aimed at readers with a love off all things retro. The magazine is looking for freelance submissions and can be found HERE

The most popular writer is:

Forget the bestseller lists, the true test of a writers popularity is how many friends he/she has on their Facebook fan page -

Based on overwhelming popularity on Facebook, the top author on the social networking site is Stephen King with 1.3 million fans. Perhaps more surprisingly is George Orwell's ranking at number three, followed by Twilight Saga author Stephenie Meyer in sixth.

With a combination of contemporary and classic writers, the eclectic group listed has been compiled according to the number of Facebook fans, gathered with statistical tools from the website AllFaceBook.com.

These were the top 10 authors, as of November 11:

1. Stephen King (1,302,973 fans)
2. Nicholas Sparks (506,300)
3. George Orwell (399,403)
4. Shakespeare (356,920)
5. Nora Roberts (290,836)
6. Stephenie Meyer (261,176)
7. Jane Austen (230,814)
8. Anne Rice (229,192)
9. Jodi Picoult (209,637)
10. Sidney Sheldon (207,727)

Others in the top 20 include the venerable Agatha Christie with 191,972 fans at 11, J.K. Rowling with 186,942 at 13, Edgar Allen Poe at 14, suspense author Tom Clancy at 17, Kahil Gibran at 18, Paulo Coelho at 19, and J.R.R. Tolkien at 20. And poor old Jack Martin (me) is placed somewhere around number 9000,65.

The Hack Report - all the writing news

Author Victoria Hislop has turned down an offer of £300,000 from an American film studio for the rights to adapt her debut novel, The Island into a major movie. The book about a leper colony off Crete is making waves and the author has accepted a much smaller fee from a Greek television network to turn the book into a TV mini-series. The author said she was worried the Hollywood machine would ruin her story.

Now is the time to pitch winter based ideas for stories/articles to magazines - to allow for magazine lead in times it is always best to pitch ideas three or four months in advance so now is the time to be thinking of Halloween, Christmas, Bonfire Night, Winter and so on.

China Mieville has won the British Science Fiction Association's Arthur C Clarke Award for best novel with The City and the City. This is a record breaker as it's the third time the author has won the award.

eBooks now represent five per cent of total book sales in the UK - Figures released by The Publishers' Association report a 27% increase in digital book sales since 2007. Some £150m of eBooks were sold last year alone.

PARK AND READ - Norwich Council are turning some of their park and ride buses into mobile libraries. People who use the park-and-ride service will find a range of books available on the buses for borrowing while you travel into the city centre. Park and Read, indeed.

The Irish Writers' Centre are delighted to announce that they have received a new grant from the Arts Council Ireland under their Touring and Dissemination scheme. The grant of €27,000 will enable a programme of readings.