January 2011 - Publishing Talk

Danuta Kean 19th January 201115th August 2021 Julia Crouch, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, writer's block, Writing

How #NaNoWriMo helped Julia Crouch win a three-book deal with Headline

Writers’ block: two words that strike fear into every writer. But for the past 11 years every November a website has come to the rescue. National Novel Writing Month was founded in 1999 by US-based freelance Chris Baty and 20 other writers. Aimed simply at getting words on the page, it sets participants a target of 50,000 words written by the end of the month, and provides forums and exercises aimed at overcoming writer’s block. It has an impressive success rate: of the 165,000 participants in 2009, over 30,000 crossed the 50,000 word line at the end of November.
One of those who participated in 2008 was creative writing graduate Julia Crouch, who had hit a wall. It helped more than she expected: before Christmas the books that came out of NaNoWriMo won her a three book deal with Headline. Her début, the psychological thriller Cuckoo, is published in March. Here she explains how NaNoWriMo helped.

Writing

Kirsty McLachlan 12th January 2011 #writerwednesday, London Writers' Club, Writing, writing tips

10 Ways to Stay in and Write in January

January is a time for change, for inspiration, for doing something new – but it’s also cold, damp and dreary so staying in and writing is the perfect thing to do (preferably on the sofa). At London Writers’ Club we decided to support our community of writers throughout the month of January by launching our first Stay in and Write month – 31 days of writing ideas, inspiration, writing exercises and inspiring advice from editors, publishers, agents and authors. I’d like to share with you ten of the top ways to Stay in and Write in January here.

Case Studies

Jon Reed 7th January 2011 Friday Project, Neil Gaiman, Sarah Salway, Something Beginning With, Twitter, William Gibson

How Twitter propelled a republished book up the Kindle charts

Amazing things can happen on Twitter if you catch the eye of an ‘influencer’ or two.
Sarah Salway’s Something Beginning With was first published in 2004. Although it had a blog, this was in the days before Twitter, Facebook, and the huge word of mouth possible to achieve with them.
In November 2010 it was republished by the Friday Project. Within a week, it went from nowhere to the top 250 in the Kindle charts. How did this happen?

Interviews Writing

Danuta Kean 5th January 201117th May 2020 #writerwednesday, A Woman of Substance, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Writing

INTERVIEW: What does it take to be a bestselling novelist? Barbara Taylor Bradford explains

Want to be a bestselling novelist? In the first of our features on writing, Barbara Taylor Bradford tells Danuta Kean what it takes.
Barbara Taylor Bradford is a tonic: a tonic for writers jaded by capricious publishers whose loyalty to authors’ careers is barely longer than a supermarket promotion. She is also a lesson to all that hard work is as essential to a long career as a passion about writing. At 77 there is no slacking off for BTB. Thirty-one years after her blockbuster début A Woman of Substance appeared, she has just published her 26th novel, Playing the Game, backed by a publicity schedule that would daunt far younger writers.