CLARENDON HOUSE PUBLICATIONS

Let’s say a writer has been writing all his life. He isn’t successful. So how is it supposed to happen that a writer, just by writing more and more, will become commercially viable? It won’t. In order to be successful, writers need basic editing skills. They either have these themselves, or they seek out someone who has them. What are these basic editing skills? 1. A good editor has to know the correct fundamentals of what makes fiction work. This includes knowing

There’s obviously a place for writers just writing without paying any attention to any kind of need to communicate to readers. First drafts are all about opening up the writer’s heart. If any kinds of qualifications are put on what a writer ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ do in this early stage, then the core of the story may evade capture - the depths may be unplumbed, the centre of the whole thing might not be discovered. First drafts are exploratory, adventurous, free. 'Write un

What’s the difference between a story and the simple relation of an incident? I ask because I get to read quite a lot of ‘flash fiction’ in the course of a week or so. ‘Flash fiction’ is defined as a fictional work of extreme brevity that still offers character and plot development. And that definition really holds the answer to the question. Much of what is presented to me as flash fiction is the relation in words of an event. Sometimes that event is dramatic, sometimes

Edith Nesbit (whose married name was Edith Bland) 1858 – 1924 was an English author and poet who published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit. A political activist and co-founder of the Fabian Society, she wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television (including most famously The Railway Children). Born in Kennington, Surrey, the death of Edith’s father when she was four and the con

You would think, looking at the decade-long success story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, earning billions with every film and regularly topping fan polls with superhero adventures one after unfailing one, that Marvel Comics would be doing a roaring trade, wouldn’t you? Actually, the opposite is true. In brief, the comics industry, and Marvel in particular, are in real trouble in terms of turnover and readership. Why is this? In answering that question, we can learn a

In Part One, we began to look at the layout of newsagents and to recognise that their layout in store is based on circulation figures. With newspapers selling more than 3,000,000 copies in the UK, you might jump to the conclusion that this would be the first area to try to write for. But newspapers deal mostly in news. News, by its nature, is short-lived, immediate, on-the-scene - freelance writing draws its longevity from producing articles with a longer shelf-life. Yes, new

Many writers who are seeking to make an income from their writing have considered the freelance writing market, but many don’t know where to start. If you want to begin to try to make some money by writing articles and snippets for the marketplace, the best beginning is to take a look at the magazines and papers on newsstands, in newsagents, and articles on internet sites that interest you. The more you browse, the better you will get at knowing your potential markets and b

Back in Part One, I teased you by saying that there were four factors involved in making money as a writer - leads, customers, profit margins and frequency of purchase - and that the writer was, simply by being a writer, already engaged in two of them. And that’s true - and in this article I hope to show you how the second two factors - profit margins and frequency of purchase - are much more directly under a writer’s control, but that, if managed well, they also have a posit

Having hopefully overcome a certain barrier of prejudice when it comes to looking at one’s writing career as a business in Part One, I also introduced you to the four factors involved in making any business work: leads, customers, profit margins and frequency of purchase. Leads, as we saw last time, are important. A writer cannot and should not expect any book to instantly become a best-seller as soon as it is released largely because of the mechanical unlikelihood that eve