Press & Publicity
Publishing Perspectives, the online journal of international publishing news and opinion, wrote about TLC’s Literary Conference on the 17th January. Publishing Perspectives investigates cutting edge publishing stories from all around the world.
Writing about the Canon Tales event, which is a key part of the conference, Publishing Perpectives writes, “The Japanese practice of “Pecha Kucha” (literally “chit chat”) in which architects rapidly present their work in 20 images for 20 seconds each, will be adopted at a new digital conference in London this summer. And that won’t be the only aspect of this conference that is different. Unlike so many previous events, Writing in a the Digital Age is aimed at authors, both those hoping to find a publisher and those writers who are already published but who need advice about the new digital landscape.”
Click here to read the full article.
Karolina Sutton, literary agent at Curtis Brown, will join TLC’s Canon Tales event at the June Literary Conference: Writing in a Digital Age.
The Canon Tales event will include ten of the most exciting publishers and agents in the UK, who will present their love of literature and what excites them, and the stories behind some of their favourite discoveries, through a series of rapid-fire visual images. A unique and hugely entertaining experience that will get you up close to the key people behind the slush pile. Click here to read about a previous Canon Tales event.
May 2011 the Karolina held a live webchat session with Guardian readers. Click here to read her frank and concise answers about what goes into literary agenting.
Melville House is an independent publisher located in Brooklyn, New York. Just before Christmas 2011, MobyLives (the Melville House blog) featured an interview with TLC director Rebecca Swift, about TLC, writing and editorial values, and the various ways a writer might land themselves a publishing deal today. Click here to read the interview.
18th January, Mobylives also posted an article about TLC’s upcoming Literary Conference in June. Ellie Robins, who blogs for Mobylives, writes “There’s a world of opportunity for authors now, but there’s also very little guidance and rather a lot of unscrupulous souls. Any event that seeks to redress that balance gets our vote.” Click here to read the article.
The Literary Platform, which is dedicated to showcasing projects experimenting with literature and technology, has joined TLC’s 2012 Literary Conference. They are just one of TLC’s exciting associate partners including Arvon Foundation, Commonwealth Writers, and the Free Word Centre, whose combined expertise, broad reach and understanding of the issues is set to culminate in a first-rate series of discussions, case studies and debates at TLC’s Literary Conference: Writing in a Digital Age 8th-9th June 2012.
Recently The Literary Platform wrote about TLC’s Literary Conference in an article that reviewed all the highlights of the conference.
Click here to read the full article.
TLC’s Big Publishing Debate created quite a stir back in September and continued interest from overseas writer’s magazines shows that these are prevalent issues for the non-English speaking publishing world alike.
Swedish Literary Adventurer, Katarina Trodden, who writes for the Swedish Authors’ Union, published an article about our debate and highlighted the important issues for writers that were raised by the panel and the audience that evening. For more information about the original debate or to read Robert McCrum’s articles in the Guardian, click here. The Author, published by the Swedish Authors’ Union six times a year, publishes articles that deal with authors’ and translators’ rights, freedom of speech and the publishing industry in Sweden and also includes information about scholarships, events and global publishing news. The website is in both Swedish and English.
Click here to read a summarised version of Katarina’s article in English or here for the Swedish version.
Rebecca Swift hosted an up-front Q and A with WriteWords about the role of literary consultancies. WriteWords is an online resource for writers which offers an interesting community for writers, jobs and news.
Below is an excerpt from the Q and A where Rebecca Swift answers a question about TLC readers.
“We stipulate that a reader must have either worked in commercial publishing as an editor, taught creative writing to MA level, and/or be a professionally published writer themselves. We will occasionally make exceptions for readers that come highly recommended and may have had slightly different trajectories (as reviewers, for example, or teachers in literary settings but not on MAs) but usually these qualifications would be those we would require. I always think ‘who would I want to read my work?’ and think in terms of employing people I myself would trust. Also of course we need to inspire confidence in our clients that we are offering help that has been tried and tested over time.
I should also say that having the qualifications in themselves are not the only important thing, because we do not use readers who don’t have sufficient empathy and diplomacy, as well as powers of articulation when writing back to people at any level of ability. This can be a tricky job as you can imagine, to say the least and I admire our readers hugely for what they take on. In addition, readers have to understand commercial markets to some degree, although the in-house team are the market experts. They have to be good talent spotters on top of everything else … In short, it’s a tall order letting a reader loose on the public and we try to protect that public as far as we can although of course no consultancy can be perfect, we do try! We could not understand better how precious people’s written work is, and how hope and fear will be bound up in that.”
Click here to read the rest of the interview.
Answer one simple question and you could be on your way to a literary adventure in Spain.
The Guardian has teamed up with The Literary Consultancy to offer one lucky winner a place on one of TLC’s springtime writing courses. Held at Casa Ana in the heart of the Alpujarras mountain range in beautiful Andalucia, the course is led by expert tutor Rebecca Abrams and allows plenty of time for rest and relaxation alongside a unique writing programme designed by The Literary Consultancy. There will also be visits from guest speakers, Chris Stewart and Michael Jacobs, to inspire you further. The holiday is for one week and runs from 26th March to 1st April, 2011.
The prize includes a place for one person on a room-share basis, at ¾ board and is exclusive of flights. Single supplements may be available on a first-come, first-served basis at an extra cost of £120 per week per person. Click here to enter the competition. For more information about the holiday, please see TLC Literary Adventures.
The closing date for this competition is Monday 29th November 2010.
Start your novel this March!
Orion imprint Weidenfeld & Nicolson has signed a two-book deal with a debut writer, after winning the rights at an auction.
Publishing director Kirsty Dunseath bought UK and Commonwealth rights to two books by Shelley Harris from Jo Unwin at Conville & Walsh for an undisclosed sum. Weidenfeld & Nicolson plan to publish the first book, Jubilee, in 2012 to coincide with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Dunseath said: “Shelley is a real find. The voice in the novel is delightful, instantly engaging and full of warmth. Jubilee appeals to a certain nostalgia for the days when Abba vied with punk, when Jammie Dodgers were the biscuit of choice, and mothers across the country were busy icing buns red, white and blue… we will of course be asking booksellers to dig out their own memories and photographs.”
Set on the day of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, the book looks at “race, identity, community and childhood”, focusing around a picture of a street party with a small Asian boy staring intensely at the camera.
Article by Catherine Neilan from The Bookseller
I sent my first draft to The Literary Consultancy for a critique and was really impressed with the insightful report . . . read more
Shelley Harris, Jubilee, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (Orion)
Free tickets up for grabs for the FLOW festival!
Rebecca Swift is co-founder of The Literary Consultancy (TLC), which offers help to writers in the form of manuscript assessment, mentoring and agent placement. She’s offering you the chance to win a free ticket to an evening event at the FLOW literary festival!
The Literary Consultancy is now firmly established at the Free Word centre, a hub which celebrated its first birthday on 15 September. To mark the occasion, Free Word is launching its second annual literary festival, and this year the main theme and title is FLOW.
We are offering Writers’ & Artists’ website users a chance of winning two free tickets to TLC’s evening events on 22 and 28 September (worth £10 each) open to those who ring first. Call 020 7324 2563 and leave your details quoting ‘Free Word Flow/W&A’.
http://www.writersandartists.co.uk/2010/09/tlc-free-word-and-the-flow-festival/
These days, the task of first sifter generally goes to agents – but even they are feeling overwhelmed. Curtis Brown proclaims on its website, as a point of difference: “We are one of the few agencies who do accept unsolicited manuscripts.” Anyone who begins to feel this publishing business is a closed shop has good reason.
But there are other ways to get a hearing. There is The Literary Consultancy, for example, established by Hannah Griffiths and Rebecca Swift in 1996, at a time when many independent publishers were being gobbled up by conglomerates. They began to see, as Swift puts it, that “bottom lines had become all-important, meaning that writers who were perhaps too literary or too experimental are judged with extreme caution by anyone interested in profits first.”
In the slush pile Swift saw not guilt-inducing dross, but “a great big neglected pile of people’s efforts. Everybody needed and deserved attention.” But at the same time, “what they needed to understand was that that was very highly skilled attention, and that to get a really good response should cost money.” They charge £75 to read stories of up to 3,000 words; £250 for a one-or two-page synopsis up to 100 double-spaced pages; £1.50 per double-spaced page for the first 300 pages of a longer manuscript, and £1 per page thereafter, providing for that a detailed, thoughtful critique of the entire submission. If they consider a work exceptional, they will recommend it to an agent. They are doing well.