Posts Tagged ‘manuscript’
When he’s not assessing manuscripts, longtime TLC reader John Harrison is on the trail, hiking icebergs and conversing with polar bears. It’s not surprising then that the panel for the 2011 Wales Book of the Year chose his latest travel book, Cloud Road (Parthian), for this year’s £10,000 award on the 7th July. Cloud Road: A Journey Through the Inca Heartland is travel writing at its best. Harrison writes about his five month journey through the Inca Heartland, his adventures and misadventures and his account of the people living there.
The Wales Book of the Year Award is administered by Literature Wales with funding from the Arts Council of Wales, the Welsh Books Council and The Welsh Government. The judges on the English panel this year were Francesca Rhydderch (Chair), Jon Gower and Deborah Kay Davies.
TLC congratulates John Harrison and wishes him the best of luck on his next journey. Click here to check out John Harrison’s website and learn more about his travels and writing projects.
When he’s not assessing manuscripts, longtime TLC reader John Harrison is on the trail, hiking icebergs and conversing with polar bears. It’s not surprising then that the panel for the 2011 Wales Book of the Year chose his latest travel book, Cloud Road (Parthian), for this year’s £10,000 award on the 7th July. Cloud Road: A Journey Through the Inca Heartland is travel writing at its best. Harrison writes about his five month journey through the Inca Heartland, his adventures and misadventures and his account of the people living there.
The Wales Book of the Year Award is administered by Literature Wales with funding from the Arts Council of Wales, the Welsh Books Council and The Welsh Government. The judges on the English panel this year were Francesca Rhydderch (Chair), Jon Gower and Deborah Kay Davies.
TLC congratulates John Harrison and wishes him the best of luck on his next journey. Click here to check out John Harrison’s website and learn more about his travels and writing projects.
TLC will be at the Author Lounge at this year’s London Book Fair everyday between 11th – 13th April. TLC director, Rebecca Swift will hold a Q & A session about how TLC works, and answer questions about the publishing industry. Jess Porter or Solvej Todd will be on hand to help and answer any questions.
This year celebrates the 40th anniversary of the LBF and the fair will offer a wide variety of exciting events, lectures and discussions for both writers and industry professionals. Writers can come and hear Julia Donaldson talk about writing for children, join in a cookery demonstration at the Book Book Corner and finish with an interview with a celebrated author in the English PEN Literary Cafe.
The Free Word centre will also have a stand representing itself and all its resident organisations. Click here to order tickets in advance and avoid the queues.
Due to popular demand, this year TLC has created a special e-Gift Voucher so that you can give people a TLC manuscript assessment for Christmas. Giving a TLC read to someone who writes can help them think more professionally about what they do, whilst they continue to do what they love. Our e-vouchers can be made for fiction, memoir, non-fiction, children’s writing, poetry or scripts. We can make up e-vouchers in any denomination.
For full fee structure, see Fees and Submissions. The e-voucher will be emailed or posted directly to the recipient or you. To order an e-voucher, just send an email to info@literaryconsultancy.co.uk letting us know the denomination you wish to give. Payment will be requested once the e-voucher has been created.
Please do make sure you have read our terms & conditions before making this purchase, as TLC is an honest service and not for those seeking undue flattery. Don’t hesitate to ask us for suggestions or advice.
Happy Holidays from TLC!
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.
The Literateur is very pleased to announce a competition aimed at finding the best in new writing, organised jointly with The Literary Consultancy.
From today (13.08.10) The Literateur is accepting entries of short stories and poetry. Stories should be no more than 5000 words, and poems no more than 50 lines in total. The submitted works must be previously unpublished. The competition is open to any one writing in English of any age, who has not had a book of poetry, or novel of over 50, 000 words, published commercially.
Please email your entries to competition@literateur.com. The closing date for entries is Monday 27th September. (If you have received a message with an earlier deadline date, please note that it has been extended and 27th is now the correct deadline.)
The two overall winners will be announced on the night, and their work will be published in The Literateur. The lucky winners will also receive an hour’s specialist consultation with The Literary Consultancy.
Not a seat was empty at the Free Word centre, when the the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook held their How to Get Published event last Saturday, 13 March.
The event, which was the second in a series of courses held by the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, was an event for writers who are serious about getting published. The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook has published their bestselling media guide for emerging writers and artists since 1901.The full day of workshops, lectures and discussions provided a complete overview of how and what writers should do to prepare their manuscripts before submitting them. The days was filled with top tips, advice and feedback from industry specialists such as Liz Calder (co-founder, Bloomsbury Publishing and Full Circle Editions), Richard Charkin (Executive Director, Bloomsbury), Jo Herbert (editor), Alison Baverstock (writer, publisher and trainer), Katie Hickman (Bloomsbury author) and Carole Blake (Agent & Joint Managing Director, Blake Friedmann Literary Agency). Click here to see a video from the event.
A new year, a new you. Time Out’s news editor Rebecca Taylor decided to put her new year’s resolutions to the test by finally brushing up her 80 page manuscript and sending it to TLC. Find out what happened by clicking on her article here.
Rebecca Swift’s article on how to write a synopsis originally appeared in the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, 2009.
Writing a synopsis
The dictionary definition of ‘synopsis’ (derived from the Ancient Greek meaning) is ‘a brief description of the contents of something’.
The purpose of a synopsis is to inform a literary agent or publisher of the type of book you are writing/have written in a concise, appealing fashion, conveying that you are in command of your subject matter. If you want your manuscript to be given serious consideration, a good synopsis is a crucial part of your submission.
The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook will inform you that most publishing houses no longer accept direct submissions but those that do (usually the smaller houses) will usually ask for a cover letter, synopsis and sample chapters rather than a whole work in the first instance. The same applies to literary agents. To put it simply, the sample chapters are to show how you write, and the synopsis is to tell the reader what happens when they have finished reading them. This will help inform the publisher/literary agent whether they think it is worth their while to read more. Then, if they do want to read more, they will ask you.
So, the bottom line is this – if you want to have your manuscript read in its entirety you must invest time in getting your cover letter and book synopsis right. I know from my experiences at TLC that many writers can get disconcerted and nervous by having to produce a synopsis and there are usually two reasons why.
To read the rest of the article, please click here.
The spring 2008, Staple magazine secured funding for two further years and began their next series with Staple 69/70: The Publishing Issue, a 285pp anthology guest-edited by Rebecca Swift of the UK’s leading manuscript appraisal and writers’ mentoring programme, The Literary Consultancy. The next issues continue as single themed issues, with Staple 71: The Art Issue and Staple 72: The Music Issue both available, and more to come.
The Publishing Issue, guest edited by Rebecca Swift of The Literary Consultancy, lifts the curtain on the writing industry, from unpublished first draft to final place in posterity. Agents, editors and best-selling authors join forces with fresh talents to dig behind the writing courses and How To Get Published guides and reflect on why we write, and what impact writing can make on the wider world.