Welcome to the Busybird blog, where you can find helpful articles, updates, industry news and more. Make sure you stay up to date by signing up to our newsletter below.
Have you ever wondered about the work that goes into transforming a manuscript into a book once a publisher accepts it? It’s not as simple as the publisher saying, Hey, that’s great! and then sending it off to be printed. The publisher will put the manuscript through a rigorous process, usually retaining (either on staff, … Continued
I watched a discussion at the Independent Publishing Conference where a panellist said he didn’t believe in the ‘fetishisation’ of the print book as a reason readers preferred it over the ebook. This means he didn’t believe people enjoyed the print book for things like its texture, the smell of its pages, the shape of … Continued
How are you going to tell your story? Most authors won’t even think about it. They’ll just sit down and write, and let their story take its own form. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. And, lots of times, it feels the natural way to do it, so why overthink it? … Continued
The best way you can learn to write is by writing. It doesn’t matter how much theory you gorge on, until you execute, until you learn how to articulate your imagination, structure your story, and develop your writing processes, you will never learn to write. It’s in the writing that you work out how you … Continued
What is the measure of success as a writer? If I could grant you success, what would your definition be? Everybody measures success differently, but here are some possible definitions: to have a bestseller: we’d all love that, wouldn’t we? To have our book appear on – for example – the New York Times bestseller … Continued
One of the greatest freedoms we have as writers is determining the length of our article/story/book/novel. Screenwriting has constraints. Generally, it’s accepted that one page will equal one minute of screen time. This might vary at times (a page might be less or more) but generally evens out. Years ago, it was accepted that your … Continued
If you’re a writer, you’re just about guaranteed one thing in this life. Can you guess what it is? Publication? Fame? Riches? To be read? To share stories with the world? To get glowing review after glowing review? To win awards? To have movie adaptations? To be revered? To become a seminal figure in your … Continued
It’s a story that many of our regular readers will be familiar with: way back towards the end of 2008, a group of us – four writers and one illustrator/photographer – bandied about ideas for a new anthology. Frustrated by the lack of opportunity for mainstream writing, we wanted something open to popular fiction. If … Continued
