Jericho Writers newsletters

With details of competitions, a Getting Published Day in London and more, here are the latest Jericho Writers newsletters:

Genre focus: historical fiction special This newsletter focuses on all things historical fiction. So, if you’re writing a book set in the past, feast your eyes on this new content on Jericho Writers this week.

NEW EVENT: Self-Publishing Day 2019 (Discounts available) This intensive, one day event will cover everything you need to self-publish a book in 2019. We’ll tell you how to create your product (the eBook), your platform (your Amazon page, website and mailing list), and we’ll focus specifically on the marketing techniques proven to work best for newer authors (including email marketing, promo sites, and Amazon advertising.) If you’re serious about self-publishing, it doesn’t get better than this. GET YOUR TICKET

JOIN NOW

NEW on Jericho Writers

MASTERCLASS: Historical Fiction Genre Panel (FREE for members) Join author and editor Emma Darwin in conversation with literary agents Emma Finn and Lucy Morris as they discuss how to write, research and pitch historical fiction. Filmed live at the Festival of Writing 2018. WATCH NOW

BLOG: Finding the Story In this new blog, Paul Roberts discusses that tricky balance between world-building and story-writing. So how much world-building is enough to keep the story flowing? READ NOW

ORION UNCUT: Cover Design (FREE for members) What goes into the creation of a book cover? We ask an Art Director at one of the biggest publishers in the world to find out – featuring real working examples. WATCH NOW

Content corner: How to research a novel set in the past Researching a historical novel can seem like an overwhelming task. Everything – from the clothes your characters wear down to the phrases they use can be affected by the time your novel is set in. So how can you ensure you don’t get bogged down in the research to the extent that it jeopardises your writing? Well, I like Hannah Kohler’s advice when she recommends “Don’t start with research. Establish your characters and narrative, and then be strategic about what you need to find out. Research as you write.” Use your passion for the historical setting to jump in and explore your characters and their stories. Then, spend time after your first or second draft researching the particulars of what you have written, to ensure that these are correct. This is a great way of ensuring you’re not trying to shoehorn all your research into your novel and allowing its universal themes – such as your characters’ emotional journeys – to shine. Of course, this advice won’t suit all books – especially if you are writing a story on a particular battle strategy. But even then, try not to let your facts and figures stifle your characters. Let them be the focus, and you’ll have a story accessible to generations. Sarah J

Cartoon - In your character's shoes

Follow us on Instagram for more of our 'The Life of a Writer' cartoon series by our very talented Stephanie!

As always, happy writing and remember, you can contact Stephanie on +44 (0) 345 459 9560* or info@jerichowriters.com for any writing-related advice. Best wishes, Sarah Juckes Author | Jericho Writers *or if you're in the US, give us a call toll free on 1-800 454 2134

JOIN NOW

Plus – don’t miss Picture Books tutored Course (Discounts available for members) Starts 6 February 2019. This course will teach you how to adapt your writing to this specialist audience and how to spot opportunities for publication. Bursary for under-represented writers (Open to all) Deadline 26 March 2019. Submit your work to win a coveted place on our ‘Self-Editing Your Novel’ course, plus a special event with Greene & Heaton literary agents. Manuscript Assessment (Discounts available for members) This is our most popular editorial service, and for good reason. Get a detailed report on your work from a top editor, including changes you can make to improve your work.

Jericho Writers Belsyre Court 57 Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 345 459 9560

Writing competitions to enter this year Writing competitions can be a great way to give yourself a deadline to write to. Winning them is also brilliant for the writing CV and can open up all kinds of networking doors (and there’s also a prize on top of that!). This newsletter takes a look at some of the competitions coming up this year and offers top tips to create something that wins.

EVENT: Getting Published Day 2019 (Discounts available) Join top literary agents and editors at this extra-special day event in London on 2nd March 2019. Grab your ticket before they sell out. GET YOUR TICKET

JOIN NOW

Spotlight

FEATURE: How to win a writing competition (FREE to members) What kind of stories win writing competitions? We ask the Founder of the internationally revered Bath Novel Award for her top tips and interview a previous winner. WATCH NOW

BLOG: How to write a short story There are all kinds of competitions for short stories. This blog by short story master Anastasia Parkes looks at how to excel in this specialist field. READ NOW

SNAPSHOT: Four books in a year (FREE to members) Competitions are often a numbers game – the more you enter, the more you stand the change of listing in. In this Snapshot, Ed James reveals how he speeds up his writing process. WATCH NOW

Content corner: Writing competitions open now Kick off your 2019 with these writing competitions open now. Ensure to check the rules carefully before you enter, and good luck! Puchi Award 2019 Deadline: 31 January 2019 Prize(s): €8,000 and publication Rules: Open to any unpublished book, internationally. Fish Flash Fiction Prize Deadline: 28 February 2019 Prize(s): €1,000, €300, a writing course and anthology publication Rules: For stories under 300 words. €14 entry fee and Fish hold rights to the story for one year. Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize Deadline: 1 March 2019 Prize(s): $1000 and a writing course. The winning story will also be performed at Symphony Space in June. Rules: Stories of 750 words or less. Fee of $25 to enter. Writers of the Future Deadline: 31 March 2019 Prize(s): $1000, $750, $500 Rules: Open to new Sci-Fi and Fantasy writers. Stories must be under 17,000 words. No entry fee. Bath Short Story Award Deadline: 15 April 2019 Prize(s): £1200, £300, £100 and £50 Rules: Stories for adults up to 2,200 words in any genre. Sarah J

Cartoon - Preparing for writing competitions

Follow us on Instagram for more of our 'The Life of a Writer' cartoon series by our very talented Stephanie!

As always, happy writing and remember, you can contact Stephanie on +44 (0) 345 459 9560* or info@jerichowriters.com for any writing-related advice. Best wishes, Sarah Juckes Author | Jericho Writers *or if you're in the US, give us a call toll free on 1-800 454 2134

JOIN NOW

Plus – don’t miss How to Write a Novel course (Discounts available for members) Starts 21 January 2019. Join this course to dive in and get your book or short story started. Getting Published Day (Discounts available for members) We’re back for another day with literary agents, editors and authors. If you’re serious about getting published this year, you’ll want to come to this one. Opening Section review (Discounts available for members) Keep getting rejections but not sure why? Get feedback on the first 8,000 words of your manuscript from a top editor, tailored to you.

Jericho Writers Belsyre Court 57 Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 345 459 9560

Feeling doomy?

Writers have a tough gig in some ways. We’re asked to be creative professionals, all daydreams and alternate worlds, but we also have to live in an industry which is changing fast, which delivers terrible and declining incomes, and where the writer is, in most industry situations, the least informed and least powerful person in the room. Not easy, right? There’s one huge qualification to that, of course. Traditionally published authors have faced a severe decline in incomes and they do struggle for authority in their own industry. I don’t like either of those things and neither agents nor authors associations have done enough to fight back. But that’s trad authors, and they’re now in a minority. For indies, making a meaningful income is absolutely possible. There are thousands of indies making a viable full-time living from the pen, more now than ever before in history. As for power – well, it’s easy to be the most powerful person in the room, when you’re the only person in it. Even so, there are a couple of memes doing the rounds at the moment suggesting that the outlook is darkening for everyone: trad, indie, hybrid. Argument one: pricing e-books at 99c / 99p used to deliver a real kick to sales. That kick has almost completely vanished. The days of being able to promote successfully on Amazon have gone. Argument two: Amazon’s new emphasis on ads has created a “pay to play” requirement for authors. In effect, if you want Amazon to sell your book, you have to pay it to do so, and that fat 70% royalty you get starts to drain back into Jeff Bezos’s pocket. So what do we think? What do you think? On the first matter, it’s certainly true that low pricing is now so common, simply dropping a price overnight achieves almost nothing. But low pricing alone is, and always has been, an unbelievably dumb strategy. It’s like a price promotion without the element of actual promotion. If a clothes retailer wants to shift some winter dresses, they’ll put the dresses in the front window with a big red banner yelling “SALE”. Price cut, plus promotion, equals sales. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Introduce the same price cut, but display the dresses in a back room on the top floor, and you won’t shift the stock. Which is why no one – except trad publishers – takes that approach. Any smart indie knows that promos work when you promote. That means using price cuts plus some combination of:

Email marketing Book discount sites Facebook ads Bookbub ads Cross-promos with other authors Whole series promos Kindle Countdown deals

You don’t need to use all those every time, but you select from that basic menu to add jet fuel to your promo. And it works. Of course it does. Always did, always will. (Oh, and if you’re wondering why Amazon advertising isn’t on that list, it’s because Amazon ads are weirdly unsuitable for big Amazon promotions. They work fine as evergreen drip-style marketing. They don’t work for the big-surge type ads needed to grab visibility around a promo.) In short, the death-by-overcrowding of the 99c e-book is really only the death of the Stupid non-Promoting Promotion. And who cares about that? Not you. Not me. The other issue – the pay to play one – is more concerning. Amazon is now pretty much forcing indies to advertise their books. (Big Publishers too, except that they’re nervous of going all-in, so they do much less than they should.) And yes: that need to advertise is cutting indies’ margins. That’s bad. But then again: Amazon ads have always been frustratingly useless. Profitable, yes, but hard to scale. The recent set of changes have made those ads much more viable than they used to be. And since trad publishers remain cautious about giving money to the beast, that just means that the playing field has shifted (again) in favour of indies. In short, I’m not too concerned. But even to talk about all this reminds us that, in today’s world, the author can no longer afford to be passive. Finding an agent, finding a publisher, then closing your eyes – that strategy was never smart, but now it’s pretty near suicidal. The old rules are still the best rules: Write well. Get informed … And have fun. Harry

PS: I’m human, this is an email. If you want to reply to me, you know what to do. PPS: We’ve been busy on YouTube again. Here’s a seriously helpful video on plotting. And, another with 7 Insanely Actionable Writing Tips. PPS: A very, very early word about an Exciting Project. Deep within the vaults and towers of Castle Jericho, we’re making plans to create the mother of all writing courses. The idea was to build the very best course that we could possibly imagine – the one we’d want for ourselves if we were at that stage. We want it to be: Do-able from home Something that could be fit in around normal life, assuming you have some time available to commit. 100% results focused: you’re going to write a novel 100% outcome focused: we want you to get published or positioned to intelligently self-publish Very closely mentored: 1-to-1 support every step of the way Solidly based on editorial insight: you won’t just write a novel, you’ll have detailed editorial feedback on the whole thing. Buttressed by direct access to agents and editors Supported by live events, notably the Festival of Writing Supported by its very own course-community: effectively a social site for all course participants. Supported by every single resource open to Jericho Members (including AgentMatch, Slushpile Live, and everything else.) Quite simply, we want this course to get you as ready as humanly possible for a career as an author. It’s not going to be ready to launch until this autumn. It WILL be expensive, but quite frankly our aim is to be as good as, or better than, any other course out there, including full blown MFA / Creative Writing MA type programmes. (We have respect for those things, but they can be quite detached from the industry you want to join.) The course will also be selective. We won’t take just anyone. We want to be confident that you’re serious, committed and that you have what it takes to succeed. I don’t have more info to release at this stage, but if you’re interested, please sign-up here and you'll be the very first to know more. PPPS: Hate these emails? Don’t want to be a writer? Prefer to try ironing your head with a warm brick? Then unsubscribe here.

Jericho Writers Belsyre Court 57 Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 345 459 9560

What happens after a book is published? Some of you may already know what it’s like to have a book suddenly ‘out there’ for all to read. For others, it might seem like something too far away to think about. But publishing is weird. You spend years concentrating on writing and nothing prepares you for what comes next. This newsletter focuses on the writing career waiting for you on the other side.

OFFER: Get 20% off selected 2019 tutored courses This is your final week to get 20% off selected courses with code JW-TCO-0119. Start your 2019 the right way, with one of these courses: CREATIVE NON-FICTION (11 Jan 2019) HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL (21 Jan 2019) CREATIVE WRITING FLYING START (22 Jan 2019) WRITING FOR CHILDREN (22 Jan 2019)

Under-represented writer bursary winner announced Huge congratulations to Steffanie Edward who has won our first quarter bursary award. Steffanie has won a place on our life-changing ‘Self-Edit Your Novel’ course and will join runner’s up Davina Tijani and Amita Parikh in London at the end of the year to meet agents from Greene & Heaton. All three will also receive Jericho Writers memberships. A huge thank you to everyone who entered – we hope you’ll enter again for the next round open now. ENTER FOR THE NEXT QUARTER NOW

JOIN NOW

NEW on Jericho Writers

MASTERCLASS: Sarah Pinborough keynote speech at FoW18 (FREE for members) This keynote from New York Times Bestselling author, Sarah Pinborough, was the talk of the Festival of Writing 2018. Find out what life is like post-publication from the expert. WATCH NOW

BLOG: Where To Begin Guest blogger Paul Roberts looks at where best to begin your story, and how that might not always be at the start... READ NOW

ORION UNCUT: Publicity (FREE for members) What can an author expect in terms of publicity from a top publisher? And what is the difference between publicity and marketing? Find out in this uncut interview with Orion. WATCH NOW

Content corner: On having your debut novel published Last week, my debut novel ‘Outside’ was published by Penguin Random House. A lot of lovely people have been asking me how it feels to have something I worked towards for thirteen years become a reality, and the go-to response is: ‘absolutely mind-blowingly brilliant’. And it is. But I’d also like to take a moment to talk about the lesser-discussed side of having your book published – traditionally, or as an independent author. Publishing is very hard on a writer’s mental health. It is full of the highest of highs and with that comes the lowest of lows. It is a constant see-saw of excitement, terror, elation and worry. And for many writers – including myself – this takes its toll on your mental health, particularly if you are already prone to anxiety and depression. So, my tip this week is to go into publishing knowing that it will be hard. Getting a deal doesn’t mean you no longer face rejection – in fact, it means you’ll probably receive even more! Arm yourself with the things you need to look after your mental health. Speak up about it. Know that it is okay to feel this way and that you are not alone. Look after yourself and try to appreciate the good stuff. You’ve earned it! Sarah J

Cartoon - Writing on Christmas Day

Follow us on Instagram for more of our 'The Life of a Writer' cartoon series by our very talented Stephanie!

As always, happy writing and remember, you can contact Stephanie on +44 (0) 345 459 9560* or info@jerichowriters.com for any writing-related advice. Best wishes, Sarah Juckes Author | Jericho Writers *or if you're in the US, give us a call toll free on 1-800 454 2134

Plus – don’t miss: Self-Editing your novel tutored course (Discounts available for members) With a 1 in 5 publication success rate, this course is a must for any writer serious about turning their book into something publishable. Getting Published Day (Discounts available for members) Join top editors, authors and editors for this live event in London, as they get down to the nitty-gritty facts on getting a book traditionally published. Manuscript Assessment (Discounts available for members) You’ve spent on others – now invest in you. Our most popular editorial service matches you to your dream editor and gives you tailored feedback on your work. It doesn’t get better than that.

JOIN NOW

Jericho Writers Belsyre Court 57 Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 345 459 9560