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A selection of great sites for new writers:

YouWriteOn.com – feedback from the publishers of Dan Brown & Terry Pratchett for budding writers’ opening chapters

On YouWriteOn.com members upload opening chapters and short stories and exchange feedback and ratings in a simple review exchange system where their stories are randomly assigned to other members. The highest rated receive feedback from Random House & Orion each month, the publishers of authors such as Dan Brown & Terry Pratchett.

YouWriteOn.com members have been published by mainstream publishers such as Random House, Orion, Penguin, Hodder, Harper Collins and Little Brown as a result of participating on YouWriteOn. These include Channel 4 TV Book Club Winner and bestseller The Legacy by Katherine Webb, published by Orion, and Caligula by Douglas Jackson, which received a six figure book deal from Random House. Join YouWriteOn.com to participate.

Click here to join youwriteon.com

“It's taken ten years and seven completed novels, but, thanks to YouWriteOn, I have just signed a two book deal with Orion! The Legacy received tremendous support from all those who read and reviewed it on YouWriteOn .. A huge thank you to everyone who commented.” Katherine Webb, Amazon top three bestselling author of The Legacy

Douglas Jackson, after achieving a six-figure book deal with Random House: “YouWriteOn gave me the breakthrough and taught me how to take criticism. It's as if a switch has been flipped. I know that I'll write from now on."



Authonomy

From Harper Collins: "Authonomy is a writing community site for writers, readers and publishers, conceived and developed by book editors at HarperCollins. We want to flush out the brightest, freshest new literature around.

If you’re a writer, authonomy is the place to show your face – and show off your writing on the web. Whether you’re unpublished, self-published, looking to get published, or just getting started, all you need is a few chapters to start building your profile online, and start connecting with the authonomy writing community.

And if you’re a reader, blogger publisher or agent, authonomy is for you too. The book world is kept alive by those who search out, digest and spread the word about the best new books – authonomy invites you to join our community, champion the best new writing and build a personal profile that really reflects your tastes, opinions and talent-spotting skills.

The publishing world is changing. One thing’s for sure: whether you’re a reader, writer, agent or publisher, this is an exciting time for books. In our corner of HarperCollins we’ve been given a chance to do something a little different."

Click here to join Authonomy

FeedARead enables you to publish your book as a bookstore quality paperback in simple steps - it is free to set-up your book for sale on FeedARead.com for all nationalities with higher net royalties than the norm of the largest publishers in the industry. FeedARead.com authors also receive feedback from Random House and Orion, the publishers of authors such as Dan Brown and Terry Pratchett, for the bestsellers on FeedARead.com every 3 months. FeedARead authors are free to take any other publishing opportunity that may arise.

"My book's just arrived and I'm very pleased - I was made aware of FeedARead via the Writers' Guild - I'm very glad about that. It's a really professional job."
Kevin McCann, FeedARead.com author of book title It's Gone Dark.

Click here to visit FeedARead.com

You can also choose to make your book available to order through leading booksellers throughout the world including Amazon. FeedARead is established with Arts Council funding, the largest grants giving body for the Arts in the UK, funded by the government, who fund prestigious arts organizations such as The Royal Opera House and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

FeedARead: Arts Council funding enables FeedARead.com to give higher net royalties than the norm of the largest publishers in the industry. All nationalities can publish with FeedARead.com: you set your own book price and royalties, and see how your book will appear before you choose to publish in a simple publishing process. Each time a reader orders a copy, your book is printed and delivered to them.

"I found FeedARead to be a most meticulous and professional publisher." Iain Johnstone, former film critic of The Sunday Times and co-writer with John Cleese of the film Fierce Creatures.

 “The publication process at FeedARead is simplicity itself. Given a clean Word file, cover design and text, it can take less than an hour to compile an attractive paperback. What's more it's free and the product is superb. The printed book quality is consistent with any best-seller offered at bookshops. Technical support and professional assistance from FeedARead.com is responsive, helpful and very professional. This is publishing at its best.”

Geoffrey Mann - FeedARead Author of In Pieces


Feedback from Leading Publishers

FeedARead's top ten selling authors' opening chapters receive free feedback every 3 months from the publishers of some of the world’s bestselling authors, including Random House and Orion, the publishers of Dan Brown, Terry Pratchett and John Grisham. The aim of FeedARead.com is to enable writers to publish with high royalties, and to give opportunities for talented new authors to be considered and to receive feedback on their work from leading publishers to help develop further.

Feedback from our authors about publishing with FeedARead

Click here to view an extensive range of feedback from our authors about their publishing experience with FeedARead and to view their books.

Click here to visit FeedARead.com

To all Copyright Protection Service Members and to everyone,

We wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and New Year and we look forward to seeing you in 2012.

Best wishes,

The Copyright Protection Service Team

Individuals will be able to legally copy music and DVDS they own on to digital devices such as iPods and computers, under sweeping changes Britain's "archaic" copyright laws. View More

The UK government has dropped plans that would have forced ISPs to block access to websites that are used for copyright infringement.
Houses of Parliament  View More

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Google moved to dismiss copyright-infringement claims in ongoing litigation over the alleged use of Oracle's patented Java programs in Google's Android phones.  View More

Emma Thompson film in jeopardy

Emma Thompson is embroiled in a court battle to get her latest film Effie off the ground after a New York playwright accused the actress of copyright infringement.

The Love Actually star has penned the screenplay for a movie version of the lives of 19th century poet John Ruskin, his wife Effie Gray and her affair with pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. View News Item

When Rupert Murdoch says he doesn't believe in giving away content for free he really means it. Note these two copyright actions.

Murdoch's book publisher, HarperCollins, is claiming to have won a legal tussle with the media gossip website Gawker over its posting of lengthy excerpts from Sarah Palin's book America By Heart. View full news article

Google's forthcoming download store is much anticipated – but will artists get a fair share of royalties? It doesn't look promising  - Media Source: Guardian

Rumours that Google will launch a music service have been circulating for a while. So, what will this long-anticipated product, expected to be released at the end of the year, look like? It appears we've come one step closer to finding out. Billboard reported this week that the internet giant is circulating a proposal among major labels for an a la carte download store and a subscription-model, cloud-based storage locker, with the company supplying a web-based music player and a mobile application for playback of tracks.

The download store will operate in a conventional manner (though there's no mention of price at this time), though the company wants customers to View complete article from Guardian

Andy Warhol got one, so did Jimi Hendrix and Gertrude Stein. Tim Dowling remembers the sting of receiving a rejection letter


hey aren't the sort of thing one tends to hang on to, so I was surprised it took me only a half hour to find one of my own, at the bottom of a suitcase full of papers my sisters made me take away from my dad's house the last time I visited. Written on the laid paper letterhead of DES Magazine ("The Primary Information Source For Truck Fleet Equipment Managers") by the managing editor, David Cullen, it is still crisp 24 years later. This was probably the second time I'd taken it out of its envelope.

"Out of the large group of highly qualified applicants interviewed," it reads, "we have chosen a person who best fits our criteria for the position of assistant editor." Nowhere in the letter does it expressly say this person isn't me, but it's made clear they're not expecting me on Monday morning. "Good luck in pursuing your journalism career," it says. I'll show them, I thought, and I did. I moved to Boston, and within a year I had a job parking cars outside a restaurant.

As artefacts, rejection letters have the ability to conjure up a whole narrative in just a few carefully chosen words: a fractured View complete Guardian article