Happy New Year from YouWriteOn - the forum is currently undergoing updating and will not be available during this week - View Some Of Our Writers Christmas Publishing Successes including Book Store Signing Pictures Below

A very Happy New Year to one and all. 

Thank you to everyone in 2008 for all your great stories and reviews. There has been some really great achievements and a lot of help between members to achieve this. Thank you also to publishers such as Random House, who publish writers such as John Grisham and Bill Bryson, and who have been providing feedback to highly rated YouWriteOn writers on their stories here. 

There comes a point when a website grows to become community driven more than web-site led and YouWriteOn has in many ways reached this point from a simple starting point of review exchange. This was never a brilliant idea in itself, but only achieves the possibility of this through a collective range of helpful reviewers helping a writer to develop and come to the attention of literary professionals. We've been very lucky to have had so many positive writers and good story tellers join in to build the community.

For the new publishing side, for those who have received your book and are pleased with them, thank you for your comments. For those writers that are in the process of being published, we very much look forward to publishing you in the New Year. Our aim is to sell lower priced print-on-demand (POD) books for readers with higher royalties for writers. For example, a 250 page YouWriteOn book on bookseller sites costs £6.99 ($10.25) with a £1 ($1.47) royalty direct to the writer; on one of the world’s leading POD sites the same page count book costs over £10 ($14.70) with the same good royalty. We think POD books tend to be a little overpriced though this is open to debate. US prices are at today's currency exchange.

Congratulations to all those who have found new readers, for POD this can range from friends and family to the writers we have seen in our first month for POD who have already had bookstore signings and appeared in national and local media. Each adds weight to what one writer, David Milnes wisely put, "The simple truth is that, before anything can happen, the book must exist." We will add a frequently asked questions section from all the recently received publishing questions early in the New Year. 

For writers whose books we are still working very hard on, we look forward to delivering your books in the New Year. A variety of elements have been at work: higher interest than expected, high volume of file submissions that didn't meet submission specs and took time to work through, at all hours over the last few months. But the main thing is that people's books are very personal to them. It doesn't matter whether an agreement says that Christmas publishing is an aim not a guarantee because of 'unpredictable events', people will think a book will be ready. I think even Joseph Heller, who took 7 years to write Catch-22 allegedly, may have put aside his patient stoicism and felt at odds if his book had not been ready by Christmas.

We look forward to continuing to develop and deliver an exciting publishing service. Our new publishing service is just over a month old, and we published our first books for this new service this month, December 2008. I think, like writing a new book, a new venture rarely appears fully formed and perfect in its first weeks. YWO, when it began as a review site in 2006, similarly took time to form its review processes and adapt to what members wanted to see in it. This now includes professionals from many leading literary agents and publishers taking part, and writers have achieved success with leading publishers as a result. The review exchange process had its highs and dips to begin with as the first peer review exchange site of its kind in the UK, it was new and as much a learing curve for us as for the writers experiencing feedback from fellow writers for the first time. Review exchange continues to develop on the siteas we try to assist writers further. Like writing a book, development can't always be predicted until you have experienced it, how people will react and respond to something, and the review exchange job is not yet finished either. There's always things that can be added or done better.

Looking forward, book publishing development will take time too, it is little more than a month old here with the first books for free publishing set up appearing this month.  Books are already lower priced than the norm in POD, and with better royalties than the norm; we are also donating 10% of publisher profits for reader sales to Sightsavers, with 15 operations funded already to cure blind people with cataracts. We plan to further develop new systems to make this an innovative POD system which ties in with book development in the New Year. Developing a publishing service, like developing a book, is an ongoing process and changing process.   

We are glad we started this manually, as it gives an idea of what people are looking in for in a system. We are looking to bring in a good degree of automation for the process in the New Year. This, for example, means that there won't be a hold-up for someone who has submitted correctly if there is being work done for someone who may not have submitted correctly. We will bring in what we think needs to be brought in, with the time it needs. It's important to look long-term rather than just in the immediate future. We won't rush this for the sake of a few weeks realistically. Sometimes change and development isn't easy, and can cause conflict, but then it was ever so and we think it's worth it in the long run.

Well, that seemed like a long speech for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We will be closing the forum for the seasonal period starting beginning today, Christmas Eve, but work will be continuing on books and the review exchange process will continue all throughout Christmas and the New Year. Albeit between the occasional mince pie. 

We wish everyone a very, very Happy Christmas and New Year and every success with their writing in 2009.  

Ted 

BookSeller Distribution Through The Major Booksellers - If you are interested in your book being distributed and available to order through major booksellers for only £39.99 during the New Year, click here.

The Chronicles of Joya  by Liane Carter. Book signing at BookWorld Haberneras on 20th December 2008. Book received by YouWriteOn during October 2008. View more pictures of the bookstore signing on the link below.

                              View More Book Signing Pictures

When I first received my copy of THE CHRONICLES OF JOYA I was overjoyed at the quality. Friends and family who first received copies were all blown away by the cover. I have the approval from the  buyer of a book chain to contact two more of their stores to do book signings .. Also another book chain are interested in stocking the book. They are huge in Spain (very exciting!)

The Chronicles of Joya:  Planet Joya is home to an elite group called Switchers. They travel to Earth on six-weekly assignments and transform into humans and animals. Teal is desperate to be a Switcher. Despite warnings from her dad and her spirit guide she joins the team. But on her first assignment she faces death and the destruction of her red and purple planet.  




Writing Therapy by Tim Atkinson - received by YouWriteOn in October 2008 and featured in Times Educational Supplement magazine article in early December 2008 - view on WH Smith Website. Book details are provided by our printers Lightning Source to booksellers, this usually takes a few weeks for all of a book's details to feature on bookseller sites. 

This was a book that went everywhere with me during the time I spent reading it. It is one of the most unique books I have ever read. Once I'd finished reading it I felt a certain smugness, as if I alone had discovered a rare jewel. The narrator is a young woman who leads the reader on a raw excursion into a joust with madness. Writing is used as a most valuable tool in amongst a battery of less useful therapies. Be warned, this book is not an easy read, it is not junk food for the brain and... 


Fallen Heroes by Barry Nugent - Pictures from Waterstones book signing. View book on WHSmith or visit Amazon.

Bookseller review

  
More Deaths Than One by Bryan Islip. Book Received by YouWriteOn October 2008, bookstore signing in December 2008. Synopsis   Ex Special Forces businessman Thomas Thornton has settled down to expatriated family life in Saudi Arabia. He is wrongfully caught up in shariah law on drugs dealing charges. He extricates and eventually exonorates himself, only to find that he's deeply implicated in a far more universal situation.   Buy the Book