References

The following information will be of value to anyone wishing to write for a living, or even just for personal enjoyment.

Publisher Dating

Oh I really like this. Very funny and very accurate. It's about how to write your query letter and compares it to introducing yourself to someone in a bar.

Interview with Philip Pullman

Famous writer ... interesting comments on writing which I agree with whole-heartedly.

Caro Clarke's Website

Caro Clark has been a book editor and this is her advice to hopefuls on honing their skills, and polishing and presenting their work. It makes scary reading.

How to Write and Sell a Book Proposal

As will be seen from Caro Clark's website presenting your work to a possible publisher is a very dicey affair. The slightest comma out of place may result in your submission hitting the reject pile without a second glance.

This excellent little book gives you a checklist to follow, with examples, to ensure at the very least your Synopsis says what it needs to say, no more and no less. It also has plenty of other hints too.

You can buy it through Amazon.

Radio & TV script writing

The best book I've found on this is "Writing for TV & Radio" by Roy Lomax published by the Leisure Study Group. Another concise but invaluable guide that actually tells you what you need to know. The only problem is that it is now out of print, Amazon don't even list it. All I can suggest is that you try a web search and see what happens.

BBC Writers Room

As with most BBC micro-sites this is very interesting, full of hints and tips on writing and submitting material to the BBC. There are sample scripts of different types and lists of BBC competitions and awards.

It also has "Script Smart" for Word which allows almost automatic formatting of scripts to a variety of formats for submission of different types of script, and not just to the BBC.

More on how to get rejected

Nielsen Hayden has an excellent site in general but one page in particular is of enormous value. If you scroll down a bit to "3. Context of Rejection" you'll find a list of 13 reasons why a book will get rejected, and if you can get through those, you stand a better chance. (It's still about 50,000 to 1 but it's better than the lottery).