Reading Time: 4 minutes My recent experience of playing Bamboo on the Storyjacker site was my first involvement with any kind of digital writing game. As such, I was very intrigued, and somewhat apprehensive, about what might happen – a state of mind that I think is, or should be, integral to the experience of writing. In a certain… Read more »
Posts By: Editor
Ten Tips for Writers When Contacting Book Bloggers
Simon Savidge
Reading Time: 5 minutes When The Writing Platform asked me if I would be so kind as to write something about how you lovely writers out there could approach bloggers I was really honoured. Yet after I had written down my initial ‘top tips’ I started to worry. You see in this article you may see the word ‘don’t’… Read more »
Letters, War, and Being an Editorial Moderator
Alyssa Hollingsworth
Reading Time: 4 minutes There is a statue in Paddington Station: A trench soldier, with a scarf around his neck and a letter torn open in his hands. His lips curve in a smile or a grimace. I have seen him in the early hours of the morning with face bright in the flush of dawn, and I have… Read more »
Metadata: A Guide for the Perplexed
Azar Hussain
Reading Time: 5 minutes ‘Anyway, those tickets, the old ones, they didn’t tell you where you were going, much less where you came from. He couldn’t remember seeing any dates on them either, and there was certainly no mention of time. It was all different now, of course. All this information. Archie wondered why this was’. — White Teeth by Zadie… Read more »
The New Publisher: The Friday Project
Scott Pack
Reading Time: 4 minutes The publishing industry has undergone many changes over the last few years, many of which can be attributed to the disruptions brought about by digital technologies. Alongside the rise of self-/ indie- publishing we are also seeing new types of publisher emerge, publishers who are turning traditional models and methods on their head and finding… Read more »
Are Creative Writing Courses Worth It?
The Writing Platform Team
Reading Time: < 1 minute Are creative writing courses a “waste of time” as author Hanif Kureishi stated earlier this year? Or are they a good way for writers to develop and hone their craft? In this podcast Arifa Akbar, Literary Editor of the Independent, is joined by novelists and creative writing tutors Naomi Wood and Gerard Woodward, for a… Read more »
Nearlyology: Making a Transmedia Novel in a Transmedia Way
Chris Meade
Reading Time: 4 minutes “Beyond the middle of the journey of life what we’ve done and nearly done begin to blur. Far more things nearly happen than happen … The universe is held together by the dust of human kind’s nearlyincidence. So says The Nearlyologist Manifesto. I’m a nearlywriter, making a transmedia novel in a transmedia way, nearly a book… Read more »
The New Publisher: Penned in The Margins
Tom Chivers
Reading Time: 3 minutes The publishing industry has undergone many changes over the last few years, many of which can be attributed to the disruptions brought about by digital technologies. Alongside the rise of self-/ indie- publishing we are also seeing new types of publisher emerge, publishers who are turning traditional models and methods on their head and finding… Read more »
The Benefits Of Crowdfunding For Authors
Justine Schofield
Reading Time: 2 minutes Crowdfunding enables entrepreneurs and business savvy creatives to launch their projects or ideas with the help of financial backing from the crowd. Though crowdfunding is a relatively new concept, the industry is growing rapidly. According to crowdfunding trends and statistics presented by Crowd Mapped, crowdfunding raised $5.1 billion at the close of 2013, up from $2.66… Read more »
How To Storybird
Molly O'Neill
Reading Time: 2 minutes Storybird is a publishing platform and community based around visual storytelling. We curate illustrations from artists around the world and let anyone use them as the inspiration for original picture books, poems, or long-form, serialized stories. This simple premise inspires a constant loop of creation, consumption, and conversation for the millions of kids and creatives… Read more »