Saturday, 28 January 2012

News of a Writing Romantic Fiction Workshop...

As I've been talking about romance novels in e-books this week, I thought you might like to know that there's a Writing Romantic Fiction workshop being held in Nottingham on Saturday 19th May,
10 am-4pm (including a 1 hour lunch break).

Nottingham Writers' Club is hosting the workshop and the tutor for the day is Mills and Boon Presents author, Kate Walker.

Kate had her first novel accepted in 1984
and celebrated 25 years as a professional author in 2010.
Kate Walker
Here are some details of what the workshop will include...

It gives an introduction to all the skills needed for success, from initial research to the final submission of the typescript. With advice and exercises, Kate will guide you through creating realistic characters, sustaining pace and conflict, packing emotional punch, writing sex scenes and crafting a satisfying ending. If you're just starting out writing romantic fiction or you've written a manuscript or two, this one is for you.
The workshop also covers the main aspects of writing romantic fiction that from her experience of teaching over the years seem to create the most problems for unpublished writers.

(Information courtesy of  Kate Walker and Nottingham Writers' Club)

If you're within travelling distance of Nottingham and are interested then you'll find the details here .

There's a (PDF) booking form with the details of how much it costs, and it's easy to download and print off.

I'm really looking forward to the day...

Thursday, 26 January 2012

New source of E-Book Romances...

More publishers are expanding their market for romance novels in e-book form.

Last September Random House's Ebury imprint launched Rouge- their digital romance list. Books went straight to digital rather than the traditional print copy first.

Now Piatkus is launching Entice, their digital romance list with some books moving to print versions later.
Other romance sub-genres will follow, so there will be something for everyone who loves 'romance'.

A number of popular romance novelists whose books are published in the US, have had UK editions with Piatkus- they're the larger size paperbacks you see in the Romance section shelves of Waterstones. Among them authors Stephanie Laurens (who was a Mills and Boon historical author for a number of years), Jayne Ann Krentz and Mary Balogh.

Besides reissues, it looks like it is going to be an influx of books by American authors, but just as it seems to be difficult for a UK romance author to get their books published in an American edition, it's probably just as difficult the other way round too.

The romance reader is certainly going to have a lot to choose from. But is it neccesarily going to be good for the unpublished romance writers in the UK?

It will be interesting to see what happens...