Working The Web: Authorship Essay, Research Paper

Working the web: AuthorshipWanna be a author? Seems a batch of us do. A study carried out to tag the launch of WH Smith & # 8217 ; s Raw Talent competition discovered we are a state of manque writers. About 50 % of respondents said they would wish to compose a book, with thrillers and lifes taking the pick of genres. When you eventually acquire around to taking the first stairss to making something, you will happen plentifulness of support, information and practical aid on the net & # 8211 ; every bit good as mercantile establishments for your work. There is nil to halt you puting up your ain site and posting your work at that place, but you can increase your readership by subjecting it to one of the 1000s of e-zines dedicated to printing original work online. They are frequently in the weirdest of niche countries that commercial publishing houses would non touch, and you are extremely improbable to acquire paid. But think of the glorification. Since 1993, John Labovitz has been keeping his list of 4,000-plus e-zines at www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list, and is inquiring for person to take over its time-consuming care. Or, you can travel farther, and print your ain e-book. Famously, Stephen King abandoned his e-publishing venture halfway, but there are writers who say they are doing nice money from self-publishing this manner. The e-author Angela Adair-Hoy Tells you how she and others do it at www.writersweekly.com. If you are keener on the dead-tree path to published celebrity, screen-loads of advice is available at www.publishers.org, where some good people at the Publishers Association base on balls on infor

mation about copyright in the UK, ISBN numbers and getting an agent. More support for writers – aimed especially at women – comes from the magazine Mslexia, itself a paper publication, but with a workwoman-like website containing a selection of useful articles and a subscription form. One of the biggest UK sites for creative writing was started by Gary Crucefix, who describes himself as an “amateur writer”. His site Fiction House is growing all the time, and has an impressive selection of links. The page on different webrings for writers will put you in touch with even more resources. Crucefix says he “strives to offer content and opportunity which is educational and informative to writers of all genre’s”. That apostrophe is, I am sorry to say, Crucefix’s own. Call me picky. You may want to learn more about the whole craft of writing including, probably, where to put apostrophes, by following a course; you can, naturally, do it online. Nottingham Trent University’s online writing school, Trace, invites you to try out online learning with its live web-based open days, where you can chat to tutors and students, join a writing workshop and find out if you want to take it further. Getting published is only one way of getting a buzz from writing. The other way is to win a competition. There are dozens, here and overseas, and although prizes are on the titchy side (?50 or ?100 are common) and you may even have to pay to enter (?3 seems fairly standard), it could be the one way you are likely to see any cash from short story writing or poetry. Find out about competitions at