This Week on Books Direct - 7 April 2018

This Week on Books Direct -

7 April 2018

Here's a list of some great articles you may have missed this week. Enjoy!

Break The Perfection Habit And Stop Editing As You Write by Catherine E. McLean for Writers Cheat Sheets

Catherine answers the question: “How can a writer break the perfection habit, or are there ways to stop editing as you go?”

Here Are The 2018 Hugo Award Nominees by Andrew Liptak for The Verge

The nominees for the 2018 Hugo Awards were announced, representing the best science fiction and fantasy literature published in 2017.

“Describe Yourself Like A Male Author Would” Is The Most Savage Twitter Thread In Ages by Electric Literature

Young adult author Gwen C. Katz found a delightfully deluded male author claiming that his facility with writing natural women characters constituted an unassailable rebuke to the idea that we need diverse authors to write diverse viewpoints.

Author Anita Shreve Dies Aged 71 by Alison Flood for The Guardian

Bestselling novelist of 18 books, including The Weight of Water and The Pilot’s Wife, died after “a long and very private fight with cancer”.

Amazon Is Shutting Down Its Crowd-Sourcing Platform, Kindle Scout by Nate Hoffelder for The Digital Reader

Amazon informed authors on Monday that they were no longer accepting new submissions to Kindle Scout.

Man Booker Prize Criticised For Changing Taiwanese Author's Nationality by Lily Kuo for The Guardian

Wu Ming-Yi’s nationality changed to “Taiwan, China” after Beijing pressured organizers.

Followed by this the next day:

Man Booker Prize Reverses Nationality Decision On Taiwanese Author by Alison Flood and Lily Kuo for The Guardian

The literary prize announces that it will no longer list authors by nationality, but by country or territory, after drawing criticism when it bowed to pressure from China.

Kindness Is Important Too by Anna Simpson for emaginette

When your writing life is a bit cloudy or filled with rain, what do you do to dig down and keep on writing?

Joan Silber’s Improvement Wins PEN/Faulkner Award For Fiction by The Washington Post

About Improvement, the judges wrote, “The art of this exquisite novel rests in Silber’s ability to weave the lives of her characters together into a complete whole, providing readers with intimate glimpses into the delicate and often unseen challenges of unassuming, everyday people.”

A Librarian Discovered The Secret Codes Used By Elderly Library-Goers by Isobel Hamilton by Isobel Hamilton for Mashable Australia

A librarian has given the Twittersphere an insight into the world of elderly library-goers and their mysterious ways.

Complete List Of Instagram Ad Sizes & Specs For 2018 by Alex York by Alex York for Sprout Social

Here’s the complete list of Instagram ad sizes and specs for 2018.

The Formula For Guaranteed Book Marketing Success podcast by Chris Syme for Smart Marketing for Authors

In this episode Chris explains the five requirements for long-term book marketing success - the SMART acronym.

Three Members Quit Swedish Academy As Row Splits Nobel-Awarding Body by The Local

Three members of the Swedish Academy – the prestigious body that hands out the Nobel Prize in Literature – stepped down on Friday in a move that shocked the literature world.

If you enjoyed this blog post, please visit the other This Week posts for links to more great articles.