A new company has launched offering aspiring novelists an alternative to the “traditional” routes to publication: a salary from £2,000 per month to write their novels. There’s a few catches, though.

Paula Hawkins, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman and Robert Webb are among the authors donating thousands of books to Oxfam in a bid to boost sales in the charity’s shops and raise money for its work.

Authors have waded in to defend W H Smith after the retailer was named the worst shop on the UK high street yesterday (28th May).

Meanwhile, W H Smith has been offering customers money back if they find a cheaper copy at a local rival bookshop and feedback to the promotion has been “very positive”, the company said.

The Pool spoke to American author Curtis Sittenfeld about the objects that encapsulate her life, from the book that inspired her novel American Wife to a ceramic fish decoration.

Journalist Matt Cain’s novel, The Madonna of Bolton, one of the fastest-funded in Unbound’s history, has won a six-figure film deal.

Interesting facts about the year’s 100 top-selling books so far:

Every day this week, The Pool brings you an exclusive extract from each of the titles shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. Today, it’s Sight by Jessie Greengrass. Yesterday, it was The Idiot by Elif Batuman.

The Society of Authors is calling for tax relief to be extended to writers undertaking training for new skills, like social media and marketing.

Independent Press have started a Patreon to help regulate their cashflow.

Prizes

The shortlist for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year is out.

Debut author Imogen Hermes Gowar has been nominated for this year’s The Times Breakthrough Award in the Books category for her novel The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock.
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