RNA Winter Party - A Celebration of The New Writers' Scheme and Fifty Fabulous Years

Your scribe fell down (not literally) on her duty last night and didn't take as many pictures as she should have and far too few of the wonderful shoes....humble apologies.

Two hundred people attended an evening which celebrated the New Writers' Scheme. The RNA does many things well (including its parties) but it has excelled at encouraging and nurturing new writers.... Joan Hessayon New Writers' Scheme Award winners sparkled in the crowd and we toasted the continued success of the NWS and RNA. The party rounded off a fabulous year marking the association's fifty years.

Howzat? A Hat-trick! by Sue Moorcroft

I’ve been so focused on the publication of Want to Know a Secret? (Choc Lit, 1 November 2010, £7.99) that a happy truth has only just dawned on me.

In fact, I have THREE books being published on one day!

This is because the hardback large print version of Starting Over and the softback large print book of what was originally a serial for The People’s Friend, One Summer in Malta (both Magna), also have a publication date of 1 November 2010, too. So, I have a hat-trick.

The synchronicity is completely out of my hands, of course. Choc Lit had decided on the publication date of Want to Know a Secret? ages ago. Equally, they placed my large print rights with Magna ages ago. And I sold the large print rights to One Summer in Malta ages ago. But it has given me a day to be proud of.

For anybody who doesn’t know about subsidiary rights, in publishing, this is a good time to explain that books can come out in many forms: hardback, paperback, trade paperback, audio, large print, all the various ebook formats etc. And that’s before you get to the foreign rights: the US version, the Australian, the South African, and then different languages, too.

Subsidiary rights can really earn you money, because you don’t normally have to do much more work to get a whole new fee. Subsidiary rights can make the difference between an author being able to make a living, or not. So let’s hear it for subsidiary rights sales! Yeahhhh!

And that’s why writers get excited when their publisher or agent goes to a book fair. Because rights get sold.

November Releases

Margaret James THE SILVER LOCKET
Choc Lit
1st November
£7.99 (paperback)

As the First World War gets under way, Rose Courtenay runs away from home to become an army nurse, falls in love with a married man, and has to make many difficult choices.

Sue Moorcroft WANT TO KNOW A SECRET?
Choc Lit
1 November 2010
£7.99
Money and love? Which matters most?

Karen Abbott A LOVE WORTH WAITING FOR

F. A. Thorpe Linford Romance Series - Large Print

November 2010

Cost - £8.99

Jasmine Jones gets the opportunity to open a Teashop in the lovely village

of Manorbier in Pembrokeshire -- but when disturbing things begin to happen,

Jasmine wonders who wants her business to fail...surely not local artist

Rhys Morgan ?

Trisha Ashley TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
Avon HarperCollins
October 28th
Cost 6.99
For widow Holly Brown, looking after a remote house on the Lancashire moors seems the perfect way to escape the festivities - but when the owner unexpectedly returns just before a blizzard cuts the village off, the Twelve Days of Christmas take a very unexpected turn.

Annie Burrows A COUNTESS BY CHRISTMAS (in anthology "Regency Mistletoe and Marriages"
which also contains story by Joanna Maitland, "The Earl's Mistletoe Bride")
Mills and Boon
November 2010
£6.99
Two sparkling regency romances, set during the Christmas season

Lynne Connolly UNBROKEN
Total E-Bound
November 8th 2010
Cost TBA
Zoltan's looking for imperfection, and he finds it in Vashti.

























Dilly Court A MOTHER’S SECRET
Arrow
4 November 2011
£19.99
Raised in a notorious East End baby farm, Cassy thinks that the Indian woman
who saves her from the gutter is her mother, but she has yet to learn the
secret of her birth.

Liz Fielding MISTLETOE AND THE LOST STILETTO
Harlequin "Romance"
$4.50 US
With the entire world hunting for Lucy, hiding out in Santa's Grotto seemed like a good idea. Ho, ho, ho...

Liz Fielding A STRANGER'S KISS
Linford Romance Library
November, £8.99
Tara takes refuge with a stranger to avoid a stalker.  Out of the frying pan into the roasting pan...

June Francis SUNSHINE AND SHOWERS
Allison & Busby Ltd.
8th November,
£7.99
Patsy Doyle is settled into her role as live-in-maid to the Tanners'
household whilst Joy Kirk is busy planning her wedding but have both let themselves in for more than they bargained?

Kate Harrison THE SECRET SHOPPER UNWRAPPED
Orion
November 11
£6.99
Sandie, Emily and Grazia are on the warpath, exposing shocking Christmas shopping experiences, while they try to juggle love lives, family sagas and sabotage as December 25 approaches...

Anna Jacobs PERSONS OF RANK
Magna Large Print
15 November, 2010
£20.99
Regency romance: The dowager believes people of rank should not fall in love but her granddaughter and niece can’t help themselves, which brings a tangle of complications.

Jan Jones THE PENNY PLAIN MYSTERIES (Part 1 of 4: The Jigsaw Puzzle)
Four-part serial
People's Friend (weekly magazine)
Starts 24th November 2010 (Issue dated 27.10.10)
85p or thereabouts
A jigsaw from the past propels Penny to a puzzling future.

Freda Lightfoot ANGELS AT WAR
Allison & Busby Ltd.
November 2010
£19.99
Racked with guilt over the tragic death of her sister Maggie, Livia promises never to let anyone down again and to do something worthwhile with her life.

Freda Lightfoot HOUSE OF ANGELS
Magna large print
October 2010
£20.99
The Angel sisters struggle to escape their bullying father and find an
unexpected half-sister.

Freda Lightfoot HOSTAGE QUEEN
ebook
November 2010
£6.99 +VAT
In a court rife with murder, political intrigue, debauchery, jealousy and
the hunger for power, can Marguerite de Valois hope to keep her head.
























Chrissie Loveday FROM THIS DAY ON
Ulverscroft Linford Romance Large Print
November 2010
£8.99
Set in a Cornish village, misogenist male doctor meets his new female locum
and sparks fly ... but they reckon without his aunt who's a bit of witch.

Sue Moorcroft STARTING OVER
Isis (Large Print hardback)
1 November 2010
£20.95
New home, new friends, new love. Can starting over be that simple?

Sue Moorcroft ONE SUMMER IN MALTA
Isis
01 November 2010
£11.99
Tina has only one opportunity to spend a summer in Malta. Shame the past is waiting for her there.

























Gillian Villiers TOMORROW’S PROMISE
Thorpe Large Print
1 November 2010
Cost - £8.99
Lara is determined never to risk falling in love, but when she takes up a
new post and agrees to share a house with laid-back fellow teacher Mick, she
finds it isn’t quite so simple.


SHORT STORIES

Kate Jackson THE CIRCLE OF LIFE
Short Story
Peoples Friend Christmas Special
DC Thomson
28th October
£2.99
Christmas will never be same again without Grace.