The Writers' Workshop

The WW is the world's leading consultancy for first time writers. Our editors are all either professional authors or editors, and between us we have written and edited thousands of books, have been published in countless countries and languages, and won or been shortlisted for numerous awards.

We are particularly enthusiastic about working with children's writers. We have a terrific team of children's editors (all pro authors themselves) and many of our clients have gone on to get their work published. Some of them have even won prizes. Read more about the WW. More about our children's editors.

Get feedback on your writing

The gold standard way for any writer to improve their work is to get tough, independent editorial advice. The Writers' Workshop is all about providing that advice in a way that is tough but sympathetic, market-aware and always constructive.

Because we are extremely selective when it comes to choosing our editors, our manuscript assessments are as good as they get. And when we find a manuscript strong enough to be marketed, we will ALWAYS seek to place it with a literary agent - and never charge for so doing. What's more, we'll never leave your side. We have on occasion gone on supporting clients some five years after we first helped them to a literary agent. Read More >>

Why use us?

We aim to be the best editorial consultancy anywhere - and certainly no competitor that we know of has a team with a stronger track record of publication success or with a stronger children's department. Indeed, our children's editors have won or been shortlisted for countless awards including the Nestle Prize, the Guardian Children's Novel Prize, and many more.

But quality is also about philosophy, and we aim to be on the writer's side first, last and always. Read More >>

Make friends

Writing doesn't have to be lonely.

Why not join the Word Cloud, our friendly online writing community? It's free to join and incredibly helpful. Just pop over to the Cloud and sign up now.

How to write a children's book

Writing for children is one of the most joyous activities under the sun - but it's also one of the hardest.

We've put together a huge library of advice on how to write for children - everything from how to plot a story to how to write a picture book.

Because you also want to get published, we have a huge advice library there too. We've worked with most of the largest literary agents in London and have seen plenty of our children's writers go on to great things - including even a movie deal.

You can view our how to write a children's book advice here, or review our literary agents advice here.

Our Writing for Children Course

Writing for children may be wonderfully rewarding ... but that doesn't mean it's easy! You can learn a huge amount from this website, but why not join our writing for children course in the company of a professional children's author?

You can study at home, but work online so you can interact with and learn from your classmates. Courses are surprisingly inexpensive and we try to run the best courses in the business. You can read more about them here.

Working in Narnia

 We're based near Oxford, UK (the city which has given birth to Alice in Wonderland, the Lord of the Rings, Narnia, His Dark Materials and more!) but we have editors right across the world, from Canada and California to Ireland and Europe.

We work with agents from all over the world and our clients have been published across the English-speaking world and beyond. If you have a wonderful book, written in English, we'd love to work with you.

Don't forget picture books!

We don't! Writing picture books seems simple, because there are so few words involved, but each word has to be wonderfully well-chosen. In fact, of all the work we deal with, children's picture books are the nearest thing to poetry. And we can help, of course. We've got some wonderful picture book editors who'll be happy to help you with your work. Read more here.