Category: publishing

Correspondent Matthew Spencer has (after much argument from readers) created a list of 32 finalists – seeded and bracketed, just like in tennis – for the title. His key rule: “I’m looking for an American, writing within the last 100 years who went back to the well again and again and continued to find it wet with novelistic inspiration” – that is, candidates must have written four great novels.

“Almost the worst thing that can happen to writers, at least if it’s the quality of their work we’re thinking about, is to receive, immediately, all the money and recognition they want. At this point all other work, all other sane and sensible economic relation to society, is rapidly dropped and the said author now absolutely reliant on the world’s response to his or her books, and at the same time most likely surrounded by people who will be building their own careers on his or her triumphant success, all eager to reinforce intimations of grandeur.”

“The government is facing anger from authors shocked to discover that they are not entitled to royalties for books borrowed from libraries run by ‘big society’- inspired volunteers. Such libraries are mushrooming as community groups are forced to step in to save their local libraries from closing as a result of spending cuts”

Mainstream publishers are trolling the internet to find the next hot thing. After all, Fifty Shades of Grey started as fan fiction. But “there is still no easy ride into print as, John Makinson, Penguin’s chief executive, has pointed out. Titles that sell well as ebooks are not always appropriate for putting between hard covers.”

“While consumers in the US and Europe increasingly turn to e-readers, many Japanese have stubbornly refused to part with conventional reading matter. … But that could all be about to change from Thursday, when the Japanese online retail giant Rakuten launches an e-reader it hopes will see off an expected challenge from Amazon’s device later this year, and corner the world’s second-biggest publishing market.”

“The government is preparing to announce a review into ebook lending following calls from the opposition to move libraries ‘into the 21st century’. Although some of the UK’s library authorities do offer ebook lending, many do not, and many publishers have been wary of making their digital titles available for lending, meaning the range of ebooks in libraries is often restricted.”

“A teaching associate at a private school in Dubuque has been fired for allegedly disrupting classes by telling students that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a ‘racist’ novel.”

“This acquisition will allow Penguin to participate fully in perhaps the fastest-growing area of the publishing economy and gain skills in customer acquisition and data analytics that will be vital to our future.”

The results of the History News Network’s contest are in. “After a week of voting by readers, [right-wing historian] David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies won with some 650 votes, narrowly edging the left-wing historian Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, which received 641 votes.”

“[It] is strange that the idea of rights versus responsibilities does not preoccupy me. I feel that I have only rights, and that my sole responsibility is to the reader, and is to make things work for someone I will never meet. I feel just fine about ignoring or bypassing the rights of people I have known and loved to be rendered faithfully, or to be left in peace, and out of novels.”