Category: publishing

“Over the past few months the DoJ has been quizzing publishers and Apple to find out why prices have risen. The legal threat comes as publishers try to convince the government body that agency pricing will promote rather than hinder competition.”

“In a borough of writers and immigrants,” the Espresso Book Machine, which can print and bind a volume in four to eight minutes, “offers what the library’s holdings can’t: titles in any language and a chance to publish your own.”

“The news from Home Depot comes at a time of mounting fear among publishers that, as bricks-and-mortar sales slow, big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target might abandon bookselling.”

“This explosion of amateur authors and publishers also means a lot more competition for an audience. So how do writers make money? First of all, according to author and marketer Seth Godin, they have to give up the idea that they somehow deserve to be paid for their writing.”

“As smart as they are, no literary journal has come close to becoming the wide-ranging commercial force that is McSweeney’s. The San Francisco-based company evolved from a brash literary journal – the bad boy in town – into a multifaceted print and online independent publishing house, founded by journalist-novelist-publisher Dave Eggers.”

This hoary aphorism does not mean that fiction needs to be disguised autobiography. Nathan Englander observes that the idea behind the advice is roughly analogous to method acting.

“People who read e-books on tablets like the iPad are realizing that while a book in print or on a black-and-white Kindle is straightforward and immersive, a tablet offers a menu of distractions that can fragment the reading experience, or stop it in its tracks.”

Here’s what Kindle Singles actually are: probably the best reason to buy an e-reader in the first place. They’re works of long-form journalism that seek out that sweet spot between magazine articles and hardcover books. Amazon calls them “compelling ideas expressed at their natural length.” If I didn’t loathe the word “compelling,” I’d think that wasn’t a half-bad slogan.

“We’re not aiming at what people want, we’re trying to make people want what we give them, and business is going very well – we are exceeding our projections quite significantly. This is a bookshop where you are taken on a journey down the shelves and keep bumping into things that you otherwise wouldn’t have.”

“A whole new world of magic animals, brave young princes and evil witches has come to light with the discovery of 500 new fairytales, which were locked away in an archive in Regensburg, Germany for over 150 years.”