Category: publishing

There’s a longstanding disagreement among Nabokov fans about the eponymous 999-line poem at the center of the novel Pale Fire: Can the poem be taken seriously as literature by itself or is it inseparable from the annotative footnotes (putatively by the madman who stole the manuscript of the verse) that form the rest of the novel? This fall, a publisher is releasing a freestanding version of the poem – as a book-cum-objet d’art – that’s certain to reignite the controversy.

“Borrowing a page from patent trolls, the CEO of fledgling Las Vegas-based Righthaven has begun buying out the copyrights to newspaper content for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post those articles without permission. And he says he’s making money.”

“Fear and loathing among the movers and shakers of America’s publishing industry reached new heights late last night with both Random House and Macmillan denouncing top literary agent Andrew Wylie’s move into digital publishing.”

“Recognizing that book recommendation may as yet defy science, a couple of literary types are currently offering artisanal advice.” But “what about accountability, the great quality-control monitor for word-of-mouth recommendations?”

It’s “a trend that has seen book publishers creating evermore insanely expensive collector’s items – usually very large coffee-table picture books about celebrities or the kinds of luxury items only the very rich can feel devoted to – printed in small batches.”

“Andrew Wylie opened a new front, and a possible negotiating tool, in a debate over e-book rights for what are called backlist titles. Many traditional publishers have said they own the electronic rights to those books, but some authors and their estates have disagreed, arguing that since the books were published before e-books existed, the digital rights were not explicitly sold to the publishers.”

“The late Swedish author’s blockbuster thrillers have sold more than 1 million copies in the e-book editions, publisher Alfred A. Knopf said Wednesday, making him at least the second author to join the e-million club. The ultra-prolific James Patterson also has more than 1 million e-book sales.”

A local Fox News story suggests cutting public spending by eliminating public libraries, and everyone from Vanity Fair to The Guardian to The Onion‘s A.V. Club fights back. Even the Old Spice guy has done a spot for libraries. NPR’s Monkey See blog suggests five reasons why America may finally be realizing why libraries are cool. (For instance, libraries give you things for free.)

Thousands of offenders across the US are, “as an alternative to prison, placed on a rehabilitation programme called Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL). Repeat offenders of serious crimes such as armed robbery, assault or drug dealing are made to attend a reading group where they discuss literary classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bell Jar and Of Mice and Men.”

“An Israeli judge overseeing a battle over papers once belonging to Franz Kafka has ruled that details of the documents should be made public, the Guardian has learned.”