Category: publishing

“The proposed Academy of English wouldn’t police the language, so much as act as its bodyguard: pushing stray apostrophes back into line, reminding students that “innit” may be a suitable sentence-ender on the bus, but is probably not something you want to say during a job interview, unless you don’t actually want the job.”

“For many authors, it was bad enough when, once every book, you had to slick on makeup, hire a photographer and adopt a writerly pose — hand on chin, furrowed brow — for the book jacket portrait. But in the streaming video era, with the publishing industry under relentless threat, the trailer is fast becoming an essential component of online marketing.”

“The question about the fourth manuscript is entirely hypothetical. We have never studied this manuscript and therefore don’t know if it exists, how much has been written and if so what shape the manuscript is in.”

“Twain dictated most of it to a stenographer in the four years before his death at 74 on April 21, 1910. He argued that speaking his recollections and opinions, rather than writing them down, allowed him to adopt a more natural, colloquial and frank tone, and Twain scholars who have seen the manuscript agree.”

“Antiques dealer Raymond Scott has been cleared of stealing a rare copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio. But a Newcastle Crown Court jury found the 53-year-old from County Durham guilty of handling stolen goods and removing stolen property from the UK.”

“The Internet-versus-books debate is conducted on the supposition that the medium is the message. But sometimes the medium is just the medium. What matters is the way people think about themselves while engaged in the two activities.”

“A letter sent to Dedalus yesterday from Arts Council England area executive director Andrea Stark confirmed the publisher’s regular funding status would be restored, and that it would receive a grant of £26,900 in 2010/2011 for ‘the commissioning and publishing costs of new literary fiction in translation and the origination of new English fiction’.”

“I am astounded at the lack of understanding of public libraries that your Monday evening story, Are Libraries Necessary, or a Waste of Tax Money? revealed. … Your ‘undercover cameras” shots were taken in a series of stacks devoted to bound periodicals used for reference. Next time, try looking at the circulating collections throughout the building.”

“Moments of surprise, whimsy and unconventional truth burst from the pages of Slake: Los Angeles, the new quarterly journal whose editors have essentially flipped the bird at the faster-quicker-shorter imperatives that are supposed to define 21st century media.” The fat first issue is “filled with essays, poetry, photography, short fiction, reported stories and almost no advertising. “

“The [very small] study found that reading on an electronic tablet was up to 10.7 percent slower than reading a printed book. Despite the slower reading times, Nielsen found that users preferred reading books on a tablet device compared to the paper book. The PC monitor, meanwhile, was universally hated as a reading platform among all test subjects.”