Category: publishing

“Don’t think me brutal,” John Tenniel wrote in a letter to Carroll, “but I am bound to say the ‘Wasp’ chapter doesn’t interest me in the least. I can’t see my way to a picture. If you want to shorten the book, I can’t help thinking — with all submission — that there is your opportunity.”

“[C]ommercial e-books from the leading online stores come with restrictions that complicate your ability to move your collection from one device to the next. It’s as if old-fashioned books were designed to fit on one particular style of bookshelves. What happens when you remodel?”

“As the book industry gathered for its annual convention in New York this week, it had plenty to be nervous about: the threat of piracy, the decline of brick-and-mortar stores and the perhaps-too-low price of e-books. There was also the fact that the scandal-ridden Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, had been booked as the master of ceremonies for one of the convention’s most prominent events.”

“They’re investing a lot in their online presence. Yes, they do see the end of print. That pink broadsheet has such fond memories for so many people that I don’t think they’ll completely stop printing, but they will certainly pull back – in fact, they’re already pulling back.”

“As the trade show BookExpo America revved up its new abbreviated version here Tuesday, the digital publishing industry was given a prominent place at the annual gathering of one of the country’s most traditional businesses — the ink and paper world of book publishing.”

“[W]hile painting and even music have seen dramatic post-modern upheavals, much of poetry printed in popular magazines can be mainstream: non-alienating, often easy to parse and respectful of meter and even rhyme. A small group of poets hopes to change that.”

“Its publisher, HarperCollins, is trying to tap into what appears to be a near-endless reserve of affection for the book by helping to organize parties, movie screenings, readings and scholarly discussions.” Festivities in Harper Lee’s hometown “are not expected to attract an appearance by the mysterious Ms. Lee, who is 84 and still living quietly in Alabama after never publishing another book.”

Rainforest Action Network “tested a random sampling of 30 books from the top 10 U.S. children’s publishers, and found that 18 of them contained fibers linked either to tropical hardwoods or acacia pulp wood plantations in Indonesia. Paper and pulp companies raze natural rainforests … to create the plantations.”

“Once, the conference had provided an opportunity for agents to make deals, but that is largely a thing of the past (and other book conferences, notably London and Frankfurt). Lately, publishers focus on previewing their upcoming books to members of the media and, more importantly, to booksellers.”

“The rise [in American Booksellers Association membership] is tiny, from 1,401 a year ago to 1,410, but a deluge in comparison to the past two decades, when membership dropped from more than 3,000 to last year’s low.” The ABA’s chief executive “credits last year’s turnaround mostly to the smarts of the independent community and a willingness to experiment.”