Category: publishing

Benedikt Taschen’s company puts out big, lush volumes on the likes of Picasso, Monet, Stanley Kubrick and Zaha Hadid, of course. But his projects range from The Big Book of Breasts (and its sequel, The Big Butt Book) to a glossy volume of raunchy gay comics by Tom of Finland to a facsimile of the 1534 Luther Bible to GOAT, a 20-inch-square, pink-leather-bound tribute to Muhammad Ali.

“A representative at [Amazon] has confirmed that the company will be splitting its Kindle bestseller list, creating one list for paid books and another for free titles. … Currently the top ten bestselling titles on Amazon’s Kindle bestseller list are free downloads, a fact that speaks to how publishers are testing the free model to get attention for certain authors.”

“Matt Cooper, a triple-crown veteran of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News, once came up with the greatest newsweekly cover line of all time:
‘What Would Jesus Eat? The New Science of Biblical Diets Could Be The Secret to Weight Loss’.” Joshua Green gathers some other contenders.

“[A]wful books have always been with us, but nowadays a specimen of unkempt, puffed-up prose or stumbling, lugubrious verse doesn’t even need to make it past an editor or publisher to glide slimily into the awareness of the unsuspecting public. … Bad writing can serve as a lesson of one kind or another, but can it ever be recycled into something approximating art?”

“The near-parity of the Canadian and American dollars has heightened attention to this particular instance of cultural protectionism – notably among readers who can compare U.S. and Canadian prices, often printed on book covers. Some publishers have taken to showing only the Canadian price on covers, to prevent comparisons.”

In an effort to “replace some of the 1,300 children’s picture books that have been stolen from the [Port Orchard Library in Washington state] over the past two months,” the “librarian selected about 60 of the more popular books, and Borders set them up in a rack in the store…. If customers want to buy and donate them, Borders will package them and send them to the library.”

“In a world where it is increasingly possible to seclude yourself in a hive with fellow creatures who buzz the way you do, bookstores, like libraries and newspapers, are among the few places where a variety of ideas and opinions can jostle together for your attention. That tolerance of perspectives … isn’t a marketing strategy for those institutions. It’s part of their DNA.”

“Once upon a time, when you finished that book you’d either take it to an agent or simply send it to a publisher and pray someone might read — and like –it. Today, that’s not enough. There are now fewer publishers and they have fewer employees.”

“Albums are sold across the world inside a universal sleeve, blockbuster films branded in a singular style. But novels, by a convention that nobody in the publishing industry seems fully able to explain, must be re-jacketed from territory to territory. It inspires all kinds of illustrative madness, and makes browsing foreign bookshelves a fascinating – often bewildering – experience.”

“Tina Harden, who had withheld the books” — all “Gossip Girl”-related — “since the fall of 2008 to keep young readers from seeing them, said she returned them not because of criticism she received but because she had made people aware of the issue through media attention.” She “is hoping the library will waive the fines.”