Category: publishing

“Eminent English poet Geoffrey Hill is widely seen as the frontrunner for the post, the most prominent in British poetry behind the poet laureate. … [T]he award-winning 77-year-old Hill has been nominated by more than 70 Oxford graduates and is the best-known name in the running.”

“Although the [Library of Congress’] acquisition might seem to be a capitulation to frivolity and short attention spans, historians say, it’s actually about how digital archives such as this are shaping the future of history.”

“Last week at the Wharton School’s Future of Publishing conference in Manhattan, Brendan Cahill, VP and publisher of Open Road, mentioned that the e-book publisher has set up a Twitter account for William Styron. The author of ‘Sophie’s Choice’ and ‘Lie Down in Darkness’ has been tweeting (and re-tweeting) for more than a week.”

“To find a bestselling Kindle e-book that costs more than $0.00, you have to look to No. 14, Steig Larsson’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ — a book that’s spent more than 18 months in the top 100, and has the fairly low e-book price of $5.50.” Every title ranked higher than that on the list costs nothing to download.

“A completist abdicates that distinction with a peculiar mixture of sorrow and relief. The long march through Godard’s hardcore Maoist period becomes too arduous to bear; … the long-ago passion for searching out Bowie oddities has devolved into a grudge: It is time to bail, and with the bailing comes a faintly mournful sense of liberation. Thus it is that I abandon all hope of reading everything Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) ever published.”

“Depending on your mood, and the circumstances in which you were reading, your response can go either way. Book reviewers will recognise this sensation. You read deep into a book. Your verdict might traverse a range of opinions. Then you start to write about it, and you discover what you think. It’s a capricious process.”

“Could it be the low pay, low status and ridiculous hours? (Remember that book editors seldom get to read manuscripts in the office — that’s what weekends are for.) Apart from a handful of celebrated figures, it’s the rare editor who gets paid more than a secondary school teacher in a middle-class district.”

“The company is hoping to distinguish Google Editions in the marketplace by allowing users to access books through a broad range of websites using an array of devices, unlike rivals that are focused on proprietary devices and software. … It will also allow book retailers–even independent shops–to partner with Google Editions on their own sites, sharing the revenue.”

“Nick Clegg’s article in the Guardian, naming Samuel Beckett as a writer who inspired him, has caused a ripple of bemused comment outside the UK, particularly in the US political blogosphere.”

“Now a new project is hoping to take the ‘one book, one city’ initiative a step further, and get the whole world reading the same novel. The brainchild of Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing and a contributing editor at Wired magazine, the One Book, One Twitter scheme launches tomorrow.”