Category: publishing

“At a time when publishers are scrambling to keep customers willing to pay $26 for a hardcover book instead of $9.99 for an electronic version, the publisher of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s forthcoming memoir is going in the opposite direction – issuing a limited edition it plans to sell for $1,000 a copy. Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, is planning to issue 1,000 copies of a leather-bound, electronically signed edition” of the ailing senator’s book.

“They are the hottest authors in publishing, delivering works of murder, mystery, ribald humour and passionate love, and they all have one thing in common: they are long dead. … Authors whose newly discovered or revised works are now being published in the US include Mark Twain, Vladimir Nabokov, Graham Greene, JRR Tolkien, William Styron, Mary Shelley and Ernest Hemingway.”

“In a jaw-dropper that could be straight out of the movie ‘Bruno,’ the best-selling book ‘Gay Travels in the Muslim World’ has been translated into Arabic — but with the title equating gays to perverts.”

“September is even at the best of times a crucial month as publishers pit their best novelists against each other in the search for bumper end-of-year sales, with a scattering of new hardbacks by heavyweight authors. Little wonder that this year it is being eyed by senior managers with a certain amount of apprehension, if not dread.”

“While university presses grapple with the economic and technological challenges now affecting how we publish our books — the subject of a thousand and one AAUP conference sessions, e-mail-list debates, and news articles — discussion of what we publish seems to have taken a back seat. And understandably so. Why obsess about content if books as we know them are about to become obsolete in favor of some yet-to-evolve form? Has creative destruction spelled the end of books?”

“Novels aren’t just sources of solitary cogitation. They are social objects, and we use them to brandish our identities, mark our allegiances and broker our relationships. They can provoke passions as strongly as politics. Thanks to the intimate connection between story and reader, they impact upon us very personally, and can drive otherwise undemonstrative folk to feel they have a right – nay duty – to confront complete strangers with their zeal.”

“A book’s words are private, the silent transcription of thought; the cover gives them a public face. Its design also identifies the publisher, the go-between who connects reclusive, soliloquizing writers with those who consume their wares.”

“The Independent Safeguarding Authority will vet all individuals who work with children from October this year, requiring them to register with a national database for a fee of £64.”

“The story of an unhappy man infatuated with his promiscuous wife was to be burned according to instructions the Russian writer left to his heirs when he died in 1977. However, last year his only remaining heir, son Dmitri, had a change of heart.”

“In just two days last month, three high-profile authors responded to less-than-glowing reviews with less-than-genteel replies. Ever since a bored Greek complained “The Iliad” was too repetitive, authors have grumbled that their critics just don’t understand them. Now, though, when a writer whines online, anybody can read it — whether the writer meant it to be seen by millions or not.”