Category: publishing

“The wartime demand for books was prodigious and paradoxical. The leisured read less, and the hardest-working read more. Where British firms could not meet the demand, publishing began to flourish in Australia, Canada and India.”

“The average wage for a freelance writer in Britain is less than the pay of a supermarket worker. The reality in 2009 is a good deal bleaker. Average earnings for writers have dropped from £7,000 to £4,000, less than 25% of the national average.”

“The publishing phenomenon du jour, Alan Bradley is a first-time novelist who has sold a series of six novels, across 13 countries, for an undisclosed (well into six figures) sum, a startling accomplishment that began with just 15 pages of typed text, and one close encounter with a forest fire.”

“Is bibliophilia a religious impulse? You can’t walk into Sotheby’s exhibition space in Manhattan right now and not sense the devotion or be swept up in its passions and particularities. The 2,400-square-foot opening gallery is lined with shelves — 10 high — reaching to the ceiling, not packed tight, but with occasional books open to view.” All of them are written in Hebrew.

The Internet has helped a surprising number of poets to peddle their tailor-made verse, even if the income isn’t lucrative. “This is probably one of the easiest ways to make money from poetry, and you still can’t survive on it.”

“Schools are supposed to introduce children to a variety of ideas and viewpoints, but the Miami-Dade School Board decided a few years ago to put one viewpoint off limits. It banned the children’s book ‘A Visit to Cuba’ from its school libraries because it said the book offers too positive a portrait of life under the Castro regime. That was bad enough, but then last week, a federal appeals court upheld the ban. The Supreme Court should reverse this disturbing ruling.”

“When Wittenberg University professor Dan Fleisch read on Amazon.com that Michel Cuhaci of Ottawa had received a flawed copy of Fleisch’s book ‘A Student’s Guide to Maxwell’s Equation,’ he posted a comment, identifying himself as the author and promising Cuhaci he would try to send the book via overnight courier. The only problem was, it was Christmas Eve.” So Fleisch headed for the airport.

“The industry had been expecting some news from HarperCollins, a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, as it was one of the few major publishing houses not to have announced layoffs during the current punishing retail downturn.” The company is closing the Collins and Wiliam Morrow divisions and laying off two top executives as well as lower-level staffers.

“The final works of John Updike, who died in January at the age of 76, will be published later this year. Poems written in the run up to the writer’s death will be released in April, entitled Endpoint and Other Poems, says the author’s US publisher. The collection, composed over the course of eight years, includes the poem Requiem which speculates on the public reaction to the author’s death.”

“Seldom has a new product that isn’t really new created such excitement as Amazon.com’s Kindle 2… It isn’t the device itself that is causing the stir, it seems – the Kindle 2 is an improved version of Kindle 1 – but the fact that people actually will be able to get one.”