Category: publishing

Random House had decided not to publish Sherry Jones’s novel The Jewel of Medina. The Langum Charitable Trust, which awards two yearly $1,000 (£550) prizes, has said that until the novel is published, it “will not consider submissions of any books, for any of our prizes, from Random House or any of its affiliates”.

The paper has commissioned 11 short stories from local writers that they will publish each Tuesday starting next week. They are dubbed “A Dozen on Denver: Stories to celebrate the city at 150.”

“There are more than 6,900 languages used around the world today, ranging in size from those with hundreds of millions of speakers to those with only one or two. Language experts now estimate that as many as half of the existing languages are endangered, and by the year 2050 they will be extinct. The major reason for this language loss is that communities are switching to larger politically and economically more powerful languages, like English, Spanish, Hindi or Swahili.”

“The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company said it lost $9.2 million, or 15 cents a share, for the quarter ending Aug. 2. That compares with a loss of $25.1 million, or 43 cents a share for the same quarter of last year.”

“Those of us who work in universities are used to reading essays by students who have liberated themselves from the oppressive regime of good grammar and spelling. Some of us still bother to correct misspelled words; others have become tired and indifferent to the problem of poor spelling. Now, an academic has come up with an interesting compromise. Ken Smith, a criminologist at Bucks New University, England, argues that we should chill out and accept the most common spelling mistakes as ‘variant spellings’.”

“To help sell its high-priced digital reading device, Amazon is relying more than ever on its tried-and-true sales strategies of word of mouth and customer reviews, and it appears to be working, although the total market for the device is questionable.”

“Gradually, as the trickle of students and professors who use e-textbooks starts to grow, advances in hardware and an evolving market — not to mention increasing complaints about textbook costs — are sure to speed along continuing changes in reading (and studying) habits.”

Random House declined to publish a book because it might be offensive to Muslims. “What Random House did was not censorship. (Some other press is perfectly free to publish Jones’s book, and one probably will.) It may have been cowardly or alarmist, or it may have been good business, or it may have been an attempt to avoid trouble that ended up buying trouble. But whatever it was, it doesn’t rise to the level of constitutional or philosophical concern.”

“Ron Evans, a former Special Branch driver and a convicted fraudster, made a number of allegations in the book, On Her Majesty’s Service. It was to have been published at the beginning of August, but was delayed after being serialised in The Mail on Sunday when Sir Salman first became aware of its contents.”

Seattle has more bookstores per capita than any other city in the country, according to the “America’s Most Literate Cities” survey conducted by Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University — 174 at last count. But running a bookstore has always been an occupation for dreamers, and area independent stores have had to confront the realities of wresting a living from a low-margin business in an increasingly expensive town.