Category: publishing

Glasgow-born Carol Ann Duffy would be the first woman to hold the 400-year-old office, should she accept, as government sources now suggest she might.

“A shocking biography of the Nobel laureate Sir V.S.Naipaul, which exposes his cruelty towards those closest to him, is tipped to win its author the richest prize in non-fiction writing.”

“Silicon Valley isn’t usually where aspiring authors go to kick-start a literary reputation. But for first-time novelist Leinad Zeraus, it proved the ideal launching pad: Sans publicist, promotional budget, or even publisher, Zeraus scored encomiums for his debut work, Daemon. How’d he do it? By courting bloggers and influential techies like Joi Ito, Stewart Brand, and Craig Newmark — demonstrating that if you can get the geek grapevine on your side, you don’t need Random House.”

Bookstore sales rose 1.3% in March, to $1.03 billion, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Sales have increased every month so far in 2008 and finished the first quarter up 5.1%, to $4.46 billion.

Last week the opening line of The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot’s most famous poem, became “one of most explosively googled phrases in America. Google’s aptly named Hot Trends list, a utility offered by the company that offers a glimpse of what the online nation is most furiously searching for at any given moment.” The question is why?

“No longer will the disgruntled writing masses be able to complain that their work has not been published because it has been vetoed by elite, snobbish publishing industry professionals. Now they will be kyboshing each other. (Or launching each other’s careers.)”

“Why is it that the work of this earnest but artless writer continues to enjoy such astonishing popularity? It’s not hard to understand why his books are widely assigned in middle and high school English classes; they are easy to read, they are honest in their portrayal of working-class Americans, they passionately support basic American values and principles even when they criticize particulars of American life. Whatever their literary shortcomings, they have an integrity to which young readers respond. But why do adults continue to read Steinbeck in such numbers?”

“Studies show that children who are read to from an earlier age have better language development and tend to have better language scores later in life. Getting children to grip pages with their thumb and forefinger improves their motor skills.”

“HarperCollins announced Monday that it was planning to make their listings of upcoming releases available only online, calling the current system both economically and environmentally indefensible.”