Category: publishing

“Publishers, especially the purveyors of what some derisively refer to as ‘airport books,’ actually want you to judge their books by the covers. They’ve arranged the jackets with that very plan in mind… Imagery, fonts, type sizes and color palette conspire to telegraph whether the stuff inside is concerned with code-crackers and shoe phones, spirits and trapdoors or rich widows and pool boys.”

“A children’s story about a family of penguins with two fathers once again tops the list of library books the American public objects to the most… Overall, the number of reported library challenges dropped from 546 in 2006 to 420 last year, well below the mid-1990s, when complaints topped 750.”

And Tango Makes Three, “released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was the most “challenged” book in public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association.”

“Authors face a dilemma of the imagination today. The crux of this dilemma is the literary imagination’s relationship to the historical imagination.”

“Publishers have convinced retailers that stacks of books piled high in the aisles will attract customers and spawn bestsellers. It’s a leaky theory posing little risk for booksellers. If the books don’t sell, they’re only out the cost of shipping and handling the returns.”

“A new breed of female authors are, shall we say, predominantly famous for other things. Now, Coleen and Geri have joined Madonna and Katie Price on the bookshelves with their first offerings as children’s authors.”

“Venues for book reviewing seem to be increasing exponentially on the Web. And though online book reviewers in the past often seemed amateurish in the extreme, quality as well as quantity is improving all the time.”

Peter W. Olson, the chief executive of Random House and one of the most powerful figures in American book publishing, will step down in the next few weeks, according to two executives at Bertelsmann, the German media conglomerate that owns the division.

“For lower distribution academic presses, and self-publishing imprints, the benefits of a technology designed to remove almost all risk from the decision to publish lower profile titles has been welcomed with open arms.”

After 10 enviable years of sales, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books have fallen off the New York Times best-seller list for the first time.