Category: publishing

If you’re in the habit of skimming the bestseller lists, you’ve probably heard of Jodi Picoult. If you’re someone who shops for novels in the displays at the very front of bookstores, you’ve almost certainly read one of her books. And if you’re a book critic, you likely despise her. And she’s really perfectly fine with all of that.

The eBook revolution has been an excruciatingly slow-developing matter, but Amazon’s Kindle reader is helping more readers dip a toe in the new technology. “Publishing officials are reluctant to discuss sales figures, but say that they have seen double digit increases in ebook sales since the Kindle’s release, and renewed interest in downloads for the Sony Reader.”

Virago Modern Classics is a UK institution, a bastion of neglected female writers whose novels have delighted generations of women. “The story of Virago was not always a happy one. In the early 1990s, the company struggled financially… But in 1995, it was sold to the company that owns it still – Little, Brown – and its turnover is now £5 million.”

“Among other things, Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, The Enchantress of Florence, is a hymn to the creative and destructive power of female beauty.” And, um, not to be indelicate, but this wouldn’t have anything at all to do with the fact the Mr. Rushdie was recently divorced from the undeniably beautiful Padma Lakshmi, would it?

The internet age may not have had as profound an impact on the world of books as it has had on music, but podcasting and downloadable media have dramatically altered the way authors market themselves. Several authors without major contracts have used free online distribution of their work to build an audience large enough to make them more attractive to publishers.

A three-day poetry conference at Atlanta’s Emory University has “coincided with the first public exhibition of what many scholars believe to be the most important collection of English-language poetry in the world: the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, which Emory acquired in 2004.”

“Robert S. Miller, a veteran of the New York book world and the founder of Disney-owned Hyperion Books, is leaving that post to run HarperCollins’ new Internet-driven publishing division, HarperCollins announced today. He will begin his job next week at the London Book Fair and will answer directly to Jane Friedman, HarperCollins’ chief executive.”

Bloomsbury, the independent UK publisher that stumbled on the Harry Potter series and catapulted itself to international status on the back of the boy wizard, is hoping that the end of the series won’t mean a return to obscurity. “As well as discovering new authors – including, it hopes, the next Rowling – Bloomsbury seeks to make more of its archive.”

“The shortlist for the world’s largest literary award, the International Impac Dublin prize, was announced today with a selection of eight novels that further reinforce the prize’s already strong international credentials… The selection extends to books from Spain, Sri Lanka, Israel, Russia and Algeria.”

“Organizers announced Tuesday that the purse for the annual fiction-writing honour would increase to $70,000 — $50,000 for the winner and $5,000 to each of the four other finalists.