Category: publishing

Two literary groups get the ax – the independent publisher Dedalus Books and the east London literature centre, Centerprise…

Audible has about 80,000 audio programs comprising almost 200,000 hours, and is the exclusive distributor of spokenword audio to iTunes, owned by one of Amazon’s competitors, Apple.

“We don’t actually want kids to be fully-fledged artists, stretching out language with all the weight of experience, often biting down on the bitter gall of that experience to give us something both astounding and unsettling. If a child were to write Lady Lazarus you’d faint. What we fall for in the verse of poets not yet in double digits is seldom the strength of their work but more often their ingenuous charm.”

Six writers from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt have been shortlisted for the first annual International Prize for Arabic Fiction. They were chosen from an “entry pool of 131 writers from 18 countries. The shortlisted writers win $10,000 each, and are now in the running for the final $50,000 prize, which will be announced during an awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi on March 10.”

Sales of Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader have exceeded expectations. And Amazon’s sales of digital contecnt has soared. While Jeff Bezos said that the majority of media sales (including books) are still made in the “physical world” (stores), that will change as the practice of digital downloads spreads and more people turn to digital delivery systems (Amazon).

“The Book Room on Barrington Street in Halifax opened for business in 1839 and survived two World Wars and the Great Depression… But the retail store couldn’t outlast big box bookstores.”

“Titlepage” will combine elements of “Apostrophes,” a popular French literary program; “The Charlie Rose Show” on public television; and “Dinner for Five,” in which a group of actors discussed their craft, on the Independent Film Channel.

Flapart is “fake book covers that feature tongue-in-cheek titles such as The Nutritional Benefits of Nose-Picking and Laser Eye Surgery at Home. The intentionally controversial dust jackets can either be used as an innovative form of gift wrapping, or simply as a way of striking up conversation during an otherwise mundane commute to work.”

Might the way to stop our atrophied attention spans becoming terminally distracted be to simply publish more short books?

“The book world has always had an invisible asset that makes up for what it lacks in outsize revenue and profits: the passionate attachment that its authors, editors and most frequent customers have to books themselves. Indeed, in this respect, avid book readers resemble avid Mac users.”