Romance fiction is big big business, selling hundreds of millions of copies every year. So why does the genre get so little respect? “I think it’s partly because they’re cheap, and also because they’re considered disposable literature. And they’re almost exclusively read and written by women and so have never been taken very seriously.”
Category: publishing
Character Analysis
“A great deal of nonsense is written about characters in fiction – from those who believe too much in character and from those who believe too little.”
The World’s Most-Purchased Items Online? Books
“Polling company Nielsen Online surveyed 26,312 people in 48 countries. 41% of internet users had bought books online, it said. This compares with two years ago when 34% of internet users had done so.”
Publisher Judith Regan Settles With News Corp Over Firing
“The settlement spares both sides from what could have been a nasty trial. At the time of Regan’s firing, her attorney had promised ‘war,’ not an unrealistic threat from the famously temperamental publisher.”
Just Who Are Those People Who Review Books For Amazon?
Like celebrity bloggers and Wikipedia “Gnomes,” then, the Top Amazon Reviewer heralds the arrival of a curious hybrid: part customer, part employee. This feels like a loss.
Waiting (And Waiting) On A Da Vinci Follow up
“Now that Harry Potter — the only bigger publishing phenomenon of the age — is retired, no book has been as eagerly awaited as Dan Brown’s next novel, purported to be about freemasonry and the Founding Fathers. The problem is, it is still awaited…and awaited…and awaited.”
Are Crime Novels Easier To Write Than “Serious” Books?
Why is plot-driven popular fiction considered lesser than “serious” literature? “This is a strange time for the claim to be made, because the boundaries between the two sides of fiction – which we can loosely call literary and populist, although all of the terminology used in these debates tends to be pejorative – is visibly breaking down.”
Venerable Aussie Magazine Folds After 128 Years
“Australia’s oldest news magazine The Bulletin was axed on Thursday after 128 years — a victim of falling circulation. The Bulletin published some of Australia’s greatest writers.”
Literature’s New Refuge For Ideas
“If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best — and perhaps only — place to turn these days is sci-fi. Science fiction is the last great literature of ideas.”
Leading African American Book Chain Closes
The Karibu Books chain, based in the Washington, D.C., area and one of the few remaining retailers to specialize in books aimed at black readers, is closing after 15 years.