Category: publishing

Last winter Ronan Bennett serialized his latest novel in The Observer newspaper. Then he went abou publishing it as a book. “People were quite generous about the way they read a serial novel in a newspaper. But I’m not going to put a book out that will be scrutinised and read closely if it’s not the best I can make it. Do you want it now, or do you want it good?’ It’s something screenwriters say.”

Barnes & Noble execs have changed their minds and will stock OJ Simpson’s book after all. The book superstore had previously announced OJ had no place on its shelves. “We’ve been monitoring the pre-orders and customer requests, and have concluded that enough customers have expressed interest in buying the book to warrant stocking it in our stores.”

“It is a bit curious,that in this age of branding, both personal and corporate, publishing houses haven’t done more to create an identity for themselves and to get that identity out there — beyond literary agents, beyond book review editors, beyond the folks in the biz, and into the hands of the people who matter most to us: the readers.”

A book on penguins “topped the American Library Association’s annual list of works attracting the most complaints from parents, library patrons and others. Overall, the number of ‘challenged’ books in 2006 jumped to 546, more than 30 percent higher than the previous year’s total, 405, although still low compared to the mid-1990s, when challenges topped 750.”

“Every reader has a personal ethic for how to treat a book, a morality for what can and can’t be done to the physical object.” Is dog-earing a page a violation of the sanctity of the volume, or an easy way to hold your place? What about highlighting key passages, or writing notes in the margins? Or even (gasp!) throwing out an old book you don’t want anymore?

“Over 6500 books are left behind in Travelodge hotels throughout the year and are either returned to customers or donated to local charity shop. It is unclear whether the books are read before being abandoned or are simply discarded out of boredom.”

Some are debating whether UK public libraries should continue buying books. “We have to ask whether fiction should remain in libraries when most people buy books.” But Louise Tucker begs to differ: “There is an incredible assumption here that ‘most people’ have the means to pay for reading matter, similar to arguing, as I often think the government does, that ‘most people’ can afford private health care, so why bother supporting the NHS?”

It seems there is still much to be said about the Bard. “A typical year now sees around 1,500 new articles, 650 new books, 200 new editions, and 100 new doctoral dissertations devoted to Shakespeare. By rough estimate, that translates into 30 new pages published per hour, around the clock, year-round.”

“The command post is a set of Manhattan publishing offices, and the foot soldiers include Joan Didion, Seymour Hersh, Bob Woodward, Anna Quindlen, Alex Kotlowitz, Paul Hendrickson, Samantha Power and Bill Walton. They are going on David Halberstam’s book tour for him. Five months after Mr. Halberstam’s death in a car accident on April 23, some of this celebrated journalist’s closest friends and colleagues will be banding together to cover different legs of a nationwide publicity tour for his final book.”

“Sales of audiobook publishers increased 6% in 2006, to $923 million, according to the latest industry sales survey conducted by the Audio Publishers Association. The survey found that consumers continue to migrate to the CD and downloadable formats while leaving cassettes behind.”