Category: publishing

“An appeal to politicans’ hearts seems destined always to fail, so far as our libraries go, so I am going to have to be cynical about it and appeal to them on the grounds of the only thing they really seem to care about: votes.”

James Wood is an unsparing critic. “Even his detractors concede that such takedowns are the fruits of a love for the novel — of a certain sort. But what does it mean that the most storied magazine in American history has aligned itself with a critic who essentially rejects the premises of a broad swath of contemporary American fiction?”

A Canadian couple is suing 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi for pulling out of a commitment to collaborate on a book. “The suit is seeking $1.3 million US to cover the cost of writing the book which remains unpublished.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning US author Cormac McCarthy has won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.

Barnes & Noble says it won’t sell OJ Simpson’s book. Why? Because, store executives say, the book won’t sell. So what’s the book’s rank on Amazon as of Thursday? No. 7.

Second quarter profits were up $18 million. “Record breaking sales from J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ was the principal driver behind our comparable store sales growth in the quarter.”

A recent poll says that Britons’ most preferred job is being a writer. But it’s harder than it seems. “By all means, write, if you enjoy it. But, if you value your sanity – and that of any readers – keep it to yourself. Keep the dream; just don’t give up the day job.”

“I have been racking my brains to find a single non-smoker among the great English poets or novelists of the 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th centuries. Possibly, Keats had to lay off the pipe tobacco a bit after he developed tuberculosis. Otherwise, from Swift and Pope to Cowper and Wordsworth, from Byron to Charles Lamb, they were all smokers.”

A scholarly society is moving its publications from a scholarly press to a for-profit publisher. “Some object to the move from a university press to a commercial entity and fear a lessening of commitment to important scholarship that may not make money.”

“One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.”