Category: publishing

“The internet has always been a magnet for bored people looking for amusement, but while some write a blog and others search for pornography, a growing number get their kicks by sabotaging high-profile websites. Any site that relies on well-meaning contributions from the public is vulnerable – MySpace, Slashdot and YouTube have all been victims – but Wikipedia is particularly susceptible because it is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit, including those whose sole aim is to undermine it.”

“Borders and Waterstone’s are in a bind. As critics argue, they ought to be able to present themselves as specialists, offering ranges that their supermarket rivals cannot match. But they are too large to afford to be seen to ignore the bestsellers. So they have to promote Peter Kay and Jamie Oliver and Martina Cole as well, even though they struggle to compete with the prices offered by Tesco and Amazon. The market, determined by discounts, compels them to lose money.”

“The Los Angeles Times has announced that it will merge its sunday opinion section (called “Current”) with the book review section beginning April 15, and that the paper will have more book reviews appearing throughout the paper as well, according to a press release.”

“It has become, in fact, the most popular area of nonfiction publishing and broadcasting. From People magazine to A&E’s Biography channel, the urge to interview, record, investigate, and speculate about real individuals has become insatiable — leading to heated debates about our right to privacy and the line separating fiction and nonfiction. Yet, despite the fact that biography has moved to the forefront of the arts today, appearing in every medium from biopics to blogs, the academy still won’t deign to touch it.”

“Getting a first novel published – and publicised – is harder than ever before. Once upon a time, a first novel could afford to be a dress rehearsal, a proving ground. That is no longer true. As Juliet Annan, founding editor of the Penguin imprint Fig Tree, says: The world of booksellers is such that you have to make an impact from the word go.”

“Long the province of the paranoid left and Christian right, apocalypse has moved indoors, and it’s going highbrow. Literary novels with end-of-the-world settings are surging at the same time as serious filmmakers engage a subject most often left to B movies.”

College writing programs are booming. “Instructors who long felt tethered in English departments, and relegated to teaching freshman comp or remedial writing, are increasingly running their own programs — and watching the numbers of majors skyrocket.”

The shop has seen declining numbers of visitors and sales. “With reserves depleted, a board meeting heard last month that, if the shop carried on making losses at the current level, it would have to close within two months. A decision had to be taken on whether to shut down or go public and hope that saviours would ride to the rescue. They chose the latter route.”

“The author’s son Christopher, using his late father’s voluminous notes, has painstakingly completed the book, left unfinished by the author when he died in 1971. The work has taken the best part of three decades, and will signify the first “new” Tolkien book since The Silmarillion was published posthumously in 1977.”

A California researcher has settled a dispute with he James Joyce estate over quoting from the author’s work. The case has been closely watched by intellectual property advocates and the world of academia. “I fought not just for Lucia and Joyce, whose words had to be taken out of my book, but for the freedom to consider what happened to them and for the freedom of others to respond to my ideas.”