“In 2006, the once-genteel publishing industry learned to its dismay that it could no longer escape the relentless media coverage and Internet scrutiny that have become part of modern life. Although the book world has had scandals in the past, the furious pace and intensity of negative publicity in 2006 seemed to buffet publishers harder than ever.”
Category: publishing
Devil Wears Prada Conditions
Publishing has something in common with the fashion business. They both perpetuate sweat shops. “In both industries — fashion and publishing — the focus of gossip has always been on who was the original model for the book’s despotic boss. But anyone who has dealt extensively with either industry can tell you that, as nice as an individual boss may be, the system itself is designed as (and perpetuates itself as) a kind of ruthless (mostly) ‘female boot camp’.”
The Death Of Independence
“According to the most recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, retail sales at bookstores — independent and chain stores — were below 2005 levels in October for the fourth month in a row. At the end of October retail sales were down 1.8 percent for the year.”
Celebrities For Non-Readers
Celebrity memoirs are everywhere these days; they’re big business, whether the “author” has anything really to say or not. So who reads them? “By and large, it is this same market of non-readers who buy celebrity memoirs, at least at the trashier end. These people–mainly young women–don’t view celebrity memoirs as books, but as extended magazine articles.”
So Much For SASE
There are time-tested rituals for submitting manuscripts to literary magazines, including the “self addressed stamped envelope.” But “last August, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) unveiled Submission Manager, an online software system that makes submitting manuscripts a cheaper, less protracted process for writers, while offering greater efficiency to literary journal staffs.”
A History Incomplete
“Some 47 years ago C. Vann Woodward and Richard Hofstadter, two of the greatest names in postwar American historiography, laid out a plan for a multivolume history of the United States. The series, to be published by Oxford University Press, would be a grand summation of their generation’s understanding of American history, combining high politics with social and cultural history and bridging the widening chasm between professional historians and intelligent lay readers.” Half a century later the project is still only half done…
Monsters Of Publishing
A couple of new novels about monsters in the publishing business have publishing insiders speculating on the identities of the real-life figures…
Do-It-Yourself Publishing Leaves Home-made Behind
“Now, if mainstream publishers reject their work as too specialized, even the most Beatles-obsessed authors are finding audiences for their books by publishing them themselves. But don’t even think the phrase ‘vanity press.’ Many of these self-published books are lavishly produced and packed with original research that makes them invaluable to Beatles scholars and collectors, and some have been startlingly successful through online sales.”
The Last Major Printed Reference Work?
“Even a reference junkie like me, who reads Be-Br in the bath and compares old and recent Dictionaries of National Biography (DNB), must accept the march of progress and admit, tear in eye, that the fourth edition of Colin Larkin’s Encyclopedia of Popular Music (EPM), out this week at £555, is going to be the last major cultural reference work ever to be rolled out in print.”
New Harry Potter Title Revealed
It will be called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The announcement was made on the writer’s official website.