Category: publishing

Multiculturalism has been a defining goal for European societies for decades, but terrorism fears have recently caused many to question whether certain groups (namely, hardline Islamists) should have a role i western societies. For a generation of young Islamic authors living in Europe, it is more than an idle debate. “Until the literary world is fully integrated (both in terms of the authors out there, and what they write), and in light of the unnerving events that rattled the world this week, writers… wonder if they will continue to face questions about representation and authenticity ad nauseum.”

The publishing industry is a bit of a gambler’s paradise: after all, success depends on correctly guessing what the reading public will want to buy in the coming months and years. When you’re dealing with established authors with an existing audience, the game is fairly simple. But when you’re pursuing “one of the biggest prizes in publishing: a book by a new writer that catapults to enormous commercial success,” it’s a whole different story.

“The University of California is joining Google Inc.’s book-scanning project, throwing the weight of another 100 academic libraries behind an ambitious venture that’s under legal attack for alleged copyright infringement. The deal to be announced Wednesday covers all the libraries in UC’s 10-campus system, marking the biggest expansion of Google’s effort to convert millions of library books into digital form since a group of authors and publishers sued last fall to derail a project launched 20 months ago.”

Blogs are a great way to get noticed in the publishing world, and if the blog is anonymous, and has plenty of sex, well, you just might get offered a book deal by the end of the year. Don’t believe it? Meet Zoe Margolis. “Under her pseudonym, Abby Lee, she started a sex blog at the beginning of 2004, which is witty, moreish and incredibly explicit… The blog tootled along for about six months, and then suddenly went crazy, and was published as a book last week (for which she got ‘six figures’). The book is already in the bestseller lists.”

“Thirty years ago, with his native Lebanon going up in the flames of civil war, Harout Yeretzian, a Lebanese Armenian, came to Hollywood and joined his brother in founding a magazine devoted to the Armenian language and culture. One thing led to another. The magazine spawned a print shop, which spawned a bookstore, which spawned a small publishing house. Three decades later, the brother is gone. So are the magazine and the print shop.” But Yeretzian still has a bookstore, and through it he continues to pursue his mission: “to help his fellow Armenians maintain their ancient identity.”

Otto Penzler is fed up with Chick Lit. “Some years ago, there was a small movement to call private eye stories Dick-lit. It didn’t stick. But chick lit has, and what I don’t like is that it’s cynical. I don’t like cynicism, never have, partly because, like its cousin, pessimism, it’s too easy.There’s always reason to doubt, there’s always reason to fear the worst, but to what end? Negativism of all kinds is plentiful and, frankly, it’s getting really irritating.”

Britain’s Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has been asked to review and update student reading lists. The “review of English teaching, English 21, launched by the poet laureate, Andrew Motion, has provoked an occasionally furious debate about the merits or otherwise of prescribing texts. Much to the QCA’s surprise, some teachers consulted are against the plan to give them more flexibility over choice of books.”

The University of California has joined Google’s massive library digitization project. “UC is the fourth major U.S. university — along with Stanford, Michigan and Harvard — to contribute at least some of their library collections to the project. The New York Public Library and Oxford University are also allowing portions of their libraries to be scanned. The mammoth project, begun in 2004, is expected to take years to complete and could cost Google tens of millions of dollars.”

“Oprah Winfrey changed Michele Weldon’s literary life. But it took a little doing. The Chicago author and Medill School of Journalism prof’s first book, ‘I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman,’ a 1999 memoir, had just been published and she thought it perfect ‘Oprah’ material — so perfect that four times annually over the next three years, she rang up one of the show’s producers to gently pitch its worthiness.” The odds of succeeding as Weldon did are extremely slim. “But Oprah’s track record is too stunning, the stuff of lore, rife with publishing industry success stories. So authors keep doing what Weldon did: storming the compound — literally and figuratively — to gain notice.”

Starbucks is moving into selling and promoting books. “This is the next step of our entertainment strategy. Our plan has been to start with music, take the next step into film and add books as the third leg of the stool.”