Category: publishing

“Even though Americans have bought 11 million copies of the latest epic adventure, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and the book remains at number two in the Publishers Weekly sales chart, Scholastic’s adoption of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’s most famous pupil is causing it financial grief. Stacks of unsold copies are collecting dust in bookstores and warehouses across the US, and Scholastic – the world’s largest distributor of children’s books, and best known in the UK for Clifford the Big Red Dog – is bracing itself for an avalanche of returned copies.”

“Following in the tradition of policy-changing books like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed, Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers, published in Australia four weeks ago, was cited by that country’s Environment Minister in an announcement yesterday that the government will officially recognize and address global warning as a growing threat. Now the book’s American publisher, Grove/Atlantic, hopes it will prompt U.S. policymakers to do likewise.”

It may not be on the radar of most of the publishing industry, but a war for the hearts and minds of comic book readers is raging, pitting purveyors of traditional superhero-themed serials against the increasingly highbrow authors of book-length graphic novels. Increasingly, the highbrows are winning, and many comic sellers say that the old guard has only itself to blame. “[Superhero comics are] not being written for the traditional 13-year-old boy any more, but for a 40-year-old who wants to read what he read when he was 13… It’s still all guys in tights pounding each other.”

Speculation about Shakespeare – who he was, what he did, even whether he really existed – has become a profitable literary subgenre, with new books constantly being released to propound ever more unbelievable theories of the Bard, and others written expressly to dismiss such pie-in-the-sky ideas. It’s actually become difficult for a casual reader to find a straight-ahead, informative, and engaging biography of the playwright, in the same way that it is hard to find a book featuring an objective dissection of American foreign policy under George W. Bush. But “amid all this specialized debate, there is also a steady flow of less agitated books intended for the general reader, including three particularly insightful and well-written ones in the last year or so.”

Microsoft is joining the online digital book-scanning race. But “instead of forging its own path in the book-digitizing business — a wilderness of tricky copyright laws and technical challenges — MSN is joining a group already at work in the area. The division will align with the Open Content Alliance, which is backed by Yahoo! and aims to initially focus on scanning and digitizing classic books not bound by copyright restrictions.”

A study by Time, Inc, “the world’s largest magazine publisher, finds a new, noticeable slide in men’s magazine usage, while women’s usage is holding steady. A mere five years ago there was no gender gap. Time Inc.’s research found that men spend more time with new media than women, which may account for the decline. Thus the distortion of long-held media habits continues.”

To counter a slowdown in sales increases, Amazon is extending its free shipping offer in the UK. “Amazon said growth this year would be between 13% and 24%, below the 31% recorded last year.”

Simon & Schuster would like to sell more books to the 20-something crowd, and its new imprint, SSE, is taking an unconventional route towards that end. SSE’s publishers don’t spend their time at international book fairs, scouring the booths for the next hot author. They’re more likely to seek out creative and interesting individuals who’ve never written a book in their lives, and cajole them into giving it a shot. Call it Pop Culture Lit, call it amateurish dreck, but one thing is sure: SSE is making money.

“Canterbury could be home to a vibrant community of poets sharing their thoughts over a cup of coffee or glass of wine before leading a workshop or giving readings of their work to the public. The idea of a permanent building for poets and their work which would have an all-year-round programme of performances and workshops, is based on the French idea of ‘maisons de poésie’: ‘houses of poetry’ that exist throughout France and have spread across the French-speaking world, from Quebec to Morocco. The facilities within each maison vary, but generally encompass a performance space, a publishing or printing house, a library and information resource for poets and researchers and a cafe or bar. Some also boast residential accommodation to put up visiting poets or house a poet-in-residence.”

Two writers have sued da Vinci Code author Dan Brown. “A trial will begin on 27 February in London to hear the claim that Brown stole Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh’s idea that Jesus had a child. They are suing Random House, claiming the bestseller lifts from their 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.”