Category: publishing

A London bookseller came up with the perfect place to launch the new Harry Potter book this weekend – the city’s central King’s Cross train station, where Harry himself catches a train to Hogwarts School. But after the terrorist attacks on the city’s subway last week, one of which occurred at King’s Cross, the event is being moved out of central London entirely.

Chris Cleave’s first novel Incendiary was supposed to launch last week in Britain. But the book is about a terrorist attack on London, and the book’s cover art depicts the attack. The book was hastily withdrawn from shelved after the real attack. Now Cleave is appealing to readers to tell him whether to continue to promote the book or not.

Tired of reading to your kid? Now there’s a website that will do it for you. “One More Story is a new online library where children can choose a book – complete with narration, highlighted text, and the book’s original illustrations – and listen as they read along on the computer.”

A Canadian judge has ordered the 14 people who were mistakenly allowed to buy copies of the new Harry Potter book this week not to divulge anything about the story. “The book was sold to 14 people who snagged a copy of J.K. Rowlings’ much anticipated “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” when it landed on shelves last Thursday at a local grocery store. The book, officially set for release this coming Saturday, has been shrouded in secrecy and its debut has been highly orchestrated to enable everyone — readers, reviewers, even publishers — to crack it open all at once. It’s the sixth in Rowling’s seven-book fantasy series on the young wizard.”

There are plenty of big questions to ask about Google’s library digitization project, writes Christopher Allen Waldrop. There’s the privacy issue for one. “The fight’s just beginning and no one can say how long it will go on or how it will end. Google’s partners need to get their common sense back and take this opportunity to start asking the hard questions about what the Google Library Project means for libraries, their patrons, and the future. It’s the one area where the problem is not too much information but too little.”

What are the odds of making it as a successful writer? “1 in 380. Or, if you tweak the numbers to allow for a range of error, 1 in 200 to 1 in 500. You’ve gotta admit those aren’t exactly encouraging. Would a pharmacist go to school if the odds were less than 1 in 100 they would get a job when they get out? Writers have it worse than Division 1 college football players vying for slots in the pros, and “way worse than (the odds) Miss America contestants face. And they get to flaunt cleavage.”

Writing prizes are on the increase. “Last week, Kirkus Reviews launched an annual competition for unpublished first novels and short-story collections with the winner receiving a book contract with the prestigious publisher Little, Brown. In May, two arts groups in the United Kingdom announced the New Writing Ventures Awards that, each year, will distribute $104,000 in prize money to unpublished authors. Some $9.8 million in prize money was awarded last year in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, an increase of more than $900,000 from the previous year.”

Why are even jaded older teenagers anxiously awaiting the latest installment of Harry Potter? “It’s a delicious juxtaposition. They are reading about Harry, who is charged by the Ministry of Magic with underage sorcery, while they are careful not to be caught for underage drinking. Teens whose parents have found beer store receipts and seized their fake ID are asking mom for a ride to the bookstore Friday to be among the first with their own copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. They want to engage again in that other world that makes “walking to the cottage at night scarier.”

“The US government says it’s not interested in nosing around libraries, and an expensive study would appear to confirm that claim. So what’s the big deal? Why are so many groups, from the American Library Association to a bipartisan collection of members of Congress, so opposed to Section 215? Last month, the U.S. House approved a measure barring the Justice Department from spending money on library and bookstore searches under Section 215. Are these opponents of 215 ‘soft on terrorism,’ as some Bush administration members charge? Do they want to provide a “safe haven in bookstores and libraries”? Well, no.”

The religious book phenomenon is looking like it has more staying power than many in the publishing industry believed. “The growth of Christian books outpaced the adult trade category in 2004, with sales expected to soar in coming years… Precise reasons for this jump in interest are hard to pin down, although the phenomenon coincides with the rise of evangelical Christianity and general anxiety over terrorism and the economy… Beyond that, Christian bookstores enjoy a special relationship with customers. The stores tend to blend a bit of ministry with retailing.”