Category: publishing

America’s public libraries are under threat. “From coast to coast, budget strains and tax pressures are forcing cities to make hard choices about how to spend limited money, and libraries, much to many residents’ dismay, are taking the hit. Residents are left stunned and outraged at the thought of doing without a beloved national resource. Can’t check out books for the summer, log onto the Internet for free, listen to preschoolers giggle during story time or get help searching for a job? Incomprehensible.”

Two bright new library buildings in the UK are proving very popular. “In a development watched with envy by library authorities across the country, visitor numbers have soared at the new libraries in Gosport, Hampshire, and Brighton, East Sussex. Book borrowing has gone up too. The pattern supports the official view that the decline in library use is the result of financial neglect rather than an inexorable flight from reading.”

Publisher Harper Collins reports a 30 percent drop in profits. “The firm was hit by Sean Connery’s decision last month to scrap plans for an autobiography, and it has also been plagued by rumours of in-fighting among executives, which it strongly denies. Operating profits were down from £15.4 million to £10.7m in the year to June 2004, according to accounts published last week. Turnover was down slightly at £165.5m.”

Even well-established writers with great reviews are having difficulty getting their books sold these days. “If you speak to publishers about the sales of literary fiction – I mean we’re in real trouble in this country. Sales are shocking these days, even compared to 10 years ago. And publishers are seriously cutting back.”

“A recent spate of old-fashioned low-tech printed books have all abandoned traditional narrative for Internet terminology, using e-mails, chat-room dialogues and instant messaging instead of regular prose, chapters and verses. Authors say the use of e-mails is not simply a gimmick, but a way of reflecting the world they see.”

Did Michael Chabon invent a personal Holocasut history to “fashion his previously banal suburban persona into a more complex Jewish identity?” After stories on a book website and in the The New York Times, the charges get nasty…

Venezuelans are lining up in the country’s capital to get free copies of Don Quixote. The Venezuelan government is handing out a million copies to mark the 400th anniversary of its publication.

“Today’s corporate weather-makers hate “book-lovers”, as they sneeringly refer to them. They despise curious readers committed to the range and quality of what they buy, such as those who bother with books coverage in intelligent magazines or newspapers. Instead, extra resources will now go into snaring the fitful attention of affluent but apathetic semi-readers who, deep down, believe that, in the deathless words of Philip Larkin’s “A Study of Reading Habits”, “Books are a load of crap.” Ah, but those non-readers made an exception for The Da Vinci Code. So let’s have much more of the same brain-shrinking junk.”

“An American librarian, an imprisoned Saudi Arabian writer, a Turkish book publisher and a Gambian newspaper editor who was fatally shot last year were honored at the 2005 PEN Montblanc Literary Gala.”

“For the first time, print-on-demand companies are successfully positioning themselves as respectable alternatives to mainstream publishing and erasing the stigma of the old-fashioned vanity press. Some even make a case that they give authors an advantage — from total control over the design, editing and publicity to a bigger share of the profits.”