Category: publishing

Liverpool is the UK’s Cultural Capital designate for 2008, and just to prove it deserves the moniker, the city is hosting its first-ever poetry festival this week. The event will include a reading in the crypt of the city’s central Roman Catholic Cathedral, as well as workshops for budding poets and readings by several of the city’s best-known poets.

Ask any college student or professor, and they’ll tell you that textbook prices are horrendously inflated, and that publishers are taking advantage of a captive group of consumers with no choice but to buy the books at whatever price. But the publishers insist that the problem is overblown, since students can frequently use the same book for multiple semesters, and most college bookstores will buy back used textbooks for up to 50% of their original cost.

Ted Kooser – who last week won a Pulitzer Prize – has been appointed to a second term as US Poet Laureate. “Kooser’s idea was to offer a free weekly poem to U.S. newspapers. The second poem, Jonathan Greene’s “At the Grave”, was posted Thursday. The Library of Congress said 24 newspapers signed up within the first few days of the project. The library gives the poet an office and expects a few readings and lectures in return. Kooser is due to lecture at the library on May 5. He receives a stipend of $35,000 for each term.”

A new report says that there are thousands of small publishers in America “earning between $1 million and $50 million on their own, but adding up to an estimated $11 billion market. Traditional studies released by the study group, the Association of American Publishers and others assume that the solid majority of book sales comes from the larger organizations, with the top 50 making at least $20 billion out of a $28 billion market. Wednesday’s report, titled “Under the Radar,” asserts that the industry is both larger and less concentrated than previously believed.”

Best-selling German author Frank Schätzing has been accused of plagiarizing “large chunks of his latest blockbuster from the internet. The book, The Swarm, is an apocalyptic eco-thriller which tells the story of how a mysterious undersea being known as Yrr incites the natural world to revolt against humans. It has been an extraordinary success, selling more than 700,000 copies in Germany. It has even been credited with saving the lives of several German holidaymakers who fled to safety after reading its vivid description of how the tide goes out before a tsunami. Yesterday, however, a German biologist accused Schätzing of “plundering” much of the material used in the book from his scientific website.”

One of Andrew Motion’s jobs as British Poet Laureate is to compose a poem to comemorate Prince Charles’ Royal wedding. “Every single time, it’s an impossible job. One’s not entirely clear why anyone bothers to do it.”

Hawking your self-published collection of poetry on the New York subway might not sound like a fun way to make a living. But for Brad Bathgate, aka Blue, it’s the only life he knows, and when you watch him work his magic on a subway car full of jaded, hostile New Yorkers, you start to believe that there just might be something to this unusual sales technique.

Simon & Schuster exec Rob Weisbach has been named to run Miramax Books. “Plans call for Disney to take over Miramax Books’ catalog and to keep the imprint going after the Weinsteins give up control on Sept. 30, 2007, the companies announced Wednesday.”

“With the advent of services like VidLit, which produces short, humorous, animated Flash films about books, authors have a new way to reach online readers. Because of the viral quality of online videos, some writers are finding success at the end of the broadband pipe…”

US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s win of a Pulitzer Monday will boost exposure and sales of his work. Kooser’s publisher Michael Wiegers said that, “in the wake of yesterday’s announcement, he received orders from book distributors for an additional 10,000 copies of “Delights,” which has already sold some 30,000 copies. “You’re looking at selling 40,000 copies of a poetry book in a world where you’d be happy if you sell 3,000.”