Category: publishing

Why do we feel the need to pass artists such as Shakespeare under a magnifying glass for clues to their work? Such psycho-bios often sell better than the actual artist’s work. “The explanations of literary activity which are required by the market for literary biography tend to be made up from a dash of Freud, a handful of social aspiration, a scratching from Foucault’s armpit, and a willingness to entertain simple-one-to- one correspondences between fiction and life.”

There’s one problem with Google’s deal to put online millions of library books. “It is not at all clear that Google and these libraries have the legal right to do what is proposed. For work in the public domain, the right is clear enough. But for work not in the public domain, Google’s right to scan — to copy — whole texts to index is uncertain at best, even if it ultimately makes only snippets available. When permission has been given by the copyright holder, again there’s no problem. But when permission has not been secured, the law is essentially uncertain. If lawsuits were filed, and if Google and its partner libraries were found to have violated the law, their legal exposure could reach into the billions.”

The Book-of-the-Month Club is reinventing itself, updating to try to compete in internet age. “The popularity of Internet booksellers and the ubiquity of heavily discounted hardcover books at warehouse clubs and mass-market retailers have combined to make the Book-of-the-Month Club – and other general-interest book clubs – far less important in the selling of books in the United States.”

A Mississippi public library board has reversed its decision to ban Jon Stewart’s book “America” after waves of protest. “The board voted 5-2 Monday to lift the ban, and the book was returned to circulation in the system’s eight libraries Tuesday. “We have come under intense scrutiny by the outside community. We don’t decide for the community whether to read this book or not, but whether to make it available.”

Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown is being sued, accused of plagiarism in his best-selling book. “Author Lewis Perdue has brought the copyright action at a court in New York, claiming Brown lifted plot material from two of his books – The Da Vinci Legacy and Daughter of God – and used it in The Da Vinci Code, which has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. But Brown is already suing Perdue for making the plagiarism accusations.”

“Book publishing really lies somewhere between art and commerce – in some aspects it is a barely rational industry. While the big four publishers have half the British market, the rest is fragmented into hundreds of small players. Few who have much to do with books make a good living out of it – and this despite the fact that books published in English represent 27 per cent of the world’s share of titles! Most authors receive pitiful advances which are rarely earned out. Salaries among staff in publishing houses are notoriously low. And owners of imprints must mostly do it for the love, since it is an endemically unprofitable industry.”

Doctors in one county will be prescribing books for patients. “Those with symptoms of depression, anxiety or eating disorders will be referred to clinics where they will be prescribed books to read alongside support sessions with graduate mental health care workers. The scheme in Devon, which is the first of its kind in the UK, aims to cut waiting lists for more serious cases, reduce over-prescription of drugs and offer some form of treatment for patients who may otherwise receive none.”

“Many librarians believe they’re competing with and losing against search engines like Google, that for most users the convenience of a simple, clean interface outweighs the quality of the quality of the results. Whether this is true or not Google’s digital library project is an opportunity for libraries to remain competitive by working with the competition. For the sake of users, and their own future, libraries just have to make sure they’re taking advantage of the opportunity and not being taken advantage of.”

Librarians in two Mississippi counties have banned Jon Stewart’s best-selling “America (The Book)” because of a picture in it depicting the Supreme Court justices naked. “The book by Stewart and the writers of ‘The Daily Show,’ the Comedy Central fake-news program he hosts, was released in September. It has spent 15 weeks on The New York Times best seller list for hardcover nonfiction, and was named Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, the industry trade magazine.”