Category: publishing

For 15 years now, the Modern Language Association has seen its annual year-end conference dominated by “skirmishes between old-school traditionalists and the increasing powerful new breed of postmodernists, multiculturalists, feminists and queer-theory advocates.” But “the circus is looking pretty threadbare, and the ones trying to do the freak show aspect of it are looking silly now.”

There are more than 1000 literary magazines currently publishing. “That is more than at any time in history. Most of the magazines are geared toward specific audiences, with average readerships of 2,000 and annual budgets under$10,000.”

California is looking for a new poet laureate, joining 35 states that have designated poets. But what, if anything, does the job entail? “These jobs come with almost no job description and little if any pay, so we start from scratch and decide what we want to do and how to do it.”

A new book is published over the internet in the form of a series of emails. “Those who order the book receive 98 e-mail messages during a three-week period from a sender identified as “e-mail mystery.” Readers are then treated to the voyeuristic experience of reading Sam’s correspondence. As the plot thicken and Sam’s life is threatened, e-mails arrive in a sudden flurry. Then, just when readers worry about Sam’s safety, they have to wait for an update.”

The drive to digitize every book is a good thing, right? It will make information more easily available to more people. And yet, digital records fail to include some of the traditional book’s essential information. “The book as we know it carries within itself something more concrete: its own archeology. Dependent on ever-changing technology, e-books are relatively ephemeral; and although this need not be so, they tend to obscure their own origins and inner workings. Seeking to tame the ghosts of the past, the digital future may end up erasing its own history.”

Given how fiercely authors fight to make and then maintain their literary reputations, it’s amazing the odd things some of them say in interviews. Herewith, a compendium from the past year…

Mysteries top the list. “We’ve done book-buying surveys over the years, and it always comes out that mysteries are the first and romance is a close second. I do think this (list) just confirms that libraries are huge lenders of mysteries. Almost every one of the popular fiction (titles) is a mystery.”

It’s been well documented that the English-language market for books in translation has nearly dried up in recent years, with the increasing global dominance of American culture and declining American interest in literature in general. But now, the Association of American Publishers is attempting to jumpstart the translation market by offering $10,000 to any publlisher willing to release one of several translated Iranian novels. The money comes from a grant by philanthropist and Democratic power broker George Soros.

News that the Washintgton Post is buying Slate Magazine was greeted “less as a business transaction than as a loving pet adoption.” “Microsoft has been a terrific home for us editorially, but we’re very small, and they’re very big.”

“Immediately after it was announced that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince would go on sale in the USA and Britain on July 16, sooner than expected, stocks of its book publishers and some booksellers shot skywards.”