Category: publishing

Where are our new writers coming from? Some publishers think it’s blogs. “Sometimes publishers are interested in publishing elements of the blogs in book form; mostly they simply enjoy the blogger’s writing and want to publish a novel or nonfiction book by the blogger, usually on a topic unrelated to the blog.”

California is looking for a new state poet laureate. The post has been empty for two years after nominated poet Quincy Troupe withdrew from consideration for the job after a resume problem. “In addition to transforming the ordinary, applicants will be asked to traverse the Golden State for little or no compensation. A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman suggested that candidates who choose to forgo pay could earn a leg up in the selection process. ‘As you know, this is a very tight fiscal year. Quite possibly, a poet laureate may step up to the plate and volunteer their time. Wouldn’t that be wonderful’?”

Visitors to Juliet’s house in Verona are going to have to stop leaving notes on her door. “Written on post-it slips, the love notes are often attached to the medieval walls with chewing gum, creating damage and producing a rather disgusting view, according to Verona’s tourist council. After the cleaning early next year, Juliet will be given her own telephone number and email address. Lovers from all over the world will have to express their innermost feelings via text messages, which will be displayed on a giant screen inside the house.”

“Edgar Rice Burroughs Incorporated, the estate of Tarzan’s creator, has demanded that Victoria University Press stop selling copies of the humorous novel Tarzan Presley. Written by New Zealander Nigel Cox, it tells the story of Presley ‘raised by gorillas in the wild jungles of New Zealand, scarred in battles with vicious giant wetas, seduced by a beautiful young scientist’ who gets a record deal with Elvis Presley’s producer and has 30 No 1 hits.”

Tom Wolfe’s new book wins a prize… but not exactly a good one. The Literary Review gave Wolfe its annual Bad Sex award Monday for his best-selling novel I Am Charlotte Simmons. Judges said the book’s sex scenes were ‘ghastly … inept ..(and) unrealistic.’ The nearly 700-page novel is set at fictional Dupont University in Pennsylvania, chronicling the bright, naive Charlotte Simmons’ entry into a hedonistic world filled with heavy drinking and casual sex.”

We only seem to hear about plagiarism when famous writers get caught. But in academia, plagiarism flourishes. According to one survey, 40 percent of academics believe they’ve been plagiarized. But academia “discourages victims from seeking justice, and when they do, tends to ignore their complaints — a kind of scholarly “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. “It’s like cockroaches. For every one you see on the kitchen floor, there are a hundred behind the stove.”

A new computer model is proving accurate in predicting how books will sell. “Information about a book travels through the network of potential buyers in two possible fashions: exogenous and endogenous. Exogenous shocks come from sources outside the system they affect, like billboards or newspaper articles; endogenous shocks are made up of very small exogenous shocks that happen in a coordinated fashion, like word-of-mouth recommendations. The model predicts how sales will decline after they peak according to how the peak occurred.”

American publishers are under US government sanctions not to publish works by foreign writers in certain countries. “In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval. The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States.”

Disputes are ripping apart the British writers’ association PEN. “In one camp are the ascetics, who believe that PEN’s only purpose is its traditional one of working selflessly and frugally for persecuted writers around the world. In the other are the modernisers – decadents, say their critics – who envisage a rather more glittering future involving celebrities and media events. In both – as you might expect – are some of the most sharp-tongued people in Britain. The reluctance by those involved for the fighting to be made public is, for others, a further reason to be bitter.”

It’s Lord of the Rings, as named by voters in a national poll. “The book’s enduring popularity was confirmed last night when The Lord of the Rings was named Australia’s “favourite read” on ABC TV, its third victory in TV polls. It won in Britain and Germany. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was voted Australia’s second favourite, with the Bible third. The best-placed Australian book was Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet, which made fifth spot.”