Category: publishing

There seems to be new interest in the rules of grammar. So how come, and why now? “This new passion for grammatical rigour indicates a cultural sea change – in this country, any road. I’m not sure what kind of sea change it indicates in Hong Kong.” Maybe it’s a simple as wanting to impose a little more order on the world, rejecting the idea that perhaps there are no right answers…

Twenty-five-year-old Nigerian teacher Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been chosen for the short list of this year’s £30,000 Orange award, “defeating more than a dozen highly tipped and experienced authors. Adichie is up against the Booker prizewinner Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, Gillian Slovo’s panoramic vision of communist Russia, The Ice Road, and three other novels.”

Self-published print-on-demand books are becoming more and more popular with writers. It’s all about control. “Why do all the work for a paltry 10 to 15 per cent when you can make triple that or more? Authors today like to be in control of their own destinies. The thought of a big publishing house changing their title, dressing the book or rearranging text is unacceptable.”

What determines whether a book will endure or be considered great? “It comes down to relevance, what people are looking for today and how they can apply what the author is talking about to their lives.”

Timbuktu is legendarily at the ends of the earth. “But it is here that some of the most astonishing developments in African intellectual history have been occurring. In recent years, thousands of medieval manuscripts that include poetry by women, legal reflections and innovative scientific treatises have come to light, reshaping ideas about African and Islamic civilizations. Yet even as this cache is being discovered, it is in danger of disappearing, as sand and other grit are abrading many of the aging texts, causing them to disintegrate.”

Why is it that poets die younger than most other artists? A new study is revealing: “Overall, poets lived an average of 62.2 years, compared with nonfiction writers, who lived the longest at 67.9 years. Playwrights lived an average of 63.4 years; novelists, 66 years. The differences between poetry and prose were pronounced among Americans, where poets lived an average of 66.2 years, and nonfiction writers lived an average of 72.7 years.”

Readers of online newspapers are used to their favorite publications suddenly deciding to charge for access to certain stories. But The Onion? The satirical newsweekly launches a new subscription-based site this week, offering readers more content and no ads in exchange for $7 per month. In addition to the standard content that appears in the paper’s print edition, the premium site will allow staffers to be more experimental, and to develop animations, slide shows, and other web-based projects that wouldn’t necessarily work on paper.

“Sarah Wardle, 34, has become poet in residence at Premiership club Tottenham Hotspur, in north London. The published poet and university lecturer produces pieces which are inspired by the club, its ground and the supporters.”

A new electronic book reader mimics the look of paper. “The quality of the display will come as quite a shock to any seasoned user of mobile devices; it looks more like paper than the computer screen it is. The closest comparison is to think of old-fashioned ink on pulp you’re likely holding now, unless you’re reading this online, in which case the Librie looks far better. In fact, as it’s a reflective screen, it looks the same whether you read it indoors or out.”

Is the socially conscious novel a dead genre? Whatever happened to the idea that a book can change the world? Are authors so intent on their own characters that they can’t be bothered to make their plots politically relevant to our increasingly dangerous world? Ray Conlogue is only asking, but modern authors seem increasingly hostile to the notion that they could actually advance political ideas or social agendas with their works of fiction. These days, novelists are perfectly within their rights to spend hours working on behalf of whatever causes they support, but to put the crusade to paper would apparently cross some invisible line of decorum.