“The company is essentially a book publisher, but instead of releasing whole novels by lone authors, it rolls out stories like a TV network: one “episode” a week, each penned by a different writer. Every installment, much like every episode of The Night Of, will take a little under an hour of your time, and for those who keep up with their shows on iTunes, the options to buy will be familiar.”
Category: words
Publishers Think They’ve Figured Out The Algorithm That Will Make Us Buy. So What Does That Mean For What Gets Published?
“A handful of startups in the US and abroad claim to have created their own algorithms or other data-driven approaches that can help them pick novels and nonfiction topics that readers will love, as well as understand which books work for which audiences. Meanwhile, traditional publishers are doing their own experiments: Simon & Schuster hired its first data scientist last year; in May, Macmillan Publishers acquired the digital book publishing platform Pronoun, in part for its data and analytics capabilities.”
Instagram Now Lets Users Ban Words. This Says Something Important About Our Evolution Of Language
“This is a cultural moment that is newly respectful of the individual experience, of the individual voice, of the individual truth. It is a moment that is grappling, belatedly, with the many flaws of mass media and monoculture; it is a moment that is respecting, finally, how varied people’s sense of the world can be. All of that involves, intimately, the words people choose to share that world with each other. In that landscape of fast-moving language, one person’s slur is another’s term of endearment. The regulatory body with the most authority to determine what will offend you is, in the end, you.”
Preserving Disappearing Languages From All Over The World – In One City
“[Toronto’s] roughly 2.8 million residents come from about 200 distinct ethnic origins and speak more than 140 languages and dialects. Of these, [linguist Anastasia] Riehl says, at least a ‘few dozen’ are endangered and several probably don’t even have proper names. “Large multi-ethnic cities like Toronto become the last context for these languages.'”
Gawker Media’s New Owners Delete Six Existing Posts, Staff Rebels
“[Editorial staffers and the new owners at Univision] fought over the decision to delete six posts from the embattled digital media company’s stable of sites … Also expected to be discussed at the meeting was staffers’ request that Univision indemnify them personally for stories published – a request that the media giant denied, sources said.”
Robert Gottlieb: My Life As A Reader
“Not since Max Perkins worked with Hemingway and Fitzgerald has there been a more admired editor than Robert Gottlieb. His has been, he would admit, a privileged and enviable life, which is really just another way of saying that it has been a life filled with books.”
Is Writing Just A Technology, Or Is It A Different Language From Speech?
“Arrival, the forthcoming sci-fi drama, is that rare bird: a Hollywood film featuring a linguist as the main character.” With that as a (quite relevant, as it turns out) jumping-off point, linguist Chi Luu argues that writing is far more separate from speech than most of us realize – and that the linguistic problem at the heart of this new movie (yes, there are spoilers) is just a logical extension of that difference.
How To Fix The Creative Writing MFA
“The current MFA studio model grafts an MFA program onto an existing English department without a studied consideration of what the degree could be. This is not surprising, since the MFA did not emerge naturally out of an English department curriculum.”
Why Not Reading Is Something To Be Proud Of
In 2011 more than 50,000 new novels were published in the United States alone. “The problem of abundance” is a problem for every person who has an internet connection, and it is a professional problem in every corner of literary study. Nonreading, seen in this light, is not a badge of shame, but the way of the future.
Book Critic: Why I Read Amazon Reader Reviews
“Here’s my semi-shameful secret: I like reader reviews. I often make a point of seeking them out. When reporters used to interview me on the subject, I’d feel obliged to note that you can find reviews on Amazon and (even more commonly) on Goodreads that are as considered, thorough, and well-written as anything that used to appear in your local newspaper. But actually I don’t care much about those reviews. I already know how people like me, people who read books professionally and with a particular set of aesthetic values, respond to a text. I go to reader reviews to see how the other half reads.”