Category: words

“Whether or not Jeff Bezos knew it – and any educated guess is that he did – Hachette was going to decline that proposal. And as Amazon knew well, the authors and agents themselves had no power to take it up on the deal.”

“The reason for the mass retraction is mind-blowing: A “peer review and citation ring” was apparently rigging the review process to get articles published. You’ve heard of prostitution rings, gambling rings and extortion rings. Now there’s a “peer review ring.”

The retailer suggested that both Amazon and Hachette forgo “all revenue and profit from the sale of every ebook until an agreement is reached”, saying this might “take authors out of the middle of the Hachette-Amazon dispute (actually it would be a big windfall for authors) and would motivate both Hachette and Amazon to work faster to resolve the situation”.

“Not all typing is writing, and not all writing is typing; writer’s block subverts far more than the first sentence. Straightforward creative paralysis, or the inability to start typing, is merely the most literal-minded definition.”

“Byliner, which launched in 2011, was one of the darlings of the literary startup scene … Its original mission was to publish original e-singles, both fiction and nonfiction, and also to create a sort of archival home for journalists on the web.” Do the company’s problems “mean that longform journalism on the web is doomed? Or are Byliner’s problems specific to Byliner?”

The darnedest things turn up from Freedom of Information Act requests: the Directorate of Intelligence’s Style Manual & Writers Guide for Intelligence Publications (eighth edition, 2011). “As revealed in the manual, the CIA is a prescriptivist scold, a believer in the serial comma, and a champion of ‘crisp and pungent’ language ‘devoid of jargon’.”

“Rowling’s millions of fans will pounce on the glimpse the novelist has provided of the wizard’s adult life, which sees Harry reunited with Ron, Hermione and their friends at the final of the 2014 Quidditch World Cup in a 1,500-word piece for her website Pottermore.”

“‘Shocking’ new statistics … show that the number of authors able to make a living from their writing has plummeted dramatically over the last eight years, and that the average professional author is now making well below the salary required to achieve the minimum acceptable living standard in the UK.”

“As one of our greatest living writers has his work lifted into the ivory tower, let’s reflect on how it’s the light, not the darkness, that keeps us going back for more.”

“I casually hate, in equal amounts, Ender’s Game, The Lovely Bones, Prep, and everything written by Stieg Larsson.”