Category: words

“When the majority of Frankfurt finalists were traditional publishers and best-selling authors, we saw it as missed opportunity. At that point we decided to step in and do something for the independents who do offer quality work but don’t have the finances to promote them.” – Wired

The e-book publishing community thought it was finally going to receive some overdue recognition at the first annual International eBooks Awards ceremony last week in Frankfurt. That is, until the list of finalists was announced. “Almost all of the books on the shortlist were by acclaimed print authors from big publishing houses The controversy highlights some pressing issues for e-publishing – Will e-books offer a way for writers who’ve been snubbed by the big houses to find success marketing their books directly to readers? Or will e-publishing simply present the same books and authors currently found in bookstores, only in a different, less tangible form?” – Salon

The world of popular culture is filled with profanity. But you’ll never read any of that included in newspapers’ accounts of pop music events. Isn’t the absence of same leaving out a part of the story? “Do readers really think that the sight of an f- over their morning coffee will have them unwillingly rubbing shoulders with Satan? Will an s- send them spiraling downward into a sweeping, swirling eddy of moral despair?” – San Jose Mercury News

Publishing has gone to hell, says a senior publisher. And why? “Five major conglomerates control 80 percent of American book sales,” he says, speaking of Bertelsmann, the mammoth German firm that owns Random House; Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.; Time Warner; Disney; and Viacom/CBS. In 1999, the top 20 publishers accounted for 93 percent of sales.” – Washington Post

“One of the complaints often levelled against Britain’s premier literary prize is that it functions as a kind of club, nominating a certain kind of ‘literary fiction’ chosen from a limited pool of potential ‘Booker’ writers. Deliberately or not, this millennial short list has turned its back on a number of established writers, any one of whom might, in another year, deserve a place on some other ideal Booker shortlist. – Daily Mail & Guardian (South Africa)

E-books are poised to transform the infrastructures and revenue structures of the publishing industry, but can the developments really be called a “revolution?” “These new technologies will alter the way books are transmitted, but the author’s task will remain essentially the same as when Homer sang the Odyssey and Dickens presented his novels, chapter by chapter, before enchanted listeners.”- New York Review of Books

“Gutenberg’s printed paper book will continue to hold its own,” said an organizer of the Frankfurt Book Fair, dispelling fears that we’ll soon be curling up to read e-book screens. – Yahoo! News (Reuters)

Stephen King said if 75 percent of those downloading chapters of his cyber-novel didn’t pay $1 a chapter he would stop offering it. So far fans are paying. But now King has doubled the price of a chapter to $2. – Wired

Forty German writers gather to talk about a “renaissance of narration” and discover they have a hard time pinning down what “reality” is.  – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung