Thursday, May 19, 2011
Oprah she isn't.
 NPR posted an article last Monday about TV personality and best-selling author Chelsea Handler, who was recently given her own publishing inprint within Grand Central Publishing. Handler might seem like an unlikely literary success, but the numbers are undeniable: at one point in 2010, she had three books on the best-seller list, all at the same time. Labels: NPR, Publishing, TV
Monday, April 18, 2011
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The future of publishing?
 NPR has an article up on their "All Tech Considered" site about sci-fi writer Cory Doctorow's very 21st-century take on self-publishing. Doctorow's latest book, a collection of short stories called With a Little Help, is being published (and edited!) via a variety of cobbled-together online options. Fans can read a free e-book, but they can also buy print-on-demand paper copies, they can donate directly to the author, or they can buy one of the 250 hand-sewn, limited-edition hardcovers costing $275 apiece. Doctorow expects this experiment will net him between $70,000 and $80,000, but he's an best-selling author with a pre-established—and presumably tech-minded—audience. Something tells me this do-it-yourself approach isn't going to be catching on with other, less well-known authors just yet. Labels: Publishing, Sci-fi
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Down for the count
 PublishersWeekly recently posted an interesting article about chain bookstores' ongoing attempts to stay profitable during the economic downturn. Of the three major U.S. book chains (Books-A-Million, Borders, and Barnes and Noble), only B&N posted a sales gain in the most recent quarter—and that was due to strong online sales, which overcame a 2.6% loss in its retail trade stores. According to PW, the three stores are tweaking their floor layouts in various ways, including expanding bargain sections and non-book offerings, in an effort to respond to current demands. Frankly, I'm not sure how much (if any) of this will help... but at least no one is going gently into the good night, you know? Labels: Booksellers, Economy of Doom, Publishing
Monday, August 02, 2010
Seriously, dude? Thucydides?
 While checking out the Horn Book Blog, I followed a link to this Harvard Magazine profile of literary agent Andrew Wylie. I was mostly impressed by Mr. Wylie's seemingly colossal ego*, but I think he makes a good point about the future of e-books: the trashier the title, the more attractive its e-book version. I'm never going to give up buying printed books, but when e-readers drop down into the $50 range, I expect I'll start buying e-book versions of the authors on my B-list—you know, the titles you buy because you're too impatient to wait for a library copy, but you're unlikely to read twice. *Also the fact that he twice uses Shakespeare to disparage Danielle Steel. I'm not arguing the idea that Steel is a terrible writer, but Wylie's comparisons suggest that he is unfamiliar with the many, many genre writers who fall somewhere between the two. Labels: ebooks, Magazines, other websites, Publishing
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Bad omen?
 Hmm. Yen Press has announced that they'll be switching their monthly manga/manhwa anthology Yen Plus from print to a digital format. The last printed issue will come out in July, and there are some yet-to-be-announced content changes in the works. Yen Plus has always struck me as a risky venture (several big-name manga magazines have failed in the past few years) so I'm hoping this is just good business sense, not a grim sign about Yen Press's overall economic situation. Labels: manga, manhwa, Publishing, Yen Press
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Whoa.
 According to the Arts Beat blog at the Times, Sara Nelson, the editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, the main trade magazine for the book industry, has been laid off, along with an additional 7% of the staff. The layoffs are being described as a "restructuring", but it's pretty clear that this is further evidence of the way the publishing industry is suffering in the current economy. Depressing. We wish everyone affected by this shake-up the best of luck with their future endeavors.... Labels: Publishing
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NPR posted an article last Monday about TV personality and best-selling author Chelsea Handler, who was recently given her own publishing inprint within Grand Central Publishing. Handler might seem like an unlikely literary success, but the numbers are undeniable: at one point in 2010, she had three books on the best-seller list, all at the same time.
