‘The Closest Thing…To His Usual Loin Cloth’ When Julian Pavia at Random House/Crown tells me he’s got something I might look at, I pay attention. He’s Andy Weir’s editor and sent me Weir’s The Martian during the run-up to its release. I recommend you read it before the October release of the film. You’ll… Read More
New Trajectory partnerships include PanMac UK ebook distribution to China
‘A relationship with new English language readers’ Boston-based Trajectory has announced a suite of new partnerships, capped by one that will take the Pan Macmillan UKcatalog into China. “China is a key focus for Pan Macmillan,” said PanMac’s international director Jonathan Atkins in a prepared statement, “and we are very excited by the potential for growth… Read More
#MusicForWriters: Anna Thorvaldsdottir, A Light Air Of Restraint
‘To Perform The Audio Visually’ As you’ll know if you’ve been following our Music for Writers series here at Thought Catalog, we seem to be in a golden era of new composition in contemporary classical music. And while New York City is generally recognized as the world center of this robust moment in musical development,… Read More
Booktrack's Paul Cameron: 'We want to immerse you, not interrupt, you'
‘Today, we have 2.5 million users’ Five years in — and with a new $5 million round of Series B financing in place — the New Zealand-based Booktrackis at that point at which a start-up begins to show staying power. Late last week, it was announced that the company has become a partner in the Google for… Read More
Do you fear reader analytics?
Just a day before we got the news this week that Authonomy was to be closed by HarperCollins UK, London-based entrepreneur Andrew Rhomberg had posted at Digital Book World his Fear of Data column. In that piece,Jellybooks’ Rhomberg writes: The availability of reading data is probably causing more angst than any other because it strikes at… Read More
#MusicForWriters: Matt Haimovitz’s Cello Solos Go Into ‘Orbit’
Four Hours: ‘A Small Part Of The Repertoire’ You could do worse than play a 1710 cello made by the Venetian luthier Matteo Goffriller, but what Matt Haimover now is doing on that instrument can come very close to explaining what we mean by an author’s “voice” in writing. He can stroll up on you… Read More
When rights go wrong: A #FutureChat recap
Post-Chatterie Following our #FutureChat on Is ‘out of print’ running out of time?, a couple of additional communications arrived, each worth note. From an author, an interesting point in a private communication about a possible role — and possible mishandling of it — for agents in the question of reversions of rights and contract reform in publishing. This author writes… Read More
After The Hype And Drama: Balancing Trad And Indie
‘Under The Right Conditions’ Germany is recognized as the third self-publishing market in size and activity. The United States and the United Kingdom are the first and second, respectively. And when Matting’s study of 906 authors asked them, 80 percent said they’d be willing to consider traditional publishing “under the right conditions.” Those “right conditions” for German-language authors,… Read More
With booksellers' pressure: DRM is now soft in Germany
‘An Ever-Widening Industry Consensus’ Today, most of Germany’s main publishing forces are, or soon will be, hard-DRM-free. This morning, we had the first reports from Buchreport: Random House Germany has joined the other leading publishers there, citing “an ever-widening industry consensus.” At The Bookseller, we have Anja Sieg’s report here. As of 1st October, Verlagsgruppe Random House has announced… Read More
When the page is broken: Who writes the books?
‘New Kinds of Authors, New Kinds of Books’: Four of them While it’s hardly the norm to introduce a book to you at its end, that’s actually a good place to start in talking about the author, designer and developer Peter Meyers’ Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience. Scheduled to chair a… Read More