One of the things that makes the 2015-2016 transition interesting in the creative corps is a subdued, reflective, sometimes exhausted, and often pensive mood. A lot of it revolves around marketplace fatigue. And it might not be helping that a one time-honored relationship—that of writer and editor—seems to be changing, for both parties, to what is… Read More
FutureBook's chairs, warming up with questions
Conference update: Bookings close this weekend for FutureBook 2015, hurry to get one of the remaining seats at Mermaid London for the event, which is a week from today, 4th December. Our hashtag for that one: #FutureBook15 And on Monday (30th November), follow speakers and delegates at Author Day on hashtag #AuthorDay, the kickoff to The FutureBook 2015… Read More
Reader Analytics: Not All Authors Want To Know
Your Soul Vs. Data? When Jellybooks’ Andrew Rhomberg wrote at Digital Book World recently about publishers having a Fear of Data in an age of digital metrics, I thought that taking that issue to authors would be a worthwhile exercise. And I tried it out on some trusted colleagues by making it the “Provocations in… Read More
When Authors Yell ‘Everybody Into The Pool!'
What Writers Say To Agents After The Party Many types of comments are generously added to articles, of course, here at Thought Catalog and in other places. It’s a form of sharing, after all, still relatively new in human correspondence. The closest thing in the past might have been those Letters to the Editor in… Read More
#MSWL: Agents And Editors Calling Out Requests — To Authors
‘Play It Again, Sam’ For a long time, most author-agent communications on the front end have gone just that way — author to agent: the query letter. The query letter is so daunting for many writers that there are whole courses offered simply on how to write a good query letter, never mind the damned… Read More
An industry divided? In digital we trust — some of us
It’s not as if we haven’t seen opposing viewpoints — along with rising and falling fortunes — during publishing’s encounter with the digital dynamic. Some of the main divisions of variously rivalrous perspective include: eBooks vs. print, Online bookselling vs. bricks and mortar, Apps vs. ebooks, and immersive ebooks vs. enhanced, Traditional publishing vs. self-publishing for authors,… Read More
'Print books are more like decorations': A #FutureChat recap
Could ebooks and print be friends instead of enemies? Having heralded The noise and fury— where he wrote, “Booksellers are back! The print book is on the rise! The ebook is dead!” — The Bookseller editor Philip Jones then returned Friday with classic irony in Surprise, surprise: Defying what we sometimes read in the wider… Read More
A New Architecture Of Algorithms: Could Trajectory Make Books ‘Discoverable’ At Last?
‘To Read More Books In A Similar Vein’ As the book publishing industry heads into its first major conference of the year this week — Digital Book World (hash it #DBW15 with us) in New York City — we learn now that we won’t be seeing one late-breaking major development on the program. And that’s not the… Read More
#PorterMeets Alastair Nash: 'Barriers falling'
Alastair Nash is among featured speakers who will bring especially astute messages to publishing from other, nearby sectors on Friday (14th November) in Europe’s busiest publishing conference, The FutureBook , at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster. Bookings will close Tuesday the 11th, so hurry to secure your seat. We are fond of… Read More
George Berkowski's FutureBook Conference podium warmer
The Bookseller’s The FutureBook 2014 Conference programme on 14th November promises to have the widest scope and most inquisitive bent yet, in terms of signalling digital directions ahead. Keynote commentary will come from not only from author and entrepreneur George Berkowski, but also from WGSN’s Carla Buzasi, and — in conversation with Philip Jones — Penguin Random House’s Tom… Read More