Larding On The Advice According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 38 percent of American adults are technically obese (with a body mass index over 30), up from 35 percent in 2011-2012 and 32 percent in 2003-2004. That’s Robert Paarlberg at The Washington Post in a new commentary, Why Can’t America Get Its… Read More
SELF-e And The World’s Authors: Is English Our Lingua Franca?
‘Keep Calm And Study English’ “Since the smashing success of the first Harry Potter novel—which was a No. 1 bestseller in Germany in its English version at one point—we have evidence of English, as a reading language, to be a global phenomenon.” Rüdiger Wischenbart is the Vienna-based publishing consultant who produces the Global eBook Report and directs… Read More
Publishers And Authors: Inviting Them To The Same Party
Every Job In Publishing Depends On Authors How is book publishing divided today? Let’s not count the ways. Outsiders looking into this beleaguered industry, however, might be surprised at the reticence many authors and publishers can have about each other. Maybe about being around each other. Meeting each other. Talking more than friendly chitchat or… 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
Gender Bias: Are You Aware Of Yours?
Just When You Think You’re Enlightened Now backpedaling in an almost comic retreat, officials of South By Southwest (SXSW) triggered a storm of controversy when they canceled two panels relative to online harassment such as the GamerGate community is infamous for. Amid searing criticism and cancellations by would-be SXSW-goers, SXSW Interactive chief Hugh Forrest issued an… Read More
Frankfurt Focus: YouTube, BookTube…PublisherTube?
Wide-Eyed And Bookish In the United Kingdom, Zoe Sugg—known as Zoella to her huge fan base—has pulled off the kind of book-sales numbers that most authors and publishers will never see. Her first book, Girl Online, became the biggest seller in its initial week of any novelist’s debut since BookScan began its data-gathering efforts. What that… Read More
Calling For Updated Writer-Payment Practices: Authors Guild & Society of Authors
‘By Forcing The Issue In Book Contracts’ The US Authors Guild is making common cause this month with its counterparts across the Atlantic, the Society of Authors. These are lead advocacy bodies for the creative communities of the world’s two largest trade-publishing markets. And the Guild and the Society are speaking with unusual harmony, candor, and… Read More
Why Do Book Releases Take So Long To Cross The Atlantic?
Delayed Publication Dates Hurt Sales The onslaught of the autumn conference and trade-show season in publishing has meant, at times, more travel than reporting. It’s a mad scramble from one bad wi-fi service to another, really. Sometimes the missing bandwidth has to do with mental exhaustion and other times it has to do with sputtering… Read More
Setting A Compass: Those FutureBook Manifestos In A Storm-Tossed Industry
Sinking Into The Pubslush Years into publishing’s encounter with the digital dynamic, it’s not as if anything is holding still, is it? A kind of heaving grace is about the best you can find on some days in this deeply shaken, tech-swept industry. Every other week, my colleague Jane Friedman and I find ourselves looking… Read More
#MusicForWriters: Jodie Landau In Iceland, Romancing ‘You’
you of all things by Jodie Landau and wild Up ‘You’re The Choice I Make’ Let me offer you some artful goosebumps. This is a man at 23 speaking to you about what happens when he sings his music: All of my pieces are from the “I” perspective sung to “you.” And while it is… Read More