BERLIN, Germany — For “ten years I have been in charge of this conference,”Helmut von Berg told the Publishers’ Forum assembly here Tuesday evening. “And I wondered what changed in that time.” The director of Klopotek, the publishing software company, von Berg paused with the timing that comes of a decade’s practice at conference-closing speeches. Then: “I had no immediate… Read More
The Muse’s Town Hall: Writing Literary for Digital
Steve Almond: “My overall sense is that authors have to do a self-inventory of why they write and what they want out of the arrangement — and then should decide how to deal with the brave new world of the digital infinite.” Christine Munroe: “I feel it’s just a question of timing, and a great domino… Read More
The Muse's Town Hall: Benjamin Samuel on Literature's Future
Benjamin Samuel: “I think we may start seeing more unconventional formats, literature in spaces that are mostly unexplored. Digital publishing has more potential than just an animated page-turn on your iPhone. In other words, digital publishing is much more than just ebooks. As writers experiment more with apps and other platforms (Shelley Jackson’s Instagram story,… Read More
The Muse's Town Hall: Looking for Literary in Digital Places
Eve Bridburg: “I don’t see online communities growing up around literary authors and books in quite the same way I see it happening for genre fiction and fan fiction. Where is the larger discovery platform for literary fiction? Will publishers keep publishing it if there aren’t readers? Where is the curation going to come from? Who… Read More
The Muse’s Town Hall: Jane Friedman on Literary in Digital Times
Jane Friedman: “Thoughtful, intelligent ‘literary’ work is doing quite well digitally if you step away from book-length or novel publishing and into journalism-driven or nonfiction-driven publishing…I wish there were a community aspect to it (maybe there will be), which the literary world needs. Where’s the literary person’s version of Wattpad? Does that even make sense? I’m… Read More
What If Boys Can't Find the Right (Reading ) Stuff?
The basic premise of what Nottingham-based author Jonathan Emmett is laying out here: The preponderance of women in the curation and presentation of so much of children’s material may have something to do with a perceived lack of content that’s as interesting to boys as it is to girls. Read More
London Book Fair to PubSmart: Are Publishers & Authors Getting Closer?
The non-aligned author corps these days is replete with people whose idea of value in literature seems to revolve around what Dan Holloway terms “the wild, the brilliant, the flamboyant, and the flawed.” And some of these folk seem determined to reject any chance that such edifying material might find its way to market through… Read More
At London Book Fair: Mind the Digital Gap
Publishing can no longer hope to come out the other end of the digital chute by simply creating more digital interpretations of print traditions. The time has arrived when what’s really being called for is digital origination, leveraging the power of digital to move this industry’s grasp of Hugh Howey’s story and Jonny Geller’s “individual experiences” down the road toward the new context imagined by the conference’s title. Read More
As London Book Fair Looms: Debates Natural and Not
It can almost seem you’re hearing people talk about different industries…as if our own debates inside the industry! the industry! were the point…as if digital weren’t bigger than publishing…as if what’s at stake here were really only a glowing plastic e-reader vs. a gorgeous hardcover print book. Read More
Hi Opens to the Public: Writing for Moderns
Craig Mod’s frequently gorgeous and always interesting online initiative called Hi is rolling out to the public. Mod’s discussion of his idea and intent has sometimes used the phrase “narrative mapping,” something that has taken on actionable reality in the intervening months. The idea is that people all over the world offer imagery and text from someplace on Earth. Read More