Funny how #FutureChat can change your mind. Camille LaGuire, whose beret-ed avatar is familiar to many of us in our weekly discussion from The Bookseller and FutureChat, started Friday’s chat by announcing: Not sure I have much to contribute about the Future of Enhanced books discussion on #FutureChat today. By later in the day,… Read More
Why That Ebook May Cost More Than The Hardcover
It’s Not Over ‘Til The Big Dog Barks Indie publishing is still growing and it seems that established publishing is at a standstill. Mike Shatzkin’s column of August 5 may be the one in which we someday remember hearing a new sermon, the beginning of the endgame. But Shatzkin is not delivering a benediction yet: This… Read More
'Why Wasn't I Consulted?!' — Beware Online Dragons In St. George's Clothing
Are You Sick Of The Publishing Crusaders Yet? In my recent Writer Unboxed essay about online anger among books people, several readers assumed that I was talking about anonymous people and trolls. I wasn’t. iStockphoto / MR1805 In Our CyberVillage: So Much Anger is about people in the publishing community who seem to be personally, continually… Read More
Gray Areas: ‘The Elements’ Of Good Book Apps
‘Programmers Need To Be Treated As Top Talent, Just Like Authors’ A funny thing happened on the way to digital books and ebook enhancement: We forgot that we knew what we know. Theodore Gray At the end of last week, we published an articulate essay at The Bookseller’s The FutureBook by developer and designerTheodore Gray. In… Read More
#MusicForWriters: Tristan Perich's Percussionists, Human And Not
‘Blur And Back Again’ When composer Tristan Perich puts his work Parallels on its feet, one of the results is something that Q2 Music’s Hannis Brown correctly identifies as familiar to distance runners: the play of endorphins in an athlete’s sensory fields. Brown writes: It’s music to which any runner can relate. Parallels‘s architecture melts from distinct texture… Read More
Two New Efforts In Publishing Diversity: ‘Learning From Each Other’s Narratives’
‘There Are So Many Reasons To Write’ We’ve joined the global conversation on the intersection of race and writing. But is it enough? These viewpoints echo that of Zed Books’ Crystal Mahey-Morgan, who told me in an interview for The Bookseller less than a year ago: “We need to move beyond rhetoric and good… Read More
#WDC15: Writer's Digest's Annual Conference
Hundreds of authors head into the ballrooms of New York City’s Roosevelt Hotel at Madison and East 45th this week for Writer’s Digest’s Annual Conference. There, many of them will woo literary agents in the confab’s huge Pitch Slam. And this year, the savviest of them will know exactly what moves those agents are looking for, thanks to… Read More
1.1 Million Copies Later: Go Mock A Watchman
‘I Told You So’ In under a week, Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman has sold more than 1.1 million copies in the States, according to HarperCollins, as reported by Sarah Weinman at Publishers Lunch. Don’t worry, there are 2.2 million more copies for you to buy, we’re told. In the UK, my associates at The Bookseller… Read More
'And We Are Outbound From Pluto': Twitter Is A News Medium
‘We Have Visited Every Planet In Our Solar System’ Before Tuesday (14th July), we couldn’t say that we human beings had in some way engaged with every planet in our solar system. Now we can. That’s one of the lines I got out on Twitter Tuesday evening — maybe you did, too? — as soon as NASA… Read More
50% Royalties On Ebooks, 5-Year Licenses: New Publisher Canelo
It’s the Canelic Arrival of the new digital press created by three familiar players in the UK market, publishing director Michael Bhaskar, m.d. Iain Millar, and technology director Nick Barreto. The fledgling company’s first three titles release today, the work of authors John Gapper, Chris Lloyd, and Martin Davies. Writing about the new effort in January, my… Read More