Even in the Battle for the Showroom, odd alliances may already be springing up. Barnes and Noble has issued a powerful condemnation of Amazon, claiming the Internet retailer has “undermined the industry as a whole and prevented millions of customers from having access to content…as they continue to pull content off the market for their own self interest.” But in an unexpected turn, authors may be in the first wave B&N has to fight. Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
There’s something about the stance of writers in the publishing community right now that isn’t quite what it should be. I don’t have to get too specific in describing this. It’s never more evident than at this time of year when two of our biggest conferences are choreographed to pass in the night. Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
Your hot seat awaits at the Writer’s Digest Conference and Digital Book World Conference in New York. Not since Margaret Mitchell fanned those other flames has the industry gathered in so superheated a salon of controversies for the kickoff of its annual ConfabWorld season. Can’t be there? No problem. Keep these hashtags handy: #wdc12 and #dbw12. We’ll be sure some smoke gets in your eyes. Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
Today, it wouldn’t hurt our congregation of publishing to catch a church-window reflection of how we look engaging in one industry-wide panic after the next. Our energetic knees-up exercises of feverish fellowship seem so frequent nowadays that we might as well schedule them. Plus: Why “The Joy of Books” is joyless cuteness. Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
In chatting with some year-enders as we watched that ball ex machina descend in Times Square to haul us all out of the mess that was 2011, it became clear that many authors today see the digitization of things as just such a handy lift, a chariot swinging low to carry us home (where the readers are) — to deliver everyone from the gatekeeping Eumenides of old publishing and into the stage-center jig-fest of DIY abandon. Mickey Rooney, that ancient thespian, called this “let’s put on a show!” Read More