Libraries: From Info Vaults To Creative Hubs The American Library Association’s (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in Boston, has just closed with some impressive numbers to report. Gary Price at Library Journal reports that a total 11,716 people attended the five-day event—librarians, library workers and supporters including 3,622 exhibitors. This makes the 2016 event some 1,000 people larger… Read More
Starting 2016's Journey: Are Author-Editor Relationships Endangered?
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
In 2016, Adult Coloring Books: Only Half-Good For Publishing
Color Us Skeptical One of the things the book publishing industry produces best is confusion. Its gray areas (not unlike its Grey areas) are fogs of speculation, partial truths, gossip, and misty-eyed hindsight. Among the most beloved notions this year has been the idea that print books entered a renaissance in 2015. In bookseller’s dreams, consumers… Read More
It’s Fat Season For Diet Books
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
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