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Why E-Textbooks Just Make Sense: An Academic and a Literary Agent Explain
Students, textbook authors, and publishers have reason to look forward to a growing demand for electronic textbooks. Students, or at least their parents, will welcome the cheaper cost. Digital textbooks will eliminate the chronic complaints of students schlepping around multiple 900-page textbooks.
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The New Girls' Network: How a debut author got a little help
When I signed a contract with Atria Books, I had a burning desire to make my debut novel a bestseller. I joined Facebook and Twitter, paid a designer to set up a sleek Web site, hired a freelance publicist, and filmed a trailer.
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Making Money on Translations: Has Amazon Figured It Out?
Last month, Amazon--retailer of books, makeup, vacuums, and the Kindle--launched its second publishing imprint, AmazonCrossing. The imprint, like its predecessor AmazonEncore, relies on crowd sourcing, or "customer feedback and other data," in developing books for the American public and expansion of the literary canon.
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Tweets About the Future
If the future of literary writing consists in reflecting daily life as lived, the future of literature will be a lot like the past.
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The Allure of Armchair Travel
The first time I ever read the phrase "write about the things you know," was in A Girl Can Dream, one of Betty Cavanna's iconic novels for teenage girls written in the 1940s and 1950s. Being not only a promiscuous reader but also someone who reads to the exclusion of all else, I feel justified in saying, without undue immodesty, that I know books.
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Opportunity Virtually Knocks
Smaller independents serve customers who will always exist to buy traditional books.
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On the Road with Franzen
Freedom might be the saving grace of many struggling booksellers.
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Books and the Battlefield
I knew Lisa was half a world away, doing a tough job in a gritty, remote location. As the garrison commander of the 389th "Renegades" division in Iraq, she was stationed at a desert outpost, with 90 soldiers under her command. The heat was appalling, the conditions were rugged, and danger was ever present.
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The Ol' Dead Dad Syndrome
This essay was written by Leila Sales, an assistant editor at Penguin Young Readers Group.
I am a children's book editor. You might assume this means that I spend eight hours a day reading charming bedtime tales about bunny rabbits, but that is not true. I primarily work on novels for older children, and the "in" thing right now is future dystopias. -
Subjects Have Feelings, Too
Earlier this summer, seven of the activists featured in my new book, Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists, gathered with me for a three-day retreat. The aims were to relax, discuss their diverse social justice work, and prepare for the publishing process ahead.
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No Sex, Please, We're Literary
During an auction for the audio rights to my new novel, Dracula in Love, my editor forwarded me an e-mail from one of the bidders. "This book is so hot that I can't wait to get home to my wife!" he proclaimed, and then outbid everyone else and presumably went home and made his wife happy.
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A Prayer of Thanks for a Guardian Angel
Writers cannot be trusted to heal themselves, so is there a copy editor in the house?
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Three Words
The headline said "Victoria Meyer Out." Those three words fit the paper's space restraints, but said nothing about Victoria Meyer, the beating heart of Simon & Schuster's publicity department for 20 years.
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Subtitle-O-Matic
This week's soapbox is a chart and Web site that will help you generate a subtitle for your nonfiction book.
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This Book's For You
Book dedications are usually mundane little affairs, a couple of initials perhaps, or the name of a parent, spouse, or child. Certainly, you wouldn't expect to see one included in a dictionary of quotations--unless, that is, the author was P.G. Wodehouse.
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Self-Funded and Shut Out
With the recent economic downturn, much has been made of publishing being a broken industry burdened by outdated business models and a general lack of innovation. While these arguments aren't without merit, there's another fundamental issue degrading our industry that needs to be called out: the censorship of authors by our own kind. Let's address it head-on.
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Reinvention: A Tale of Getting Published
A tale of getting published: I felt like the wedding planner who couldn't get married.
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Tour of Duty
Why one children's author keeps visiting schools: It isn't easy: a tough pace, scant pay, and lunches from the school cafeteria.
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Why We Lie
It's probably James Frey's fault. Maybe Laura Albert's, too. We can also blame Margaret Jones, Stephen Barrus, and Norma Bagain. And maybe Daniel James and Clifford Irving for getting the whole thing started.
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Number One*
Benefiting from Amazon's very specific bestseller lists: carve the data thin enough and everyone's a winner.
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