Bestseller Stat Shot
One of the many things that make summer so great is the trip you take to the beach or the lake with a pile of books and maybe a change of clothes or two. A quick, unscientific survey of friends of PW staffers indicates that most folks opt for paperbacks for such trips: they’re lighter, cheaper, and easier to part with when you’re finished reading one and your friend wants to know what you were laughing about on page 63. But don’t take our unsubstantiated word for it. Here are weekly unit sales figures for trade paperback books, starting the week of Memorial Day.
PW Radio
Author Deborah Meyler joins us to discuss her novel The Bookstore (S&S/Gallery), and PW co-editorial director Michael Coffey talks about Suitable Accommodations: The Letters of J.F. Powers (FSG).
Blogs
ShelfTalker
No author, no problem: making a successful authorless bookstore event using the power of the Wimpy Kid van.
PWxyz
There’s an intriguing controversy brewing among H.P. Lovecraft fans.
Beyond Her Book
Seriously—what’s the big deal with cover reveals?
Podcasts
More to Come
The More to Come crew talk about new comics conventions in India, Avril Lavigne’s new Tank Girl–inspired video, and Comics Undressed, a recent documentary that focuses on race, gender, and economics in the comics business.
The Week Ahead
As Frankfurt approaches, PW senior writer Andrew Albanese talks with Copyright Clearance Center’s Chris Kenneally about CONTEC, the preshow digital conference that will replace the now-defunct Tools of Change.
Subscribe to our podcasts in iTunes, or listen here.
Authors
Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season (Bloomsbury) got off to a roaring start last week, with a ton of publicity, including its selection as the inaugural title of the new Today book club. Check out our video interview with Shannon to find out how she managed to write her novel while still in college, and which word she’s trying to use less.
What’s the future of Marxism? We ask Antonio Negri, the Italian political philosopher and author of The Winter Is Over, a collection of essays just out from Semiotext(e).
Geoffrey Girard tells us how he ended up writing two books—adult thriller Cain’s Blood (S&S/Touchstone) and Project Cain (S&S Books for Young Readers), a YA adaptation. of the former featuring some of the same characters—that are set to publish at the same time.
Events
For the Love of Romance
Join Barbara Vey and editors from Harlequin, Sourcebooks, and Kensington on Sept. 17 for a lively webcast about romance novels, what makes a great heroine, how the rise of erotica is making itself felt in the romance category, and more.
Discussion series: The New Publishing Jobs Market and 2013 Salary Survey
Want to know who’s making the big bucks in publishing? PW co-editorial director Jim Milliot analyses the results of our annual salary survey at the next PW discussion panel, on Sept. 25. Register here.
Want to know who’s buying what? Get yourself a copy of the 2013 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics and Book Buying Behaviors Annual Review, prepared by Bowker’s PubTrak Consumer and Publishers Weekly.
Printing in Hong Kong, 2013
Check out our annual survey of the latest developments in technology and business strategies in the ever-changing Asian printing market.
From the Newsletters
Tip Sheet
Janice Clark, author of The Rathbones (Doubleday), looks at the timeless appeal of coming-of-age novels and picks some of her favorites.
Children’s Bookshelf
Carolrhoda editorial director Andrew Karre is building a provocative list for this fall. But don’t expect to find any “new adult” titles on it.
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The most-read review on publishersweekly.com last week (and the week before) was Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press).
