Readers Respond
We recently ran an article on “digital fatigue” and the decline in e-book sales. Our readers had much to say, attributing the sales drop to digital distraction as well as pricing, and there were passionate pleas for and against reading and buying e-books. Here are a few choice comments:
“Some writers are trying to tune their copy to a digital audience, not realizing that this is like trying to send smoke signals from the middle of a forest fire. People are dialing back their digital immersion for the simple reason that it’s debilitating and unfulfilling, like trying to live on M&Ms. Books provide a certain amount of mental vitamins you just don’t get from thumb scrolling.”—Kevin A. Lewis
“I’m in misery if I’m forced to read an e-book.”—Leigh Shaffer
“ ‘Books’ are the content, the narrative, the information. They are not the container/delivery device; e-book files, paper, and audio are containers/delivery devices only. None are ‘books.’ The ‘books’ are the words.”—Ed Renehan
“Anyone notice that once prices started to rise from the big publishers that e-book sales took a dive?”—Robert Gottlieb
From the Newsletters
This week’s best new books, staff picks, and more.
We talk to two authors who were disinvited from making school appearances for writing about difficult subjects.
Ahead of Mother Teresa’s elevation to sainthood, publishers are releasing new titles and reissuing old ones by and about her.
A backlist memoir by Pablo Escobar’s lover heats up as a film adaptation of it gets underway.
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Blogs
How one bookseller won back a local institutional account that it had previously lost to Amazon.
Podcasts
PW senior writer Andrew Albanese on Barnes & Noble’s latest results, and whether refunds from Apple’s price-fixing case might help boost the retailer’s bottom line.
The More to Come crew celebrates the fifth anniversary of the podcast by revisiting the topic of the first show—the 2011 launch of the New 52, a controversial redesign of the DC superhero universe—comparing it to DC Rebirth, the newest relaunch of the DC universe.
Author Yaa Gyasi talks her stunning debut novel, Homegoing (Knopf). PW editorial director Jim Milliot discusses Barnes & Noble’s plans for the future, including its new concept store.
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley (HMH) continues its run of popularity and is, once again, the most-read review on publishersweekly.com
