Articles from December 2005

The Art Delivery System

December 30th, 2005 · 1 Comment

The Year of Living Dangerously? 2005 can lay no such claim in the halls of the publishing kings. In the book world this was more along the lines of The Year Jose Canseco became Our Greatest Living Writer. Jose, I tip my cap to you and hope that Google engineers will capture your oeuvre now […]

File Under: The Business of Publishing

In Which We Reveal That Novels Are, Actually, Formulaic

December 29th, 2005 · 4 Comments

As it turns out, the secret to Agatha Christie’s success was not compelling mystery nor enduring characters. This is good news for you — what made Christie’s work unputdownable* was her hypnotic writing style. Yes, the mother was hypnotized all those years. Somehow this puts a pall on our small childhood victories: did we argue […]

File Under: Books/Mags/Blogs

To Live Outside The Law

December 27th, 2005 · Comments Off on To Live Outside The Law

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” -T.S. Eliot Hmm, in one of those funny coincidences, the song playing on the stereo is Dean Wareham & Britta Phillips’ (okay, it’s Luna without the rest of the band) Ginger Snaps. It blatantly cribs from the theme song from the Mary Tyler Moore show (“You’re gonna make it […]

File Under: Our Continuing Fascination With Copyright

Blog Again, Blog Again, Jiggedy Something

December 26th, 2005 · 3 Comments

The special thing about sloth is that it can be enjoyed anywhere mai tais are made. But when one finds the perfect spot, it makes sloth all that much better. And well-done sloth leads to a happy person. Or so logic tells us. We are returned, rested, and ready. Mostly rested. This being a holiday […]

File Under: Square Pegs

Thoughts from the Earl

December 23rd, 2005 · Comments Off on Thoughts from the Earl

I read somewhere that the holidays were encroaching. That was probably The Wall Street Journal. Encroaching on what? When confronted with conundrums I turn to the Earl. He’s an aspiring writer whose literary career is wobbly at best. For instance, he lost his cool and was dragged across the floor of a train station clinging […]

File Under: Square Pegs

HQ Larger Print Program

December 22nd, 2005 · Comments Off on HQ Larger Print Program

More information direct from the editor’s “mouth:” Harlequin is going to continue their Larger Print edition program. That’s great news, because those editions were very easy on the eyes. That’s the program they already have in place to provide readers with books with larger fonts and better margins. They cost a minimal amount more (.25) […]

File Under: Publishers and Editors · Square Pegs

Books Are Good to Eat

December 21st, 2005 · 1 Comment

Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s the transit strike, but a wave of news releases from the Big Apple this morning suggest that everyone may be auditioning for A Fine Madness. I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge during the last transit strike and discovered two things: objects along the East River are further away than […]

File Under: The Business of Publishing

How to Count

December 21st, 2005 · 1 Comment

Okay, if the title of this piece sounds more like it should be for a nursery school class, I apologize. But it seems that this might be of interest to the industry. A follow-up on my last post about Harlequin cutting words from their longer lines — I received information from the Senior Editor of […]

File Under: Square Pegs

Publishers to Readers: We’re Not That Into You

December 19th, 2005 · 4 Comments

Jane Friedman is a smart executive. She runs Harper-Collins, one of the trade houses large enough to represent the book industry as a whole. HC is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp conglomerate, with all the drama and trauma that implies. Ms. Friedman made the comment last summer that she envisions a time when authors are […]

File Under: The Business of Publishing

Less Story, Easier to Read ???

December 17th, 2005 · 4 Comments

More changes in the air at Harlequin. Yes, I know, you’re stunned to hear that. I know, it wasn’t very long ago that Booksquare posted about the demise of the Signature series, but the latest news is that many of the longer lines (referred to in the romance community as the Long Contemporaries – lines […]

File Under: Publishers and Editors · Square Pegs