Author name: Booksquare

Dissecting the publishing industry with love and skepticism.

In Which Pink Might Be An Appropriate Color For The Elephant

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Torstar, parent to Harlequin Books (no, we don’t have time to look up the corporate structure, we may not have proper corporate names), has reported another drop in earnings. This is a scary trend. The article is unclear, but seems to suggest that the company’s net sales were in line with other publishers (either that or the net sales were in line with the U.S. division — if only we spoke Canadian). Thankfully, all the balance sheet gobbledy gook is summarized neatly for us: “In the simplest terms, in book publishing we sold fewer books than we expected, leading to […]

Publishers and Editors

We Wonder Who The Lists Are Trying To Impress

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One of our secret vices in life is lists. We adore logical groupings of information. Give us a countdown and we get very excited. We have done things we don’t want to admit to in attempts to find out what is at Number One. Just as the Top Forty is a bit of a myth (this, by the way, explains how so many people knew about U2 before Rick Dees), so are New York Times bestsellers. Though the exact methodology for determining the list is a supposedly closely guarded secret, one can be assured the chart toppers aren’t based on

Square Pegs

Our Rule of Thumb

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If you have to ask a question about something being too obscure, the answer is “yes.” By all accounts, the finalist list for this year’s National Book Awards defines obscure. However, in all fairness, the awards aren’t that well known themselves. We did a little reporting — biased, because that’s how we like it. We approached two radically different groups of book lovers and asked them about the NBAs. We received many responses about basketball from one list, and a lot of “hey, isn’t that cool about Judy Blume” from the other. We leave it up to you to guess

Books/Mags/Blogs, Square Pegs

The Accessibility Lesson

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We know…you’re wondering how we’re going to turn a story on pale yellow ink in a cookbook into a cautionary tale for writers. We admit, the task seems daunting at first. After all, it isn’t the author who makes such decisions. That’s what art departments and whatnot are for. One would think authors are off the hook. Except, as all of you know, we expect that you have websites and use them to actively promote yourselves. Your site is, quite possibly, the most important promotional tool you have (barring a lovely six-figure marketing budget). But what if you put a

Tools and Craft

We Are Not Taking Away Points

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First, we suggest you sit down because we are going to shock you. A major United States newspaper has managed to publish an entire article about romance novels without mentioning the B-phrase. In fact, if we had stuck with just the Yahoo! feed, we would have awarded the article our extremely rare Responsible Journalism plaque. Alas…the USA Today website features a caption with a gratitious B-phrase. Such is our good humor today, Ms. Cranky will not complain. We deem the article acceptable reading for all ages and genders. Strong, sexy women save the day, get their man

Square Pegs

We Were Running Out The Door Ten Minutes Ago, But…

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We thought, what the heck, this John Sayles interview is short, we’re playing with a few short stories…besides, it’s not like we’re eager to hit the freeway for another day of meetings. If we’d followed the advice of Ryoko (the cat who informs us when we’re not living up to her expectations — she talks a lot), we would have overlooked this article. And that would be a shame because we will now spend the rest of the day in the bubble known as Hollywood: My short stories are immersions into very specific worlds. There’s this idea implicit in my

Square Pegs

The Comfort Food of Books

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We’re going to be honest — we are so glad we don’t live in a swing state. We recommend those that do invest in TiVos and employ them early and often. The next week will be one constant commercial. Makes us wonder what will happen to the advertising economy on November 3…yes, the things we wonder about when we’re taking time to wonder . Times like this, when we’d prefer to avoid the world, make us think about our favorite books from the past. If you remember the books of your childhood vividly (and we do), it’s a sign of

Agents

As We Often Say, It Beats Smoking

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If you had to make the choice, would it be books or food? Man, we’d love to say books, but to go without Chinese noodles? That’s a rough one. However, as evidenced by our garage (the repository of all that won’t fit in the house) and our office (the place where we lied to bring more bookshelves into the house) and our living room (room where we tuck extra books in unexpected corners) and our bedroom (where the unconfessable is not what you think), we have an issue with books. We take some solace in the fact we’re not alone

Square Pegs

We’re Avoiding The Baroque Cycle Because Snow Crash Made Us Fat

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Back in the day, when this Worldwide Web thing was so new you could mention it to your friends and get blank stares (huh? why would you want to do that?), we would spend Friday evenings, uh, chatting with likemineded geeks located in San Francisco and Oakland (this was, oddly, the only time they ever got together, albeit in separate locations). This was a lot of fun because it was so unique: hey, ma, we’re talking over the computer! Around this time, Snow Crash was released. Actually, earlier, but the husband read it first — he’s never been one to

Square Pegs

On Writing All By Oneself

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“It’s kinda like a big sister’s guide to life. How to deal with peer pressure and things like that, for girls. Nicole’s [Richie] writing it, and we have a collaborator as well.” Richie shops her book of ‘Life’ lessons (first item)

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