Booksquare

We have a soft spot in our little black heart for niche publishers. We like the fact that someone out there is making it by focusing on what they love. It’s probably safe to say that Seal Press, with its tight focus on feminist issues falls into that category, if only because it proves that […]

Maybe 13 really is unlucky – since that’s the number of cover designs for my new novel that my publisher has already run through, and not one of them works. Few companies would lavish such care on finding just the right image for a single book, and I admire their perfectionism. Yet these hard-working and […]

We were intrigued by the idea that the publishing industry is essentially squeezing itself out of the backlist market — at first thought, it seems almost impossible. After all, aren’t the publishers producing all those lovely books? Surely they are making oodles of money. Of course they are. Such is the beauty of backlist. Advances […]

If all you want to do is communicate with your readers sans the filthy tiremarks of the Highway of Commerce, write a blog. Filthy Lucre

Last week (so long ago), we pointed you to a little piece from Engadget about the iPod and its possible future as an e-reader. Other than our fascination the weird phrasing associated with publisher compliance — “…according to a source at a major publishing house, they were just ordered to archive all their manuscripts — […]

Against the will of its occupants, Chez Booksquare has decided to voluntarily participate in a series of rolling blackouts. We will try to eke out a Daily Square between outages, but do not have high hopes for much more than that. We’re then heading for the glorious city of Atlanta, where we understand the temperatures […]

Yesterday, an associate noted that people often use a lot of words when they are trying to make themselves look smart. People also adopt stultifying, faux high-brow tones when trying to make themselves look smart. Nothing says, “I’m an intellectual and I’m okay” like cardboard toast writing. For those of you who have been wondering […]

We have been alternately amused and saddened by the Lev Grossman article in Time magazine — he is desperately seeking the voice of a generation. First off, let us make one thing absolutely clear: forty is the new thirty. Therefore, authors who are in their forties are really like authors of a previous generation in […]

After several weeks of non-stop action (with, alas, several more to go), we are pleased to find something that tickles our snark-o-meter to the point that we actually chuckled. Before our first cup of coffee. Publishers want to get them some of that movie business swag, because while the devil wears Prada, Random House isn’t […]

My bad review was something else again: my writer friends thought it was great. It was an opportunity, a platform, a megaphone, a lemon about to be transmuted into the most ambrosial lemonade. The very things that made it bad made it good: its frivolity displayed my depth, its confusion threw into relief my steely […]