Author name: Booksquare

Dissecting the publishing industry with love and skepticism.

Business Rule One: The Publisher Pays You

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If, perchance, you’re looking for clues about the legitimacy of your publisher, may we offer up the following: For one thing, some e-mails from Ivery were riddled with misspellings and bad grammar. For another, when Geniesse asked [Martha] Ivery to fix some typos in his manuscript, she told him it wasn’t worth bothering about, since it wouldn’t help sales. Yes, it’s true. Typos don’t matter. Readers hardly notice them, and they rarely form judgments based on the fact that a book is virtually unreadable. After all, people purchase books to put on coffee tables. What’s contained between the covers is […]

Publishers and Editors

Yet They Still Put Their Pants On One Leg At A Time

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Okay, we don’t know that for sure, but it does remain a fact that editors are human, just like most of the rest of us. MediaBistro, in its continuing series of editor interviews, reminds us of that fact. The series also lets us peek inside the publishing business without the painfully awkward conversational lulls that often accompany office tours. For example, we can leapfrog the large piles on Brant Rumble’s desk: If a number is what you’re looking for, then let’s say twenty-five manuscripts and proposals a month. I don’t know if that’s accurate, but whatever the number is, it’s

Publishers and Editors

Reading Is, Indeed, Fun-damental

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Let us state for the record that we’d talk about M.J. Rose’s latest marketing idea even if $5 wasn’t being donated to Reading is Fundamental. But, boy, the second we heard the news, the little animated character from the RIF commercials of our childhood danced across our mind. Luckily, we pulled out of Memory Lane and have returned to the task at hand. Rose has been turning notions of publishing and marketing books upside-down since she finished her first book Lip Service. Now she’s not only built a strong reader base, but her latest title, The Halo Effect (now out

Books/Mags/Blogs

On The Perils of Being A Follower

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In an effort to walk back the cat – young people are listening to iPods, therefore media should be reiterated in a form that they both use and enjoy – big media is taking a stab at the next big thing. Much of it is awkward and some of it is downright dumb. Big Media Wants a Piece Of Your Pod

Quote of the Week

How To Spend Your Summer Vacation

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At the risk of overstating the obvious, cats don’t need to be entertained. Fed, yes. Scratched, yes. Convinced that going outside is a bad idea, yes. But when push comes to shove, they’re excellent at amusing themselves. Name another creature who turns staring off into space into an art form. Other than writers. But then it’s not relaxation, it’s work. Unfortunately, not all writers are blessed with cats. Some make do with children. And while we don’t have personal experience with the species, we understand that children require substantial upkeep. Plus medical supplies. And, if we understand the process correctly,

Wrapped Up In Books

When Good Publicity Money Goes Wrong

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Not everyone’s memories are appropriate fodder for books. Especially when those memories are relatively humdrum. To wit: It was at Keewaydin, [Michael] Eisner writes, that he learned the value of mutual respect, teamwork and leadership, along with such enduring life lessons as “Help the other fellow” and “Be a fair winner and a good loser.” Yes, it’s true. Despite a publicity merry-go-round, Michael Eisner’s book is not selling. This is possibly because while Eisner is somewhat well-known in the greater Los Angeles area (though not as ubiquitious as the industry would like to think), he’s not truly a household name

Square Pegs

The Audiobook Revolution: Get Your Royalties Here

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We lauded the iPod experiment at the South Huntington Public Library in South Huntington, New York when it was announced, and it’s good to know our enthusiasm has been repaid. Library customers are embracing the technology. [Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know. But it’s always good to have alternatives.] Book Standard looks at the growing industry and two key audiences: young folks and older folks. Those in their middle ages* really do need to jump on the bandwagon to remain relevant, don’t they? While the iPod phenomenon is credited with the huge increase in audiobook sales/rentals, we’d like to suggest that

Tools and Craft

Subversive Publicity for Lit Journals

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For the three or four of you who aren’t reading the new Emerging Writers Network blog every day, we wanted to point out that the latest interview with literary journal editors has been posted (we will not, however, point out that Dan Wickett is leaving us in the blogging dust; that should go without saying). Lots of great, useful information — for those writing in the short story market, these interviews are a must. We’ve discovered and purchased quite a few new-to-us publications on the strength of the editors personalities revealed in these interviews, as well. Participating in this month’s

Books/Mags/Blogs

Well, Look At That, The Girl Can Think

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We were confused way back when Melissa Bank’s The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing was labeled “chicklit”. Naturally our confusion stemmed from our inability to properly connect dots; the book read, to us, like a collection of connected short stories. That the stories were written by a woman and featured a female protagonist did not seem to make it worthy of carrying the banner for a new genre. Shows what we know. Now Bank has a new novel out (The Wonder Spot), and it’s being labeled as chicklit, ostensibly because the first book was. It would be easy enough

Books/Mags/Blogs

File Under: Wash, Rinse, Repeat

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Yes, kids, it’s time to explore one of our favorite topics: Balancing the rights of copyright owners with the fact that works of art are inaccessible to those who want them. In today’s episode, we follow a group of classical music lovers who are slowly realizing that the cost-benefit ratio of rereleasing classic performances (pun not intended, but enjoyed nonetheless) is not so hot. So ephemeral is music that passionate minorities who appreciate it can’t believe their luck when lesser-known pieces survive multiple centuries, or when radio broadcasts by great, deceased or retired performers can still be heard – and

Square Pegs
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