Author name: Booksquare

Dissecting the publishing industry with love and skepticism.

The Engine That Could

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We have a special fondness for valves (which we won’t share here), and so, upon learning of a new literary venture sporting The Valve title, we hastened over to visit. What’s it all about? Well, there’s a statement of purpose: “The Valve is a literary weblog dedicated to the proposition that the function of the little magazine can follow this form. We mean to foster debate and circulation of ideas in literary studies and contiguous academic areas.” We, of course, prefer John Holbo’s explanation because it was buried deep in his lengthy introductory post (which then goes for many more […]

Books/Mags/Blogs

Wherein We Discover We Don’t Know How To Handle A Positive Story

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We have a bit of a squidgy feeling about this and cannot pinpoint why: In a bid to foster a new generation of book buyers, Random House is investing in a private company that promotes literacy using a system that encourages children to read on their own and with their parents. It’s not the program. We believe that the way to build readers is to allow them to read for pleasure as often as possible, and American Reading Co.’s 100 Book Challenge strikes us as a good thing. We cannot fault Random House for its investment — this is the

Publishers and Editors

Saving The People On The ‘R’ Train

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Our (virtual) neighbor The Happy Booker bares it all (the woman has no shame) at Buzz, Balls & Hype. Of course a woman in her profession is going to be asked why she does it. Apparently working the public transportation system was risky. So much better to stick to the safety of one’s corner of suburbia. We will not contemplate the matter of the station wagon due to an unfortunate incident in our past. It is enough that Wendi Kaufman is standing on her well-manicured lawn, shouting at the neighbors: Aside from talking about books and writing, shamelessly flogging my

Books/Mags/Blogs

More Triumph of the Spirit

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Continuing our accidental theme for the day, we now bring you the story of an author who couldn’t find a traditional publisher, went print-on-demand, and wound up being nominated for a major award. Yes, again. The British have a fetish for this sort of thing. Last year, if we recall correctly, it was a first-time author. This year, Patricia Ferguson, an acclaimed author, couldn’t find a publisher for her latest book. Granted the subject matter (an old folks’ home) doesn’t scream “commercial”. Disheartened, she went the self-publishing route. It should be the end of the story. In this case: After

Books/Mags/Blogs

Our Continuing Series of Helpful Advice for Publishers

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Everyone celebrates April Fool’s Day in a different manner. Last year (and we wish we were kidding), the husband called us into his office, oh pretty much every five minutes, to share yet another example of wacky CSS gurus having fun. The joke went over our head. This year, in lieu of geek fun, we have two headlines from the Canadian press. On one had, we learn that Canadians buy a lot of books. On the other, we learn that a major publisher is scaling back for economic reasons. We are pleased that Canadians are spending more on books than

Publishers and Editors

So Sad, So Very, Very Sad

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We don’t know where to start. With the fact that 400 articles at 500 (keyword laden) words each for $1,200 works out to…well, less than one cent a word. If you can crank out four articles an hour, that’s 100 hours of work. But hey, it doesn’t have to be quality writing (except for the part where your name might be on it. . .quite possibly, there’s a reason they suggest writers might want to use a pseudonym. Your work will then be sold to various blogs as ghostwritten content. Okay, knowing that the type of sites who purchase inferior

Square Pegs

Update: Train Wreck

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If we impart one piece of advice*, it will be that the wise person remains above the bad review fray. Beatrice follows up on last week’s train wreck. It seems that Sue Eccleston, the publicist for Windstream Publishing, cannot leave well enough alone. After a bout of unprofessional behavior**, she subsided, only to resurface when mentioned on another blog (we do not fear Eccleston). Beatrice did a little research that puts this story in more perspective. They say there is no such thing as bad publicity, but there is. The author of Leah’s Way, if anyone Google’s the title, will

Books/Mags/Blogs

If We Can’t Amuse Ourselves, Who Can We Amuse?

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Okay, there is nothing new here. Honest. We were just amused as heck to see this on the Los Angeles Times Opinion page. Though, hmm, perhaps the placement was apropos. Setting aside our confusion, it strikes us there is a perfect plot for what we suspect will be the a recurring theme this summer: The Never-Ending Invasion of The Southern California Ants (coming soon to a freezer near you): The essence of Tragedy as a basic plot is that it shows us what happens when heroes and heroines pass under the spell of the dark power of the ego. Initially

Tools and Craft

Oh, The Things We Don’t Know

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We’re going to be honest: we had no idea there was such a monster as Good Morning America’s “The Story of My Life” contest. Based on our extensive research (peeking through The Happy Booker’s window), it appears that someone has a story and someone else writes it. In this case, the story in question is written by Tim Wendel (Castro’s Curveball). Though we don’t know Wendel, THB vouches for his chili making and general good citizenship. And writing skills. THB’s site has a link to vote (love, love, love links to vote; would that all democracy be this easy) and

Square Pegs

On Banging Head Against Keyboard. Repeatedly.

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t would be one thing if the people charged with writing the insta-book knock-off publishing projects about the collapse of the Brad and Jennifer marriage were Sydney Carton types, aging boozers with rotted hearts heroically turning one last disgusting buck with a foot already in the grave. But the authors of this year’s Brad and Jen: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Golden Couple ($7, Wenner) are a pair of brainless little girls of a type to make one pray for the speedy return of Stalin to power. The two US Weekly “senior writers” wrote their Brad-and-Jen book in a

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