Further to yesterday post pointing to a discussion at BookAngst 101, we bring you a comment aimed at artists for another industry: At a panel discussion by A&R (artists and repertory) executives, speakers described a business that wagers huge amounts on promoting blockbuster hits, with little interest in slower-building, long-term careers. Because probably Rod Stewart will be recording well into his second century. Talent Meets Commerce in Austin The Balancing Act
It is a rare day when we can combine two of our favorite things into a single post. Such is our excitement, we have held off all day, hoping the thrill would diminish. It did not. Thus, we bring you Edward Wyatt profiling Dan Brown. You read that right. If we didn’t have a mandate to live to age 113, we would die happy right now. They discuss, via email, the pressures a certain book has placed on the author. Darn those higher expectations, the problems with celebrity (hey, we sympathize), and the fact that characters don’t give a rip
Mad Max, apparently over his Elvis Costello foray (may we recommend following up with Tom Waits or perhaps the Pogues if Max is feeling poetic), considers the plight of the unsung publishing rainmakers. Hmm, that felt like our tongue in our cheek, but our intention was almost sincere. Max says: Another double-page NYTBR ad for Danielle Steele? Full pagers for James Patterson…John Grisham…Nora Roberts… Robert B. Parker…Lisa Scottoline…Michael Connelly…Jackie Collins? They’re done because, well, because that’s what’s done. But–and meaning no disrespect to any of these fine individuals–where are we as an industry going to be a decade from now
Tod Goldberg has, out of the goodness of his heart, compiled a brief (but comprehensive) list of things one should consider before submitting an application to an advanced writing course. He skips past all the typed, double-spaced advice in favor of Stuff You Can Use: If any of your dialogue regularly has the following tags, please consider a lower division course: interjected, retorted, perked, chided, elaborated, huffed, declared, admonished, clarified, ejaculated, defecated, spurted, sputtered, blustered, feigned, forced, exclaimed, condemned, purported, reacted, cautioned, cajoled, stated, lauded, or lambasted. Also, if you find yourself placing adverbs alongside any of those words —
MIRAMAXERS — or what’s left of them — are fuming. “We have no idea what’s going on,” said one staffer in the book department. “We had no idea Jonathan Burnham was leaving or that Harvey and Bob [Weinstein] wanted to start another book company until we read it in The Post. No one at the company is bothering to tell anyone what’s going on. And Hyperion hasn’t contacted any of us or the authors.” Some staffers aren’t waiting to be pushed out. Dina Wise, head of special events, left to form her own company, Wise & Co., while publicity honcho
It seems that the fine people of Salinas, when faced with the reality of their libraries closing their doors, have realized the consequences of the situation (all except one who seems to think the problem is fiscal mismanagement…which is true, but not on the local level). Locals, and Bill Murray, have contributed to a fundraising effort called Rally Salinas. The goal is raise sufficient funds to provided limited library services. While many other libraries face this type of crisis, Salinas has received the most attention. Such is the lot of being a John Steinbeck kind of town. We are happy
Far be it for us to suggest that movie stars don’t matter (no, we’ll let Stephen King do it for us), but if one thing is clear, it’s that big names don’t necessarily pull in big audiences (this is why there is speculation that Vin Diesel should have avoided pulling a Schwarzenegger). Motion picture studios love, love, love to spend lots of money on really lousy films. This is not something to understand or analyze; it is sufficient to accept this as gospel. It is the story that matters, boffo opening weekends aside (it takes a lot to miss the
Much as we love Edward Wyatt (and we do), we cannot help but leave his story about Glynn Wilson dropping his case against Kitty Kelley, et al, without a few questions. Maybe it’s because we don’t get it (we are admittedly slow, but that isn’t a crime, necessarily). Let us begin by noting that the Kansas City Star story (first link) suggests that the judge was about to rule that copyright law didn’t cover the story on the Internet; Wyatt’s story (second link) notes that, because the way the law is written, Wilson’s ability to recover damages was limited because
Lest some think we’re cranky this morning (not cranky, just reeling from the screw-up at Yahoo! during our fantasy league’s two screwed up drafts this weekend; suffice to say that somehow Yahoo! placed our keeper and team captain, Albert Pujols, on our team, as is proper, and three other teams. We do not share well.), we will express our delight in this essay about ghostwriters. It is a fine morning for sarcasm, and we are responding accordingly: But in recent times a cloud has begun to hang over the deliciously vaporous world of ghostwriting. This is because greater transparency about
Yesterday, Robert McCrum, perhaps festivaled out, indulged in a maudlin piece about the state of writing today (at first we thought he was headed for Nostalgia, but then he took a sharp left). He asks “Who are you writing for?” He worries that far too many write to catch the eye of agents, neglecting to consider that agents are readers too. If you can reach out and touch even one agent, it’s possible you will reach out touch many “real” readers. McCrum mentions Charles Dickens as a writer who broke the mold by drawing adoring crowds wherever he went (wait,
