Author name: Booksquare

Dissecting the publishing industry with love and skepticism.

Probably He Sets His Alarm Clock Ten Minutes Ahead

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David Thayer of Collected Miscellany and The Untrained Eye discusses the stumbling block of many an author: The Working Title. Every author encounters this in some form or the other — Thayer explains the reason: It’s probably why writers have brains that are shaped differently from regular people; there are odd tissue formations where plot, character, subtext are imprisoned by the forces of sloth, distraction, infomercials and the nagging doubt of the resident skeptic in the Medulla Subplotgotta who wants to know the working title before he lifts a finger. Clearly he hasn’t stumbled on our clever solution: working title […]

Tools and Craft

This Won’t Be The Last Time

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Call us crazy, but we suspect we’ll be posting lots and lots of breathless “you can read a novel on your cell phone” stories in the coming year. Oh sure, there’s a chance we’ll get bored with the concept, but there’s also a chance we’ll get over our obsession with Lo Mein. Today, we learn that reading novels via cell phone is all the rage in Japan. Also that this bodes well for Random House’s investment in Vocel (which we previously applauded). Also that you can have your cell phone stories turned into a television series. There were other major

Square Pegs

Gray Lady Lit, And Ladies Who Love It

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Guesting over at Beatrice, Jennifer Weiner takes up Ron Hogan’s offer to continue the conversation started last week (or the week before that, we can’t say which week) by Meg Wolitzer. After dismissing her mea culpas without a trace of guilt, Weiner addresses Wolitzer’s faux guilt over deriving pleasure from chicklit. After all, Weiner sometimes picks up titles from a category she calls The Gray Ladies: Unlike chick lit, which typically arrives swathed in pink with a pair of high heels kicking up on the cover, Gray Lady lit immediately lets you know the gravity of its intentions: Austere fonts

Books/Mags/Blogs

Bad, Mad, and Not Forgotten

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We draw your attention to this interesting biography of Jazz Age author Joseph Montcore March. March, the artist, lived on the edge, often quite literally. March, the person, took his social responsibilities very seriously. His work continues to resonate with readers, even though, as noted, the hipster dialogue of his great work The Wild Party is quaint by today’s standards. As will be the language of our books one hundred years from now. The question “Is it poetry?” has dogged The Wild Party since its first publication. (The best answer may be William S. Burroughs’: “Of course it’s poetry. It

Books/Mags/Blogs

Another Thought (Yes, Two In One Day…A Record!)

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Yesterday, Susan Gable said something that struck us what some might call a Missed Opportunity. In response to our thoughts on bigger books with bigger prices, Susan noted that she found out about her publisher’s large print editions of books from…Amazon. Now, we formerly worked in the motion picture industry and are quite accustomed to learning things like “Hey, we just sold the company” via Daily Variety, but that’s a different story. The movie business exists to crush peons. But authors are different. By necessity and custom, they are self-promotional machines. If publishers tell their authors about all the cool

Publishers and Editors

In Which We Entertain A Radical Thought

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Far be it for us to tell others how to conduct their own business*, but we would be remiss if we didn’t suggest to the Catholic Church that timing matters. For example, if a book has rested at the top of bestsellers lists for, well, forever, then perhaps a scold about reading the so-called heresy would have been better received two years ago (give or take). See, the problem is that once everyone has purchased their requisite two copies (this is our theory on the book’s continued bestsellerdom), it’s like closing the barn door after the pigs race out. Presuming

Books/Mags/Blogs

The Lone Voice In The Publishing Wilderness, Or We Found A Man Who Agrees With Us

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It’s certainly not easy to do, let us tell you, but Peter Olson sees things our way. Larger formats and higher prices may not be the key to enticing readers: “The acceptance of that format with that particular size and at those price points is so great, it would be a major change if readers gravitated to something different at this point,” Olson said. “You’re looking at a very attractive product from a media point of view,” he added. “It’s a lot of hours of reading for a very little amount of money.” That and bigger books mean even bigger

Publishers and Editors

Laugh? Cry? We Simply Don’t Know

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First we’d like to welcome Conner to the ranks of published authors. Conner, a young writer, recently experienced the heartbreak of rejection (subject matter deemed too “violent”) and the joy of seeing his work in print (first link below). If creativity must be contained within undefined boundaries, then today’s kids are losing out. Okay, perhaps we can buy into the notion that, by virtue of nationality, Agatha Christie is “un-American”. But Jack London? To say that we’re disheartened by the notion that an author’s personal beliefs would overshadow his contributions to the literary world would be an understatement. We do

Square Pegs

If This Is News, Please Raise Your Hand

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We realize it’s the job of the press to find new and intriguing angles to not-so new and intriguing stories. We appreciated this article on mystery fiction because the author took it up a notch. As it turns out, mystery novels reflect some very basic aspects of life. And they do it with immediacy and relevance. (Via

Books/Mags/Blogs

There Ought To Be A Support Group For This

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It what can only be considered the best of good luck, author Seth Greenland (The Bones, guesting at The Elegant Variation) just happens to have a friend with a debut novel on the shelves right now. This is good luck because so does Greenland. This allows Greenland to explore the trials and associated tribulations of such a debut from a distance. He doesn’t need to explore his own behaviors or fears — clearly his friend provides sufficient fodder for examination. Or somethign like that; it strikes us that one may not necessarily wish to examine fodder. Remember, the author described

Square Pegs
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