Author name: Booksquare

Dissecting the publishing industry with love and skepticism.

Penguin Problems

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Publisher’s Weekly is taking a long, hard look at the problems plaguing Penguin Putnam (the fact that we dove headfirst into alliteration makes us as uncomfortable as it does you). The problems are myriad: recovering from a lousy implementation of a distribution system, ye olde balance sheet problems (outflow exceeds income), and changing of the guard at the head of the Putnam division. What does this mean for most of us? Well, probably not much. We cannot predict the future, but that will not stop us from offering our opinion. Curing corporate woes requires coordinated effort. The way we see […]

Publishers and Editors

One Of Those Business-Oriented Posts

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Around here, there are a lot of discussions about how the inherent inefficiencies built into music distribution benefit record labels. The same could be said for book publishing. The model was developed a long time ago, when printing presses were slow, computers occupied entire floors of large buildings, and Amazon was either a river or single-breasted woman. One favorite inefficiency, for both publishers and authors (though for entirely different reasons…no, that’s not true. Same reason, different perspective.), is the policy of returns. We liked this comment: After all, the costs involved in maintaining returns create, in effect, the bubble that

Square Pegs

Truly Without A Point

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What with one thing and the other, we don’t get as much reading done as we should*. For the past year or so, we have tried to figure out how a person without a day job works so many…days. It’s like every time we turn around, we’re heading for this office or that office. This is wrong on so many levels (not the least of which is the fact that all this to-ing and fro-ing wreaks havoc on our afternoon naps). For a while, we tried listening to books-on-tape at the gym — actual cassettes. Which, it turns out, they

Square Pegs

Taking A Break

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As we promised ourselves, we have spent the afternoon feverishly hacking. One should never underestimate the fun involved with taking a scene and completely rewriting it. Except for that one bit of really funny dialogue. It is amazing how even the most ruthless moments are felled by sentimental attachment to one’s witticisms*. We were struck by this interesting (and not just because The Herald has one of the more obscure web designs going on) take on reviewing romance novels (British romances) on the same terms as literary novels. As we recently made the argument that romance will not grow without

Books/Mags/Blogs

Practically The Last Word on the Topic (Today)

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So, yes, we’re moving on, but had just one more thought. Sure, we could have caught Tom Dolby’s Virtual Book Tour last week. If we didn’t have an evil overlord named Kevin and cats who demand only the finest in Friskies and a novel by a dear friend to critique. That’s the problem with free time, you need it to enjoy it. By free time, we mean procrastination. So we’re catching up, and deciding we’re completely over the topic (until the next time we get worked up about it). Except for links to two additional posts. One is an interesting

Tools and Craft

Further To The Virtual Book Tour

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So, the concept piqued Brenda Coulter’s interest. Frankly, we expected lots more excitement, and we’re going to keep pounding on the subject until sufficient numbers pretend to be as enthused about Virtual Book Tours as we are. Why, you might ask, do we need to get worked up when that your job? Because, we might answer, you need to think creatively in today’s marketplace. Because of our inherent laziness, we’re thinking of this as our lead the horse to water post. Tom Dolby (who, apparently, has nothing in common with the singer dude except the name) is the latest VBT

Square Pegs

In The Spirit of Public Interest, Not Prurient Behavior

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Now, we don’t normally stoop to cat fights…wait, we do. Quite often, that’s us, racing out of the house in our pajamas, trying to figure out what all that howling and hissing is about. You know how boys can be. A Booksquare tipster pointed us to this little exchange (one suspects she was avoiding work), and we found ourselves amused. First, titles are not something easily copyrighed. We are sorry to break this to you, but it’s true (we are not saying they cannot be copyrighted, just that it’s not as easy as you’d think). All those hours you spend

Square Pegs

Moving Rapidly from Old To Decrepit, And Not In A Good Way

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You know, some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed. Literally. However, despite the day’s lack of discernible income, we rose and shone. Briefly. Shining takes a lot of out of a person, and we wanted to save our energy in case something interesting happened. Probably that’s not likely, and we’ll start hacking away at the novel in a few minutes (in some regions, this is also known as editing and polishing; we prefer precise description). Yes, despite the fact that we’re clearly past our prime: Masahiro Mita also started young. His first novel, “M no Sekai” (The

Books/Mags/Blogs

On Running A Literary Journal

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Though we remain convinced that Dan Wickett doesn’t sleep, we will not dwell on that at this moment. He’s posted the second in his series of interviews with literary journals. Great, great reading all around. And great quote for us: Well, I don’t know that you’d call it “love,” but it’s a long way from anything resembling cash. (Barry Barry Silesky – Another Chicago Magazine) Interview with LitJournals Another Chicago Magazine

Quote of the Week

One Morning, Two Views

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We realize that blogs are only on-topic posts* because that is our communication tool of choice. Blogging software makes certain tasks easy — that it has gone off and become a revolution of sorts defies explanation. It appears that all the Web wanted was the killer publishing tool, and the rest would fall into place. Makes us wish we’d paid more attention to 1994. That’s the last time we spend a year being too busy with other things to get rich. Blogs occupy a unique place: they are still ascendent while suffering from backlash. Makes one wonder how the fall

Books/Mags/Blogs
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