The Daily Square
Daily links from Medialoper: booksquare
The Daily Square – Life Is White Edition
We remember Sidney Sheldon, the genius behind “I Dream of Jeannie”. Also, making money off the government the easy way.
In Which Victor Hugo Is Apparently Offended
So, okay, your great-great-grandfather wrote this book. It’s been translated like a zillion times and made into a major musical and multiple motion pictures, some of which have more artistic merit than others. Along the lines, various and sundry liberties have been taken with your great-great-grandfather’s work. Such is the process of adaptation. You never get an exact replica. But you don’t draw the line. Nor, you must ruefully acknowledge, did your father or his father or possibly even his father. You have your standards. And, if you’re a descendent of Victor Hugo and the work is Les Miserables, you
Someone Else’s Money
A long time ago in a job far away, we were schooled in the basics of distribution deals: at all times, you need to remember that it’s someone else’s money. You collect and report as if you are only passing the funds on to the real owner. For this, you get a percentage, a fee, a payment that recognizes your own work and effort. But you do not own the money. This has been foremost in our mind as we read of the decline of the Publisher’s Group West and the chaos it has created. Well over one hundred publishers
On Bookshops, Used
In a town like London there are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money. Bookshop Memories (inspired by Robert Gray’s essay in today’s edition of Shelf Awareness, not yet posted online)
The Great Paid Review Scandal, Follow-Up
We were somewhat intrigued by Slate’s storyon self-published authors and Amazon’s BookSurge division. The fact that BookSurge offers paid reviews as part of the service didn’t make us blink. Sure, we wonder about the authors who believe this is a valuable service, but we’ll get to that in a moment. What gave us pause was the phrasing in an email from the company to an author (see page two of the story)– while Slate’s reading of the service was that the review would be written by a New York Times bestselling author (in this case, probably the extremely extended list),
Form Versus Function
Maybe it’s because we spent our childhood in a room lined with books. Truly, every wall, except for the ones that were really doorways, was filled with books. Eight feet of books, or maybe six feet*. Or maybe it’s because our schedule means that so much of our reading is done online. Really — there’s something tacky about pulling out a novel while you’re on a client’s clock. Or maybe it’s because, like all readers, it didn’t matter what form the reading material took — scraps of paper on the floor of a subway, cereal boxes, flashing signs over freeways