Where Boys Will Be Boys

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Last week, someone mentioned that Microsoft is starting its own digital library project — yes, kids, we’re sitting on the sidelines of what may become the world’s most fascinating* pissing match; let’s call it “My Digital Library Is Bigger Than Yours”. Despite the legal opposition, we’re putting our money on Google. Call us old fashioned, but we believe companies that primarily do data indexing are better suited to the task than companies that sort of do data indexing. . .in addition to everything else. Focus, people, focus! Microsoft is also playing it interestingly safe. Last week’s correspondent mentioned something about […]

The Business of Publishing

Coming Attractions: The Copyright Extension Act of 2018

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Our issue with copyright extensions has always been the lack of quid pro quo: the public protects your right to exploit and profit from your work through laws and enforcement. In return for this service, you, the artist, give back to the public by allowing your work to enter the public domain after a reasonable period of time. The definition of reasonable is quite elastic, and as we’ve seen in recent years, subject to expansion to meet corporate needs. So the public is all quid pro while copyright holders aren’t doing the quo. The Eldred decision is a good example.

Our Continuing Fascination With Copyright

In Today’s Retirement News

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While Michael Korda’s imminent retirement from Simon & Schuster is news in and of itself, we find we’re more fascinated by the way the man redefines “retirement”. Our understanding has always been that a retired person gets up at ungodly hours (eventually leading to driving one of the airport vans because today’s youth simply can’t wake up on time) and spends a lot of time puttering around the garden. Or is it putting? We’ll get back to you. Maybe Korda doesn’t own a dictionary (unlikely, but stranger things have happened). His definition of retiring includes adding a new title to

Publishers and Editors

Man Laughs at Self, Chooses Pseudonym with Commercial Intent

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We have been informed that it is cheating* to use the same article for two different purposes on the same day. Normally, we would try to work our way around the issue by, well, posting this little piece tomorrow. Today, however, we have decided to live life to the fullest** and that includes writing about whatever we darn well want. We do so love hypocrisy, especially when the perpetrator stares his actions straight in the face and says, “Yeah, I did it.” It is the little things that make our world feel warm and safe. Thus we bring you what

Books/Mags/Blogs

On That English-Irish Divide

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“English writers for the most part try to follow Orwell’s dictum that prose should be a pane of clear glass through which you look,” he [John Banville] said. “But Irish writers think of prose style as a distorting lens. We love that ambiguity; we love that a word can have three or four meanings at the same time.” His Love of Words Rivals His Contempt for Critics

Quote of the Week

Installment Seven: Give The People What They Want

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Some of you may recall a post or six where we discussed the notion that consumers really want to consume entertainment in the manner most convenient for them. For example, most of the world wants MP3s they can migrate between machines without a hassle. What does the music industry do? Anything but. And then they grumble when iTunes rules the world. One would think life lessons would be learned; one would be waiting for proof this happened. And so it goes — the publishing industry is terrified of the Google Print program. The motion picture industry sees pirates under the

The Business of Publishing

Helpful Trick For Meeting Your Deadline

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We are forever in search of creative ways to force ourself to meet deadlines. For the record, setting “pretend” deadlines allows us to have “pretend” last-minute crises that cause us to miss our deadline, leading to “pretend” hand-wringing over the whole disaster. Then we pretend to move on, but really, all that faking it wears a girl down. Greg Sandow has decided to try another way of meeting his deadlines: writing his book online. He’ll post a new chapter every two weeks, people will offer helpful comments (woeful is the author who has the whole world as a critique partner!)

Square Pegs

When The Voices In Your Head Aren’t Normal

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Go up to a writer and ask this question: do you hear voices in your head? If the answer is a cheerful “yes”, most people back away slowly. No need to find out what the voices are saying. Other writers, of course, will move closer, eager to compare experiences. It is always strange to learn that other people don’t hear a constant stream of discussion, by characters, throughout the day. Then there are those who hear voices, develop other personalities, and then let those alternate personalities write a book. Man, the writer says, that’s how it should be. Definite way

Square Pegs

Yet Another Discussion of Supply and Demand

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We have yet to note a scenario where an publisher fails to over-anticipate demand for books. Scholastic, apparently, got a little giddy after the first day of sales for the latest Harry Potter title and went and started the printing presses. Now they have approximately 2.5 million more copies of the book than they need. Stacks of unsold copies are collecting dust in bookstores and warehouses across the US, and Scholastic – the world’s largest distributor of children’s books, and best known in the UK for Clifford the Big Red Dog – is bracing itself for an avalanche of returned

Square Pegs
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