It seems, lately, the news has been filled with self-publishing success stories. Awards, major contracts, fame, keys to the castle…all of this and more (except maybe the keys thing) is available to authors who eschew traditional publishing routes and strike out on their own. We admire moxie and we admire faith. What we’re finding worrisome is the lack of cautionary wisdom in these stories. It’s easy to read this:
When authors of a certain stature release new works, profiles inevitably follow. After you’ve read two or three of these, there really is no need to go further. The questions follow a predictable pattern, and the answers? There are only so many ways to to say the same thing over and over. This makes the rare interview that exposes something more about an author all the more exciting to us. Like, oh, this profile of VS Naipaul. While we know you’ll immediately follow the link to read the full article, we pulled out a few of our favorite quotes. Each
We admit it, we have far too much fun making fun of the media for our recently announced retirement to last (we suspect this is the only thing we’ll ever have in common with Michael Jordan). Our problem today arises from what appears to be a general lack of, well, knowledge on the part of The New York Post’s Sara Nelson. In writing about the so-called porn star catfight (please tell us she didn’t choose the headline, otherwise our estimation of her will drop a further notch), she seems to think that Jenna Jameson’s new book (How To Make Love
During a recent exercise, we took a favorite book (Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married) and broke down the elements. It was a bit surprising to discover a) from a writer’s perspective, it wasn’t all that well done, and b) that didn’t matter to us because the parts we adored the first time, we adored the tenth time. That’s the way it goes for us — we have a long list of favorite novels, but an even longer list of favorite sentences and paragraphs. Yes, we keep books simply so we can revisit that one line on page 67. Picking a
We learned a valuable lesson about long books the year our friend Tim tackled Shogun. We say the year because it took him about that to read the thing. As he pointed out, there were a lot of words. On the other hand, our friend Jim is taking the first two books of the Baroque Cycle to New York with him and planning to buy the final installment while there (when we say taking, we mean he will be hauling the books as part of his carry on material). He understands the flight is only five hours — he’s preparing
We’re lazy — there’s no shame in that. And we’re still working our way through last week’s mail. There is some shame there: we get far too much of the stuff. Putting the two elements together allows us the luxury of reading Sara Nelson’s column, rubbing our chin as we contemplate her scenarios on the future of Miramax Books should Harvey Weinstein pack up his corner office and move on, and then allowing Publisher’s Lunch to form our thoughts for us: I have no inside knowledge, and will subject myself to future embarrassment by predicting that this is the most
“It’s nice to have the books . . . visible when you come in the store. It helps to emphasize that we are a bookstore,” said Virginia France, marketing director and web administrator of the U-Store. It does lessen confusion that way. U-Store unveils refashioned layout
It’s a bit embarrassing to admit this, but we don’t have a clue from bankruptcy. Somewhere along the line, we developed broad categorizations — good bankruptcy and bad bankruptcy — and mentally slot related news into those areas. How and why we went to such trouble is lost in the mists of time. Thus as we report news that a publisher has slipped into Chapter 13 protection, we consider this: money is good, no money is bad. Word has reached us that Imajinn Books has entered into Chapter 13 (filed in Colorado, we have a case number, the contortions required
We end our updates with something that isn’t an update at all. We like to keep our readers guessing. MediaBistro has profiled The Creative Culture for its “Pitching” series. Agents Debra Goldstein, Mary Ann Naples, and Nicole Austin focus primarily on non-fiction (they do represent a small number of fiction authors) on a broad range of subjects. Their respective areas of interest include mind-body, health and lifestyle, and arts and entertainment. As always, check out the full story to learn more. Pitching an Agent: The Creative Culture (AvantGuild members only) The Creative Culture
We have heard tell of a miracle of sorts. While Ballantine Books has long had a policy of agented-only submissions, two editors have said they will consider queries from unagented authors. Charlotte Herscher (editor) and Arielle Zibrak (editorial assitant) will accept query letters (standard stuff: paragraph about your book, info about the author, contact information). Both editors are seeking well-plotted big romances (no clue, we’re sorry to say). Word count is approximately 100,000. Ballantine Books
