If You Have to Ask…
Johanna Vondeling will be joining Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc. as an editor this fall. Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc.
They Come, They Go
Just a week after Roger Freet was named senior editor of Harper SanFrancisco, we learn that John Loudon has left his executive editor position (no, really, if you’re doing your org charts in ink, we can’t feel sorry for you). He’ll be consulting, including for his former employer. Harper SanFrancisco And The Moves Keep on Coming
Another Flatiron Occupant
Updates are sparse this week — with good reason: everyone played musical chairs last week. However, we were diligent and kept our nose to the grindstone (not really, we have no idea where one would locate such an item) to find a few items of interest. St. Martin’s Press has added Marcia Markland (formerly Avalon) as an editor. She’ll handle mystery and suspense. Word on the street is she loves crime fiction. St. Martin’s Press
When A Doesn’t Really Equal A
We like a good play on words, which we presume was the goal of the Chicago Sun-Times‘s headline. Nothing else makes sense. The article discusses the topic du week: the number of books flooding the market. As noted previously, there are a lot. And there are a lot of theories behind this, including our favorite: For some reason, everybody thinks they can write a book, and book publishing seems glamorous to them. We don’t necessarily see that as the real problem, but what the heck, we’ll go with it. So we continue through the article, the discussions from industry professionals,
From The Grain of Salt Department
We have a personal policy: we’ll believe what you want us to believe. This does not always mean we don’t see through lies, but if it’s important to you, who are we to deny your wish? We’re also not opposed to hoaxes — generally the smallest amount of diligence will reveal the truth. What we have learned in our life is that most people don’t take that extra step. If you put it in writing, they will believe it. This is the reason the husband enjoyed a small amount of notoriety in his wild youth. It was with this attitude
Pick a Number, Any Number
Penguin has a new distribution system, and it, apparently, doesn’t work very well. Bold innovation in automation is like that sometimes. Given that time is money and all that, they’re working hard to get books out the door and into stores. It’s not like it helps to have all those lovely items sitting in a warehouse. Which is why we’re thinking the threatened lawsuit by the Association of Author’s Agents (this is how you know we’re talking about the UK, not the US) isn’t helping matters. First off, how can the so-called lost sales be calculated? What possible metric exists?
Self-Publishing Mr. Lincoln
Two years ago, at a conference, we listened as a publisher spoke about acquiring two previously self-published titles. Since then, we’ve written about this idea as it relates to various concepts (which we won’t bore you with today). The Literary Saloon offer thoughts on the subject while discussing recent reviews of two books on Abraham Lincoln (with amazingly similar titles), one of which was self-published. We were pleased to see them skate the edge of the judging a book by its cover meme before leaping back into the game: The cover a book is published under should have nothing to
Sometimes Erudite Means Slacker
We were all over the interminable rights thing, then, thanks to a glass of wine or two, missed the boat. Luckily Sarah W. did all the work we fantasized we might do. Except she didn’t indulge in the dream sequence where a poor author ends up in a position where he or she has to take a job at the local 7/11 in order to pay commissions to multiple agents due to multiple interminable rights clauses. We suspect Sarah simply didn’t have enough wine in her system. Sarah also asks about the logic behind the clause. Not surprisingly, we have
Yes, Indeed, That’s Censorship Making the Scene
Yesterday, we talked about censorship. There was some disagreement about whether what happened to Whoopi Goldberg and Linda Ronstadt constituted true censorship, and while we understood the arguments being made, we also felt that an underlying message was being sent. Censorship doesn’t have to be a pile of books serving as a bonfire; sometimes a subtle message is far more effective: To watch the dictators and political operatives and religious zealots go at it, censorship might seem like a tough business. The so-called experts create the impression you have to burn books, pass censorial laws, or openly express a ruthless
Literary Fiction
Finally a Bill Clinton story we can get behind: piracy and the human spirit. In our former life, we were a bit of anti-piracy maven (not that we are opposed to pirates, per se, but we’ve never been big on stealing). We could discuss (for hours) the issues of selling fake DVDs and camcorders smuggled into movie theaters. In fact, when Seinfeld had the episode when Jerry became a pirate with an artistic bent, we were happy to use that example to explain concepts to people. It’s nice when you have a visual aid. All of this really has nothing