Books/Mags/Blogs

If you’ve been paying attention to the news recently, you’ve noticed two major stories: Shrek2 and The Incredibles were victims of stronger-than-expected DVD returns. There are all kinds of questions being asked of the studios behind these films, but, oddly, nobody’s asking about overproduction. Nobody’s asking why the system isn’t more efficient. Hollywood is lucky in that a few films making it big can pay a lot of bills. But you have you understand that there’s a long revenue stream attached to every movie and television series. For one or two books to carry a publishing house in the same […]

The authors behind The Lipstick Chronicles (Susan McBride, Sarah Strohmeyer, Harley Jane Kozak, Nancy Martin’s) take a look at the idea of a girl ghetto in crime fiction. The discussion features Laura Lippman, David Montgomery, Sarah Weinman, and Harlan Coben, each of whom addresses the idea that women are pushed to the edges of this genre. Their conclusions tend to say no, with qualifiers. The responses are interesting, but we found that one recurring theme didn’t get explored fully (given the format and the fact that the Lipsticks couldn’t have predicted this, it’s understandable): the idea that people write what

Let us state for the record that we’d talk about M.J. Rose’s latest marketing idea even if $5 wasn’t being donated to Reading is Fundamental. But, boy, the second we heard the news, the little animated character from the RIF commercials of our childhood danced across our mind. Luckily, we pulled out of Memory Lane and have returned to the task at hand. Rose has been turning notions of publishing and marketing books upside-down since she finished her first book Lip Service. Now she’s not only built a strong reader base, but her latest title, The Halo Effect (now out

For the three or four of you who aren’t reading the new Emerging Writers Network blog every day, we wanted to point out that the latest interview with literary journal editors has been posted (we will not, however, point out that Dan Wickett is leaving us in the blogging dust; that should go without saying). Lots of great, useful information — for those writing in the short story market, these interviews are a must. We’ve discovered and purchased quite a few new-to-us publications on the strength of the editors personalities revealed in these interviews, as well. Participating in this month’s

We were confused way back when Melissa Bank’s The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing was labeled “chicklit”. Naturally our confusion stemmed from our inability to properly connect dots; the book read, to us, like a collection of connected short stories. That the stories were written by a woman and featured a female protagonist did not seem to make it worthy of carrying the banner for a new genre. Shows what we know. Now Bank has a new novel out (The Wonder Spot), and it’s being labeled as chicklit, ostensibly because the first book was. It would be easy enough

In our desperate quest for hard news on this short Friday (seriously, who’s planning on working past ten this morning? Liar.), we searched far and wide to find an industry trend. Imagine our relief when we happened upon just the thing: a helpful analysis of title trends. Specifically “Confessions” titles. May we suggest that once you have a title like. . . Confessions of a Municipal Bond Salesman . . .the trend must be ended immediately, if not sooner. (via GalleyCat) Join the Confessional

Far be it for us to suggest that there are times when advertising is a waste of good money, but…Oh, who are we kidding? We have no qualms about suggesting that the decision to launch a major advertising campaign for the new Harry Potter book is lame. Why spend a single cent when every media outlet on the planet will be breathlessly covering the event? Oh right, publishing likes to advertise the big titles that will already sell while neglecting those who could use a little extra push. Harry Potter campaign planned

We still have mixed feelings about anonymous reviews. Sure, a huge part of us demands that reviewers stand up and take responsibility for their work. What’s wrong with standing behind your opinion? Then we start thinking that anonymity allows for a certain level of freedom, especially if the reviewer is part of the community they’re reviewing. Peer pressure, you know. Quinn Dalton, whose Bulletproof Girl received an anonymous, negative review from Kirkus makes a compelling case for taking the unsigned out of unsigned reviews: While negative reviews are a reality, I didn’t feel that this review was fair or accurate.

So there we were, swinging in the hammock, watching the hummingbirds chase each other (they really do have a lot of excess energy). Suddenly, the sound of a moving van interrupted our half-sleep. What? A new neighbor? And here things had been so quiet. What’s with the excitement on our block? On one side, we have the extremely provocative The Happy Booker, on the other side is the very enticing Dan Wickett. What’s a blog to do? Well, we’re going to throw a three-day weekend. To celebrate Dan’s assumption of multiple daily posts and contributions to the Bloghood Improvement Project,

At some point, someone will need to reconcile the fact that kids today don’t read with the fact that Harry Potter orders are skyrocketing. But we’ll leave that task to those who understand bell curves and whatnot. We want to focus on the positive for the moment. At this rate, pre-orders should top the 1.3 million pre-orders received for the previous Harry Potter book in 2003. After that, there’s not much in the way of news. Oh, the huge discount issue is going to raise its ugly head again. And it will be interesting to see if people are throwing