Square Pegs

In the BS ‘verse, there are a few universal truths. Let’s focus on two: “it’s not the idea”, it’s the execution, and “if you have even a remotely successful movie, you will be sued.” The latter concept is so universal, you can practically set your watch by it. We do not pretend to have secret knowledge of the legal maneuverings behind the lawsuit du week — this one featuring Booksquare hero Jim Jarmusch and his film Broken Flowers — but we do know that creating scandal out of this statement is both silly and deliberately obtuse:

What is the estimate? The total number of blogs doubles every few months or so? A new blog is created every minute? There are more blogs than there are people? Something like that. It’s hard to be read in the crowd. You can ask a dozen bloggers why they blog — helpfully, you’ll get a dozen different answers. Perhaps we are secretly a nation of frustrated writers, or perhaps we have a lot of pent up words in our systems. Maybe it’s that everyone is an expert on one thing and needs to share their knowledge with the world. There’s

It the kind of week where it’s hard to get anything going. We do not suffer weather well in SoCal, and a strange conspiracy between an overheated sun and June gloom has lead to what is, for us, oppressive humidity. We, denizens of the region, do not object in principle to humidity. It is simply that we adhere to a strict schedule, and humidity is not allowed into the region until August or so. Everyone is moving slowly, even the Internet. It takes us twice as long to type a sentence as it should (it takes even longer to backspace

Jill, thinking she’d get us worked up this morning, sent along a lovely story about a county that has cut the budget for Spanish-language fiction for adults. They will continue to fund children’s books and non-fiction, but not “pleasure reading” for the adults. Because you know, when adults read for pleasure, there’s no telling what will happen. We have heard rumors that some adults who read fiction go on to become thinking, producing members of society. While we cannot get our hands on the study right now, we vaguely recall learning that fiction readers are often taxpayers just like non-fiction

So, let’s say you’re in the French Embassy — should you expect to run into all of your friends? Oddly, the answer is yes. We started our round of what we have been assured will be non-stop partying (oh, to be young and energetic again!) with a visit to the French Embassy, courtesy of Dalkey Archives. We then moved on to the Hyperion party, where Amy Goodman was far to worked up for our blood sugar level. Joining us in last night’s revels* were The Happy Booker (truly happy) and Mr. Booker, Pinky, Ed, Bookdwarf, Ron Hogan, Mark Sarvas, Lauren

The first rule of car buying, other than don’t buy a lemon, is that only a fool pays sticker price. Everybody knows that is only the starting point in a long, irritating (“let me check with my manager”) negotiation. Actual prices are often the result of how much the retailer pays versus how much they need to bring in to make a profit. We recently had a conversation where we discussed the rather quaint notion of MSRP — wherein the MSRP was a wink, wink, nudge, nudge concept. The publishing industry likes to put prices — MSRP — on every

We’re guessing that the publishing industry, like most industries, isn’t one for deep introspection. You know, a scandal here, a scandal there. Given the number of books published every year, the percentage of horrors is relatively low. But we like to think that the Kaavya Viswanathan story is starting more than a few discussions in the halls of publishers — or at least in the halls of the blogosphere — about the role of book packagers in what we like to think of as a creative industry.

Publisher’s Weekly is reporting that Little, Brown has officially decided not to revise and re-release How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life. Apparently, the second book under the contract is also a no-go. PW also speculates about the status of the advance received for the book, wondering if the publisher will ask Kaavya Viswanathan to return the money. Though…since it’s our understanding that Alloy is the copyright holder (and possibly the contracting party), it seems that the book packager would be on the hook for legal action and whatnot. While we’re not cynical, we fully expect

We spent a lovely morning at UCLA yesterday, enjoying the overwhelming sights and sounds of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books — including, of course, being part of the rollicking Tod Goldberg entourage* — and we were absolutely amazed at the number of readers there are in a town that we’ve heard doesn’t read. And then the conversation happened. We were talking to Wendy Duren about important PaperbackReader stuff and then romance fiction in general. You know, little things like, “Wow, you’d think they’d bother to devote at least one measly panel to romance.” Then, “No, no, they don’t

Let us all agree that Kaavya Viswanathan has had a lousy week. The kind of week you shouldn’t have to have during your sophomore year at Harvard. And we don’t know if she’s truly at fault or if it’s a fine mix of circumstances. But it does appear that plagiarism happened. We all know that authors frequently borrow ideas and sometimes even phrases from other works of art. Art builds upon art. The key is to make your own art, not to slavishly copy someone else’s work. And when it’s done repeatedly, even the most forgiving of us begin to