Square Pegs

We’re going to be honest: we believe everything we read. It’s so much easier than thinking and analyzing and looking up facts. But sometimes, we see an untruth so blatant it makes us raise our eyebrows and shake our heads. It happened right smack in the middle of Day Two of Brendan Gullifer’s experience at the Sydney Writers’ Festival (if you’ve never been to one, Gullifer nails the experience, though he seems a bit sober to us). What caught our attention was the part where Jane Palfreyman of Random House says, “…people send presents with their manuscripts – bottles of

Publisher’s Lunch, the daily newsletter, is changing its menu, starting next Tuesday. Over the past several years, Michael Cader has focused time and energy on Publisher’s Marketplace while still serving Lunch daily (except when the chef takes time off). Marketplace members, who subscribe to the site, will receive a special Deluxe Lunch with lots of trimmings. Yes, Virginia, we live in a world where database integration is considered a “trimming”. Regular Lunch subscribers will receive a scaled-down version of the newsletter (the low carb option). In a week where The Bookseller moves toward pay-to-play (yes, we know — it was

Alan Dershowitz didn’t like the review he received from PW, and now the trade is re-reviewing his book America on Trial. He felt the review crossed the line from critical of the work to critical of him. We’re going to admit we haven’t followed Mr. Dershowitz’s career nor did we have the energy to read the review, but something about this story…bothers us. Maybe it’s that extra dollop of self promotion we see? Given the number of high profile non-fiction books on the market (did we really just write that?), a little controversy can’t hurt. Probably we’re just feeling a

We walked into this writing thing with our eyes wide open (while maintaining a healthy grip on the the fantasy life because that’s what keeps us sane), so reading about the financial realities of one author didn’t depress us. Much. This money conversation has been swirling on several of our lists for the past week — it seems the universe wants us to remember that working at McDonald’s might be more lucrative. We especially focused on this quote: “I am careful with money because I never know how much I will be earning in six months’ time. When I spend

We think the work of a translator is beyond tough. Sure, authors are slagged for, well, writing words that someone doesn’t like. Translators get it for, well, misinterpreting the author’s original meaning. We’ve had teachers who swear by one translation or another, convincing us that language truly is in the eye of the beholder. Or something like that. Therefore we applaud the largely thankless job of Gregory Rabassa. And we’re so happy it’s not ours. A Translator’s Long Journey, Page by Page The U.S. Conduit for Latin American Fiction

Okay, so maybe JK Rowling doesn’t need our marketing advice. Maybe she’s the one author in a million who got lucky and earned billions without the necessary slog of self-promotion. Okay, fine, she did. But just as we believe all agents need websites (before they announce their intentions to the world) and all publishers need usuable websites (we’re not holding our breath), we believe that all authors should, at a minimum, have some sort of Internet presence (we have plenty of thoughts on this subject as well). You know, just a little something for the fans. After all, which would

Our former instructor, Leslie Schwartz, is going on tour, and we think you should know about it. We’ve had the privilege of hearing a bit of her current novel Angels Crest, and, of course, spending time with her as she nurtured our fragile soul. We wish Leslie the best with her new book. Leslie Schwartz Book Tour

We think getting books into peoples’ hands is a great idea. In fact, we thrust printed matter on guests whenever we can. Mostly they’re too polite to hand it back to us, and we believe our favorite books are eventually read (we do this so often we actaully purchase loaner copies of books we believe our friends should read and love). Libararies bring books to the masses, and now libraries in Ohio are offering ebooks. The story below makes sense to us up to the point where the books are returned. We admit our brain shies away from the overly