Category: publishing

“How could the kind prophet whose lengthy passages I’d copied into my teenage diary be a selfish, sycophantic, womanizing rat?”

The online retail giant discounts bestselling hardcover books even below Kindle editions – which “hurts traditional bricks-and-mortar stores and feeds consumer perception that a fair book price is lower than its cost.” But why?

“Swapping LPs with fellow travellers at border crossings and feeling happy your companion didn’t go to waste .” “Putting cash in socks while crossing Guatemala/Belize border. Hijacked by bandits with LP guide who went straight for my socks.” “Rode auto-rickshaw in Kathmandu to deliver travel guide ms to FedEx, delayed by goat sacrifice on airport runway.”

”The situation was becoming increasingly complicated, largely because Robert was doing rather better than we had expected him to, but we all still hoped to keep the secret a little longer. Yet Robert’s success during his first three months as a published writer (discounting sales made after I was found out) actually compares favourably with JK Rowling’s success over the equivalent period of her career.”

True-crime author Ann Rule is suing a weekly Seattle newspaper, saying she was defamed in 2011 when the fiance of a convicted killer wrote a lengthy article accusing her of “sloppy storytelling.”

“Digital sales tripled last year, to $70 million. The print side, meanwhile, saw sales gains of 15%, to $750 million. That all made 2012 the best comics sales year of the millennium.”

Jonathan Galassi: “I’ve been around long enough to have lived through the transition from what was still basically a shoestring, seat-of-the-pants nineteenth-century artisanal shop to membership in a media conglomerate that has brought us financial stability and supply-chain-style efficiency. … The phones don’t ring off the hook, because most of what goes on in our now-silent offices happens onscreen.”

“He is the most powerful publishing figure on the planet, but for now all he wants to do is talk. Talk to his people, to answer their questions about an uncertain new era. And talk to you, his reader.”

“It’s a moribund turn for a company that prided itself on being the down-to-earth guide for a generation of free-spirited travelers and vagabonds who set out without much more than a backpack, a Lonely Planet guide, and a lust for adventure.”