Category: publishing

Was Michael Kinsley unethical as a judge for not reading all the nominees for this year’s National Book Awards? “The job of a book-awards judge starts with bookicide. Once you’ve decided a nonfiction book could not possibly win – because, say, its first 50 pages stink – you’re free to toss it. There’s no further reporting obligation. Kinsley appears to have leaped way over the line if he didn’t read even the opening pages of many nominated books…

The Bush administration has recruited prominent American writers to “write about what it means to be an American writer” for a State Department anthology to promote America culturally around the world. “Although the State Department plans to distribute the 60-page booklet of 15 essays free at American embassies worldwide in the next few weeks, one country has already banned the anthology: the United States. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, renewed when the United States Information Agency became part of the State Department three years ago, bars the domestic dissemination of official American information aimed at foreign audiences.”

JK Rowling and Warner Bros. have lost an expensive lawsuit in Germany. A publisher of textbooks had used the Harry Potter character in printed homework assignments, so Rowling sued. “The judge in the case agreed with the publishing house’s argument that they did not need to obtain copyright for school books because they were for educational purposes. The practice of using images on German schoolbooks is apparently commonplace. According to the publishing house, authors are happy to be targeted because it gives them free publicity and even boosts sales of the original book as it means children have to buy them so they can complete the homework.”

A love poem has been declared the winner of this year’s Guardian “Text Message” Poetry Contest. The poetry is composed for mobile phones and “the text message format puts a limit of 160 characters on each poem, which tests the ingenuity and creativity of the poets. Combining poetry, one of the oldest literary forms, with texting demonstrates just how creative text messaging can be.”

“Consumers are often baffled at the price tag attached to what appears to be little more than a mass of paper, cardboard and ink. A whole host of factors, including the size of the book, the quality of paper, the quantity of books printed, whether it contains illustrations, what sort of deal the publisher can make with the printer and the cost of warehouse space, all affect the production costs of a book. But, roughly speaking, only about 20 percent of a publisher’s budget for each book pays for paper, printing and binding, the trinity that determines the physical cost.”

Publishing giant Random House and online publisher RosettaBooks have settled RH’s lawsuit against the upstart internet publisher. Rosetta has been selling electronic versions of books that predate the internet by authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and William Styron. Rosetta claimed its editions as new publications and made deals with the authors and not the original publishers. “But the settlement announced Wednesday leaves the issue unresolved. The two sides essentially agreed it was better to work together than to fight.”

Book sales seem slow this holiday season. Is it because of the economy? “I suspect there is another reason that there seems to be so little fun in book publishing and selling now: there’s no buzz book, no book that people talk about or at least hear about, even if they don’t read it. Book talk is great for book selling.”

Canadian writers are hot these days – all over the world. But why does it take international acclaim before the folks at home pay you any respect? “We parade our multiculturalism – but our posturing cannot camouflage our grudging embrace of the best our culture produces.”

Wendy Perriam has won “one of the least coveted prizes in literature” – the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, awarded by the Literary Review. The prize is for the worst literary description of sex in a novel, and some of the literary world’s best-known authors have been nominated. “Robert Posner of the Literary Review said Perriam’s book stood out from the rest because ‘they had never before heard of pin-striped genitalia’, although he admitted the committee of judges were confused as to what it actually meant.”

Quincy Troupe, who was forced out of his appointment as California’s first Poet Laureate this fall after it was discovered he had misrepresented his credentials on his resume, has had to resign his teaching post at the University of California, San Diego. “I very much regret my lapse in judgment and the problems it has created for my department and the broader UCSD community,” Troupe said.