Category: words

How could Amazon afford to give away the costly overnight shipping of “Harry Potter” books? “Harry’s initial success is key to Amazon’s initial success, which is key to the rise in the Internet-stock market, which is key to Amazon’s ability to spend on promotion more than it makes on sales, which is how it can FedEx 250,000 Harrys for free. This helps to create the biggest publishing event of all time, which actually does not even primarily benefit Amazon (which will sell fewer than 10 percent of Harrys sold) but in fact benefits most of all its primary competitor, Barnes & Noble, which will sell far and away the lion’s share of Harry.” – New York Magazine

• HARRY LOVES A PARTY: While Barnes & Noble and Amazon sold about a million copies between them on the opening weekend of “Harry,” independent bookstores used the occasion to throw elaborate parties, many of them beginning with the midnight release of the book. – Publishers Weekly

A famous photo, thought to be of Oscar Wilde in drag, turns out to be a Hungarian opera singer instead. – The Age (The Telegraph)

“Many of the Great Books contain allegories for the journey of the soul from one’s particular time, place and attachments to a transcendental perspective, where the mysteries of human existence, love, faith and longing are illuminated. After this journey to the heights of insight, we return to our own time and place better able to appreciate both its shortcomings and its virtues.” – National Post (Canada)

In 1992 the annual Poetry Publication Showcase was begun.  “In 1992 the mood was feisty but beleaguered: ‘We few, we happy few, we band of poets’ went the boast. Now there’s a sense that poetry’s making it, moving rapidly to the center(s) of our cultural life. Poets House executive director Lee Briccetti, who dreamed up the Showcase as a way to bring attention to a severely marginalized literary form, hopes the poetry world is poised to take advantage of what she terms ‘a moment of cultural readiness.'” – The Nation

“The role of the famous writer’s widow is an awkward one. She is the custodian of the work. She is responsible for the placement of archives, the decision about what remaining material should or should not be released to the world; the keeper of the flame. Tess Gallagher says it was never her intention to become simply ‘a function of Ray’s absence’. As much as she was Carver’s spouse, she is also a writer herself.” – The Telegraph (UK)

A story in an Italian magazine purporting to be by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez on how he is dying of cancer, moved a publisher to contact Marquez’s agent to get reprint rights. The note back was incisive: “García Márquez is ashamed that this rubbish might be considered as a text written by him. It has gone around the world and I have no means of righting this usurpation of his name. It seems to proceed from a Colombian actor whom I hope I will never run into or I will insult him as he deserves.” – Sydney Morning Herald

She wrote 13 books over the course of 50 years, only to have every one of them rejected by publishers. Then No. 14 hit and now she’s a star. – Sydney Morning Herald

• “It has long been known that writers suffer from a much higher incidence of mood disorders, including depression and mania, than other people. The precise medical reason for this has never been adequately explained. But [an anthropologist] believes it is because writing is less a true expression of the artist’s life (except in the case of the daily diarist) than it is a form of compensation and redress for denied satisfactions.” – National Post (Canada)

The New Yorker has begun publishing photos of its fiction writers. Sure we’re an increasingly visual culture, and promoting the writer is all part of the package. “But there is something different about fiction, which depends for its power on our willingness to believe that it is as much about the reader’s life as it is the writer’s. Linking too readily the author’s image with the work seems to make the story more disposable. It’s just another product, just another package deal.” – Chicago Tribune

Bookstores report they have been packed continuously since last weekend’s release of the new Harry Potter book. Barnes & Noble said it had its biggest weekend in history, selling 502,000 Potters as of the close of business on Sunday night. The publisher plans to print about two million more copies in the next few months, adding to the 3.8 million copies generated during the first U.S. print run. – Philadelphia Inquirer