Most writers generally don’t mind when historians or students borrow their words, but beware the “new secret plagiarists, the media and communications behemoths whose magazines and newspapers, cable networks and film companies routinely raid the work of biographers to satisfy their ceaseless need for product – at no cost.” – Brill’s Content
Category: words
DRIBS AND DRABS
E-authors find that doling out their work a chapter or so at a time hooks readers. And publishers are beginning to make it lucrative for these new stars. – Wired
GET YOUR FREE BOOKS
Earlier this year Amazon sparked a book price-war by upping its discount on NYT bestsellers. Last week, in just under two hours, Bol.com gave away 20,000 books at a cost of more than £100,000. In return, it got 40,000 book buyers to register their e-mail addresses, and lengthy articles in at least two national newspapers. In terms of marketing spend it was a cheap deal. How can internet booksellers afford to undercut their prices? Six online booksellers talk about their strategies. – The Bookseller
“UNREADABLE, UNINTELLIGIBLE, INCOMPREHENSIBLE”
Judging by his last three projects, David Mamet is in a major slump. Now a scathing London Times review of the author/playwright’s new book, which is so bad, goes the speculation, it can’t even find an American publisher. Mamet’s American agent refuses comment. – Boston Globe
CHAPTERS ON PARADE
Canadian mega-bookseller Chapters defends itself to Canadian government inquiry into the book business. Chain denies it has tried to run independent bookstores out of business. Independents have claimed that Chapters has 55 per cent of the Canadian market. “This is categorically false,” says Chapters. “We have somewhere between 20 and 23 per cent of the consumer book market in Canada.” – CBC
IT’S NOT ME
Authors worried about publishing sensitive writing have a new, anonymous way of doing it – online. – Wired
OF DOGS, CATS AND BOOKFLAPS
Why is it that so many writers feel the need to include aperçus to their pets on the backs of their book-jackets? The muse finds many forms. – New York Times
“DAMN THOSE CANADIAN JUDGES”
Francis Ford Coppola’s online writers’ workshop is a figure skating free-for-all. The judges can be brutal, but the experience of having your work mauled out there in the ether can also be strangely addictive. – Salon
SLUMP? WHAT SLUMP?
US book publishing sales rose 4 percent last year, beating $24 billion. – Publishers Weekly
AFRICAN-AMERICAN WRITERS IN EXILE
Think of American ex-pat writers in Paris and you think Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Henry Miller. But Paris has also been a hospitable refuge for black American writers looking for a place to work. – Philadelphia Inquirer