PublishersWeekly.com

My Agent

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 00000

On a rare day of high-wattage sunshine that momentarily denuded the stygian gloom that is London in late winter, I spent an interesting hour at my U.K. publishers—Random House—listening to the sales and marketing team strategizing for the imminent publication of my 11th novel, Five Days.

Core Concerns

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 00000

If the Common Core fails, what comes next?

Tinkering with the Future

Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:00 00000

Progress surrounds us. We land rovers on distant planets. Satellites and wires that we will never see or touch allow us to connect with anyone anywhere. And we can read great literature on our phones—or play with pigs in space.

Mixing It Up

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:00:00 00000

Reflections on a saloon-turned-bookstore's former life. Plus a cocktail recipe especially for booksellers.

Stress-Testing a Hybrid Publishing Model

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 00000

A few months ago, I set out to use the tools of self-publishing to release my new novel, The Thief of Auschwitz, as much as possible in the manner of a traditional publishing house.

Tap-Dancing Authors

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 00000

Where does one acquire the skills the successful author now needs: ragtime piano, snake handling, banjo picking, or Indian classical dance? This is a serious question for writers in an age when self-promotion has become all-important.

How Do I Love Thee?

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:00:00 00000

To say that my mother loved poetry does not do her justice.

Waking the Dead

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 00000

When novelists resurrect the dead for a work of fiction, research is critical, but it’s only a starting point. Breathing life into a historical figure requires an elusive second step.

Reality Check

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:00:00 00000

It’s January 2011 and I’m in a school auditorium in Ardsley, N.Y., standing in the aisle in front of 60 seventh-graders, reading from I Represent Sean Rosen, my first attempt at writing a novel.

All About the Book

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 00000

Today marks one year since I quit my day job as a bookseller.

Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:00:00 00000

I love music but I can’t play it.

Discovery Begins on Authors’ Homepages

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 00000

For most authors the worst fate is to be ignored, and they spend long hours promoting themselves and their books on social media to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Overcoming Four Words That Can Chill

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 00:00:00 00000

Mike Joachim is the book buyer at the Paper Store. He’s previously worked for Hudson Group airport stores, Learningsmith, Interstate Distributors, and BJ’s Wholesale Clubs.

Double Duty

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:00:00 00000

Trebor Healey is novelist whose previous books include Through It Came Bright Colors, a selection of the InsightOut Book Club and the winner of the Violet Quill Award and the Publishing Triangle’s Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction.

Fewer Books: A Rescue Plan for Barnes & Noble

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:00:00 00000

After administering the oath of office to Vice-President Joe Biden, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor rushed to New York for an appearance at Barnes & Noble, because, Jon Stewart said, “She wasn’t sure it would be there later.”

How I Broke My Chuck Klosterman Curse

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:00:00 00000

Most writers seem to have self-doubt genetically encoded into their beings.

Overcoming the YA Obsession

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:00:00 00000

All of us face that moment... The moment when you’re asked to do something you don’t want to do, and you have to make a decision: move forward with their way, or build your own highway.

A 2,000-Plus-Page Dictionary Teaches a Lesson

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 00:00:00 00000

My dictionary has always been a springboard for inspiration, especially when I’m in the early, just-thinking stages of a project.

To Tweak or Not to Tweak

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:00:00 00000

Recently, I traveled back in time 30 years or so, where I met my younger self.

Who Knows Best: Author or Publisher?

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 00:00:00 00000

Some time last March, my brand-name publisher and I hit a major roadblock.

What I Learned from James Patterson

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:00:00 00000

I’ve been lucky enough to write with James Patterson for the past two and a half years.

Reading Books in L.A.

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:00:00 00000

When I tell people about my book club—started by my mother, held at the local community center, and open to the public—the conversation sometimes grinds to a halt, ending in a semi-uninterested, “That’s so sweet, you and your mom.”

Doing 50,000 Words in 30 Days

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 00000

As you read this 750-word essay, I’ll be taking a nap.

The Best Route for Authors to Take (When Signs Ahead Say ‘Merge’)

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 00:00:00 00000

There has been a lot of discussion, predictions, and all kinds of rumblings since the recent announcement of the upcoming merger of Random House and the Penguin Group.

Judging the Awards

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 00:00:00 00000

Award season is here and along with the celebrations come the mutterings and complaints.

Amish Reading List

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:00:00 00000

“What do the Amish think about your books?” That question gets tossed at me whenever I’m at a book event, and the answer isn’t all that surprising.

The Joy of Shared Reading

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:00:00 00000

Books and conversations about them have always been an important part of my life. Reading books provides us with the opportunity to reflect, immerse ourselves in cultures beyond our own borders, and affords us the occasion to consider ourselves in the context of the generations who have come before.

Too Much Information

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 00:00:00 00000

An old adage says the role of literature is to delight and to instruct, but contemporary novels often seem more intent on instruction than pleasure. It’s a confusion of veracity with authenticity, a reluctance to let a novelist’s research stay where it belongs—in the background of the book, if it’s in the book at all.

The Erasure of Liu Xiaobo

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:00:00 00000

When the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature was announced in the early morning of October 11, I met the news with worry.

Keeping It Real

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:00:00 00000

We’ve always had a problem with “fake.” Whether it was a fake Kate Spade handbag or a knockoff clothing line, fake has always been a part of our culture. Most of us can spot fake. Fake, however, is not limited to fashion anymore. Fake and counterfeit have begun to permeate the publishing industry. We’ve seen knockoff titles like 35 Shades of Grey, but now there’s a new wrinkle: fake reviews. Studies have shown that most people used to believe consumer reviews. Not so much anymore, especially when reviews can be bought, or in some cases, simply faked. The message seems to be: if you want to get noticed, you’d better be prepared to “fake it.”

Bending Over Backwards

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:00:00 00000

On a February evening in 2010, I stood in an oversized, overheated exercise studio in lower Manhattan. From my vantage point near the corner, I gaped as a sea of people—mostly women in their 20s and 30s—balanced exquisitely on the ball of one foot: thigh crossed over thigh, foot wrapped around ankle, arms intertwined before their chests. Suddenly, in unison, they descended into a perfect, unwavering, one-legged squat.

A Story of Hope

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 00:00:00 00000

The year I became a literary agent, an independent press published my first children’s book. Now, seven years later, the same press has published my second children’s book. But this is not a column about an agent who is learning how tough it is to be an author. This is about something else.

Promote, Promote, Promote

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 00:00:00 00000

When I signed my debut novel, The Angels’ Share, with Winter Goose, a small press, I knew that a healthy share of marketing and promotion would be my responsibility. Not a huge surprise—small houses don’t have a lot of resources to throw at literary fiction. But what was surprising was that when I spoke with others who’d signed with larger publishers, I kept hearing that unless their book was “Big” (and sometimes even if it was), the authors still had to do most of the nitty-gritty publicity themselves.

How to Wholesale E-books

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:00:00 00000

Although the Apple, Macmillan, and Penguin lawsuit is still pending, now that the court has approved the Department of Justice settlement terms with Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster and the termination of their agency pricing contracts, all publishers will no doubt be revisiting their e-book pricing models.

Seduction and Serendipity

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 00:00:00 00000

In 1987, when I was an undergraduate, I was browsing in a bookshop in Cambridge, England, when a book (one copy, spine out, on a shelf in the back of the store) caught my eye: Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler by Trudi Kanter. It was a self-published memoir which, unusually for such a thing, had made its way into a mainstream bookshop—I can only imagine that the title had caught the buyer’s attention, as it had mine.

A Novelist In Two Languages

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 00:00:00 00000

I came to the United States in 1996 on a scholarship that sent me to Buffalo, N.Y. I was eager to take a creative writing class, something that didn’t exist in Germany, and so I started writing fiction and poetry in English. My Austrian roommate and I agreed to stop speaking German to each other. I kept family calls to a minimum, purged all German books and magazines from the house, and read Kafka in English translation. Memories of past conversations came to me translated—my parents admonished and scolded in perfect English.

Seven at One Blow

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 00:00:00 00000

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when something peculiar happened in my seventh year as an editor at Orca Book Publishers. After all, seven is a magical number in fairy tales, and Orca is a children’s book publisher. There are seven continents, seven oceans, seven Harry Potter books. So, Why not a series of kids books about seven cousins? When my publisher, Andrew Wooldridge, asked me to edit “the magnificent seven,” my first question was “How many are we going to publish per season?” His answer: “All seven in October 2012.” I wanted to yell, “Are you insane?” but that’s not the kind of thing you say to your boss.

Before There Was Grey, There Was Rose

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 00:00:00 00000

It was 1998, the dark ages in publishing.

Watch What You Write

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 00:00:00 00000

As publicity director at three well-known presses and a book industry professional for over 15 years, it perplexes me a bit that topics once exclusive to industry insiders (and still almost exclusively addressed solely by publishers per standardized procedures, mechanisms, and even contractual agreements) are now being bandied about on author blogs, author Twitter feeds, and even via author-written articles on trade news sites. Being an avid reader and a huge admirer of authors—make no mistake about it, they’re a primary reason why I’ve devoted my career to doing what I do—the present online-I-can-say-anything-because-I’m-a-published-author environment we now live in makes me a little disappointed.

In Search of the Perfect Blurb

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 00:00:00 00000

It seems marketing books in the 21st century is harder than ever. There are fewer bookstores to reach out to, and so much shopping is done online. How can a publisher help launch a first novel from a promising writer? Like we did way back in the 20th century, we provide advance reading copies to reviewers, sales reps, and key buyers. We use more modern methods—making e-ARCs available, reaching out to bloggers, and using Facebook and Twitter to connect directly with consumers.

On to Book Two

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:00:00 00000

My first novel, Ten Girls to Watch, comes out July 31. The last few months I worked on it were heavenly. I spent my days fixing sentences and making tiny plot tweaks, swapping thoughts and revisions with my wonderful editor, Sarah Cantin. She seemed to like my every change almost as much as I liked hers, and even the smallest of our adjustments felt like vast improvements. The book got so much better. We reveled in it. But that was then, and now, instead of the end, I’m back at the beginning, starting novel number two. How exciting! How terrible.

The Art of the Deal

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 00:00:00 00000

When your publisher puts up the dough to send you on a 20-city national book tour, they’re expecting you to transform yourself from a hermitic wordsmith into a traveling salesman.

Listening to Your Readers

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 00:00:00 00000

Listening to your readers is a good thing to do. Trying to please them all is something else entirely.

Of Decisions and Dream Chasing

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 00:00:00 00000

Reviewing the Reviews

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 00:00:00 00000

When my first book was published, I decided not to read the reviews. Why give strangers the power to uplift or shatter my spirits? I’d take the high road, the spiritual path. Actually, I was terrified of the media interviews to come and knew they’d be hard enough to muscle through without someone’s criticisms swirling in my head.

Staying Afloat

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:00:00 00000

Like many bookstores aboard the Titanic of independent bookselling, the Mysterious Bookshop hit the Amazon iceberg a few years ago. More accurately, it hit us, and we’ve been doing everything short of throwing women and children out of lifeboats, to avoid drowning in the icy waters of insolvency.

Making Fair Use More Fair

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:00:00 00000

I miss Ayn Rand. Actually, I miss her voice in my new book. And I blame copyright law.

Daddy-Fic

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 00:00:00 00000

The stage is set for a daddy-fiction movement. It’s time for dads to say what they need to say about child care, stereotypes, and other dads who won’t change dirty diapers.

What the ‘Y.M.C.A.’ Decision Means for Publishing

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 00000

Lloyd Jassin is an intellectual property attorney who writes on contract, copyright, and trademark issues affecting the book publishing industry.

Writing for Hi-Lo Readers

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 00000

Stephanie Perry Moore has written more than 50 inspirational novels, including Saddleback Educational Publishing’s new Lockwood Lions flip-book series, which was coauthored with Moore’s husband, former NFL football player Derrick Moore.

Disintermediating Amazon

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:00 00000

More readers than ever are reading more books than ever. Yet for more than two decades now, for at least as long as I’ve been in publishing––and certainly preceding the rise of Amazon––the lamentations of publishers and storeowners have filled the land. There have been little blips along the way when things seemed to be looking up—a Harry Potter series here, an Oprah Winfrey selection there—but overall it’s been a long, sad decline. We’ve been an industry of enablers: giving huge discounts to mollify ailing stores; overstocking books to mollify ailing publishers. The outcome, more often than not, has been and continues to be shelf space stuffed with unsold product and massive returns. A very few benefit while almost everyone else involved, be they retailer, author, or publisher, suffers.

Evolving with the Industry

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 00000

When I first entered the publishing industry back in 2006 as an author, there was still a giant chasm separating print and digital authors. The “digital books aren’t real books” mindset was still firmly in place, and even today, that lingers.

A Man of Vision

Fri, 04 May 2012 00:00:00 00000

Brian Gibson, CEO of the supplier of the ubiquitous supply chain system commonly referred to as Vista, died on April 22 after a 14-month fight against cancer. Most people in publishing will probably not know of Brian, but his impact on the industry over the past 30 years, in both the U.K. and the U.S., was profound.

Looking for a Ghost

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:00:00 00000

I’ve ghosted books on nearly every conceivable subject. The first question every new ghostwriting client asks is, “Are you an expert or do you know anything about [fill in the blank]?” My answer is almost always the same: “No.”

The Upside of the DoJ Lawsuit

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:00:00 00000

Sometimes we need to be pushed to do what is best for us. That certainly appears to be the case with the publishers’ business model for e-books and its competitive strategy with Amazon.

The Sophomore Novel

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 00:00:00 00000

This summer, I’m learning to ride a motorcycle. I plan to jump it through a flaming hoop at my book party.

People to People = Sales

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:00 00000

A fascinating experiment in bookselling was recently launched in Tokyo: Daikanyama T-Site, created by Tsutaya, one of Japan’s leading bookstore chains. Unlike most of its stores, which are pulsating, neon-lit urban hubs where you can buy books, magazines, coffee, and DVDs till late at night, Daikanyama is more sedate, with glass walls, weathered wood floors and shelves, with a target audience of the over-50s, or what the Japanese call the “silver market.”

‘Could You Personalize That?’

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:00:00 00000

At a book fair I once signed two books to “Tom.” Tom turned out to be “Rod.” Rod refused my offer to sign new books for him. With a malicious grin, Rod said he planned to show my bloopers to his friends as evidence of our close personal friendship.

Finding a Gateway to Audio

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:00 00000

Maris Kreizman is audiobooks editor at eMusic, a music and audiobooks digital retailer.

Finding the Truth in Fiction

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:00:00 00000

In a recent New York Times T magazine article, Holly Brubach, a writer I admire and a friend of Tanaquil Le Clercq, took umbrage at my audacity for depicting the life of the late great ballerina and fifth wife of George Balanchine in my forthcoming novel, The Master’s Muse. Brubach contends that fiction which imagines the lives of “real, usually famous people” aren’t novels at all, but a sort of lesser form, “custom-made for a culture fixated on celebrity.” Examples she cites are Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife: A Novel and Ann Beattie’s Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life. I assume she would include Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife and Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank, two recent books in the category that have captivated many readers.

Bookstores Rock

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 00000

If I were in charge of the world of publishing, my first edict would be Honor Thy Booksellers. Forget those pie charts showing bookstore sales on the wane, those bloggers or twitterers with adoring followers, the number of books Amazon can sell in a single click of its mighty mouse. Independent booksellers are the single most powerful cog in the publishing continuum and should be celebrated as such. Publishers’ reps, librarians, legitimate book reviewers, and literary critics are not far behind.

Rural Longings

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:00:00 00000

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 48,841,966 people live in rural areas. An “urban” area has a population of 50,000 or more. An “urban cluster” covers towns with 2,500 to 50,000 people. Below that is “rural.” Sixteen percent of the American population lives in rural areas, and I’m one of them. I choose not to live in an urban area for a variety of reasons and, for the most part, it doesn’t affect my quality of life. I’m a midlist author, and my agent and editor couldn’t care less where I live. E-mail and telephones keep me connected, and FedEx keeps the paperwork flowing (when real paper is required.)

Egypt Revisited

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 00000

Growing up, I always knew I would have something to do with books. I even dared to hope that I might write one. Books were my initiation into worlds far removed from my quiet nursery life in a majestic home on the banks of the Nile. They exerted an irresistible pull on my childhood, a magnetic component of adventure, companionship, exotica, and escape. I was a voracious reader, often to my mother’s despair.

Listening to the Grass Grow

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:00:00 00000

Fifteen years ago I moved off the power grid—away from the cultural electricity of New York City and urban life in general. It was a vocational leap of faith, but very similar to the leaps that all writers coming to work at a remote colony must make.

The Value Of a Book

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 00000

How much money is a book really worth? Is it the $25 to $30 publishers typically ask for the hardcover edition? Is it the discounted price plus shipping that an online retailer charges? What if there’s only a Kindle edition you can buy, for 99 cents? Is that same book worth nothing on days when it’s given away free? Is it even correct to call such a digital entity “a book”? The easy answer is that a book is whatever readers decide is a book, and it’s worth whatever they’re willing to pay for it.

Shoptalk

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 00000

Publishers Weekly arrives in my mailbox each week, as its name says, which seems too often sometimes. I’m apt to groan when I see it because I know it will likely contain some depressing news about the publishing world, and because I also know that I must read it, for it is my link to what’s going on in this world. But I subscribe because I consider it one of the tools of my trade: writing. And after settling down with a new issue of PW, I am always enlightened.

Ghosts of a Memoir

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 00000

I wanted to write my own memoir, but I’d get stuck with every try. If I dug up my childhood demons, my parents would be devastated. Besides, what if my story was boring? I preferred the safety of reporting on other people’s lives for magazines and Web sites. I also write young adult novels (I’ve written seven), gleefully stepping out of reality instead of diving into it.

The Power Of the Pen

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:00 00000

I have always loved making stories, and by that I mean the process of making them, taking the words in my head and giving them physical form. A gift of a blank notebook for my eighth birthday inspired my first attempt at a novel. I only got six pages into it, but I took great joy in ruling pencil lines for my sentences. At 10, I spent a year’s worth of pocket money on a typewriter. I still remember the satisfaction its smart click against the page gave me. But in the end I did not love my typewriter. My inability to achieve perfection with it often made me cry. I was too stern for erasing fluid, and I didn’t like processions of errors across a page. At 15, a computer seemed the answer. My parents made me take a typing course, which taught me a great deal about the dating situations of the other students (mainly young women in their 20s) and also how to type fast.

A Wish for the New Year

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 00000

When exactly did Amazon become the generic for bookstore? When did it become accepted, standard policy to fill in the “available @” with only its name and not with the name of a particular bookstore? When did the letter go out to journalists at newspapers, magazines, blogs, commentators on public radio, and other radio and TV shows that Amazon deserved to be given hundreds of thousands of dollars of free advertising through the invocation of its name as the “go to” place from which to purchase books? The irony is that you cannot actually “go” there.

Spoil the Plot, or Spare the Riled

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:00 00000

Would you like to read a PW review that went something like this? “The butler turns out to be the murderer in the latest cozy from Jessica Fletcher. In a classic gather-the-suspects-in-the-parlor ending, the modern Miss Marple again IDs the culprit, this time by realizing the significance of the depth of sprinkles sunk into an ice cream sundae on a hot day, after several other characters—the pastor, the chiropodist, and the actuarial student—come under suspicion for a couple of chapters each.”

One Way or The Other

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:00:00 00000

Everyone knows publishing is in the process of deep structural change. As Richard Nash observed, those who are waiting for all the technological/e-publishing dust to settle and for things to “return to normal” are going to be intensely frustrated. There is no final state of rest in view. Change from here on out will be continuous, creating both the greatest possibilities and the deepest instability in the publishing industry.

The Scarlet Letter

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:00:00 00000

Not since Hester Prynne walked out of prison with an infant in her arms and “a rag of scarlet cloth” in the shape of the letter A has there been such public hue and cry as Amazon has provoked in the past few weeks. But one small publisher commends Amazon for being a key partner.

You Can Fool Mother Nature

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 00000

If you’ve ever had to board up the windows of your home and run for the hills because a monstrous storm was headed your way, you’ll understand what I faced last August. In a bizarre turn of events, it was also the moment I received an offer for my first novel.

When a Reviewer Becomes the Reviewed

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:00:00 00000

When reviewers have a book published, what retribution can they expect for their (surely unintended) sins? I’m not asking for argument’s sake, but because I’m about to learn.

An Experiment

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:00:00 00000

When Amazon began offering one free (ostensibly “borrowed”) e-book per month to members of its new Prime program, I was intrigued. I don’t know if a free digital book a month from Amazon is a good thing or a less-than-good thing, or whether the terms are good, bad, or indifferent. What I do know is that refusing to participate in Amazon Prime denies publishers, authors, and agents one thing they need most: data.

How the (Publisher) Grinch Stole Christmas

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:00:00 00000

Anyone who has been in the book business for more than two weeks knows that the Christmas selling season is absolutely crucial to a retail store’s success. Most bookstores do three or four times the business in December compared with any other single month of the year. It’s not even close.

In Praise of Older Men (and Women) Writers

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 00000

For the past three nights—during hours when I could have been sleeping or drinking wine with friends or writing my own past-deadline journalism—I sipped tea and compulsively read Jamil Ahmad’s novel, The Wandering Falcon. It’s a beautiful book, sure, but it’s also a wise book, and its author—a first-time novelist—is 80 years old.

Barbies, Barking, and Boxes: How to Improve Author Events

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:00:00 00000

At one of my first book events, I entered to find a grand total of three people waiting to hear me read. A few seconds into my remarks, a woman and her son stood, and the mother asked, in broken English, “No Thomas Train?” I wanted to scream, “Choo-choo!” to keep them there, but I shook my head and off they went leaving me with one rather bewildered woman who asked if I’d still be reading. I walked away from the podium, turned a chair to face her and said, “Of course.”

The God Particle of Literature

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00:00 00000

If we can see the world in a grain of sand, as William Blake suggests, then surely all of world literature is contained in the humble asterisk.

E-readers Are Tools Of Change

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:00 00000

Albert Einstein once said, “If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” Having Albert on my side was a huge confidence booster at the recent O’Reilly Tools of Change conference in Frankfurt, as I prepared to tell conference goers that the best way to tackle illiteracy and poverty in Africa is to give children and teachers e-readers loaded with donated e-books. Because, as absurd as that idea may sound, it is brilliant—and, best of all, it is working.

A Bookstore With a View

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:00:00 00000

Over the past two decades, bookselling everywhere in the world has changed tremendously. I would like to show how big these changes were for me by telling you the story of Harmony, my book shop at Assi Ghat in Varanasi.

Language Arts

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:00:00 00000

The death of translation in the English-speaking world has been greatly exaggerated... but who has what it takes?

A Lucky Author Gives Back

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 00000

My first book, a memoir about rape as well as the education of a writer, was somewhat ironically named Lucky. It is a word I’ve come to use a lot these days, but now there is little irony attached. I have been lucky in my editors, Jane Rosenman and Asya Muchnick, women who roll up their sleeves and make work better.

Selling to the English-Speaking World

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:00:00 00000

We’ve often been told that only 3% of the fiction on sale every year in the English-speaking world has been translated from any other language. I can tell you it’s true. Agents try to be optimistic: “There is an increasing audience for translated fiction,” we say. “Look at Murakami and Stieg Larsson’s sales in the U.S. and U.K.”

Defining 'Library'

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:00:00 00000

A few years ago, I opened the proceedings of a summit that brought together publishers, technologists, funders, and librarians by ripping the cover off a paperback book. I was attempting, feebly, to make a point about the inviolability of books.

Twitter by the Numbers

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 00000

There’s been a lot of talk about “followers” and “friends” and “likes” in social media. I agree that the size of one’s audience matters, but there are other numbers that are arguably better measures of impact and overall strength of one’s Twitter feed.

Eye on the Prize

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:00:00 00000

My spring ritual: reading the full-page list of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship winners in the New York Times. Who do I know? Amy! Phillip! Kathy! Ben! Even good friends don’t tell you they’re applying. Accepting condolences for “No, I didn’t get it”? A writer would rather have a colonoscopy. No sane person expects to get a Guggenheim. How could they? It’s easier getting into Harvard. The odds are roughly one in 20.

Unsettled

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:00:00 00000

After six years of legal maneuvering, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on August 17, 2011, rejected a proposed settlement in a class action copyright suit filed by freelance writers against periodical publishers and electronic database operators—a decision, experts say, that will likely kill the beleaguered Google Book Settlement as well.

9/11 in Our Minds, and Our Books

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:00 00000

We all have our stories of that day. Here’s mine.

Whither the Cookbook?

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:00:00 00000

I don’t pretend that by the end of this article we’ll have the future of cookbook publishing figured out, but we all know, as publishers, the opportunities and challenges of the Internet. Instant access prompts enormous gateways to consumer engagement as well as the problem of readily available free content (free recipes as an obvious example).

Solitary Refinement

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:00:00 00000

Susan Salter Reynolds was a columnist and features writer at the Los Angeles Times for 23 years. Before that, she was an assistant editor at the New York Review of Books.

Fatal Mistakes

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:00:00 00000

Borders is dead. Newspapers, magazines, and blogs are using metaphors like "dinosaur" to describe its end. But for me, a former employee, it's more like Old Yeller: a once great friend who got sick and had to be put down.

Renaissance: Are niches the new mass market?

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:00:00 00000

Contract Headaches

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 00:00:00 00000

Back in May, when Harold Camping swore that the world would end, an agent I follow on Twitter said something to the effect of, "If I knew the rapture was coming I wouldn't have spent my last year on Earth negotiating the new [a certain Big Six publisher] boilerplate."

Common Goals: AAP on the GSU e-reserve lawsuit

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:00:00 00000

Paul Courant's recent Soapbox op-ed ("Adversary or Enemy?") doesn't address what motivated three academic publishers to sue, with great reluctance, Georgia State University for copyright infringement: GSU was, and is, systematically downloading and scanning substantial portions of books and posting them on e-reserve, semester after semester, for tens of thousands of students without paying a cent for royalties to the authors and publishers who created the materials.

Guy (Author) Needs Women!

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 00000

A male writer tries to convince his female readers his stories aren't just for the boys, even if his book jackets make it look that way.

Do You Know What a Book Publicist Does?

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 00:00:00 00000

"People in this business still assume that the only good thing a publicist does is book appearances on Oprah or The Today Show or Good Morning America."

Adversary or Enemy?: A Publisher Lawsuit Crosses the Line

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 00000

I once took one of those pricey business school executive education workshops designed to teach leadership skills, and one of the things I learned was the importance of distinguishing between adversaries and enemies. Adversarial engagements are part of everyday life. As an academic administrator, a library manager, and a faculty member, I frequently find that some of my best friends are my adversaries, often in mutually beneficial relationships.

Murder 101: A Bestselling Author Teaches A 'Killer' Class

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:00:00 00000

Two years ago, Time Out New York asked me to write a set of instructions on how to murder a dinner guest. It was one of the most thrilling writing assignments I'd ever been given. I unleashed my inner P.D. James and created the most foolproof scenario I could imagine—monkshood in the soup: it grows almost everywhere and looks enough like parsley that one could claim it was a tragic accident.

The View: Is The Glass Half-Full Or Half-Empty?

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:00:00 00000

Resilience: Even Under Threat, Librarians Put Their Communities First

Mon, 30 May 2011 00:00:00 00000

I'm the new girl in library marketing. It took me a few years to get here. I stumbled out of college into Seattle's thriving Web 2.0 startup scene, until, after a brief stint at Google, I saw (cue choir of angels) a job posting that basically read: "talk to librarians about books." I had an apartment lined up before the publisher's HR department called with the offer. And so I landed in this intimate community of book stewards, in the midst of technological and financial upheaval. To quote my dad: "What an extraordinary time to get into books."