Amazon‘s annual holiday release featured a blizzard of whimsical non-statistics about all of the things they sold during the busiest shopping time of the year. Among the ebook-related bits, “the most popular Kindle book purchased on Christmas day was The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey.” The most gifted Kindle book during the holidays was the […]
Most Reviewed
Newspaper Book Reviews, Reviewers, and Gender
The latest VIDA statistics assessing gender representation in book reviews continue to draw comment and response. But VIDA’s lens, expanded this year to include more publications, still primarily examines periodicals and journals and overlooks the substantial body of daily and weekly book reviews in large-circulation newspapers. That’s exactly the world we have tracked for years […]
Washington Post Eliminates Book Editor Job, Moves Most Staff to Style Section
A reorganization of the “structure and staffing” of various weekly feature sections at the Washington Post will eliminate the position of Book World Editor entirely. That job is currently held by Rachel Shea, who has run the group for the past two and a half years. She has the option of applying for the few other […]
USA Bolsters Online Book Pages
USA Today has soft-launched a revised and expanded books section on the newspaper’s web site, complicated with a dedicated sub-domain, books.usatoday.com. Among the features, their bestseller list has a graphics-enriched consumer-friendly new presentation (and is featured on the books home page as well). Importantly for publishers and publicists, the Book Buzz column will now act […]
People, Etc.
In Italy, former publisher of Mondadori Massimo Turchetta will take over as publisher of the trade book division at RCS Libri (comprising the imprints Rizzoli, BUR, Bompiani, Fabbri, and Etas) on March 1, reporting directly to ceo Alessandro Bompieri. Iris Blasi has joined Hilsinger-Mendelson East as coordinator of digital media. Previously she was an associate […]
Publicize This: How to Get the WSJ to Break Your Book
The WSJ’s recently-launched weekend Review section proved it can put a book on the nation’s radar with their attention-getting (and controversially titled) except from Amy Chua’s book. (The book is called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother; the WSJ called their excerpt “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.”) The splash made an ideal segue to a […]