Thomas Nelson ceo Mike Hyatt blogs on the bestseller price war, saying that “publishers themselves need to find the courage to act in everyone’s long-term interests. As the content providers, they have all the power they need to stop these pricing practices.” That “courage” can lead to some radical options, such as not selling to major vendors. He indicates that Nelson is discussing at least three options: delaying ebook releases; “stag[ing] the channel rollout of certain frontlist titles” (the implied meaning is that they would not sell some hardcovers to mass merchandisers at all in the first release window, but […]
Opinion
More Pronouncements, from Ackman and Olson
A NYT blog publishes a performance report from Bill Ackman to investors in Pershing Square. Even with the big run-up in Borders stock recently and the sweetheart deal in which Pershing got to reprice their underwater stock warrants to the bargain level of 65 cents a share in exchange for extending their $42.5 million loan, the hedge fund is still at a loss on their Borders stake. Ackman notes that the average cost of their position after the cheap warrants is still just under $7 a share. He writes, “while the economic environment and digital book readers continue to be […]
Short Story Anthology Ignites Yet Another CanLit Debate
It took almost a year before The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories ignited debate, but now that it has it’s provoked another round of discussion in the ongoing Canadian literature culture wars. In response to anthology editor Jane Urquhart’s selections for the anthology and her admission in the book’s introduction of a “nagging suspicion that perhaps I was not the person best suited to the task,” two literary magazines – The New Quarterly and Canadian Notes and Queries – have joined forces to celebrate a Salon des Refusés, featuring stories by 20 writers (10 in each magazine) not included […]
Issues of the Week: Reviews & Blogs, Again
The quickening dissection and/or disappearance of newspaper book reviews (and newspaper book-focused staff) produced a couple of pieces of commentary this week. First Da Capo senior director of publicity Lissa Warren wrote at the Huffington Post on “will blogs save books?” She criticizes blog coverage of books with a broad brush for, well, not being more like the traditional take-it-from-the-approved-and-salaried-experts reviews that are being eliminated. “I think book reviews on blogs — particularly those of the Blogspot variety — tend to be self-indulgent. Book reviewing bloggers need to move away from opinion in favor of judgment. How does the book […]
Issues of the Week: Pre-Bookers
As conveyed in my original listing of the “Booker Dozen” that actually comprises 13 books, I’m baffled by the UK’s ability to generate attention and debate over a list of non-nominees for the Booker prize (or any other award). Longlists are no measure of distinction and are never remembered so it’s hard to imagine how they can “mean” anything, even as the UK press ascribes all kinds of attributes to the books selected (and not). And they’re designed to give judges cover to experiment and provoke–in the long term, how can you be irate over a book that was closely […]
Wood Words
Much has been written already about James Wood’s just-released HOW FICTION WORKS, and how it might shape writers present and future. Already Wood himself has weighed in on different venues to explain how his views have been mischaracterized, so you can only guess where this will lead from here. One can imagine that all good and bad writing going forward will be laid at his feet by someone. Writing in a NY Mag comments field about their take on an article in the Observer about his book, Wood says: “I must respond to the nonsense above: my new book is […]