publishing industry
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Why We All Can’t Be J.K. Rowling
After a panel at the House of Commons about copyright issues, author Joanne Harris writes in the Telegraph about the difficulty of being successful within the publishing industry. Among other factors, she attributes some of the failure to readers’ misconceptions…
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In Defense of Publishers
The rise of digital self publishing has rekindled old arguments about the value of publishers. Authors often criticize publishers as merely providing packaging for their hard work. At BookRiot, Susie Rodarme explains the value of a good publisher: Publishers know books. They…
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NYPL Hosts Panel on Amazon
The continuing battle between Amazon and Hachette was the focus of a panel discussion hosted by the New York Public Library last week featuring novelist James Patterson, publisher Morgan Entrekin, literary agent Tina Bennett, and several political theorists. Jason Diamond has…
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J.K. Rowling’s Literary World
A boozy editor; a powerful though closeted publisher who retreats to the countryside to paint naked youths; a jealous literary agent whose own writing is “deplorably derivative”; a much-revered but pompous and sexist novelist; a writer of “bloody awful erotic…
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All Press, Good Press
Publicity is a fundamental component of the book-selling process—it’s unlikely a reader will buy something she doesn’t know exists. So why do we find public relations so despicable? In an essay for Jacobin, Jennifer Pan reminds us that capitalism is…
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The Hashtag That Changed BookCon’s Lineup
The inaugural BookCon event just took place in New York City in conjunction with the publishing industry’s annual trade convention. When the event’s entirely white lineup was first announced, the #WeNeedDiverseBooks Twitter campaign drew attention to the problem and led…
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Soho Press, a History
Founded in 1986, independent publisher Soho Press has built its reputation on engaging literary novels, a catalog of international authors, and a crime fiction imprint. The press has thrived even through an era of upheaval in the publishing and book…
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Ambitious Book Clubs
According to Nicole Bernier, reading groups and book clubs are more and more becoming heavy influencers of the publishing industry, remaining the best social way to read and discuss a book. “But the strength of the book-club phenomenon is that…
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Literature vs. NYC
Independent publishers are producing literature, Chris Fischbach writes in the Virginia Quarterly Review, which is not the same thing as what commercial publishers are printing. Fischbach (a publisher at Coffee House Press) goes on to explain a duality similar to that…
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Little Book Amok
As authority disseminates across webs of increasingly smaller presses and publications, it becomes harder and harder for new authors to see their books on bookstore shelves, especially those of larger stores like Barnes & Noble’s. Unless, of course, they put…
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Publishing in a Digital Age
Books are not dying. However, how we publish them—as well as how we consume them—is transforming drastically. By far the biggest boom in new titles, has come from self-published authors. More than 391,000 books were self-published in the United States…
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Literary Agents Are People Too
Authors aren’t the only ones facing rejection. Literary agents receive rejections after sending out their authors’ writing to editors, and they also get rejected by authors that they want to represent. Over at Plougshares, Eric Nelson reveals a few more insights into life…