publishing industry
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A Step Towards a Good Thing
We believe this is critical to our future: to publish the best books that appeal to readers everywhere, we need to have people from different backgrounds with different perspectives and a workforce that truly reflects today’s society. Penguin Random House…
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Conversations with Literary Ex-Cons: Vickie Stringer
Vickie Stringer talks about her first novel Let That Be the Reason, her Triple Crown Publishing venture, life in prison, and making hip-hop literature.
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The Amazing Disappearing Woman Writer
To refuse to disappear at mid-life—I am forty-two as of the writing of this essay—is perhaps the best rebellion a woman poet can make to the literary world and to the world at large.
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Authors Demand Better Wages
Writers’ wages are down—as much as 30% since 2009. The Authors Guild is looking to change that in 2016. NPR spoke with the organization’s executive director, Mary Rasenberger, about pursuing better contracts from publishers and challenging court cases that have…
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Publishing in an Age of Immediacy
As the value of an individual book is devalued, so is the self. We are made to feel that it’s only through constant communication with a community that we have any collective power. How has the immediacy of the Internet…
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Indie Presses Become Gatekeepers
Big publishers traditionally rely on income from known authors to support taking risks on new writers. But those publishers have grown more risk-averse, avoiding unknown writers and focusing on mainstream books expected to perform well in the marketplace. Meanwhile, independent publishers are filling the…
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Books May Be Getting Longer
Books are steadily increasing in size, according to a survey that has found the average number of pages has grown by 25% over the last 15 years. According to the Guardian, “the average length has increased from 320 pages in…
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Ditching Amazon: Good for Business
After it dropped Amazon as one of its booksellers, sales for Educational Development Corp. (which has imprints such as Usbourne) titles rose from less than $1,500 a day to around $30,000 per day: The Amazon decision, White added, was also…
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Publishers Risk Losing Writers
Rude rejection letters could cost publishers the next big author, warns Hannah MacDonald, founder of September Publishing. MacDonald told colleagues at the FutureBook conference that publishers need to be kinder, reports The Independent: Hannah MacDonald said the industry should be…
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On Pandering—to White Women
For the Guardian, Sian Cain investigates Marlon James’s recent series of criticisms that accuse publishers of “pandering to white women.” James, the 2015 Man Booker prize winner, has been particularly vocal about the subject on social media. In a recent Facebook post,…
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The Million-Dollar Debut
While most debut novelists are seeing advances shrink, a handful of authors are seeing the reverse: million-dollar paydays. Consider Garth Risk Hallberg‘s City on Fire, released earlier this year. The 900-plus-page book earned a $2m advance. The novel will have…
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The Rumpus Interview with Marian Thurm
Prolific author Marian Thurm talks about her new collection of stories, Today is Not Your Day, being a true New Yorker, and the importance of sympathetic characters.