Bookstores vs. Amazon Blog War
Can't find this on Amazon
Bookstores vs. Amazon Blog War
There’s a blog war going on about the future of the independent bookstore, and it touches issues very important to me, so I’ll weigh in.
In a Slate blog I felt seemed inadequately researched, Farhad Manjoo raged against the “high prices” of books in bookstores, termed the marvelous essay by Richard Russo in the New York Times “hectoring,” and called books published by major houses all “mass-manufactured.” Mr. Manjoo displayed
Read MoreLiterary Agents and Self Publishing Q & A
Sue Collier, a friend and maven in the indie book world, kindly ran a a short interview with me to help promote my Writers Digest Webinar on agents and self-publishing. The Webinar is over, and I don’t think the On Demand version is available yet (sigh), but for those interested in the topic, here’s a teaser & link to the whole thing. I love talking about this stuff.
Why would a happy self-publisher want an agent? A Q&A with agent Jody Rein
Posted By Sue Collier on June 28, 2011
Sue: Ok, the big elephant in the room…Why would a happy self-publisher want an agent?
Jody: Well, you know that there are hundreds of thousands of self-publishers out there, and each one has a different story. In brief, a literary agent is a good choice for a self-publisher who hopes to publish some or all of his or her books through a traditional house, or who needs help and access to sell subsidiary rights (such as film or foreign) to his or her self-published work, or, possibly for a self-publisher who seeks career management. The services I just listed are all in flux as I type—the whole publishing world is in the midst of a massive identity shift.
I’ve been thinking lately that what we’ll see, at least in the near future, are increasing numbers of people who jump in and out of self and traditional publishing over the course of their careers…READ MORE
Read MoreSerenity Prayer for Overwhelmed Book People
Fess up. I can’t be alone. It’s just too much sometimes, isn’t it?
Because I must be informed, and it all looks so important, I subscribe to email updates from Digital Book World, Hubspot, assorted LinkedIn conversations and the TechRepublic along with PublishersMarketplace, the Observer’s book column and the requisite NYT book& other news, along with ten or twenty other feeds. It doesn’t matter whether the source is techno or literary–most of them make me feel like I jumped on the wrong bus–or, more accurately, like I was sitting on the right bus but the driver sneakily changed the route, so all of us folks happily chatting away in the back didn’t even notice we were on the wrong street.
Read MoreThe Hangman’s Daughter Makes Me Cheer
‘The Hangman’s Daughter,’ e-book hit, now out in paperback – USATODAY.com.
I love this story!
We are all guilty of bemoaning the state of book publishing today, often to the point of conflict. In the past few days, two heartfelt essays promoting what is best in both old-school corporate publishing (Adrian Zackheim in his Portfolio blog) and what is wonderful about printed books (Aaron Gilbreath in the Chicago Tribune) stood out. I scanned through the comments after each essay–so many people, so vehement, sometimes disrespectful, so convinced that both print and publishing are on the way out. The rancor is unnecessary; the issue not black and white.
There may be a best of both worlds on the way. In the tale of The Hangman’s
Read More
