If you were reading around the blogosphere, you would have noticed the allegations of plagiarism against Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and author of The Long Tail. Also in the plagiarism news is the suit filed against Elisabeth Hasselbeck for her cookbook. TMZ obtained a letter that the attorney for Susan Hassett sent to Elisabeth’s representatives. You can read more about both stories at SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.com.
Publishing is a low paying job with entry level positions paying just above minimum wage (and a barely liveable wage in New York City). The question that the New Yorker posed was whether low paying positions are affecting literature. I think the answer most people were giving is “Yes”. See GalleyCat for more details. It could be one reason why there appears to be so many complaints of plagiarism and sloppy copyediting coming out of New York.
Apple allows in a porn app that it wouldn’t approve before because it has instituted a ratings system for Apps. I am still awaiting publishing and their ratings particularly given that ScrollMotion continues to add individual book apps on a daily basis.
TechCrunch points to an interesting survey of teen entertainment habits. Apparently teens still watch TV, don’t surf as much as their parents, and one in five read a newspaper. I highly doubt the last stat because I don’t know that one in five households still have a newspaper subscription.
KimberChin asks who reads the dedications in romance books. I do. (maybe that should be a poll question).
The Orbit blog has pictures and a summary of the first annual Gemmel awards for fantasy writing. The shortlisted authors and the winner received Snaga axes. Head over to the blog to take a gander. They are very cool.
On the teens and newspapers item . . . I’m not surprised. While I don’t subscribe at home anymore (I can read the local paper online and then I pick up my national/world news online as well), my students love reading the newspaper (I teach 9th and 11th grade English). We participate in the Newspapers in Education program, in which the local paper donates so many free copies daily to our school. The kids like to look for weird news, catch up on the sports articles, etc. They read online material, but generally it’s not news.
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Apple reversed its position on the porn app.
Not surprised at the teens reading newspaper numbers either. Here in Toronto, we get two free daily newspapers–The Metro and 24. Not the full horse n pony show like a regular newspaper, just bits and bites on local/national/internation news/sports/entertainmetn, etc. Still you’ll find a number of highschool/post-secondary kids with their ipods on and their noses buried in a copy of either paper while on the bus/subway.
I’ve never ever had a desire to be a writer but man oh man I love & covet the axe that comes with the Gemmel Fantasy award.
What is with Apple and their restrictions for applications? Is it the companys’ moral decision and/or a business choice about who they target as their customer?
I always read dedications in romances (and in other books) – they can be as good as chatty footnotes for
gossipgeneral information.For deeply geeky reasons I cannot explain to even to myself, I want that axe. Good thing I’ve started a fantasy.
Congrats to Brent Weeks on his axe. I’m going to check out The Way of Shadows.