Monday News: Martin still writing next GoT book, ALA library survey, trends in scholarly publishing, and cool picture books
Publishing Newsdigital books / Game of Thrones / Libraries / picture books / publishing / scholarship2 Comments
The sixth ‘Game of Thrones’ book won’t be released in 2015 – Clearly the television adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series has amped up expectation and anticipation for the next book, such that Martin’s publisher indicates that the next book in the series will NOT appear in 2015; in fact, there is no anticipated publication date at this point. What was interesting is the publisher’s admonition that “Fans really ought to appreciate that the length of these monsters is equivalent to two or three novels by other writers,” suggesting that fans don’t appreciate this? Is this new fans she’s referring to, because, uh, I think most longtime Martin readers already kind of know the score with this series, don’t they?
Though “The Winds of Winter” is still a year or more away, there will be at least one new “Game of Thrones” book released this year. Johnson revealed that HarperCollins is working on an illustrated compilation of the novellas “The Hedge Knight,” “The Sworn Sword” and “The Mystery Knight.” These three books serve as official prequels to “A Song of Ice and Fire,” and the compilation is expected to launch later in 2015. –CNET
ALA Midwinter 2015: BISG and ALA Announce Library Survey – The American Library Association and the Book Industry Study Group are partnering to undertake “a major survey of public library patrons’ use of digital content.” The results will apparently be available by the ALA’s annual conference in June. So apparently the extensive amount of research that Pew has done on library usage in the digital age is insufficient?
The questions are being developed jointly by BISG and ALA, and the survey will be fielded by the research firm Nielsen, with editorial and analysis provided by Jim Milliot of PW. Patrons will be asked about “preferred device usage, preferences for print or digital formats, collection assessment, and other issues that affect the use and distribution of published content in public libraries.” –Publishers Weekly
Ask The Chefs: What Do You Think Will Have The Biggest Impact On Scholarly Publishing In 2015? – We talk so much about commercial fiction publishing, but the industry is inclusive of many different types of material, including scholarship, especially in the form of journal articles and textbooks. And if you’ve been in school or had kids in school recently, you know how expensive textbooks are, and how limited access to certain research journals is (e.g. you often have to have a University library membership to get access to journal articles). This is a pretty interesting set of predictions from Scholarly Kitchen on what 2015 will bring, and the consensus seems to be that consolidation and access will continue to be significant issues. In all of the discussions of book pricing, we don’t really think about how commercial fiction compares to other genres, and that’s kind of an interesting omission, I think, because maybe it’s not a cup of coffee we should be focusing on, but different areas of publishing.
David Crotty: I think two of the three big issues for 2015 have been covered recently in The Scholarly Kitchen: Consolidation and Compliance. We’ve been an industry going through a period of consolidation for a while now, but it seems like the pace is accelerating. At the same time, we’re just at the wavefront of funder, government and institutional mandates for access to the research literature, so things are quickly going to get a lot more complicated.
The other big issue is data. Access to papers is straightforward, and chump change when compared to the potential value offered by access to actual research data. When we talk about “research results”, we must remember that the paper and its copyright only cover the words written about the discovery and the pictures used to describe it. The actual discovery is what matters, but requiring access brings in all sorts of complications, from intellectual property to patient confidentiality. I don’t expect to see a lot of movement on the data front in 2015, but I do expect to see a lot of time spent talking about it, planning policies and working through the intricacies that need to be understood before any sort of policy can hope to be successfully implemented. –Scholarly Kitchen
8 Picture Books You Don’t Have To Be A Kid To Love – In anticipation of the Caldecott Medal award for picture books (announcement today!), NPR has assembled a collection of picture books for readers of all ages. Enjoy! –NPR
That first book with the panda that has a bird on its butt is too cute.
Before GoT hit television, I was a terrible book-seller-person — anytime anyone asked me when the next GRRM book was coming out, I’d say “Oh, didn’t you hear? He quit.” just to watch their heads explode (I’d then commiserate with them during the 5-year-lull waiting for A Feast for Crows, and the next 6 years for ADWD). Fortunately, with the lulls in his writing means you can get people hooked on finished series, like the Malazan series or Joe Abercrombie for grimdark stuff.
As we say in my work, something’s only late until it’s released — but if it sucks, it sucks forever.