Book industry looks to hold steady in turbulent time – So despite all the optimistic talk of print books and independent bookstores coming back in vogue, the book industry is still on edge. I have long thought that publishers mistakenly saw (see?) themselves as a natural monopoly, so it’s fascinating to ... more >
Although it goes against her workaholic nature, literary agent Lyn Ravenshaw lets herself be whisked off to Wales for the Christmas holidays by her star client, flamboyant children’s author Bridget Cooper. She suspects Bridget has ulterior motives, but the lure of South Wales with its castles and myths is irresistible. ... more >
In 1970 George Akerlof (Nobel Prize winner in Economics 2001) wrote a scholarly article called “The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism.” In true academic fashion, the article was deemed trivial by the top journals and he finally landed it in a highly-ranked but not flagship publication. ... more >
I’ve been looking at the Author Earnings Excel spreadsheets (the “raw data”) for the last few days. Many people have become very, very excited by the conclusions the authors draw from this data, and critics have consistently been shouted down as being pro-publisher, anti-self-publishing, or having various other axes to grind. ... more >
A friend sent me this link to a fanfiction author who completed a 100,000 word novel. She never thought she could accomplish such a task but now that she has, she is energized and is thinking about actual publication of future work. The comment thread is what is so interesting ... more >
The UK focused publishing site, The Bookseller, had an article that suggests the delay of ebooks could only strengthen Amazon instead of weakening it. UK trade insider warned deferral was dangerous. “It is never a good response to say to a consumer: "We know you want this but we are ... more >