This week! Books! It’s Banned Books Week amid arguably the most intense and concentrated conservative-led book banning efforts in a generation, which are disproportionately targeting LGBTQ and minority books. I’m re-upping We Need Diverse Books’ post on how to support diverse books during a ban. And yesterday, Representative Jamie Raskin and Senator Brian Schatz introduced […]
Jane Friedman
B&N hardcover policy sparks controversy (This week in books)
This week! Books Controversy erupted in the last few weeks as children’s book authors began posting about Barnes & Noble’s stocking policies for hardcover debuts, complaining their new deemphasis on children’s hardcover hurts new, mid-list and diverse voices in particular. B&N CEO James Daunt confirmed the gist of the hardcover policy, citing that up to […]
F.B.I. nabs the mysterious book thief (This week in books)
This week! Books! One of the great running mysteries in the publishing world appears to have at last been solved. For years, someone has been tricking publishing employees into sending them unpublished manuscripts, from famous authors to the relatively obscure. Why? No one quite knew. But this week, the F.B.I. arrested Filippo Bernardini, a Simon […]
The art of revision (This week in books)
This week! Books! First up, there are two great ways you can contribute to some worthy causes this week. I’m donating a query critique that you can bid on to support We Need Diverse Books! And please consider donating to my 13th annual Heifer International fundraiser! Now then, I have lots and lots and lots […]
The curious case of the midsized publishers (This week in books)
This week! Books! Now that Workman has been acquired by Hachette and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has been acquired by HarperCollins, where have all the midsized book publishers gone? Jim Milliot at Publishers Weekly surveys this dying breed and cites the difficulty of building a backlist, the capital needed to grow into midsized publisher, and ongoing […]
Amazon to launch…department stores (This week in books)
This week! Books! In a bid to prove that time is a flat circle, Amazon is developing plans to launch…department stores. Yes, really. The first stores will reportedly be in Ohio and California and will sell all sorts of things and facilitate returns. In yet another step in the publishing industry’s long, long history of […]
