This week! Books! The Great Resignation. Publishing style. Editors are creaking under chronically low pay, ever-expanding publisher expectations, publisher under-investment in support infrastructure like contracts departments… and oh yes, all of this is happening amid bonanza years for publishers’ bottom lines. This makes it accordingly more difficult for young agents to get their books read […]
Kate McKean
Buying a rare book doesn’t mean you own the copyright (This week in books)
This week! Books! Some eclectic links for you this chilly week. A group of misguided “Dune-loving cryptocurrency enthusiasts” banded together to pay €2.9 million for a rare copy of filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s plans to adapt Dune for film, thinking that then meant they could release it to the public, produce an animated series, and/or produce […]
Here come the best of the year lists (This week in books)
This week! Books! Did you know that William Faulkner and Graham Greene wrote children’s books? I certainly did not! The New York Times surveyed some lesser-known children’s books by writers more famous for their adult works. It has come to my attention that the year 2021 is nearly over (um when did that happens), which […]
RIP Eric Carle, creator of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” (This week in books)
This week! Books! Lots and lots of links from the past few weeks, but first, in case you’re not a newsletter subscriber, a quick heads-up that I’m offering special “Get your writing back on track” discounts, including 25-35% off coaching sessions and a special editing package to get you unstuck. So if you’re not yet […]
S&S employees and authors protest Pence’s upcoming memoir (This week in books)
This week! Books! Hundreds of Simon & Schuster employees and over 3,500 other supporters signed a letter calling upon S&S CEO Jonathan Karp to stop publishing books by former members of the Trump Administration, including Vice President Mike Pence, who recently received a reported multi-million book deal for his memoir. The letter cited Pence’s advocacy […]
98% of books released in 2020 sold less than 5,000 copies (This week in books)
This week! Books! A factoid this week about the publishing industry certainly got some eyeballs popping. In an article about how the publishing industry is weathering the pandemic, Alexandra Atler and Elizabeth A. Harris noted that 98% of the books newly published in 2020 sold fewer than 5,000 copies. Sales have inexorably drifted to the […]
