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 […]
publishing industry
How a book is made (This week in books)
This is one of those weeks when the news is distressing and other topics can seem a bit trivial in comparison. But books are still crucial, writing will keep playing an important role in whatever’s next, and your writing matters. So on to the links. The NY Times has a pretty fascinating look at how […]
Kids strike back against book banners (This week in books)
This week! Books! A bit of a quiet week out there in publishing land as people get back into the swing of January and omicron life, but I have a few links. After a school board in Pennsylvania grabbed a list of books, documentaries, and articles created by a diversity committee and instead banned everything […]
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 For years, someone has been tricking publishing employees into sending them unpublished manuscripts, from famous authors to the relatively obscure.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 […]
This year in books 2021
Did this year actually happen? Can you prove it? As the calendar ticks inexorably to 2022, getting a finger on the pulse of the business is really difficult, and feels like an exercise in contradictions. Book sales are really strong but face an uncertain 2022, and it’s as hard as it’s ever been to break […]
National Book Award winners! (This week in books)
This week! Books! I have been notified that is nearly the end of November, and next week we will be celebrating Thanksgiving here in the United States. Accordingly, the blog will be on a brief hiatus next week, but I’ll be checking email so please feel free to reach out to me if you need […]
