Books To Jump Up and Down Over
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
Publishing Industry Archive
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Against the Status Galley
Posted on June 1, 2010 | 5 CommentsThe so-called “status galley” — that is, a prepublication edition of a book, generally of massive size and/or literary challenge, possessed by an underpaid and often illiterate member of the... -
Hachette Imposes Salary Cuts Across Board
Posted on April 14, 2009 | No CommentsAn anonymous source has informed me that Alain Lemarchand, CEO & President of Hachette Filipacchi Media, has sent a memo to his employees. Today’s business environment requires decisive and quick... -
The Publishing Industry: An Economic Thought Experiment
Posted on February 21, 2009 | 5 CommentsCase Study 1: During Presidents Day Weekend, the software company Valve tried out an experiment. Valve, the company behind the successful Half-Life franchise, temporarily halved the price for Left 4... -
Macmillan Lays Off 64, FSG in Severe Trouble
Posted on December 15, 2008 | 1 CommentShortly after last week’s wage freeze, Publishers Weekly‘s Jim Milliot is reporting that Macmillan Publishing has eliminated 64 positions. This is 4% of Macmillan’s U.S. workforce. The Observer‘s Leon Neyfakh... -
Alternate Final Paragraphs for the John Sargent Memo
Posted on December 9, 2008 | 4 CommentsGawker recently republished a memo distributed to Macmillan employees that announced a pay freeze for anyone making over $50,000. The memo contained one of the most heartless final paragraphs contained... -
More Bloodbath Wednesday Layoffs
Posted on December 3, 2008 | 1 CommentWord is now circulating that Thomas Nelson has laid off 54 of its employees and that President Rick Richter is now out at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. Galleycat is... -
Boris Kachka’s Original Notes for Article
Posted on September 15, 2008 | 14 CommentsAfter bribing a number of underpaid assistants with Duane Reade gift certificates (there was a stack here; don’t ask how we acquired it) and attempting to whisper sweet somethings into... -
Harcourt and Houghton Sitting in a $4 Billion Tree, M-O-N-E-Y and Glee?
Posted on December 13, 2007 | No CommentsPublishers Weekly reports that Houghton Mifflin’s purchase of Harcourt has been effected for $4 billion. The new company will be called the “Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,” with Tony Lucki... -
A Candid View of the Publishing Industry
Posted on September 22, 2007 | 1 CommentI had intended to link to this earlier, but for anyone wanting an inside glimpse of the publishing industry, the Virginia Quarterly Review has put up a podcast and a... -
Stephen Dixon’s Version of Musical Chairs
Posted on August 9, 2006 | 5 CommentsFailbetter: “I didn’t merge the last two novels of the I. trio into one. The trio became a duo when McSweeney’s rejected the second voume of the work, then called... -
Millenia Black: Racism at NAL Signet?
Posted on April 20, 2006 | 17 CommentsMillenia Black writes that the publisher of her second book, The Great Betrayal, is demanding that she change her characters from Caucasian to African-American before they publish the book. The... -
Players and Quitters
Posted on March 30, 2006 | 3 CommentsLevi Asher reports on yesterday’s book publishing panel with Sarah Weinman and Akashic‘s Johnny Temple: “Next up was a young woman with a forlorn Fiona Apple look who said she’d... -
Subscription Model Publishing
Posted on March 28, 2006 | No CommentsRichard Nash, who seems to have more ideas in his head than magicians have rabbits in their hats, is offering an innovative subscription model program. For $50, you’ll get the... -
The Least Influential People in Publishing
Posted on March 24, 2006 | 1 Comment3 AM Magazine has asked its readers to come up with the 50 least influential people in publishing. I have taken the liberty of nominating myself. If I don’t make... -
Gray Lady Turns Yellow?
Posted on March 21, 2006 | 3 CommentsI’m not sure if I buy the logic in this New York Times article about paperback originals: Ms. von Mehren, the publisher, said that following the article in the Book... -
Vollmann’s Editor Promoted
Posted on February 15, 2006 | No CommentsAccording to Publisher’s Lunch, Paul Slovak, best known for editing RotR faves such as T.C. Boyle and William T. Vollmann, has been promoted from associate publisher to publisher over at... -
Ana Marie Cox: Unprofitable?
Posted on January 25, 2006 | 6 CommentsTotal Advance Paid Out to Ana Marie Cox: $275,000 Total Number of Books Sold (thanks to Ron Hogan’s Bookscan detective work): 3,800 Price of Hardcover Edition of Dog Days: $23.95... -
Ed Wood’s Got Nothing on Them
Posted on December 29, 2005 | 1 CommentMiss Snark, who may have outdone Dan Wickett, has, if you’re willing to sift through them all, some fifty rum synopses with her thoughts on why they don’t work. For... -
Clowing Around with Slim Returns
Posted on December 7, 2005 | 12 CommentsAs the Literary Saloon points out, Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown has sold only 26,000 copies, despite a massive publicity blitz. M.A.O. suggests that this is because nobody is really... -
Never Write Blog Posts
Posted on November 30, 2005 | 2 CommentsNot the public variety. The ones where you utter foolish statements ragging on people close to you and broadcast it to the public at large. The best reason not to... -
Surviving On Strange Fits
Posted on November 5, 2005 | No CommentsThis Sunday’s New York Times features this Mary Gaitskill profile. So what is the life of a 52 year old woman writer who writes gritty and uncompromising literary fiction like?... -
You’re a Slipping Bestselling Author, Dan Brown
Posted on November 4, 2005 | No CommentsAll extroverts have suddenly become astonishingly antisocial. The sky has turned bright green. The ocean has turned hot pink. To get milk, you must squeeze it out of an iguana’s... -
Jack Bunyan’s Writing Advice, Part One
Posted on November 3, 2005 | No Comments[EDITOR'S NOTE: Because we receive a good deal of email from readers asking us how to write, how to find an agent, etc., and because NaNoWriMo is in the early... -
Outrageous Fortunes
Posted on October 25, 2005 | No CommentsFirst Warren Buffett, now Terry McAuliffe. Sweet Jeebus. What provokes these nutball seven-figure advances? Sure, Buffett and McAulife have both proved quite adept in the cash-raising department. But why do... -
Is the AAP’s Google Lawsuit Truly Reflective of Its Members?
Posted on October 25, 2005 | 1 CommentRichard Nash has returned from Frankfurt and he’s now blogging up a storm. Perhaps his most interesting entry is this exchange between Nash and the Association of American Publishers over... -
When You’re a Press Release, You’re a Press Release All the Way
Posted on October 23, 2005 | No CommentsMediabistro Still in Operation October 22, 2005 Mediabistro, now in the practice of issuing press releases any time the earth rotates, is still in business mere days after Elizabeth Spiers’... -
Well, If the Memoir Market Has to Be Saturated, This is the Way to Do It
Posted on August 24, 2005 | No CommentsVanity Fair: “And I believe I have discovered the contours of a new genre of nonfiction, one that has yet to receive its cultural due and perhaps never will: the... -
Mass-Market Paperbacks and Auctorial Legacies
Posted on August 12, 2005 | No CommentsToday’s New York Times reports on the emerging trend of mass market paperbacks being published in larger type. Much of this has been effected to placate the declining eyesight of... -
Telling the Tale of a Long Tail
Posted on August 5, 2005 | No CommentsOver at Tingle Alley, Richard Nash points to Chris Anderson’s “long tail” work concerning Amazon sales. He says the long tail figure there is “somewhere between a quarter and a... -
Zeitchik Bolting to California
Posted on August 4, 2005 | No CommentsGalleycat has the scoop on Steve Zeitchik, who is decamping Publishers Weekly for Variety. Zeitchik, in addition to being an able moderator, was careful to put small and independent publishers...