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The publishing industry: this week in quotes

“Like Al Purdy or Joe Strummer, he was unfailingly generous in his encouragement and support, treating everyone who ever beat a guitar or twirled a pen as his spiritual equal. He was the kind of modern artist that we now take for granted: someone who laboured to explore the complicated and emotional grist of life while wringing humour and exultant joy from his sources.” – author Dave Bidini paying tribute to Paul Quarrington in The Afterword

“To my mind successful reviews identify works and discuss them within their own framework or tradition; the reviewer – and his or her opinion of the work – is nearly invisible; and the review acts as a signpost to readers to go this way, or not, and don’t presume to know what readers want, or don’t want, from a text.” – poet Elizabeth Bachinsky on Lemon Hound

“For all the Kindle’s success, it remains in many ways a niche product, aimed at consumers who fit a certain narrow profile, namely avid readers. In 2007, the Associated Press reported that a quarter of Americans hadn’t read a single book in the prior year. And among those who did read that year, the average number of books read was seven. Even considering that you can get some non-book content on the Kindle, these numbers alone suggest that the market for the Kindle is limited.” – The Millions

“So, Best Beloveds, the New Novel. I’m calling it that in the frail hope that it will hear me and turn into one – at the moment it is, of course, the New Notebook Full Of Stuff and A Smattering of Early Paragraphs. A long project is, as you will realise, a massive and potentially ludicrous commitment of time and enthusiasm which could come apart in your hands at any moment, could promise wonders, cough twice and then turn into ashes and sand at the end of three years’ preparation and one year’s labour.” – author AL Kennedy in the Guardian book blog

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