All stories by Caroline Skelton
Comments Off
Speak no evil
Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish author of My Name is Red and Snow, has been charged with insulting his country’s national character. As the BBC reports, he was quoted in a Swiss newspaper as saying that “only he dared to say that Turkey killed 30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians.” Pamuk will now stand trial for the charge of “public denigration” of Turkish identity, a crime under the country’s heavily criticized — and newly revised — penal code.
Related links:
Click here for the full story from BBC News
Comments Off
The Wal-Mart level of excellence
In more news on Indigo’s annual general meeting, an article in the Toronto Star describes the company’s direction, and includes the following quote from Indigo CEO Heather Reisman: “‘Essentially,’ she said, ‘our goal has always been to get as close to the Wal-Mart level of excellence as we could.’” The chain has just launched its IndigoSpirit brand of small-format gift and book shops — the first situated in Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital — and plans to open three new superstores and three small-format stores in the coming year.
Related links:
Click here for the full story from the Toronto Star
Comments Off
Pre-release happiness
On Tess Gerritsen’s blog, the author details several depressing visits to bookstores in Honolulu. In a blog entry entitled “Lessons in humility from the road,” she determines that the happiest time in an author’s life is the weeks before her book’s release, not the aftermath when dreams collide with reality. Detailing a particularly demoralizing afternoon, Gerritsen writes, “at Store #3, the manager doesn’t want me to sign ANY copies. She wants to be able to ‘return them all’ if necessary. Then she looks in the computer and stares. ‘Wow,’ she says. ‘We have a lot of your books in stock. I guess you must sell really well here.’ Only then does she allow me to sign three copies of VANISH. I ask her if she has many authors come through her store. ‘You’re the only one,’ she says. (Do other authors know something that I don’t?).”
Related links:
Click here for the full posting from TessGerritsen.com
Comments Off
Book plugged on shopping channel
Debut author Jeanne Bice headed for a shopping channel to promote her book – and eight TV minutes later, she had sold 15,000 copies. As an article in The New York Times reports, the author of Pull Yourself Up by Your Bra Straps: And Other Quacker Wisdom has sold her line of clothing, Quacker Factory, exclusively on the shopping channel QVC, and therefore used the same venue to promote her book. As the article reports, the book is “a combination of memoir, business advice and collection of homespun aphorisms of the type often found on those shellacked pieces of driftwood sold at a Stuckey’s Pecan Shoppe (‘When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and HANG ON!’).”
Related links:
Click here for the full story from The New York Times
Comments Off
Moody blues
On the eve of the release of his latest novel, The Diviners, Rick Moody is looking forward to some growing recognition for his band, The Wingdale Community Singers. The article alternates between a defence of creative freedom and an apology for creative multi-tasking as famous author and would-be musician, and culminates in the author pledging the following to fans: “I will never pad shirtless across a stage in front of a microphone stand, festooned with fluffy boas. I will never destroy a hotel room. I will never brandish a handgun in order to bolster my street credibility. I will never, ever be seen at a party with someone whose profession is model/actress.”
Related links:
Click here for the full story from The Guardian
Comments Off
Honest editing
On the Geist website there’s a cartoon featuring “Lesser-Known Editing and Proofreading Marks.” Attention copyeditors: ever wanted to tell an author in shorthand to “please revisit your politics”? Now you can.
Related links:
Click here for the cartoon from Geist magazine
Comments Off
The novel inside
First-time novelist Tim Clare takes a swipe at other first-time novelists in a Guardian essay, calling for quality control in Britain’s publishing landscape. According to Clare, too many lousy first-timers get through the editorial barricades and bring down the standard for others: “the British publishing industry is crying out for a high-profile hothead to disabuse thousands of needy, bumbling timewasters of the notion that nascent masterpieces stir within their loins,” writes Clare.
Related links:
Click here for the full story from The Guardian
Comments Off
Divining the best cover
The Diviners — not the CanLit classic about Morag and her coming of age, but the upcoming novel by Rick Moody — is already getting a cover makeover. The cover that was used on advance galleys of the book, showing a victorious Conan the Barbarian-type, is being reworked. The original image is being downplayed, and is now depicted as being shown in a crowded movie theatre. As reported in The New York Times, publisher Little, Brown realized at BookExpo America in June that there were problems with its original choice. “I realized we were making a mistake,” Little, Brown’s Michael Pietsch tells the Times. “I saw a lot of people, particularly women, just turn away from the cover.”
Related links:
Click here for the full story from The New York Times
Comments Off
Indigo’s stepping in, Mac’s staying put
As Indigo reportedly plans to open a Coles outlet in Whitehorse this November, local retailer Chris Sorg, owner of Mac’s Fireweed Books, isn’t flinching over his new competition. In an article in the Whitehorse Daily Star, he discusses the move: “‘We’ve been anticipating them coming to town for at least the last 10 years; it comes as no surprise whatsoever. Am I overly concerned about it? No. Let’s have at ‘er.’”
Related links:
Click here for the full story from the Whitehorse Star
Comments Off
Cheap shorts
The Book Standard takes a look at Amazon.com’s new Amazon Shorts program, which kicked off in July. Readers can download digital versions of short fiction by big-name authors for under 50 cents a shot, or have the files dropped off in their e-mail inbox. Some of the files are first chapters of upcoming books, while others are original short stories. According to the Book Standard piece, Amazon hopes the move will spur interest in short fiction: “‘We hope that by making short-form literature widely and easily available, Amazon.com can help to fuel a revival of this kind of work,’ says Steve Kessel, Amazon.com’s vice-president of Digital Media.
Related links:
Click here for the full story from The Book Standard
twitter
facebook
rss
podcast
Recent comments