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GET
YOUR FREE BOOKS: Earlier this year Amazon sparked a book
price-war by upping its discount on NYT bestsellers. Last week,
in just under two hours, Bol.com gave away 20,000 books at a
cost of more than £100,000. In return, it got 40,000 book buyers
to register their e-mail addresses, and lengthy articles in
at least two national newspapers. In terms of marketing spend
it was a cheap deal. How can internet booksellers afford to
undercut their prices? Six online booksellers talk about their
strategies. The
Bookseller 02/29/00
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"UNREADABLE,
UNINTELLIGIBLE, INCOMPREHENSIBLE": Judging by his last
three projects, David Mamet is in a major slump. Now a scathing
London Times review of the author/playwright's new book, which
is so bad, goes the speculation, it can't even find an American
publisher. Mamet's American agent refuses comment. Boston
Globe 02/25/00
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CHAPTERS
ON PARADE: Canadian mega-bookseller Chapters defends itself
to Canadian government inquiry into the book business. Chain
denies it has tried to run independent bookstores out of business.
Independents have claimed that Chapters has 55 per cent of the
Canadian market. "This is categorically false," says
Chapters. "We have somewhere between 20 and 23 per cent
of the consumer book market in Canada." CBC
02/25/00
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IT'S
NOT ME: Authors worried about publishing sensitive writing
have a new, anonymous way of doing it - online. Wired
02/25/00
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WORD
HEIST: Most writers generally don't mind when
historians or students borrow their words, but beware the "new
secret plagiarists, the media and communications behemoths whose
magazines and newspapers, cable networks and film companies
routinely raid the work of biographers to satisfy their ceaseless
need for product - at no cost." Brill's
Content 03/00
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OF
DOGS, CATS AND BOOKFLAPS: Why is it
that so many writers feel the need to include apercus to their
pets on the backs of their book-jackets? The muse finds many
forms. New York Times
02/24/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
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"DAMN
THOSE CANADIAN JUDGES": Francis Ford Coppola's online
writers' workshop is a figure skating free-for-all. The judges
can be brutal, but the experience of having your work mauled
out there in the ether can also be strangely addictive.
Salon 02/22/00
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SLUMP?
WHAT SLUMP? US book publishing sales rose 4 percent last
year, beating $24 billion. Publisher's
Weekly 02/22/00
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AFRICAN-AMERICAN
WRITERS IN EXILE: Think of American ex-pat writers in Paris
and you think Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Henry
Miller. But Paris has also been a hospitable refuge for black
American writers looking for a place to work. Philadelphia
Inquirer 02/21/00
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THE
CAIRO INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR is the largest in the Arab
world. But the impressive size doesn't necessarily mean it reflects
the state of Arab-world publishing. AL-Ahram
(Egypt) 02/16/00
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"NEW
YORKER" READERS choose best books of 1999. Salon
02/16/00
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ALL
ABE ALL THE TIME: Chicago
bookstore wins "Niche-Of-The-Year" award by making
a go of selling only books and memorabilia related to Abraham
Lincoln. Publisher's
Weekly 02/14/00
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POSTMODERN
DEAD END? The postmodern fiction of Dave Eggers and David
Foster Wallace can tie you up in knots and circles. But is their
tangle a literary dead end? Or is there a way out? Keith Gessen
looks for clues. Feed
02/11/00
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A
BORING BOOK ABOUT DRAGONS? So Seamus Heaney won this year's
Whitbread "Book of the Year" honors. And Harry Potter's
J.K Rowling won "Children's Book of the Year." Something
for everyone. But the judges let slip Rowling lost "Book
of the Year" by only one vote, and now a big brouhaha has
erupted. MSNBC
(Newhouse) 02/11/00
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HOLOCAUST
DENIAL TRIAL: British writer David Irving has instigated
a libel suit against an American historian for calling him "one
of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial."
The trial, will almost inevitably be used by some to claim legitimacy
for Holocaust "revisionism" -- as if the Holocaust
as a historical fact were open to debate. But let's get the
facts straight. The
Atlantic 02/00
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RETURN
TO SENDER: An author is horrified to discover her personal
letters offered for sale on the internet - and chagrined to
think her life's aspirations are worth only $125. Salon
02/10/00
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AMAZON'S
SOARING SALES and huge losses. Publisher's
Weekly 02/07/00
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FROM
OBSCURITY TO OPRAH: No one's complaining,
mind you. After all, when you've planned only a 10,000-copy
run of a new book, and getting picked by Oprah ups it to half-a-million,
you've hit the jackpot. But for a smallish literary press used
to lower stakes, the logistical hassles of just getting the
book out on this scale are enormous. Salon
02/09/00
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BOOK-BUSTING:
A tide of vandalism has swept most of the UK's libraries clean
of musical texts and scores, writes Norman Lebrecht. "Glasgow,
Liverpool and most London boroughs have lost their music libraries.
The BBC has wantonly trashed thousands of scores. British library
managers are burning more books than any group since Hitler's
stormtroopers." Now comes the Manchester City Council.
London Telegraph 02/09/00
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POETRY
ON DEMAND: Three Seattle women sit
at typewriters in public places, turning out instant poetry
for anyone who stops by. "In a city built on industrial
cyberspace, these three performers are putting ink-stained paper
in the hands of people and getting them to prattle over it.
And they earn just enough money - $1 a poem (they'll write 50
this night) - to keep themselves in typing ribbon." USA
Today 02/09/00
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THE
FIRST E-BOOKS begin showing up in
traditional bookstores, available alongside the latest hardback
Grisham. Wired 02/09/00
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OVERNIGHT
SENSATION: Twenty-something writers
- provocative, sexy and extremely marketable - are achieving
overnight best-selling status...but let's not confuse artistic
development with publishing glory. Shouldn't suffering,
poverty, and failure be part of the literary journey? The
Age (Melbourne) 02/04/00
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THE
"NEW YORKER'S" SOUTH OF THE BORDER BALLOT BOX:
Mexican workers are reportedly paid sweatshop wages to count
New Yorker's literary contest votes The
Nation 02/21/00
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PETER
PRINCIPLE: "Of all the book-crafting companies in the
world, Workman Publishing is arguably the loosest, the looniest,
the least predictable--and one of the most successful. The firm,
in its 33rd year, also owns the haute-lit house Algonquin Books
and the artsy Artisan publishing company. Though publisher Peter
Workman won't reveal its financial footing--one knowledgeable
publishing source estimated Workman's annual revenues as 'north
of $100 million' - he will say that each year has been better
than the previous one." Washington
Post 02/08/00
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COMPUTER
VS. GOOD WRITING: Nobel writer Gunter
Grass says computers and the internet are bad influences on
good writing, and that pen and paper are an essential part of
his life as a writer. " I mistrust this computer work,''
he says. Wired 02/07/00
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POTTER
POUT: The newest Harry Potter book is leading Amazon's bestseller
chart. But it hasn't even been published yet. The Potter tomes
are remarkable - so much so that they almost read themselves.
But come on - let's not confuse them with great literature.
And that's what some awards-folk seem to be doing of late. The
Age (Melbourne) 02/07/00
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LET'S
PLAY THE FEUD: The Canadian province of Newfoundland has
a good old fashioned literary feud going. "The affair erupted
last month over the rights to a 'little poem' allegedly reprinted
in a textbook without the author's consent. Raising the stakes,
the 'textbook' is a bound pilot document for one of the most
ambitious projects in provincial publishing history. National
Post (Canada) 02/07/00
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RARE
FIRST-EDITION COPERNICUS
book stolen from Russian library. The
Times of India (AP) 02/06/00
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LITERARY
LETTERS: No predictors of literariness. Some writers are
just as witty and interesting and fun in their correspondence
as they are in their work. Then there are Elizabeth Barrett
Browning and Robert Browning's letters to each other. "You
can ask someone to tap you repeatedly on the head with a teaspoon
or you can wade through the detailed description of every thought
either of them ever had." The
Hungry Mind Review 02/04/00
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HARRY
POTTER AUTHOR wins British Book Association's "Author
of the Year." BBC
02/04/00
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ANY
DOUBT where publishing is going? None, if you're paying
attention to the headlines. A year ago e-publishing was little
more than talk. But a glance at the publishing headlines of
the past several months shows an industry racing towards its
future. *spark-online
02/00
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ANATOMY
OF A LITERARY FEUD: Tom Wolfe versus the Three Stooges.
A battle for posterity. New
York Observer 02/02/00
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ONCE
UPON A TIME Okay, so Tom Wolfe changed journalism. Nonetheless,
when he starts lecturing about art, he's tiresome. Salon
02/01/00
- STRANGE
DAYS: Where did the contemporary novel come
from, and where is it going? Five writers write about the future
of fiction.
Village Voice Literary Supplement 02/00
- A
GOOD YEAR FOR BOOKS: Preliminary sales figures suggest 1999
was an excellent year for the book business, with sales increases
registered by most publishing houses.
Publisher's Weekly 02/01/00
