Questions to our readers about emerging and current topics in publishing
The story arc of Downton Abbey is really about one thing: order confronting chaos. Is the current state of contemporary publishing any different?
Will authors have the patience to wait for an agent or publisher to discover them? Or will they seek the immediate gratification of self-publishing?
With digitization offering authors new opportunities faster that publishers can take advantage of them, long book contracts grow increasingly unattractive.
Publishers say book apps cost too much to produce. Of course they do, after all, they are publishing companies, not production companies.
The one thing a great comics book store must do -- unlike a bookstore -- is ensure you never forget your in a comic book store.
Is the cliché that 'editors no longer edit' overstated? Or does the job of shaping a book's text fall largely to the agent?
For a westerner, Moscow's bookstores can feel like returning to a lost world and, with a new Russian owner, Waterstones might benefit from their example.
The term 'e-book' distinguishes format, but it may also be prejudicial in so far as it has come to equate "cheap and ephemeral" with books to many consumers.
One way to look at piracy is as a response to unmet demand. Is this accurate? Or is it a convenient excuse for illegal, predatory activity?
Rights are publishers' primary assets and relinquishing them for fixed fee may not be immediately enticing.
