Editorial by Edward Nawotka SXSW: As I wrote last month, the book conferences are coming fast and furious. Though I’m still suffering from jet lag from my recent trip to the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (ADIBF), I’m already at another conference, SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. What’s noticeably different this year at SXSW are the number of panels –- …
Is Penguin Trying to Rewrite History?
By Andrew Wilkins The Popular Penguins follow Allen Lane’s ethos of making great writing affordable and available to everybody — now you can own a piece of the Penguin story. — marketing blurb from Penguin Web site If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. — Sir Isaac Newton MELBOURNE: You may have heard …
The Translation Gap: Why More Foreign Writers Aren’t Published in America
By Emily Williams NEW YORK: Parts one, two and three of my series on scouting looked at American efforts to sell American books overseas. Today, this fourth and final installment of the series looks at the other side of the equation and brings us to a question most scouts run into sooner or later, often posed by one of their …
Inside the Secret World of Literary Scouts (Part III)
By Emily Williams In Part I we looked at the essentials of how scouting works and in Part II we discussed the changes scouting is going through. Today we look at what the future might hold for scouts. The close professional ties scouts develop with their clients, sometimes over decades, are key to the role those scouts play in helping …
Inside the Secret World of Literary Scouts, Part II
By Emily Williams Part II: Scouting Changes with the Times NEW YORK: Last week in Part I we looked at the essentials of how scouting works. Many of these essentials—recognizing a great manuscript when it crosses your desk, cultivating a wide network of close relationships across the industry, understanding your clients’ needs and serving them well—will always remain the same. …
Inside the Secret World of Literary Scouts
By Emily Williams Part I: How It Works NEW YORK: For five years I was an international literary scout. That means for five years I groaned inside whenever anyone asked me what I did. Scouting occupies a strange niche in book publishing, itself a rather inscrutable business from the outside, and after a time most scouts resign themselves to working—very hard—at an …
Art Book Entrepreneur Tests “Team Publishing” Model
By Edward Nawotka TUCSON: How does one man launch a niche publishing company in a credit-and-cash strapped economy, while incurring limited expenses in overhead and even less in personnel? For Greg Albers, founder of Hol Art Books—a new niche press focused on books about visual arts, ranging from art history to original fiction—the answer is “collaboration.” “Our business model is …
The Bookseller Who Balked at Black Friday
By Edward Nawotka CAMBRIDGE: Last Thursday—Thanksgiving Day in the United States—Lorem Ipsum Books, an independent bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced what they called a “new Black Friday Shopping tradition”: The Anti-Sale. “In this special, one-day only event, the bookstore with 19,000+ gently used books will be offering none of them for sale at a discount,” said Matt Mankins, the store’s …