If the Guadalajara Book Fair is any indication, Mexican publishing in particular and Spanish-language publishing in general, is indeed burgeoning.
Dedalus Saved by Fairy Godmothers: How the UK’s Esoteric Literary Publisher Survives Trying Times
“We exist to do the difficult things of publishing,” Eric Lane of Dedalus on life running “the most literary publishing house in Europe.” By Daniel Kalder CAMBRIDGESHIRE, UK: I first encountered Dedalus Books’ esoteric literary catalogue in the old Science Fiction Bookshop in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was a strange place: upstairs they sold Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and French editions …
How Neal Stephenson’s The Mongoliad is Revolutionizing Immersive Online Storytelling
By Michael Bhaskar People constantly talk about social reading as the next business model for publishing. Well, it’s here, it’s The Mongoliad. In the febrile, occasionally paranoid, always news hungry world of digital publishing, it seems strange that something so important should have slipped by so unnoticed, yet The Mongoliad seems to have been largely overlooked by the publishing Establishment. …
B&N’s NOOKBooks en Español Gives US Retailer Unique Position in Global E-book Market
By Emily Williams There has been a lot of talk about digital content in Spanish-language publishing over the past three years, and publishers have started the e-book ball rolling with major digitization and e-distribution initiatives, but one key link has still been missing: the final retail connection with the consumer. The booksellers in Spain seem to be dragging their heels, …
Hungarian for Inspiration
• Andrew Ervin, author of the collection of linked novellas Extraordinary Renditions discusses the woeful lack of Hungarian literature translated into English and offers a survey of titles that are available and should not be missed. By Andrew Ervin Though I lived in Budapest for over four years, from November 1994 to March 1999, my grasp of the Hungarian language …
Screaming Metal Phoenix: The Fantastic Rebirth of Humanoids USA
By Daniel Kalder The idea of comics for adults exploded in the US in the mid 1980s, via the pioneering work of creators such as Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Art Spiegelman. Their use of the medium to explore adult themes (or in Miller’s case, adolescent themes) seemed revolutionary at the time, and comics like Watchmen, The Dark Knight and …
Google Books ‘auf Deutsch’
Interview by Nicholas Gary Yesterday’s news about Hachette Livre’s deal with Google to scan and sell 40 to 50,000 out-of-print books came as something of a surprise to many. Could the same thing happen in Germany? Annabella Weiss, the manager for Google Books for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, won’t say. But she did speak with Nicholas Gary of Actualitté, about what …
Nicolas Gary: France’s Digital Man of Letters
By Olivia Snaije In a corner of the traditional, safe and slightly musty world of French publishing, Nicolas Gary, the principal founder of Actualitté, a website and daily newsmagazine on French and international publishing, is a blast of fresh air. The Canadian-born 30-year old, a fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune but also of poet Saint-John Perse, founded Actualitté with three …
German Technology Spotlight: Comicstars.de
By Siobhan O’Leary Self-publishing may be gaining traction, but having a contract with a traditional publisher is still an alluring prospect for many aspiring authors. Comicstars.de is a Web 2.0 marketplace for digital comics that combines the best of both worlds. The company behind it, New Ground Publishing, was founded in 2008 as a joint venture between German publisher Droemer-Knaur …
Germany’s Libreka! E-bookstore Opens Doors to US and Foreign Publishers
By Siobhan O’Leary Starting in June, US and other foreign publishers will be able sell their e-books on Germany’s online book search database and e-book distribution platform Libreka! (www.libreka.de). Launched by the Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels arm of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers and Booksellers Association), Libreka! currently has over 130,000 titles available for full text browsing …