Reviewed by Gwendolyn Dawson The Golden Calf, a classic Russian novel now available in a new English translation by Konstantin Gurevich and Helen Anderson, published by Open Letter Books, is an exuberant road trip story, a financial thriller, an examination of the criminal underworld, and a social commentary, all rolled into one package. The story spans the era of Lenin’s …
Consider the Customer and Other Lessons from the DLD Conference
By Hannah Johnson Consumer-oriented innovation, online content strategy and digital brand management were at the center of many discussions and panels during the Digital Life Design Conference (DLD), which ended on Tuesday in Munich, Germany. DLD was started six years ago by Hubert Burda Media, one of Germany’s largest magazine publishers, as an invitation-only “platform for progression” and a meeting …
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 …
2020 Vision: Publishing Predictions for the Next Decade
Editorial by Richard Eoin Nash Last month, when this online magazine asked me if I would write an editorial on predictions for 2010, I apologized and said, I just can’t figure out what is likely to happen this year. But, I suggested, I could write about ten years from now. Why is a ten year prediction easier than a one …
The Internet is Africa’s “Gutenberg Moment”
By Tolu Ogunlesi “There are lively publishing enterprises in different areas of Africa that are not formalized in the European sense. But they exist, they are not cataloged, [they] don’t have ISBN numbers… there’s no systemic way of tracking and engaging these enterprises…” said Muhtar Bakare, founder of Kachifo Limited, an independent literary publishing house in Lagos, Nigeria, during a …
Why Smart Publishers Care About Tech Conferences
By Hannah Johnson PARIS: Last week’s LeWeb, the largest technology conference in Europe, attracted nearly nearly 2,400 attendees from 50 countries. Started in 2005 by Loic Le Meur (founder and CEO of Seesmic) and his wife Geraldine, it has become perhaps the premier Internet related conference in Europe and a key venue for the launch of new products and initiatives …
A Free Library for Every Family (in Sharjah)
By Chip Rossetti SHARJAH, UAE: While many countries would like to encourage a “culture of reading” in their citizens, perhaps no government has taken a more direct role in promoting reading than the United Arab Emirate of Sharjah, through its official initiative known as “Knowledge Without Borders.” Conceived under the auspices of the ruler of Sharjah, H.H. Sheikh Dr. Sultan …
Bonus Material: Is Asia Truly Ahead of the West in Digital Innovation and Adoption?
By Edward Nawotka In today’s lead article about the Singapore Writers Festival, Peter Gordon, Hong Kong publisher of Chameleon Press, suggested that some parts of Asia were slow movers in the race towards literary digitization. He said: E-publishing “is awaited with a combination of anticipation of the possibilities and trepidation about the effects it may have on the traditional publishing …
A Cautionary Tale about POD
By Joanne Gail Johnson PORT-OF-SPAIN: In the Caribbean, we struggle, like other people around the globe, for increased media autonomy and international participation on our own terms. A long, long, long time ago, before I was a published author, when my childhood love of books was being nourished in Trinidad on the imported imaginings of Dr. Seuss rhyme and Enid …
Hugo Chávez’s Color Coded “Revolutionary Reading Plan”
By Emily Williams No friend to publishing (see our earlier coverage here) Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has nevertheless started to implement his four-part color coded “Revolutionary Reading Plan.” Announced in May, the goal of the project as stated by the Venezuelan government, is “the democratization of books and reading, with a new conception of reading as a collective act under …