Editorial by Sharon Glassman Different social media have different theme songs. By this I mean: a combo of info-pacing and density that creates a kind of silent, yet powerful tune. Linked In’s theme-song is coldly John Cage-esque. Facebook’s theme song is jarringly jam-bandish. Twitter’s theme song, by contrast is the Popcorn Song. As a book-loving, book-writing-n-writing-about person, that kind of …
From “Cruel Hookah” to “Cruel Hooker”: A Cross-Cultural Conversation in Poetry
By Christopher Merrill IOWA CITY: The book Seven Poets Four Days One Book was an experiment to see what would happen if poets from different lands, languages, and generations tried to write together. The possibilities for failure seemed limitless — which perversely appealed to me. For it has been my experience that the least promising material may sometimes yield the …
What Does a Book Ad Cost? And Who’s Gonna Pay?
By Chris Artis In 1966, Jacqueline Susann’s tireless and often shameless promotional efforts for her classic best-seller Valley of the Dolls “created a new way of selling a novel” in the words of legendary Simon and Schuster Editor Michael Korda. Indeed, they helped propel it to the top position on bestseller lists around the world. Still, decades later, publishers generally maintain …
No Truth in Travel
By James E. McWilliams AUSTIN, TEXAS: When news arrived that I’d received a modest advance for a book I was writing on global agriculture — published this month as Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong And How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly by Little, Brown in the USA — my first thought was: “Where’s my passport?!?!” With the upfront …
Focus-Grouped Thoughts on the Branded Page
By James P. Othmer MAHOPAC, NEW YORK: Writing this sentence is a brazen, deliberate and irrevocable act of branding. Trust me, before it (and all subsequent vowels and consonants below) was written, it was parsed, focus-grouped and post-mortemed by twelve angry, bookish consumers on the shiny side of a two-way mirror in Teaneck, New Jersey. To wit, they were asked: …
Re-thinking the Publisher/Author Partnership
By Robert Miller NEW YORK: I’ve just read M.J. Rose’s editorial from last Friday, “Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid,” and I couldn’t agree more that it’s time to re-think the publisher/author relationship. M.J. deserves credit for moving this conversation forward; indeed, for years M.J. has shown by her own example how authors can and should be full …
Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid
Editorial by M.J. Rose Shout it from the rooftops, or better yet, hashtag it on Twitter. It’s time to turn the page on how authors get paid. Times have changed, and with them, every aspect of the publishing landscape is morphing. And from my vantage point, nowhere is it changing more than in marketing. Authors aren’t waiting and watching to …
Why Bangkok?
By Timothy Hallinan BANGKOK: Well, as a place to live, it is undoubtedly the most cheerful big city on earth. The Thai people somehow ingest the heat, the gasoline fumes, the permanent Gordian knot of traffic, the heartbreaking poverty, and through some form of internal alchemy turn it into broad, beautiful smiles and almost infinite compassion for the befuddled, sweating …
Is Yale’s Cartoon Controversy Just More Publishing Cowardice?
Sherry Jones, author of The Jewel of Medina, discusses self-censorship and publishers who stand up against threats to freedom of speech and freedom to publish.
In Afghanistan, Women Writers Confront Taboos and Terrorism
By Masha Hamilton I woke up one day this week to an email from my colleague in Kabul. Many of the women who write for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project blog, he said, would probably not be participating for a few days. Typically once or twice a week, the AWWP writers send in essays, poems, and news reports from computers …