By Edward Nawotka Italians may have gone crazy for the iPad, with more than 300,000 units sold so far, but if Italian readers launch the iBookstore app on their machines they still find little or nothing to buy. While the situation may be frustrating to Italian early adopters, by the end of the month the Italian e-book scene is going …
Hot Italian Readers: The Feltrinelli Era
By Boris Kachka Superstores and publishers have had some run-ins of late—decades after the heyday of one-stop publisher-printer-bookshops working on several floors of the same building. Tech-savvy startup OR Books cited that golden age at the fair, explaining their plan to sell print and e-books directly to consumers. But there’s one independent house, a ripe 55 years old, that manages …
Italian Ebooks: Agent Roberto Santachiara Deems 25 Percent Royalty Too Low
By Emily Williams Andrew Wylie isn’t the only agent rebelling on the e-book front. La Repubblica has an interview with big Italian agent Roberto Santachiara (who represents Italian bestsellers Roberto Saviano and Carlo Lucarelli and acts as the Italian co-agent for such English-language heavyweights as Stephen King, Thomas Pynchon, James Ellroy, and Ian McEwan) in which he explains why he …
Dropping by the Almost Corner Bookshop in Rome’s Trastevere
By Rachel Aydt New York writer Rachel Aydt is traveling through Europe this summer, and has been filing occasional posts on her bookish adventures. Today, she visits an English-language bookshop in Rome. We headed to Rome for a few days after spending two days with my mom and stepdad, who’d done an apartment swap in Anzio (despite its somber WWII …
Want More Rights Deals and Translations? Try Taking Editors and Publishers Overseas
By Chad Post TURIN: “Let me tell you something: the U.S. market is closed to Italian books,” said Italian literary agent Marco Vigevani on a panel about translation at the Turin International Book Fair last month. “It may sound crazy,” he continued, “but I want you to face the facts. Yes, it used to be different. There were editors like …
Review: The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
By Gwendolyn Dawson Physicist Paolo Giordano’s debut novel, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, won Italy’s premier literary award, the Premio Strega, in 2008. Now available in the U.S. in an English translation, The Solitude of Prime Numbers explores the poignant relationship that develops between two misfits, Alice and Mattia. Alice, an anorexic with a limp left over from a childhood skiing accident, resists …
Vitamins 2.0: How Children’s Books Can Change the World in the Digital Age
What type of illustrated kids’ books are most valuable? Perhaps those of most importance are the books done with manual, as opposed to digital artistry.
Google to Scan Rome and Florence Libraries
By Siobhan O’Leary Google’s international march continues, this time straight to Rome. The firm has announced an agreement with the Italian culture ministry to scan up to a million books from the national libraries of Rome and Florence. Similar to its deal with the city of Lyon’s library (covered earlier by Publishing Perspectives), Google will cover the cost of scanning …
Building the World’s Biggest Book Club
By Kathy L. Patrick JEFFERSON, TEXAS: They say everything is bigger in Texas…and it’s true. When I opened Beauty and the Book in January 2000 — the ONLY hair salon/book store in the world — in January 2000, one of the first things I did was start my book club, The Pulpwood Queens of East Texas. We started with six complete strangers …
Call for Stories: Bologna Children’s Book Fair
By Edward Nawotka Our lead story today by Arthur Japin concerns a particularly intense physical, emotional and spiritual journey in Italy. We plan on going to Italy in March, but hope to have a much more pleasant time. Publishing Perspectives will be covering the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and we hope to hear from each and every one of you …