From Electric Lit: Craft is often thought of as the backbone of literature, the scientific and mathematical side of the creative process that examines an artist’s techniques. In prose, it often involves terms such as plot, pacing, point of view, characterization, scene-setting, s … | Continue reading
From The Economist: The office is not the most promising setting for films. Desk warriors can occasionally be caught up in dramatic stories, whether journalists (“Spotlight”), lawyers (“Dark Waters”) or whistleblowers (“The Informant”). The greed and fear of high finance (“Dumb M … | Continue reading
From The Wall Street Journal: “They make a desert and call it peace.” That harrowing critique of the high Roman Empire is often attributed to the historian Tacitus. In fact, the line is found in a speech that Tacitus quotes (or invents), delivered by a barbarian chieftain, Calgac … | Continue reading
PG tried to move his boxcutter gash along its healing path a little too quickly this morning and ended up dripping blood in several places before he realized what was going on. He didn’t feel a thing. (No permanent blood spots, however, for those who worry about that sort of thin … | Continue reading
PG almost never posts multiple items about the same company on a single day. However, today, Zon was generating huge press coverage on a variety of fronts. This isn’t anything more than a one-day-wonder, so TPV will not become All Amazon, All the Time. | Continue reading
From Amazon: Two individual fake review brokers were found guilty of illegal business operations intended to deceive Amazon customers and harm Amazon selling partners through the facilitation of fake reviews. These verdicts are the result of local law enforcement’s investigation … | Continue reading
From Amazon: Over the last several years, we’ve engaged cooperatively with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) during a broad-ranging investigation of our business. It was our hope the agency would recognize that Amazon’s innovations and customer-centric focus have benefited … | Continue reading
Today’s Press Release from The Federal Trade Commission: The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general today sued Amazon.com, Inc. alleging that the online retail and technology company is a monopolist that uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strat … | Continue reading
From The Wall Street Journal: The Federal Trade Commission and 17 states on Tuesday sued Amazon AMZN -4.35%decrease; red down pointing triangle, alleging the online retailer illegally wields monopoly power that keeps prices artificially high, locks sellers into its platform and h … | Continue reading
Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists. Sara Sheridan PG doesn’t think he has heretofore commented about a short quote he h … | Continue reading
From The Guardian: The publication of Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown’s debut novel has reignited a debate over ghostwritten celebrity books. Brown’s Nineteen Steps, inspired by her grandmother’s experience of the 1943 Bethnal Green tube disaster, was ghostwritten by auth … | Continue reading
From Quartz: Thomas Edison dreamed of audiobooks. When Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, he tested his new device by reciting the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” That wasn’t highbrow literature, but Edison felt that the recorded form would lend itself well to full-l … | Continue reading
From The Economist: wo and a half millennia ago, Socrates complained that writing would harm students. With a way to store ideas permanently and externally, they would no longer need to memorise. It is tempting to dismiss him as an old man complaining about change. Socrates did n … | Continue reading
From These Foolish Games: Fables Press Release Subject: Fables Enters the Public Domain 15 September 2023 By Bill Willingham For Immediate Release The Lede As of now, 15 September 2023, the comic book property called Fables, including all related Fables spin-offs and characters, … | Continue reading
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. Albert Einstein | Continue reading
Iona08:05 Hampton Court to Waterloo Until the point when a man started dying right in front of her on the 08:05, Iona’s day had been just like any other. She always left the house at half past seven. It took her an average of twenty minutes to walk to the station in heels, which … | Continue reading
From BookBrowse: Walk into any office and you’ll likely find a mix of people at different points of their lives: Baby boomers, Generation Xers, millennials. And the presence of Generation Z continues to grow. Iona, the main character in Clare Pooley’s Iona Iverson’s Rules for Com … | Continue reading
From Publishers Weekly: Adult fiction has been publishing’s steadiest-selling category for the past 18 months. Unit sales of print adult fiction books were up 8.5% in 2022 over 2021 at outlets that report to Circana BookScan, making it the only category to post an increase last y … | Continue reading
From: Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris Writing scams aren’t just for newbies anymore. A few weeks ago, publishing guru Jane Friedman discovered unfamiliar books on her Goodreads author page. She also found them on Amazon — published in her name. She realized they were proba … | Continue reading
From Jane Friedman: Just two days after the Maui wildfires began, on Aug. 10, a new book was self-published, Fire and Fury: The Story of the 2023 Maui Fire and its Implications for Climate Change by “Dr. Miles Stones” (no such person seems to exist). I learned about the book from … | Continue reading
Why would they have book covers if we aren’t supposed to judge the book by them? It makes no sense. Ingrid Weir | Continue reading
From The Los Angeles Times: It seemed to many in book publishing like good news last October when the Department of Justice successfully sued to block Penguin Random House (PRH) from acquiring Simon & Schuster. PRH is the largest publisher in the United States and S & S is third. … | Continue reading
From Publishing Perspectives: As Publishing Perspectives readers know, the academic and scholarly world’s march toward open-access models hasn’t moved as quickly as many would like. The late-June release of Europe’s Coalition S initiative for open access called “Plan S” was plain … | Continue reading
From The New Publishing Standard: “The rise of BookTok titles has meant less visibility for other titles, whether they’re longstanding authors or debuts.” That’s per a post in The Guardian this weekend that takes yet another look at the BookTok phenomenon, happy to report easy-co … | Continue reading
From The Millions: A few times a day, a strange, pulsating sound fills the Boston headquarters of the National Braille Press. Thun-thun. Thun-thun. This is what employees of the nonprofit braille publisher call the office’s “braille heartbeat,” generated by an assortment of print … | Continue reading
From The Atlantic: When Megan Nolan published her first novel, fellow authors warned her in “ominous tones” about the website Goodreads. The young Irish writer looked at the book’s listing there in the winter of 2020, the day the first proof copy arrived at her house. “Nobody but … | Continue reading
From Publishers Weekly: In a week that has seen Penguin Random House’s workforce winnowed by buyouts and layoffs and the Independent Publishers Group lay off nine staffers, HarperCollins has announced that Inkyard Press, the YA imprint under the publisher’s Harlequin Trade Publis … | Continue reading
PG got to feeling a bit better as the day commenced and decided to try Microsoft’s browser, Edge, with Microsoft’s version of AI included. PG’s prompt was as follows: synopsis of Pride and Prejudice, including issues of class Here’s what MS AI produced (with paragraph breaks inse … | Continue reading
PG is feeling unlike his usual wiseguy self, so he’s taking a blogging holiday today. | Continue reading
From The Wall Street Journal: Behind every physician’s medical advice is a wealth of knowledge, but soon, patients across the country might get advice from a different source: artificial intelligence. In California and Wisconsin, OpenAI’s “GPT” generative artificial intelligence … | Continue reading
This life is what you make it. No matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you’re going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends – they’ll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ... … | Continue reading
From Writer Unboxed: My brother is a counselor. A very good one who won’t tell any of his clients’ stories, even when our dad asks him to strip all identifying features. Dad knows better, but he’s a curious man who’s never been afraid of hearing no (which made him a great entrepr … | Continue reading
From Book Riot: I grew up on Star Wars, so you can imagine that science fiction, space fantasy, and science fiction romance have a special place in my heart. After all, what is Star Wars if not an epic science fiction love story? (Don’t try to fight me on this.) There’s just some … | Continue reading
From Publisher’s Weekly: In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, many religion and spirituality publishers publicly stepped-up commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion in their workforce and in their book acquisitions and marketing. Since then, however, the impact of th … | Continue reading
From National Public Radio: President Joe Biden named checked “MAGA extremists” and attempts to ban books in his video on Tuesday announcing he was officially running for office again. Here’s why it’s the topic that just won’t stop. What is it? Put frankly, it’s a rising trend of … | Continue reading
From The Economist: Not much in European trade runs the same way now as it did four centuries ago. However, English-language publishers still advertise future titles at the Frankfurt Book Fair—just as they did in 1622. In that year, a catalogue of forthcoming English works featur … | Continue reading
Reading is still the main way that I both learn new things and test my understanding. Bill Gates | Continue reading
It is not difficult to rule Russia, but it is useless. Alexander II | Continue reading
FromThe Bookseller: International Booker-longlisted Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov has written the introduction to an essay by imprisoned Crimean Tatar leader Nariman Dzhelyal. Written by Dzhelyal from jail, the full essay with the title “Dignity cannot be annexed” will appear in … | Continue reading
From Publisher’s Weekly: With more than 40 million Spanish-speaking readers and language learners, according to the Census Bureau, the U.S. has the fourth-largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, after Mexico, Spain, and Argentina. What’s more, if demographic trends cont … | Continue reading
From Publishing Perspectives: Last year saw 1,269 attempts to ban or restrict library materials in the United States, the highest level since the compiling of data began some 20 years ago, according to a new report from the American Library Association‘s watchdog agency on the is … | Continue reading
From Book Riot: We’re all tired. The coordinated attacks on everything from Drag Queen story hours to Pride displays to individual books in libraries is going into its second year. While many have been waking up to this — which happens when it’s not just in those red communities, … | Continue reading
When you realize you’re riding a dead horse, your best decision is to dismount. Unknown | Continue reading
From Publisher’s Weekly: For some people, the family business, if they have one at all, might be a pizza joint or a plumbing company. In our family, for better or worse, it’s writing. My grandfather, Elliott Maraniss, was a lifelong newspaperman; my grandmother, Mary, was a book … | Continue reading
From Women Writers, Women’s Books: Unexpected female main characters have always held a particular fascination for me. I recently watched Enola Holmes with my daughters, and it fed my soul to see a young woman as a smart, resourceful fighter. and not a helpless creature incapable … | Continue reading
From The Wall Street Journal: In the opening pages of “Plato Goes to China,” classicist Shadi Bartsch promises that by tracing the history of the Chinese reception of ancient Greek and Roman political philosophy, her book offers “a uniquely illuminating vantage point for observin … | Continue reading
From Writers Helping Writers: Following closely on the heels of romance, mystery is one of the most popular fiction genres of all time. At its simplest, the genre is a puzzle for audiences and characters to figure out together. At its most complex, mystery offers a deep-dive into … | Continue reading