October 2009

29 October 2009

Why has John Le Carré Left His Publisher out in the Cold?

"Why should the fact that a novelist changes the merchandiser of his books be of more headline interest than, say, Martin Amis changing his dentist? Who cares? When the book trade was a cottage industry we did; it's questionable if we do any more. You can remember the title but can you recall, from the top of your head, who published Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall?"

Guardian article

24 October 2009

When the Author Pays a Price

"When the tiny (now defunct) Breakneck Books picked up the rights for a limited run, Seth conspired with his fans to buy the book from Amazon at the same time on the same day so it would rocket up Amazon’s rankings. This drew the attention of a New York agent who sold the rights to an editor at Three Rivers, an imprint of Random House."

THE DIY AUTHOR RETURNS

19 October 2009

Never Underestimate the Power of a Great Story

Wardrobe (The Closet) - Canal plus

11 October 2009

Amazon Kindle 2: Centuries of Evolved Beauty Rinsed Away

"It came, via UPS, in a big cardboard box. Inside the box were some puffy clear bladders of plastic and another cardboard box. This one said, in spare, lowercase type, "kindle". On the side of the box was a plastic strip inlaid into the cardboard, which you were meant to pull to tear the package cleanly open. On it were the words "Once upon a time".

Inside was another box, fancier than the first. Black cardboard was printed with a swarm of glossy black letters, and in the middle was, again, the word "kindle". There was another pull strip on the side, which again said, "Once upon a time". I'd entered some nesting Italo Calvino folktale world of packaging. I pulled again and opened. Within, lying face up in a white-lined casket, was the device itself. It was pale, about the size of a hardcover novel, but much thinner, and it had a smallish screen and a qwerty keyboard at the bottom made of tiny round keys that resisted pressing. I gazed at the keys for a moment and thought of a restaurant accordion."

Guardian article

06 October 2009

A Very Public Short Story

Max Barry was asked to write a short story in public at the Melbourne Writers festival.

"The longest I ever sunk into the story before remembering that people were watching was about 45 seconds. Often I would be halfway through a sentence and someone would stop by to chat or offer suggestions or ask where the bathrooms were. Which is what I signed up for, of course: this was meant to be interactive. But it was like being woken from a deep sleep eighty times an hour. Two parts of my brain that don’t normally meet were knocking into each other and I wasn’t sure which of them was me."

A Short Story Broke My Brain