Ford Leaves Knopf
Wow. Richard Ford is ending his seventeen-year relationship with Alfred A. Knopf and moving to Ecco. Big, big news. This article is also useful because, as you know, I’m a bit obsessed by the mystery of sales figures. According to this article, Ford’s last novel, Lay of the Land sold “51,000 copies in hardcover,…
continue readingIt’s All a Question of Balance
Sell yourself. Tell the truth. Both very good advice. Both very necessary if you’re trying to get an agent or editor. The difficulty comes in balancing the two objectives. Seth Godin writes about how marketing creates placebos in order to influence your opinions of a product. “The design of your blog or your package or your…
continue readingSmith Criticizes Literary Awards
Zadie Smith “launched a blistering attack on literary prizes,” according to The Telegraph. This article quotes the author as saying literary awards are “only nominally” about the literature and instead are “really about brand consolidation for beer companies, phone companies, coffee companies and even frozen food companies.” Smith is the recipient of several major literary awards…
continue readingForged Biographies
Galleycat points to an intriguing articleabout author Robert Fisk learning of a Saddam Hussein biography that was published under his name. But he didn’t write it. “No, this wasn’t plagiarism,” Fisk writes. “This was forgery. And it was clearly the moment for Detective Inspector Fisk to hunt down ‘The Mystery of the Cairo Forger’.”
continue readingSuper Books
So, with the New York Giants’s Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots, how long before the football books start trickling out? Eli Manning is probably a shoe-in for an “as told to” book. Winning coach Tom Coughlin who was almost fired last season will probably get one of those coach-as-business-mentor books. And I’m…
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