If Shakespeare were alive today, would he be writing crime novels?
telegraph.co.uk – Sunday April 29, 2018
There is no surer way to make yourself sound like a fatuous idiot than to speculate on what famous writers of the past would be doing if they were alive today – to suggest that Dickens would be scripting soap operas, Jane Austen would write chick lit, Blake would be penning hip-hop lyrics, Oscar Wilde would be a preening vlogger, and so on. And yet there is a part of me – the fatuously idiotic part, presumably – that nods along in agreement when people say that if Shakespeare were around today, he would be writing not plays but crime fiction, and we’d find him on the bestseller lists up with Ian Rankin, Lee Child and Val McDermid. The crime novelist Peter James made this point repeatedly as chairman...
Traditional Publishing Ebook Sales Dropped 10% In 2017
forbes.com – Sunday April 29, 2018
Traditional publishers sold 10% fewer ebook units in 2017 compared with the previous year, according to data released by PubTrack Digital. Total sales were 162 million in 2017 rather than the 180 million units sold the year before.
The news won't come as a surprise to anyone who has followed traditional ebook sales trends over the past few years: Nielsen's reports put 2016 ebook unit sales from the top 30 traditional publishers down a full 16% from their 2015 numbers. But this isn't a comeback story for print, and shouldn't be considered evidence of a waning public interest in ebooks. The fact that traditionally published ebook sales fell 10% last year isn't the full picture. As traditional publishers saw sales drop, audiences moved to indie publishers, largely on Amazon. The reason, according to Jonathan Stolper, who was the SVP and global managing director for Nielsen Book in 2016, comes down to pricing. Nielsen’s Books and Consumers survey, according to a Publishers Weekly paraphrase of Stolper, found "that price is the top priority for e-book buyers when considering which book to purchase." In 2015, the Big Five publishing houses raised ebook prices to around $8 a book, far higher than the $3-a-book price point independent publishers settled on.
In the #MeToo Moment, Publishers Turn to Morality Clauses
publishersweekly.com – Saturday April 28, 2018
Until recently, the term “moral turpitude” is not one that crossed the lips of too many people in book publishing. But Bill O’Reilly, Milo Yiannopoulos, Sherman Alexie, Jay Asher, and James Dashner changed all that.
A legal term that refers to behavior generally considered unacceptable in a given community, moral turpitude is something publishers rarely worried themselves about. No longer.
Major publishers are increasingly inserting language into their contracts—referred to as morality clauses—that allows them to terminate agreements in response to a broad range of behavior by authors. And agents, most of whom spoke with PW on the condition of anonymity, say the change is worrying in an industry built on a commitment to defending free speech.
Researchers built an AI capable of writing poetry that's equal parts woeful and impressive
mashable.com – Saturday April 28, 2018
As if the world weren't already full enough of awful human poetry, now the robot overlords want in.
Researchers from Microsoft and Kyoto University were interested in whether they could invent an AI that writes poetry inspired from images, "generating poems to satisfy both relevance to the image and poeticness in language level." Some of the poems produced are pretty objectively abysmal. Others, surprisingly passable.
Here's one inspired by a photo of a dead crab:
Vetting for stereotypes: meet publishing's 'sensitivity readers'
theguardian.com – Saturday April 28, 2018
When reviewers first saw Keira Drake’s The Continent, this story of a teenager trapped by a war between two “native” tribes quickly found attention on social media – though not much of it was good. This young adult novel was attacked for its “white saviour narrative” and its stereotypical portrayal of people with “reddish-brown skin” or “almond-shaped eyes”. The author Justina Ireland called it a “racist garbage fire”.
Drake apologised, said she would “address concerns about the novel”, and delayed the release. Her publisher, Harlequin Teen, sent the book out to two “sensitivity readers”, who vetted the manuscript for stereotypes, biases and problematic language. Armed with a list of potential problems and possible solutions, Drake went back to the drawing board.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Friday April 27, 2018
Publishes: Fiction; Nonfiction;
Areas include: Short Stories;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Literary
Accepts fiction and nonfiction of any length. Submit via online submission system.
Lovegrove launches magazine for Caribbean writing
thebookseller.com – Monday April 23, 2018
Sharmaine Lovegrove has launched an online magazine dedicated to Caribbean literature.
Pree offers new contemporary writing from and about the Caribbean, including fiction, non-fiction, essays, interviews and experimental writing giving the authors “international visibility far beyond the islands”.
Lovegrove is publisher of the magazine and also publisher at Little, Brown imprint Dialogue Books, which is dedicated to inclusivity. Joining her at the online magazine is editor-in-chief Annie Paul, who is based at University of the West Indies, and editors include Jamaican writer and environmental activist Diana McCaulay, cultural analyst Isis Semaj-Hall and New York-based essayist Garnette Cadogan. The magazine’s creative director is designer Nerys Hudson.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Monday April 23, 2018
Publishes: Fiction; Nonfiction; Poetry;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Literary
Accepts submissions of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction via online submission system between January 1 and May 1 each year. Seeks aesthetically ambitious work that invokes the colliding and converging energies of the fairgrounds. See website for full guidelines.
New Publisher Listing
firstwriter.com – Monday April 23, 2018
Publishes: Fiction; Nonfiction;
Markets: Adult
Founded to help authors publish (or republish) nonfiction works of the highest quality. Will also consider fiction if truly unique. Pursues a digital-first approach. See website for submission guidelines and more information.
Book clinic: do editors often have to cut authors down to size?
theguardian.com – Sunday April 22, 2018
Nabokov called editors “pompous avuncular brutes”. Thanks, Vlad! Working with novelists, editors both try and help writers sharpen and structure the story they want to tell and use their experience to provide a sounding board as to how readers might react to it. I say “the story the writer wants to tell” because ultimately it is the writer’s creation.
When I read reviewers’ snarky comments about the fall in editing standards at publishers, I sometimes wonder how much – or how little – they know about the conversations that would have taken place between writer and editor. Ultimately, as an editor, you just have to stand back and say: “OK, it’s your book.”
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