'Authenticity is the key' - budding crime writers on getting the science right
bbc.co.uk – Sunday January 5, 2020
Whether it is Ian Rankin's world-weary Inspector Rebus or the windswept murder mysteries of BBC Scotland's Shetland, home-grown crime fiction is big business.
But with fans more clued-up than ever, is getting the forensic science right in novels and television series important?
Dundee University seems to think so.
The university launched its MLitt in Crime Writing and Forensic Investigation in 2017, the first course of its kind in the UK.
With Scottish crime writers more popular than ever and the continued success of literary festivals like Stirling's Bloody Scotland and Aberdeen's Granite Noir, many fans are not just content to know "whodunnit", but how it was done, too.
Mango Publishing Acquires Yellow Pear Press
publishersweekly.com – Friday January 3, 2020
Mango Publishing, a Miami-based independent house focused on a diverse list of voices and topics, has acquired Yellow Pear Press, which also includes Bonhomie Press, a fiction and memoir imprint.
Founded in 2015 in San Francisco, Yellow Pear Press specializes in lifestyle and regional titles as well as notecards and journals. The YPP list works well with that of Mango Publishing, which publishes across an eclectic range of topics including LGBTQ issues, feminism, health and self-help, fiction, and children’s and young adult books.
Houston-based Romance Writers of America sees board exodus after racism allegations
houstonchronicle.com – Sunday December 29, 2019
Nine board members of the Houston-based Romance Writers of America resigned this week in a startling exodus that took place during a holiday lull. The organization — which represents a billion-dollar industry and celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2020 — will enter the new year with decimated leadership and lingering questions about its focus and future after several romance authors questioned the association’s commitment to a diverse community.
“I knew this kind of thing could happen, but I certainly didn’t see it happening this way, over Christmas week,” said author Piper Huguley. “I knew there was a big push coming, a resistance against this. I believe we’re in a fight for the soul of this organization, which to a number of people who observe it is not unlike what’s going on in the country politically. Right now the big question is, ‘What’s going to happen?’”
EU Court of Justice claims selling used ebooks is illegal
goodereader.com – Sunday December 22, 2019
Publishers all over Europe have been fighting Tom Kabinet since 2014 and the European Court of Justice has issued a ruling, reselling used ebooks is illegal. It is basically a violation of copyright law. Tom Kabinet stated that the first sale doctrine should apply to ebooks and users should be able to do whatever they want with them, after they are legitimately purchased.
In 2014, Tom Kabinet launched a website where second-hand e-books could be sold. Publishers immediately filed a lawsuit and sent numerous cease and desist letters against the company. In 2015, the judge in The Hague ruled that reselling was allowed in principle, but that the seller had to be able to prove that the ebooks were legally purchased, instead of downloaded from the internet or stripped the DRM. Tom Kabinet then changed its website: sellers had to be able to submit the download link for the book. However, this could not guarantee that sellers had removed their own copies. Now customers must submit the original download link and delete their own copy. In exchange for the ebooks they receive credits, which they can exchange on the site for other e-books.
The kindness of strangers has saved our publishers
standard.co.uk – Friday December 20, 2019
One of the reasons my husband Sam Jordison and I set up Galley Beggar Press, our small independent publishing company, in 2012 was that it would allow us to take risks on publishing the books we loved.
I’m happy to say that it worked. We haven’t put out many books in the past seven years, but the ones we have, have had a big effect. They’ve won prestigious literary prizes, been translated into dozens of languages and sold around the world. And they’ve also, luckily for us, sold enough copies here in the UK to help keep our little company going.
This year was an especially fortunate one. Our title Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann was shortlisted for The Booker Prize. It’s a big deal — and it meant that Lucy’s masterpiece, which we loved so much, was going to find more readers.
End of an era for book publisher Penguin
news.sky.com – Wednesday December 18, 2019
It is the end of an era for one of the most famous names in book publishing.
Penguin is being sold by Pearson, its owner for the last half-century, as the company focuses its activities exclusively on education.
Pearson today announced that it was selling its remaining stake in Penguin Random House, the book publishing joint venture it formed six years ago with Bertelsmann, the German media group.
The company originally owned 47% of Penguin Random House when the joint venture was set up in 2013.
It sold a 22% stake in the business to Bertelsmann, its joint venture partner, for $1bn in July 2017.
Book People collapse plunges small publisher Galley Beggar into crisis
theguardian.com – Wednesday December 18, 2019
Galley Beggar Press, the tiny literary publisher behind acclaimed novels including the Booker-shortlisted Ducks, Newburyport and women’s prize for fiction winner A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, has been forced to make a public appeal for support after the Book People’s fall into administration left it with a £40,000 hole in its finances.
Galley Beggar’s co-director Eloise Millar turned to crowdfunding on Wednesday to ask for urgent help from readers as it faces “the biggest crisis in its seven-year history”. The publisher entered into a partnership with the discount retailer earlier this year when Lucy Ellmann’s novel was shortlisted for the Booker. Galley Beggar produced 8,000 special editions of the novel, costing it around £40,000.
The Choose Your Own Adventure publishers are trying to get the phrase banned from Itch.io
theverge.com – Tuesday December 10, 2019
Chooseco, which publishes the famous Choose Your Own Adventure series, is apparently trying to stop indie game developers from using the phrase “choose your own adventure.” It’s sending trademark infringement notices to the Itch.io gaming storefront, and so far, they’ve resulted in four game pages being suspended.
Itch.io founder Leaf Corcoran told developers about the takedowns this afternoon. “Warning to any devs using the phrase ‘choose your own adventure’ to describe their games, Chooseco is issuing takedown notices,” he wrote on Twitter. Corcoran tells The Verge that the games include Purrfect Apawcalypse, an “apocalyptic dog dating choose your own adventure game”; a “choose your own dating sim text adventure” game called It’s a Date; an unofficial GameBoy game called Choose Your Own Adventure GB; and New Yorker writer Luke Burns’ A Series of Choose Your Own Adventure Stories Where No Matter What You Choose You Are Immediately Killed by a Werewolf, whose plot is self-explanatory.
Major Talent Agencies Step Up Global Expansion As WGA Standoff Continues
deadline.com – Saturday December 7, 2019
The television business is becoming increasingly global, fueled by the rapid expansion of the major streaming platforms. That also goes for the major Hollywood talent agencies.
Reps have always looked for opportunities beyond the U.S. But now, because of the increased demand for locally produced international content, they have stepped up their efforts. Also factoring into the acceleration is the ongoing impasse (and legal battle) between the Big 4 talent agencies and the Writers Guild of America which in April ordered its members to fire their agents if they hadn’t signed the guild’s new Code of Conduct.
Call for Names, Editors, and Contributors: Journal/Magazine of Fiction by Academics #CFP
patheos.com – Thursday December 5, 2019
I really shouldn’t start new projects. But I’ve had so many conversations recently with academics in my field about writing fiction that I think the time has come to do something about it. And so I’m going to be announcing soon the launch of a new periodical dedicated to fiction written by academics. This post aims mainly at gauging interest (and more specifically the kinds of interest there may be both from potential contributors and from potentially readers) and tackling a few initial questions that it is better to crowd source now.
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