"When has any publisher ever tried to avoid publicity for his book?"That is the tagline of Robert Fisk's article that recently appeared in the Independent.It seems that the Turkish publisher for his book "The Great War for Civilization" has decided to "undertake the publication quietly, which means there will be no press campaign for Mr Fisk's book. Thus, our request from [for] Mr Fisk is to show his support to us if any trial [is] ... held against his book. We hope that Mr Fisk and HarperCollins can understand our reservations."Why?The book includes a chapter entitled "The First Holocaust", dealing...
Think Small: March is Small Press Month
"As Water to Flowers, Independent Publishing to Democracy" Alice WalkerIn 2005 about 80% of all books released were published by a small press. Unfortunately, the publishers that produced the other 20% make all the noise and leave little room for the others.James Joyce's Ulysses was first published by a small press, a bookshop no less.Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard ran the seminal Hogarth Press.Sherman Alexie's first book was published by a small press, Hanging Loose Press.Samuel Johnson's Dictionary was originally published by his small press.William Burroughs "Naked Lunch" was first published by a small press in ParisThe list goes...
The Biblio Campaign Trail: The New Road to the White House
Since the 1950s, when then senator John F. Kennedy published “Profiles in Courage” which won the Pulitzer Prize and helped him become president politicians have been writing their way to electoral victory or defeat.With all the negative energy surrounding the printed format of the book it is pretty astonishing that this campaign season the book is a candidate must have. Julia Bosman covers this phenomenon in her article in the New York Times "Time to Throw Their Books in the Ring"Peter Osnos of PublicAffairs talks about the three types of "candidate books":- the “introduction” book, in which candidates without much...
The Harlequin Romance and Nascar: A Marriage Made in the Boardroom
The New York Times ran a story today on the new partnership between Harlequin the publisher of Romance novels and Nascar, the stock-car racing association. The deal calls for a 16 book series with ‘Nascar settings’ with the first and last books to include a cameo by a real life Nascar driver. The vice-president of licensing for Nascar says of the new partnership “It’s probably more of a brand-building and P.R. bonanza for us." He also sees a potential TV series in this.“Booksellers and other publishers are following the Nascar-Harlequin hookup with interest.” (I think we can substitute big-box retailer...
The Crime of the Government Commission Reports
Here is an excerpt from my mid-December post The Problem with Commission Reports Becoming Bestsellers"I contacted Random House , the parent company of Vintage who published the ISG [Iraq Study Group] report, to get an idea of exactly what "portion" of the proceeds they will be donating. Their response was troubling. "This is as detailed information, as we are releasing. A portion of the proceeds from the purchase of the book will be donated to the National Military Family Association. NMFA...".Today Forbes published an article by Eugenia Levenson on publishing houses profiting on government reports entitled "Publishing' Easy Money". Levenson...