Category Archives: Featured Articles

Fellowship in Jerusalem

In November I found out I’d been chosen to be an Editorial Fellow at the Jerusalem International Book Fair. It would be a transformative experience, Flip Brophy, a former fellow herself, informed the group of U.S. Agent and Editorial Fellows at the orientation in January, but she could not say exactly how. Would it transform…Continue Reading

International Bestsellers: Translating Math for the Masses

What Jostein Gaarder did for philosophy, Tefkros Michailidis seems to be doing for mathematics, bringing the history of math to the mainstream in novel form. A high school teacher by trade, a translator of math-inspired fiction and non-fiction by night, and now a debut novelist, Michailidis, with Pythagorean Crimes (POLIS), continues a trend in Greece…Continue Reading

Graphic Novelties

At the second annual ICv2 conference on the Graphic Novel, held on the eve of ComicCon, speakers talked about what’s selling (non-fiction), who’s buying (more women), and where it’s being sold (twice as many through bookstores as comic stores). Comparisons between Japan and the US were made throughout the day, as the still nascent US…Continue Reading

Thomson Teaches Tech Through Twikis

Late last fall, Kenneth Brooks, VP Global Production and Manufacturing Service at Thomson Learning, decided to give his staff some homework. For a company whose target audience is under the age of 25, the majority of the staff’s tech knowledge was a little out of date. Everyone could throw around the term wiki (you know,…Continue Reading

International Bestsellers: Prizewinners!

The young German über-poet, Silke Scheuermann, makes her novelistic debut this month with The Hour Between Dog and Wolf (Schoeffling). Much as in her successful short story collection, Rich Girls (2005, also Schoeffling), Scheuermann employs her poetic facility to good effect as she renders the confusion and frustration her generation faces as it attempts to…Continue Reading

Google UnBound

The digital conference that Google hosted on January 18 was definitely in the plus ça change mode: the crowd was made up of miscellaneous enthusiasts, with hardly a senior publisher in sight; the speakers were articulate and clever, mostly male and certain they were preaching to the uninitiated (though those may well be the ones…Continue Reading

Year in Review 2006: The Tipping Point to the Long Tail

Whether it is the best of times for the publishing industry, or the times that try publishers’ souls, depends on whom you ask, and of course, what you really want to know. But there’s little doubt that these are the best of times for anyone who wants his or her oeuvre to be published. The…Continue Reading

Trendspotting 2007

To start the year off on the right foot, we’ve asked some industry innovators to share their insights for the near future. . . Scott Watrous, President and Publisher, Globe Pequot For companies that are in the mid-range like Globe Pequot, the biggest challenge that we face is getting presence for our books, not only…Continue Reading

Auf Wiedersehen: Sum’s the Word, Luxurious Bejeweled Elephants, Of Butterflies and Men

One + one = three in Dutch author and Libris Prize winner Tomas Lieske‘s new novel My Sovereign Love about an artisan of arithmetic, his love interest, and a meddling monarch. Born in The Hague in 1528, Marnix de Veer is a mathematician, architect, and instrument-maker extraordinaire. Also a dabbler in foreign languages, he catches…Continue Reading

As You Like It: Custom Publishing’s Double Digit Growth

Beginning with a dramatic reading of Cashmere If You Can, HarperCollins‘ collaboration with Saks Fifth Avenue, NYU‘s “Custom Publishing: State of the Art — and State of the Business 2005” kicked off on November 17 at its midtown campus. Co-hosted by the Custom Publishing Council (CPC) and the Center for Publishing, the day-long seminar brought…Continue Reading