By now the rise of books about the Mideast and the fall of just about everything else has been well documented by The New York Times and Publishers Weekly. Many reasons have been cited: the abrupt cancellation of tours; the general lack of promotion and concurrent lack of reader attention; the economy; and fear, any…Continue Reading
Reader’s Digest Revamps Amid Topsy-Turvy Fiscal Forecasts Pleasantville, New York has always been a delightfully apt address for the Reader’s Digest Association. Ensconced there in its bucolic 113-acre campus — the global headquarters for an empire old DeWitt Wallace built on tales of anodyne, American optimism — Reader’s Digest was pleasantry incarnate. For the 100…Continue Reading
PEOPLE There’s been major movement in publishing these last few weeks of summer, which PT will recap for those who have been literally or figuratively out of it: Kara Welsh has been named VP, Publisher of New American Library, reporting to Leslie Gelbman. She was VP, Deputy Publisher at Pocket Books. And Therese Burke, formerly…Continue Reading
Going Swimmingly Dawn Dives In Down Under, Mathur Rollicks In India, and Enquist Writes Rx for Germany Making a defiant splash in Australia this month is the bluntly subtitled Dawn: One Hell of a Life, the self-told tale of Australian swimming legend Dawn Fraser, who was the first athlete in the world to win the…Continue Reading
Book Packagers Make the Best of a Worst-Case Scenario “The advantage of working with packagers,” says Mark Magowan, associate publisher at Abrams, “is that when the math of a series goes down, you don’t have to fire your own staff.” Though Magowan may be grinning as he says it, it’s no joke that book packagers…Continue Reading
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT INSIDE.COM (12/6/00) When Stephen King pulled the plug last week on his online serial story The Plant, citing a dwindling base of readers willing to pony up a buck for the latest installment, pundits rushed to declare electronic self-publishing dead on arrival. But many of them failed to notice that King’s supposed…Continue Reading
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT INSIDE.COM (9/18/00) This week marks the beginning of the 22nd year of New York is Book Country, one of the oldest and largest American book fairs. Typically, New Yorkers think the publishing business begins and ends in this city, and with 350 writers, more than 200 exhibits — including a new technology…Continue Reading
