Have you ever wondered how a book gets through a publishing house from conception to reader? This wonderfully cynical infographic shows you, imparting some useful information amidst the jokes.
Links of the week May 14 2012 (20)
Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world:
21 May 2012
Publishing house Weldon Owen created an infographic called “How a Book is Born,” tracing the path of a book from idea to final product.
Book publishers are trying hard to argue that e-books cost almost as much to produce as printed ones, and therefore prices for e-books should be higher — but the bottom line is that consumers don’t care what a publisher’s costs are, nor should they.
Book publishers are trying hard to defend the pricing of e-books — perhaps in part because they’ve been accused by the Justice Department of rigging prices to keep them artificially high — by arguing that it costs a lot more than most people think to produce the electronic version of a book. But as author Chuck Wendig notes, what e-books cost to manufacture or distribute is irrelevant to everyone but the publishers themselves. All that matters is what book consumers are willing to pay for an e-book — and the same principle applies for any form of digital content.
Serious Nonfiction in the Digital Age
This is a subject that’s been on my mind a lot these past few weeks, driven largely by the absolutely deserved attention cycle given to Robert Caro’s LBJ biography and volume 4, THE PASSAGE OF POWER. It’s not just that Caro is a throwback, someone whose career was the product of a time when publishing took risks, didn’t really care about P&L statements, and were only starting to be chained to the yoke of multi-conglomerate expectations, but that it’s impossible to imagine a next-generation version of him carrying on with multi-volume biography.
14 May 2012
Academics accused of undermining studies by racing to publish their works as popular histories Young historians are in danger of watering down their academic studies in the dash to convert their research into commercial books, according to the judge of a leading history writing prize in the Daily Telegraph.
Young historians are in danger of watering down their academic studies in the dash to convert their research into commercial books, according to the judge of a leading history writing prize.
The digital-only model is cool for cats - and even Shakespeare - Sam Humphrey in Futurebook on digital-only exclusives.
The literary agent Andrew Wylie once remarked that 'in the long run, the most valuable author of all is Shakespeare.' The well documented short-termism of major trade publishers has created a market congested with meerkats and strictly-come-novelists. In an industry obsessed by market share and short-term sales, month-long bestsellers will always take precedence over serious literature which, if it sells at all, does so steadily over time. In a depressed market, this nervousness of unpredictable long-term investment is understandable. And yet ultimately the value of a publisher is in owning rights in great literature. Publishers won't be selling One Direction: Our Journey for the full term of copyright.