The choices offered by digital publishing can only be good news for writers, says Barry Eisler. So why are traditional publishers so angry?
Links of the week May 27 2013 (22)
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:
3 June 2013
Until November 2007, when Amazon introduced the Kindle, the only viable means of book distribution was paper. Accordingly, a writer who wanted to reach a mass audience needed a paper distribution partner. A writer could hire her own editor and her own cover design artist; she could even hire a printing press to create the actual books. The one service she couldn't hire out was distribution. And publishers didn't offer distribution as an à la carte service. If a writer wanted distribution, she had to pay a publisher 85% of her revenues for the entire publishing package: editorial, copyediting, proofreading, jacket design, printing, and marketing, all bundled with distribution.
27 May 2013
The Washington Post did not review Martin Amis' latest novel favorably, but the book blurb suggests otherwise
Amis is one of the finest stylists alive, but I thought Lionel Asbo was a bad novel. A really bad novel. In fact, my review of Lionel Asbo was a finalist for the Hatchet Job - a prize given for the most negative book review of the year. And yet, on the new paperback - on the front cover, no less - appears this ringing endorsement from the Washington Post: 'Amis is a force unto himself. There is, quite simply, no one else like him.'
Amazon has obtained licenses from Warner Bros Television Group's Alloy Entertainment division for Cecily von Ziegesar's Gossip Girl series, Sarah Shepard's Pretty Little Liars, and L J Smith's Vampire Diaries, and has said it has further licenses to be announced soon. Through the licenses, Kindle Worlds will allow any writer to publish authorised stories inspired by them and make them available for sale on the Kindle Store.
The Kindle Worlds store is expected to launch in June with over 50 commissioned works from authors including Barbara Freethy, John Everson and Colleen Thompson. Also in June, a self-service submission platform will open where writers can submit their own completed work.