Review of Ian McEwan’s On Chisel Beach

(Contains spoilers)
On Chisel Beach is Ian McEwan’s novella about a couple’s wedding night. While there are flashbacks to the couple’s life before they met and their earlier relationship, the majority of the novel takes place in the space of a few hours in and around their hotel room. McEwan uses this delicate moment, the one [...]

Interview for the Svensk Bokhandel

During BEA I was interviewed by Tove Leffler and Lasse WInkler of the Svensk Bokhandel. Here’s a link to the article (an account is needed to read the whole thing):
http://www.svb.se/nyheter/hachette-satsar-p-svenska-deckare?page=8

Pirate Math

Galleycat points out an interesting bit of math:

“[W]hat the publishers should be most concerned about, is the fact that a library of 2,500 books can be downloaded in a matter of hours. E-books are small files and 2,500 of them can be packed into a single download (Torrent) that’s only about 3.4GB. If you set [...]

Twitter boosts book sales

Here’s a clear example of how twitter can help a book’s sales:
When Something Beginning With became available again as part of the Friday Project’s “Library of Lost Books”, publisher Scott Pack blogged about it on The Bookseller site, and Sarah Salway blogged about how lucky she felt to get a second chance.
Then author Neil Gaiman [...]

Publishers born digital

The Scholarly Kitchen has a recent article on the difference between new publishers created since the increase in digital awareness compared to older publishers that have to recalibrate their business model. The newer publishers have the advantage that of not having to recreate themselves while maintaining “fidelity to old partners or ways of doing business.” [...]

James McQuivey interviewed by Copyright Clearance Center

Last week I had a nice conversation with James McQuivey of Forrester on where the book business is going. He has a smart take on how digital is affecting the industry. Here’s an interview he did with Chris Keannelly from the Copyright Clearance Center.
http://beyondthebookcast.com/forrester-reports-on-ebook-buying-trends/

John Thompson on the state of the book industry

Great interview on the status of the publishing industry. Here’s an excerpt:

But once the agents became significant players they demanded high advances at a time when retail chains were growing and houses like Simon & Schuster and Random House were coming under the umbrella of large corporations and were able to afford the large advances. [...]

1,001 Books to Read List

The problem of what to read next is one I, like most I am sure, have on a frequent basis. Piles of books dominate my small apartment, but sometimes I just can’t seem to find something I want to read in them. All of them I want to read, or read again, that is why [...]