Goodbye Borders, Hello Kindle?
Things are looking shakier by the day for Borders, with GalleyCat now reporting that a Major Distributor Raises Concerns about their financial situation: GalleyCat has received a copy of a “special alert” sent from a major book distributor specializing in independent publishers to its clients, warning them that Borders, whose financial difficulties are widely recognized,
Why Your Book Will Never Be in Borders
The odds are pretty slim, and not just because they’re on the verge of going out of business: “I market books for a living, so I can tell you an unpleasant truth: the order for any book, from any account, starts at zero,” [Andrew Wheeler, a marketing manager at Wiley] warns. “The publisher’s sales rep
Thrillerfest: Buzz Your Book
I was only able to make it to one session at Thrillerfest yesterday, but it was one I had a particular interest in as it focused on book marketing, a huge black hole in the industry as the minuscule budgets publishers set aside for it are invariably dedicated to the can’t miss A-list authors while the
Poetry: Where Your Vote Really Counts
Tired of the never-ending Democratic Primary and annoyed that, in the end, your vote might not really count anyway if the Super Delegates opt to nominate the candidate not in the lead when all is said and done? As in many other aspects of life, poetry offers a much-needed alternative. Blogsboro.com is running an election
The Problem With John McCain
I said elsewhere recently that I thought John McCain would be the least likely Republican candidate to make a Freudian slip and drop a racial epithet if running against Barack Obama. I’d forgotten about his reference to “gooks” during the 2000 presidential primaries, though. And then, during last night’s Republican debate on Fox — one
On Jodi Picoult, Writing, and Platforms
The two morning sessions I attended were about breaking into magazines and an overview of sales & marketing in the book industry, the former of which was more of a refresher course while the latter filled in a lot of the gaps where things are different in periodical publishing, which is where my background is. One common thread popped up in both sessions that I thought was really interesting, though: platforms.
LINK: Raising the Bar for Comics Journalism
Heidi MacDonald — of the recently relocated The Beat, and defender of all that is righteous in the comics world — proves that, with great power comes great responsibility, using the high-profile visibility of her new Publisher’s Weekly platform to…well, to dish dirt. Dept. of Scandal I A while ago we told you about budding
On the Shelves: 6/21/06
Support GOOD Comics! Try something new EVERY month. My weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 6/21/06. The full shipping is list available at ComicList. [NOTE: Not all of these titles will actually arrive in all stores. If your LCBS offers a pre-ordering service, be sure to take advantage of it. If not,
COMMENT: Comics & "the Mainstream"
The Comics Reporter’s Tom Spurgeon, in his first CR Sunday Magazine of the new year, said: “Screw being mainstream anyway. Comics has a lot of its cultural power not just as a secondary art form, but as a semi-disgraced secondary art form. I think because of their personal neuroses, which in many cases expresses itself
COMMENT: You Like Drama, Yes?
That’s the only way I can think of to explain why, of the two links to this blog from The Beat earlier this week, way more people clicked over to the ongoing Speakeasy drama than did my bit on the general lack of interest in comics journalism. Like five times more. As I wrote to