There's always a bit of a mystery when a "small" book hits it big. Who knows, for example, exactly why a sappy memoir by a then demi-celeb sportswriter named Mitch Albom- Tuesdays with Morrie -became a blockbuster? Or how a quirky novel by a little-known memoirist, Alice Sebold, turned into the phenomenon The Lovely Bones Read More
Most writers have a lot of romantic notions about what will happen to their lives the minute they publish a book. Fame and fortune figures in, of course, and some of the most ambitious dream that soon they'll quit their days jobs to enjoy the writerly life full-time. But the most common and immediate change Read More
Anyone with a jones for scandal and/or Schadenfreude -which is to say, most of us in the publishing business-has just been delivered of the motherlode. Or, actually, the nannylode, since it was just last week that Random House canceled the second novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, the authors of the phenomenally best-selling The Read More
Whoever said "Change is good" clearly never worked in the publishing industry. The book business generally likes to do things the way it has always done them, and any proposed alteration to the plan is usually met with ambivalence at best. So only if you'd just dropped down from Mars would you expect book people Read More
James McCourt doesn't see New York the way the rest of us do. You think the Frick Collection is just a place to go on a Sunday afternoon to soak up some culture? To Mr. McCourt, it's 1950's gay-pickup central, particularly, for some reason, among the Fragonards. Greenwich Avenue isn't just a diagonal Village street Read More
Among the most frequently voiced opinions about contemporary publishing-on a list that includes such truisms as "Nobody really edits anymore" and the ever-popular whine, "It got good reviews, why didn't it sell?"-is the idea that every author should go on a book tour. Like visions of Maxwell Perkins holding a pen in one fist and Read More
Has the recent consolidation of Random House taken its first victim?
Whoever wrote the four-page memo faxed anonymously to the offices of The Observer obviously thinks so. Titled " The Unprofessionals Gets Unprofessional Publication at Random House," the document chronicles the life (and, its author suggests, untimely death) of author Julie Hecht's first novel, The Unprofessionals Read MorePoor Ann Godoff, she can't win for losing. When the veteran editor was fired as president of Random House last January, she was both hailed and reviled for being tough, for being independent, for spending too much money while at the same time being too "literary." A quiet period followed, during which Ms. Godoff and Read More
Last spring, Seth Mnookin landed himself the kind of book deal every journalist who's honest would admit to coveting: a healthy six-figure deal with Random House for a book about the debacle at The New York Times . A longtime media reporter who had covered The Times at Inside.com and Brill's Content , Mr. Mnookin, Read More
"If one's good, two (or more) would be better" might as well be the official mantra of nonfiction publishingthesedays. Name any high-profile subject and you can pretty much bet that if one house is publishing a book on it, another house won't be far behind. Much of the time, competing titles on the same topic Read More
It's every author's dream: You write a book that everybody loves. It gets fabulous reviews-one of them on the front page of The New York Times Book Review . You appear on the Today show and on C-Span and you tape Charlie Rose . There's even interest from Hollywood-and you fly out to take some Read More
The Storyteller , which arrives in stores this week, is an engaging, funny novel about an aspiring author named Steven (with a V, so as not to be confused with that guy who wrote The Shining ) King, who inherits a friend's manuscripts, retypes them and publishes them under yet another pseudonym-to huge professional success Read More
Since summer is slow in publishing-a few blockbusters courtesy of Hillary and Harry Potter notwithstanding-it should come as no surprise that Sunday's New York Times Magazine piece about Random House made a sound in the forest even before it officially fell. But even by publishing's high-decibel-chatter standards, the noise has been loud. Faxed versions of Read More
To the casual observer, the annual publishing extravaganza known as Book Expo America seems like just another in the trifecta of party-heavy, schmoozy publishing hoedowns, a stateside Frankfurt or London Book Fair. And while the three-day event held last weekend in Los Angeles boasts virtually the same cast of characters (star publishers, authors and agents), Read More
Like a couple of million other Americans, I've already read Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones -so the fact that it will not be appearing in paperback this summer makes no difference to my reading plans. But those who have been waiting for the paperback version of the novel, in which a murdered 14-year-old girl tells Read More
