If We Don't Publish It, People Won't Steal It
Every time I feel like I’ve said all I really want to say about e-books and digital revolution (see all of these pieces from my recent trip to Paris), some crazy announcement or other is made, feathers are ruffled, barbs are traded, and I feel the insane itch to comment . . . And no matter how much I try and resist ...
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Good Books, "Difficulty," and Plot
I think blogs were created for the very reason of attacking articles like Lev Grossman’s Good Novels Don’t Have to Be Hard, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. This article is so annoying and so preposterous that it’s actually dangerous. It opens with Grossman’s praising ...
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Anti-Fixed Book Price Essay
Generally speaking, I’m a fan of the “fixed book price agreement” that’s in place in a number of countries around the world. (At least 18, according to Wikipedia, aka America’s Best Source of Information.) I’ve mentioned a few times in posts here on Three Percent, always emphasizing the way ...
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Oh Boy, Here We Go Again
Today’s Boston Globe has one of the most upsetting articles I’ve read in a long while. Entitled “Stimulus Funding for Arts Hits Nerve,” it’s about the furor over the $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts that was included in the stimulus package that passed the House, but is absent ...
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One More Thing about V-Books . . .
Following up on yesterday’s rant about v-books, from what we can find, Amazon is the exclusive retailer for these videos. I’ll bet that’ll go over well. ...
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Yet Another Bad Publishing Idea
When HarperCollins announced their latest innovation—“video books”—earlier this week, thousands of people around the country came up with the same joke: “yeah, video books . . . they’re called movies.” But honestly, that’s just the tip of the stupidity iceberg. First off, ...
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Daniel Kehlmann Against the German Book Prize
Over at the Literary Saloon, — Litblogging’s Finest Source of International News — Michael Orthofer reports on Daniel Kehlmann’s article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung railing against the German Book Prize. I can’t read the article in the original (which can be found here), but ...
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