Two years after her apparent suicide, the novelist has announced she is still very much alive. Is this what it takes to sell books nowadays?‘All publicity is good publicity,” Susan Meachen thought to herself as she prepared to stage her suicide. In September 2020, Meachen, the self-published author of what she described as “perfectly flawed” romance novels, logged on to Facebook, pretended to be her daughter and wrote a post declaring herself dead. Meachen’s “daughter” continued to post numerous times after that. She suggested that Meachen was “bullied in the book world to the point of suicide” and encouraged people to buy Meachen’s “final” book. Then, plot twist: last week, Meachen posted on Facebook again to declare that she wasn’t actually dead. Surprise! “Let the fun begin,” she added.My very first sentence, by the way, was – like Meachen’s death – part fiction. I have no idea what the romance writer was thinking when she offed herself online. Nobody does. But people have a lot of questions. Meachen has alluded to mental health problems, which should obviously be taken seriously – but that still wouldn’t excuse using your fake death to try to hawk books, as has been suggested in the days since she announced her resurrection. People in Meachen’s writing community are furious. “I think she believed that if she died, her books would get attention,” an author in Meachen’s writing circle told the BBC. “Now, this is a new gamble: ‘Hey, if I come back, that will get... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-01-11 07:00:12 UTC ]
This year’s gatherings provide opportunities for booksellers to rub shoulders with authors and strategize about challenges facing the book world. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-08-25 04:00:00 UTC ]
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As ByteDance launches a publishing company, many in the book world wonder if it will create an uneven playing field by boosting its own authors at the expense of others. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-07-01 09:00:50 UTC ]
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Another day, another piece of horrifying anti-trans news in the book world. Even by recent standards, though, this one seems particularly fucked-up. An Alaska-based children’s book illustrator has been dropped by his publisher after making terroristic threats against transgender people. Mitchell... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-04-06 18:26:08 UTC ]
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Fay Evans alleged similarity between the 2019 Excitable Edgar TV campaign and her self-published book A self-published author who sued John Lewis over its 2019 Christmas advert about a trouble-making dragon has lost her case.Fay Evans brought a case for copyright infringement, alleging that... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-03 12:29:46 UTC ]
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Even the most passionate bibliophile gets annoyed by aspects of books and the book world sometimes. Here are some examples. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-22 10:34:00 UTC ]
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Sue Bradley on her conversation with the late Marni Hodgkin about the ‘malicious quality’ to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant PeachRe the letters criticising Roald Dahl’s works (Roald Dahl’s mean and nasty books don’t deserve all this attention, 23 February), in an oral... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-03-01 17:24:42 UTC ]
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Unpublished authors in their 60s, 70s and 80s are now at a premium in the book world – with radical, edgy women in high demandThe literary world is often accused of an obsession with youth, from multiple awards targeted at authors under 40 to publishers who hunt for new voices exclusively among... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-02-25 07:00:46 UTC ]
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Book "trends" are not what the world needs; we present here an extremely comprehensive overview of what the book world could really use. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-02-13 11:37:00 UTC ]
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Nothing prepared me for revisiting the most painful times of my life – then being criticised for it. We need industry-wide guidelines to helpI called her Terri The World Gets. She was the outward-facing me, the woman I’d spent decades curating. And Terri The World Gets was about to be rocketed... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-02-08 08:00:10 UTC ]
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Micro-publisher Martin Riker has just published a novel of his own, 'The Guest Lecture,' that proves fiction can be experimental and rigorous at once. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-01-26 14:00:20 UTC ]
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According to multiple presenters at the Digital Book World conference, ChatGPT has potential to remake the way people write and streamline production and editing, while AI voice replication promises affordable audiobook adaptations. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-01-17 05:00:00 UTC ]
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According to multiple presenters at the Digital Book World conference, ChatGPT has potential to remake the way people write and streamline production and editing, while AI voice replication promises affordable audiobook adaptations. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-01-17 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital Book World, a conference focused on innovation in publishing, opened in New York City with a talk from the International Publishers Association about a two-year project focusing on data collection, as well as the need for more accessible books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-01-16 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital Book World, a conference focused on innovation in publishing, opened in New York City with a talk from the International Publishers Association about a two-year project focusing on data collection, as well as the need for more accessible books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-01-16 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Scandal and despair hit the romance community when Susan Meachen was purportedly bullied into suicide. Was it a hoax?In 2020 the tightly knit and passionate world of self-published romance literature was shocked by the news that the novelist Susan Meachen, following bullying by other writers,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-01-14 10:00:06 UTC ]
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Two years after her apparent suicide, the novelist has announced she is still very much alive. Is this what it takes to sell books nowadays?‘All publicity is good publicity,” Susan Meachen thought to herself as she prepared to stage her suicide. In September 2020, Meachen, the self-published... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-01-11 07:00:12 UTC ]
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'Independent publishers make up the soul of the book world, and I felt that strongly here.' Industry pros rave about rights meetings in Rome. The post Italian Publishers Host an Airy Rights Center in Rome appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2022-12-09 22:55:39 UTC ]
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“In all creation there is nothing constant,” says Pythagoras in the final book of the Metamorphoses. All things are subject to the power of change: bodies, landscapes, cities, nations—even the cosmos. Ovid announces his epic’s main theme as metamorphosis in its first two lines: “My spirit moves... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-08 09:53:56 UTC ]
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The book world can be opaque to outsiders. A case offered an unusual glimpse into it, revealing curiosities about the business and details about book deals. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-08-19 14:50:05 UTC ]
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In our conversations and emails, his determination to not let the fatwa define him has been evidentThat Salman Rushdie was nearly murdered at an event in New York while talking about whether the United States was a safe haven for exiled writers is an irony he’d have rejected as too far-fetched... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-08-14 12:39:00 UTC ]
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