From fairy porn to romantasy via the Omegaverse, publishing is sexier than ever. The reason? A big shift in gen Z and millennial attitudes to respectability and shame ...I spent a fortnight reading nothing but smut and I don’t need to give you a reason. But since there is one, here it is: business is booming in the publishing world of love and sex. Aficionados draw fine distinctions – between romance and erotica; “steamy” and “smutty”; fantasy and saga fiction – and endlessly subdivide the genres, but the takeaway is that the stigma around what used to be called “books that women like” has gone. And, as the UK literary agent Alice Lutyens puts it: “The steamier the sex, the better the book does.”I started two books simultaneously, which just happened to span the gamut, from the almost completely chaste The Stars Too Fondly, by Emily Hamilton, to the most pornographic thing I’ve ever read (and I’ve read De Sade): Heat Clinic, by Alexis B Osborne. So, I could give you a take on the difference between romance and erotica, but I would rather throw it to an expert. Leah Koch started the independent romantic bookshop Ripped Bodice in Los Angeles with her sister, Bea, in 2016 (they recently opened a second shop in New York). She says readers tend to assume erotica is sexier. “The technical definition is that, in erotica, character development happens from sexual situations. We stock both.” Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-08-06 04:00:33 UTC ]
As Black Lives Matter protests take place across the world, the publishing world is rushing to support those ‘ignored by the mainstream’. Who is the mainstream, then?The publishing industry is stilted and archaic. I worked in it for seven years, and left due to reasons I can’t legally talk... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-06-11 09:44:22 UTC ]
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Bernardine Evaristo and Reni Eddo-Lodge take No 1 slots in wake of anti-racist demonstrations, as Waterstones staff ask chain to support causeBernardine Evaristo and Reni Eddo-Lodge have become the first black British women to top the UK’s fiction and nonfiction paperback charts, in a week where... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-06-10 13:46:40 UTC ]
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Zondervan takes a gift book on ‘How Far You Have Come,’ literary agent Blythe Daniel gets her own book deal, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-06-10 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Children's bookshop Button & Bear in Shrewsbury is to close blaming the "fickle" high street and customer expectations on price. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-08 23:59:54 UTC ]
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IN 1984, George Ramsden, a 30-year-old British bookseller who had never read anything by Edith Wharton, bought her personal library for $80,000. He kept the books in a room above his bookshop where he would invite select visitors to view them by asking if they wanted to come up and see “Edith.”... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-06-08 12:30:25 UTC ]
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It’s never too early to learn that racism is wrong and we should be doing something about it. These books will help show our kids how, writes publisher and bookseller Aimée FeloneDo the work: Layla F Saad’s anti-racist reading list The weight of the world seems heavier than ever right now. The... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-06-04 07:00:00 UTC ]
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Cultural Cross Sections Elena Poniatowska In this column that originally appeared in La Jornada, Elena Poniatowska considers the role of editors and talks with Diego Rabasa, founder of publisher Sexto Piso. Already precarious, the pandemic lockdown has... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-03 21:05:48 UTC ]
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Pandemic Dispatches Elena Poniatowska In this column that originally appeared in La Jornada, Elena Poniatowska considers the role of editors and talks with Diego Rabasa, founder of publisher Sexto Piso. Already precarious, the pandemic lockdown has made... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-03 21:05:48 UTC ]
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Nestled in the heart of Melbourne's city laneways, Leonardo Art Shop - also known as Nibbi's - provided inspiration and education to a generation of young artists. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2020-05-21 20:00:41 UTC ]
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Quarantine may be a golden opportunity to finally read "War and Peace" — but it's not an easy time for the book industry. Continue reading at HuffPost
[ HuffPost | 2020-05-21 09:45:35 UTC ]
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Longtime literary agent and left-wing activist Frances Goldin died May 16. She was 95. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-05-18 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The pandemic has thrown publishing and booksellers into crisis – and left customers struggling to obtain books when they most want them. But some in the industry sense an opportunity to drag it into the 21st centuryOn 18 March, Emma Corfield-Walters received the news that for the second year... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-05-10 08:00:20 UTC ]
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Survey shows 60% expect the impact of the pandemic may put them out of business, prompting calls for concerted helpMore than half of the UK’s small publishers fear they could be out of business by the autumn as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to research by the Bookseller, which... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-05-07 15:02:20 UTC ]
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Every industry is experiencing a digital transformation. For some, the pandemic has accelerated this transformation. Others, like retail, travel and QSR, are trying to quickly adapt to the new criteria of our on-demand world. Consumers are permanently changing their online consumption habits,... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2020-05-07 14:20:39 UTC ]
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The future of the Bertrams wholesaling business is at risk following the sale of its online bookshop The Wordery and the temporary closure of its book supply business as a result of the coronavirus lockdown. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-05-02 22:55:42 UTC ]
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The days in quarantine would all blend together if it weren’t for Tuesday, which is the day new books hit the (now metaphorical) shelves. Here are a few of the titles dropping today. You can get them from your local indie and/or Bookshop (which, by the way, has now raised over one million... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-28 13:57:38 UTC ]
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The independent bookstore e-commerce site Bookshop.org has seen a 2,000% increase in sales in the last month and has become a lifeline for many stores that have been temporarily closed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet despite its apparent success, the site has skeptics. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-04-24 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The Authors' Club has launched new digital initiative LitFest Online in response to the cancellation of festivals and bookshop events. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-04-22 02:33:41 UTC ]
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Aspiring writers and directors now have a rare chance to impress producers and publishers with time on their handsCameras have stopped rolling, book launches are postponed and actors are all “resting”. It looks as if nothing is moving in the world of entertainment and storytelling, yet from... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-04-18 13:05:09 UTC ]
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In post 11/8 America, the citizenry became more aware, more active, more willing to submit themselves to self-examination. Yet while the world of journals both print (Freeman’s), and online (Guernica, Lit Hub, Electric Literature), have increased their commitment to the exploration of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-16 08:49:50 UTC ]
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