Karl Sabbagh says small publishers face with huge obstacles with selling books and even letting anyone know they exist; plus a descendant of Dr Miles Marley sets the record straightWith reference to your leader on literary fiction (28 December), as a small publisher we are faced with huge obstacles in the way of selling our books or even letting anyone know our titles exist, however good they are. Last year we published an excellent novel called To the Lake, by a Russian writer, Yana Vagner. This had sold over 100,000 copies in Russia, and is being made into a TV series there. It has won prizes throughout Europe, and been translated into half a dozen languages, with sales outside Russia running into tens of thousands. We paid an advance to the author, a fee to a translator, and typesetting, cover design and printing costs, a total of about £9,000. We sent at least 50 copies out to major periodicals, newspapers and broadcast media in the hope of getting reviews, but there were none. The one thing we couldn’t afford was advertising, at a cost of £1,000 or so for a quarter page in a literary journal and far more in widely selling newspapers. So far, we have sold 64 copies. Can anyone wonder why we don’t publish more such books?Karl SabbaghManaging director, Skyscraper Publications• Dr Christopher Goulding (Letters, 26 December) may regard Barry West’s “theory” about Dickens’ use of the name Marley as tenuous; in our family we regard it as long-established fact. I am a... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2017-12-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Karl Sabbagh says small publishers face with huge obstacles with selling books and even letting anyone know they exist; plus a descendant of Dr Miles Marley sets the record straightWith reference to your leader on literary fiction (28 December), as a small publisher we are faced with huge... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-12-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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New releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention. Hum by Helen Phillips Robots have become a regular fixture of the workforce, and humans are losing their jobs to AI. Climate change is wreaking havoc on the planet. It’s getting harder and harder for the average person to... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-08-10 19:43:55 UTC ]
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Readers respond to a piece by Zoe Williams in which she reflects on reading smut and notes how attitudes have changedIn her article on reading smut, Zoe Williams focuses on the difference between romance and erotica (My weeks of reading hornily: steamy book sales have doubled - and I soon found... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-08-09 16:55:05 UTC ]
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A few weeks before the release of my first book, a memoir about my mother’s murder, I had to take a polygraph exam. The two things were not in fact related, but that was easy to forget once I found myself strapped in a chair in a windowless room on the fourth floor of a […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-07-15 08:56:51 UTC ]
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How teens learn about navigating the online world varies, but a pair of digital media literacy programs aim to get more Canadian students scrutinizing their social feeds. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2024-04-15 08:00:00 UTC ]
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Working-class lives are unlikely to be properly represented in fiction if the publishing industry is run by middle-class graduates, says Nick MossKeiran Goddard is right to say that too many novels that claim to portray working-class life just give us “recent arts graduate feels emotionally,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-30 16:40:05 UTC ]
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Sometimes in interviews I catch myself speaking of my book of short stories about the Iraq War as though it is a kind of literary journalism. I want people to think about their recent history, imagine the lives of soldiers, and get a sense of what it’s like to go to war. And I do […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-05-17 08:53:40 UTC ]
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Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson's Pinch of Nom Comfort Food (Bluebird) has reigned in the UK Official Top 50 number one spot for a fifth week in total, shifting 33,624 copies last week. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-18 10:37:05 UTC ]
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Today, dear readers, is Paperback Book Day! It’s the anniversary of the day that the first Penguin paperback was published in England. Good! Personally, I’ll take paperbacks over hardcovers any old day. Don’t @ me! They’re more affordable. They’re lighter. And they don’t wear book jackets that,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-07-30 16:26:11 UTC ]
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The Emirati writer's fiction explores the rapid changes in her home country in recent decades, with factual research as a foundation. The post At Abu Dhabi International Book Fair: Salha Obaid on Fact and Fiction appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-05-26 15:30:15 UTC ]
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Miracle Man and The Austin Paradox author William R. Leibowitz tells how to base science fiction on fact so that stories seem plausible—without boring the reader. The post Using Facts As the Base of Science Fiction by William R. Leibowitz appeared first on Writer's Digest. Continue reading at Writer's Digest
[ Writer's Digest | 2019-08-23 14:00:14 UTC ]
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Facebook has had some bumpy years. Critics, especially Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp CEO Robert Thomson, have no intention of letting the crisis go to waste. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2018-03-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Helen Cross, Andy Stelman, Mark Stewart and Richard Adams respond to a recent Guardian article by Tim LottAs someone whose tiny, grimy literary novels have attracted the interest of the film industry, the truth is the opposite of what Tim Lott (Why should we subsidise writers who’ve lost the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It might be a double-edged sword, Jennifer Close says, that her fourth novel, "The Hopefuls" (Knopf, July), is being published the same week that the Republicans in Cleveland, and the Democrats in Philadelphia the following week, are convening to select their presidential nominees. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train (Doubleday) passed the 800,000 unit mark across all formats in the UK and Ireland last week as it became the first book since Nielsen BookScan records began to earn 20 Original Fiction number ones. Hawkins’ run of 20 non-consecutive numbers ones broke the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-07-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After 750 fans gave Judy Blume a standing ovation before she even said a word on stage, Jennifer Weiner kicked off an hour-long Q&A with Blume during BookCon. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-06-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Just under 3m book sales registered through Nielsen BookScan for the week ending the 31st of May... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'The Invention of Wings' by Sue Monk Kidd is receiving rave reviews and was recently selected as the latest pick for Oprah Winfrey's revamped book club. But how much of the book actually comes from history? Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Daunt Books imprint is to begin publishing original fiction, in an "exciting development... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-06-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Southern California author's first story collection draws from his experiences in high school basketball, plumbing sales and more.There's a subtle arc to Jim Gavin's first book, "Middle Men" (Simon & Schuster: 224 pp., $23). Gathering seven stories largely set in Southern California, it... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-02-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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