There was an interesting article in the NY Times Business Section this week about how e-books can/might/do change business models for publishers — with a focus mainly on the economics of slashing twelve bucks or so off the cost of a new hardcover by putting it on an e-reader. “At a glance,” writes Times resident [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Andrew'
On Drinking Networking
February 24th, 2010 5 Comments
Of course, everybody knows that the AWP annual conference (being held this year in Denver, CO, if you haven’t heard) is all about making connections with other people in the industry, and hearing great authors speak, and discovering wonderful new journals that you’d otherwise never come across. But occasionally, at the end of a long [...]
Tags: Andrew · author readings · Brooks · networking · publishing industry
On National Character, Pt. 2
January 24th, 2010 No Comments
Coincidentally, a few days after I wrote my post comparing British and American book covers last month, I went home to Britain for the holidays — and was struck by another subtle but (to me, anyway) interesting difference between the publishing industry in the two countries: reading in Britain is a lot more “lowbrow” than [...]
Tags: Andrew · bookstores · publishing industry
On “Being A Writer”
January 7th, 2010 1 Comment
Since Joe asked, the list of things I did while at home for the holidays was pretty much the same as his, except substitute “drinking” and “shopping” for “thinking” and “playing Flash games”. But if that seems to put me in agreement with him about the relative weight writing should occupy in a “writer’s” life, [...]
Tags: Andrew · writers · writers' habits
On National Character
December 19th, 2009 1 Comment
It’s your favorite snarky vocab curmudgeon’s birthday tomorrow — and as a premature gift from my girlfriend last night I got a copy of Marx’s General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, by Tristram Hunt.
We saw the book in a store in Montreal a few weeks ago and I thought it looked great (I don’t [...]
Tags: Andrew · book design · books · publishing industry
On Coming Down
December 1st, 2009 6 Comments
Given the last few months of feverish, 2000-word-a-day thesis-writing, I was expecting some sort of dramatic, devastating crash after handing in last week; something involving, I imagined, sleeping for several days straight and/or losing myself in long bouts of leisure-reading and Rock Band–playing. What has actually happened, though, is completely different — and a lot [...]
Tags: Andrew · writing process
On Torture
November 16th, 2009 No Comments
So this is it: the home stretch. A little over a week from today, I will be handing in my thesis to my committee — and so I thought it might be appropriate, at this point, to share my process, with those who are curious, and my misery with those who currently share it.
Tags: Andrew · Emerson College WLP Department · writers' habits · writing process
On Literature By Committee
October 28th, 2009 1 Comment
I have to admit that, reading Chris’s post from yesterday about “crowdsourcing” literature, my initial reaction was: UGH. What could possibly be worse than a publishing industry dictated entirely by the majority of book-buyers? We’d end up reading two hundred different Da Vinci Codes each year, and poor Dave Eggers would be pretty much out [...]
Tags: Andrew · books · getting published · nonfiction · publishing industry
WTF, Stockholm?
October 16th, 2009 3 Comments
You probably all know Stockholm for its eponymous psychological syndrome, in which hostages begin to show a chilling loyalty to their captors. Perhaps, to a lesser extent, you also know Stockholm as the cultural and economic capital of Sweden. But what I bet you didn’t know is that, in addition to all that, Stockholm is [...]
On Pooh-Poohing
October 7th, 2009 No Comments
Way back in January I expressed great excitement at the arrival of a brand new, officially authorized Winnie the Pooh installment, and promised to gush and/or rant about it here on Vernacular as soon as I was able.
Well, since Return to the Hundred Acre Wood (by David Benidictus “in the tradition of A. A. Milne”) [...]
Tags: Andrew · Book Reviews · fiction · literary taste
