Unbound allows authors to pitch book ideas and interested readers to fund those books. Says the site:
Unbound is a new way of connecting with writers. Most of the writers on our site will be well known, others will appear here for the first time.
What’s different is that instead of waiting for them to publish [...]
Over the past six decades, Iraqi writer Mahmoud Saeed has used his novels, stories, and nonfiction to deconstruct the political and social turmoil of his beloved homeland. In a wide-ranging conversation with Stephen Morison, Jr., Saeed describes the difficulties Arab authors face in getting published, the institutionalized barriers to freedom of expression, and his constant attempt, through fiction, to “solve the puzzle of man and his actions.”
Emily McLaughlin converses and laughs with author Mary Gaitskill, a fellow University of Michigan alum, on her visit to Ann Arbor. Gaitskill opens up about writing as a woman in 2011, her take on her own characters, writing sex, publishing her first stories, and lasting fifty years.
After a long hiatus, the blog Bookseller Chick is back, providing thoughts on bookstores, publishing, and all things literary. Writes Linsey, the “Bookseller Chick” herself:
A lot has been happening in the book world lately—the flood of great Young Adult books, the rise of the self-publishing success, the increased sales of ebooks, Borders’ bankruptcy, HarperCollins’ [...]
A shoebox full of the mementos of a Parisian woman Sparked Elena Mauli Shapiro’s debut novel, 13, rue Thérèse. The objects fall into the hands of a fictional researcher, and through the sifting of photographs, letters and souvenirs a life emerges. Steven Wingate and Shapiro discuss research, happy accidents, and the power of what we save.
Ever wanted an insider’s view on the publishing process? Algonquin Books has launched the “Ask an Editor” video series on their blog to give you just that. (Via.) Says the site:
Have a question about the publishing world? Submit it in the comments section and one of our editors may very well answer it in [...]
Print book aficionados, here’s a little treat: a video on how a book was made in 1947. (My favorite part? How the author is “finished” writing his story as soon as the last page leaves the typewriter—and the book has a publisher immediately. Ah, if only…) Via.
More interested in [...]
Tyler McMahon loves short stories but worries that collections might be the worst thing to have happened to the genre. However, books like Alan Heathcock’s Volt renew his faith in the collection as an art form of its own, one that makes its stories inseparable from one another—greater even than the sum of their parts.
True or false: It’s harder now to get published than ever.
Answer: It depends.
In the Financial Times, Adrian Turpin argues that the picture for debut novelists isn’t as bleak as you’d think:
For most literary authors, the not-so-brave new world of publishing by numbers is terrible news. But there is one type of [...]
Supply and demand is the basic rule of economics. But will it work for books? Author Sean Cummings thinks so. He’s created a Facebook group and an accompanying website called “Save Publishing! Read a Book at Bedtime.” The site’s rationale:
Read what you like. A magazine, a newspaper or a book. Read [...]
