Reviews The Never-Ending War on Chick Lit By Neal on Oct. 31, 2005 - 2:47 PM Jennifer Weiner’s comments in yesterday’s SF Chronicle profile about critics, especially female critics, who, as reporter Jane Ganahl puts it, “hold that literature should be closer to Woolf than Bushnell in temp ...
Bookselling Questioning the Long Tail By Neal on Oct. 31, 2005 - 12:54 PM An anonymous reader raises a good question in connection to last Friday’s item on the marketplace’s embrace of the long tail: “Chris Anderson writes: ‘The average Barnes & Noble carries 130,000 titles. ...
Revolving Door Oxford Editor’s International Sideline By Neal on Oct. 31, 2005 - 11:56 AM Last week, Oxford University Press took Dedi Felman, the executive editor of its academic division, and made her the imprint-wide executive editor. It’s been a busy week for Felman, to be sure, but she was able to dash off a ...
Authors Or, sometimes a ghost is just a ghost By Carmen on Oct. 31, 2005 - 9:00 AM It’s no surprise that James Patterson makes a hell of a lot of money — as this profile in the NYT business section this weekend details, Harvard University’s MBA Program uses Patterson, Inc. as a textbook example ...
Comic Books Vidal vs. Mailer It Ain’t By Neal on Oct. 31, 2005 - 8:59 AM For most of America, apart from occasional appearances on Hannity & Colmes, Ted Rall’s moment in the spotlight came in early 2002 with the infamous “Terror Widows” strip and went two years later when he besmi ...
Book Biz One More “Perishing” Thought… By Neal on Oct. 31, 2005 - 8:57 AM We got a lot of mileage out of last week’s comments on Elizabeth Royte’s NYTBR piece on coping with pub cycles. And we weren’t the only ones: Susan McBride of the Liptstick Chronicles had a rather unsympathetic r ...
Adaptation Banking on the Real Lion King By Neal on Oct. 31, 2005 - 8:50 AM Controversy aside, the Walt Disney Company is pinning a lot of hopes on The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to be the launchpad for a Narnia franchise. “A sustainable mega-hit would give a big boost to Disney’s movie ...
Comic Books Marvel Snares King—and Dickey, and Morrell By Neal on Oct. 28, 2005 - 12:53 PM So yesterday’s rumors are now official: Stephen King’s next Dark Tower story will be a six-issue comic book series for Marvel Entertainment, beginning next April, with “new stories that delve into the life and ti ...
Authors Ewwww, Gross! By Neal on Oct. 28, 2005 - 12:45 PM Last night’s party at Lotus to celebrate the publication of 740 Park, the Michael Gross-penned history of one of Manhattan’s ritziest apartment buildings, started a little late for my cold-ridden blood (lately, I feel ...
Trends The Long Tail’s Undertow By Neal on Oct. 28, 2005 - 11:57 AM Exactly a year ago, Wired got people talking about “the long tail,” which Chris Anderson described as “an entirely new model for the media and entertainment industries” that finds assets in “the milli ...