Book Biz Chip Kidd, Publishing’s Own Rich Little: And More Book Trailers! By Neal on Feb. 21, 2008 - 8:00 AM Two weeks ago, I suggested you might not be able to make a great book trailer out of just standing around talking, even if you were Lewis Black. Rules, however, exist for Chip Kidd to break; here he is promoting his new novel, The ...
Authors AvantGuild: Will Leitch Has No Time for Writer’s Block By Neal on Feb. 21, 2008 - 7:42 AM mediabistro.com’s Noah Davis recently talked with Deadspin blogger Will Leitch about how he wrote his latest book, God Save the Fan, around his day job: “One of the nice things things about Deadspin is that because it ...
Digital What’s In Your Ultimate Blogroll? By Neal on Feb. 20, 2008 - 3:00 PM Some of the selections in Sarah Boxer‘s Ultimate Blogs made perfect sense to me; others left me with a distinct feeling of meh. (With all the great contemporary writers out there, do we really need to give up real estate in ...
Digital Boxer Knocked Out By Bloggers’ “Virtual Charisma” By Neal on Feb. 20, 2008 - 8:01 AM Nearly three years ago, Sarah Boxer wrote a NY Times article about the popularity of PostSecret that led an editor at Vintage to suggest she compile an anthology of the best writing from the blogosphere. “It could not be don ...
Trends Catching Up With GalleyCat Memories By Neal on Feb. 20, 2008 - 8:00 AM Yesterday’s NYT story about product placement in YA novels included an update on Cathy’s Book, which got the anti-marketing types bent out of shape when the partnership with Cover Girl was announced in 2006. As Motoko ...
Publishing Five University Presses, One New Literary Studies Line By Neal on Feb. 19, 2008 - 3:00 PM At the very tail end of 2007, I mentioned a new publishing plan that had five university presses coming together like Voltron. I wanted to learn more about the American Literatures Initiative, so last month I met with Steve Maikow ...
Authors Oprah’s Clutter Man: “It’s Never About the Stuff” By Neal on Feb. 19, 2008 - 8:00 AM “Is there a type of person prone to clutter?” organizational expert Peter Walsh asks, then answers himself: “Yes. Flesh and blood, that’s the type.” We’re riding in the back seat of a limo to a ...
Trends The Latest Batch of Free Reads Online By Neal on Feb. 19, 2008 - 8:00 AM FreakAngels, the newest comic from prolific author Warren Ellis, is being released in free installments online through Avatar Press, in what Ellis describes in an interview with Newsarama as “the TV model”: “Frea ...
Authors The Three Authors Who Made an Novelist of Manil Suri By Neal on Feb. 18, 2008 - 12:04 PM Writing used to be just a hobby for Manil Suri, a way to unwind after his day job as a mathematician, and he would produce just one short story each year. “Then, all of a sudden, I started writing a short story about India,& ...
Digital O’Reilly: It Ain’t Easy Being Free, But It Can Work By Neal on Feb. 18, 2008 - 8:00 AM When Tim O’Reilly came to New York City last week for the second Tools of Change conference, he warned attendees that “free is more complicated than you’d think.” (He borrowed the phrase from Scott Adams, w ...