Book Bix Why Book Reviewers Let Margaret Jones Slide By Neal on Mar. 7, 2008 - 9:00 AM “I’m a critic who was assigned to review Love and Consequences,” says a reader who chose to email me anonymously for fairly obvious reasons. “I had my doubts about the book, but they were smoothed over by t ...
Book Bix Everybody Signed Off on Margaret Jones, Not Just Riverhead By Neal on Mar. 6, 2008 - 9:00 AM Maureen O’Neal, who spent twenty years editing books at major publishing houses like Ballantine and Regan Books, isn’t even remotely satisfied by the explanations (“excuses” is the word she used) Riverhead& ...
Book Bix Phoniness Conceded, The Search for Jones’ Sources Begins By Neal on Mar. 5, 2008 - 11:04 AM This morning, I asked whether non-white editors and agents might have spotted Peggy Seltzer‘s fraud earlier, which led one GalleyCat reader to respond, “I would be willing to bet that there’s at least one copy ed ...
Book Bix The Short Story’s Doing Fine. Deal With It. By Neal on Mar. 5, 2008 - 8:00 AM Last week’s video clip with Story Prize director Larry Dark apparently touched a nerve with one or more frustrated writers—it’s hard to tell just how many because all the bitter, bitter emails came through the an ...
Book Bix Should PW Tighten Up Its Subscriber List? By Neal on Feb. 29, 2008 - 8:19 AM “The thing that Publishers Weekly hasn’t figured out is they’ve got what the other guy doesn’t,” a literary agent emailed me yesterday, reflecting on Reed Business Information sales speculation. ̶ ...
Book Bix More Reactions to Reed Biz Info Sales Plans By Neal on Feb. 27, 2008 - 11:03 AM One literary agent thought my characterization of Reed Business Information as “a portfolio of industry-specific information brands that are already staking out territory online” was overly charitable: “Dude, Pub ...
Book Bix Book Sales: There’s Numbers, And There’s Numbers By Neal on Feb. 14, 2008 - 8:01 AM GalleyCat reader Sheila Gaines raises a good point about one of the blog’s recurring themes, the monthly posts on book sales statistics. “When you say book sales have increased in 2007 you might want to state how that ...
Book Bix Bush, Ex-Librarian’s Husband, Aims to Slash Literacy Funding By Neal on Feb. 8, 2008 - 10:26 AM When President Bush unveiled his proposed budget for 2009, one of the first things that jumped out at book lovers was the elimination of funding for the Inexpensive Book Distribution program at <a href="http://www.rif.org/ ...
Book Bix Wonderful Radio, Marvelous Radio By Neal on Feb. 7, 2008 - 8:02 AM Earlier this week, I wondered whose buzz sells more books, the New York Times or NPR?. “I’d put my money on Terry Gross any day,” emails Clea Simon (left). But, she adds, just about any kind of radio will do. She ...
Book Bix Having Rupert Murdoch In Your Corner Can’t Hurt By Neal on Feb. 6, 2008 - 7:03 AM Monday morning, I somewhat facetiously floated the proposition, with reference to the A Long Way Gone controversy, that “if News Corp. were a smoothly running synergistic conglomerate, would The Australian keep hammering awa ...