According to the booktrade gurus, 1986 was the year that “hardback books began selling like paperbacks”. I honestly had previously wondered when the publishing industry started down the road of ordering up millions of first run hardbacks, all set to sell at hardback prices.
Apparently it all started when Stephen King, Danielle Steele and Tom Clancy, started to put pen to paper, churning out books at a regular schedule.
All this is from a pretty interesting piece in the Telegraph today.
The theorist over at fade theory mentioned a great blog. Conversations in the Book Trade the three-month old blog is the latest creation of a screen-writer in South Korea and features lengthy interviews with a bunch of small-publishers.
I hope they can keep it up. It will be a fun one to see who else turns up in the months ahead.
The Books Arts Program over in Tuscaloosa posts podcasts of interviews with book artists from around the country. I wish I had discovered this sooner. It’s great listening and amazing to compare the thoughts and processes of such an eclectic and talented group.
I hope they keep it up for years to come. Imagine having an archive full of these colorful folks 20 years down the road…
I read some thoughts over at Reading Matters. Basically the guy goes off on Updike’s new book Terrorist. I have not read Updike’s latest, but I do have to nod in agreement to his general view of the books big houses are cranking out these days.
I am in no way a “serious lit” reader. I wish I could get into a lot of the classics and put forth thoughts on liteary theory. But all that takes the fun out of books, for me. I like a good read. Period. That means good writing too.
I give every novel 100 pages before I give up…