Author Rejections

I’m reading Pushcart Press‘ perfectly pocket-sized (only 101 pages) Rotten Rejections and it’s great fun. It’s amazing some of the rejections now-famous authors have gotten over the years. Some of my favorites so far:

Rudyard Kipling (1889) – “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”

Norman Mailer (1948) – “This will set publishing back 25 years.”

Samuel Beckett (1951) – “There’s no sense in considering them for publication here; the bad taste of the American public does not yet coincide with the bad taste of the French avant garde.”

John Le Carre (1963) – “You’re welcome to le Carre – he hasn’t got any future.”

I have to say it’s been fun reading through all of the blurbs and quotes from the author rejections. It’s interesting to see how often a book manuscript is rejected based on being bad vs. the author’s lack of skill. One thing I’ve noticed is that the publishing industry is a lot nicer these days. The form letters of 2013 are dull and drab to some of the absolutely b-r-u-t-a-l barbs editors and publishers replied with back in the late-1800’s through the early 1900’s.

But the colorful writing found in Rotten Rejections does make for better reading.

Bookstore Book Sale

The Friends Bookstore in the Downtown Birmingham Library (isn’t their new site swanky?) kicks of its Big Bag Sale today! The sale runs through July 14th. Basically you show up, pay $6 for a Friends’ Book Tote and stuff, cram, and mash as many books and magazines as you can in there. Whatever you can fit you get to take home. How fun does that sound? The shop’s hours are Monday-Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., and Sunday, 2:30-5:30 p.m.

Here’s a link to a photo-tour I did a while back when the store remodeled the space.

Happy book hunting Birmingham!

friends page

Alabama Bookstores Report

Publishers Weekly LogoAlabama ranked 4th in the nation when looking at “number of bookstores per capita” in 2012 according to Publishers Weekly. The report is a little strange to look at, since it’s a function of a state’s population and the number of book stores a state has. So Wyoming, with only 35 IN THE ENTIRE STATE, ranks 2nd. Still it’s interesting to see a breakdown of the number of independent bookstores, chain bookstores and big-box bookstores for Alabama.

 

 

The official numbers for Alabama Bookstores came in with

2012 Estimated Population: 4,822,023
2012 Independent Bookstores: 122
2012 Chain Bookstores: 47
2012 Total Bookstores: 169
2012 Big-box Stores: 117
2012 Total Stores: 286
2012 Per Capita: 1 per 16,860
2012 Per Capita Rank: 4

Which I thought was pretty interesting. New York has 505 stores! But with a population over 19.5 million people, they ranked 49th on the list. You can check out all the 2012 findings over on the Publishers Weekly site.

Books, Publishing and Birmingham