Amazon Offers 70% Royalties to Kindle Authors
Amazon isn’t making any friends in the publishing industry. The online bookseller is tempting authors away from the typical publishing model by offering them a “70% cut of the sale of e-books sold for its Kindle readers, net of digital delivery costs,” according to the Los Angeles Times. The move will no doubt add more tension to the already strained situation between Amazon and big publishers, who’ve been worried about Kindle’s low price tags affecting their profits.... read more
Fake AP Stylebook Creators Talk Book Deal
Ken Lowery and Mark Hale didn't start their Twitter account with the intention of writing a book... read more
Marvel Announces Girl Comic Series
Although Rogue, Jubilee and Storm have long proven that female superheroes can kick some ass in a male-dominated comic-book universe, Marvel hopes to establish the same rightful place for its female artists.... read more
First Edition Alice In Wonderland Sells for $40,000
In the midst of the swelling anticipation for Tim Burton’s adaptation of Alice In Wonderland, there are perhaps more people than ever who are interested in the original book. An extremely rare first edition of Lewis Carroll’s nearly 150-year-old classic recently sold for $40,000 at California’s Profiles In History auction house.... read more
New David Foster Wallace Short Story Surfaces in The New Yorker
[Photo by Steve Rhodes] If David Foster Wallace wasn’t the best writer of the last few decades, then his scraggly hair and sly grin certainly sit high up on the list. “Genius” isn’t a word to be thrown around lightly, but how else to describe Wallace’s brand of writing? Perfectly caustic (yet somehow gentle) wit, deeply probing, explorative in terms of human nature, undeniable humor, the descriptors go on.... read more
Win Cormac McCarthy's Typewriter
Cormac McCarthy has a charmingly old-school method for penning his Putlitzer Prize-winning work, considering the ever-more-digital age in which it’s published. It all happens on a rickety, old Olivetti typewriter, one that he bought in the fall of 1958 for $50 at a pawnshop in Knoxville, Tenn. That’s right, No Country For Old Men, The Road, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing were all clacked out like gunshots on the very same machine.... read more
Michael Moorcock Set to Write Dr. Who Novel
Influential fantasy novelist Michael Moorcock told the world via his online forum that he will pen the next Dr. Who novel, which will continue the book series that began in the mid-1960s.... read more
HBO, The Wire Producers to Adapt Rolling Stone Writer's Appetite for Self-Destruction
Producers of The Wire will soon focus on the downfalls and digital downloads characterizing today’s music industry.... read more
Colum McCann, Dave Eggers Win Big at 60th Annual National Book Awards
Last night, at a black-tie ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, the National Book Awards winners were announced for seven different literary categories. Satirist Andy Borowitz, who runs fake news website The Borowitz Report, emceed the event.... read more
Bruce Springsteen's Autobiography Worth as Much as $10 Million
Most 60-something men can barely get their own grandchildren to listen to their stories. But Bruce Springsteen isn’t your average old dude. For his life story, which he’s currently turning into an autobiography, he could get up to $10 million, reports the New York Post’s Keith Kelly.... read more
New Leonard Cohen Biography Coming in December
You know you’ve made it big when there are two official biographies written about you. So congrats, Leonard Cohen, welcome to the big boy’s club. The second Cohen biography, called Hallelujah: A New Biography and to be released on Dec. 1, will chronicle both Cohen’s origins as a singer-songwriter and his recent resurgence as a sort-of indie godfather.... read more
Berenstain Bears Movie on the Way
In Jan and Stan Berenstain’s beloved children-book series, The Berenstain Bears led simple lives. They learned not to be afraid of the dark, eat too much junk food and talk to strangers. But now, years after its PBS television adaptation, their biggest adventure may be heading to the big screen.... read more
Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis Have Written a Children's Book and it's Coming out Sometime
Decemberists lead singer Colin Meloy and his wife Carson Ellis are certainly no strangers to intra-marital artistic alliance—she’s responsible for the art for all of his band’s albums and of his solo CDs, plus most of The Decemberists’ merchandise and a couple of live show backdrops, too. And, according to Ellis’ blog, sometime soon you’ll be able to add a children’s book to their collective CV.... read more
Broken Social Scene Member Releases Children's Book, Learn to Speak Music
While Rockabye Baby aims to develop a child’s taste for music, Broken Social Scene’s John Crossingham wants to teach them precisely what to do with it.... read more
R. Crumb Illustrates the Bible
Interpretations of the Bible come in every medium—from art to music to film, and are made for any variety of audiences, from blood and guts readings to those of the more family-friendly variety. But this new one, well, this one’s got us thinking…... read more
Finalists for 2009 National Book Awards are Announced
The 60th annual National Book Award Finalists have been announced for 2009. The prize is awarded to one work out of five nominees in each of four genres (fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature). This year, 193 publishers submitted a total of 1,129 books for consideration.... read more
Tennessee Williams Festival Kicks Off in Mississippi Today
Festival attractions include porch plays, panel discussions and a "Stella" shouting contest... read more
A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh Book Sees Sequel After Eight Decades
Before Winnie the Pooh was produced as an icon in a plethora of Disney movies, cartoons and colorful picture books, he was drawn in the illustrations of E.H. Shepard as a rather English, rural and naked bear who lived in the Hundred Acre Wood, the setting of the children's tales penned by A.A. Milne in his 1928 book, The House at Pooh Corner.... read more
Writer Walker Lamond is Ready to Share Rules for My Unborn Son
As the past few years have taught us, there's serious money to be made in turning a much-hyped blog into a book (see: Stuff White People Like). Or, you know, at least a shot at converting internet fame into real-life notoriety. And writer/documentarian/renaissance man Walker Lamond aims to do just that by cribbing the choicest morsels from his Rules for My Unborn Son blog and compiling them into a book bearing the same name, due out Oct. 27.... read more
Neil Gaiman Crowdsourcing a Short Story Via Twitter
Coraline author Neil Gaiman wants to make a writer out of you.... read more
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