Steve Coll examines Brad Stone’s The Everything Store, and Amazon’s impact on publishing: Toward the end of his account, Stone asks the essential question: “Will antitrust authorities eventually come to scrutinize Amazon and its market power?” His answer: “Yes, I believe that is likely.” It is “clear that Amazon has helped damage or destroy competitors […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
This Internet Millionaire Has a New Deal for You
A profile of Matt Rutledge, the founder of deals site Woot, which sold to Amazon in 2010. Rutledge is starting a new deals site called “Meh.”
Posted inNonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. Whoever Saves a Life Matthieu Aikins | Matter | Sept. 15, 2014 | 37 minutes (9,338 words) Aikins follows an urban rescue […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How a 26-Year-Old From Dallas Turned Fashion Blogging Into Big Business
Affiliate marketing is almost as old as the Internet; it developed back in 1994 thanks to pornography sites, and it was implemented by Jeff Bezos at Amazon shortly afterward. Here’s how it works: Say you search for flights on Priceline. The hyperlinked airfare results aren’t just any old links. They’re affiliate links. The act of […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
Graves of the Dead
The story of a mysterious mound, and what was inside.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Trouble with IBM
A legendary American tech company faces new challenges, and new competition, in areas where it once dominated: It would have been better to walk away. As the Government Accountability Office reviewed the award, documents showed the CIA’s opinion of IBM was tepid at best. The agency had “grave” concerns about the ability of IBM technology […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
There Are Three Types of People Who Can Afford to Write Books
Several editors, agents, and authors told me that the money for serious fiction and nonfiction has eroded dramatically in recent years; advances on mid-list titles—books that are expected to sell modestly but whose quality gives them a strong chance of enduring—have declined by a quarter. These are the kinds of book that particularly benefit from […]
Posted inNonfiction
Long Live Grim Fandango
The greatest adventure game ever made returns from the dead.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Author John Green on the Problem With 'Twilight'
John Green is the author of the wildly popular young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars, which remained No. 1 on Amazon in the U.S. and Britain two years after its release. Guardian writer Emma Brockes profiled Green for Intelligent Life this month, and here Green discusses what is problematic about another wildly popular series: […]
Posted inNonfiction
#Nightshift: Excerpts from an Instagram Essay
Jeff Sharlet | Longreads | September 2014 | 12 minutes (2,802 words) 1. Snapshots Dunkin Donuts, West Lebanon, New Hampshire The night shift, for me, is a luxury, the freedom to indulge my insomnia by writing at a Dunkin Donuts, one of the only places up here open at midnight. But lately my insomnia doesn’t […]
