Search Results for: publishing

The Andrew Wylie Rules

Longreads Pick

The renowned literary agent on his hatred of Amazon, commercial fiction, and the future of book publishing:

"I didn’t think that [in 2010] the publishing community had properly assessed—particularly in regard to its obligations to writers—what an equitable arrangement would look like.

"And I felt that publishers had made a huge mistake, because they were pressured by Apple and Amazon to make concessions that they shouldn’t have made.

“These distribution issues come and go. It wasn’t so long ago that Barnes and Noble was this monster publishing leatherette classics, threatening to put backlists out of print. Amazon will go, and Apple will go, and it’ll all go.”

Published: Oct 8, 2013
Length: 9 minutes (2,336 words)

Will Work for Inspiration

Longreads Pick

David Byrne on whether New York City can hold onto its creative class:

“This city doesn’t make things anymore. Creativity, of all kinds, is the resource we have to draw on as a city and a country in order to survive. In the recent past, before the 2008 crash, the best and the brightest were lured into the world of finance. Many a bright kid graduating from university knew that they could become fairly wealthy almost instantly if they found employment at a hedge fund or some similar institution. But before the financial sector came to dominate the world, they might have made things: in publishing, manufacturing, television, fashion, you name it. As in many other countries the lure of easy bucks Hoovered this talent and intelligence up—and made it difficult for those other kinds of businesses to attract any of the top talent.”

Published: Oct 8, 2013
Length: 7 minutes (1,950 words)

The Time Jason Zengerle and a Gorilla Stalked Michael Moore for Might Magazine

Photo by Jimmy Hahn

Jason Zengerle | Might magazine | 1997 | 19 minutes (4,685 words)

 

Introduction

Thanks to our Longreads Members’ support, we tracked down a vintage story from Dave Eggers’s Might Magazine. It’s from Jason Zengerle, a correspondent for GQ and contributing editor for New York magazine who’s been featured on Longreads often in the past. Read more…

Reading List: The Writing Life vs. The Blinking Cursor

Emily Perper is a word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker.

Over the weekend, I attended the annual National Book Festival in Washington D.C. One of the highlights was Tamora Pierce’s presentation. Pierce is a young adult fantasy lit author, known for her great writing and awesome female characters. The tent was packed with fans of all ages, and once the Q&A microphones were opened, tween girls rushed to be the first in line. One girl, probably six or seven years old, asked how Mrs. Pierce dealt with writer’s block. Precocious, indeed, but that moment made me think—almost every aspiring writer struggles with the terror of a blank mind and a blank page, from time to time. In every panel I attended over the weekend, at least one person asked about writer’s block. Get out your pencils, punks.

1. “Getting Unstuck” (Caitlin, Rookie, November 2012) features ideas for overcoming writer’s block from many writers, including Joss Whedon, Adrian Tomine and Fran Lebowitz.

2. “The Daily Routines of Famous Writers,” compiled by Brain Pickings’ Maria Popova, is great for its anecdotal charm, as well as its practical advice. Don’t be surprised if you feel envious.

3. In “Ask the Writing Teacher: Story Arc(s),” author and teacher Edan Lepucki expounds upon her understanding of the definition and purpose of story arc, with a little help from Eileen Myles, Margaret Atwood and Orange is the New Black. Includes writing exercises and reading suggestions.

4. The beautiful “A Writer’s Room” (John Spinks, New York Times, August 2013) slideshow includes pictures of the authors in their treasured workspaces, as well as their meditations on writing and the books they’re publishing this fall.

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Photo by Jeremy Levine

On Muppets & Merchandise: How Jim Henson Turned His Art into a Business

Photo by Eva Rinaldi

Elizabeth Hyde Stevens | Make Art Make Money | September 2013 | 17 minutes (4,102 words)

 

In 2011, Longreads highlighted an essay called “Weekend at Kermie’s,” by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens, published by The Awl. Stevens is now back with a new Muppet-inspired Kindle Serial called “Make Art Make Money,” part how-to, part Jim Henson history. Below is the opening chapter. Our thanks to Stevens and Amazon Publishing for sharing this with the Longreads community. Read more…

The Notorious MSG’s Unlikely Formula For Success

Longreads Pick

In 1968, an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine wondered if eating food in American Chinese food restaurants caused feelings of numbness and fatigue. Decades of research has shown little consensus on whether consumption of MSG is bad for us. How the MSG myth was born and propagated:

“‘The Chinese food causes thirst,’ he wrote, ‘which would also be due to the high sodium content. The syndrome may therefore be due merely to the large quantity of salt in the food.’ MSG was almost an afterthought: ‘Others have suggested it may be caused by the monosodium glutamate seasoning used to a great extent for seasoning in Chinese restaurants.’ He closed ruminating on the idea that the presence of MSG might make the sodium-related symptoms ‘more acute.’

“But it was the MSG bit that people focused on. The New York Times quickly followed the NEJM’s lead, publishing a small write-up on the issue a month later (Chinese Restaurant Syndrome Puzzles Doctors,’ May 19, 1968). Also fueling the burgeoning myth was a latent distrust of what happened behind the kitchen door at Chinese restaurants, even as they became increasingly common to American diners in the late 1960s. ‘To be suspicious of the goings on in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant was not uncommon,’ food historian Ian Mosby writes in his paper ‘”That Won-Ton Soup Headache”: The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, MSG and the Making of American Food, 1968–1980.’ For many, suspicions of mysterious meats and other ‘excessive’ practices were still present.”

Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Aug 15, 2013
Length: 23 minutes (5,837 words)

Anatomy of a Publisher

Longreads Pick

The work and sex lives of book publishers. Gottlieb, the former editor of The New Yorker, writes about Boris Kachka’s history of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Hothouse:

“Gossip about Roger Straus’s sexual life (and everyone else’s) is a dominant feature of ‘Hothouse’—yes, FSG was hot in this way, too. Not only was Roger the Emperor of Frankfurt, but in New York, in the office, he was the Sun King—complete with deer park. The chief doe, Peggy Miller, arrived in his life around the same time Sontag did. She was an experienced executive secretary who went to work for Roger in that capacity and stayed on until the end, a major force at FSG. (‘I’m . . . grateful to Peggy Miller,’ Kachka writes, ‘the living soul of independent FSG, for giving me so much of her time.’)”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Aug 7, 2013
Length: 20 minutes (5,024 words)

To Steal a Mockingbird?

Longreads Pick

According to a lawsuit, Harper Lee’s agent Samuel Pinkus duped the To Kill a Mockingbird author to assign him the copyright to her only book. An investigation into Lee’s fight to regain the book’s copyright, which continues to earn millions of dollars in royalties:

“His first move was to obtain the copyright to To Kill a Mockingbird, which he did on May 5, 2007, ‘as part of a scheme to secure to himself an irrevocable interest in the income stream from Harper Lee’s copyright and to avoid his legal obligations to M&O under the arbitration decision,’ Lee’s lawsuit contends. ‘Pinkus knew that Harper Lee was an elderly woman with physical infirmities that made it difficult for her to read and see. He also knew that Harper Lee and her sister (and lawyer) relied on and trusted him. Pinkus abused that trust and took advantage of Harper Lee’s physical condition and years of trust built at M&O to engineer the assignment of her copyright in a document that did not even ensure her a contractual right to income.’

“Once Lee signed over her copyright to Pinkus, whether with or without her knowledge, he had the authority to do with her book whatever he pleased. ‘Once the copyright is assigned, you stop being an agent and become the principal,’ Eric Brown, a publishing-law attorney, told me. ‘This applies to all media. As the owner of the copyright in the book, you can make whatever deals you want. You are now Harper Lee.'”

Author: Mark Seal
Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Jul 22, 2013
Length: 32 minutes (8,114 words)

Why Is Science Behind a Paywall?

Longreads Pick

Why is scientific research still stuck in a model that requires that work be published in a small number of journals owned by a small number of companies?

“Companies like Elsevier developed in the 1960s and 1970s. They bought academic journals from the non-profits and academic societies that ran them, successfully betting that they could raise prices without losing customers. Today just three publishers, Elsevier, Springer and Wiley, account for roughly 42% of all articles published in the $19 billion plus academic publishing market for science, technology, engineering, and medical topics. University libraries account for 80% of their customers. Since every article is published in only one journal and researchers ideally want access to every article in their field, libraries bought subscriptions no matter the price. From 1984 to 2002, for example, the price of science journals increased nearly 600%. One estimate puts Elsevier’s prices at 642% higher than industry-wide averages.”

Source: Priceonomics
Published: May 12, 2013
Length: 12 minutes (3,246 words)

My Top 5 #Longreads on the Business of Film, Music and Books

Longreads Pick

Longreads’ Mark Armstrong on Steven Soderbergh’s “State of the Cinema” and four other recommended stories about the movie, music and publishing industries.

Source: Longreads
Published: May 5, 2013