When Big Publishers Want to Get Something Out Fast . . .

There's nothing to it but to do it. Talk about print on demand! Publishers Weekly reports that Collins has gotten a new Sarah Palin book finished in less than a month.
The 96 page: Terminatrix: The Sarah Palin Chronicles (Collins) will join 101 Things You—And John McCain—Didn’t Know About Sarah Palin as the latest humor book on the vice presidential candidate.

This all started on September 8th and went to the printer by September 15th, with 20,000 copies to be in stores on October 14th.

"The book is a satire written by “the editors of the Wasilla Iron Dog Gazette,” although, in the spirit of satire, two HarperCollins editors, Bruce Nichols and Adam Bellow, are “speaking on behalf of the authors.” It features digitally altered photographs of Palin and her family, annotated in “the Governor’s own hand,” which provide “a fascinating running commentary on her life.”

Publishers Weekly

Penguin's Fiction Mash-up is Setting the Pace

We Tell Stories, Penguin UK's digital fiction website is clearing the road for the new wave in publishing. Their use of multiple webware to tell six stories by six authors in six weeks is just a taste of the potential of internet publishing.

A favorite Shakespeare quote "What's past is prologue" is the theme here at 22nd Century Press. Publishers large and small alike must grasp technology for the readers' and author's sake. Using different web 2.0 utilities to present these six stories is a step in a direction all publishers should take.

Photos are courtesy of Flickr members, 21 Steps places you in a Google map, the storyline to Slice can be followed on Twitter, Fairy Tales allows the reader to participate in the tale with an interactive website, Your Place and Mine is a real-time blog, Hard Times takes the form of an online Flash presentation, and The (Former) General let's the reader navigate and change the direction of the story.

All of these are innovative, creative approaches to storytelling. It is what is needed to garner the attention of todays' readers. What really is exciting is that given the democracy of the web, any small publisher can utilize current technologies to move with Penguin and other creative publishing houses into the 22nd century.

We Tell Stories - http://wetellstories.co.uk/stories/

ForeWord Publishing Insider: Why aren't there more nonfiction graphic novels?

“Graphic novel” is a weak name. For one thing, it sounds like smut. (“Man, that novel was so…so graphic!”) Besides, it implies that a book-length comic book must be fiction.

And that’s a rotten shame, because nonfiction graphic novels have a huge potential readership. The Zogby polling group just released a new survey on books and reading. It found that the most popular genres after general fiction are nonfiction: history, current events / politics / international affairs, biographies, and religion / philosophy. Library Journal’s 2008 book-buying survey says that the books with the highest circulation are in the medicine/health category. An Associated Press / Ipsos poll says that the most-read books in 2007 were the Bible and other religious works; history and biography were popular, too. Nonfiction sells.

So why does nonfiction account for only two percent of all graphic novels?"

Continued: Why aren't there more nonfiction graphic novels?

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Posted by: David Seidman

ForeWord Publishing Insider
Industry leaders highlight current trends and the latest headlines