Publishing/Writing: Insights, News, Intrigue

12/04/2012

“This is Fuckarama Calling Literary Award – Come Back”


 

E.L. James: Author of Fifty Shades of Grey

E.L. James: Author of Fifty Shades of Grey

“Author EL James has been named the publishing industry’s most influential figure of 2012 for making ‘erotic fiction hot’.” – Natasha Wynarczyk.

Yes indeedy, an unknown talented writer wrote an  independently published erotic e-book, it went viral and she got a great book deal and probably some fantastic future film contract offers — AND, she has just received Publisher’s Weekly prize for publishing person of the year! 

Good for her 🙂

But, this award has upset a lot of folks, it seems — because of unseemly content ?

After many personal worldly travels, I’ve come to the belief that America has always been eons behind in adult sexual knowledge and sophistication — childlike, really (but that’s another story).  

But, whether the literary blue bloods (?) disagreed with the award due to my discussion above or some other literary hype or smoke and mirrors — I personally think the award is warranted due to a fact nailed in the second to the last paragraph in the following article by Natasha Wynarczyk for Marie Claire (of course it has to do with staggering money return and exploding print sales in book stores):

EL James wins publishing industry prize for making ‘erotic fiction hot’

Fifty Shades of Grey author EL James has been named the publishing industry’s most influential figure of 2012 for making ‘erotic fiction hot’.

The British novelist won the American-based Publishers Weekly prize for publishing person of the year, but it turns out many people in the sector were displeased with the result.

The New York Daily News went as far as to say ‘civilisation ends’, while the LA Times said: ‘James wrote fan fiction, she got it independently published by a micro e-press, it went viral, she got a book deal, she started collecting serious paychecks.

‘All that is great news for an individual author, but it hardly justifies making that individual the Publishing Person of the Year… It’s really impossible to say that James has done much more than get very, very lucky, although PW tries to make that case. Someone who stumbles across a jackpot is certainly fortunate, but should they be anointed with an industry’s laurels? Maybe someday, PW will find a person in publishing who is doing something, rather than having something done to them, and name the individual Publishing Person of the Year.’

Even the site’s commentators were very unimpressed, with one person saying: ‘I want to die. Or kill. Or just eat some cake until this literary pain goes away’.

Another wrote: ‘Seriously? Is this the best you guys can do? Hilary Mantel becomes the first woman to win the Booker Prize twice and you pick EL James? Lay off the eggnog and rethink your decision.’

However Publishers Weekly defended the decision by citing the staggering 35m sales of the erotic novel in the US alone and noting James’s influence.

Read and learn more

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08/18/2010

Little, Brown Publishing Pushing Newbie Writer!


Going back to basics, including what I consider publishing’s core mission: discovering and marketing new writers, is smart and a welcome breath of fresh air!

Little, Brown publishing company, was founded in 1837 and became a constituent of Hachette Book Group in 2006…

Little, Brown Company has QUITE an interesting history so please visit the link I provided.

Rachel Deahl of Publishers Weekly describes this newbie writer and his book/s and why Little, Brown is big-budgeting this new writer:

A “great old-fashioned publishing job” is how Michael Pietsch described the campaign Little, Brown has launched for the author it’s trying to turn into its latest franchise bestseller: Michael Koryta. Amid the growing cacophony of claims that authors don’t really need publishers anymore—this was the general media’s takeaway from the news that the Andrew Wylie Agency launched a publishing division—Little, Brown’s major investment in a relative unknown (who isn’t writing a YA trilogy) stands as an important reminder that there are still publishers who think they can make money by investing in an author that they simply believe can write.

Koryta (pronounced Kor-ee-ta) was a young (he’s 27) genre thriller writer at St. Martin’s Press until, in a case of serendipity, his editor there turned down a manuscript of his that veered into the supernatural. His agent, David Hale Smith, started shopping the book and it landed at Little, Brown, which signed the author, in 2008 to a three-book deal.

The manuscript that SMP passed on, originally called Lost River, was published as So Cold the River by LB in June. To Koryta’s small fan base, the new book was a noticeable shift. Moving away from the hard-boiled mysteries he wrote at SMP, So Cold the River, which follows a struggling Hollywood director who takes an unorthodox video history assignment in an Indiana town, is a ghost story. While Koryta said a lot of his fans have been focused on the genre shift, LB saw the change in So Cold the River as a chance to launch the publisher’s new talent as if he were a debut author.

Although Koryta’s written five books at SMP—four of them feature the Cleveland PI Lincoln Perry—he’s not well-known outside of the mystery community. He also didn’t head into his LB deal with an impressive sales record. Pietsch said Koryta’s books at SMP never sold much beyond the 5,000-copy mark.

Despite Koryta’s unimpressive sales record, LB has upped its investment in the author. As LB was preparing to publish So Cold the River, book three in Koryta’s contract arrived. (Koryta says 2009, which was the first year he spent as a full-time writer, was unusually productive for him; he estimates he churned out more than 400,000 words.) With two of Koryta’s contracted books ready for market, and a third in good shape, Pietsch decided to sign Koryta to another contract.

Read more http://alturl.com/pxaun

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