Handnotes

The Big Bad Book Blog

How did I miss this one? Especially as they link to me. Anyway, Galleycat finally made me notice the Big Bad Book Blog, which I've now added to the blogroll. Aimed, perhaps, more at publishers than writers, the BBBB nevertheless contains a lot of useful information. Try, for instance, their piece about the interior design of books -- something which, in my judgement, Americans are much better at than us Brits.

More Maddox

Well, as promised earlier, the New York Times did indeed take note of the Maddox phenomenon. The NYT thinks that there may be a new trend -- a masculine version of chick-lit which they suggest might be called fratire. Apparently mainstream publishers were dead scared of it when they first saw what it looked like.

Newsweek also considered this business newsworthy.

Libby Rees

By the way, Libby Rees was on Sky News last night (Monday) talking about 'her new TV show'. The only sensible aspect of the report came from Virginia Ironside, who suggested that it wasn't a good idea for children who have suffered during a divorce to be encouraged to go on thinking about it.

Why it's getting harder to sell books

The Times this morning (read over me porridge) has an article about how the TV boys (and girls) in America are getting smarter by the minute. (Would that this were true of publishers; rather the reverse applies there, one feels.) Apparently, during 2005 the average American household tuned in to TV for eight hours and 11 minutes per day. This is 2.7% longer than in the previous year, 12.5% longer than ten years ago, and, for good measure, the longest reported since Nielsen Media Research began monitoring such things in the 1950s.

What with that, iPods, CDs, DVDs, Uncle TC and all, no wonder publishers are sucking their teeth and wondering about early retirement.