Hello, readers. Thanks for your kind emails during my half-year hiatus. We’ve had much happening at the loft, and outside events have essentially taken over my life for the past six months. They include family illnesses, freelance work, readings, radio interviews, a lot of spouse time, legal maneuverings, and a host of other matters both […]
Our favorite of the rapidly-thinning herd of massive chain bookstores, Borders, is still on the ropes, and barely able to protect itself from body blows raining down on it. One month ago, the former CEO of Borders U.K., Philip Downer, published a point by point dissection of how management ran Borders into the ground. His three […]
2010 is wrapping up like a 77-0 football game. Many experts are sifting through endless spreadsheets, looking for patterns in the numbers which will help justify their relevance to both the publishing and computer industries. Others are checking their offshore accounts. Still others are drafting wills. The Association of American Publishers has reported e-book sales […]
Two weeks ago I was treading the boards for Beneath Stars Long Extinct in the beautiful city of Portland. For the past twenty years, the United States has seen chain superstores expand in the book retail business faster than the national debt. With their Walmart-like invasion across the dark fields of the republic, as Fitzgerald […]
My friends at Red Hen Press (publishers of Beneath Stars Long Extinct) have asked me to write a brief article on self-run sites by writers. If you’re a writer or published author and want to get the word out about your writing, a well-conceived site written, run, and updated by you is critical. It should […]
As we continue to watch the American Dream recede in our rearview mirrors, things look no less bleak for the retail book trade. As booksellers everywhere are pummeled from all sides, other industries are both feeling the hits and are in positions to pick up some bargains. After betting on quick turnaround deals on mortgages […]
The Riggio family continues their war to remain in control of the Barnes & Noble empire built by Leonard S. Riggio after purchasing the flagship store on 18th and Fifth Avenue in 1971. Despite a brief win last Tuesday, stockholders are unhappy, employees are underpaid, and the company remains unable to execute a compelling eBook […]
I’m in Los Angeles, and alone in this city for the first time in almost twenty years. I read at the beautiful Ruskin Arts Club for Red Hen Press to promote Beneath Stars Long Extinct. The woman I love, my wife Jenn, is a Los Angeles native, and she’s not with me this time around. The […]
As the summer draws to a close, we see Amazon.com dropping prices of Kindle e-readers faster than wet bikinis in a Minnesota February. In its Microsoft-like frenzy for market domination, we’ve seen Team Bezos do everything from sell e-books at loss to multiple revisions of their kludgey hardware. Now, following the Kindle’s move into Target […]
Publishers I’ve spoken to are wary of many aspects of their business model in light of the transition the industry is undergoing. As dead tree books are replaced by their digital equivalents, a very practical question arises. As one old friend who wishes to remain nameless confided, “how do I know if Amazon or Apple […]