by Jamie Chavez | May 5, 2016 | The Book Biz
This is the unpredictable world of twenty-first–century publishing—a paradoxical place in which more and more Americans each year possess a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in creative writing, yet the percentage of American non–book readers has tripled since 1978. According...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 16, 2016 | The Book Biz
I can’t keep up with all the trends and opinions in the publishing industry. I just don’t have time for it. I’m interested in these things, though—so there are a few people I follow to get an overview. Jane Friedman is one of them. She’s more a fan of digital...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 10, 2016 | The Book Biz
You know what I mean. A friend of mine—a professor of English lit at a local university who is just weeks away from having her first book (traditionally published nonfiction) in her hand—recently asked me about traditional publishing as opposed self-publishing. It...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 2, 2016 | The Book Biz
A friend of mine drew my attention to this article from the New York Times about a new “project” from author James Patterson: He wants to sell books to people who have abandoned reading for television, video games, movies and social media. So how do you sell books to...
by Jamie Chavez | Oct 26, 2015 | The Book Biz
Not long ago—in the summer months—I had to explain to a writer that even if the very first publisher to whom he showed his (beautifully edited, ahem) manuscript* loved it (and he had a very specific publisher in mind), there was no way the book would be in the stores...
