The Big Bad Book Blog

2007 was fun, wasn’t it? Between Judith Regan, O.J. Simpson, Amazon’s Kindle, the AMS bankruptcy, and James Frey vs. Oprah redux, there was plenty of shock, titillation, and Schadenfreude to go around. (We’re pointedly excluding a certain boy wizard. Months later, we’re still fatigued.) But bigger than any one of these stories was the industry’s continued march into the brave new world of technology.

And yeah, yeah, years in review are so rampant come January, but 2007 wasn’t just any year. It saw the digital world and the book world become slightly less uncomfortable bedfellows. Shelfari, LibraryThing, and GoodReads brought social networking to book lovers, e-books continued their long and arduous journey to popular consumption, and publishing in general proved itself more savvy online. That’s not to say the more disturbing trends didn’t continue—independent bookstores dropped like flies (although MySpace came to the rescue in a few instances) and the battle to keep book review sections in newspapers raged on as literary bloggers multiplied. Before moving into exciting, uncharted 2008 (ready for 979 ISBN prefixes?), the Big Bad Book Blog presents a brief overview of some of the more interesting developments of 2007. continue reading

Bad news for those of you who lament theater marquees glutted with remakes, sequels, and cinematic versions of preexisting media: On October 19th, the partnership announced nearly two years ago between Random House and Focus Features will come to fruition with the release of Reservation Road. Based on the novel by John Burnham Schwartz, Random House is assuredly hoping the film will be an auspicious beginning to a new model that–if successful–guarantees large-scale book sales. Not to be left out, HarperCollins announced a deal of its own this week; the publisher will enter into a similar “strategic partnership” with Sharp Independent, giving the New York studio access to material in HarperCollins’ heavyweight-laden roster.

From a marketing standpoint: genius. continue reading

Would you buy a book you knew nothing about–if a trusted source told you it was good? Many bookstores are facing this question, and in the beginning, many answered “yes.” “Blind selling” is a practice commonly used in the publishing industry to sell books into bookstores without revealing the author’s name, title of the book, or subject matter. Oprah Winfrey popularized the trend by having bookstores order boxes of each unknown Oprah’s Book Club book before she announces the selection on her show. She doesn’t have to leak the month’s choice in advance, and booksellers still have plenty of copies in stock. But many booksellers are rethinking the practice, thanks to the blind sell of O.J. Simpson’s book If I Did It. continue reading

ReganBooks, known for Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star and José Canseco’s steroid exposé Juiced, has a long history of courting sensationalism. But the publisher—or more accurately, its parent company News Corp.—found the stopping point. Last week HarperCollins (owned by News Corp) announced that its imprint ReganBooks was to publish a book titled If I Did It by O.J. Simpson. The release would follow a two-part interview series set to air at the end of November sweeps on Fox (also owned by News Corp.). continue reading

I think it’s safe to say that we are all relieved to know that News Corp. has decided not to publish O.J. Simpson’s controversial book If I Did It and that it will not air Judith Regan’s Fox interview with Simpson. Several bookstores, including Border’s, had decided to donate all proceeds from the sale of the book to charity. Erin Crum, a spokeswoman for HarperCollins, said today that some copies of the books have already been shipped to stores. Those books will be recalled and destroyed, she said. The New York Times reported yesterday why executives at News Corp. decided to pull the plug on the project. Read the NYT article at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/business/21simpsoncnd.html?ref=media.