Dirt-cheap [e-] books benefit the very rich – and the very dead. They might also help new authors to find a foothold and win an audience – although, on that logic, newcomers should think about showcasing their work for nothing. Many do. But the almost-free digital novel hammers another nail into the coffin of a long-term literary career. Who cares? Readers should, if they cherish full-time authors who craft not safe genre pieces but distinctive book after distinctive book that build into a unique body of work.
And it’s not the simple arithmetic that stops the heart. If you start tallying up the substance of women’s published work — whether women are writing 10,000-word feature articles, or whether they are responsible for the shorter filler pieces — it gets even more depressing. Or look at the topics that women are writing about. Frequently you’ll find that the only articles with female bylines are about marriages and sex and divorce and child care.
Vida states, “The truth is, these numbers don’t lie. But that is just the beginning of this story.â€
Melville House (an indy publisher) has withdrawn from future participation in the Best Translated Book Awards citing Amazon’s “predatory and thuggish practices…â€
Big news, and worth noting, considering this house publishes more in translation than Knopf or Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.