Could You Pass The Links, Please?

I'd call it a Carnival of the Publishers, but really this posting is just me sharing some cool and interesting links I have found through my daily RSS feeds:

For example, you should REALLY read this essay on Jim Huang's blog -- it will tell you alot about the modern world of publishing from the point of view of the bookseller. Solid stuff.

Here's the viewpoint of a published author.

There's talk associated with this entry on judging books by their covers. There's somewhat less commentary on this Huffington Post item regarding the brand quality as implied by the name of a publishing house.

There's a great discussion going on over at Reading is My Superpower regarding genre fiction, specifically speculative fiction. (See today's follow-up and be sure to follow all of the links in the entries.) At some point, Annie and I will need to sit down and talk about The Sparrow, one of the most harrowing pieces of speculative fiction I have ever read. She blogged about that title here. We might also get Quotidian Grace involved as she blogged about both that book and its sequel here. Some sub-genres however, specifically the Gor novels, make us feel a little uncomfortable, as the Grumpy Old Bookman covers here. Note those sales figures.

Pat Schroeder of AAP was quoted as length in this USA Today article but do bear in mind that AAP is a lobbying group and it is part of Schroeder's job to get quoted by the major news outlets. (Sam offered his assessment of her remarks. Tim of LibraryThing offered his input as well.) Most of the holes in the referenced survey or if you prefer the questions that one really wanted to ask about the survey are pointed out here by a sensible librarian. (I really am in a mood about the publishing industry this evening.)

Elaine over at Random Jottings was talking about comics (er, graphic novels) over here and about Agatha Christie's Miss Marple over here. Does she know about the graphic novels featuring M'seur Poirot covered over here? Agatha Christie's literary estate has been very busy keeping her name in the public eye....

Has anyone already linked to Critical Compendium? I first found it over at RickLibrarian. He's a smart man. He did a really interesting entry on the ALA Notable Books Lists.

And if you think that Google Book Search is the answer to anybody's prayer, you might want to read Paul DuGuid's article in First Monday entitled "Inheritance and Loss: A Brief Survey of Google Books". It got some serious feedback. And then some.

Did you even want to start on copyright issues?

As an industry, publishers feel that they are living under that Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." So yes, while I checked out for a while this month, it wasn't that I was completely cut off from the big wide world. This is, after all, where I work.