Comments for Locus

Comment on what is independent? by Leticia

Leticia — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 06:02:19 +0000

Does SPUNC have a working definition, Lisa?

Comment on anti-small press sentiment by Leticia

Leticia — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:57:19 +0000

Golden blog, Lisa. It reminds me of a site I saw recently that talked about scam publishers; that scam publishers don’t give good advances, that they have small print runs, that distribution is small or limited, that they advertise for ‘new writers’… I agreed with some of their points, but if you didn’t know a great deal about publishing (and especially about indie publishing) then you’d think that all small presses are scams!

Lots of people talk about small press as being ‘not so good’ or ’second rate’. But guess what? Everybody started small at some point. We might not like the uber-corporatised world of mega industries, but I think that makes us all better, not the reverse.

Comment on better world books by Anna

Anna — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:37:40 +0000

I’ve recently discovered book mooch (www.bookmooch.com) and have become VERY addicted

Comment on magazine pod by Stormy

Stormy — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:20:47 +0000

You could always try http://www.ka-blam.com/ for the magazine, ya, they’re a comic printer, but the quality is good.

Comment on literary minded by genevieve

genevieve — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:49:47 +0000

Great, thanks for the tip off, Lisa. I will blog that for sure. What a good idea of Angela’s too.

Comment on how to save the book publishing industry by David Collins

David Collins — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:20:28 +0000

What a wonderful world it would be! Note first that we’re a self publishing service, so we publish a lot of things that will never see 100 on the sales meter. But we’ve also published some books that have posted very respectable numbers. But…we no longer offer ebooks, simply because people don’t buy them. They just don’t. People are no more inclined to spend $5 on something they don’t need than $15 for it. We’re likely to start putting our books into the Kindle stream if it ever gets over being a Kindle trickle, because we’d like to see a digital content book world too. Previous posters are correct - we’d love to lose the physical overhead. But the notion that ‘book sales go through the roof’ makes an assumptive leap that just isn’t warranted. If it were, it would have been backed up by ebook sales several years ago - and those sales just aren’t there. Jeff Bezos is flinging a ‘6% of sales’ number around in reference to Kindle these days, but he’s referring to ebooks only, and many of those are Kindle-only, not also available in hardcover; he won’t give any real numbers. If they were impressive, even modestly so, he’d be shouting from the roof about hard dollar figures…ergo, lots of sound and fury, signifying not much money.
It’s not about the device, or the price or even the medium. It’s about books. Real honest to goodness books. Their demise has been predicted with every new technology since the wax-cylinder phonograph. When they go, we’ll stop ‘wasting’ paper; until then we’re making, and selling, books.

Comment on better world books by estelle

estelle — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:29:46 +0000

i love second-hand book shopping, but when i know exactly what i want, it can be frustrating. but i checked the site, and how perfect - they have a copy of children playing before a statue of hercules, a collection of short stories i’ve been resisting giving back to my friend, its owner, because i couldn’t find a second hand copy anywhere. godsend! brand new bad habit…but enough feel good perks to make it a good habit.

Comment on not travel writing… by locusbooks

locusbooks — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:27:07 +0000

Yeah, I should have said that the reviewer said that the book was actually enjoyable and a bit out of the ordinary. It sounds like a good read.

Comment on not travel writing… by Helen D

Helen D — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:10:00 +0000

Hey, Brendan Shanahan’s Turkey book is definitely NOT homogeneous. In fact, it’s not the usual travel book at all: not “laddish” or mock-spiritual and really funny. I highly recommend it if you’re in the market for a travel book that’s not the accepted formula.

Comment on thoughts on ewf by genevieve

genevieve — Mon, 26 May 2008 10:00:50 +0000

I am going to add that Scrabble at BMW Edge was a very good place for my daughter’s show to get noticed by Fringe organisers. And now she and her colleagues are in!! so any aspiring theatre groups out there with good scripts, get your act together for EWF next year.