Last year the Department of Justice won the anti-trust lawsuit against Penguin Random House when it had tried to acquire Simon & Schuster. The financial penalties led PRH to eliminate a good number of people from top executive positions. Not surprisingly, some of those great minds decided there might be a different business model for book publishing worth investing in and have started Authors Equity. Madeline McIntosh (former chief executive of PRH) Don Weisberg (former chief executive of Macmillan) and Nina von Moltke (former president of strategic development at PRH) provide executive leadership for Authors Equity with investments from some big name authors including Louise Penny and Tim Ferriss. Their business model signals an inflection point in publishing. Authors Equity won’t offer a contract with money upfront or guarantee payment, but it promises to provide authors with 70% of the profits in return for an initial investment. Successful authors recognize a better deal than 5% net profit on their books with traditional publishers. Subsidy publishing has gone mainstream. Advances on copyright royalties have dropped so low in recent years that it is untenable for authors to spend a year or two writing a manuscript for a few thousand dollars. Increasingly, agents are unable to sell manuscripts to the top trade publishers who are only acquiring new projects from authors who have previously had blockbuster sales. I now hear traditional publishers referred to as “legacy” publishers. There is a fundamental shift of financial risk from the publisher to the author underway.…
How far should a daughter go to fix a fraught relationship with her mother? Rica Ramos-Keenum examines this question in her forthcoming memoir, Nobody’s Daughter: A Memoir of Healing the Mother Wound, which releases from She Writes Press on May 9. In her early forties and about to remarry, Rica Ramos realizes that starting over could mean leaving her mother behind. She longs to heal… [Read More]
Filed Under: Nobody's Daughter: A Memoir of Healing the Mother Wound, Petals of Rain, Rica Ramos, She Writes Press
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Bett Dorion Fitzpatrick grew up in Newfoundland when there wasn’t a child alive who didn’t know the story about the tragic shipwrecks of the USS Truxton and USS Pollux. In this small mining town along Canada’s craggy shores, local villagers mounted a rescue operation and carried up the cliffs the 186 U.S. servicemen who survived the shipwrecks in the midst of a blizzard in February… [Read More]
There’s nothing quite like a writing workshop, conference, or retreat to get writing inspiration flowing and help overcome writer’s block. They provide a change of pace, a chance to relax and unwind, and space to focus on your craft. These events can also offer opportunities to connect with other writers and build community and a network of support. If you’re thinking about going to a… [Read More]
In the pre-dawn hours of February 18, 1942, three American warships zigzagged in convoy along the south coast of Newfoundland. Caught in a raging blizzard, the three ships ran aground on one of the most inhospitable stretches of coastline in the world—less than three miles apart, within eight minutes of each other. The Wilkes freed herself. The Truxton and Pollux could not. Fighting frigid temperatures, wild surf, and a heavy… [Read More]
Filed Under: Bett Fitzpatrick, book launch, Boulder Books, Hard Aground, Newfoundland, St. Lawrence, USS Pollux, USS Truxton, World War II
Award-winning author Jeannine Ouellette will be in Duluth at the end of October for two literary events — live and in-person, both free and open to the public. On Wednesday, October 26, Jeannine Ouellette will read from her memoir, The Part That Burns, at 6 pm in the Kathryn A. Martin Library Rotunda on the campus of the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Ouellette will share the… [Read More]
Filed Under: author events, book signing, Duluth, Jeannine Ouellette, Lake Superior, Minnesota, The Part That Burns