After my brief detour through Charles Bukowski‘s Pulp
In science news, Jupiter’s moon Europa is believed to have shallow subsurface lakes that connect to the deeper moon-wide ocean. Hard sci-fi writers … On your mark! Get set!
On the writing front: Continue reading
“I’ll Be Waiting,” a short story in The Simple Art of Murder
A science piece at Reuters about the end of a 520-day isolation experiment intended to simulate the psychological pressures of a manned mission to Mars. Best line in the story: “A previous 420-day experiment ended in drunken disaster in 2000, when two participants got into a fistfight and a third tried to forcibly kiss a female crew member.” Which one of these two experiments do you think would make a better story?
A story at Jacket Copy about right-wing terrorists taking their cues from a wannabe author’s online manuscript cum “field manual, technical manual, and call to arms.”
The other day, having read one book described as “one of the best-selling books of the 20th Century” and another as “one of the best-selling books of all time,” my brain starting spinning in amateur research mode.
My first question was: what does “one of” mean? Does it mean the 3rd best-selling book of all time? The 22nd? Among the top 1000?
As one might expect, Wikipedia has a list of the best-selling books of all time, with various estimates of total sales. But, with books from the 19th and 20th Centuries on the list alongside ancient works, Analytic Me started to wonder about rates of sale.
After all a train that travels 100 miles in 10 hours is nowhere near as fast as a train that travels only 1 mile in 1 minute. Likewise a book that sells a million copies over a thousand years is not being chosen at the same rate as a book that sells two thousand copies in a single year.
And, to answer the objection that a book like the Bible wasn’t selling at a steady ready over time (particularly before the invention of moveable type), I would point out that it still had centuries during which to drum up support and publicity.
So let’s take a look at how the numbers crunch.
Hey kids! And by “kids” I mean all of you, because children’s and young adult publishing is being buoyed partly by adults who read books not intended for adults.
When Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney says, “There are a lot of adults I encounter who exclusively read children’s literature,” I would have to concur.
Although certain examples of YA fiction might hinge a bit too much on stiflingly immature emotions and fantasies, preferring kids’ lit is not necessarily a sign of being unable to operate in the grown-up world. As regular readers of this blog might know, I’m no fan of glittery pedophilic vampires with sappy purity pledge sentiments, but I do admire Milne and consider The Hobbit to be well worthy its more “mature” literary siblings.
And, the first Harry Potter fan I ever met was a national security professional working a mission in which all of the violent ugliness of the real world was unavoidable. Grown-ups can enjoy children’s books and still be grown-ups.
All of which is mere preface to my publishing link of the weekend, from the Sunday Washington Post: The future of children’s book publishing. Enjoy!
