By Kimberlyn, on August 4th, 2010 Thanks to this morning’s GalleyCat post for this tidbit: you can now commission an artist to paint a portrait of your books. The portrait may include 10-20 books. How would you choose which books to represent in a painting?
I’d have a hard time narrowing down my choices. When people ask me what my favorite book is, I can never provide a straightforward answer. I mean, how could I possibly pick just one book when there are so many to choose from? And which category would take priority—fiction, non-fiction, children’s lit, poetry, art, travel, cooking…? Continue reading A picture may be worth 1k words, but your bookshelf is worth a painting.
By Okke, on July 15th, 2010 In the Guardian today, British author Tom Holland says that the 25% publishers are paying to authors as royalties on e-books is not enough:
“Speaking at the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s annual conference last week, Holland urged authors to push for ebook royalties that are “considerably higher” than the standard of around 25%. Although Holland said the market for ebooks is only about 1% of the total UK market, it is “growing fast” and the Society of Authors believes that, given publishers will eventually have much lower warehousing and distribution costs for ebooks, royalties should be divided 50/50.
(…)
Although publishers “are inclined to dismiss the argument that costs are reduced on ebooks”, Holland said: “Once a system has been set up, publishers won’t be paying for warehousing, distribution and printing, and we have to ask ourselves what are they spending the money on?”
Hear hear!
At Paraguas Books, we don’t just agree; we apply this reasoning to printed books as well. Advances in printing technology already make it possible to omit the costs of warehousing, and our stock exists only in electronic form. As a result, we pay authors at least 50% of the royalties the sales of their books generate. For e-books, this should probably be even higher.
By Kimberlyn, on July 14th, 2010 “Old books have a value, not only because of the literature, but because of the history of their ownership,” writes Suzanne Michaels of Las Cruces Sun-News. Her piece on a trade-in book store offers great insight into the value of local, f-t-f interactions—particularly for the readers who live in her part of New Mexico.
I’m a thrift-store junky. I’m the kind of nerd who gets excited about finding a vintage Pierre Cardin sweater (tags still on! Never worn!) at a Salvation Army for $3. I’m the same way with books—I love stumbling across unexpected treasures in used book stores. A used book full of underlines and margin notes is a vibrant form of social media, providing an opportunity to interact with (and even respond to with additional notes) with someone’s personal experiences with that book.
By Kimberlyn, on July 6th, 2010 Argentina will be the Guest of Honor at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. According to the Fair’s website, 2010 “will be marked by the Latin American tradition and passion. For the books, the people and the culture.” Question: What took so long?
By Kimberlyn, on July 2nd, 2010 Who says the world of literature reserves no space for really, really, really awful writing? Since 1982, San Jose State University has celebrated the worst of the worst with The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. In aiming for the top award, competing scribes submit horrible opening sentences to imaginary (and equally horrible) novels. Continue reading Sometimes writing is so bad, it’s good.
By Kimberlyn, on June 29th, 2010 “Do you plan to do anything with e-books?” people often ask us. We’re thinking about it. Let’s see where the dust lands once all the e-reader hype settles. In the meantime, we’d like to reflect on what we appreciate about paper books. Continue reading We’re not believing the hype yet.
By Kimberlyn, on June 11th, 2010 Welcome to our inaugural post. Paraguas Books officially launched in March 2010, but we kept things low-key for a bit. We’re super grateful for the many friends who continue to support and encourage our work. We’d like to toast a couple of people who deserve extra kudos. So, here’s another “Thanks!” to Denise Lopez of Help.Love.Do and Liat Anan of Renuncia Design. When we got a bit stuck on finalizing our website, Denise came to the rescue with the small refinements we needed. As a creative director, Denise worked with Liat in designing our cool logo. This duo is also lending their design sensibilities to our book covers, including our first novel by Manolo Delgado Venegas, which will be available this August.
Speaking of Manolo Delgado Venegas, he will start blogging in Spanish for Paraguas Books soon. To see his posts, you’ll just need to click the Español link on the right of this page.
Stop by FYI often—we’ll frequently share our thoughts on writing, reading, and the evolution of book making. We like to mix it up every now and then, so we’ll also be tossing in whatever fun bits come our way.
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