Hard-boiled — New designs for Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer books by Joe Montgomery seen at FaceOut Books. I know I link to FaceOut just about every other week, but it’s an awesome site and the juxaposition of images in this series are great (as are some of the unused comps).
The Concierge and the Bouncer — Publishers Weekly report on Richard Nash (formerly of Soft Skull) and Dedi Felmen (formerly of Simon & Schuster) and their plans to “push back against the outmoded idea of publisher as cultural gatekeeper” with their new venture Round Table (announced at BEA this week):
The key is a shift from a caretaker mentality to a service mentality, from a linear supply-chain model to the idea of a free-floating, non-hierarchical “ecosystem” of readers, writers and authors… Nash and Felman’s idea of Publishing 2.0 could make a semi-professional reader, writer, editor and critic out of anyone with the desire.
Reading in a Digital World — A killer line in an otherwise blah article for Wired by Clive Thompson:
“We need to stop thinking about the future of publishing and think instead about the future of reading.”
Book Distribution in Canada — A Canadian Heritage study on book distribution in English Language Canada produced by Turner-Riggs dropped this week.
Can Editors Change Their Spots — David Hepworth’s thoughts on Robert G. Picard’s CS Monitor article ‘why journalists deserve low pay’, and what “the new dispensation” means for editors:
Magazine editors spend most of their time deciding what they’re *not* going to do and trying to arrive at a mix that the majority of people will like. They then find that whatever they’ve arrived at is too much for some people and not enough for others. This is made more difficult by the fact that their readers, being the most engaged in their particular area, are the people most likely to tap into other sources themselves. The people who value your mix most are also the people who would feel most qualified to mix it themselves.
The italics are mine.
Cover to Cover — Steven Heller reviews newly released ‘visual books’ in the New York Times with a nice accompanying slide-show. (See image above, but hey NYT, when are you going to let people embed your slide-shows? When?).