publishing

I’ve long wanted to implement Tufte-esque sidenotes, perhaps the most interesting and useful of the footnote family. This implementation uses CSS anchor positioning and no JavaScript.

Kyle Paoletta on Adam Szetela’s That Book Is Dangerous!, which charts the rise of the sensitivity reader and the publishing industry’s habit of capitulating to whichever online faction shouts loudest. Szetela’s position is that it all works as cover for an industry that won’t address its own class problem.

Tom Rowley asks publishers, agents and the boss of the Booker why fiction still debuts in hardback when readers clearly prefer paperbacks. The answer is margin; the first edition is a “glorified marketing tool” for the paperback a year later. Indies are already breaking the pattern: Fitzcarraldo has always done paperback-first, and Faber recently published Eliza Clark’s “She’s Always Hungry” in both formats simultaneously. Fine for non-fiction and cookbooks. For a novel you want to shove in a bag, less so.

This essay is also available on my Substack. Subscribe here: https://kevinkelly.substack.com/ In my professional life, I’ve had several bestselling books published by New York publishers, as well as many other titles that sold modestly. I have also self-published a bunch … Continue reading →

The magazine has three golden rules: never write about writers, editors, or the magazine. On the occasion of our hundredth anniversary, we’re breaking them all.