Bestsellers
Poker
Andrew Grabois - Nov 26, 2007While in a downtown Manhattan Barnes & Noble bookstore the other day, I noticed that an entire book case was devoted to poker. Pretty good for a game that was — until recently — thought of as the pastime of middle-aged men desperate for a couple of hours away from More
Sudoku
Andrew Grabois - Nov 12, 2007Ever hear of Sudoku? If you don’t like puzzles, you probably haven’t. Not only is Sudoku the biggest thing to hit the puzzle world in years–perhaps ever–it is also a bona fide book publishing phenomenon. Iin 2005, there were seven crossword puzzle books on Nielsen BookScan’s list of the 50 More
Classic Literary Fiction
Andrew Grabois - Nov 05, 2007In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts published “Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America,” in which it predicted that the precipitous decline in literary reading in this country since the 1980’s would lead, ultimately, to its extinction within a generation or two. Given such a More
bill stephens:
Andrew, Your articles in beneaththecover.com popped up on Google when I was... Read Entire Comment
Karen:
I am a big puzzle fan! More into words than numbers, I sat down one day to complete a... Read Entire Comment
Nobody Knows Anything
Posted 11 weeks agoAn interesting article in the Boston Globe (by way of Publishers Lunch) on the unlikely success of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin ... [Link]
Phone Novels
Posted 5 months agoKeitai shosetsu, or mobile novels, are becoming increasingly popular in Japan, reports the Times of London. Mobile novels are written for reading on cell phones. They have short sentences, lots ... [Link]
Lingua Franca
Posted 8 months agoThe Guardian of London (via Book Trade Digest) reports that Bloomsbury, the UK publisher of Harry Potter, said that half of all copies of the English-language version of HP7 are ... [Link]
The Maestro Speaks
Posted 8 months agoA lot of ink has been spilled on Alan Greenspan’s memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Penguin). The official publication date was Monday, September 17, but ... [Link]
Ebbut’s Dont’s for Husbands and Wives
Posted 8 months agoEvery week a list of bestsellers for the Waterstone’s chain of bookstores in the UK is delivered to my inbox. I usually give it a quick skim, to see what’s ... [Link]
Sea Around Us
Posted 8 months agoWhat is the bestselling book published by a university press? (It’s rare that a university press publication will make one of the major bestseller lists.) A 2005 Princeton University Press ... [Link]
Dangerous Book To Buy
Posted 9 months agoIn the Sunday New York Times Week In Review, Charles McGrath, the former editor of the NY Times Book Review, looks at the popularity of the Iggulden brothers’ Dangerous Book ... [Link]
Great Big Glorious Book for Girls
Posted 9 months agoIt was a response to the hugely successful Dangerous Book for Boys, growing from an article-length spoof version for girls to a 304-page book that is currently number 66 on ... [Link]
Rediscovering the Inner Chap
Posted 9 months agoFrom the UK, the Telegraph reports on how the Second World War has become “the hottest thing in publishing” and set to be “one of the hottest phenomena of the ... [Link]
Vampires and the Women Who Love Them
Posted 9 months agoBlood-suckers are all the rage.In my articles on the Romance and Science Fiction & Fantasy categories, I noted the popularity of vampires. We see them not only in published fiction ... [Link]
Bestseller Ideas
In this week’s interview, Dean Rotbart and Michael Drew discuss the likelihood of a book idea becoming a publishing success. In their discussion, they reveal how to identify whether your idea is bestseller material. Do you really have a sure-fire idea for a bestseller? Hear what they have to say . . . .
The Lessons of Harry Potter: A Beneath the Cover Podcast
Michael R. Drew discusses what all authors - even those writing non-fiction - can learn from the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter Series. More
