Book News, In Brief

The GuardianUK responds to HarperCollins' recent announcement regarding their new "no-advance" imprint, and asks would-be/wanna-be authors: Is writing really worth it any more?

Life isn't fair. While your self-published memoir has been removed from Amazon, nine year old Alec Greven's ten page book, How to Talk to Girls, is getting published by HarperCollins. Go tie the noose. Rocky Mountain News has the details.

Entertainment Weekly has posted a brief piece titled Comic Books: The One That Hooked Me! In it, fifteen comics luminaries (including Jaime Hernandez, Jessica Abel, Brian Michael Bendis, Warren Ellis, and Chris Ware) name the comic books that first drew them to the art form. Slide show included!

Penguin has revealed their secrets to making ho-hum hardback sellers into paperback bestsellers. Here's a taste, via the AP: Relying on luck, instinct and determination, Penguin has mastered the paperback blockbuster, taking a book already out in hardcover and giving it the kind of promotion once reserved for a new release: prominent store placement, author tours, online marketing, appeals to book clubs and community reading organizations. The key, says Penguin paperback sales head Norman Lidofsky, is identifying a book that could become a "word-of-mouth" seller, a conversation starter (and) a reading group favorite.