Book News, In Brief

Over at The New Statesman, writer Emily Hill calls out the casual racism in bookstore shelving, specifically the way that certain stores segregate fiction according to the color of the author's skin.


SF nerds, meet comic book geeks: The Comics Reporter reports that this year's Hugo Awards will feature a special comics category -- Best Graphic Story. If the response is good, it may become permanent.


It started earlier this year when The Shining's Jack Torrance released his 80 page, "All work and no play" book. Fast forward three months, and now fictional characters are the publishing industry's new 'it' authors.


Librarything has an articlething about an unnamed internet company charging new authors for positive reviews. For $425, insecure self-publishers get a glowing review posted on Librarything, Google Books, Fetchbook and Amazon.com, among others.


Booksquare summarizes the 'New Think for Old Publishers' panel at South by Southwest in three succinct sentences: "Let me be clear. Absolutely clear. Not one word spoken in that session, either from the panelists or from the audience, was new or innovative." Then she provides a detailed analysis as to why. Twice. Ouch.