An e-book, I realized, is far different from an old-fashioned printed one. The words in the latter stay put. In the former, the words can keep changing, at the whim of the author or anyone else with access to the source file. The endless malleability of digital writing promises to overturn a whole lot of our assumptions about publishing.
For the Wall Street Journal, Nicholas Carr explores the theme.
The chain’s demise could speed the decline in sales of hardcover and paperback books as consumers increasingly turn to downloading electronic books or having physical books mailed to their doorsteps.
Mike Spector and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at the Wall Street Journal report the liquidation of Borders Group, Inc.
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at The Wall Street Journal reports that Random House again is making specious claims to digital rights.
The Wall Street Journal covers the Justice Department’s intensifying interest in the settlement between Google and publishers and authors.
For The Wall Street Journal, John Gross reviews David Castronovo’s Blokes.
Perhaps no writer of stature, if only by dint of having exceptional gifts, qualifies as a bloke in this second sense. Certainly the members of Mr. Castronovo’s chosen quartet don’t. They were difficult, aggressive and self-centered: They cultivated a number of blokish tastes but also remained stubbornly literary, remote in many of their interests from the general mass of men and women.
The trendy notion that each person has a unique learning style comes under an especially withering assault. “How should I adjust my teaching for different types of learners?” asks Mr. Willingham’s hypothetical teacher. The disillusioning reply: “No one has found consistent evidence supporting a theory describing such a difference. . . . Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn.”
The Wall Street Journal has Christopher F. Chabris’s review of Daniel T. Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom.
At The Wall Street Journal Anita Elberse writes of publishers’ continued focus on blockbusters.
When a publisher spends an inordinate amount on an acquisition, it will do everything in its power to make that project a market success. Most importantly, this means supporting the book with higher-than-average marketing, advertising and distribution support — which is exactly how Grand Central handled “Dewey’”s launch. To do otherwise would be foolish: If a product like “Dewey” fails to draw readers, Grand Central knows its profitability will be severely hurt. With such high stakes and money tied up in a few big projects in the pipeline, the need to score big with a next project becomes more pressing, and the process repeats itself. The result is a spiral of ever-increasing bets on the most promising concepts, creating a “blockbuster trap.”
