Bucking Trend, 2nd Novel Gets $5M Advance

Cheaper books lose 'second-best' reputation

(NEWSER) - With customers watching their wallets, publishers are pinning their hopes this year on trade paperback books—not super-cheap mass-market paperbacks, but not hardcovers either, USA Today reports. And critics and authors who once disdained the format are warming to it. “I realized that I really want as many people to read the book as possible,” said one first-time novelist. More»

(NEWSER) - The follow-up to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code should finally see the light of day later this year, the New York Observer reports. Publisher Doubleday says The Lost Symbol will hit shelves Sept.15, 4 years after originally hoped. The first print run will be 5 million copies, the publisher’s largest ever. “This is one of the most anticipated publications in recent history, and it was well worth the wait,” said a Doubleday exec. More»

It's fizzy, too—and comes complete with recipes and regrets

(NEWSER) - Recipes for "Morning After Pumpkin Bread" and "Ineffectual Eggplant Parmigiana" should clue readers in that Giulia Melucci's I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti is no how-to on gaining a man's heart through his stomach, Joyce Wadler writes for the New York Times. Melucci—"a former publishing publicist who is hilarious, good-looking, and as restrained as Joan Rivers on crack"—recounts her checkered love life in a style Wadler dubs "Sex and the City with recipes." More»

Until outfits learn to cope with digital challenges, it'll be a tough go for writers

(NEWSER) - The publishing industry has been battered in the past month, as large houses hemorrhage editors and consolidate divisions, leading some to wonder if literary publishing will ever be the same, Jason Boog writes on Salon. The list of ills is long: too-high advances paid to a dwindling number of sure bets; corporate ownership hit hard by the economic crisis; a steep drop in sales. More»

Little Addison Logan buys pic of dead family member by chance

(NEWSER) - A boy's visit to a local garage sale has nearly brought back a lost family member from the dead, the Wichita Eagle reports. Addison Logan went garage-sale shopping last week because he'd broken his arm and couldn't ride his dirt bike as usual. He picked up a "pretty cool" Polaroid camera for $1, brought it home, and pulled out the cartridge. Inside was a photo that he showed to grandma: of her then-teenaged son, Scott, with his girlfriend—about 10 years before he died in a car accident. More»