Literary Agent Peter Cox's BlogLiterary Agent Peter Cox's BlogLiterary Agent Peter Cox takes you behind the scenes of the London and new York publishing industries essential reading for writers both published and not yet so. 
Articles
Litopia After Dark - Backstage
2008-04-04 13:26:00 As an experiment, we?ve started to stream the LITOPIA AFTER DARK pre-show planning sessions live on UStream every Friday. The first one was streamed by mistake, then we realized we?d got people watching? so we?re going to continue. You can access it on our UStream page here, from (approximately) the following times: 12:30pm London 7:30am New ... More About: Publishing , Dark , Backstage
You May Mock, But When They Come For You, Who?ll Be Laughing Then?
2008-03-28 00:17:00 “Since trying Michael Menkin’s Helmet, I have not been bothered by alien mind control. Now my thoughts are my own. I have achieved meaningful work and am contributing to society.” $35, and cheap at the price. More About: Mock , Laughing
Kiva plug again
2008-03-27 06:37:00 I’m getting an unreasonable amount of pleasure from Kiva , previously mentioned. For less than the price of a cheap meal, you can positively and directly affect someone’s life in the third world. In the current Western economic climate, with obscenely-rewarded bankers demonstrating that their spectacular incompetence is rivaled only by their rapacious greed, it is quite ... More About: Plug
The Future of Agenting
2008-03-25 08:00:00 If you’ve been following the trade press, you’ll know that I’ve had a few thoughts on this subject recently. Now comes news, via The Guardian, that the reformed agency PFD is to offer a POD (print-on-demand) publishing programme, aiming to make their clients’ forgotten books available once more. Although this is likely to produce next ... More About: Future , Publishing , The Future
The Kindle - Part? er, something or other?
2008-03-24 08:16:00 Trying not to repetitively mention the e-book / the Kindle / digital stuff every week on Litopia After Dark… it can get awfully tedious, and people soon run out of interesting things to say. Here’s a note from Silicon Alley Insider about the continuing, and to my mind, rather monotonous line from Amazon about their ... More About: Publishing , Part
Kill This Bot Now
2008-03-22 11:16:00 After a few seconds of watching this nightmarish new bot, you just know it’s going to be used for ineffably evil purposes… just look who funded it… I don’t relish coming up against this bastard when it’s fully tricked out with all its hardware… More About: Rants , Kill
Cramer Was Right
2008-03-21 00:20:00 Flashback to August 2007 - we was warned, folks. Happy Holidays. More About: Cramer
What the Dalai Lama Must Do
2008-03-18 21:06:00 The Dalai Lama is a theocrat, with much the same claim to authority as any other ruler who asserts leadership through birth and/or presumed special connection to God. However, we in the West prefer him over other theocrats (Khomeini, for example, or even Pat Robertson) because he is absolutely unthreatening and, like us, he ...
Bear Stearns
2008-03-17 10:20:00 Paul Krugman makes some good points writing in today’s NYT: He goes on to say: Rough times ahead. More About: Bear Stearns , Stearns , Bear
Garfield Minus Garfield
2008-03-13 09:35:00 “Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?” Less is more…
Wikipedia For Sale?
2008-03-10 18:47:00 All the current Valleywag trash talk about Wikipedia chief Jimmy Wales, 41, who dumped his girlfriend with an announcement on the encyclopaedia?s website (girlfriend then sells Wales? laundry on E-Bay? how very Web 2.0) misses the more important point. There is serious talk in certain quarters concerning the possible private sale of Wikipedia. Impossible? With a ... More About: For Sale , Sale
RIP TFP
2008-03-10 18:13:00 The Friday Project, darling of trade rag The Bookseller, has sadly come to grief. Today?s Telegraph reveals that an administrator was appointed on the 25th February (why didn?t The Bookseller tell us this?) and reports that HarperCollins are close to buying the publishing rights to The Friday Project’s book titles. I first looked at TFP?s ...
My Personal Media Audit
2008-03-06 11:06:00 It was quite simple when I was growing up. We had the local newspaper, the radio (just BBC), and later on, the television with just three channels to chose from. Voila. Today, this is my current media mix: Morning Radio Five ? in the bathroom, for the simple reason that it’s the only station I ... More About: Personal , Media , Audit
Naked Bar
2008-03-04 20:02:00 The right of British soldiers to drink in the buff is a time-honoured tradition and must not be abrogated by a bunch of nancy-pancy spoilsport Euro-trash nanny-state Johnny foreigners. There?s a lot of talk about what?s wrong with young people today, but as long as our fine young men continue this hallowed custom ...
The Fate of the Gray Wolf
2008-02-29 09:51:00 photo credit: CCCPxokkeu It is a shameful testament to the enormous political lobbying power of the American livestock industry that they have connived to get the gray wolf removed from the Endangered Species List. What is not often understood is that the vast majority of the land - Wyoming, Idaho and Montana plus parts of Utah, ... More About: Fate , Wolf , Gray
Edible Printing Systems
2008-02-28 09:38:00 Bugger the e-book - this is what you need. More About: Systems , Edible , Printing
Message To Google ? Don?t Kill WikiPedia (And Ball ? Eye ? Keep On)
2008-02-27 09:33:00 photo credit: dewet Google has become an indifferent search engine, largely unimproved in its core functionality since its inception. Anyone used to ?proper? database searching is frustrated by its shallow command set ? nor do casual users have the benefit of true ?natural language? searching. It?s also my own impression that an increasing number ... More About: Wikipedia , Message , Kill , Ball
Eminem set to write autobiography
2008-02-26 21:43:00 Sorry, but Em… who? A rapper writing his autobiography sounds, er. so… middle-aged. Does anyone still isten to Mr. Inem… and if so, will they buy a $20 book? One wonders. More About: Eminem , Write , Publishing , Autobiography
Secrets of Xenu the PowerSeller
2008-02-26 16:30:00 photo credit: Rob Sheridan Further confirmation that some of the biggest websites on the net are largely dominated by a bunch of mindless bullies for who “customer service” is an alien concept comes in the form of that megalith, E-Bay. An author of mine recently experimented with writing and producing his own e-book, and popped it ... More About: Rants , Secrets , Xenu
The Falafel Trail
2008-02-26 09:00:00 photo credit: paulgalipeau Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists. The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, ... More About: Trail
Litopia After Dark podcast
2008-02-25 13:55:00 photo credit: Bruce Moyle We?ve just broadcast our eleventh LITOPIA AFTER DARK podcast and the weekly format has really come together (with much help from talented friends). I think we can officially say we?re out of beta now. The panellists are great, the live interaction via UStream as we record is hilarious, and ... More About: Podcast , Dark
No Evidence Airport Security Make Planes Safer
2008-02-24 10:49:00 photo credit: Roebot A team from the Harvard School of Public Health recently asked a very simple question. Does the barrage of abusive ?security? procedures long-suffering passengers are subjected to make flying any safer? In view of the billions of public money spent on no-bid contracts (no danger of corruption there, then) it seems a ... More About: Security , Evidence , Airport , Make , Planes
Obama A Target?
2008-02-22 11:39:00 There’s a widespread difference in perception between those Americans I’ve spoken to and many Brits / Europeans about the likelihood of an assassination attempt on presidential candidate Barack Obama . Doris Lessing believes, in common with many others outside of the States, that the establishment would never permit a black man from an “outsider’s” background to ... More About: Target
Dyson the Rotifer
2008-02-18 10:17:00 I fondly imagined that this might be the only rotifer video on YouTube - not a bit of it, there seems to be a very enthusiastic bunch of video-microscopy freaks hanging out there who even use electron microscopes to pursue their passion. However, this is my first rotifer video, so please excuse the rough edges. Rotifers ... More About: Dyson
Anonymous Strikes Again
2008-02-12 08:00:00 I had a feeling this was going to grow and grow… there’s something well worth studying in this C21st grassroots movement. Who is Anon ymous ? We all are. As I said previously, the Scientologists ought to be very afraid. Next event is March 15th.
The Friday Project ? Part Two
2008-02-11 08:00:00 I’ve written about The Friday Project before, over a year ago, and promised a sequel. Well, here it is. Today’s headline news in The Bookseller screams: "The Friday Project up for sale". You might well ask why this constitutes headline news, but we’ll pass on that for the moment. It continues: "Pan Macmillan is believed to be ... More About: Publishing , Part
Dangerous Emotional Propaganda
2008-02-08 13:03:00 The brave sailors aboard the Yushin Maru, who risk their lives sailing the seven seas in search of cheap dogmeat for Japanese consumers, today accused the Australian government of “dangerous emotional propaganda” for releasing pictures of a mother Minke whale and her baby calf being hauled aboard a whaling ship. They couldn’t tell whether ... More About: Rants , Propaganda , Dangerous , Emotional
Over-Obsessing The E-Book
More articles from this author:2008-02-07 18:29:00 Sara Lloyd of Macmillan digital asks in their shared team blog ?Are publishers over-obsessed with eBook s?? It?s a subject we?ve frequently covered on the LITOPIA AFTER DARK podcast, and we?ll continue to do so until a definitive answer is reached. The e-book has had more false starts than Linford Christie. Right now, there is no significant ... More About: E-book , E Book 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
|
 |
|
 |
