I’m not sure that authors understand the structures of literary agencies much better than they understand those of publishing companies. For those of you who are shopping for an agent or thinking of switching agencies, or who are simply interested in organizational dynamics, it might be interesting to compare agencies of different sizes and structures and to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each type. In the first installment of this piece we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of sole practitioner literary agencies.

With the introduction of a second person into the agency – even a secretary with no discretionary power – the dynamics of the firm usually alter sharply

To read more, click here.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has gone public with the company’s annual message to shareholders highlighting its achievements with Kindle and congratulating the company for all that it has achieved in the past ten years.

“We hope Kindle and its successors may gradually and incrementally move us over years into a world with longer spans of attention, providing a counterbalance to the recent proliferation of info-snacking tools,” says Bezos. “I realize my tone here tends toward the missionary, and I can assure you its heartfelt. It’s also not unique to me but is shared by a large groups of folks here. I’m glad about that because missionaries build better products.”

Though the company has attracted battalions of critics, as any giant and powerful corporation will do, the congratulations are well deserved. Amazon has not only revolutionized bookselling, it has revitalized the publishing business.

As an e-book missionary myself (with the scars to prove it), I hail Bezos and his Amazon team and look forward to more of his zealous annual letters to shareholders, customers, and publishing people.

- Richard Curtis

Amazon announced today that has replenished the stock of Kindles, and they’re available for immediate supply to customers. According to Amazon’s press release, the retail behemoth has added some 25,000 new books, blogs, newspapers and other items, bringing the total available selection to 115,000.

Although Amazon reported some 2000 reviews of the Kindle since its release, there was no mention of plans to upgrade the device, though bloggers and critics have pointed out lots of ways Kindle could be improved.

– Richard Curtis

The good news is that book editors are now reading manuscript submissions on Sony E-Book Readers and Amazon Kindles. But agent Richard Curtis reminds us that one unwelcome byproduct of this innovation is that Word for Windows documents, the format of choice for most authors, display typographical and grammatical errors in the form of glaring red and green underlines that distract editors and might even make them question your writing skills. To read Curtis’s analysis of what writers should do about all those “Reddies” and “Greenies”, click here.

In Chapter 6 (Obamentum) of The Faithful, New York Times reporter Jilly Norton is hot on the trail of sex scandals in the campaign workers, and now a spy in the Obama organization has confirmed every sordid detail. He — or is it she? – is referred to only as X. But Thomas has a wicked ploy up his sleeve to thwart the dogged journalist’s expose.

Pittsburgh Pirate superstar Roberto Clemente died doing the two things he loved best: playing ball and helping people. His death in 1972 is as large a legend as his life. He was active in providing food, medicine and baseball equipment to underprivileged Latin American countries, but tragically his plane went down delivering aid to Nicaraguan earthquake victims.

His body was never found. But his memory lives on, and so do his Major League records. He played in twelve All Star Games and won twelve Gold Gloves. He led the National League in batting average four time and was its Most Valuable Player in 1966. During the course of his career, Clemente was selected to participate in the league’s All Star Game on twelve occasions. He won twelve Gold Glove Awards and led the league in batting average four different seasons. And he was the first Latin American player to be recognized by the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Yet, none of this captures the charisma of the man. But Kal Wagenheim’s Clemente! does, and we commend it to you.

– Richard Curtis

I’m not sure that authors understand the structures of literary agencies much better than they understand those of publishing companies. For those of you who are shopping for an agent or thinking of switching agencies, or who are simply interested in organizational dynamics, it might be interesting to compare agencies of different sizes and structures and to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each type.

To read more, click here.

I am so excited that A Promise of Roses is being re-released as an e-book by E-Reads!
When this book (the second in my “Rose” trilogy) first came out in 2000, I heard from many readers who enjoyed the story. But since the title went out of print soon after its original release, I have been contacted by even more readers who want to know why A Promise of Roses is so hard to find and where can they buy a copy.

Now, finally, I have an answer for them! I can’t wait to be able to point them toward E-Reads, letting them know that this story is now available again in an e-book format, and will soon also be available in trade size at Amazon.com, with more of my hard-to-find titles to follow.

Heidi Betts

William C. Dietz’s bounty hunter Sam McCade has been chasing the scum of the Terran Empire since 1986 when Dietz turned him loose in War World, now entitled Galactic Bounty. Dietz brought his ass-kicking hero back for three more novels (Imperial Bounty, Alien Bounty, and McCade’s Bounty), which E-Reads is happy to be releasing in e-book form for the first time ever. (You can also buy Ace’s paperback editions, McCade for Hire and McCade on The Run, which embrace the first and last two volumes respectively.) In time we will be issuing other Dietz classics, so watch this space for news in due time.

We asked Bill Dietz to write something about our e-book edition and here’s what he had to say:

“I’m going to write a novel by the time I’m forty. Even if it isn’t any good, even if it doesn’t sell, even if it just sits in a drawer and rots! But at least I’ll finish one.” That’s what I told myself for more than fifteen years. But I woke up one day to discover that I was thirty-nine, and hadn’t written a single page yet!

To read more, click here for the complete special introduction to Galactic Bounty.

- Richard Curtis

I don’t usually send visitors away from our website to visit another, because I’m afraid they may never come back. But I’ll take my chances by telling you that you absolutely must must must read the Wikipedia entry on Emily Hahn. You may be so entranced that you forget to return to our website. But please do come back to hear about China to Me: A Partial Autobiography, a memoir by one of the most remarkable women of the Twentieth Century.

The New Yorker called her “a Forgotten American literary treasure” and she certainly was that. But she was a treasure in so many other ways that it’s almost impossible to wrap your arms around them. If I tell you that she was a revolutionary, a radical feminist, an adroit diplomat without portfolio, a sociologist, a chemical engineer, and a lover (she was the concubine of a Shanghai poet who hooked her on opium), I will have merely grazed the surface. As a feminist she fought tooth and nail against the stereotype of female docility that characterized the Victorian Era (and didn’t do much for her in China, you may be sure). And she was an advocate for the environment until her death at the age of ninety-two.

Oh – and did I mention she was drop-dead gorgeous? That’s her picture on the cover.

China to Me takes you on a breathtaking journey through the China of the 1930s that extends from the highest courts of political power to the personal lives of Asian prostitutes.

The best way to reconstruct her life is through her fifty-two books, of which E-Reads currently has two with more on the way.

– Richard Curtis