Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:
Musician Jack White’s label Third Man Records will launch its new publishing arm, Third Man Books, on August 5 with the release of Language Lessons: Volume 1, a 321-page anthology of poetry and prose including work by fiction writer Dale Ray Philips, poets Adrian Matejka and C. D. Wright, and punk musicians Tav Falco and Richard Hell. The book will also include two LPs of previously unpublished music. (Rolling Stone)
A new survey by the Codex Group shows that about 8 percent of customers have changed their buying habits by purchasing fewer books through Amazon as a result of the Internet retailer’s ongoing battle with Hachette. (Melville House)
Meanwhile, following Douglas Preston’s recent petition against Amazon, he and a number of well-known authors—including Paul Auster, David Baldacci, Tracy Chevalier, Lee Child, Sandra Cisneros, Mark Haddon, Stephen King, Barbara Kingsolver, James Patterson, Douglas Preston, Philip Pullman, and Donna Tartt—have created Authors United in order to help writers develop a “long-term strategy” for dealing with Amazon's negotiation tactics. Amazon’s vice president of Kindle content, Russ Grandinetti, has reached out to Preston in an effort to quiet the authors’ protests. (Bookseller, Publishers Weekly)
Author Edan Lepucki, whose debut novel California was endorsed by Stephen Colbert and as a result received a massive increase in sales, appeared on Colbert’s TV show recently to plug fellow Hachette author Stephan Eirik Clark's forthcoming novel, Sweetness #9, which will be released in August. (New York Times)
The Baffler, a journal showcasing cultural, political, and business criticism that was founded in 1988, recently relaunched its website with full digital access to its entire archive of issues. (Washington Post)
Chuck Palahniuk will publish a graphic novel sequel to his 1996 novel Fight Club. The sequel, which takes place ten years after the events of the first book, will be published in May 2015. (Guardian)
Thirty-nine writers and journalists of color offer advice to others like them who are just starting out. (Buzzfeed)
Litographs, a company that creates book-based art, has raised more than twenty-five thousand dollars through a Kickstarter campaign designed to assist in the launch of a line of temporary tattoos featuring literary quotes and images. (GalleyCat)
