Tuesday, August 20, 2002

The Old-Folks Home for Books

"The Old-Folks Home for Books:". How do bestselling novels end up on the bargain table at bookstores? The acrane, bizarre economies of the publishing business.... [ReRead]

"...For publishers and booksellers, it's all pretty slick and efficient. Unfortunately, the system leaves authors out in the cold. A typical book contract gives the author a royalty on each book sold in the first round. But in most cases, if the book is remaindered, the author gets nothing except the right to buy his or her own book for a song."

ReRead points the way to this Boston Globe article.  I feel bad for the authors, but at the same time this is a great way for people like myself to stock up on expensive technology manuals you'd normally spend a good portion of your weekly wages on.


8:45:27 AM    

John Robb's Radio Weblog

John llinks to Woods Hole article discussing the prospect of a mini ice-age triggered by... global warming.  It's a lengthy, but extremely well written piece, with lot's of diagrams to explain the processes at work. 

"...We are walking toward the edge of a cliff—blindfolded. Our ability to understand the potential for future abrupt changes in climate is limited by our lack of understanding of the processes that control them." 

Children of the Ice Age: How a Global Catastrophe Allowed Humans to Evolve by Steven Stanley covered pretty much this same ground suggesting a slightly different result some million years ago or so - us.
8:35:27 AM