Nora Roberts

Round-Down: Historical Underpinnings of Continual Sexism in Publishing

Round-Down: Historical Underpinnings of Continual Sexism in Publishing

ByCathe Shubert

  Writer Catherine Nichols’ recent experiment, in which she submitted a manuscript to agents under a male pseudonym and received eight-and-a-half times the number of responses that the same manuscript received under her real name, confirms a gender bias in publishing that desperately needs addressing. Nichols is not without precedent in her experiment. Many famous examples of…

Woman sorting papers in boxes in old publishing company

The Ploughshares Round-Down: Publishing Isn’t Dead

ByEric Nelson

There’s an old joke in publishing about consultants, though it’s probably rooted in truth. A new executive hires a prestigious firm to spend months on an expensive deep dive, and they come back, excited, with one key insight: “You should publish more bestsellers, and fewer books that aren’t bestsellers.” Why didn’t we think of that?…