Salon

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?…

Group of people sitting around a conference table with laptops

The Ploughshares Round Down: How To Tell People What Your Book Is About

ByEric Nelson

Last week, I received a fiction pitch I knew I would reject a few lines in. It contained the phrase, “after he discovers a family secret long since buried.” (Or something like that.) I wrote back to the author and admitted that I was passing because, while other people might like books about that, I’m…