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Links + Things: "Sick Lit," Writing Economics, Book Cover Woes and More

Links + Things: "Sick Lit," Writing Economics, Book Cover Woes and More

Sarah Moon
Links + Things

In addition to these links, there are a bunch of recaps of the ALA Midwinter Meeting and Exhibits, including my own, popping up.

Anna from Verity Books rounded up links to a few posts and Liz Burns has a comprehensive list of all the award winners. 

Onward, ho!

Links

The Controversy over “Sick-lit” (The Hub)

However, although the term “sick-lit” may be new, the range of situations the teens in these books are experiencing certainly aren’t. Abuse, depression, suicide, terminal illness; YA authors aren’t fabricating these topics. Many teens throughout the world have already been, and still are, living these tragedies every second of every day.

Over at The Hub (the Young Adult Library Services Association's blog), Dena took a look at the idea of "sick lit" as criticized in a recent Daily Mail column. She hits the nail on the head in critiquing original piece. 

Honestly, some "sick lit" bothers me because it feels a bit (or a lot exploitative), but some is done very, very well. Ultimately, like so much related to literature, it's all in the execution.

List-O-Rama: 5 Book-Related Trends I Wish Would Stop, Stop Right Now

List-O-Rama: 5 Book-Related Trends I Wish Would Stop, Stop Right Now

Sarah Moon
Listorama

It’s amazing when you start paying attention, how many publishing and book-related things are straight-up annoying after awhile. Some of these are plot devices, some are publishing-related, but they all annoy me and need to stop, stop right now. 

Photo by Sarah.

Delayed Ebook Releases

Okay, I get it. Publishers hold back the ebook releases so their books have a better shot at the bestseller lists. However, as a reader I don’t really care. If a book has a publish date of, say, June 1, I expect to be able to by either the paper book or digital version on that date. Don’t make me wait an extra week or two. This happened a lot with mass market paperbacks this summer and I cannot tell you how irriating it is when publishers (or anyone) make it hard for me to give them money. I can only speak for myself, but this doesn’t make me rush out and buy the paper book instead of the ebook—instead, it means I often forget to buy the ebook when it’s released the following week.

On the other hand, one of the things I’ve been most impressed with from publishers lately is Simon Pulse releasing several books simultaneously as hardcovers, paperbacks and ebooks—letting reader choose what works best for them is smart.