Slog - Comments on "Cowardly Self-Censorship" http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship In this week's Constant Reader, I wrote about one controversy that's consuming booksellers lately: Independent publisher Chelsea Green is publishing Robert Kuttner's newest book, Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency, exclusively through Amazon.com's print-on-demand service for two weeks. Many booksellers are threatening to boycott Obama's Challenge and some are threatening to boycott Chelsea Green's books entirely. In my column I also wrote about the controversy that bookselllers should be paying attention to: Random House imprint Ballantine Books paid $100,000 for the rights to The Jewel of Medina and a hypothetical sequel by Spokane author... Copyright 2008 Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:00:00 -0800 Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:22:43 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by PopTart First, apologies if this double posts, what is up with Slog today?

Gawker says the Germans are going to publish the book:

http://gawker.com/5044898/germans-will-publish-novel-that-random-house-was-too-scared-to-print

]]> PopTart http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship#c1120921 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship#c1120921 Books Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:11:23 -0800 Comment by MMB I heard a British publisher will be releasing the book.

]]> MMB http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship#c1121279 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship#c1121279 Books Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:11:04 -0800 Comment by Gomez Authors need the money. Publishers don't, because they get their money from book sales, not book prizes. And authors possess little to no leverage with publishers, so they're not clout here. They're not going to budge.

]]> Gomez http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship#c1121437 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship#c1121437 Books Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:34:37 -0800 Comment by Gomez Uh... there's no clout here

I swear my keyboard has an auto-typo function.

]]> Gomez http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship#c1121446 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship#c1121446 Books Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:36:47 -0800 Comment by SeaExile Wait, huh? Ok, I know this comment is way down here on the page & no one's going to see it, but most of the articles on Jewel of Medina that I've seen have been like the one in the Seattle Times a couple of weeks ago that said people were *worried* that there'd be hordes of angry Muslims, not that there *were* such hordes.

The quote that jumped out at me from the Times article was the Muslim guy saying, "you had a non-Muslim write a book, and you had a non-Muslim complain about it, and a non-Muslim publisher pull the book."

Have I allowed the unthinkable happen and let election shenanigans distract me from my beloved book-industry tantrums? (Can't be - I heard about the Twilight author thing).

But seriously, were there in fact angry Muslims?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008125629_yankedbook20m.html

]]> SeaExile http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship#c1122117 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/cowardly_selfcensorship#c1122117 Books Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:22:43 -0800