Free Republic

Costco will no longer offer books for sale year-round and will instead stock them only for the holiday shopping period and during special promotions, according to a report — a surprise move that poses yet another threat to the publishing industry.Several publishing executives who were informed of the retailer’s plans told The New York Times that Costco will cease offering books for sale on a consistent basis starting in January.The decision was met with criticism on Reddit, where users vented that the decision was akin to “cancelling the hot dog in the food court” — a reference to Costco’s beloved...

Renowned author James Patterson has ripped the New York Times in a fiery open letter over its “lack of journalistic rigor” regarding its Best Sellers list — after the closely-watched list snubbed his highly-reviewed novel about law enforcement in America. Patterson, 76, said his new book “Walk the Blue Line: No Right, No Left – Just cops telling their true stories to James Patterson” initially failed to make the list even though he said it outsold all but three of the books on the list of 15, according to BookScan, which compiles book sales data. He accused the Times of...

Prince Harry's tell-all memoir "Spare" has become the fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time, according to Guinness World Records. It came after 1.43 million copies were sold during its first-day sale in the UK, US, and Canada. Penguin Random House announced Wednesday that first-day sales for the Harry’s tell-all memoir topped 1.4 million copies, a record pace for non-fiction from a company that also publishes Barack and Michelle Obama, whose "Becoming" needed a week to reach 1.4 million when it was released in 2018. The sales figures for "Spare" include hardcover, audiobook and e-book editions sold in the U.S., Canada...

Alberto Gullaba Jr. was the type of author that publishers dream of having in their catalogs. A first-generation college grad, a child of working-class immigrants, and the recent recipient of a Master of Fine Arts degree from the prestigious University of California, Irvine, program, Gullaba was a debut novelist with a gift for visceral and vivid prose. His first book, University Thugs, had all the makings of a smash hit. A work of character-driven literary fiction steeped in immersive vernacular, it tells the story of a young black man named Titus who is trying to make his way at an...

As has been well documented, the pandemic had many unexpected consequences over the past few years, not the least of which was a boom in trade book sales in both 2020 and 2021. But while the trade segment fared well in 2020, the other major publishing segments did not, and total industry sales had only a 0.2% gain that year over 2019. In 2021, trade sales jumped again, but so did sales in the other segments, resulting in a 12.3% increase in total sales, to $29.33 billion, according to the Association of American Publishers’ final statistics for the year. The...

Mike Pence's chief of staff alerted the Secret Service that Trump would publicly attack Pence on Jan. 5, 2021: report Jake Lahut 20 hours ago Mike Pence whispers into Marc Short's ear with the back of his right hand covering his mouth. Former Vice President Mike Pence and his chief of staff Marc Short Drew Angerer/Getty Images Former VP Mike Pence's chief of staff warned the Secret Service of threats ahead of January 6. It was the only security alert he ever gave the agency, according to The New York Times. The reporting comes from Maggie Haberman's upcoming book "Confidence...

I've just finished a rough draft of a book length sci fi story, it's taken me a year and I've still got some rewriting to do but I was starting to think about the next steps in possibly getting it published. I've not been on the internet in any depth for over a year and I don't know what sort help and resources are available these days so any help from published or even aspiring authors would be greatly appreciated.Like I said, it's not finished yet, but the rough draft is good, it has a beginning a middle and an...

Warren sent a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy urging him to suppress the bestseller, ‘The Truth About COVID-19.’ Chelsea Greene Publishing is suing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for allegedly abusing her political authority to push Amazon to censor their book titled, “The Truth About COVID-19.” The publisher alleges serious First Amendment violations. On September 7, 2021, Warren sent an official letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy urging him to suppress the bestseller written by Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins in Amazon’s search results for “perpetuating dangerous conspiracies about COVID-19 and false and misleading information about vaccines.” Chelsea Greene responded...

Joan Didion has died at the age of 87, her publisher has confirmed. The legendary essayist, novelist and screenwriter — who had long been revered as one of America’s pre-eminent writers — passed away at her Manhattan home Thursday morning. “We are deeply saddened to report that Joan Didion died earlier this morning at her home in New York due to complications from Parkinson’s disease,” Penguin Random House/Knopf said in a statement.

Since Jan. 6, when hundreds of protesters breached Capitol security as Congress certified Joe Biden's ostensible Presidential victory, the prevailing narrative blamed President Donald Trump and his supporters for the subsequent mayhem. But as facts come to light, a different picture emerges. Evidence suggests that Antifa staged the breach to discredit Trump and his supporters. Trump's opponents then would manipulate the disorder to justify another impeachment attempt and repress his supporters further. In the ensuing bedlam, however, federal agents who penetrated Antifa took valuable information -- including a laptop belonging to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House....

The D.C. National Guard chief on Wednesday told lawmakers he would have “immediately” activated his forces to assist U.S. Capitol Police on Jan. 6 if his authority had not been restricted by the Pentagon. “I would have sent them there immediately as soon as I hung up,” Commanding Gen. William Walker told lawmakers on the Senate Rules Committee and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee at a hearing evaluating the security breakdown that occurred when a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol. “My next call would have been to my subordinate commanders, to get every single guardsman in this building and...

Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama confirmed the publication of a book they’ve written together inspired by their Renegades podcast series. Also titled Renegades: Born in the U.S.A., the “collection of candid, intimate and entertaining conversations” arrives on Oct. 26. A short promo clip shows the pair testing a sports car together. “Over the years, what we’ve found is that we’ve got a shared sensibility. About work, about family and about America," the former president wrote in his introduction. “In our own ways, Bruce and I have been on parallel journeys trying to understand this country that’s given us both so...

It is an industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google – and it was created by one of Britain’s most notorious tycoons: Robert Maxwell. In 2011, Claudio Aspesi, a senior investment analyst at Bernstein Research in London, made a bet that the dominant firm in one of the most lucrative industries in the world was headed for a crash. Reed-Elsevier, a multinational publishing giant with annual revenues exceeding £6bn, was an investor’s darling. It was one of the few publishers that had successfully managed the transition to the internet, and a recent company report was predicting yet...

This week Liberty Island charted its new course for the future. Click here to read the press release announcing the new books coming out this year, the new team of editors joining, and that I will now be acting as the company’s President, Editor-In-Chief, and Publisher. There are 4 main reasons why I decided to accept the opportunity to lead Liberty Island, relaunching it in this, its now fourth publishing arrangement: 1. I believe in our authors and their books. 2. I want to try and build a new, 21st century independent publishing house which is author and editor-centered. 3....

A Stanford professor explains the importance of why “Murder at Full Moon” should be on bookshelves.Long before he became one of America's most-well known novelists, Monterey County icon John Steinbeck wrote three books that were never published. Two of them he destroyed, but the other has remained in the archives, relatively unknown, until recently. The unpublished novel is titled Murder at Full Moon. It’s a murder mystery involving werewolves. “I was really surprised to discover that it wasn't some unfinished draft or some sort of just just wacky experiment. It was a complete novel,” said Stanford profession Gavin Jones....

A small sign that cancel culture may have peaked, at least in book publishing, is worth noting. The president of Simon & Schuster, Jonathan Karp, has announced that his firm will ignore a petition from its staff (reportedly, 216 employees and thousands of sympathizers) demanding that plans to publish an autobiographical memoir by former V.P. Mike Pence be canceled.Thomas Lipscomb, a publishing industry veteran, takes note and celebrates the act of courage in the Asia Times:[T]he internal petition being circulated by Simon & Schuster employees is far more extensive. It is demanding categorical censorship irrespective of any underlying editorial merit....

The Bible is America’s best-selling book, annually outpacing the top 20 best sellers combined. Yet a single Chinese company has a near monopoly on Bible printing, meaning that any rupture in the supply chain—say, from U.S. or Chinese government policies—would lead to a Bible shortage in America. This poses a serious threat both to American Christians’ fundamental religious liberty rights and to national security. More than 20 million Protestant and Catholic Bibles are printed annually by America’s largest Bible publishing companies. But few are aware that most of these Bibles are printed in China, by Amity Printing Company.

President Donald Trump has ramped up his rhetoric about voting fraud to include foreign interference — specifically making the unfounded claim that “MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES,” resulting in a “RIGGED” election. Voting experts say there are numerous logistical hurdles, such as reproducing ballots in multiple jurisdictions, and security safeguards, such as bar codes and signature checks, that would prevent a foreign government from slipping large numbers of fraudulent ballots past election officials. Those safeguards make such a plan highly unlikely to result in fraudulent votes being cast, experts say, and certainly not enough to...

A Supreme Court justice has urged his colleagues to tackle the issue of immunity for social media platforms. On Tuesday, Justice Clarence Thomas asked the court to consider scaling back Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The section in question has served as a shield for social media companies, protecting them from content users upload to their platforms. When it comes to content posted on their sites, these companies have argued they are more like distributors of information than publishers. In most cases, the legislation grants immunity from legal prosecution, should a user post content that is deemed illegal...

Essence Magazine has been hit with accusations of sexual harassment, bullying and pay inequity, in a scathing essay penned by an anonymous group of staff members who claim the company has been 'hijacked by corporate greed and an unhinged abuse of power.' Essence denied all allegations in a statement released one day after a Medium blog post published under the byline, 'Black Female Anonymous' on Sunday accused leadership of creating an 'extremely unhealthy work culture.' The coalition of employees called for the resignation of CEO Richelieu Dennis, Essence Ventures board member Michelle Ebanks, COO Joy Collins Profet, and Chief Content...