Once upon a time, Christopher Columbus got credit for discovering the New World. These days, the Italian navigator is lucky to avoid blame for all the ills that have befallen two continents over the last five centuries. In other words, discovery isn’t what it used to be. And when it comes to books, the dilemma of discoverability threatens to seize up the retail business for trade publishers and booksellers.
At next week’s South By Southwest Conference in Austin, TX, Calvin Reid, Senior News Editor, Publishers Weekly and Co-editor, PW Comics World will moderate the panel discussion, “Discoverability and the New World of Book PR.” Co-host of “More to Come,” the PW Comics World podcast series, Reid tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally that the answer to the discovery challenge posed by technology lies in mastering technology.
Every March, SXSW matches technologists and artists of all media to explore a 21st-century take on creativity. Reid also takes note of a “mini TOC” program from O’Reilly Media that precedes SXSW; the program includes Beyond the Book regular Brian O’Leary on “The Opportunity in Abundance.”
In her review of the week’s reviews, Genreville’s Rose Fox takes note of Visit Sunny Chernobyl, “an entertaining, appealing, and thoughtful travelogue through some of the world’s most polluted places,” by Andrew Blackwell, a New York City-based journalist and filmmaker. Getting the nod for “Pick of the Week” is Manual of Painting and Calligraphy, the late José Saramago‘s first novel, translated into English for the first time by Giovanni Pontiero Carcanet; Fox calls it, “a meditation on the writing process, and an insightful and meaningful work, especially devotees” of the Portuguese Nobel laureate.
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Every Friday, CCC’s “Beyond the Book” speaks with the editors and reporters of “Publishers Weekly” for an early look at the news that publishers, editors, authors, agents and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.