What Happens When a Book Doesn't Sell?

Want a candid look at the difficult and sometimes dead-end process of trying to get your work out into the world? Literary compadre Edan Lepucki is bracingly honest in this wonderful essay at The Millions. (The takeaway: Don't stop slogging!)

Author, sell thyself?

In a recent article, Laura Miller, senior writer at Salon.com, discusses the changing face of publishing and PR in the days of tight publishing budgets, self-publishing, and the e-Book: authors have to advocate for their own work in order to succeed. The obvious paradox Miller elucidates is that writers -- many of whom are, by nature, reclusive or shy or awkward -- often make crummy self-promoters.

You can read more about this contemporary dilemma here.

Go Goon Squad

The 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award fiction finalists were announced at the end of January. Winner will be announced on March 10th. The contenders include:

Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad

Jonathan Franzen, Freedom

David Grossman, To the End of the Land

Hans Keilson, Comedy in a Minor Key

Paul Murray, Skippy Dies

My vote is for Goon Squad, despite how much I enjoyed Freedom, and despite how much I admire David Grossman. My pick is mostly informed by admiration for Egen's playful and contemporary text ... but partially informed by this new data. Can you believe these pie charts?!