Literary journals and major magazines topped the list of stories nominated for the National Magazine Award for Fiction, part of the annual "Ellies" presented by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME).

Overall, only 20 magazines received multiple nominations in 23 different categories. The New Yorker led the list with ten nominations--including two nominations in the Fiction category. In the fiction category, the nominated stories were published by The Antioch Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The New Yorker.

The complete list of stories and authors follows after the jump.

continued...

Today Penguin's Portfolio imprint launched Current, a new imprint for science books--hoping to bring science titles to a general audience.

Portfolio and Sentinel publisher Adrian Zackheim will helm the new science imprint as well--using the marketing and publicity resources at Portfolio for the new imprint. The imprint expects to publish between five to eight titles a year.

Zackheim had this statement: "Our goal is to publish provocative, compelling books that explore the newest and most powerful ideas in a wide range of disciplines... Once Current gets ramped up, we aim to publish in every subcategory from genetics to quantum physics to neuroscience. Our authors will be some of the foremost pioneers and experts in their respective fields ... We've found that niche publishing has been very successful for Portfolio since 2001, and Sentinel since 2003. This is a logical next category to expand into."

As New York City enjoys another spring-like morning, we've uncovered six new publishing jobs for your resume-making pleasure--fresh off the mediabistro.com job boards.

Springer Science + Business Media seeks a Coordinating Editor to work from home and Oxford University Press is looking for an EPD Project Manager. Cambridge University Press needs an Inside Sales Representative.

Simon and Schuster seeks a National Accounts Manager and Meredith is searching for a Senior Editor/Books for More Magazine.

Finally, Hachette Book Group is looking to fill two positions: Director of Business Strategy & Development and Associate Director, Online Marketing. Here's more about that job: "This individual will be a key contributor to the companys innovative web publicity campaigns, and a driver of digital media opportunities for books and authors, conceiving of and implementing original strategies and activities to support visibility of new releases from adult trade publishing groups and imprints."

Visit GalleyCat's publishing jobs page for more listings. If you have any job leads, email GalleyCat to get them posted.

Author bios on glossy book jackets give the illusion that a writer climbed to the top of the literary profession in heroic, purpose-filled strides. One New Yorker staff writer turned that creation myth upside down in an interview.

Today's guest on the Morning Media Menu was David Grann, a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine and the author of and The Lost City of Z. Grann discussed his newest book, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, and shared tips for aspiring long-form journalists--explaining how he ended up at one of America's greatest magazines after years of work.

Press play on the embedded player below to listen.

Here's an excerpt: "It was a very circuitous path. It was not very linear--I floundered about for many years. I had many different careers early on. I knew I wanted to be a writer. But, like so many people, I didn't know how to be one--other than just do it. I didn't know what form it would take."

continued...

Liz Edelstein has been named the new digital content & marketing manager at Macmillan Audio.

Edelstein once served as senior program manager at America Online/Netscape Communications and earned an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA.

Here's more from the release: "Most recently, Edelstein worked as an Online Book Marketing Specialist, designing and developing social media strategies and online promotions for a variety of authors. Under a pseudonym, Edelstein is also a published author of twelve romance/science fiction novels."

While publishers and social media experts focused on Twitter, the Facebook-based game Farmville collected an astounding 83,750,002 monthly active users.

In an essay comparing Farmville and Twitter, one web metrics blogger wrote: "The biggest take-away from this is not just that Facebook is bigger than Twitter, but that the interactivity made possible by the robust platform that is Facebook enables things like an [massively multiplayer online (MMO) game] such as FarmVille to be bigger than Twitter. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Twitter! We just need to keep it in perspective, so we don't act like media sheep giving Twitter more attention than it deserves."

After the jump, you can watch our video interview with Orca president Richard Caccappolo about how publishers can use virtual currencies and virtual goods to spice up their online bookstores.

Here's an excerpt: "They convert [virtual currencies] at prices that are not easily divided--one dollar gives you 33 credits [for example] ... People don't necessarily think, 'it cost me 42-cents to send my friend a virtual beer.' I think when the publishing industry starts thinking about how they chunk up content--whether it be articles or chapters--it shouldn't be a debate of whether an article is worth one dollar or three dollars. An article should cost 43 credits."

continued...

The music blogosphere has been buzzing all day with the news that Radiohead guitarist and keyboardist Jonny Greenwood is writing the score for a film adaptation of Haruki Murakami's bestselling novel Norwegian Wood.

Music writer Adam Bowie attended a performance of "Doghouse," the piece that will "inform" the soundtrack for the Japanese film. Here's more from the post: "we heard the 20 minute or so piece which I felt was somewhat different to the other pieces we'd heard ... This is more challenging fare. Indeed it seems that this piece will inform the soundtrack to a forthcoming Japanese film, Norwegian Wood, based on the novel by Murakami."

If you are like this GalleyCat editor, you blurted out, "Wait a minute! What Norwegian Wood adaptation?" Spinner has more details on that: "Directed and scripted by Anh Hung Tran, Norwegian Wood is due for release in Japan in December 2010."

continued...

Reviewed by Michael Paul Mason
Read more about GalleyCat Reviews

I learned my lesson after reading The Lost City of Z: use caution when approaching anything written by David Grann. It will take everything you've got to set down the work and walk away. Grann, a staff writer at the New Yorker, isn't so much a verbal acrobat as he is a mesmerizing storyteller, and his newest work, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession solidifies his place among the best non-fiction writers of our time.

It isn't a perfect work--I'll offer a few gripes later in the review--but it's going to be one of the best story collections of the year. The opening story, "Mysterious Circumstances," for example, is inescapable. Grann introduces us to Richard Green, the world's foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes. Green isn't just an expert. He's a fanatic--and Grann somehow instills that zeal into the story, so that we're just as curious about the life of Arthur Conan Doyle as any other member of the peculiar Sherlock Holmes Society.

Before long, we find ourselves entranced in the curious characters that comprise the society, and then learn that Green himself has died, the apparent victim of a homicide. As we accompany Grann along on the investigation into Green's death, we're treated to a dive into the mind of Sherlock Holmes and his creator, Doyle.

continued...

Actress and musician Hilary Duff inked a multiple-book deal with Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers today. The first novel is Elixir, scheduled to be published in hardcover October 2010. The deal also includes a nonfiction book about children of divorce--scheduled for a spring 2012 launch.

The series will focus on a photojournalist named Clea Raymond, the celebrity offspring of a politician and a doctor. In Da Vinci Code fashion, she chases a dashing boy "in a race against time to unravel a centuries-old mystery that could unlock the key to her soulmate's true identity." Duff (pictured, via) began her career on the Disney Channel show, Lizzie McGuire, and recently had a guest spot on Gossip Girl.

Duff had this statement: "I've always loved the escape of a great book, especially one that features a strong, inspiring female character you feel you really understand, someone who could be you, but living a more fascinating life. I'm hoping Elixir will be that kind of book--a novel that will transport readers and open new worlds for them."

Last week debut YA novelist Lisa Desrochers landed a "significant preempt deal" (see this glossary for deal terms) with Rowohlt for German language rights to her upcoming novel, Personal Demons.

The book includes two sequels, and the German language deal was negotiated by Jacqueline Murphy at FinePrint Literary Management, in association with Bastian Schlueck of the Thomas Schlueck Literary Agency, on behalf of Suzie Townsend at FinePrint Literary Management.

Tor Books bought Desrochers' book earlier this year at an auction, and the U.S. release date is September 10, 2010. The book tells the story of "a good Catholic girl with a wicked streak who finds herself caught between an angel and a demon." On her blog, Dornhoefer included that picture of herself signing her first book contract.

Townsend had this comment: "After working with Lisa on Personal Demons, I'm not surprised at all it's receiving so much attention ... I've been in love with the writing and story since page one. We're very excited to be working with Tor and now with Rowohlt. Lisa has an amazing career ahead of her."

Soon The New York Times will offer a "disaggregated" digital version of the paper's Book Review, a special edition of the publication intended for eReading devices.

Times marketing director James Dunn spoke with Bill Mitchell from Poynter about the initiative. A full Kindle subscription to the Times currently costs, $13.99 a month, a steep price for readers who only want to read book reviews.

We like the idea. Using the magic of Scribd last week, we created a monthly print(out) version of GalleyCat Reviews that you can download for printing, eReaders, or mobile devices.

Here's more from the article: "Mitchell reports the Times will introduce a separate version of its Book Review for three e-reader platforms, beginning with the Sony e-reader in the next couple of weeks. Versions for Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook will follow. Dunn declined to say what the price will be for the Book Review on these platforms ... Dunn told Mitchell that examples such as The New York Times Crossword and Book Review were 'low hanging fruit' for disaggregation." (Via Mike Cane)

For months, a debate has raged about free eBooks. To find out more about the strategy, we interviewed a writer who counted 100,000 downloads of his free eBook.

Today's guest on the Morning Media Menu was Ron Hogan, director of e-marketing strategy at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's trade & reference division (and former senior editor of GalleyCat).

Today he discussed his new translation of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching--writing the spiritual text in the plainspoken, dynamic style of author David Mamet. Hogan also explained the strategies he used to grow his project--earning 100,000 free downloads of his text. The book has been available as a free download--and now, a new print edition.

Press play on the embedded player to listen to the whole interview.

Hogan revealed his audience-building strategy: "When I was first putting it up, I went around to all the websites that I could find that had information about Taoism and I basically offered them the link as something they might want to add to their blogroll. I was lucky in that a number of sites that collated translations added me to their sites. One of the biggest developments was when I edited the link into the Wikipedia page for the Tao Te Ching as part of the resources available there--so people were discovering it through Wikipedia."

continued...