A double dose of Danuta Kean

Danuta Kean, one of the UK’s leading publishing reporters isn’t really as prolific as I think she is, but she’s got two enticing feature stories appearing around the same time. The Independent publishers her account of “bookshop bingo” aka the glut of celeb memoirs that is flooding the British market – and showing no signs of stopping, despite the fact that success is a crapshoot at best.

And on her site, Kean makes the text available of her cover story in the Author on plagiarism and the issues that publishers must address in the wake of CopyKaavya. One issue, in particular, is the time crunch faced by editors who aren’t monitoring such possibilities closely. “I think it is worse for editors now than before,” said publisher-turned-agent Patrick Janson-Smith. “They are always in meetings. One of the reasons I left publishing was because of the interminable meetings.” Even as an agent, he complains there is little time to read what is already published. “As an agent I find it hard to find time to read other books, but I do because it is important to know what books work, otherwise you have no sense of the market.”

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