John Green's Blog, page 70

Really Long & Boring Post about Book Advances and Publishing

I'm going to argue today that big book advances are almost always bad for both authors and publishers. I'll try to stay active in comments (if anyone's interested) and edit the post as needed. First, some background:

1. Authors are usually paid an advance against royalties; i.e., when they sign a contract, some money will be paid to them in advance of the book's publication. Then they'll earn 10% (ish) of the hardcover price for each book sold. So if a book sells for $20, the author gets $2 per b

Ohio's Libraries

(Soon, there will be a long post for publishing nerds in which I argue that big advances are almost always bad for almost everyone.)

One of the things I like most about America is our libraries. I like that communities come together to make a commitment to making books and the Internet and periodicals available to everyone. Here is how libraries work:

I agree to give up some money that would otherwise belong to me. And in exchange, I get these amazing centers of learning. These places are obviousl

The Economics of Publishing

For those of you interested in the business side of publishing: Susan Beth Pfeffer, a writer whom I admire (and once reviewed in the NYT Book Review), has put up an amazingly forthright blog post on the subject.

Many of you will know that authors are often paid an advance against royalties--that is, the author is paid a certain amount of money in exchange for the rights to publish the book. The author then earns a percentage of each sale (usually between 9 and 12.5 percent for hardcovers and betw

Oh, Holden. Life Is Still So Hard for You

There's a story in the New York Times today repeating the tired notion that Holden Caulfiled is 'losing his grip on the kids." (And that therefore Catcher in the Rye is somehow less good.)

The article implies that there was some recent moment in which Holden seemed fresh and new. I'm sure there was such a time, but it's been a while. I am what teenagers would call "old," and yet when I was a teenager, Holden did not seem to be my historical peer. His slang was different, for one thing. Also, he h

How to Steal 11 Million Votes

In his sermon today, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei said, "If the difference was 100,000 or 500,000 or 1 million, well, one may say fraud could have happened. But how can one rig 11 million votes?"

I'm not saying the Ayatollah is bad at math, but let's begin by correcting his figures.

According to the official vote tally, Mahmoud Ahmadinijad won by a bit more than 11 million votes. (Ahmadinijad purportedly received 24.5 million votes; reformist Mir Hossein Moussavi received 13.2 million

The End of the One Islam Lie

(Those of you who know my biography will know that I studied the Islamic world in college and then spent six years reviewing books about Islam for Booklist Magazine. Hence the interest in all this.)

For a very long time now, Americans have been imagining Islam as a single thing. The nature of that single thing has changed over the years--Islam was a fabulous curiosity that bridged the divide between savage and civilization; Islam was empowered black men; Islam was terrorism; Islam was the opposit

In Defense of Twitter

If you aren't on twitter, you really should be. Not because it allows you to keep up with the daily goings-on of Khloe Kardashian (although it does!), but because we are seeing for the first time what happens when a government that needs to control information to survive can't control information. Iranians are using twitter to organize, to share information, and even to discuss which routes to take to rallies to avoid confrontations with the police. Although foreign journalists have mostly been

5 Reasons to Doubt the Validity of the Election in Iran

Paige Goes to Agloe New York

A real person goes to a real place that isn't real.

(This won't make sense unless you've read Paper Towns.)

Copyright and David Foster Wallace's Commencement Address

So in 2005, the novelist David Foster Wallace gave the commencement address at my alma mater, Kenyon College. Within a couple days, everyone was sending everyone a link (it was here) to a careful transcription of the speech complete with off-the-cuff jokes and a couple [indecipherable:]s.

Anyway, I really like the speech. It inspired a lot of the stuff in Paper Towns, and also I basically try to wear the glasses of the speech when looking at the world around me. To be totally honest, the way I thi