“Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good … Somebody who’s a terrific writer who’s been very, very successful is Jodi Picoult. You’ve got Dean Koontz, who can write like hell. And then sometimes he’s just awful. It varies. James Patterson is a terrible writer but he’s very very successful.”

I’m kind of torn. Part of me is all, “if you don’t have anything nice to say…” But then another part of me is pleased to see someone with a brain come out with a strong opinion about something instead of being political.

For the record, I’m not the biggest King fan in the world, but was around 8th/9th grade. I still maintain that although he has a couple good books, he is not a great novelist. He is, however, a brilliant and underrated short story writer.

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What he has done so successfully is not just to launch one or two bestselling crime series, but three – along with the Alex Cross stable, there’s the Women’s Murder Club, featuring four Californian crime-solvers, and most recently the Detective Michael Bennett series. He’s also created two series for young adults – the hyper-popular Maximum Ride books starring a group of kids who are part-human, part- bird, and a new line starring the orphaned teenage alien-hunter Daniel X. A book from each of these series is published once a year, as well as a number of other stand-alones. He has a horror line, a romance line, a historical-fiction line, always produces a big summer stand-alone thriller, and is now turning to non-fiction.

And this article’s from the UK, where publishing is in an even more dire state than the US.

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Still, the piece makes some good points – the money publishers are willing to throw at some of these unknown authors and titles might make you a little sick – and is worth a few minutes of your time to look through.

“Welcome to our temporary home,� says 51-year-old publisher Bob Miller, ushering me into a colleague’s more inviting office. Inside, he and his staffers prepare to impart a cheery message: They’re going to fix publishing!

But first, a horror story. Debbie Stier, Miller’s No. 2 at HarperStudio (as this little imprint is called), has been collecting videos for their blog. “You want to see what happens to books after they go to book heaven?� she asks. On the screen of her MacBook, a giant steel shredder disgorges a ragged mess of paper and cardboard onto a conveyor belt. This is the fate of up to 25 percent of the product churned out by New York’s publishing machine.

Everyone’s eyes widen, as though watching some viral YouTube gross-out. “It’s like Wall-E,� says marketing director Sarah Burningham. “It’s depressing,� Miller adds. They had sent in a Flip camera with a warehouse worker. “You can see our books go through there,� says Stier. “The Crichton, the Ann Patchett.�

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All-Day Read-a-Thon and Live Webcast to Commemorate 10th Anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at Scholastic on September 23, 2008

The fun begins at 8:00 AM on September 23, 2008 and doesn’t end until the last page has been read!

Fans of all ages can also view the event on a live webcast at www.scholastic.com/readharry, and those in New York will get a chance to sit in the throne used by J.K. Rowling at Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall, and read a passage from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone aloud.

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“Garfield Minus Garfield” is the February 2008-launched online strip that spoofs “Garfield” by showing the comic without its main cat character. So readers are treated to surreal, existential scenes of the Jon Arbuckle character talking to himself.

The full-color book will include the original and doctored “Garfield” strips together on the same page for comparison. Dublin, Ireland-based “Garfield Minus Garfield” creator Dan Walsh (GarfieldMinusGarfield.net) is writing the foreword.

Jim Davis, who started “Garfield” in June 1978, said of Walsh’s feature: “I think it’s an inspired thing to do. I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of ‘Garfield.’ Some of the strips he chose were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left that out.’ It would have been funnier.”

I’m sure I wasn’t alone in thinking that Davis and/or King Syndicate would eventually try to put the kibosh on Walsh’s project when I frst saw his redoctored strips. It’s really amazing, in a good way, to see Davis embrace the project, realizing that rather than detract from the Garfield brand, this actually enhances it in ways the original creator would likely never have seen.

Now I’m just waiting for an announcement of a “Nietzsche Family Circus” collection.

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