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Today in publishing and literature: Penguin's latest edition of the classic Indian sex manual is light on nudity, but heavy on deckled edges and French flaps, Fidelity Investments has bought 10 percent of Barnes & Noble, and a way to write under a pen-name right out in the open.
Fidelity Investments announced plans to buy a 10 percent stake in Barnes & Noble Fidelity. On the surface, that doesn't sound like much, but for the sturggling retailer, which has talked about spinning its Nook unit off from the rest of the company in recent weeks to encourage future investments. By acquiring six million shares Fidelity can't put Barnes & Noble in a position to compete with Amazon's resources, but it will undoubtedly bolster research and design on the Nook products. Coming on the heels of a quarter where Amazon lost $800 million more than it projected, now is a good time to be the digital book upstart with some a bit more money at your back. [Reuters]
Last week, we wondered about the sheer amount of work that goes in to publishing a successful novel -- to say nothing of future successful novels -- under a pseudonym. For those less inclined to subterfuge, there's the intriguing not-quite-anonymous model used by Danny Walter to publish his Lemony Snicket series in which he plays an equally artificial version of himself. (While the 13 books in Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events series were coming out, Walter would make appearances at signings as the "handler" for the non-existent author.) This is a pretty neat way of having things both ways -- everyone knows he wrote the Snicket books, and he can mention how he -- or rather his pseudonym -- has a "new Snicket series" in the works, and finish plugging Why We Broke Up, a slightly more grown-up young adult novel he's written under his own name. The best way, it seems, to publish under a pen name, is completely anonymously or on a parallel track with your preexisting career. [GalleyCat]