Open Letter Press's blog, Three Percent, which focuses on the independent house's core business, literature in translation, is now going to be available as an e-book. The press is releasing a $2.99 e-book, available now in the Kindle store, that Open Letter publisher Chad Post called a "best of" collection from the blog. The e-book will also soon be available at BN.com and in the iBookstore.
The Three Percent Problem: Rants and Responses on Publishing, Translating, and the Future of Reading features dozens of pieces that originally appeared on the blog, which launched in 2007 and which derives its name from the statistic that only about 3% of all the books published in the U.S. are works in translation.
Taylor McCabe, an intern at Open Letter who worked on compiling the e-original, said the articles represent "an entertaining mix of irreverent shorts and longer-form essays that both dissect and explain the state of the publishing industry—which, as it turns out, is a very strange place."
Proceeds from the e-book, Open Letter said, will go directly to supporting literary translatores and the press is asking supporters of literature in translation to help raise awareness about the e-book by downloading the title specifically on September 16, in the hopes of garnering enough downloads to push the title up on the Amazon sales ranking.
