Talk:Ace Books

message: This is intermittently fascinating, but it needs pruning. Consider for example this chunk:
:A dos-à-dos book has the two titles bound upside-down with respect to one another, so that there are two front covers and the two texts meet in the middle (perhaps with some advertising pages in between).  This format has been generally regarded as an innovation of Ace's; for example, James Corrick (the author of a reference work on Ace Doubles) quotes the October 18, 1952 issue of Publisher's Weekly as noting that although previous books had been published dos-à-dos, Ace was the first to put different authors in the same volume in this format. The format itself was certainly not Ace's invention—there had long been devotional books bound dos-à-dos — but in fact there had also been earlier examples of books by different authors bound in this way.  For example, Irvin S. Cobb's Oh! Well! You Know How Women Are! bound dos-à-dos with Mary Roberts Rinehart's Isn't That Just Like A Man!, was published by George Doran in 1920.Copy description located in second-hand bookstore  However, Ace published hundreds of titles bound in this way over the next twenty years, and became much the best known publishers of the format.
:
[Sorry about the odd formatting there: it's what happens when you try to precede "<references />" with a colon.]
This sends the reader to dos-à-dos, which actually gives the reader no additional encyclopedic information. (It does provide minor etymological information, which was hilariously wrong till I fixed it just now: look at this goofy edit, look at the edit summary, and consider that this silliness lasted almost two months.) Then well-documented misinformation about the significance of Ace gets us into a miniature essay about dos-à-dos binding that's pretty tangential to Ace, though this is indeed rescued at the end.
I suggest instead that somebody better informed about bibliographic matters than I am creates Dos-à-dos binding, sticks what's necessary there, and then writes in this article something like:
:Although dos-à-dos binding (back-to-back binding with two front covers) had long predated its use by Ace, Ace greatly increased its salience in US mass culture, to the point where it was thought of as an Ace innovation.
. . . adding a brief note with the Publisher's Weekly misinformation, stating that Garrick relates this on page six.
A lot shorter! -- Hoary 09:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the detailed suggestion -- very helpful.  I've created dos-à-dos binding as you suggest, and moved some of the material there; I left a bit more in this article than you suggested.  Let me know whether you think this is enough pruning.  I'd also be interested to hear any other suggestions on the rest of the article  -- is there other pruning that could take place?  Thanks -- Mike Christie 14:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs pruning 

message: 1. Given a choice, I usually plump for lowercase, but I'm surprised by the use of "sf" for "science fiction". As this is (I believe!) pronounced /esef/ rather than /sf/, wouldn't "SF" be better? -- Hoary 23:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right about the pronunciation, but this is quite a common form in my experience -- for example, it's the preferred usage in the Nicholls/Clute "Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction", which is the most widely respected encyclopaedia.  I prefer "sf" myself, though on other pages I've seen other forms used.  Mike Christie 00:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, but see what an E-E dictionary says. I think you'll find that it will suggest "SF" (perhaps instead/also "S.F." if US). An encyclopaedia of SF might prefer "sf" as thousands of instances of "SF" would become visually tiresome. Note that the WP article on Science fiction systematically uses "SF" (though it does mention "sf"). -- Hoary 04:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I've fixed two or three; let me know or fix anything else you see.  I think the title lists are probably infested with this mistake too; I'll get to those eventually. Mike Christie 00:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalization

message: We read:
:In 1965 Wollheim discovered a copyright loophole in the American edition of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. The Houghton Mifflin edition had been bound using pages printed in the United Kingdom for the George Allen & Unwin edition.  This placed them outside of US copyright law as it stood at the time. 
My underlining. But whatever them refers to, either the meaning of the whole remains obscure or my brain isn't firing on all cylinders today. Could you elaborate a little? -- Hoary 04:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This text predates my involvement in the article, but I'm pretty sure the referent is intended to be "pages" -- no doubt the wording could be clarified.  Can't stop to fix it now, but will have a crack at it if you don't.  Mike Christie 11:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had a go at rewording it.  Mike Christie 17:04, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Rings'' copyright

message: What would it take for this article to be ready to go to a featured article nomination?  I've done a fair amount of work on it and would like to try to push it to the next level; I'd be interested in any criticisms or suggestions for improvement.  Mike Christie 17:04, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Firstly, I am a new editor of wikipedia (started editing this month) trying to find a good articles to look up to. Secondly, it is a bit of surprise to see this article on Wikipedia:Featured articles. The article is well referenced and contains a lot of useful information but I find it hard to read. Paragraphs need some restructuring I think so a person not into sci fi can still read quickly through it and understand the main points. For example, a paragraph on history with a list of main events in company's history would be a good idea. The article is obviously written by somebody who knows a lot about sci fi and this company but it is important to keep a general public in mind when writing an article. Gpeja (talk) 00:55, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the input.  I agree it's not a very good example of a featured article right now; it's undergoing a review for just that reason.  I'm currently engaged in trying to improve it back to the current featured standards; I hope to get a chance to complete work on it in the next week or two.  I'll leave a note in the section at the bottom of this page; if you'd like to copyedit or help with improving the article that would be great.  Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 03:15, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: FA nomination?

message: "The following references have not been seen". Seen by who? How do you know that no one who has worked on this article has seen any of those references?? The usual convention is to put unused and/or uncited reference works into a Further reading section. Kaldari 01:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was the one who introduced them to the article, and I haven't ever seen copies; they weren't consulted in the course of making the article.  However, I agree that my phrasing was poor; it implies an individual article author, which wasn't what I meant.  What I was trying to indicate was that I only had secondary sources to vouch for the existence/usefulness of the references.  I'm happy with the way your last edit leaves it.  Mike Christie (talk) 01:23, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I too am torn, but I think it's more appropriate to refer to rare and important titles in the historical narrative.  A reference to Harry Whittington's "juvie" novels doesn't make a lot of sense outside of the context of Ace's genre specialization in the 1950s -- they are only valuable and important to people interested in the US in the 1950s OR to collectors who are trying to collect a numbered range of Ace paperbacks.  So I think you're definitely right to have the section on prices in the titles section, because that's where that second kind of collector would expect to find it.  For the rest of it -- well, my own experience of reading Wikipedia articles is that I enjoy coming across nuggets of interesting information studded throughout the article at points where they relate directly, rather than bunched into, say, a "trivia" section.  However, you have done so much good work on this article and obviously know much more about the topic than I, so I think I should defer to your opinion on what would work best and merely offer what I can.  Accounting4Taste 20:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  references "not seen"? 

message: The article grossly misrepresented Eisen, Durwood & Co. v. Christopher R. Tolkien et alii.  That decision was reached in '93, based upon copyright law in the wake of 1992 amendments to the Copyright Act of 1976.  The 1992 amendments restored copyrights lost by such failures to include notices.  Wolheim's theory was valid for the law as it stood from some time before he produced it until those 1992 amemdments went into effect. —SlamDiego←T 17:17, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wolheim theory of ''LoTR'' copyright 

message: One thing I fail to see any mention of here, and which I at least consider important, is that Ace published a large number of Edgar Rice Burroughs books during the 1960s. Ballantine did also, although I don't recall if there was any controversy a la the LOTR flap. Anyway, I think this needs some mention here. Wschart (talk) 00:34, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you know of a source that regards these books as notable -- e.g. a source on Burroughs' publication history, or on Ace itself?  Ace published so much it's hard to know what to pick out and say is important without a separate secondary source asserting that importance. Mike Christie (talk) 01:03, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's notable in that Ace and Ballantine split the rights to reprint ERB's books (which are definitely notable!) -- Ballantine got Mars and Tarzan, Ace got Venus and Pellucidar, and they divvied up all of the others.  216.255.171.122 (talk) 14:17, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  ERB books 

message: Per Susan Allison at Ace Books, Anne Sowards has been an executive editor there since June 2009.  I've been unable to source that date, and have put in "from September 2010" instead, based on a press release that names her in that role, but if anyone can find an earlier source from sff or Locus that names her titles between June 2009 and August 2010 it would be good to improve the date in the article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 23:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Staff names and dates 

message: This article was promoted on 4 September 2006. It currently has some serious issues:
* Tag of written like an advertisement
* Whole paragraphs without citations
* General shortage of citations and prose issues
* Some unrealiable sources
Crispulop (talk) 08:13, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: A couple of the sources I used for this are in boxes in my basement so I may have some trouble there; and I am also concerned that a lot of what's there is original research -- I wrote this article early in my Wikipedia career, and I would do it rather differently now.  I'll make a pass through in the next few days and fix up what I can and leave notes here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 10:12, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks on the start to improve this article. Crispulop (talk) 07:15, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think everything is now cited; let me know what else needs to be done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 09:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

text: If you have a citation, it can be added in both places. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 09:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  FA article problems 

message: It is easier to read this way. I am not sure about Ace nomenclature as it may not be relevant at all. I suggest we delete this or put it somewhere under history.Gpeja (talk) 16:57, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Re-arranged some headings

message: Ace is now part of Penguin. Should we add here a new editor in chief (under People) or under Penguin Books? There is no mention of Ace Books in Penguin Books article.Gpeja (talk) 16:57, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have a citation, it can be added in both places. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 09:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Current events

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