The Almost Moon is the title of Alice Sebold's new book which Picador publishes a month from now.

Her previous book The Lovely Bones was one of Picador's best sellers of all time and everyone who has read the new one reckons the author has written another masterpiece. As part of the build-up to publication the UK marketing team is running a competition with signed advanced proofs as the prize. It seems that proofs have become more valuable than the finished book. Strange but true.

I spend quite a bit of time (mainly unsuccessfully) trying to explain why publishers are not all evil, stupid or mad. It doesn't help when publishers shoot themselves in the foot. PRISM is a lobbying organisation and describes its mission as:

The Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine - the PRISM Coalition -- was established by The Executive Council of the Professional & Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) to educate policy makers and the American people about the risks posed by government intervention in scholarly publishing. The coalition is guided by the PRISM Principles, which affirm the key role that publishers play in peer review, access and dissemination, and preservation of knowledge, and which advocate sustainable business models to ensure continued investment and innovation in these essential contributors to scientific objectivity and integrity.

All well and good. Unfortunately this lobbying appears to many people to be anti-scholar and anti free flow of information and may actually set back the debate by antagonising many researchers and indeed many publishers too. It has already generated articles like this. Maybe publishers are evil, stupid or mad.