When news stories fall through the cracks, we here at Colbert News Hub find them for a post we call, In The Press.
Hey, hubsters! These posts just keep on comin’. We are working to get out all these press pieces about Stephen in a timely fashion, but sometimes life happens and we get a little behind. Our apologies. Also, we have been tweaking the format a bit, as you may have noticed from the last ITP.
Please give feedback about it in the comments below- what’s better, what could change, etc. Much appreciated!
Anyway, the Emmys are here! Only a few more days. Can you believe it? It seems like it was just yesterday that we members of Colbert Nation were love drunk (and perhaps actually drunk) celebrating the big win for the show! So get ready and read on!
Stephen Colbert
- 50 Smartest Celebrities on Twitter – TIME
Stephen Colbert ranked equal #21 with Stephen Fry, Chad Johnson and Kendall Jenner with a grade of 6.3. Time states that the list was judged by a commonly used reading comprehension test.
- A Game as Literary Tutorial – Dungeons & Dragons Has Influenced a Generation of Writers – The New York Times
Ethan Gilsdorf examines how playing “Dungeons & Dragons”, the first commercially available role-playing game, helped to jump start the creative lives of successful writers, including Sherman Alexie, Stephen Colbert, George R. R. Martin, and influenced television and film storytellers, including Robin Williams, Matt Groening, and Dan Harmon.
What makes a D&D story different from novels and other narratives is its improvisational and responsive nature. Plotlines are decided as a group. As a D&D player, “you have to convince other players that your version of the story is interesting and valid,” said Jennifer Grouling, an assistant professor of English at Ball State University who studied D&D players for her book, “The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games.”If a Dungeon Master creates “a boring world with an uninteresting plot,” she said, players can go in a completely different direction; likewise, the referee can veto the action of player. “I think D&D can help build the skills to work collaboratively and to write collaboratively,” she added. But Oprah’s title has seen a challenger recently. Stephen Colbert, who will eventually take over one of the most important seats in television when he starts as David Letterman’s replacement on The Late Show, has shown just how powerful his own suggestions are — he helped Edan Lepucki’s novel, California, to debut at the #3 spot on the New York Times bestseller list, just by telling his viewers to buy it as a middle finger to Amazon, who is currently at war with Lepucki’s publisher, Hachette. (Colbert himself is also a Hachette author.) While I enjoyed Lepucki’s book, it’s hard to imagine she would have gotten that high on the bestseller list right out of the gate without that Colbert bump. And, as we saw recently, Colbert (with the help of Lepucki) is capable of more magic, helping to push sales of Stephan Eirik Clark’s Sweetness #9 after mentioning it on his show.
The Colbert Report
- How Powell’s Books Became the Official Bookseller of ‘The Colbert Report’ – The Oregon Live
The independent bookstore, Powell’s Books were only given a few hours to prepare before the store was given a high-profile plug on ‘The Colbert Report’, which would see an historic traffic spike for its online store, and would result in Stephen Colbert’s “I Am A Pole (And So Can You!)” placing at #9 on Powell’s best seller list.
“I don’t think historically we’ve ever had one single moment in time when this many people have arrived at the site to shop,” said Sutton said.The company had its IT staff on hand to deal with the spike in traffic, which briefly brought the site to a grind.
- Amazon Picks Lepucki For July But Still Isn’t Selling It Yet
Amazon’s “best books of the month” list for July once again selects a forthcoming Hachette Book Group title that they are not willing to sell on a pre-order basis — in this case, Edan Lepucki’s CALIFORNIA, the title that Stephen Colbert urged his fans to pre-order from independent stores as part of his “ongoing war with Amazon.” By Tuesday morning, the novel was in the top 300 on Barnes & Noble.com and in the top five for Powell’s Books, an independent store based in Portland, Ore., that has been a leading seller of Lepucki’s book.
Late Night
But New York also has the edge in edge. It’s a grossly oversimplified generalization, but the New York shows do seem to be more cerebral and have more bite. The L.A. shows are funny, too, but in a more absurd, less provocative way.That’s not a knock on either city; there’s an argument to be made that late-night shows shouldn’t be too edgy. After all, they’re for people who are trying to fall asleep. And, as the ratings for Johnny Carson and Jay Leno proved over the decades, more people would rather be comforted gently on their way into that good night than made to think too much.
In the Press – August 20, 2014
When news stories fall through the cracks, we here at Colbert News Hub find them for a post we call, In The Press.
Hey, hubsters! These posts just keep on comin’. We are working to get out all these press pieces about Stephen in a timely fashion, but sometimes life happens and we get a little behind. Our apologies. Also, we have been tweaking the format a bit, as you may have noticed from the last ITP.
Please give feedback about it in the comments below- what’s better, what could change, etc. Much appreciated!
Anyway, the Emmys are here! Only a few more days. Can you believe it? It seems like it was just yesterday that we members of Colbert Nation were love drunk (and perhaps actually drunk) celebrating the big win for the show! So get ready and read on!
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert ranked equal #21 with Stephen Fry, Chad Johnson and Kendall Jenner with a grade of 6.3. Time states that the list was judged by a commonly used reading comprehension test.
Ethan Gilsdorf examines how playing “Dungeons & Dragons”, the first commercially available role-playing game, helped to jump start the creative lives of successful writers, including Sherman Alexie, Stephen Colbert, George R. R. Martin, and influenced television and film storytellers, including Robin Williams, Matt Groening, and Dan Harmon.
What makes a D&D story different from novels and other narratives is its improvisational and responsive nature. Plotlines are decided as a group. As a D&D player, “you have to convince other players that your version of the story is interesting and valid,” said Jennifer Grouling, an assistant professor of English at Ball State University who studied D&D players for her book, “The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games.”If a Dungeon Master creates “a boring world with an uninteresting plot,” she said, players can go in a completely different direction; likewise, the referee can veto the action of player. “I think D&D can help build the skills to work collaboratively and to write collaboratively,” she added. But Oprah’s title has seen a challenger recently. Stephen Colbert, who will eventually take over one of the most important seats in television when he starts as David Letterman’s replacement on The Late Show, has shown just how powerful his own suggestions are — he helped Edan Lepucki’s novel, California, to debut at the #3 spot on the New York Times bestseller list, just by telling his viewers to buy it as a middle finger to Amazon, who is currently at war with Lepucki’s publisher, Hachette. (Colbert himself is also a Hachette author.) While I enjoyed Lepucki’s book, it’s hard to imagine she would have gotten that high on the bestseller list right out of the gate without that Colbert bump. And, as we saw recently, Colbert (with the help of Lepucki) is capable of more magic, helping to push sales of Stephan Eirik Clark’s Sweetness #9 after mentioning it on his show.
The Colbert Report
The independent bookstore, Powell’s Books were only given a few hours to prepare before the store was given a high-profile plug on ‘The Colbert Report’, which would see an historic traffic spike for its online store, and would result in Stephen Colbert’s “I Am A Pole (And So Can You!)” placing at #9 on Powell’s best seller list.
“I don’t think historically we’ve ever had one single moment in time when this many people have arrived at the site to shop,” said Sutton said.The company had its IT staff on hand to deal with the spike in traffic, which briefly brought the site to a grind.
Amazon’s “best books of the month” list for July once again selects a forthcoming Hachette Book Group title that they are not willing to sell on a pre-order basis — in this case, Edan Lepucki’s CALIFORNIA, the title that Stephen Colbert urged his fans to pre-order from independent stores as part of his “ongoing war with Amazon.” By Tuesday morning, the novel was in the top 300 on Barnes & Noble.com and in the top five for Powell’s Books, an independent store based in Portland, Ore., that has been a leading seller of Lepucki’s book.
Late Night
But New York also has the edge in edge. It’s a grossly oversimplified generalization, but the New York shows do seem to be more cerebral and have more bite. The L.A. shows are funny, too, but in a more absurd, less provocative way.That’s not a knock on either city; there’s an argument to be made that late-night shows shouldn’t be too edgy. After all, they’re for people who are trying to fall asleep. And, as the ratings for Johnny Carson and Jay Leno proved over the decades, more people would rather be comforted gently on their way into that good night than made to think too much.