On the subject of Atlas

Atlas Shrugged sales are up. BookNinja suggests it's because of the economy. I think it is probably because of Bioshock.

Stop using Twitter for advertising and make your books into video games. This will generate real revenue, publishing industry, and will allow your authors/readers/players to delve further into the worlds you create.

Orphaned books

Image credit goes to Loxosceles on Flickr.

Brewster Kahle responds to the Google news. If all goes well for Google, it could have exclusive digital rights to out-of-print books. (Thanks, Dan.)

Changing the world

Here's a list of books that "changed the world." (via Kottke)

On the future of digital reading and writing

One of my recent columnist crushes is Roy Blount Jr., who wrote a piece about the Kindle for the NYT that states bluntly the same concern every writer has: how is the digital world going to screw us? His answer, for now, is that the rights for audio books need some sort of protection. At the present time, there is no court ruling on how digital devices may use audio rights.

A sort of poem about Born Digital projects by Stephanie Strickland. (via Silliman's blog)

ShortReads launches today. It's like GoodReads, but designed for mobile devices. The idea of using one program on any device is a good one, but I will admit that I think there are better ways to do such a thing. For example, buying directly from a publisher would put you in contact with the community that makes the books you like happen. There are ways to nurture this relationship to work to both parties' advantages. And having a distributor between the two can have disadvantages (cuts the amount the publisher and writer are making, for instance) as well as advantages (I've posted before that we don't have The Perfect book-sharing social network).

A year ago, I would have loved this. Since I tried to enter the industry, it makes me nervous. I don't want a program like this to be successful until it incorporates all of the elements it has the potential to use, because consumers will resist it and it will be even harder to win back their trust. Already the word "e-book" makes people think of the ugly first model of the Kindle, and if Authors' Guilds and writers become convinced that they're losing business to technology, the digital world will lose its most valuable readers and its most creative writers. If we're going to do this, we need to do it well. We need to sort out rights before we lose writers, and we need to add multimedia elements that enhance the reading experience, instead of reading glorified (and expensive) PDFs. Where's the excitement in that?

Get well soon, publishing world

Image via UCL Institute of Child Health.

How did Houghton get in this mess? Not, it seems, because of bad publishing.

On the subject of hopelessness

PW laid off Sara Nelson!?

Is there no good left in this world? She is one of the biggest publishing rock stars I've had the luck to see in the flesh, albeit from a sizable distance. She's responsible for adding Lucky-esque circles to the weekly list of bestselling books. Why, publishing moguls, why?

How Books Are Made

Everything in this video is true. Via Andrew Sullivan. (Thanks, Mom.)

Unraveling

Elbow-Toe has an opening tonight in L.A. C-MONSTER posted "Carleton Arms" this morning - lovely.

I realize I've been posting more beautiful pictures these past few weeks than stories about publishing. I hope that's not too bothersome. This industry is gruesome at the moment; when we finally have our hands on a copy of How To Talk To Girls, or the economy improves, maybe the publishing angle for blogs will be rejuvenated.

I'd like to post a little bit about each of the books I read this year. It's nice to put together a list so none of them is forgotten. If you've done the same, please leave me a little comment - I'd love to read what you're reading.

Another gossipy article that's a vaguely interesting topic of conversation

“It‘s hard for me to imagine a big corporation that’s not already involved in books wanting to buy a publishing company now,” said Laura Owen, who spent a year working at independently owned Skyhorse Publishing after graduating from Harvard in 2006 and currently serves as the editor of the monthly trade newsletter Publishing Trends. “I mean, it’s funny. There must have been something that was more appealing about it then.”

An article from The Observer about moguls in the publishing business. A few nice quotations in there from Lindy (she's right; we rarely spoke of Perkins during the course - we were more anxious to meet new editors who were doing excellent work).

It is hard to make a blockbusting book. You can put a great cover on a vampire novel and market it well and get a couple of movie deals out of it if you're a very smart company. But buying a small collection of short stories from a new literary fiction writer isn't going to please your investors.

On a related note: MobyLives pointed out last week that a publisher inadvertently differentiated between fiction and literary fiction (via Three Percent). Today in a rough interview on Bookslut, Cynthia Ozick differentiates between culture and high culture. How big is the gap between these two? If you specify that fiction and literary fiction are different demographics, does that make you a snob?

Networking books

I want a social networking site for books, please.

Internet Gods, are you listening?

I want to create a profile with my favorite authors, titles, and excerpts. I want to gush about my favorite editions. I want strangers who love Amy Hempel to write on my wall and tell me about one of Hempel's former students who has just published a collection of short stories. I want to know when an author I'm reading is participating in a panel in the city. I want to read reviews and comments from other users and other publications. I want to be able to read excerpts from literary magazines or brand-new novels. I want to read the first two pages so I get excited to rush to the bookstore after a long day at work and a long commute on the crowded subway. I want to be so excited to open that new book that I can't even take the time to take my gloves off. I want to peek at the book in the bag as I walk out of the store - no, I don't even want a bag, I want to carry it so I can open it as I walk.

I will happily list my location and photographs of my bookshelves if this is granted to me. I will happily receive advertisements from publishing houses. I will happily buy a drink at a bar where my new favorite author is reading, and I will pay full price for the hardcover. If it's good, I'll buy multiple copies as gifts.

Facebook will not suffice. I want something more specialized. I want to judge other people by their favorite writers. If authors want to participate, I would be happy to send little messages with flattering notes or constructive criticism, whichever they need more.

I want to make more connections with people on the internet that read. Blogs do not put this content together in a perfect form. Perhaps the social networking world could do better.

You too can browse the internet

Life Magazine contributes its photo archive to Google.

Kafka's handwriting is about to be released as a font. (via BookNinja)

Chad W. Post of Three Percent linked to BookTrib today. A good find: book reviews and links galore.

Things to read

1) Jonathan Lethem's review of 2666.

2) The women who took care of Marc Chagall and the way they changed his art. (I'll admit I wish I could look at his art without knowing he left his 19-year-old girlfriend for his best friend, and that he cut his daughter out of his life because of his last wife.)

3) The Golden Notebook. I think I've mentioned our project, but Barack Obama liked it, and perhaps you trust his taste.

Commercial publishing

Didn't expect the media to come down so hard on Samuel J. Wurtzelbacher, but these stories should pass within a short period of time. It's kind of boring - I didn't mean to add to the media onslaught. So to make it up to you, here are some highlights from Bookninja's book cover contest.










Happy Friday.

WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE

Could it be that the structural obsolescence everyone’s been crowing about for the past decade—defeat at the hands of digital media, Amazon.com, etc.—would have been less painful than this, or at least more world-historically meaningful? What lies ahead instead is a necessary scaling back of ambition: an age in which the gambling spirit that has kept book publishing exciting gives way to a shabby, predictable environment that cows its participants into avoiding all things adventurous and allowing only the proven few a seat at the table.

Will the survivors envy the dead?

No! says John Oakes, who was an executive editor at the independent boutique Atlas Books before financial troubles there led him to leave the company earlier this fall. Mr. Oakes is working with a university in Manhattan on establishing a new summer training program for college graduates seeking careers in the publishing industry. Two such programs, both six weeks long, currently exist—one at Columbia, the other at New York University—and though between the two of them they already send more than 200 young people onto the job market every year, Mr. Oakes is confident there are still more eager beavers out there in need of training.

“From what I’ve seen of their operations, they seem grand, and really wonderful setups with great histories and some important people,” Mr. Oakes said Monday, shortly before flying off to the Frankfurt Book Fair. “But I think that a good overview can be provided in less time for less money, and these days, from what I understand, people seem to be concerned about their time and their money.”

Mr. Oakes envisions an intensive, “nimble” course, with guest speakers who work in the industry providing lessons on every aspect of the business, from design, manufacturing and digital distribution, to marketing, royalties and contracts.

“Particularly in rough times, this makes more sense than ever,” Mr. Oakes said when asked whether the course he’s developing amounts to sending lambs to the slaughter. “Jobs are hard to get, absolutely, but what was wonderful about publishing is still wonderful about publishing, in that it’s a mysterious and wonderful art. Some of the smartest people still stream into publishing, so a course like this can maybe prepare them for what to expect. And there are some jobs out there, and maybe via a program like this they can meet people that will help them get those few jobs that are available.”

I love hearing about the CPC - Lindy and Susan run a fantastic program, and honestly, all the voices in the media presenting them with unqualified praise would not be enough to do them justice. But what a strange article! The headline suggests that publishing is in trouble, that editors will take fewer risks with new writers. The first page of text says that advances will be inflated and book sections are shrinking. But the final section asks whether publishing is over, then has that Oakes quotation defying every point the article seemed to make. Does the Observer believe that our fresh energy injected into the industry will find ways to bring back book reviews and/or up book sales? How will we be able to do that?

We should probably have an online discussion board for CPC grads to discuss the best method to give life to the industry. Assuming, of course, that the industry needs life. Ick, so many death metaphors! This article is no help. When you argue the binary - publishing is either dead or alive - you shove aside some very important grey matter. People who declare publishing alive and well seem ungrounded in economic realities, and people who pronounce it dead seem to be dismissing it from any intellectual, cultural, or monetary potential.

The question is not DEAD OR ALIVE. The question is how to nurse it and nurture it and help it grow. I don't know whether we're nursing it from a new infancy after a digital rebirth or nursing it back to health after sick advances prompted by pressure by shareholders and the burst bubble of the 90s, but it doesn't really matter. Either way we're having a conversation about how to move forward.

Both sides have different senses of urgency. But they admit that a discussion needs to take place. So... let's go. What will we do first?

The End?

Watch out: it's coming.

Apparently new media as a literary apocalypse sells papers. Here are some of this weekend's literary headlines:

The Independent: "Can intelligent literature survive in the digital age?" and "The next chapter: Who'll be the bestsellers of tomorrow?"

The New York Times: "Don’t Buy That Textbook, Download It Free."

New York Magazine: "The End."

I'm feeling a little exasperated by all this negative press. Books are really, really great. No one contests this. There is not some mortal enemy of The Book that's out to get it. Steve Jobs is not out to destroy music. Why would people who choose to spend years of their lives adding digital enhancements to books feel anything but affection for them?

Dear Media, Can we please get a new angle on the future of digital interaction? XOXO, Gossip Girl.

There is a little good word of mouth out there: Try MediaLoper's "Reconsidering the Future of Ebooks," or my personal favorite, "A unified field theory of publishing in the networked era."

All right. I've just started a job in new media, and I know I'm biased. But whenever someone hears I'm interested in eBooks, they take whatever book I'm holding in my hand and say, "But isn't this great? You won't have this on a computer screen." Sometimes they sniff it.

I know the book smells good. I bought it. In fact, I've bought hundreds. Probably thousands. I use them as room decorations and gifts. I line my bedframe and desk with piles of them. I love the way they smell, I love the way they feel, and I love nothing more than looking up a good word I find in one of them. It just so happens that the most convenient and affordable way to look up said word is in the OED online.

So we've reached a stage where we need to think about what technology can do to assist us in our reading. It's not taking books away from us. It's linking us to other books, to dictionaries, to encyclopedias, to Wikipedias, and most importantly, to other readers.

And yes, it's easier to start with textbooks, because students will be progressive and savvy enough to begin interacting with books outside of the classroom. Plus they're not fiction. Everyone gets defensive of fiction. While books hold a certain romance, few people romanticize falling asleep beside their microeconomic books. But because so few of us can rationalize our need for fiction in a concise manner, we speak of it as though it is on the verge of extinction.

If you need to react to threats, try the economy, creationism, or Sarah Palin.

Ebooks are beautiful too. The publishing industry just needs to figure out how to make them pleasurable.

I'm sure no one thought that TV and film would be taken seriously when they began to "threaten" the radio. But don't we look at these things as art forms in our modern era? They're not terrible because we don't understand them.

There are possibilities here, and I'd like readers to discuss them. What do you want from networked books? Besides comment bars, video, audio, and graphics? What can you get from an interactive and social format that you can't get on the page?

You don't have to read this stuff on a screen, especially not with the current eReaders available to you. You can read on paper and interact with the text later, at least to try it out. Do I sound like a mom coaxing you to try a food you're determined to hate? Fine. But we're not getting anywhere in the reading community by resisting change.

Try it. Just a byte. And tell me what you think about it.

Laundry Day at Our Publishing House

There’s something astoundingly pleasant about living below the poverty line, and that is that your laundry never takes long to sort.

I'm starting to get nervous about paying my rent when the program is over.

I’ve been trying to write about the book workshops we’re doing at the CPC, but it’s so up-and-down, it’s impossible to record anything accurately. One minute I’ve chosen the worst imaginable profession and no idea I have is original or marketable, and the next moment our fake publishing house is infallible, and every person in it is someone I want to work with in the future. Today fit into the latter category for the most part, so we won’t talk about yesterday.

My position is co-editor. I’m fond of it. Though the design and production people get to do beautiful visual work and the marketing and publicity people seem happy with their brainstorming meetings, I am happy to stay after everyone leaves each night to make sure everything is precisely in order. I feel better that way. My team is incredible – I can’t tell you how lucky I am to have them. Our CEO is resilient and takes initiative as well as she takes harsh criticism; my co-editor remains calm and sweet in the most disastrous situations and happens to be a positively gorgeous writer; our designer is funny and a great leader, and came up with a fabulous bike book cover today; our business manager keeps us all feeling like a team; our sales manager never runs out of ideas and never looks discouraged if they have to be abandoned; our sub rights manager – a real team player – has written letters that would make me pay twice the retail price for any book he described; our publicist stayed with me until the middle of the night to get everything finished, and happens to be a great source of humor around 11 PM, when we all start to lose it; our production person seems to know the answer to every question we ask, and kindly loaned me laundry detergent this afternoon; our advertising manager has this irresistible energy that seems to pump the whole group up whenever she’s in the room.

We had somewhere between forty and sixty book ideas generated in the first day and a half, and almost none of them made the cut. In fact, the first morning, our entire list was axed. It’s been a stressful time. Somehow we managed to start from square one, and increase our viable ideas exponentially within a single day. This morning we got the good news that we had titles to work with! Immediately thereafter we were grilled in a meeting for details on books we never imagined might make the cut. It was a difficult day.

I’m speaking in such broad terms, but I wouldn’t dare release our ideas to anyone else. Suffice to say that our quirky, independent book company is quite an introduction to the world of publishing.

(That is a picture from the Independent Publishers' Guild. We empathize.)

I’ll leave you with this anecdote: we e-mailed a (real!) author to see if he would write a (pretend!) book for us. We said we would pretend pay him an advance, and pretend publish him. His e-mail response was, “I already get pretend paid by my agent.” He went on to say that in the modern age of identity theft and fraud, he didn’t want to give away his information or book ideas to someone he’d never met to a program he’d never heard of.

Can’t say I blame him. Would’ve been a great book, anyway.

We heard rumor an author at another (pretend) publishing house demanded a bigger (pretend) advance and a larger (pretend) first run. What a ridiculous game this can be.