Sounds fabulous. I’d really like to attend, but it’s pricey and I’ve been caught in the downsizing frenzy.

Welcome back! And I’m looking forward to finding out more about the convention.

Yes, welcome back! It’s been too long. Lovely to read your characteristically upfront and unspun account - I often hear about the more sciencey end of these conferences so your perspective is particularly fresh (and funny)! More, soon, please.

eBooks or paper books, none of them will last forever.

Forgive me Lynne, but here in the cloister I’m not allowed to have a blog of my own. So, I’m using your subject matter (eBooks & the death of the paper book) and your informed blog to escape the silence and rant a little.

Most of today’s paper books are printed on rather inexpensive biodegradable paper using petroleum or soy inks. The bindings are soft and the glue is weak. They’re not made to last even part of a millennium let alone for the millennia. Remember the great libraries of Persia? They disappeared

E-books are no better. If only published electronically what device will they be read on a thousand years from now? What if there is a catastrophic event, natural or man made, and electronic knowledge is wiped from the earth? No hardware, no software, no nothing. Where will the survivors (and there always are some) go to learn.

My professional predecessors (monastic scribes), working alone in their screened carrels within the scriptorium, spent their entire lifetimes copying all of the major works of Western European and Islamic knowledge and (censored) scientific data available to them.

Because of its longer projected lifespan animal skins such as parchment and vellum replaced the less stable (and cheaper) papyrus as the writing medium of choice. Permanent ink was a careful mixture of Oak Gall, copperas and gum Arabic. This combination has lasted amazingly well for over 800 years. And, if your lingua franca includes Medieval Latin there are still tens-of-thousands of pages out there to be read if you can find them. (Think hidden in caves.)

You may want to become (like me) a proponent for putting all important works (sorry, “The Cure for Jet Lag” doesn’t qualify) on more stable substrates than paper, parchment, vellum or digits.

The first man made objects to leave the solar system, the two Pioneer spacecrafts contained a 6” x 9”plaque of gold-anodized aluminum, telling our friends out there who we were. This gold plated approach is far too expensive for this monumental project.

As the informed businessman said to Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) in the 1967 film “The Graduate”, “I just want to say one word to you, just one word- PLASTICS. “

I’m sure that the right plastic (they tell us it will be here forever) properly embossed, would provide the perfect (cheap) material for recording all of our important works. And, all of the world’s accumulated knowledge could probably be accomplished for less than the cost of the war in Iraq. Put it all in a cave and deeply carve directions to the site on various stone outcroppings throughout the world. Then sit back a couple of thousand years and wait.

Books are nice, the Kindle is cute and computers are great, but we need to store our knowledge on something permanent.

Lynne,

Great meeting you in person. My read of the grown-ups at the show (ie, people making a living publishing books) was that all the honor system and business-by-donation speakers left them cold. But I also had an epiphany on filling out the post-conference questionaire and seeing the questions on inspiration. It never crossed my mind that people might take three days out of their lives and go to a publishing conference in hopes of being inspired, but that does sem to be a large part of what O’Reilly is hoping to do with TOC. Maybe it works for employees who are locked up in cubicles all day, not my background so I can’t say.

Morris

The seminar sounded great, and like you said, it’s a good place to network.

Digital books and digital magazines like mine are the wave of the future. The economy has not even bottomed out yet, and cost need to be reduced on every level just for survival’s sake. For example, if I had to do a print version of our 50+ page magazine, I could never afford to do it.

Book publishers are thinking the same thing.

Nothing lasts forever…even burned DVD’s and CD’s have a shelf life. Hey *snort-giggle* even I’m not going to last forever. Thirty years ago the mediums in use were high tech compared to what we had fifty years ago.

Who knows…in fifteen years maybe we’ll be imprinting stuff inside crystals like StarTrek

As a publisher do you stick with just publishing seminars or do you go to book conferences like ThrillerFest at the Grand Hyatt in July?

Yes, tell us more, because you tell the truth so well.

In the 60s, the rebels were shouting for free speech. The Web geniuses like Cory D. are writing code, and most of their products are dedicated to “aggregation” — sucking in and republishing. “Content” is what costs money to produce. The idea is to start a business that sucks in everybody else’s “content.” Luckily, the Web content people, like the NYTimes, for instance, are starting, timidly, to talk in low tones about charging readers to read what they write and publish. As a hopeful Web publisher myself, I’m thinking about it myself. What have I got to lose. The aggregators “promoting” my content by republishing it. What a shame that would be.

Hi Lynne,

I’m thrilled you enjoyed the conference, and even more thrilled you’ve shared your experience with others on your blog. The amount of conversation that spilled out of the conference halls and onto twitter and the wider Web is what inspires us!

The crux of Cory’s keynote from where I was sitting was that publishers should demand the option to sell their works without DRM. For example, we at O’Reilly have years of sales data on dozens of titles demonstrating that neither selling without DRM nor even explicitly posting book content for free negatively affects our print sales (and more often actually improves them). That said, I recognize that’s a choice (as it should be) for each publisher to make on their own — provided the device maker or sales channel gives them that choice.

If you’d like to learn more about what’s behind our perspective on the issue, see Tim O’Reilly’s seminal Piracy is Progressive Taxation.

Thanks again for the feedback, we really do pay attention to it. See you next year!

Great meeting you at TOC!

The ideas around “free content” are far from finalized, and I agree with the huge number of speakers that DRM isn’t the answer to prevent theft– it may actually encourage it. What depresses me is that this theft is considered morally okay because it’s digital– can you imagine (as a colleague once said)– strolling into the local bookstore and taking a book off the shelf and walking out? Of course not– it’s just that the container for the content is “invisible” as digital that this gets excused and generally accepted.

But we cannot rage against the internet storm on this one. I think the answer lies not in DRM, but in pricing the content to match the convenience– very much the iTunes model where buying the content is more convenient than the effort to download free. Sure, the student with more time than money may still make that effort, but they always did– we called it copying tapes or borrowing from friends.

Another comment that got me thinking was Tim O’Reilly’s, the idea of the book as a souvenir. There are a lot of possibilities in that word. I need to think more about how this would work in the academic publishing world.

Cheers!

Oh, dear. Rage against Cory Doctorow all you want, but he’s right: DRM is a problem, not a solution.

First, it *doesn’t* protect you. Any DRM scheme is likely to be cracked about a day after it is released, and your precious material will appear in various illicit areas, ready for the taking. At least, you *hope* so. And why should you do that? Because it means someone cared enough about your stuff to *bother*.

Second, it provides an annoyance for your readers. The more effective the DRM is, the more annoying it will be. Pretty soon, you annoy the reader enough that they don’t buy.

Let’s get serious about the problem. Exactly how much money have you lost to piracy? I’ll bet right now you don’t *know*, and you *can’t* know, because there is no way to tell. If you think you are losing a lot of money to piracy, I’m sorry, but it may be wishful thinking. The vast majority of authors would *like* to be so popular that people will make a point of pirating their books.

Theft will always be with us. The retail trade calls it “shrinkage”, as does what it can to minimize it, but it’s an annoyance, not a disaster.

Instead of draconian measures to prevent theft, you are better advised to concentrate in increasing your *sales*. Provide real value for the money, price appropriately, and make it *as easy as possible* for the reader to give you money. The majority of the market will pay for value. Your challenge is to *provide* value, let the reader know that you exist and have stuff they will want to buy, and provide a simple means for them to do so.

Remember, you are competing for the reader’s discretionary *time*. The time they spend reading a book is time they could be spending doing any number of other things for fun. Your challenge is making reading your books preferable to watching TV, seeing a film, playing a game, or any of the other things people do for recreation.

I fear that the majority of authors who complain about piracy of their works as the reason for low income really need to consider the alternative: maybe they just haven’t written books that enough people want to read.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing(TM): Thanks for stopping by Dennis, and for taking the time to leave a comment. Personally, I have not lost a dime through stolen digital files. Why? Because I don’t intend to expose the entire book online. I did just put up a digital file of the jacket, front matter (testimonials & acknowledgments), and table of contents. We’ll see if that helps increase sales of the print version. I’m not sure 1% of the market is motivation enough for me to throw the entire book up. I do have a PDF ready to sell if and when I get ready. [Dennis is a Linux Adminstrator at The Feed Room.]

[...] Originally posted [...]

At least you had a portfolio!

[...] Vote Mad as Hell and Filled with Night Terror—Investing by Last Book Read [...]

[...] Vote Mad as Hell and Filled with Night Terror—Investing by Last Book Read [...]

The only book reference I can think of that’s remotely germane:

“Every victim was a culprit, every culprit a victim.”

Joseph Heller, Catch 22

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Check out Dave’s new web mag, 3rdActs.com. The target audience is age 50+. Smart people are contributing.

Dear Lynn Scanlon,

Fascinating information.

My books are up in a number of places, certainly Amazon and Google.

Will have to read more closely.

Invest in what you know about. Most people, myself and my wife included, do not know squat about stocks or much about most companies. And, frankly, I am not interested in learning.
So. Invest in what you know about. I’m a professional artist and we have bought a lot of work by others over the years–and traded my work for others’–and the value has held or gone quite a ways up. We know what we’re looking at. I wouldn’t invest in the stock market any more than I’d invest in race horses or breeding cattle. I don’t know anything about it.
My wifes has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars investing in her 401ks etc. It’s all now nearly worthless. A good thing we’ve been acquiring art. Art may go down the tubes, too, but we’ll certainly have enjoyed it more than Nortel or Enron stock.
Art. An investment you can see every day.

Well, there were many people warning about exactly this all through the Reagan years, all through the Republican “Contract with America” years, and all through the Bush years. Too bad the people warning about things were cast into the toxic label of “anti-war” and “libruls.” Uh-huh. The term hook-line-&-sinker comes to mind.

One thing not mentioned, of many, is that Conservative ideology does not have a Middle Class in it. Or democracy or women’s rights either, for that matter. These ideas come from Liberalism, which came from the Enlightenment. Modern day CONservatism is certainly not about conserving–can you name anything?–it is about promoting confidence, as in a (con)fidence game. As in, “I’m confident the media is liberal.”

Ooops.

Funny how so many people still aren’t fully putting it together that they were used by the “Con”servative movement. It was fascism in a different dress, sorry. Red, White & Blue Corporatism. Might Makes Right. Very un-American. It’s difficult to see how it can get better without a change in thinking back to either a traditionally liberal mindset of the populace, ie, We the People, or to something else that actually works to bring a better life to humanity (which has never been found yet, unless the corp-sponsored “Think Tanks” come up with something.)

The reason for my tempered rant (trust me) is that I am a new author, who incidentally writes about history and its lessons, and my experience with the publishing industry is that their working dream is to make books into a commodity. Like potatoes, you know, or Health Care or Education. Everything is to be made into potatoes for the ease of the merchant. Having the author hawk his own wares is a good joke on the sorry bastards, not to mention readers and humanity–but this insanity is never questioned by those with clout, only dictated. Sorry if a talented writer isn’t a talented marketer. Priorities, people: Profit is the god of all now, everything must pay within the short-term confines of a corporate earnings statement, and all human needs and conscience has been monetized or put to the knife.

So many not only watched this, but chuckled knowingly to themselves about the “losers” not getting the joke. Well the punch line has started, with more knockout blows coming.

The solution is to realize that NOT everyone in this world is motivated by making money, and that this is a good thing to be valued and honored, not to be mocked and starved in favor of the merchantly-minded. Instead, the publishing industry consolidated and played corporate games for decades while literacy and readership died. The vaunted gatekeepers kept their smooching lips pursed upwards to the Butts of the Wealthy and sipped at the smothering trickle-down as it flowed over the actual artists trapped below … *hey that was fun to write.*

There is a real purpose and value to publishing, and also a responsibility that has been abdicated. I come to read the Contrarian posts because they often seem to be from someone who saw through the bullcrap and realized authors and indys were the hope for the future, and was willing to kick off the harness and try some new things. If that assessment was true, we have certainly not heard the last of the Publishing Contrarian.

I think you are being irrational for blaming the broker, who did what everyone else did and followed the party line. The Harvard U. trust has lost a huge amount. Everyone , with a few exceptions, was wrong, and there are always some people who are right, through no fault of there own. Jut as there are always people predicting the end of the world and the return of of J. Christ (of biblical fame).

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Sorry, I’m not buying it. I expect more from professionals who accept the responsibility of handling other people’s money and to whom a premium is paid. But, again, maybe it will all turn out just fine once we ride out this “cycle.”

I do not know this as a fact, but I am willing to bet that the all-knowing one, the great Alec Baldwin, also lost a significant amount of money recently. If so, you are in the company of the cognoscenti of the Hamptons.

I’m interested in what this says about the mainstream publishing industry. You found one book a few years ago that made sense to you - and it was self-published. You asked an expert recently if there was a book out there for you and he said he didn’t know of one. A zillion books on the market but not one you can use.

Well, I suspect there may be useful books on the topic, but it’s likely they come from the wretched self-published/POD universe. This means that for promotional tools they only have word of mouth and blog chatter, so even the best get little attention. Consideration of POD books in the mainstream media is pretty much verboten. (Of course, they first feel obligated to plow through all the ‘published’ books, and POD does feature a high rate of crap, but still……)

I now cleverly cite as an example my insider’s look at nuclear power. Mainstream publishers churn out stuff on the topic by the well-connected that is mostly propoganda by one side or the other. I didn’t have those connections when trying to publish, so while my entertaining look at the good and bad of nuclear is on Amazon and also has many positive comments at the website, there’s no buzz on it. Meanwhile, news and commentators continue to cite studies and deep thoughts on the topic by people with no practical experience.

I think you covered some of what this implies about the modern publishing industry in your posting: http://www.thepublishingcontrarian.com/2007/01/10/mystery-entrepreneur-offers-advice-to-independent-bookstore-owners-future-boils-down-to-one-question/

Are you saying that Steve Selengut was your financial adviser, too?

Interesting that you mentioned Neil Ferguson. He was giving a breakfast lecture at the Carnegie Council of Ethics and International Affairs in NYC 2 weeks ago.

Unfortunately I had to leave for a meeting before he finished, but he was rather optimistic. He claims that this country can handle a large deficit - and should, to cure the mess we’re in. He says that we can afford to bail out banks etc. and quoted forgettable percentages, but that the European governments are too small and the debts too large, and they will be in far worse trouble. Job’s comfort, when nothing seems to be working, the banks aren’t lending, and so on, but let’s hope he’s right.

The conventional wisdom used to be that for the long haul equity investments were the best way to grow wealth, but in this recession, who knows. However, today’s NY Times promotes buying into financial companies now.
I’ve lost plenty but am hanging onto my beaten-down stocks.

The only good thing about The National Book Award is that it isn’t the Nobel Prize, which seems to be reserved for politically correct terminuses of one of the major bodily tracts that pertains to items like foie gras and morels.Some of the NBA winners are actually readable.

He’s a Buddhist Priest ya know.

This sounds like a book I want to read. Gonna get it from the library

Where is all the publishing world factoids we depend on? Economics first, heck with the Hamptons.

Clancy

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Clancy (born 1926) is an American novelist and screenwriter. He wrote the screenplay for the 2002 Salma Hayek film Frida.

Cheers, Clancy. Frida would have been a great movie, even without La Salma.

Ah, yes, the Hamptons, where the elite meet. But let’s cut the WW a little slack — you write about what you know.

I say huzzah for Matthiessen’s rewrite. Here’s a writer who lived long enough to get a do-over. We should all be so lucky. In spite of the pre-award strafing this potential winner got from the tight-collars. But now I’ve gotta decide whether to buy three books or one. (Maybe PM was just prescient — going Back2Press with a Depression-proof trilogy.)

In these days when reviewers seem much hipper than the actual writers they review, there was a case below where the reviewer was not quite so, even if he himself was a premier novelist. Here is a gem from John Updike’s speech when Mr. Updike received his second National Book award in 1998:

When I was told of this handsome honor, my mind flicked back to the two other times when I have been so fortunate as to be summoned by the National Book Awards. The first occasion, on March 10, 1964, was immortalized by a young reporter for the now-defunct New York Herald Tribune who signed himself Tom — as distinguished from Thomas — Wolfe. His coverage began with these two paragraphs:

——————————————————————————–
“No sensitive artist in America will ever have to duck the spotlight again. John Updike, the Ipswich, Mass., novelist, did it for them all last night, for all time. Up on the stage in the Grand Ballroom of the New York Hilton Hotel, to receive the most glamorous of the five National Book Awards, the one for fiction, came John Updike, author of The Centaur, in a pair of 19-month-old loafers.

“Halfway to the podium, the spotlight from the balcony hit him, and he could not have ducked better if there had been a man behind it with a rubber truncheon. First he squinted at the light through his owl-eyed eyeglasses. Then he ducked his head and his great thatchy medieval haircut toward his right shoulder. Then he threw up his left shoulder and his left elbow. Then he bent forward at the waist. And then, before the shirred draperies of the Grand Ballroom and an audience of 1,000 culturati, he went into his Sherwin-Williams blush.”

——————————————————————————–

Well, On Canadian television, John Irving was reported to snort when the name. Tom Wolfe came up.
“He can’t write. He can’t **ing write.!

I rest my case.

I was with you during that breathless encounter at the Elaine Benson Gallery and yes, your eyes did light up!
You’ve written a fine tribute to PM.

A question for the experts:

After a long day of writing and editing, I experience a strange set of symptoms — namely, well, I don’t know quite how to describe them…I feel, well, disoriented — I actually don’t know where I am, for long minutes at a time. I try to concentrate on where I am, but can’t. I stress myself so hard trying to recognize my surroundings that, before I know it, I’ve developed a headache. It’s almost as if I’ve passed into another time zone. Can your techniques help me? I’m feeling a little spacey right now.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Check out Dave’s new web mag, 3rdActs.com. The target audience is age 50+. 

This is a genuinely helpful and unique gift idea, congratulations on the new release and here is hoping for great success!

As a newbie to publishing, it has been instructive to watch how you put this book together and launched it … you definitely practice what you preach.

I also want to thank you for the help you gave me with my first book, Lynne. You took on the manuscript, sealed up some holes, and armed me with confidence and a better attitude for success.

And now comes The Demonstration. Again, Congrats!

What about all the hoopla about taking a pill made from PINE BARK EXTRACT, called Pycnogenol, to reduce jet lag? It all sounds just like the hype that surrounded melatonin and jet lag a few years ago. It might be a good idea for journalists to perform some due diligence regarding side effects or "contraindications" of ingesting pine bark extract as a treatment for jet lag before they fill column space with info from a press release. Really! Here are the side effects or contraindications of PINE BARK EXTRACT that no one seems to be talking about, that don't appear on the official Web site, but that can be discovered online if you dig deep enough: PYCNOGENOL, (Commonly misspelled as "PYCONOGENOL") also known as Pinus maritima Mill.; Pinus pinaster Ait. Family: Pinaceae When should I be careful taking it? Individuals who have autoimmune conditions should not take pine bark extract due to its effects on the immune system. Some autoimmune conditions include: • Crohn's disease • Multiple Sclerosis (MS) • Psoriasis • Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) • Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) • Type 1 diabetes Precautions Not enough is known about how pine bark extract affects a developing baby to recommend its use by pregnant women. Breast-feeding women should also avoid taking pine bark extract because it may pass to the baby in breast milk. No studies of pine bark extract have been conducted in young children, so its potential effects for them are unknown. What side effects should I watch for? Few side effects have been reported with the use of pine bark extract. The most frequently reported side effects have been mild gastrointestinal (GI) complaints such as nausea or upset stomach. What interactions should I watch for? Because it can enhance immune system function, pine bark extract may interfere with the effects of drugs used to suppress the immune system after organ transplants or in other conditions. Taking pine bark extract is not recommended for individuals who take drugs such as: • azathioprine (Imuran) • CellCept • cyclosporine (Neoral, Sandimmune) • Prograf • Rapamune • Zenapax Pine bark extract may interfere with the effects of corticosteroid drugs, which are used to treat a variety of inflammatory conditions including arthritis, asthma, cancer, eye conditions, and skin infections. Commonly prescribed corticosteroids include: • beclomethasone • dexamethasone (Decadron) • hydrocortisone • methylprednisolone (Medrol) • prednisolone • prednisone • triamcinolone UL In one laboratory study, the combination of pine bark extract and aspirin reduced the ability of blood platelets to clump together. In theory, pine bark extract could interfere with other drugs, such as clopidogel, that also decrease the stickiness of platelets. Pine bark extract should not be taken orally at the same time as an antiplatelet drug or aspirin. No other interactions have been reported with pine bark extract. However, despite a number of studies that have been conducted in humans, its possible interactions with drugs, foods, and other dietary supplements are not understood completely. WARNING: Individuals who decide to use pine bark extract should discuss its use with a doctor or pharmacist before they begin to use it. Some interactions between herbal products and medications can be more severe than others. The best way for you to avoid harmful interactions is to tell your doctor and/or pharmacist what medications you are currently taking, including any over-the-counter products, vitamins, and herbals. For specific information on how pine bark extract interacts with drugs, other herbals, and foods and the severity of those interactions, please use our Drug Interactions Checker to check for possible interactions. Source: E-Drug Digest The Cure for Jet Lag remains the only comprehensive, drug-free, proven treatment to stop jet lag.

Not quite so silly, but something like that. It has to get the reader’s attention straight off.

Might be the lead that’s the problem with you.

Just as an anti-snag ploy, use the five W’s in your lead, make it smart-alecky—but not too smart alecky–and you’ve got it.

But from bitter experiece, you might have to take maybe five runs at the story once you get past your lead.
And like Li Monroe, who sometimees visits here says. There might be the lucky accident that will reveal, though a kind of twist of writer’s fate, the nub of the story you had to write.
In three words, again and again, and again. ”
…………..

Dave,

As you are well aware, a day of writng and editing can leave you with a sense of vertigo, vulnerability. I think all good writers get that way, especially, since we’re all a little crazy, on a full moon.

Some take about five aspirins if there is no booze; my solution is three quick drinks. If this doesn’t relax you a long walk might. If you have the luck of having a nap after the three drinks, you’ll wake up wondering what that was all about.

All disorientation and anxiety attacks are self-limiting, though it make take a few hours.

And while I might add that drinking is an occupational hazard, it helps. How it helps

Glad to see your picture on the blog and you are still a fox and the years have not slowed you down. I like reading your writings as Tahoe is still a lost world for so many things.

Yes, The Cure for Jet Lag sounds very interesting and I remember a number of years back the Playboy Advisor had a spot about it and your name was mentioned.

Three bedrooms, 2 baths, fireplace, garage, fenced yard and no roommates. Plenty of room for old friends, ex-girlfriends, family and wayward travelers. Life is good with always a cold beer in the frig and nice wine in the rack.

Anytime lady — and any friends you send are welcome.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): So glad to hear from you! Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end! How about a game of Blackjack?

* Gift for your corporate jetsetter: Lynne Scanlon is promoting her book “The Cure for Jet Lag” at her website as the perfect holiday gift. Assuming your C.J. still has a job by Christmas.

Linked up at http://www.planetpeschel.com/

Proof there is still life after one retires as a newspaper book-review editor.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
The future of publishing …
… perhaps? Holiday Panic on Wall Street!
Linked up at Booksinq.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Frank Wilson is a book critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

A Cure for Jetlag sounds perfect for me and a great gift idea for many of my ex-pat friends.
Lynne, thank you for stopping by French Essence today.

Did you guys check out the PubMed article?Yeah it looks like it was bought and
paid for by the makers of pycnogenol.

View the latest press release for THE CURE FOR JET LAG!

GO HERE

I’m so sorry you had to suffer through this. That utterly moronic film clip tells me each minute must have been like getting a tooth pulled. A “jaw dropper film?” Oh, my Contrariness, you’re losing it. Did you get an autographed copy of Valentine Gravellani’s book?

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Actually, Andy, the girl in me who cruised the sale racks in Bloomingdales, Bergdorf Goodman and Saks in New York City every Saturday for years, loved the documentary about Valentino. I’m not much of a fashion maven these days, but the dresses shown in the film are breathtakingly beautiful. His business and life partner of 50 years, Giancarlo Giammetti, is also a fascinating guy. Giancarlo is clearly proud of Valentino, but occasionally seems to feel a bit overlooked and underappreciated by Valentino as he struts around and preens. Interesting dynamic between two incredibly well dressed, stubborn and emotional men.

I can think of few things more frightening than seeing Alec at the door on a moonless night, except for seeing Lawrence Talbot there on a full moon night.

123 films at one festival? How many of them could be any good? It surely is a good thing we have you to report on these HIFFestivities, speaking for myself.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Well, thanks Bob A!

Thanks for another vivid glimpse of life in the Hamptons. It’s like a tonic, out here in the sunny, windy apple-pear-hops-growing Yakima Valley, on the dry side of the Cascades, in Washington State. Closest thing for us is B’way road shows at the historic Capitol Theatre, a recent revival of “Mr. Roberts” at our Warehouse (community) Theatre, rated R — warning us to keep under-13s away, due to salty 1947 language. When we see a stretch limo we know it must be prom night. We’re a world away from Valentinos, or even fishnet stockings and beehives — except at Halloween, coming right up — but I know who Elvis Mitchell is.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Dave has a new, very ambitious Web site called 3rdActs.com — The Search for Intelligent Life After 50. If you are over 50, check it out. Leave some comments. It is not the usual pap served up to baby boomers. 

See, this is why I love your blog. You get to hang out at The Hamptons with all the beautiful, eccentric folk and then report back to us commoners. I am so glad you enjoy this and are willing to share. But, you know, The Curmudgeon nailed it for me: Give me a Rory Calhoun western. I loved Rory. I miss Rory. Having a beer with Rory would have been wonderful. In fact, I raise my glass of happy red in his honor. Oh, and to you, Liz, darling. Salute.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Rory Calhoun? OK, I’ll Google him. Press 53 is a small independent publisher of literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. They have offices in Winston-Salem and Hamptonville, North Carolina, and publish full-length books by both new and established writers.

Hey Glenda Gone Wicked,

I’m still waiting for that follow-up on book covers. If you’ve got time to rub shoulders with Alec Baldwin in the Hamptons, you’ve got time to write that piece;)

The editor I told you about finally called and is recommending my novel for publication. As it turns out, the publisher allows input from their authors on book covers and I’m putting my two cents in for the formal proposal to the publisher. Turns out the publisher is on to the fact that covers sell and designs with selling success in mind.

Hope to hear from you. By the way that documentary To be Read After My Death, sounds absolutely fascinating. It immediately got my imagination stirring with novelistic possibilities. As usual interesting and worth reading.

John Caruso

MUST READ … that’s the kind of film that really gets my attention. Almost like a “found poem” in some respects. Words (or reels) sitting around, waiting to be assembled. It’s also a reminder of the endless paths to creativity. I hope this hits one of the remaining artsy theaters in New Orleans, although that’s doubtful. Do tell if you ever find out more about the Porsche. As for Alec, pretty cool. Carley Simon called me up one year to wish me happy birthday, but that’s about it.

I am sure that Baldwin was impressed by your sighting.

I am going to forward your links to an author that you may want to re-publish.

Where do you now hang your blow dryer? The Hamptons or downtown?

So witty and entertaining, as always. You can be tongue-in-cheek cynical, but your girlish enthusiasm overcomes any tendencies towards jadedness.

Having been peripherally involved in the fashion world for many years, I enjoyed the Valentino commentary and clips. Your best line, “flat of tummy and…. fat of wallet”. A silver-lining comment: perhaps the current leanness of wallets will lead to flatter tummies for many of us. On the other hand, perhaps not. Poverty leads to greater consumption of fattening junk food, and maybe the ATMS will all seize up and choke on undisgorged $100 bills.

Congratulations, Lynne and Dr. Ehret.

There is another lucky way to go.

Google is turning out to be a godsend for relatively unpublished writer.
Google Books by Ivan Prokopchuk.

The Cure for Jet Lag … is the most brilliant niche publishing concept/product I’ve ever seen.

Visitors are coming in from the US, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, France, Spain, Croatia, Russia, Australia, Malaysia, India, Iran, South Africa, Poland, Germany and the UK.

Fabulous! I pray you succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Woman power!

Always interesting to see what is happening in the “Wunnerful World of Publishing” ! *smiling*

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Kat is a writer and freelance editor, and senior editor/senior newsletter editor at Rose & Thorn Literary Ezine. 

$22.95. Is that for a softcover? If so, I think I’ll sleep on it:)

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hi, Peter. Welcome back. Don’t be such a cheapskate! Did you notice the softcover published by Berkley Books oh-so-many-years-ago is selling for twice that much on Amazon after the cheap versions run out? And the old versions are completely outdated unless, of course, you are still flying around the world in your personal Concorde! [Peter lives in California.]

Brilliant!

There are plenty of books that fall into this category, and not just recent ones.

Do you intend to look up authors whose works seem to fit, or take suggestions?

Staghounds

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Thanks, Staghounds, for the viral marketing push. And, sure, if you’ve got some suggestions, absolutely let me know. I’d appreciate it! An awful lot of publishers are republishing old books, but these books are destined to just sit there, gathering dust, waiting to be stumbled upon. No marketing effort, no sales. 

P. S. , For what it’s worth I’ve blogged it and sent it round. So both my readers know about it!

I am thrilled you are doing this, Lynne. I am sick of reading stupid novels. I have found a really good book is such a rare thing these days.

There are so many books being published every year that I cannot possibly scratch the surface of reading them all and I have been hunting in vain for the next Jane Austin or Alexander Dumas. And I’ve given up on finding anyone like P.G. Wodehouse.

When you find them… please let me know!

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: You can read an excerpt from Gina’s book, Running from Shadows at this link. She writes a weekly column for Blogger News Network, opinion pieces on news for Studylight, and book reviews at Upon Reflection.

Lynne,

I love the chutzpah, daring-do, just plain COMMON GOOD SENSE.

Onward and upward!

Russell

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Russell is a Brooklyn, New York based, much-published poet. He completed his first novel, Trompe-l’ oeil, in 2004.

Great. Back2Press is likely to receive an overwhelming and enthusiastic response. It would be a great boon to literary heirs who inherit titles that have gone op since the first or second printings so many years ago. Many literary gems that were classics and are now forgotten can be resurrected. It would be interesting to see the first clutch of titles. The promotion and marketing efforts being suggested are a great shot-in-the arm for indies, for it does away with the biggies who have such a stranglehold on distribution and can ‘precisely’ determine the successs or failure of a book.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Sridhar Balan is a senior consultant with book publisher Ratna Sagar Private Ltd. He had previously been a director with Oxford University Press, India. He is involved in professional training in publishing and also writes a column on publishing in leading newspapers.

I might have read it for the sex. But not another hero who “has not reckoned with the complex personalities of the men he is traveling with nor with the long-buried conflicts within himself that come bubbling to the surface.”

Oh YAWN!

~laughing~
I’m inclined to spell it w.a.n.k.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Bernita is a writer in Ontario, Canada. Her blog,”An Innocent A-Blog—Journal of a Barely Post-Luddite Miranda,” is excellent.

at when gay talese got nekid for his book, he was taking off some well-tailored clothes.

i don’t think that they’re going through male menopause — all of the writers are well-known and financially well-off, and could go the eliot spitzer route on the down low if they chose. i imagine that talese and irving started their work, they didn’t intend to sink as long for as long as they did, but they got sucked into the prurience of it all.

and the “research” angle on kiddie porn was pete townshend’s excuse.

Regarding Pete, I believe that it probably was. His upbringing was chaotic and he’s mentioned before that he’d been molested as a child (an issue which surfaced in “Tommy”.) And he’s never had a rep as a pedophile up until his arrest.

As for the subject matter, I’m more concerned about writers who write novels about writers (and I’m looking at YOU, S. King, although I loved “Ballad of the Flexible Bullet”). That seems the height of laziness and infantile self-absorption.

Wow, thanks for this! I guess I really do have something to look forward to.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Press 53 is a small independent publisher of literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. They have offices in Winston-Salem and Hamptonville, North Carolina, and publish full-length books by both new and established writers.

Well, maybe its spelled, male menapause, maybe plain old prurience, or maybe its something a more than a few of us in our society have forgotten about. Its spelled f.r.e.e. s.p.e.e.c.h. And as long as some subjects are off limits and can’t or “shouldn’t” be written about, you have what amounts to a form of self-censorship. Even if you adopt Lynne’s rather sex phobic interpretation of such research, that these authors are just scratching an itch, its certainly more healthy than a culture where writers are not free to write about such things and be accused of bad motives.

Its not like the market is flooded with stories of the sex trade, as there are say about serial murderers, or narratives about Holocaust survivors, which in their own right might require some grime and prurient research. As always violence is okay but sex, never.

I for one agree with the previous commenter, what is most boring and offensive is novelist’s doing research for a novel about someone doing research, or navel gazing novels about writers.

Loved your review and others review of you.

Didn’t they notice the common thread here: their age and their last book?
Barbara

I do not recall reading any of the books, but I knew Gay Talese and probably read his book.

I think these books are helpful to psychologists, psychiatrists, district attorneys and police who have to deal with these underground groups.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Excellent point. I didn’t even think of that. (Jack is an attorney.)

Very interesting indeed.
Kurt

MEMOIRS BY HIGH-CLASS HOOKERS MAY BE CARTOONISH, BUT NO LESS SO THAN ACCOUNTS THAT CAST PROSTITUTES AS VICTIMS OF RAPACIOUS MALE SEXUALITY. THERE ARE MANY TYPES OF PROSTITUTE, JUST AS THERE ARE MANY REASONS FOR MEN TO VISIT THEM. A GROWN-UP DEBATE ABOUT SEXUALITY MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THIS

Oh, Wicked Witch of Publishing. You’ve done it again.

Haha! That’s hilarious.

It’s almost like a play or something.

Here, when we lampoon our politicians, we’re not subtle.
And our politicans often play themselves.
Merry Christmas, Lynn.

“How to win friends, and influence people.”…LOL…but not playwrights!

Merry Christmas..and remember…Jesus is the Reason For The Season!

… so glad I declined your invitation to join you; it doesn’t sound riveting…….. I wonder if that WAS Mamet sitting alongside you? (Don’t expect any press passes to his future productions if so….) Merry Christmas Wicked Witch! Who are you going to alienate in 2008 I wonder…..?

Lord, please don’t give me another writer noted for “clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue, arcane stylized phrasing, and their exploration of masculinity.” Did they all go to the same school?

I think you missed the point—like reading James Joyce, you have to profess to be wildly entertained by this yawn-provoking claptrap so you can make it through the cheese and wine set Sunday night.

I think the show was just disgusting. I could’ve heard all those dialogues just staying in the subway train for 2 bucks. I was sitting in the orchestra second row, some people around me were falling asleep, others yawning; I did not notice anyone around me laughing. One gentleman behind me said, that at least he got a nice cigar for the night.

Yes indeed, a very happy Christmas to you.
As for the play— would I have fallen asleep I wonder?

I’m always amazed at how great your postings are!
Happy holidays,

If it was Mamet, that would explain why he wasn’t laughing. Lane is a curious choice, but I guess if you can get him for anything on Broadway, you take him.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Well, it was strange that this man was sitting alone, one in from the aisle. Usually, in that situation, people are very pleasant to each other, but not this time. I got the message loud and clear that he did not want to be disturbed.

I started a small-press publishing company about sixteen months ago, and I have yet to make any books returnable through national distribution. It’s madness. Oh, I’ve received the standard lectures “You CAN’T get your books into the big stores!” “No indies will buy your books!” Well, I have books shelved at Hastings, Barnes & Noble and Borders. I have books shelved at independents. What’s wrong with this picture?

Recently, I considered negotiating return policies on an individual basis with independent booksellers, in order to try to make sales more palatable. But even that didn’t meet with success! Because I tried to be very specific about how long the books had to be displayed, not stocked (we know how many people buy a book sitting in the storeroom!) and “only” gave them 120 days to return the books, I got a lot of negative flack from booksellers. I’m really curious about what they want? Total freedom from payment.

Oh, and I recently had a bookstore owner who bought new stock from me on Feb. 10… and notified me she had closed her bookstore at the end of February, and would be returning some books she had in stock. I reminded her of our “No Returns” policy and she still insists. Since she had not paid me for the previous stock, I was sort of stuck. I guess I’d rather get the books back along with a check for less, than to get nothing, but to say it pisses me off is an understatement! Didn’t she know on Feb. 10 that she was closing the store by the end of the month? Bloody poor businesswoman.

I have only published eight titles under my two imprints since starting out, but have plans for at leat five more this year. Accepting returns could be the death of a small press like mine. I have told the authors, “If you are willing to CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATE to be fully responsible for the financial impact of any and all of your books that are returned, I’ll accept returns of your titles all day long.” Funny thing–none of my authors are willing to do so. Wonder why, when a couple of them are fuming about my not accepting returns?

“If nothing changes, nothing changes.”

I’m not sure I understand what, if anything, is really changing–my guess is nothing that hasn’t been changing for well over a year already. I’ve seen at least two Waldenbooks stores close up months ago. And I’m not sure what I’m missing here, but is a “Borders.Com” anything particularly new? For the longest time, it has come up as “Borders.Com Teamed with Amazon.” So they drop the “teamed with” and it’s a big new experience for them beyond the mechanics?

It would be my guess that, in the end, you’re going to see a continuation of the past with Borders, with minimal change in spite of their announcements. There will, I’m sure, be a lot of pomp and circumstance via press releases, but the emperor really won’t be changing clothes at all. And personally, I’m one of those who likes Borders fine just the way they are, at least at the consumer level. The elitist atmosphere of Bahhhnes and Noble is far too rarified for me.

Lynne:

How about the Borders Group folding half of all Waldenbooks stores here and all their UK stores?

Hey, Tony, I feel for ya. I really do. I have a small independent business to run too. A bookstore, in fact. I feel you’re unfairly singling out independents in your reply. I wouldn’t buy enough from any tiny publisher to put them out of business with returns; larger independents could, but they are a tiny minority. You know why your independent customer (and that is a pretty important word) is late with payment? It’s probably because she’s hurting too. It’s a cold cruel game at our size level these days, and if you want to play, you have to take a lot of risk for little prospect of reward. Don’t single me, the indie book store, out as the bad guy.

You want us to buy books non-returnable? (I’m addressing this to any publisher, by the way, not just you.) Fine. First, take the price off the cover. That just means I have to sell it at that price to make any money, while B&N can buy ten thousand and discount it. Let me set the price, based on my market. Second, you’re going to have to give us a lot better discount. And while your returns will vanish, your sales will drop.

Sorry we insist on returnability. But you can bet the big guys (and the big publishers) aren’t about to alter the status quo, and we have to play by their rules too.

So then I get the drift that Borders is not the place to start a relationship, because they are going to go the way of the dinosaur…especially since their coming into the game at the tail end.

I would really like to understand the logic of a man who is supposed to be so wisened! It seems easy enough for even me to understand!

As I have said about this small town - nothing ever lives, nothing ever dies.

Wow, visitors are pouring in from China, Argentina, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Pakistan, the Russian Federation…and for the first time, someone from Alaska! (Welcome!)

Google Finance just picked up the posting, too, and added it to their Blog Posts category in Borders Group, Inc. (Public, NYSE:BGP) AND Barnes & Noble, Inc. (Public, NYSE:BKS). (Thanks!)

Let’s look to the auto industry for inspiration. They don’t make money selling cars and trucks, they make money financing them, until recently at any rate. If the Borders guy came from Saks then he understands that his customer base buys on credit, floats the float, charges more, make the minimum payment. This is a debt driven economy and the book selling model is more of an equity play since the buyer receives a finished product in exchange for cash. We have to figure out a way to put book buyers into debt and then sell that debt to Morgan Stanley.

Booksellers: make your stores look like casinos. If people start browsing have your doormen beat them up.
Publishers: issue credit cards. Try to get new customers in debt before they leave preschool, otherwise brand loyalty is compromised. Remember you’re not selling books, you’re selling Collaterized Debt Oblgations.

Let’s get in the game, for Pete’s sake.

Lemmings! Why do we expect more from an industry that shows very little progress in innovative new ideas.

Dear Bonnie:

One of my favorite quotes:

“An executive is a man who makes decisions and is sometimes right.” - Mark Twain

The wisdom of most corporate executives lies in choosing the right busines school and getting the plum jobs, not in actual management.

How many CEOs have we heard about who leave companies worse off than when they were hired, but said CEO bails out with a golden or platinum parachute. Carly Fiorini (ex-Hewlett Packard comes to mind). Then they hire a pr team and a ghostwriter and pen a memoir depicting themselves as a “visionary.”

It’s difficult for a CEO to get the [truth] from anyone in a company when the bottom is falling out. That may be why Mr. Jones brought in men he had worked with in the past. Probably a smart move.

You tell ‘em, Lynne. Remember what Einstein said: The definition of insanity…doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Here’s an innovative idea. Why don’t the publishers start publishing good books for a change? And perhaps fewer books for a change.

The real problem is the consumer must wade through the molasses of mediocre books to find anything worth reading all the way through.

In the past two months, the three books in which I turned every single page and studied each one were a book of Carl Husling’s paintings and two books of photographs by a Mississippian named Kenneth Morgan. The rest of the 10 books stacked by my bed to read (and review) were wash outs. Two held my attention about half way through. One of those was a sequel and it was much better than the first book, which tells me there was no need for the first book. The others were flimsey and predictable.

I want something gooooooood for a change without foul language or explicit sex, please and thank you. If the industry would churn a few of those out, there wouldn’t be a need for a “return policy”, nor would indies sit on the edge of their seat, biting their nails at every customer who waddles down the aisles of their store.

Lynne, I admire your passion about this.

Mr. Jones, here’s a piece of good advice. Hire Lynne to be your idea person and then actually listen and execute. Your stockholders will thank you.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hi, Gina! Welcome back. Funny you should suggest to Mr. Jones that he hire me! Someone wrote into Publishers Weekly and suggested the same thing about eight months ago when PW covered Jones’ hire. I actually cheekily sent Gregory Josefowicz, former Borders ceo, an email in 2005 that was filled with great ideas for Borders. This past January I sent an email to George L. Jones, too. (This is how I often get consulting work. Actually, this is how I wound up at B&N Publishing Group in 2005.) The response from George L. Jones: “Good Morning: We do not have any senior level positions open at this time and I don’t anticipate any openings in the near future.”  Ok. They’ll just have to fend for themselves!  

This is the first post of yours I’ve read where I thought you really had something original to say. I’m not sure you’re right, but this is a darned good post!

Well, hello Mr Jones and goodbye Mr Jones. he too has fallen for the old trick of thinking there is more money to be made as a publisher than as a bookseller.

The challenge for Mr Jones was to get the Borders act together and put up a viable model for retailing.

He should have demonstrated to publishers what Borders could have done for them and signed up exclusive deals. Publishing under the Borders imprint won’t work. For one thing, in trade publishing out of 10, 3 bomb in the market and to get the viable 3, you have to publish a 100! What a pity. The Borders offtake could have made significant changes in publishers’ print-runs and Borders could have made the difference in retail, in terms of range and selection, as opposed to the Wal-Marts and Costcos of the world.

Now, I might understand Borders’s publishing thingie if its focus weren’t going to be first fiction, basically the worst game to be playing profit-wise. It seems they want to solicit novels from screenwriters, apparently operating under the delusion that people have heard of screenwriters or some such.

What it underlines is that nobody understands the book business from top to bottom, and the more you try to do, the thinner you’re spreading yourself. I mean, that’s true when a publisher’s marketing department is the same as the sales department, but when a bookseller tries to be a publisher too… yeesh.

And on the returnability issue, as Frazer says, it’s in the “big boys’” court; it’ll end when S&S, Holzbrinck, Random House, Penguin, Harper, and Houghton Mifflin say it does. But I wouldn’t go so far to say they “aren’t about to alter the status quo.” Maybe they aren’t RIGHT about to, but from what I’ve seen the gears are turning. They aren’t turning very fast, but 200 (or in this case more like 60) years of slavery aren’t gonna disappear in the blink of an eye.

Lynne,

(Yet) a(nother) sign of the times?

Russell

WW:

As friends of Bill might say, “A definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and each time expect a different result.”

So many of the big publishers and book retailers play the same songs as the band on the Titanic, and no one is busy bailing. Even better would see that the iceberg of purely electronic publishing and distribution is getting closer and steer a smarter course while one can. I’ve been in some seemingly well-run Borders shops and I have nothing against the chain, but I don’t see what its new site will do that will lure me away from the “tradition” of Amazon.com.

By the way, Sterling was my first employer in book publishing. I started there on December 11, 1978 (when I was, ahem, 12) as a proofreader for the Guinness Book of World Records, which it published in the U.S. then. My desk was scorched, and I was told that I inherited it from someone named Rita Mae Brown, who had set fire to it and quit. It wasn’t long before I was collecting matchbooks myself.

What happened with Gregory Josefowicz, the former ceo?

How was this mess allowed to happen on his watch? Where is he today? Did he take the money and run?

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: From Forbes.com: Gregory P. Josefowicz, age 53, has been a Director of PetSmart since December 2004. Since 1999, Mr. Josefowicz served as a Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Borders Group, Inc., and in 2002 he was also named Chairman of the Board. Mr. Josefowicz serves on the board of Ryerson Tull, Inc.

I’d like to echo Frazer’s comments. Small presses aren’t going to get rich off independents anymore, but we won’t bury you in returns either. Independents sell books, chains display them.
I too, insist on returnability, but I also keep inventory under control.
At sixty percent discount, a small press would never see another return from me. Not gobs of sales, but no returns.

I’m a Corporate and Educational Sales Rep at Borders. We were told a month ago that our jobs were being eliminated nationwide. I was offered a lower paying job back on the sales floor, which I declined. I was told my last day would be May 10th. But my boss has been vague about this. Now I’ve been offered a part time job and I don’t know if I can leave my Borders job to take it without losing my unemployment benefits entirely. My boss wants me to sign a voluntary letter of resignation. What should I do?

Let me add this off-topic shout out to Seattle’s Best Coffee. Here, here!

Borders does not have to fail. Stop trying to gouge the customer. Selling three year old DVD’s for $14.99 when the same at Walmart or Target sell for $9.00 or $10.00 bucks won’t bring the customers in. The same with CD’s.

Walmart is not a pleasant shopping experience but when you can save the price of a couple of gallons of gas by enduring the Walmart “experience” it makes sense to shop at Walmart. Borders should exploit this flaw in Walmart and go after the quantity it sells because the shopping experience at Borders is 1000% better than Walmart.

I won’t shop at Borders anymore because they basically screwed the customers when then replaced Borders Rewards with Borders Bucks.

Big Corporations have to realize that just because the CEO is making millions does not mean he has more common sense than the average Joe pulling in $20,000 a year. These are the common folks that usually bring these companies to their knees when they realize they are being taken advantage of or taken for granted.

Price, Quality, Inventory, Courtesy!!!!!! Borders has the last three nailed but if the price is to high the last three really don’t matter do they? If I want to buy the Godfather on DVD I’m going to Walmart and buying it for around $9.44. Borders would be around $14.99. For the difference I can pick up an extra item for $5.00. Sorry but 5 bucks is 5 bucks.

Picked up from Bookseller Chick’s blog …

“First off, for those of you who live in the greater Oregon area and would like some cheap books, the Clackamas Town Center Borders Express is being closed as part of Borders 200 store closing initiative. As of Friday all of their stock will go to 40% off.

Now, I can tell you from experience (and the fact that I had a long talk with the manager) that it will go no lower than this, but 40% is a damn good deal. They have a lot of stock left and it looks like they were still receiving shipments up until last week. Here’s a chance to go pick up some new books (or old books that you really wanted to read) at a very deep discount, so go spend your money.”

To Corporate Sales Rep
What is the reason they have given for eliminating Corporate & Education Sales Rep jobs at Borders? Is this being applied Nationally? Or are they just basing you back in stores, but you will be doing a similar role?

What is happening to the other Corporate Sales Reps? What state are you in?

All the Corporate Sales Reps lost their jobs nationwide. I was told that in our Region most employees took other jobs at their stores. The work done by Corporate Sales Reps is being taken over by the booksellers and inventory processing team. But my guess is that most of the work will still be handled by the same person, who is now in a lower paying job at the same store, with no commision. We used to get a $100 bonus for each month we exceeded the planned sales set by the organization. I don’t want to say what state I’m in, since I’m still trying to get unemployment from my store. I think this is like Circuit City firing lots of people and then letting them reapply for their jobs 10 weeks later at lower salaries. Most Corporate Sales Reps will take the lower paying jobs, and do most of the same work they used to do. After all, corporate purchasers much prefer to work with one dedicated employee who knows them and their needs. Now Borders is hiring salaried employees to oversee large corporate sales for several stores. Our store isn’t even adding one staff member to the sales floor or inventory processing team to replace me. The current staff are expected to absorb my work along with their own.

Thank you for your reply Corporate Sales Rep. It sounds like Borders is restructing and cost cutting and eliminating field sales reps. What will happen to the field sales manager then? Is the Corporate Sales division of the business a profitable one which brings in a lot of clients?

I can’t imagine that you will have trouble finding another field sales role, especially if you have been making plan successfully each month. I wish you luck and really would like to hear further on how your negotiations go with the organisation.

Hi fellow Borders Corporate Sales person. To your first question, consult a labor specialist, but since they are eliminating the position, signing a voluntary resignation letter may disqualify you from unemployment. I believe you need to be involuntarily laid off to qualify for unemployment. If you don’t want the in store position, do some research, but I would hesitate to sign the letter.

To interested person, the exact structure is still under wraps I believe, so I won’t be too explicit. However, do to sales volumes everywhere, the corporate sales program still exists but is being collected into fewer sales persons in each market. Corporate Sales rep is right however, the shipping and receiving tasks will be absorbed by the inventory team. Certain stores with high enough volume may still retain a dedicated staff person.

The Corporate Sales division is profitable, and does bring in business, unfortunately for us, the distribution does not reflect the cost. Hence smaller numbers of salespersons per market.

I second the best of luck, I’m not quite sure where all these jobs are that the drop in unemployment reflects.

I love Borders, even before I started working there. I know that the Rewards program has been fluctuating, but I have to note that a free program can’t screw anyone over. I miss some of the earlier features, but as my paycheck is based on how much money we don’t loose, I can’t say I miss them too much. The whole industry, as previously stated, is reacting rather than planning.

My disappearing role is based on trying to get the best price for customers on each book they buy. It’s damn hard. The publishers undercut us on a lot of non-commercial product. As an aspiring author, I certainly hope that this improves in the future. It’s just unfortunate that Borders is not as foresighted as we might hope. Above all, I believe in supporting retail, even if it means saving $5.00. I try not to use online unless I have to, or unless the product is entirely online. My food has more often than not come from people willing to spend that extra $5.00, and I appreciate it.

Finally to the Wicked Witch, that was an awesome article.

Do you have George Jone’s email? I have a few things to say to him myself!

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Actually…I do have his email address!

It seems so obvious that only writers able to market their product will get that product to market.

What about the great writers who can “only” write?

Lynne,

I don’t doubt you can kick down some doors, much more efficient use of one’s energy than running the traditional publishing marathon. I once had a boss who said, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’ hard enough.” The moral threshold is always moving. Steroids? Oral sex? Doorbusting isn’t cheating. It’s the new roadwork for the human race.

After years of the seemingly never-ending uphill treadmill, I jumped off and took a different bus (as a non-New Yorker the only subways I know are sandwiches) to a regional publisher and struck an ‘out of the ordinary’ deal–sort of a hybrid between published and self-published.

If I had to do it over, I would have first struck some deals with liquor companies for product placement in my memoir, to subsidize its costs. Subsequent to publishing I have worked toward creating my own brand and have trademarked a few drinking-related items, including the phrase Will Dance For Margaritas. I now have a sponsor, Twang Margarita Salt.

In my next book, not only will I have authentic product placement, I will also sell ads for the back pages. Honorable? Writing is both an art and an ultra-competitive business. Shameless marketing? Forgive me for being new-fashioned.

Wickedly Yours,
DC

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: The real crime in all this is that DC’s book is terrific and warrants much more exposure than it is getting. What idiots turned this book down? I know, I know, I don’t review books and I’m not doing so here, though I did add my comments to Amazon.com because I couldn’t get over how surprised I was to like the book so much. I read the book over the course of three evenings and then quickly passed it on to a friend of mine. She LOVES the book. And the book is not all yucks by any means.  

Heaven forbid if the above should be V.S. Naipaul, the great and formidable
Trinidadian writer! Heh.

Ivan

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Ivan is Canadian. He has written and self-published four novels using the Island Grove Press imprint. He has been the recipient of an Ontario Arts Council grant. 

I’m listening. Look at my Web site. All I need now is a finished product. Of course, first I have to finish my radio adaptation in time for the BBC radio play competition deadline. In the meantime, any of your jaded agent friends are welcome to approach me to join my First Look Sweepstakes.

Writers should relax. I wish they’d relax and have some fun.

In a world of 6.5 billion people, few are going to extend too awfully far beyond their home towns and circle of friends and associates and a small audience beyond that, whether self-published or picked up by someone who claims to be a “traditional publisher,” whatever that is, these days. We impact the part of the world we can. And even those who hit the “traditional publisher” get a limited run—and then vanish.

I saw one estimate that, worldwide, 600,000 books are published each year. Yet “Everyone is reading the same 20 books,” Paul Slovak, associate publisher of Viking, once complained.

Do what you can. Enjoy it. Self-publish and do some creative marketing on your own if “breaking down doors” doesn’t appeal to you. Life is short—and is your writing really worth breaking down doors? I didn’t think so.

“…the writer purrs, “I start with a large glass of The Glenlivet.” Oh yeah, right. And he wears a beret and sits at a cafe jotting notes on the human condition. Gimme a break.

I see the publishing industry from a different market perspective. As opposed to the ABA, I see it from the CBA (Christian Book Assoc.) side, which alleviates those kind of competitive numbers.

The CBA has grown to a 6 billion dollar a year business, and competition is fierce, but nowhere near as fierce as it is in the ABA.

While I don’t see product placement in the CBA like there is in the ABA, (*snort* I could see the Chivas going over like a lead balloon)I have seen creative marketing like Brandilyn Collins is doing with the Scenes and Beans character blog for her fictional Kanner Lake book series.

We also have creative marketing strategies like the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance that I direct. We literally reach thousands of people a week with our book tours, and get our books weekly placement on Technorati’s poplular book list.

I feel that thinking outside of the proverbial box is the key, and you are only limited by your imagination. Although I don’t think that the, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’ hard enough…” philosophy works for us

I have to agree with V.S., most writers don’t know how to market themselves and some writers don’t even want to! The latter are still stuck in the mindset “I don’t write for money, I write for the love of writing” blah, blah, blah. C’mon, if we writers really aren’t concerned if anyone reads our stories then we would be content with a drawer full of manuscripts.

Therefore, for writers who want readers, I agree Lynne; door busting is the way to go. Thank you for highlighting what other authors are doing. Some self-published authors here in Chicago have received grants from the large corporations to subsidize their publishing efforts. This is the first time I’ve seen an author collaborate with an advertiser. Impressive.

Mel 

Publishers at one time always advertised other series and other authors at the back of books, both hardcovers and paperbacks.
Associated or story related products might not be a stretch.

Publishing and marketing is easy, Glenlivet-drunk composing, difficult. How can we drink on the job?

What evidence do you have that Warner approached Glenlivet with this idea? I suspect that this was all after the fact of his novel’s publication.

I’d like to see someone with no agent or publisher approach the head of marketing with a tie-in conceptand succeed. If they could even get them on the phone, the first question they’d be asked would be, “Who is your publisher?”

Then you answer, “Well, I don’t have one yet…”

“Well, what’s in it for our company to be associated with you book?”

“Well, I uh, er, well, that is, I think that …”

CLICK! Dial tone time.

This strikes me as a desperate last chance tactic, not a place to start from. Further, most writers fiction or nonfiction probably doesn’t even contain elements that would be amenable to a tie in.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hi, Peter. You are right: in all probability the publicist or special sales person associated with the publishing house struck the deal, though the contract would have, ideally, been signed about three to six months before pub date, when the ARCS were going out. I disagree with you completely, however, when you say an author could not get past “go” with the head of marketing. Yes, the author has to have his or her “pitch” down and be able to articulate what’s in it for the other guy—because that’s what it is all about, believe me! Email subject line: ”Glenlivet Promotes Scotch with Scottish Author.” If I were a Scottish author I could fire off that email to Glenlivet (or one of Glenlivet’s competitors), and if I were a Bahamian author, I could send the SAME email to the head of marketing for Bacardi’s rum, and the text of my email would be read. Of course, I would have embedded The Glenlivet ad. No, elements of the content of the book do not have to be a direct tie-in to the company.

Peter does have a valid point. This is young Warner’s fifth novel, and I’m not sure this strategy would have gotten off first base had it been his first with no publisher. Probably impossible even if he’d been a previously unknown writer with a publisher.

I think a writer is far better off to try and establish a local connection (with a point of interest that they can market themselves) than to try and put a Rambo character into it and trying to sell it as Humvee ad potential. Mr. Warner had a big jump with his established reputation and I suspect this was merely added income for him.

Visitors are dropping by The Publishing Contrarian in record numbers from 55 countries!!!

From the UK: London, South Kyme, Halifax, Manchester, Gateshead, Reading, Kingston Upon Hull, Sidcup, Cramond + …

From Canada: Toronto, Kingston, London, Ottawa, Montreal, Leaside, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Burlington, Greenfield Park, Richmond, Beloeil, Caughnawaga + …

From Israel: Tel Aviv-Yafo, Kefar Shemaryahn

From Brazil: Sao Paulo, Diadema, Sao Jose Do Rio Preto, Belo Horizonte, Sao Jose Dos Campos, Anapolis + …

From Poland: Poznan, Krakow, Warszawa, Czestochowa

From Norway: Oslo, Bergen

Monico, Nigeria, Mexico +++ ….

Lynne, You are provocative as always. I do think we’re tangled in a virtual Absurdistan when it comes to marketing writing through the traditional agent to publisher method aka the Rythym Method in which no one seems to understand how babies are conceived and what do with them after they arrive. 200,000 babies! 600,000 babies. The obvious midstream opportunity here is waste management or the renewable disposable diaper with author photo.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: David Thayer is a book reviewer for January Magazine and The Philadelphia Inquirer.  

WW:

What constantly astonishes me is not so much who doesn’t find a way to get published as what books do get published by established houses. I look in PW and NYT Book Review and elsewhere and see titles that only the author’s mother might read yet they are being spewed out there like millions of sperms cells in the seemingly desperate hope by publishers that a few will “get through” to a wide-enough audience to allow for a successful, popular pregnancy and a best-seller will be spawned. The decision-making by editors continues to puzzle me.

Small advances could mean that many of these books ultimately don’t lose money or at least nothing catastrophic financially occurs, but doesn’t the industry as a whole realize it’s choking on its own self-gratification as groaning book shelves can’t take one more onslaught? The industry, ironically, is forcing [so many books] on consumers that only the storage capacity of the internet is up to the task of keeping track of it all and offering some sensible selection. How many more biographies of Lincoln do we need?

The galloping horse is out of the barn and determining where the carriage goes, and publishers frantically try to keep grasp of the reins. They should be good Catholics and practice restraint or go blind.

But no visitors from Omaha?

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hi, Andy. Since you asked! According to Google Analytics, 46-states, including Alaska and Hawaii, are represented in the traffic. Nebraska? Yes, Omaha, Fullerton and Lincoln! And I just discovered part of the source of the traffic—a link from RealityCarnival.com, “News that shatters the ice of our unconsciousness!” to The Publishing Contrarian. Wow, what a different and terrific Web site.

Lynne:

BTW, Rose Ruiz’s “success” was very short lived. Ultimately, it was a spectacular failure. She’s certainly not a good example of a clever, valid shortcut.

I liked the Marathon analogy and the Verazzano Bridge start photo - blow-up to 200,000 authors with laptops?

Too many voices crying in the wilderness, but the consensus seems to be that those who are heard will be the strong, self-marketers and the already established blockbuster writers - add Jeffrey Archer to the list, proving that potboilers can be page-turners. And yet, you and I and everyone knows that occasionally a quiet, small, serendipitous voice rises like cream to the surface, e.g. Lady Ranfurly’s memoirs!

Keep up the good work.

My first book was traditionally published. Billy the Butcher MacDougall’s Guide to Pirate Parenting: Why you should raise your kids as pirates and 101 ways how to do it, is my second book.

I wrote a book proposal for Guide to Pirate Parenting, and think I could have sold it to a traditional publisher. I was getting good feedback on the proposal. The problem was I wanted to launch Guide to Pirate Parenting before the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, came out on May 25, 2007. I realized that wouldn’t be possible using a traditional publisher. The publishing process was going to take way too long.

So I wrote the manuscript and had printed copies of the book in less than three months, using Cold Tree Press, a POD company. I did most of the publicity for my first book and figured I’d have to do the same with my second, regardless of whether it was traditionally or self-published. And my royalty rate is a lot higher, too.

I have nothing against getting a good traditional publishing contract, if you can, but don’t believe it’s going to happen for most authors.

Tim

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Tim’s parenting advice has been published in dozens of newspapers, magazines and Web sites, including the Christian Science Monitor, Atlanta Parent, Big Apple Northwest Family, FathersWorld.com and ParentingHumor.com. His first book, In the Beginning…There Were No Diapers, was a 2006 Foreword Best Book of the Year finalist. Tim is also the director of the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop. Tim’s “Anatomy of a First Book”: http://www.timbete.com/FirstBook.html. .

In the past 6 months I’ve had rejects from agents, most say: “I love this book, but don’t think if can sell it.” My intention was to donate all royalities to help in the rebuilding the public libraries of New Orleans. The book is the first in The New Orleans Trilogy - The Beatitudes -Traditional publishing will take too long. What do you think about my going with IUniverse and making sure all royalities (20%) go directly to the library system (www.nutrias.org for photos of the destruction) and I can be assured of distribution and availability on many book selling sites like amazon, etc. I will go on tour, and I already have support from many great authors on my blog -www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com. I grew up in New Orleans and my area (not far from Fats’ house) is now gone - it was near the levee. Thanks
Lyn LeJeune

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hi, Lyn. Just because proceeds from a book are going to charitable organizations doesn’t mean anyone will buy the book. Why exactly do the literary agents and editors whom you’ve approached feel they cannot sell the book, even though they loved it. That’s the kind of comment you need to address BEFORE you approach another literary agent or editor and hear the same thing.

Lynne:

Having published our first book to moderate success, we highly enjoy your often controversial posts, and have subsequently nominated you a Thinking Blog.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Well, thanks!!! 

Hi Lynne,

Two days ago I learned that the Picton Castle, the ship central to my narrative nonfiction adventure, Fair Wind and Plenty of It, is currently the set of a major new CBS reality show, called Pirate Master.

http://www.cbs.com/innertube/player.php?cat=135999&vid=136003&format=&auto=1

How do I make the most of this opportunity when the publisher’s publicity departments seem reluctant to return calls? It’s an older book (2 years) but it actually still sells in niche markets. Most West Marine stores carry it, for instance.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Rigel, your publisher needs to rejacket your book right now and include references to this show. It’s only been two days so give it a week, then call again. You have to give the people in the pub house time to meet and get organized. They should contact the reality show. If Fair Wind & Plenty of It is publicizing a TV show on the book jacket, there may be some co-op advertising money to be had. (There should be!) Keep me posted. Loved your book, Matey!!!

I’ve already taken step one… the website, which a computer genius friend helped me set up. I’ve given a year towards getting the traditional publishing set-up, but from your post I can see the odds-against very clearly. I’m resigned to going POD with it in the fall and market it myself, since my enthusiasm for the book (and the enthusiasm of some fans who have read the manuscript) far outstrips that of the three agents who have seen it.(And turned it down) I can see doing the same with the next book, too (I do historical novels)… and marketing it to a couple of local museum bookshops.

What kills me about the genre stuff that does get published is how dreadful much of it is! I couldn’t read past the first chapter of a recent big-name blockbuster because I kept running into sentances that sounded like entries in the Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing contest.

OTO, there’s home for me… if they could make it big with that kind of dreckage… then there is still hope for me!

The best and perhaps only defense is writing positive amazon customer reviews for books we love, especially if they are the work of first time authors, or were put out by small publishers.

Reviews are a necessary evil, but good lord, every time I get a bad one, even if it’s from someone named Grandma Reader who gave five stars to the Twinkle Twinkle Little Musical Mobile, and but one to my second book, complaining that there was no option to give me less, my Wheaties have been peed in for the whole damn day.

Sometimes I take the loose cannon approach, but only when I have lots of time to craft a response, so that perhaps some of those who hear my thunder will recognize that cannonball as the proud defense of a wounded but mighty warrior, rather than a peevish and sour grape.

My next loose cannonball may take the form of a one person show… or perhaps a You Tube film. Or maybe I’ll just use that time writing another book for someone who hasn’t written a book to bash around Amazon.

It’s all a bracing reminder to resist the labels others smack on us, and to keep our noses to the grindstone until they’re ground into a shape that pleases our own badselves.

The ideal would be to find a reviewer whose tastes and inclinations match your own. Alas, for me, that person either does not exist, or has not yet been found by me. I regularly read the reviews in the NYT, The Guardian, WaPo, and the London Times. The variations in the reviews of the same book can be daunting, although sometimes one will find unanimity.

Another method is to follow the awards. For years I enjoyed almost all the books shortlisted for the Booker Prize. That has not been the case in the past few years. Other awards such as the NBA, NBCC, Whitbread (now Costa), Orange, seem to me to be equally inconsistent. And some, like the Pulitzer and Nobel, seem to have more to do with political than literary merit. So much is subjective and there are some very acclaimed authors whom I find difficult to read and enjoy, while other less esteemed authors are very enjoyable to me.

However, in some other areas I have been able to find critics/reviewers whose taste conincides with mine. Michael Jackson (not the one-gloved child molester) in beer and whiskey, and Steve Jenkins in cheeses. Other reviewers of beer and cheese do not seem to have the same tastes that I have.

Odd. Updike is quoted as once saying, “Critics are like pigs at the pastry cart.”

Not being in the intellectual elite, or the literary elite, or any elite for that matter, far be it for me to understand what motivates critics. I think Her Wickedness is right on track to suggest that advertising dollars and cronyism play a huge role. I love hearing success stories and glowing reviews only to find, upon examination, that full-page spreads and greased palms probably had more to do with it than serendipity and talent.

And of course there are always those delightful little gremlins of jealousy, cynicism and competition that can turn the best of friends into the most delightful enemies.

Her Wickedness is most passionate on this one—you go, me lady!

A little twist on The Bard’s ”The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Such a clever witch.

As far as I can tell, Wickett is doing it for the love of literature–he’s a tireless supporter of so-called emerging writers. His Emerging Writers Network provides valuable info about new writers who would otherwise be well-under the book biz radar. As does the Lit Blog Co Op, of which he is a member.

Every book I’ve ever reviewed for the LA Times has gotten at least two readings, a zillion pages of notes, and multiple drafts. Maybe that’s why I don’t review books for a living.

Then again, I’ve seen plenty o’ inaccurate and/or totally wacko reviews of late, too…

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Antoine’s new novel is The Interloper: A Novel. Check out his site and you will see his short stories have appeared in A Public Space, The Paris Review, Blue Mesa Review, Gutcult….

I like Joe Queenan; I think he is almost as funny as George W. Bush.

*she ducks* Yikes…I’m a book reviewer…LOL…never fear, I only do Christian fiction. And because I’m the organization director, I never actually review the books, I give an introduction.

I do find that it is very hard to give a review of a book that is not in the genre that I enjoy. LOL…I’m an action, adventure kinda person and most of the books we do are womens fiction *snore*.

It is easy to see why “Paid” reviewers sometimes trash books, because even when they’re well written it gets tedious to read something that I have no interest in. And let’s not even talk about something that would complete with your own novel. There aughta be a law against conflict of interest like that!

Thank goodness I don’t get paid to do reviews!

Wicked, you’re wicked.

Cronyism also is reflected in some blog reviews, in a scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours form, and BIG discussions in romance forums on not dissing the genre, other authors, etc.

Think I have reviewed only one book from an ARC, but for the life of me I can’t see anything unusual about reading and reviewing 95 books in a year. People have different reading speeds - and fast readers do not automatically absorb less of a narrative.

Furthermore, he’s giving an opinion, an impression, not a thesis.

I’ve written very few reviews myself, but I agree with Ayun that if we like a book, we should say something on Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s Web site. Here’s a review I wrote spontaneously after reading blogger pal DC Stanfa’s book, The Art of Table Dancing–Escapades of an Irreverent Woman, which she sent to me unsolicited as a gift, not an ARC:

If You Read “Rambler” and Think “Car,” this Book is for You!

April 7, 2007
Yes, this book is very, very funny, but it is also poignant. The Art of Table Dancing is not just a shallow, frothy, beach-read about the madcap adventures of DC Stanfa, man-crazy, liquor-swilling, table-dancing, Ohio-girl gone wild. It’s about DC Stanfa–daughter, friend, wife, mom, Catholic. Stanfa has a uncanny ability to see the humor (sometimes knee-slappingly funny and sometimes achingly sad) in almost every situation, but it is her life journey that holds the reader’s interest from the book’s “Dedication” to the very last page. The Art of Table Dancing is a very brave book.

Very well said, Lynne.

Recently, I was in a bookstore with a friend who was being slow about picking out a book. In my impatience, I plopped myself down on a step stool at the end of the career aisle and happened on 100 Bullshit Jobs …And How to Get Them. Of course, the list includes The Critic. According to the author, the job involves little actual work and requires no qualifications other than coherent writing, an overly inflated sense of self, and the desire to make one’s opinion known.

Before buying a book, I tend to scan reviews to quickly determine if the story is something I’d want to read. What the reviewer liked or didn’t like or knows about the subject is inconsequential to my decision to purchase. However, I do often go back and more thoroughly read reviews after finishing a book, especially when I hated it. My curiosity for a critic’s opinion at this stage comes from a desire to know if I missed the point in what I just read. Unfortunately, I too often discover that the critic either didn’t actually read the book or used the review to show off how much s/he knows about literature.

My publicist was recently talking with a book reviewer about one of her other client’s new books. Somehow my book came up in conversation. The book reviewer said he’d written a review for a local magazine last year, when in fact there was no coverage in the magazine.

Good review, bad review, or imaginary review—I say kill all the critics, except my cronies.

Lynne, thanks for the excellent Amazon review. Long live the Wicked Witch!

DC

I’ve read some truly fawning book reviews that make it transparently obvious there’s a reciprocal “crique arrangement” going on between two authors. Other instances (as described above) reveal the not-so-hidden agendas of publishing rivals. The key is to know and trust the source, just as you said.

[…] Lynne Scanlon invokes an infamous line from Henry VI in her appraisal of book reviewing. […]

I’m a book reviewer, too, but would not review a book I hadn’t read, cover to cover.

I do buy books based on reviewer recommendations, usually a small select few crime-fiction reader blogs that I trust, or the Times weekly book supplement, or Amazon recommendations. I also buy books based on browsing in bookshops, and found via the unwanted review copy shelves of the journal for which I work, and at our owner publishing company book sales. I’m not proud!

If I find a reviewer I like and whose taste seems to match mine, all to the good. I don’t think blurbs are a bad thing, necessarily, either. Once you are a reader of certain genres, you get pretty good at seeing a blurb for what it is — useful or useless.

I do agree, Lynne, that some reviewers are worse than useless because you feel that they have not read the book or put any of their personal judgement into it. Actually, quite a few Amazon reviews are like that (publisher blurbs or interested parties, in disguise).

There is no generally reliable source, the reader just has to cherry pick the sources of advice and information that suit his or her reading habits, I guess.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Maxine Clarke is a mega-blogger. She authors seven blogs, mostly about her love of books, publishing, and the writing world. Petrona is her personal blog, which shares the life and thoughts of a mother of two living in the South of England. Maxine has been a science journal editor for most of her working life.

I’ve done my share of reviews, but having not received a single penny, I’d say you could trust my opinions were my own.

And hey—you know what I like best about writing reviews?

Spoutin’ off my opinion! Ooo! I feel so important! So smart! ;-D (But I admit, if I don’t like a book, I don’t review it. I suppose I’m suffering from a hard case of nice-itis.) ;-D

And I definitely review what I know best–kid’s and young adult fiction.

From Kreepie Kats at Gawker…

Reviews condition a culture about anything, tech/movies/books, whatever, so I like knowing something about what I’ll expect. I doubt they’re very legit.

Well, I’m a book reviewer. I don’t get paid for it either, except in the course of doing my job at the paper. I don’t get paid for staying up all night reading, I just get paid for my time at my desk… so that might count as being paid for it.

Most, in fact all the ARCs I’ve received have been from first time authors trying to get some free publicity. One vanity published book was so bad I had to read it in short bursts.

If a book reviewer gets paid cash for reviewing a book, how honest can the reviewer be? Really. I’m all for paying the person who will critique a book before it’s published. In fact, there should be many, many more people who do that, then perhaps there wouldn’t be so many really bad books out there on the bookshelves just waiting to part a reader from her hard earned money.

If you don’t like a movie within the first 15 minutes of it, then it won’t get better. The same is true of a book. If the first chapter leaves you yawning, then it won’t get any better.

Who has the time to read the first chapter of every book on the shelf? Book reviewers do a great job of pulling out the weeds. At least from a book review, you know what the book is about and what is available. Don’t kill us. We deserve a medal because we have to read a lot of drival before we find the good stuff… when we find it, we shout it from the roof tops.

I was thinking about this blog this morning as I read the review in The New York Times of the new novel by Don DeLillo. It was a negative one. As a writer whose books have been reviewed, I always feel bad for a writer as I read a negative review of his/her work because presumably no writer sets out to write poorly, and it must be especially tough to take when one writes something as personal as fiction or a memoir.

However, as Dante once said, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Responsible reviewing — just one example is The Atlantic Monthly — helps us separate what we can spend out time and money on and what is best avoided. Each of us can choose where to go for reviews that are done honestly, and we have a pretty good idea of what publications and sites offer silly, dishonest, or self-serving reviews.

The internet is becoming more of a force in providing opinions on books and on all of the products of our culture, and we have to understand that it is a huge community bulletin board in which anyone can pin something up, even if it’s total crap. Let’s eliminate just some of the reviewers — the ones who we can’t trust — by not giving their publications and sites our attention.

Interesting. I find myself agreeing with a lot of your rant, having worked as a production artist, typographer, book designer, etc., in the book and magazine publishing biz for a couple of decades. Anybody who works in marketing or advertising, or has to paste up blurbs on book-cover backs, can get cynical about the whole enterprise. I even used to work on what they call magalogs, or catazines, essentially product catalogs with extra features like articles. Usually that’s all marketing puffery, but sometimes it’s value-added puffery, so can be fun to read.

It’s interesting to follow who wrote which blurb on which book. One reason reviewing has veered towards puffery is the mutual back-scratching going on in the publishing establishment. “I’d better not say anything negative about this book, or I won’t get a positive review that I can use as a blurb on my own.” It’s even worse in academia, where mutual back-scratching has long since crossed the line into the murder of reviewing by incestuous literary copulation.

Well, pfui.

I write occasional reviews of whatever I feel like reviewing, which includes books, CDs, artwork, whatever. I panned Kooser’s poetry how-to book, but I praised Pinsky’s. The longest review I wrote in 2005 was in praise of Kate Bush’s CD “Aerial.” I admit I usually write reviews of things I like, to spread the word. I also sometimes write rebuttal reviews, in response to someone else’s opinion I disagree with. Sometimes these are in defense of a classic; sometimes they’re anti-puffery. But I can truly say that I always read what I review, usually more than once.

I can afford to be an independent, honest reviewer because I don’t make a living at it, and don’t ever expect to. I think there is plenty of room for independent reviewing, especially online. I can afford to be honest because it’s just my opinion, no more than that.

The key is always honesty. An honest response is always worth reading, even if it is a minority response, or a pan. I’ve been involved in a minor contretemps lately, where I agreed with a review panning Cormac MacCarthy’s “The Road,” which I thought was an essentially nihilistic, sadistic read.

Where I strongly agree with your rant is in exposing the hidden motives and subterfuges of marketing. Most reviewing is crap, I agree, because it’s merely repeating the spin given by the publisher.

But there are honest reviewers out there, and they’re worth seeking out. They can inspire, as well as repel.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Welcome first-time commentor, Arthur Durkee. Thanks for leaving such a thoughtful comment. [Art is a “wandering musician, artist, and writer…traveling across the face of the USA….”]

For the record, for any review I write, like Maxine, I too read a book cover to cover and take copious pages of notes (the 200 page novel that I last reviewed has no less than seven pages of notes composed entirely of tiny chicken-scratch observations), so that I always have specific examples from the text to base my judgment on. From what I can tell, this is somewhat more arduous than the norm. Many critics don’t even bother to support their arguments. I think it’s professionally irresponsible for any critic to write a review for a book she has not read.

The other troublesome thing about book reviewing: most critics, particularly the Joe Queenans of our world, seem resolutely bitter about books, as if reading a book is the last thing they wish to do. I start off wanting to love a book — and I don’t care what it is or who it’s written by — and, if it disappoints based upon my own sensibilities and my quite high standards, then it saddens me and affects my mood. I want to understand why I had this emotional reaction; I want to do my damnedest to understand an author; hence, the notes, which reflect a record of my reading experience.

As for Dan Wickett, I don’t think he would consider himself a reviewer. He’s simply enthusiastic about books and expresses this on his blog. While I agree in part with your post and can see where you’re coming from on the points I disagree with, I think it’s unfair to throw Dan into the same taxonomy with an ostensible thug like Joe Queenan. If the world were a just place, Queenan would be pumping gas instead of scowling for his supper.

If you read one of my reviews, a feeling of euphoria will engulf you and anyone within six ( 6) car lengths of you. You’ll lose weight, and I mean fast, three or four pounds per paragraph. After you’ve read the piece you’ll be whisked aboard the crystal ship for a tour of the Greek Islands! Well, okay, a tour of Sheepshead Bay and all because you read the damned book review.

Then dinner at Alice’s Restaurant followed by drinks at Elaine’s and then you’ll have to read another review because that’s a lot of calories…

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Wow. Fantastical. [David Thayer is a book reviewer for January Magazine and The Philadelphia Inquirer.]  

If you publish nonfiction history books, as I do, the worst thing of all is to have a reviewer call your author a liar in print. They don’t use the word liar, they dance around that word but everyone gets what they’re saying. This kind of judgment effects sales and the reviewer may be just as wrong as an author. One reviewer emailed me when he was preparing a positive review of one of our books to ask whether we had given the author a lie detector test. Imagine an editor doing that to an author in the editorial offices!

Bad reviews from mainline media can assist in putting a publisher out of business, whether their products deserve bad reviews or not. Publishers or PR people need to weed the lists of reviewers to eliminate those who can’t be trusted to write a fair, impartial review.

Walter

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: From Walter’s blog: “For the last 23 years I’ve published military history nonfiction books. I have worked in the publishing industry since 1967. Prior to that, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in India from 1962 to 1964 and a soldier in the US Army in Germany in 1965 and 1966 during the Vietnam War. I was discharged on New Years Eve, 1966, and dropped off in my uniform at Grand Central Station in New York City. As I was going down the aisle of the train to find a seat, a suit lowered his newspaper to ask how many babies I had killed.” Walter lives in Connecticut. Go to War, Books, News and Opinions,  if you want a free bumper sticker: 

Dear Lynne,
Reviewers serve a purpose - of sorts - helping readers of, say historical biographies of the 19th century, find possible next book purchases. It goes like this, if you liked this, read this one. Amazon does something similar (very sloppily) and new computer capabilities will refine this linking (and no doubt turn it into targeting, which I do not support).
Critics serve a purpose only as a means to helping authors improve their craft. The problem with ALL reviewer-critics is that they meld the former (valuable to readers) with the latter (only useful to authors). There should always be critics (after all Pen or Nobel awards are a critical assesment of sorts) but they should be for the author’s eyes only. The difficulty is that authors don’t want to pay for the service (they should) and the critics want to boost fragile egos and use their bully-pulpit to engender respect for themselves more than serve the public.
It’s coming down to movie-like reviews, a two liner to describe the value of reading a book. The publishers’ new web promotion sites are exactly like movie previews - often just as misleading.
And where is the reader going to know what he or she wants to read next? Where’s the bookstore salesperson who reads or knows all the books carried? Gone with the epic novel and true illustrated books. Honestly, currently, Amazon may offer the best resource for readers (and that’s not saying much).

Ouch. I’m a book reviewer and I read books cover-to-cover before I review them; my notes are throughout. I don’t know *any* reviewers who write a review without reading the book.

No doubt writers don’t like negative reviews, but we’re not writing them for the authors, but for the readers. Last year I wrote a review of Lisa Tucker’s latest and I didn’t much like it. However, I had loved “The Song Reader,” so I made sure to encourage readers to buy that novel to see her writing at its best. This last month I reviewed T. Chevalier’s “Burning Bright” (called it “history lite” and encouraged readers to find other, better historical novels by writers such as Maria McCann and Rose Tremain). I feel like I’m able to use all of the books I have read to help readers find the ones they will love and avoid the ones that aren’t worth the dough people spend on them.

I too have seen snarky, savage reviews (Dale Peck, the hatchet man, comes instantly to mind), but those are usually recognizable as the reviewer’s desire to elevate himself. Joe Queenan is a very funny, snarky guy (I reviewed one of his books a few years ago) and he’s definitely a self-aggrandizer. He doubtless reviewed the book about the guy who read the Britannica in order to have a straight man for his own jokes. (And, btw, someone gave us that book and it’s on my TBR shelf.)

By the way, I don’t get paid much for my reviews, though I am a regular reviewer for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Hudson Review. I review because I read and I have strong opinions — I want to share them. I read reviews for the same reason.

Don’t diss reviewers, Lynne!

All of this makes me question the negative book reviews I’ve written. I remember disliking a novel from a popular Christian suspense writer. A strong start, weak finish, and my wife accurately predicted the bad guy by noticing he was the only character presented in a bad light. All of the other characters were essentially the same, male and female. I expected better than this, which is what I said on my blog and on Amazon. Would it better for everyone if I had held my tongue?

If a book is really bad, I won’t review it. To me, that’s like shooting fish in a barrel. On the other hand, if a well-known (and respected) author writes a lousy book, they’re fair game. (I hated Alice Walker’s “The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart” and had no problem enumerating its many problems — including a pretty mean-spirited rendering of her ex-husband.) My rationale: Such authors should know better. Indeed, I’m sure they do, but they’re being pressured by agents and editors to get something out or, worse, they have an axe they’re dying to grind.

Internationally acclaimed blogger, Michael Allen, has also posted about this situation, and he has linked to other postings as well. VERY interesting.

Grumpy Old Bookman 

I can determine a lot about a reviewer by how they reveal themselves in the review. If the reviewer has a bias or two or three it usually peeks or snarls out between the lines they write.

As an author looking for, of course, good reviews, finding reviewers who are open to hearing about my work and making a decision to actually read and review my book is a blessing.

I have had reviews where I know the reviewer never read the book. I have also had reviews where my writing touched a nerve and while the reviewer didn’t agree with my ideas they were thoughtful and respectful.

I agree that reviewers in mass marketed media could build trust in their words if the readers knew more about the reviewer.

Is the a review of reviewers? Just a thought.

Marilyn

Aww. I swear _some_ of us read the whole book. Although it was hard with “Special Topics in Calamity Physics.”

I try to be pretty objective when I review, but even if I am not digging something I can usually recognize something that may appeal to others’ tastes.

Overall, us book reviews are getting little to nothing for our work. PW, for example, pays $30 per review. If a book takes you 4 hours to read, and then at least another hour to write an informative review, that’s $6/hour. A person makes more at Starbucks.

I review because I love to read, and I love to gush about the books I like. But I learned quickly from my editors that I’m not the only person in the world and I need to think about the other people reading the reviews. If you’re a good reviewer, you’re reviewing genres you know well, offering valid literary criticism and giving the review reader a good idea of whether or not a book may appeal to them. Most of us are not writing for the NY Times, where they get to act out their personal dramas and destroy perfectly fine books. So, I see your point, but, I’d like a pass

But, yeah, that Updike review of the Einstein book was a waste of paper!

How long can one person fish???

Yeah, quite. I’m missing you. The blogosphere kind of lacks that crucial edge without you in it. But have a good time catching some good ones on that hook.

You appear to have caught a tree. Mayhaps you should come back to blogging

I am jealous!
Now, you are gone just when things are getting interesting in the publishing world. What with a frustrated author, David Lassman sending of slightly disguised Jane Austin works with his name plastered all over them and only one editor catching the plagerism. Catch your fish and come back. You are missed.

Jane Austin, the famous Texas goat roper? I had no idea she was an author.

I didn’t know you fished, now my crush is even worse.

But don’t hurry back, the working world will still be here.

Every minute on the water is well spent.

Have you caught anything yet?

It’s the fishing, not the catching.

Man loves to fish, and he’s got a great Saturday planned. At 5 A. M., he slips quietly from bed and creeps downstairs, where he has all his clothes and gear ready. He dresses, then opens the garage door to find that it’s ugly outside. High winds and unseasonable cold, actual sleet is falling. So he decides the hell with it, goes back in, undresses, and slips back into bed. He starts to feel a bit amorous, so he cuddles up behind his wife and murmurs, “You won’t believe how foul the weather is, wind and sleet!”

The wife snuggles back and says, “I know, can you believe he still goes fishing in it?”

Are you kidding? Where have you been. I though maybe you fell into a river and were sleeping with the fishes. 

Welcome back, Wicked Witch of Publishing. You have been missed.

I had noted the purchase and agree with everything you say. Laurel’s laughing all the way to the bank isn’t she?

Good to have ya back, Lynne. We’ve missed your curmudgeonry. The booksellers among us are finally emerging from Harry Potter hell. (Yes, frankly, I’m glad the whole things over, though I have my doubts about everything. I was a bit disappointed with the ending; I was hoping Voldemort would kill everyone and use Harry’s head for a Quidditch ball.) The publishers modestly declined to release anything else of note in July, leading to a pretty stark month before the Rowling deluge. God forbid people should read anything else new.

Hope you had a lovely vacation!

By the way, I met Jane Friedman at a Morrow dinner when BEA was in Washington last year. I was far from terrified; she was gracious and charming, and happy to converse at some length with a lowly bookseller from the South. Judith Regan, however…even the pictures of her on her catalogs scared me.

It’s about time…i thought you deserted us like Miss Snark did! Although I can’t fault you too much because as I write this I’m sitting in a hotel in Philadelphia attending a Writers conference for the week!

Bonnie

Missed you, Wicked Woman.
Keep casting flies. It’s prodigiously entertaining to see what rises to the bait.

Lynne,
Thanks for reeling us back in.

I am also a Ron Hogan fan–having met him at Girlfriend’s weekend this year in Marshall, Texas. In addition to his Galley Cat fame, he has an awesome book out, The Stewardess Is Flying The Plane. It is a collection of photos and stories about films of the 70s. A great addition to your coffee table or martini bar. Speaking of bars, I have some photos of the Girlfriend’s weekend, including Ron (a beautyandthebook.com production) on the tour photo page of my website dcstanfa.com.

“A good book gets lost as easily as a bad book gets found.” I rather like that. Welcome back, Lynne!

Who decides which books get press (Harry Potter) and which get censored? After all, censorship is becoming America’s favorite past-time. The US gov’t (and their corporate friends), already detain protesters, ban books like “America Deceived” from Amazon and Wikipedia, shut down Imus and fire 21-year tenured, BYU physics professor Steven Jones because he proved explosives, thermite in particular, took down the WTC buildings. Free Speech forever (especially for books).
Last link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-38523-0

Lynne:
Georgica Beach has just been bought by Jupiter Media, so that’s out. These are the dog days of book publishing, with all the agents and editors out east trying not to think about how electronic publishing and their own obsolete ways will put them out of business. How soon until the first book on the six “trapped” miners?

Your return marks the end of the summer doldrums reminiscent of Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America where entire cities ( Pittsburgh, I think) are made of trout…”you are the Andrew Carnegie of trout.”

Logic has been defied before and no doubt will be again.

Does this mean I must get back to work, too?

Welcome back, I missed you! I hope Laurel’s labor of love continues to have that tree club house feeling. In my opinion, it was one of the best on-line media communications resource vehicles available in the trade.

Re: the iliad and the Sony dedicated ebook reader. Why do people keep trying to reinvent the square wheel, something nobody wants?

The newest ebook readers aren’t significantly different from the Rocket ebook reader, which cost $300 and was even sold at Barnes & Noble stores.

Outside of the entrepreneurs who sell them, the venture capitalists, and the geeks at WIRED and Boing Boing, nobody wants them.

I already own an excellent book reader: my eyes.

Hi Lynn: I just discovered your wonderful site. I’m the author in red pictured with DC Stanfa and Ron Hogan.
I must agree with you on many points, one of which is this freaking blurbing business that takes up tons of time. I don’t mind doing it for people I know and respect, but others have come out of the streams of God-knows-where and more than a FEW have DEMANDED I blurb them. As if it’s going to skyrocket my own books sales. My books are “Not Tonight Honey Wait Til I’m a Size 6,” in its 6th printing (they probably only print 2 at a time) and the latest, “Don’t Sleep with a Bubba.”
Enjoying all this information. Thanks for putting it out there!
Susan Reinhardt

Susan Reinhardt has been very giving of her time and her advice, along my crazy publishing/marketing journey! This cracked southern belle with extraordinary wit and wisdom, has become a very wonderful friend–and we have hooked up for some great PR (thanks to the Erma Bomeck writers’ workshop).

Rather than treat each other as competitors, we have figured out how we can help boost book sales for one another. And I am paying it forward with other writers. Amen.

And, Lynne, thank you for a wonderful forum for all of us.

Why did you desert me, Oh Contrarian? Is it because I changed ISPs and didna notify ye? D’ya think? Please reinstate me on your blog-update mailing list,

Kthxbai!1!

~Terry

What I saw sucked–except one.

Welcome back, again.

I too am amazed at the lack of imagination and surprise in movies.

Here’s a potential publishing coup, if you do translations-

http://haloscan.com/tb/nopasa/6071726926009052988

Welcome back Lynne. So glad you’ve taken the “Gone Fishin’” sign down! We’ve missed you and your clever, incisive blogging. I laughed out loud at your bite-sized synopses of movies based on books. (You could create a very successful Charades-like game where people guess the film from your hilarious descriptions. I’d like to see what you’d do with Gone With The Wind, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Godfather, etc..)

I definitely won’t be reading the novels, or seeing the films you noted in the first half of your critique. But I’m definitely interested in seeing the documentaries you noted, thanks to your glowing and enthusiastic reviews! Thanks for a great report from The Hamptons International Film Festival. (Next stop Cannes?)

She’s baaaaaaaccccccckkkkkk….

I wouldn’t go to the HIFF if they paid me.

To sit with pretentious pseudo-aesthetes, who think it is cool to smell like a Turkish brothel while watching films that are conceived by intellectual dwarfs, is not my cup of guava jelly. Most of the audience are people in psychiatric therapy with proctologists.

Welcome back Wicked Witch!

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Yikes, you can bet D’Arcy Drollinger isn’t going to give YOU a free pass ever! 

The feature films bear out why I’ve disconnected my television and don’t go to the movie theater any more. It’s comforting to know, however, that documentaries are as alive–if not more so–than ever. I checked the trailer for “Soldiers of Conscience” and it appears exactly as you say–it’s at the top of my list. The others look impressive as well.

Nice reviews, Witch.
(Curmudgeon, I love you.)

My wise father used to say that all movies are 15 minutes too long. As he got older, he changed that to an hour. The older I get, the more I think he is right. Perhaps these movies the Publishing Contrarian saw could have had better editing, with 15 minutes (or an hour) cut out? The one movie I saw at the festival was way too long.

Glad to see you back!

Seems to me you need an off-trail film (no, not the usual techno-gay off trail film) to spur interest.

Right now, I’ll bet a hundred fuzzy-eared monkeys are making a drama of the California fires, but where is the definitive feature-length movie on Katrina?

Ah well, I wishe I’d titled one of my books The Fire In Los Angeles County istead of The Fire in Bradford, wich was finally published by Ricci’s Sports Bar in Newmarket, Otario. Hell, I drank there. Best the owner could do is become my publisher. We sold a whacking 1200 copies.

Great stuff. Thanks for putting me on your list.

Josh Getland/LA Times

If only I’d known the secret to a successful book…

I thought that Judith Regan was murdered in Aruba while on her high school graduation reward trip. Is she really still alive?

I’ve always kind of suspected the reason I haven’t gotten anywhere with the literary-industrial complex is that I never married or had an affair with anyone notorious. This just confirms my suspicion!

Congratulations are in order for bestowing some class and humor on this seedy, squicky story. Just the glimpse of the thought of Regan and Kerik together overlooking ground zero is enough to reach for the brain bleach.

Wicked Witch:

Very funny!

Carol

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Carol is an author and award-winning artist. One-artist shows include The Rockefeller Townhouse is New York and the Gregg Galleries of The National Art Club.

It’s Murdoch, not “Murdock.”

Peter
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hi, Peter! So much for touch-typing! Thanks for the catch.

Self publishing…or not publishing…looks better every day.

Egads! I’m glad that kind of behavior doesn’t translate over to HarperCollins’ christian side, the Avon/William Morrow imprint that I deal with.

I really wonder what drives people like that who are so willing to show their lack of moral compass in public…on a regular basis.

Bonnie

Law suits are so tedious, but the rest of the story reads like a Danielle Steel.

What happened to the more traditional intercourse of the NYC publishing world… i.e. lunch with your editor at The Four Seasons? A laugh-out-loud commentary on the zany world of publishing from our beloved Wicked Witch. Thanks for making a rainy Monday brighter. Keep ‘em coming!

Just when I was starting to get bored with the whole publishing biz news thing, this comes along. It’s about damned time. All this talk of poor sales, sagging profits, blah, blah, blah.

Let’s liven things up with a little lingerie and illicit sex.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Mark writes thrillers about biological and chemical warfare. He lives in Detroit, Michigan.

Jeez, maybe we should think about increasing our marketing budget at Press 53.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Press 53 is a small, independent publisher located in Lewisville, North Carolina.

see: http://cgi.ebay.com/Red-Satin-Garter-Belt_W0QQitemZ180183211325QQihZ008QQcategoryZ4844QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem