Apologies for being inconsistent with the link roundups lately, I've been quite busy finishing up the last few changes for Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp.
The good news is that I've been saving links like a hyperactive squirrel stores acorns. Here we go! Rapid fire style.
First, I was recently interviewed for a San Jose Mercury News article on Facebook's cultural impact, in which I touch on the way social media enforces transparency and honesty, something The Next Web tackled recently as well.
Author Matt Myklusch is starting a new podcast, which I hope to guest appear on in the new few weeks.
Mathew Ingram wrote an interesting article for GigaOM in which he summarized Clay Shirky's argument that Publishing is No Longer a Job or an Industry, It's a Button. Like Ingram, I think Shirky was being a bit cheeky here -- distribution is becoming a button, but there's a lot more that goes into making a book than distribution. Someone's got to take care of those other pesky tasks, and publishers are still pretty good at most of them. Shirky argues that publishers have to find a way to add value to the equation.
And speaking of adding value, J.A. Konrath kicked off a good debate by featuring a post by a veteran Harlequin author, who opted to self-publish because of the paltry royalties Harlequin pays.
If you think your critique partner is rude, check out this letter Jack London wrote to an aspiring writer. London: "Honestly and frankly, I did not enjoy [your story] for its literary charm or value. In the first place, it has little literary value and practically no literary charm." (via JES)
Mike Shatzkin has a typically erudite and insidery take on where the publishing industry stands vis a vis Amazon, in an article called Amazon's Growth and Its Lengthening Shadow. Meanwhile, paidcontent.org summarized the juicy bits from an interview with the head of Amazon's publishing imprint, Larry Kirshbaum.
Oh, and Amazon will be publishing the James Bond backlist. Shaken, surely, not stirred.
In case you're curious about where we go from here in the wake of the DOJ lawsuit, my colleague and fellow author David Carnoy has an awesome article on the future of e-book pricing.
So the golden era of reading is in the past and no one reads anymore, right? Um. Not so fast. Seriously, check out this chart.
Children's and YA book sales are surging! They're up 72%. A quiet sleeper called The Hunger Games might have something to do with that.
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Nathan Bransford is the author of JACOB WONDERBAR AND THE COSMIC SPACE KAPOW, a middle grade novel about three kids who blast off into space, break the universe, and have to find their way back home, which will be published by Dial Books for Young Readers in May 2011. He was formerly a literary agent with Curtis Brown Ltd., but is now a publishing civilian working in the tech industry. He lives in San Francisco.
By: Nathan Bransford,
on 5/15/2012
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Nathan Bransford is the author of JACOB WONDERBAR AND THE COSMIC SPACE KAPOW, a middle grade novel about three kids who blast off into space, break the universe, and have to find their way back home, which will be published by Dial Books for Young Readers in May 2011. He was formerly a literary agent with Curtis Brown Ltd., but is now a publishing civilian working in the tech industry. He lives in San Francisco.
By: Nathan Bransford,
on 5/15/2012
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11 Comments on The Last Few Weeks in Books 5/14/12, last added: 5/16/2012
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Loved Blue Boy and will be definitely checking out the anthology.
Great list of links. They'll be keeping me busy for days to come!
I'd love to be in a position to tell Harlequin (or any publisher) to go suck it. Right now, that publisher would be me...
We can (almost) always count on you, NB!
Oh, and I hope OKC keeps it up. I do miss the Supersonics, but I'm glad to see anyone whip the Lakers.
Holy cow--I just read all 240 comments on J.A. Konrath's Harlequin post, and then read his other post about the ebook pricing/DOJ debate. I'm shocked at how many unhappy traditionally published authors there are out there. I know there are always two sides to an issue, but it's definitely food for thought.
Thanks so much for hyper actively squirreling away these links, Nathan! (Great visual, btw).
I'm slowly working my way through them. That was pretty cool that your post about your divorce was picked up by a major news source. I think you really touched alot of people with that post, Nathan.
I've been following Konrath lately, he's been a busy bee, taking on both the AAR and some agents who are defending Harlequin. Pretty interesting stuff.
I want to say that Jack London's letter was terrific. I loved the combination of brutal honesty with warm affection. Quite a read.
Good comment of the week!
So, that's as far as I've gotten so far. I did notice the Shazkin link seems to be broken.
Congratulations on wrapping up the edit! What an accomplishment. :)
Kristi said:
"I just read all 240 comments on J.A. Konrath's Harlequin post, and then read his other post about the ebook pricing/DOJ debate. I'm shocked at how many unhappy traditionally published authors there are out there."
I had the same reaction.
Thank you Nathan for all the great links, they took some time on your part. Now, how do I revise my novel again looking for literary charm? Hmmmmmmm.
"I just read all 240 comments on J.A. Konrath's Harlequin post, and then read his other post about the ebook pricing/DOJ debate. I'm shocked at how many unhappy traditionally published authors there are out there."
I love Konrath's blog, but I can't say that I would consider his frequent posters to represent a consensus among traditionally published authors. That said, there's obviously discontent among both schools of thought, and we shouldn't expect anything else -- nor should we expect it to change. Debating traditional publishing versus non-traditional is becoming a bit like talking about politics. Things are reduced to black and white when they shouldn't be, flames are stoked when they're totally irrelevant to the topic, the main issues are probably more complex than anybody wants to admit, and all that contention leaves you either red in the face or blue. Oh, and there are often donkeys and elephants, in one form or another. Sometimes both. The bottom line is this: Both systems present a compromise of some sort. That’s why no one is satisfied with either.