Manuscripts Going Green?

In a Publishers Weekly (requires subscription) E-Book Report blog posting E Slush Piles on the Way? David Rothman posed:

"Wouldn't it be better, for editors' sanity, not just forests, if slush [and submissions] arrived via e-mail or Web forms-as electrons rather than as unwieldy collections of atoms? Imagine, moreover, all the postage writers could save. If nothing else, publishers could regularly do word searches and even use special algorithms to help identify potential winners-for example by word-use patterns. Houses could contract with security firms to provide decent virus screening. So let's not dismiss the idea of a massive shift to e-submissions."

I have news for Rothman, a San Diego "author", Philip Parker, has elevated electronically automated book writing to, well, an art? See a video on his process, if you dare.

Going green, taken to extremes.

Parents Reading for Children

Notice the title is not "parents reading TO children" for a change. On "Today", First Lady Laura Bush and daughter Jenna discussed what the Bush parents did to encourage their children to read. Jenna mentioned that her parents read rather than watching TV. Then she advocated that all parents should read

for as much time as they want their children to read.

Not reading to children, adults reading for themselves. Children emulate their parents' actions. Veg out before the TV, your kids will grow into couch potatoes. Read books, and your progeny will read books. O.K., maybe comics at first, but later graphic novels.

Now, go do as Miss Haueisen, our high school librarian taught: sit up straight, under good lighting, hold a book at a 45-degree angle to your eyes and about 18 inches away, and read. Read.

Editing Style for Cookbooks

A question often posed by both male and female beginning writers: how do you format a cookbook manuscript? How are recipes presented? In the many decades that I've been writing and cooking, I never gave this a thought, and I have an extensive collection of cookbooks and recipes. Indeed, after inheriting many from my mother and grandmother, I have an embarrassment of cooking literature. Most of it is easy to follow because it is fairly uniform in presentation. Difficulties show up most often in the home brew versions--collections put out by clubs as fundraisers, one of the original true self-publishing efforts.

One source of advice for cookbook authors comes from Ten Speed Press' Editorial Director, Lorena Jones. The "Ten Speed Press Cookbook Style Sheet" even offers tips on preparing an electronic file for submission to a publisher. The advice is based on the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed; Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed; Recipes into Type, Whitman & Simon, and The New Food Lover's Companion, 3rd ed, Herbst, if you want to go to the sources for more details.

Writing Book Review Pitches

"Newspapers have awesomely higher operating costs than the online publishers who are siphoning away their audience and advertising revenues," wrote Alan Mutter in his (presumably unedited) Reflections of a Newsosaur blog posting in February. He questioned the value and need for multiple editings of newspaper articles. That was about the time that the local paper's book reviews editor announced his departure from editing entirely.

Eventually the paper made known that the "Arts" editor would take on books, too. I predicted the two books pages (reduced from a multi-page stand-alone section) will disappear. Indeed, this week only one page of four book reviews appeared. The NY Times bestseller listings, already shrunk to only the top five, showed up on the back page with lists of what's hot in other media.

Authors, the writing is on the wall, and it's in book review editors' blood: don't bother trying for newspaper reviews anymore. Online is where it's at, the NY Times being exceptional. Some papers operate their online services separately from the print version and frequently offer more features on the Internet. Send your pitches there. This means, of course, that your pitch must be crafted as carefully as your opening book hook and/or the query that won you an agent.

Blog Writing About Blogging Writing

If you like NY Times book review's Sarah Boxer's comprehensive look at Blogs, you might want to take a look at her book on the subject: Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web (Vintage, 2008). The article provides a history of the genre(?), movement(?) and insights that had not occurred to this insider. Her writing makes me feel like I'm writing from inside a warm, pink, fuzzy bubble; living all inside my own mind. But wait! Maybe I am, for she ends the piece this way:

Blog writing is id writing—grandiose, dreamy, private, free-associative, infantile, sexy, petty, dirty. Whether bloggers tell the truth or really are who they claim to be is another matter, but WTF. They are what they write. And you can't fake that. ;-)

Other books on blogging mentioned in the article:

We've Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture
compiled and edited by John Rodzvilla, with an introduction by Rebecca Blood
Basic Books, 242 pp., $20.00

Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
by Lee Siegel
Spiegel and Grau, 182 pp., $22.95

Republic.com 2.0
by Cass R. Sunstein
Princeton University Press, 251 pp., $24.95

Blogwars
by David D. Perlmutter
Oxford University Press, 235 pp., $24.95

The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet
by Daniel J. Solove
Yale University Press, 247 pp., $24.00

We're All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Lawin the Internet Age
by Scott Gant
Free Press, 240 pp., $26.00

Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World
by Hugh Hewitt
Nelson Books, 225 pp., $14.99 (paper)

The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture
by Andrew Keen
Doubleday/Currency, 228 pp., $22.95

Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers
by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, foreword by Tom Peters
Wiley, 252 pp., $24.95

Blog! How the Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture
by David Kline and Dan Burstein
CDS Books, 402 pp., $24.95

Dream Book Store

I did not spend space yesterday describing the clean, neat, tidy, well-lit and crowded BOOKOFF store. Uniform tall black shelving units crowded the length of the building space that formerly held new technical books for sale. The aisles were a little narrow for full-size, luxury-built Americans, I thought. Admittedly, I saw only one side of the store, but didn't notice any place to sit down or to set anything down. That had me musing once again on the fantasy ideal book shop that I've dreamed of for years. It's probably a concatenation of ones I've known all over the country.

Dusty, even dirty, darkish but with easy chairs by lamps on end tables ... a cat to leap into unoccupied laps and purr you into purchasing ... live potted plants ... a feeling of old, old books, old store perhaps run by a patient old person. Mismatched wooden book cases. A wood floor. A spiral iron staircase to a mezzanine overlooking the main floor. Coffee. Board games?

Baby Boomers, at least, probably want a combination old book nook/coffee house, like the "No Exit" cafe, where my fiance and I spent cozy wintry evenings in the early 60s, trying to like espresso, playing chess, reading poetry from the books scattered around the room.

OTOH, wouldn't it be way cool, rad, high rez or whatever is the current slang for the cat's pajamas, if the books were RFID tagged and the store had a computerized system, so the clerk could tell at a click if they had the book you were searching for AND where it was located? Maybe hand-held devices that could lead you to your selection, because even a computer's records can be wrong and books get moved?

Have I left out anything? What would your ideal used book store be like? Do younger generations prefer clean, efficient, no-frills experiences?

BOOKOFF Values Only Book Condition

For visitors from Writer's Digest Forum, the title answers the burning question left yesterday: what is this book store's unique new business model?

Back story: a colorful, tabloid half-page ad a local give-away attracted me to a new used book store opening. One of the few U.S. outlets of the Japanese giant BOOKOFF opened in San Diego yesterday. The lure for me? They buy books -- and CDs, DVDs, and games (presumably video).

My experience trying to discover how much they would pay for assorted books and four Frank Sinatra CDs was astonishing. They offered ten cents per CD and $2.50 for a primo first edition new, top novel with a retail price of $26. In that aspect, BOOKOFF is no different from any other business attempting to make a profit: buy low, sell high.

Although language problems were a high barrier to an information exchange, repeated questioning of employees elicited the idea that this company has a "new business model". Nothing matters about an item a customer hopes to sell to them, except its condition. Not content, author, autograph, or bestseller status. One woman demonstrated how "We wipe off covers" before, as their English web page states, "reuse of books."

To be more fair and accurate, I think the business information online indicates that the innovative business model is recycling, and nowhere could I find this stress on books' conditions. Perhaps this new staff was overly trained in this aspect of evaluation.

"So," I asked, "your customers would be, say, people decorating a home, who want a nice-looking set of books for a shelf?" I've heard of such, but never see a store dedicated to that idea.

Indeed, the rows of books I perused looked fine. All hard-bound copies had flawless slip cases marred only by the BOOKOFF stickers, at about half the original prices. Of course, I did find Stephen King's On Writing in the "Novels" section. Across the aisle was a section labeled "Nonfiction". Not signs that encourage a return visit.

And what is so innovative about recycling, anyway? Just another used book store.

Book Subjects List

Every once in a while, someone asks, "Is there an official list of subjects to put on the back of a book? One that tells what the books is about and where to place it in the book stores?" The closest listing I can find is the BISAC Subject Headings from an industry standards organization.

Writing Free Books

Last month, did you snatch your copy of Suze Orman's Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny ($24.95 retail price for the hardcover)? I got mine, thanks to a Florida friend, Bonnie Boots. The book was available only for a day, but word-of-mouth spread across the 'net faster than fall flames in southern California. By day's end, more than a million electronic versions were downloaded.

According to the NY Times, HarperCollins is offering a limited selection of free downloadable books on its website, although I was unable to find such a listing to link.

Tara at ResearchBuzz offers tips on how to search for free books from university presses:

... try this search on Google or Yahoo along with your favorite keywords: “university press” free download site:edu .... You’ll get some irrelevant stuff, but you’ll also get pointers to small university presses which are making their books available online for free.

To get other general overviews of what’s available, try site:edu free book downloads “university press” oxford yale harvard.... try free books download “university press” inurl:2008 (The inurl: portion is because many blogs archive by date, and inurl:2008 is an easy way to find recent entries.)

Books by the Month

Those interested in how books are marketed and sold, might like to read, well, OK, try to wade through, a scholarly initial look at the early history of the Book-of-the-Month Club by Daniel M.G. Raff, presented to the Columbia Economic History Seminar last May.

I have fond memories of Book-of-the-Month Club selections that populated my family-of-origin's meager library. I think those included Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Dinner at Antoine's, and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. The latter encouraged me to become a writer, although not the fictionalist I had dreamed about. Other books I suspect arrived via the BOTMC included Zotz! and Cheaper by the Dozen. I also still have my father's copy of Dale Caniege's How to Make Friends and Influence People and remember an inspirational one by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, as well as something like, How to Make a Million Dollars in Real Estate.

If nothing else, my parents were eclectic readers.

According to Wikipedia, the BOMC is now just one of many book clubs operated under the Bookspan logo, owned by the giant German publishing conglomerate, Bertelsmann AG.

Book Collecting Terms

Don't know your deckle from your hinges? If you happen to be a bibliophile and a collector, you might be interested in the terminology offered at Book Collecting & Bookselling Terms: Illustrated Glossary. Knowledge of these words is especially important if you want to sell one of your treasures and need to describe its condition. I didn't even know books have hinges -- "Inside, it's where the flyleaf (front free endpaper) meets the pastedown ... "

What's particularly pleasant about this listing are the linked illustrations and a small collection of articles about the basics of book collecting and conditions and further resources. These reference pages are courtesy Empty Mirror Books by Denise Enck, who appears to specialize in the Beat Generation.

Fiction + Fact = Faction

Self-designated struggling writer, R.J. Mangahas has a nice round-up of the latest scandals in fake books in Out in WriteField. I'm not referring to the fake books that singers use (lyrics-only song sheets). I mean the James Frey type of a million little lies presented as the truth. Like the also pseudo-memoirs by Misha Defonseca and Margaret Seltzer, that's what I'm talkin' about.

I would disagree with Mangahas' statement that, "In a lot of people's eyes, there is an unwritten understanding between them and the author of the memoir that the events are true and accurate as possible." That may be a misconception many writers and readers used to have about memoir writing. I doubt the reading public is that naive any longer.

I submit that writers like Frey, Defonseca and Seltzer are perpetuating a genre that perhaps began with Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I call that confounding of fiction and facts "faction". Perhaps bookstores, publishers and critics should establish this as a legitimate literary form. After all, memoir is really elaboration of biography. Faction is more elaboration of memoir.

Superprize for Writing Novels

This year the bookish people who run the Man Booker prize will celebrate the award's 40th anniversary with a The Best of the Booker award to "honour the best overall novel to have won the prize since it was first awarded on 22 April 1969." The same type of award was given on the organization's 25th anniversary, but this time the public will be able to help choose from a shortlist of six chosen by a panel from the 41 contenders. The regular Booker prize is 50,000 pounds. The winner of the Best Booker only gets a trophy, I guess because the author already got the loot the first time around.

According to The Times online, bookies give authors these odds of winning:

• 4-1 Yann Martel – The Life of Pi (2002)

• 5-1 Salman Rushdie – Midnight's Children (1981)
  

• 7-1 Michael Ondaatje – The English Patient (1992)

• 8-1 Ben Okri – The Famished Road (1991); Arundhati Roy – The God of Small Things (1997); Ian McEwan – Amsterdam (1998)

• 10-1 J. M. Coetzee – Disgrace (1999); Anne Enright – The Gathering (2007)

If nothing else, this probably makes a good reading list for aspiring novelists.

eBook Reader Review

Much of the buzz about reading books revolves these days around "readers", the electronic devices that can store books available in an electronic format. Readers, of course, want to know about them (and argue). Writers want to know if: they should be considering releasing their books in an electronic format, what about the rights, how must should one cost? And publishers want to know if people will buy these products (reading devices and ebooks). Visionaries are all over the spectrum as to whether or not ebooks and readers will replace tree books. Some of us see a place for both in the future. The trick is to make both forms economically attractive. I've asked Sam Warren, owner of San Diego WriteWay to comment on his experiences with a reader:

I love my eBook Reader

This editor recently bought an eBookwise Reader on the Internet for $120 and fell in love with it. Previously, I was too busy to read for recreation. Now I read at the bus stop, coffeehouses, doctor's offices, etc. There are better ones such as a Palm Pilot PDF, Amazon Kindle, Sony & Borders, iPod, and various cell phones. But they cost a lot more, and I am perfectly happy with my simple eBookwise Reader. In addition to all the best sellers, there are the thousand of free out of copyright ebooks, ebooks of the classics.

Self-publishing guru Dan Poynter told me that he reads ebooks on his PDF while flying from one speaking engagement to another. Many Luddites knock them, saying that they prefer the feel of a real book; but then, they haven't tried the convenience of having multiple books and a dictionary at their finger tips, plus the easy-to-read backlight and the adjustable font size.

— Sam Warren

Read more on Sam's page about ebooks.

Book Publishing Business

Anyone who hopes to have a book published, and everyone who considers self-publishing, will benefit by reading Rachael Donadio's essay on the NY Times website, Why Does It Still Take So Long to Publish a Book? Although she writes extensively about pre-pub marketing strategies, another take-away point is this:

As soon as a literary agent has sold a publisher a book, and even before it’s edited, copy-edited, proofread and indexed, the publicity wheels start turning.

Notice all the editorial steps that take time to accomplish. One would hope that the book had already been edited before it was submitted to an agent, and sometimes agents suggest rewrites (requiring another edit).

All this gate-keeping scrutiny of traditional publishing, that self-published books seldom receive, contributes to the negative impression about and discrimination against reviewing self-publishers.

Now go back and study the marketing description Donadio provides. Could you possibly do all that as an individual? Did you know of these strategies necessary for a published book to become even a mild success? Those who think that self-publishing is a fine alternative because it is faster and cheaper are short-changing themselves and their customers. And I haven't mentioned product quality, fodder for another post.

Book Editor Departs

Last night at the local guild meeting, the book editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Arthur Salm, announced he is becoming a reporter for the paper's Metro section. He didn't know what will happen to the books "pages", recently reduced from a pull-out section to two pages inside Arts and Entertainment.

Salm discussed what book reviews are and aren't, gave an overview of his incredibly tedious and boring-sounding job, predicted that Internet news content providers will start charging and bookstores will use POD. He seemed intent on impressing us with the abrupt rise to his current editorial position based on his apparently innate writing skills. He stressed:

• his B.A. in an unrelated field
• lack of any writing courses
• background as a bus driver
  
• experience as an unpaid movie critic on radio

His single editing credential consisted of proofreading copyright lines on reprints for a local academic press. Otherwise, he shuffled papers for that publisher, then skated into the job at the paper.

I don't know what to make of this, except to admit that I never took any journalism classes, either, although I had every creative writing class Northwestern offered. Otherwise, I have a prediction: the books editor position at the paper may not be filled, in keeping with the declining size and quality of the medium. I suspect that's been the plan for a long time.

Goodbye, Arthur. We wish you well.

Book Store Turns Classroom

Apparently in an attempt to attract readers and potential customers, the Borders big box chain of book stores is experimenting by offering free classes, The Sacramento Bee announced. The Borders Live Classes pilot program includes a variety of topics. Here's hoping it's a success, and that they include more classes in tune with books, writing and writers, all over the country.

Squeeze Copyright to Stifle Creativity

The Harry Potter brouhaha playing out in British courts threatens the "fair use" provision of copyright law, or so says New York Times business columnist, Joe Nocera, in A Tight Grip Can Choke Creativity. In a tight nutshell, the case involves a website publisher who announced he was about to present a companion book (long a standard practice in the fiction world) for profit. The problem? The product for sale was to be a portion of the Harry Potter Lexicon, also very much for the profit of the publisher. Nocera claims the "fair use" portion of copyright law, "allows anyone to create something new based on someone else’s art."

Perhaps J. K. Rowling and the handlers of her empire don't think an encyclopedia of Harry Potter terminology is something new. After all, it was Rowling who created the Harry Potter world and everything therein. Nocera implies Rowling is suing because no one asked her permission (read: paid for a license or franchise) to produce this new book.


Really, how creative is it to list words and their uses in someone else's novel? Sounds more like a specialized form of editing to me, like indexing or preparing a glossary for a manuscript. Not exactly original work. Certainly nothing new. The information in the website itself comes from established sources.

I realize I'm arguing against my own forté, nonfiction. But I'm thinking like a fiction writer of a successful enterprise, wanting to keep creative control, as they say in the movie biz.

Finding Famous People

Writers often need to contact celebrity and authority figures. Sometimes it's for an interview, quotes, or other content-related reasons. Other times, they're looking for a way to obtain a testimonial, blurb, or maybe a preface for a book. One method of research is to subscribe to WhoRepresents.com. Here are some tips from John Kremer's Book Marketing Tip of the Week newsletter on finding someone famous:

1. Google them. This is the simplest way. Generally you can find an address for someone famous or important simply by Googling them.

2. Use one of the phone book services on the Internet. You can Google "phone book services" to locate some of these. You may have to try more than one to find the person you are looking for. That has been my experience.

3. Ask your friends. You'd be surprised how many of your friends know people that you would also want to know. The six degrees of separation rule is an exaggeration. My experience is that if you are at all active in any group, you are probably three people away from anyone you want to reach. Ask and keep asking until the right person hears your question and answers with an introduction.

Incidentally, you can email John and sign up for his newsletter.

SmartLinks Amazing Technology for Writers

A new-to-me company, Adaptive Blue, is offering "smart links" and SmartLink Widgets to enhance blogs and websites. They come in a variety of flavors (stocks, music, wine, movies), but we'll focus on the one for books. SmartLinks for Books shows an example (image to the right) of the results of clicking on a blue arrow (like this one ) embedded in your text, using the widget to:

* Get a preview of the cover and description
* Choose from book sites like Amazon, B&N, etc.
* Find it in the local library via WorldCat
* Bookmark using a favorite service
* Post book link to Facebook or Twitter
* Access the best reviews from around the web
* Find similar books by subject and customer picks
* Find more books by the same author
* Lookup author's bio and web links

If you scroll down to the lower part of the page, you'll see a visual of a different type of book widget and a link to the widget page itself. Prepare yourself to be amazed, confused, and perhaps overwhelmed at first. The versatility of this technology blows me away! Two other resources on using this tool are the BlueBlog and the Book Widget Gallery.

To Fraser, whomever you are, thanks for the email introducing me to this amazing service.

If any of you readers are already using a SmartLinks widget to enhance your online writing, please let us know about your experiences and implementation.

Are Book Signings so Yesterday?

Last Sunday's chat with writers' publicist, P.J. Nunn, of BreakThrough Promotions, the featured guest in The Writer's Chatroom, proved quite enlightening. I was able to clear up a point of confusion circulating among new authors. That is, whether or not signings (in bookstores) are becoming passe and valueless. Yes and no is the answer. The Big Six (major traditional publishers) are booking fewer signing tours, and when they do, it's really to gain the attention of local media outlets for the author. A signing, I knew, is most effective when it is part of an "event" orchestrated for publicity purposes.

However, Ms. Nunn pointed out, book signings are an important tactic for getting a book into bookstores. I'm guessing she was talking in terms of authors published by smaller and independent houses. Perhaps it also applies to self-publishers, although for placement in major chains, a book must be available for order through Baker and Taylor, usually.

You often hear about bookstore owners "hand selling", promoting a particular book in their store and community. Some authors must similarly "hand sell" their books to independents, and the signing/event remains a tantalizing tidbit to offer store owners. It's good for the book, good for the store and good for the author. Sort of like recycling.

Chat With a Publicist

This Sunday at 7 p.m. EST you'll have a rare opportunity to participate or lurk in a chat with a writers' publicist, P.J. Nunn, of BreakThrough Promotions. She'll be the featured guest at the The Writer's Chatroom, providing publicity and P.R. tips as well as special free gifts for attendees. Click on "Enter Chatroom". It may take a moment to load. Type in the name you wish to be known by, and click "Login". No password needed. When you get there, tell 'em Georganna sent you!

Shopdropped a Good Book Lately?

The next time you stroll through a book store--and please, do support the brick-and-mortar variations of Amazon--you may come across a free book. It might not be labeled as such, but if you try to check it out, the clerk won't be able to ring it up and could ask, "Did you get this here?"

You will be a beneficiary of shopdropping: a growing practice of authors leaving their books lying about in places likely book buyers gather. Michael Quinion calls it a "guerrilla-art movement" akin to "culture jamming"--subverting competitors' advertising to your own benefit. In this case, however, the author use their own products to promote themselves and market the product. Sort of BookCrossing for a marketing purpose. I see nothing wrong with that.

This is my kind of free sample! I'd be delighted to find uncatalogued treasures on my library shelves. How about you?

Amazon's Best Books of 2007

At this time of year, traditional material for regular nonfiction writers are either "Top or Best ..." or "Resolutions". I try to live just one day at a time, instead of proclaiming annual resolutions . If I am in a change process, that's about as long as I can focus or handle. I do, however, believe in setting goals and offered a system for reaching them last month.

I wasn't going to give in to the "tops" tug until I ran across this page at Amazon: Amazon.com: Best of 2007: Books. It is most handy because in addition to the editors' top picks (with no explanation of the selection process), Amazon lists Customer Favorites, the "100 topselling books on Amazon.com during 2007. (Ranked according to customer orders through October. Only books published for the first time in 2007 are eligible.)" At last, a measure with a metric rather than whimsical evanescent criteria. "Top selling" I can understand, even if Amazon has contracted the words into one. There's still time for you to vote on that page for your favorite from among the top 25 best sellers of the year.

Back on the main page of Best Books of 2007, bonuses are the breakdowns of Customer Favorites into 30 "top ten" categories, (find the list in the right column). That's enough sections to enable market research for anyone considering writing a book. What's more, you can also study similar rankings for the last sevan years! (See box at the bottom of the left column.)

Free Books to Help Writers

John Kremer of bookmarket.com runs another website of great service and use to writers: Free Books for All. The nonfiction sections available include:

1. Free Business, Economics, Personal Finance, and Computer Books
2. Free How-to Books: Art, Beauty, Cookbooks, Crafts, Entertainment, Gardening, Health, Home, Movies, Music, Parenting, Relationships, Travel, Sports
3. Free Memoirs, Biographies, Quotable Books, Writing/Publishing, and Reference
4. Free Spiritual, Religious, Mind/Body/Spirit, and Self-Help Books
5. Free Ecology, History, Philosophy, Politics, Science, and Social Issues Books

Don't skip perusing the Business page. There you'll find a collection of Seth Godin's wisdom on blogging and viral marketing. Sure, these books are available around the 'net, but here they are all in one spot. Free for the taking!