Posts Tagged ‘publishing’
Week in the World: Music, Best Ofs, and the Science of Digital vs. Ink
Here are just a few awesome things I came across in the past few days.
MUSIC
KCRW’s music director, Jason Bentley, has brought back Metropolis, his radio talk show featuring electronic music pioneers. Before going on hiatus in 2008, he spoke with such legends as Daft Punk, Paul Oakenfold, James Lavelle, The Crystal Method, and Thievery Corporation.
In a recent interview with Cool Hunting, Bentley talks about what made him start his show in the late 90s.
I was just attracted to underground dance music and culture, European dance culture, house music and trip hop. All of this stuff that was percolating was really exciting to me. At that point it was just really fresh and had not been categorized. Growing up through the club scene and rave scene was really exciting. It was always sort of renegade. I still have close friends from those days. It was such a transformative time to grow up in this really creative space of the club. The cool thing about the club scene and the underground is everybody is looking for something—who they are, their identity, their purpose, their creative side. Everyone is trying to figure out who we are and why are we here. For me finding the community in this very creative world of club scene and dance music was incredibly important.
On a show that aired in late March, Bentley talks with legendary drum and bass producer and DJ Photek. If you were at all into the jungle scene in the 90s, you’ll want to listen to it. Photek talks about the early days of the genre, when everything was groundbreaking, when sounds, styles, and technology were just developing.
Alec Baldwin, a few episode ago on his show Here’s The Thing, spoke with Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke about his new album Amok with the group he put together for the project, Atoms of Peace. The two talk about how Radiohead started, how it was touring with Michael Stipe, and his kids.
the nicest bit about the creative thing – the nicest bit about recording and writing is this sort of weird limbo in between scratching away, scratching away, nothing really happening, nothing really happening, and then something wants to be built and starts to get built. You just have to let it happen.
BEST OFS
There’s been a lot of celebration surrounding the announcement of Granta’s once-a-decade “Best of Young British Novelists” list. As always, it includes 20 British writers under the age of 40. Although it includes well-known authors such as Zadie Smith, Helen Oyeyemi, and Adam Foulds, there are a few writers on there who are just starting out: one author being Taiye Selasi whose first book, Ghana Must Go, is being published this month in the US by Penguin Press.
There have been a number of articles discussing the selection process. The BBC takes a look at what the list means to publishers, in The Telegraph judge Gaby Wood discusses the selection process, and Granta editor, John Freeman, speaks with the National Book Critics Circle for an interview on their blog.
This month kicked off a worldwide tour surrounding the list’s publication. Check out Granta’s website to see if anything is happening near you. Also on the site are articles by and interviews with the winners.
Also exciting for book people, particularly those who enjoy translated fiction, is the Best Translated Book Award run by Three Percent, the website of The University of Rochester’s literary publishing house, Open Letter Books. The longlist was announced in March and since that time there’s been a review of each book with the sole purpose of explaining why that book deserves to win. On the Three Percent podcast, which I highly recommend you subscribe to in iTunes, Chad Post of Open Letter and Tom Roberge of New Directions discuss the books.
Earlier this month they announced the finalists in fiction and poetry.
E VS. INK
As the publishing world continues to march head on into the digital age, much of the talk surrounding print books vs. eReaders can get reductive. I have my own opinions, which are of the middle-of-the-road sort so I will spare you. However, if you’re interested in theses competing (and complementary) mediums, this article in Scientific American about the brain science of reading might offer a nice break from the typical discussions taking place.
Understanding how reading on paper is different from reading on screens requires some explanation of how the brain interprets written language. We often think of reading as a cerebral activity concerned with the abstract—with thoughts and ideas, tone and themes, metaphors and motifs. As far as our brains are concerned, however, text is a tangible part of the physical world we inhabit. In fact, the brain essentially regards letters as physical objects because it does not really have another way of understanding them.
WRITING
Over on the New York Times Opinionator blog, Drafts, author Ben Dolnick writes about the dangers of reading too many interviews with writers about craft.
MISCELLANY
Speaking of author interviews, Other People podcast spoke with essayist and critic Michelle Orange. For those interested in the two genres, they will be well-served by listening. And anyone who’s been tapped into the intersection of teen blogging and fashion will be aware by now of Tavi Gevinson, most recently the founder of the teen-focused website Rookie. She spoke with AdWeek about her rise to notoriety and how she balances work, school, and a personal life every teen should be allowed to have. Perhaps not surprisingly, she’s well-adjusted for someone as busy as herself. In fact she says, “for the most part, I’ve kind of figured out a way to do everything I want without exhausting myself.”
Week in the World: Excellent Journalism Edition
I don’t believe this is a new phenomenon but I’ve noticed an overwhelming amount of quality journalism on the Internet lately. Here are a few pieces that made me think about creative nonfiction, links to more straightforward writing articles, and, of course, television shows and podcasts for when you’re done reading.
CREATIVE NONFICTION
The Food That Ate Manhattan: The Implacable Rise of Frozen Yogurt Leaves Us Cold by Kim Velsey for The New York Observer
Anyone who knows me knows about my terrible frozen yogurt habit. I’ve memorized the locations of all the self-serve places below 14th street. I know the Tasti-d-Lites that surround the stores and coffee shops I frequent. I couldn’t go a day without it, or at least not easily. So, when I came across this fantastic article on the rise of frozen yogurt, specifically in New York City, and read its mocking, horrified tone, I was enthralled and wanted to share with everyone I knew.
It was not until one day in Union Square that I realized, in a moment of disquieting clarity, that frozen yogurt shops were everywhere. A Joyride frozen yogurt truck idled by the park, Diet Lite Ice Cream was visible just down 17th Street, and a Yelp search revealed that a Pinkberry, a Tasti D-Lite, a Red Mango, a 16 Handles, a Yoqua Bar and a Yogurberry were all within a five to 10 minute walk. None of which were deemed satisfactory by the friend at my side, who urged us on toward Flavaboom on Sixth Avenue, where one could get the nonfat flavors twisted together and heaped with cheesecake bites and cookie dough.
Nearly skipping with anticipation, she raved about frozen yogurt the whole way there. It was alarming. How could she be so into frozen yogurt? I wondered. How could anyone?
Saying Goodbye to Now by Thomas Beller for the New Yorker’s Culture Desk
Thomas Beller is an excellent observer. In this essay he looks at the difference between memories and photographs. At one point he asks, “Are [these memories] any more vivid to me because there are no photographs? Conversely, would photographing have taken me away and made it all less sharp in my mind?” But first he begins:
My daughter was now airborne. A flying monkey coming right at me, headfirst: straw-yellow hair, a blue skirt, blue spaghetti-strap shirt, apple cheeks, and lips garishly smudged with pink lip gloss within which is the whiteness of her bared teeth—
Stop! Right here, let’s freeze the frame. Here is an image that I will never see again, except in my memory. A girl in mid-flight, waves of green behind her, her face all bright with the colors —blue, pink, yellow, white—of joy and delight, and behind her, as though it was the place from which she had fled, an old, dignified mansion.
Right then, as she was airborne, my hand twitched and slapped my pocket, in the dim hope that I could locate my camera, pull it out, and shoot while the moment still held. But there was no camera, and anyway there was no time. I will never forget this image, though I may already be embellishing it. And you will never see it. You may picture it, but the picture itself was not taken. I had to fight off a sadness about this, because the moment, after all, was happening, and it was beautiful, and anything that detracted from my perception of that was a shame.
Deconstructed—Chris Ware’s Innovation by Steve Almond for The New Republic
Steve Almond is one of my favorite contemporary writers. I particularly like his nonfiction and usually find that his essays double as a writing lesson. In this review of Chris Ware’s epic graphic art experiment, Building Stories, Almond teaches us how to write about things of which we have no authority:
Let’s start with my qualifications as a critic of graphic novels: Putting aside an adolescent excursion into a stoner comic strip called the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, I have none. Worse yet, I tend to associate graphic novels with the regressive and haughty wing of hipsterism, the one that favors mope rock and off-brand beers. I guess what I’m getting at here is that I’m a nitwit.
There is no greater evidence of my nitwittedness (currently) than my initial reaction to the new release by the graphic novelist Chris Ware, who I have come to understand is something of a big deal in his field.
While this is totally hilarious, it is also getting at a problem that deserves attention–how do you write about something you haven’t got the slightest clue about? How do you look at a text, a work of art, a film, or listen to a piece of music and judge it, deconstruct it, and put to paper your thoughts and observations without context? Steve Almond breaks the taboo, touts his ignorance, and, inadvertently, champions the amateur.
Four hours with John McAfee by Adam Thomson for The Financial Times
This profile of John McAfee, a tech tycoon who went on the lam after his neighbor was murdered, is a story that got really weird, really fast. The first reporting I’d read was in the Financial Times when one of their correspondents met up with him in Belize to write a profile:
There was nothing serene or tranquil about McAfee. As soon as he closed the front door, he ditched the limp and the crippled arm. Then, hands trembling, he reached for one of several cigarette packets lying on the table.”
His distress, and that of Samantha, his feisty 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend – during the interview, she accused me of being scared: “I’m young and smaller than you and I’ve got more balls” – was more than understandable given the saga that their lives had become over the previous few weeks.
Apparently, VICE magazine was there as well and gave away McAfee’s location through an iPhone photo embedded with GPS coordinates. Something McAfee is now suing them for. However, as The New York Times Decoder blog reports:
Within 36 hours, he began an aggressive campaign to court and spin coverage of his story. … Mr. McAfee seemed to understand the dynamics of journalism well enough to know which assertions reporters would pass along without double-checking or qualifying — like his claim that he had eluded the police by burying himself in sand and positioning a box over his head — even as his self-created narrative veered ever further into the surreal.
WRITING and PUBLISHING
How to Write a Book Review from Daily Writing Tips
Why Netflix Makes You a Better Writer on LitReactor
Five Dos and Don’ts for Picking an Editor by Susan J. Morris for Omnivoracious
Should You Spend Money On Publicity & Marketing? by Randy Susan Meyers for Beyond the Margins
TELEVISION and PODCASTS
For those of you who don’t have cable, Lena Dunham’s show Girls is now available on DVD. While you’re at it, co-producer Judd Apatow’s show Freaks and Geeks (1999) is streaming on Netflix. And for his latest film, ‘This is 40,’ Apatow has been doing some interviews: The Nerdist with Chris Hardwick and Bullseye with Jesse Thorn.
Now that everyone’s caught up on Mad Men Season 5, you can listen to The Nerdist Writer’s Panel’s “Mad Men season five in review” episode with Creator and showrunner Matthew Weiner, showrunners Andre and Maria Jacquemetton, and writer Erin Levy.
Alec Baldwin spoke with Lapham’s Quarterly founder, Lewis Lapham, for his show, Here’s the Thing. Lapham has an excellent gravelly voice that makes his stories and wisdom even better, if that were possible. You can also read an interview Lewis recently conducted with Smithsonian Magazine that I meant to share last week.
To the Best of Our Knowledge spoke with autistic savant Daniel Tammet and it was mesmerizing. Daniel is one of the few people with autism who can express his thought process and explain what he experiences. To hear him tell the interviewer how he thinks was astounding.
Images: Frozen Yogurt Charms; Camera; John McAfee
Week in the World: Above and Beyond Edition
Here are a few things I came across this week that were exceptional.
PODCASTS
Perfect Day Publishing on Late Night Conversation
I’ve mentioned The Late Night Library’s podcast, Late Night Conversation, before but their interviews continue to be amazing, so, here we are again. This Portland-based organization is devoted to spreading the awareness of independent publishing. The show, hosted by co-founder Paul Martone, features debut authors and publishing professionals from small presses. Martone has the conversational style that makes podcasts so great. He’s thoughtful, informed, and curious.
The latest episode features Perfect Day Publishing founder Michael Heald and author Lisa Wells, whose book Yeah. No. Totally was published by the press this year. I first came to hear of Perfect Day Publishing through a previously self-published book they’d reprinted after it gained some attention. Love Is Not Constantly Wondering If You Are Making the Biggest Mistake of Your Life is one of the best books I read in 2012.
In other podcast news, Alec Baldwin talked to Billy Joel in July and I just got around to listening to it. It was pretty great.You’ll probably enjoy it more if you’re from Long Island. A personal favorite, Teju Cole was on CBC’s Writers & Company, one of the best author interview shows out there today.
WRITING
This weekend I came across an article by Blake Butler on HTMLGIANT called ‘22 Things I Learned from Submitting Writing.” At first glance I expected it to be snarky. While the site is typically earnest, there’s a level of sarcasm lurking underneath. This piece from Blake, however, was truly generous. Here are a few of my favorite points:
4. Often editors who reject you are doing you a favor. Either the piece isn’t great and needs work (thus saving you face of looking back later like whyyyyy did I publish this) or taking a strong piece and making it stronger because of force of will.
5. Some pieces are you learning. Some never get it right. Don’t publish your homework.”
13. Don’t lose sight of someone you love in the midst of this.
19. Be a person, not an email address with a social profile and an onslaught.
Also of note is writer Brad Leithauser’s essay about the different ways we read fiction–mainly two ways, like a critic and like a child. He recalls the time he and his then 15-year-old daughter had a conversation about Rachel from Daphne du Maurier’s “My Cousin Rachel.”
I’m eyeballs deep in noir at the moment and came across this great essay by Raymond Chandler called “The Simple Art of Murder.” I’m sure many crime fiction fans have already stumbled on this, a few possibly owning a highlighted copy in their drawer somewhere, but for the rest of us…
Every detective story writer makes mistakes, and none will ever know as much as he should. Conan Doyle made mistakes which completely invalidated some of his stories, but he was a pioneer, and Sherlock Holmes after all is mostly an attitude and a few dozen lines of unforgettable dialogue.
ART
The Los Angeles Review of Books has quickly become the place to go for in-depth, thoughtful coverage of the arts. Their front page has a triptych that changes at least twice a week. Recently, I came across their LARBart Tumblr where the work is displayed and explained.
While the name suggests heavy coverage of books, LARB has able people writing about other topics as well. Recently, they ran an interview with Ellen Lupton, one of the curators of “Graphic Design: Now In Production,” now on view at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Ellen runs the MFA design program at the Maryland Institute College of Art and is the author of Thinking with Type.
Today, every designer is a production artist — setting type, retouching photos, and making endless updates for clients. The convergence of design and production gives us more direct control over the outcome of a project, while also loading us with an ever-growing list of skills and tasks to master. … Many designers today are using their knowledge of production techniques to become publishers, authors, editors, and instigators.
The term “graphic” has long been a point of contention in our field. … I like the word “graphic” because it connects us to the world of text, as well as to the “graphic arts” — the processes of printing and production. Typography is always about writing, and writing is a graphic phenomenon.
TV
I usually roll my eyes at algorithms, those computer generated recommendations, but the other night while I was clicking through Netflix I noticed a British program from the 80s that was highlighted for me, The Comic Strip Presents, a sketch comedy show featuring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson of The Young Ones and Jennifer Saunders, who later went on to create and star in Absolutely Fabulous. If you’re a fan of any of the above, you should stop reading now and add it to your queue. For those more familiar with Portlandia, this is their long lost British forebear.
Forty Stories, a Gift to Readers
At a time when publishers are concerned about ebook pricing, many believing that going below a certain dollar amount devalues both the book and the author (a theory I am sympathetic to), an intriguing project from a major publisher is taking place. Forty Stories, a labor of love spearheaded by Cal Morgan, publisher and editorial director at HarperCollins, is available today as a free ebook through all major retailers.
In January of 2009, Morgan started an online community for short story writers called Fifty-Two Stories. As the name suggests, each week a new story would be posted for free on the website. For all you trivia junkies, Simon Van Booy’s “The Missing Statues” was first. From 2009 until the first half of 2011 the output was consistent. Then, in August of last year, something happened and only one story was posted that month. Someone would have to be a complete jerk not to forgive Morgan and his crew for the lapse, given that no one involved is paid. (According to an excellent profile on the ebook collection from The Atlantic Wire, Morgan spends his Sundays reading through and selecting from hundreds of submissions that come pouring through the site’s open call for works.)
You’d think the people behind Fifty-Two Stories would pick up where they left off without a word, as if nothing happened, but no, they actually thanked readers for their patience and decided to make good on the stories they “owed”—all forty of them. These stories were first made available a few weeks ago as a downloadable PDF—a rough layout for anyone who’s experienced one on their ereader—but today, the official release date, a fully formatted edition is here.
Included in the collection are innovative up-and-comers—a subset of fiction writers that Cal Morgan has become known for publishing—as well as a few who have made a name for themselves over the years. There are also a handful of unknowns, some of whom will see their work published for the first time.
The book opens with Ben Greenman’s “Ambivalence” and, as would be expected of Greenman’s ever-engaging prose, the first few lines are bound to hook the reader:
When a girl is skinny, and calls you late at night, and you glance at the calendar, and it is four days before you are scheduled to get married, and the girl you are marrying is not the skinny girl but another girl, a girl who has already departed for the city where your wedding is to be held, it is your job, most probably, to hang up the phone. When you do not hang up the phone, you have not done your job. When you invite that skinny girl to your apartment, and then you jump into the shower so that you will be clean, taking special trouble to wash the parts that matter, and then you mess up your hair so that you will look as though you haven’t gone to any special trouble, then you are doing another job entirely.
Another contributor who I was excited to see involved with the book is essayist, editor, and short fiction writer Roxane Gay. “In the Manner of Water or Light” tells the story of a multigenerational family in Haiti as told by a granddaughter far removed from the atrocities her grandmother suffered as a young woman. As Gay is known to do, she makes the reader consider the political and social situations of those beyond the borders of American and European patriarchies.
Other writers in the collection whose names might resonate with readers of this blog are Blake Butler, Adam Wilson, Shane Jones, Jess Walter, and Elizabeth Crane—many of whom are published by HarperCollins. While I dug into the stories written by those known to me, I was equally eager to discover the unfamiliar. Among those I hadn’t yet heard of, two stood out: Lindsay Hunter, with her chilling abduction story “A Girl,” and Alexander Lumans, whose “Eighty-six Ways to Cross One Desert” is comprised solely of odd questions.
In a time, as mentioned in my introduction, when the publishing industry is questioning the future of the printed book and the health of the market as a whole, I couldn’t help but wonder, will people, after reading this collection, go out and buy the work of the authors who are published or will they seek out the next free ebook? Putting aside my financial curiosity, it’s obvious that anyone who cares about books will find this project heartwarming. Forty Stories proves that just because something is free, doesn’t mean it’s cheap. This collection is priceless.
::[Links]::
Fifty-Two Stories website
Forty Stories PDF
Profile in The Atlantic Wire
Contributors interviewed on the Other People podcast with Brad Listi
Roxane Gay
Blake Butler
Adam Wilson
Elizabeth Crane
Scott McClanahan
Jess Walter talks with Ed Champion on The Bat Segundo Show
Book of the Week: Enrique Vila-Matas’s Dublinesque [Excerpt]
Dublinesque by contemporary Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas is a surprisingly humorous story about a failed publisher, Riba, living in Barcelona. Rather than admit his company’s demise is attributed to his poor financial skills, he places the blame on the current state of the publishing industry.
Throughout the book Riba makes plans to visit Dublin in order to stage a metaphorical funeral for the printed word, a “requiem for the Gutenberg age”. A review of Dublinesque is forthcoming but until then, enjoy the opening page of this wonderful book. If you’ve read it, please share your comments below. If you haven’t, pick it up now. It’s perfect for a read-along.
He belongs to an increasingly rare breed of sophisticated, literary publishers. And every day, since the beginning of this century, he has watched in despair the spectacle of the noble branch of his trade—publishers who still read and who have always been drawn to literature—gradually, surreptitiously dying out. He had financial trouble two years ago, but managed to shut the publishing house down without having to declare bankruptcy, toward which it had been heading with terrifying obstinacy, despite its prestige. In over thirty years as an independent he has seen it all, successes but also huge failures. He attributes the loss of direction in the end to his resistance to publishing the gothic vampire tales and other nonsense now in fashion, and so forgets part of the truth: he was never renowned for good financial management, and what’s more, his exaggerated fanaticism for literature was probably harmful.
Samuel Riba—known to everyone as Riba—has published many of the great writers of his time. In some cases only one book, but enough so they appear in his catalog. Sometimes, although aware that in the honorable sector of his trade there are still some valiant Quixotes, he likes to see himself as the last publisher. He has a somewhat romantic image of himself, and spends his life feeling that it’s the end of an era, the end of the world, doubtless influenced by the sudden cessation of his activities. He has a remarkable tendency to read his life as a literary text, interpreting it with the distortions befitting the compulsive reader he’s been for so many years. Aside from this, he is hoping to sell his assets to a foreign publishing house, but talks have been stalled for some time. He lives in an anxious state of powerful, end-of-everything psychosis. Nothing, and no one, has yet convinced him that getting old has its good points. Does it?
From Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas. Copyright 2010 by Enrique Vila-Matas.
Advice to Authors: The Publicity Campaign
By day, I am a book publicist for a large publishing house. I’ve been there for nearly ten years and find that each day is a learning experience. With a shifting landscape comes new obstacles as well as new opportunities. I find my job more exciting now than in any year past. While traditional media outlets appear to be shrinking, online communities are growing all the time. Willing authors have more space to be creative and more chances at getting their name—and book—into the public arena.
When the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America approached me to write a post about book publicity, I knew exactly what I’d write. It’s what I do at the start of nearly every new campaign: the introductory email to an author.
What follows is an explanation of what it is a publicist does and how you, as an author, can play a part in your book’s publicity campaign. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Feel free to come back and comment.
**************************
Subject: Hello from your Publicist
If the title of this post caught your eye, chances are you’ve sold a book to a publishing house and are now in the process of moving forward to publication date. Maybe you’re on your second or third novel and are looking for tips for the next time around. Whatever your interest may be, I hope to shed some light on what a book publicist does and how you, as an author, can play an active role in your book’s campaign. . . .
Read the rest here.
On the Shelf: Cory Doctorow on Self-Publishing, Jesse Ball on Bookworm, and King Arthur at the Round Table
Cory Doctorow, author, blogger, and co-editor of the wildly popular pop culture website BoingBoing, is also a columnist for the science fiction magazine Locus. In his most recent article, Why Should Anyone Care?, he gives thought to his self-published short story collection With a Little Help that came out in December of 2010.
Over the past two years there’s been a steady increase in both talk about self-publishing and writers actually doing it. It’s quickly becoming easier to produce a book on one’s own and there have been a few successes—Amanda Hocking for one—that have helped create a sense of possibility. Both computers and the software needed to create a book are easier to use; print-on-demand websites like Lulu and Blurb are gaining popularity; the proliferation of e-readers makes it possible to test out a digital only version sparing the writer print costs; and the rise of social media culture encourages self-promotion and entrepreneurship—not to mention that a strong online can help sell the final product.
It’s easy to look at the few success stories and think, “why not?” Anyone who’s tried to get their work published traditionally knows it’s hard. Publishing houses rarely have time to pick through slush piles so more often than not you need an agent to pitch your book to editors; the editors need to like your book; and then the imprint’s publisher needs to see a place for it in the current market. The numerous steps, the limited resources of publishers, and a staggering number authors vying for the same coveted position can make the effort seem futile.
As with the rise in self-publishing, there has been, what seems to be, an endless supply of commentary on the subject—the encouragers, the detractors, and everyone else in between. It’s hard to make heads or tails of anything. Cory’s piece, however, is incredibly compelling and, for me, has stood out from all the rest. What makes it interesting is the realistic tone. As he’s said himself about his self-publishing project, he wanted to give unpublished writers thinking about going the self-publishing route a better idea of what they could expect. He experimented so others could see what the upper limit would look like.
Cory reached best-selling success with Little Brother published by Tor, a traditional publisher, he has a well-followed website to promote his work, a strong online following through social media, and enough of a name to interest newspapers and magazines.
Here are some of the highlights however, the article should be read in full:
“Publishers generally know what they’re doing, and they’ve got well-tuned, semi-automated systems for getting readers to pay attention to books. They’ve had a lot of practice.Writers, by and large, haven’t. Not successful, established writers, and certainly not brand new, fresh-out-of-the-wrapper writers. It doesn’t really matter how much time you spend hanging around bookstores or browsing online stores, until you’ve marketed a book, you don’t really know how to market a book.”
“. . . like everyone doing something complicated for the first time, I dramatically underestimated how much work this would be. It’s not impossible, and it’s not horrible work – it’s challenging, exciting stuff, but it’s incredibly time consuming and it can be tough (and expensive – sending out hundreds of review copies ain’t cheap, but it was worth it, if only for the major feature inThe Wall Street Journal this garnered me).”
“I get a lot of e-mail from writers starting out who want to know whether it’s worth trying to get published by major houses. The odds are poor – only a small fraction of books find a home in mainstream publishing – and the process can be slow and frustrating.”
“And we’ve all heard about writers who’ve met with modest – or stellar – success with self-publishing. So why not cut out the middleman and go direct to readers?
There’s not a thing wrong with that plan, provided that it is a plan. Mainstream publishers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over decades learning and re-learning how to get people to care about the existence of books.”
“Getting people to care about the products of your imagination is a profound and infinitely complex task that will absorb as much attention as you give it.”
You can hear his interview about the process with Mur Lafferty on her podcast, I Should Be Writing (it starts at the 23 minute mark). You can find Cory online at his personal site and you can follow him on Twitter @doctorow.
Have you self-published a book? Have you thought about it? Do you work at a publishing house and have any insider insight for authors? Comments are open.
And now for what’s caught my eye this week.
The Curfew by Jesse Ball
Jesse Ball is both a novelist and poet, and incredibly eloquent when speaking about both: you should listen to his interview on KCRW’s Bookworm for proof. In The Curfew the government is overthrown one night while ordinary citizens sleep. The world they wake up to is frightening—there is war, secret police, and random violence. In the midst of all this, a mother is taken and it’s up to her husband and young daughter to carry on quietly, keeping their head down. That is, until the husband, urged on by an old friend who claims to have a lead, tries to find his wife.
Life with Mr. Dangerous by Paul Hornschemeier
Life with Mr. Dangerous is the story of 27-year-old Amy who’s a bit down on her luck. She hates her job, her not-so-great boyfriend just dumped her, and she can’t get a hold of her best friend so instead, she spends her time watching the cartoon show Mr. Dangerous. This graphic novel is a mixture of daydreams and reality.
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
Boneshaker is a steampunk novel set in an alternate 1880s America where an inventor, commissioned by Russians, came up with a machine that could mine through Arctic ice at the hopes of getting to the gold said to be below. Unfortunately, he destroyed downtown Seattle, unearthing a gas line that turned everyone who breathed the air into zombies. Fifteen years later, the late inventor’s son is determined to clear his father’s name. Earlier this year she spoke with the Functional Nerds podcast about urban fantasy, publishing, and writing.
Le Morte D’Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table by Thomas Malory
King Arthur “ is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur’s story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians.” (Wikipedia). It seems that many pop culture stories, whether they be in print or on the screen stem from Thomas Malory’s inventive tales. Sometimes it’s worth going to the source.
