Consult the Editor

Jason Allen Ashlock's analysis of the problems...

2011-09-07T11:17:35.030-04:00

Jason Allen Ashlock's analysis of the problems with agents acting as publishers hits the bull's eye, in my opinion. Killer line and insight: "Certain principles do not evaporate in the face of innovation." He is surely right that abandoning the principles of fair dealing that have evolved to govern relationships between agents, authors, and publishers will only lead to unfairness and self-dealing, witting and unwitting.

Carol was my dream editor, going over every word, ...

2011-08-18T19:57:02.882-04:00

Carol was my dream editor, going over every word, transforming our book poemcrazy: freeing your life with words into just what she promised, a beautiful book. What a lovely brilliant loving woman. How I will miss her.
Susan Wooldridge

Very funny!

2011-07-25T21:09:56.425-04:00

Very funny!

. . . wait, what did you say?--I got distracted--

2011-07-25T19:04:07.576-04:00

. . . wait, what did you say?--I got distracted--

While on the one hand this sounds like a great ide...

2011-07-25T16:08:56.694-04:00

While on the one hand this sounds like a great idea, on the other hand I'm reluctant to endorse anything that supports people's growing inability to focus on anything much longer than an e-mail.

I guess that's what happens when you get rid o...

2011-07-09T19:29:57.796-04:00

I guess that's what happens when you get rid of the gatekeepers. Publishers and agents take heart. You do serve a useful purpose!

The gap is elemental. I don't think people wh...

2011-06-16T13:21:57.963-04:00

The gap is elemental. I don't think people who read books on an iphone are like me, waiting for the Saturday Times to be delivered with its copy of the NBYTBR to make choices about what to buy.

I believe that literacy has evolved (for those who are literate).

The onus is on the less evolved to keep up because that's how survival works.

Using the differential in responses to the ARC is an easy choice. But let's extend it further. Start at the end, the marketing--why would anyone consider print ads when one on line ad can go viral and a book can be explored in unlimited markets rather than relegating it to a category and promoting it only there. Are conventional publishers' sales or promotion people going to have the time to research and weed out on line markets?

It seems to me that sometimes technocrats purposefully make the various services sound complicated. There is an enormous communication gap and I don't think all the gobbledy gook is a mistake. Who knows what landing on an RSS mean, raise your hand. Should you be paying for it?

Another gap is between what is a good deal to a book person vs on line numbers. If I tell you I will take a cut of xx% and you can break even at 3000 books, is that a good deal? No, it is a terrible deal. To sell 3000 indie published books is a coup. It takes a long time if it ever happens. Does an author searching for the right package to publish her material know how to figure this out?

The percentages taken by Amazon vs what you get from buying directly from Create Space or your own web site, or if you are on another link, or in an Ingraham catalogue, or from a bookstore--they all vary. The old 51% for big box stores, 50% for chains and 40% for independants might as well be the percentage Moses took coming down the mountain with the tablets.

So where is The Gap?--Between the traditional book...

2011-06-15T12:47:44.484-04:00

So where is The Gap?--Between the traditional book review outlets that mainstream publishers send galleys to and the far-flung new media to which indie publishers are reaching out?

Wow--the reviews certainly make the book sound uni...

2011-06-12T08:40:01.275-04:00

Wow--the reviews certainly make the book sound unique. I have to take a look!

Ah, but are you sure that was really her?

2011-05-26T17:10:07.380-04:00

Ah, but are you sure that was really her?

Incredible! Let's hope the snafu can function...

2011-05-26T11:13:50.568-04:00

Incredible! Let's hope the snafu can function as a form of publicity for this author, bringing awareness of her work to a larger audience. I know I'm going to read her latest, because when I followed the link to the Salon article, there was the face of a former Hoboken neighbor with whom I hadn't had contact in years -- Caroline Leavitt!

I suppose that's what happens when you rely on...

2011-05-26T09:45:32.814-04:00

I suppose that's what happens when you rely on people who don't know English. Somewhere D.H. Lawrence reminisces about having Italian typesetters working on LADY CHATTERLY--he says they would set the word "didn't" in a dozen different ways: di'dnt, din'dt, did'tn, d'idnt, "like a fugue."

I also had a problem with a book that was printed ...

2011-05-26T09:35:09.564-04:00

I also had a problem with a book that was printed in China. My graphic novel RESISTANCE was a Sydney Taylor Silver Medal Winner. When I did a book signing at Books of Wonder recently, we discovered all of the award stickers had been affixed UPSIDE DOWN!

Sandi, not sure I understand how Larry's new j...

2011-05-23T19:11:13.299-04:00

Sandi, not sure I understand how Larry's new job would relate to "weeding." Can you explain?

Isn't it though?!

2011-05-20T09:40:43.317-04:00

Isn't it though?!

That's a lot of "ifs," but, of cours...

2011-05-20T09:30:23.472-04:00

That's a lot of "ifs," but, of course, I do see your point. On the other hand, isn't it fun to argue?

Notice what I said in my post: The idea would be t...

2011-05-20T08:46:45.418-04:00

Notice what I said in my post: The idea would be to pre-test covers by seeing which one people click on "for more information or to pre-order the title." So we are polling people who are interested in buying books, not people who never read.

Then there's the "elitism" issue. There's a fine line here. If I were working on a brilliant literary work that I was convinced had lasting esthetic value, and if a designer had come up with a cover that captured the book's meaning in a magnificently creative fashion that all the key players (including the marketing chief, the editor, and the author) loved, then I certainly wouldn't submit the design to a vote by readers.

But if I were working on a good, solid book that I hoped would attract a large number of readers (and make nice money for the publisher and the author in the process), and if a designer had come up with two or three designs all of which were accurate and attractive, and if there was a split decision among the key players as to which design would be most commercially successful, then actually testing the options by submitting them to readers would seem to me to be a very useful process.

Yes, this is more akin to creating the package for a new toothpaste than to designing an edition of Ulysses with illustrations by Matisse. But I haven't worked with that many James Joyces or Matisses in my career anyway . . .

At the risk of sounding elitist, this sounds like ...

2011-05-20T08:15:48.613-04:00

At the risk of sounding elitist, this sounds like a surefire way to arrive at the lowest common denominator. I remember sitting with a roomful of people talking about which jacket design would be most appropriate for a book most of them hadn't read. Now you're inviting an untold number of people who not only haven't read the book but who also may know nothing about design and in fact never read to vote on the "best jacket." Is this really a good idea? Has anyone ever watched The People's Choice Awards?

I understand your shivers. It can be torture when...

2011-05-19T19:23:50.467-04:00

I understand your shivers. It can be torture when a roomful of people spend 20 minutes debating a cover design based on nothing but intuition and subjective individual reactions. But after all the purpose of the cover is to get people to pick up the book--so having actual data about what people are attracted to, rather than having to guess as we now do, might be a useful way to end the pointless debates rather than to extend them.

I don't know if it's been done, but what a...

2011-05-19T11:11:48.349-04:00

I don't know if it's been done, but what an interesting idea, and a great way to build pre-pub buzz. You could also use it in a raffle-like way - the first X number of people to vote get a bound galley.

I admit that part of me shivers when I think about adding more voices and opinions to the mix for book jackets - they are so fraught as it is with group decisionmaking. But if you can get it down to 2-3 versions the publisher (and the author!) feel they could go with, then whatever the final verdict turns out to be, it might be something of a relief to put the final determination in public hands.

Karl: Right! Judy: Right! Which is why it is so ri...

2011-05-18T17:44:25.006-04:00

Karl: Right! Judy: Right! Which is why it is so ridiculous that this hasn't been solved by now. I can see some crucial folks were missing from the focus groups. Darn. I'd have liked a few free slices of pizza or whatever was on offer in exchange ;).

Toni: I tried the "Search Inside This Book&qu...

2011-05-18T17:40:32.554-04:00

Toni: I tried the "Search Inside This Book" feature on Amazon and was thwarted by a message saying that the portion of the book I needed to see was not searchable. I don't know why.

I understand that some formats of e-books on the iPad now include page numbers mirroring those of the printed books. I imagine that within a year or two this will be standard, including on the Kindle.

In time, when an increasing number of books are published ONLY in e-book form, scholarly norms will have to evolve that permit citations by e-book "location" or some other agreed-upon metric. This wouldn't be unprecedented: after all, classical texts and the Bible are routinely cited not by page number but by chapter and verse or other traditional subdivisions.

I wrote about a different but related issue back i...

2011-05-18T17:33:53.172-04:00

I wrote about a different but related issue back in April when I discovered that footnotes all appear at the end of the book and, without page numbers, there's no way to determine what they relate to--especially since you can't flip to the end of the book while reading and by the time you get to the end the referents are in the distant past.

Technology being what it is, I can't believe there isn't a way to fix these annoying problems. I know that if you change the font size the page numbers may change, but somehow that doesn't seem like an insurmountable obstacle in a world where you can deposit a check in the bank by taking a picture of it with your iPhone. C'mon Amazon; you can do this!

This is a big drawback, it seems to me, of Kindle ...

2011-05-18T17:28:48.294-04:00

This is a big drawback, it seems to me, of Kindle for scholarship.

No, don't laugh. As long as anyone cares about fidelity to truth, which includes fidelity to citation of sources, for reasons of ethics (to credit the work done by others), commerce (to compensate them for quoting it if appropriate, or to point potential buyers toward it), accountability (to put credit or blame where it's due for accurate or inaccurate reporting) and purity (of the transmission of the human story), page numbers need to stick around for a while longer. Or maybe key phrases will be used to find text instead? I dunno. But people who do research - and that's actually a LOT of people, not just the ivory tower folk - could benefit hugely from Kindle use, and this is a big drawback for them.

Are page numbers visible on other readers or is the problem ubiquitous?

Also, you might have been able to save yourself a trip if you'd looked up the passage on Amazon using the "Search Inside the Book," which is on the left within the "Look Inside the Book" function. That has page numbers. Try looking your quote up there and see if you find it!

Ditto that, Karl. Wow. Very exciting for the who...

2011-05-17T23:02:06.631-04:00

Ditto that, Karl. Wow. Very exciting for the whole new way it gives people to enter into books. It will be more obviously applicable for some kinds of books than for others, of course, but it seems to me that we are limited only by our imaginations regarding how it might work for any particular book. Its capabilities remind me, in a limited way, of the Special Features feature on DVDs.