All sorts of things popping as I prepare to leave for an 8-day vacation (means no business, no emails, no social media) in New York City. When I return to Chicago, I’ll be dropped into the middle of preparations for a couple of very special BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES events for July and August (stay tuned for news in future blogs).
Meanwhile, I want to encourage all you writers – published and aspiring – when you feel like no agent or publisher has the wisdom to recognize the brilliance of your manuscript. Keep plugging away. To inspire you, check out “The rejection letters: how publishers snubbed 11 great authors”. Feeling rejected? You’ll be in great company while you laugh out loud!
Like so many modern technological “advances”, Amazon has the capacity to be a boon or a bane. In the book world, it allows us access to hard-to-find or out-of-print books and allows students to rent costly textbooks at a fraction of the cover price. At the same time, it competes with brick-and-mortar bookstores that act as community centers and it strong-arms both authors and publishers to accept its lower prices.
Fortunately, Amazon’s attempt at establishing its own bookstores has been less than stellar while local dedicated independent booksellers are flourishing. You can’t teach an elephant to tap dance and Amazon bookstores can’t cater to booklovers the way community stores can.
I admit to using Amazon for many kinds of purchases when buying locally is problematic due to size, weight or unusually high cost, or when the item I want is not available. But a new, surreptitious move by Amazon should be alarming to anyone who cares about the health of the book business.
Until recently, a visit to the Amazon site for books differentiated between new and used books. Want a new book, click the appropriate button and you’d be sent to the publisher. Now, in select interactions, you could be sent to a third-party seller who is selling you a book that appears new but is actually used. And you won’t know it.
This bait and switch may seem innocuous. After all, if it appears new and you assume it is new, what’s the harm? The harm is that a used book will have previously been recorded as a purchase; the publisher and author will receive no compensation for the sale of your used book.
I am not against the sale of used books, just as I’m not against checking books out of a library. Both practices expand the circulation of books to more readers. I am against misleading sales practices that disrupt the fine balance that sustains the flow of books and supports the people who produce them: writers, publishers, stores. Each needs to earn a fair share of sales to survive and flourish. Amazon’s latest ploy is an unnecessary fraud, simply to further line its own pockets.
It is in your hands to stop Amazon from ripping everyone off. All it takes is to avoid clicking the buy button for a “new” book if it goes to a third-party seller on the Amazon site. Better yet, order the book from your local independent bookstore. You’ll be helping to nurture the garden of literary delights, now and for generations to come.
Note to Readers – Every now and then, I will re-post a blog entry that has withstood the test of time. Whether you missed it the first time ‘round or read it years ago, I feel it’s worth sharing again. I chose Shorts in the Summer from June 23, 2013 (updated, with an expanded book list) to get you ready for cool summer reading.
Summer calls for shorts. Not just the kind you wear. The kind you read. Winter is a good time to pick up a novel, a memoir, a complex text. Something you can sink your teeth into like a thick stew that fills you up with comfort through long, cold nights. But summer is all about brevity. A day at the beach. A cool mouthful of ice cream. Something comfortable you can dip into and out of. This doesn’t mean short stories are flimsy, fly-away and forgettable. Some of our greatest literature is found in the short stories of such authors as Fitzgerald, Poe, O’Connor, Chekhov, du Maurier, Asimov, de Maupissant… and my personal hero, O.Henry. The list could go on well beyond summer. Great writers understand the challenge and power of the short story.
It’s true that a full-length story establishes lasting relationships through details and complexities of plot that a short story lacks. But a well-crafted short story can stay with you far beyond its reading. If you think that fewer words mean less intensity, I offer up what is possibly the shortest story ever written and challenge you to remain unmoved:
“For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” This six-word story is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, although it actually was scripted by someone else into a play about Hemingway. Does it matter? You get the point.
Several acclaimed contemporary novelists have collected short stories into books (check out the shorts of Harry Crews, Bobbie Ann Mason, Stephen King, Lorrie Moore, Jim Shepard, Haruki Murakami, Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, and Annie Proulx). You can also find great short stories in literary journals such as Tin House, Granta, Ploughshares, Crazy Horse, Black Warrior, Prairie Schooner and Glimmer Train.
Want to read some classic short stories online? Check out the Classic Short Storiessite.
