If you’ve long dreamed of experiencing a writers retreat at the famed Ragdale Foundation artists community but couldn’t qualify for a subsidized residency and couldn’t afford the unsubsidized program, you can still get a taste of Ragdale this fall. Story Studio Chicago is offering Writing the Landscape: A Ragdale Retreat September 25th-27th. Patricia Ann McNair, author of The Temple of Air, will lead an intensive, immersive weekend of writing, nature, creative instruction, and inspiration. Workshops will focus on writing the landscape, both interior and exterior. In between sessions, participants can wander the grounds, share meals with fellow writers, and enjoy a quiet place to relax and write.
Registration is now open for Daytime only and overnight spots.
Elephants are big and powerful. You can’t miss them and don’t want to stand in their way. There’s a lot to like about elephants. But there’s a problem with elephants: they can’t tap dance.
Major publishers are like elephants. They make a big splash in the pool of public awareness. They carry the bulk of book promotions and sales. They are noticed wherever they go and if you are an author, you want to be invited to ride them. But they can’t move as quickly and adeptly as competitors in a rapidly changing market.
As the publishing industry is changing to meet reader and author interests, smaller indie and university publishers are gaining on the behemoths of the book world. Even self-publishing is surging ahead in its ability to connect authors and their books with booklovers.
At last month’s Book Expo America, North America’s largest convention for the publishing industry, the biggest booths and the longest lines for author autographs were hosted by the major publishers, whose names you already know. And some giants you’ve never heard of: The largest presence, in booth size and speakers, was China (North America is viewed by China as a major market for publishing services as well as readers of Chinese and Chinese-to-English translations). But the programs discussing what is new or changing in the book world were largely run by indie publishers and self-publishing/marketing services.
Two sentiments frequently heard at BEA: 1) Major publishers put the bulk of their marketing support behind already-well-established authors leaving lesser-known authors to fend for themselves; smaller publishers have smaller marketing budgets but will work harder for emerging authors. 2) There are more choices and opportunities than ever for authors to make their mark in the book world.
Lines are blurring among service providers. For example some book distributors have become book producers with quality that successfully competes with traditional printing. Meanwhile, other distributors are helping authors get into previously inaccessible target markets such as libraries and the military. The internet and social media have opened doors wide for authors to promote their brand and their books where readers are increasingly influenced on buying decisions.
The savviest self-published authors have sold millions of books, matching or surpassing major publishers. The operative word is “savvy” – from good writing to production, distribution and marketing – regardless of who publishes a book, all the pieces of the puzzle must fit together to make a book a success. Authors must be prepared to walk their brainchild (or brainchildren) past the embryonic stage and birth to a long and successful life.
Future Book●ed blog posts will help authors through the process. To see my previous posts with information Authors should know, go to Categories and click For Authors.
Booklovers should plan on being in Chicago next Spring: Book Expo America 2016 will be at McCormick Place from May 11th-13th and the Chicago Tribune’s annual Printers Row Lit Fest will be in June (dates to be announced). Keep following the Book●ed blog for updates.
Ignore all those Henny Penny the sky is falling reports that print books are at death’s door. I recently returned from Book Expo America in NYC and the industry filled all 4 levels of the city-block-size Javitz Center. All the major U.S. publishers were there, along with industry representatives from several countries (China had the largest presence with a hotel lobby-size exhibit area and many programs). Indie publishers and individual authors were also highly visible. Just as important were all the supporting service companies promoting their capabilities. The place was buzzing and everywhere you looked, there were books, books, books, beautiful printed books.
This is great news for authors and booklovers alike. Over the next few weeks, I’ll share with you what I saw, heard and learned at BEA. Here are some of the key observations:
• The major publishers (you know their names) are the elephants in the room, big and powerful but they can’t tap dance.
• Smaller, indie publishers are gaining in recognition and respect, helping to launch more great authors and books that are overlooked by the majors.
• Self-published books continue to grow as a percentage of new titles each year.
• E-books continue to be popular but print dominates by a wide margin.
• Services supporting self-published authors and their books are becoming more sophisticated, effective, accessible and user friendly.
• Social media is an increasingly driving force behind book sales.
• There are exciting new players on the field; watch them run!
If you are an author, know an author or want to be an author, you’ll find (and, I hope, share) a wealth of useful information in the coming weeks of the Book●ed blog.
Book Expo America is coming to Chicago! North America’s largest book industry convention will leave NYC in 2016 and come to McCormick Place May 11th-13th, bringing along its adjunct BookCon event on May 14th. BookCon is a newer event, geared to the general public. Consumers interact with the authors, publishers, celebrities and creators of content that influence everything we read, hear and see. BookCon features Q+A’s, autographing sessions, storytelling podcasts, special screenings, literary quiz shows and more. For anyone serious about being part of the book business, BEA is a must. For anyone who loves books, BookCon is a treat. Book●ed will keep you updated on these events as they develop.
From where I sit at my computer, I have a view of a spectacular Prairie Fire Crabapple tree that is in full bloom at this time of year. A glorious cloud of deep pink blossoms sway gently with every soft spring breeze. It’s one reminder of the miracle of flowers that reappear in colorful abundance each year at this season. This got me thinking about the role flowers play in literature. It’s not all a bed of roses.
In Daphne du Maurier’s haunting Rebecca, here’s the description of the flowers seen by the second Mrs. De Winter (who is never referred to by a first name) on the first approach to her new home, Manderley: “The woods had not prepared me for them. They startled me with their crimson faces, massed one upon the other in incredible profusion, showing no leaf, no twig, nothing but the slaughterous red, luscious and fantastic, unlike any rhododendron I had seen before.” How quickly the innocent “faces… in incredible profusion” become “slaughterous red, luscious and fantastic”. The flowers, cultivated by the deceased first Mrs. De Winter – Rebecca of the book’s title – are an omen of things to come, the evolution of welcoming grace into some very luxurious yet dangerous darkness. Flowers – their colors, fragrances and how they grow — make symbolic appearances throughout the novel to powerful effect.
In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses flowers almost exclusively in relationship to Ophelia. Implying that Hamlet’s love for her is fleeting, Laertes calls that love “A violet in the youth of primy nature”, comparing it to a charming, fragrant but short-lived flower. Throughout the play, Ophelia hands out flowers that symbolize different qualities in other characters. Even Ophelia’s death takes place as she is picking flowers and falls into a brook where she drowns: “Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke,/ When down her weedy trophies and herself/ Fell in the weeping brook.”
Harper Lee used flowers memorably in To Kill a Mockingbird. In this story, the camellia represented justice. Just as Jem must nurture Mrs. Dubose’s white camellias, he must nurture the courage he needs to deal with the emotional upheaval of his young life. Fighting her own struggles before she died, Mrs. Dubose prepared a wax camellia for Jem, a camellia that would endure, as his courage must. Although they were not a focal point of the narrative, red geraniums also play an important, symbolic role. The description of Mayella Ewell’s property is like the “playhouse of an insane child.” Yet: “…against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to Miss Maudie Atkinson. People said they were Mayella Ewell’s.” While the Ewell family was not known to be caring and loving, the presence of the flowers symbolized the predisposition to good that still exists in everyone, no matter how corrupted they might be.
Now and through the coming months, don’t just stop to smell the roses you encounter. Think of what flowers symbolize to you. And give them more thought as you encounter them in the books you read.
Book Expo America (BEA), the largest annual book trade fair in the U.S. will be held in New York City this year from May 27-29. More than 750 authors, hundreds of new titles, 1,000+ exhibitors, and four Author Stages, along with the Digital Discovery Zone (D2Z) provided by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) make this one of the best environments for networking, sourcing, and relationship building in the publishing industry in North America. The BEA website has details.
The 31st annual Printer’s Row Lit Fest, considered the largest free outdoor literary event in the Midwest, is expected to draw more than 150,000 book lovers throughout the weekend of June 6-7 in Chicago’s South Loop. LeVar Burton, the force behind the PBS series “Reading Rainbow,” will be honored at this year’s Lit Fest as recipient of the Chicago Tribune’s 2015 Young Adult Literary Award. The Fest offers block after block of booksellers, vendors, performers and events, hosting more than 200 authors in panels, discussions and other programs. Among those appearing in this year’s extensive lineup are: Erik Larson, Edward P. Jones, Rick Bayless, Amber Tamblyn, David Axelrod, Lawrence Wright, Garry Wills, Aleksandar Hemon, Elizabeth Berg, Neal Stephenson, Scott Simon, Rebecca Makkai and more.
If someone were to write your biography, what would it reveal about you? Would it be accurate? Could it be accurate? How would you write your own life story?
As I’ve worked with authors of memoirs and biographies about famous actors, I’ve been struck by the difference between the cultivated image and the person behind the image. In most cases, the persons featured in these books are no longer alive. The authors’ narratives are candid, intimate, revealing, moving … and sometimes shocking. I am left wondering how the people who are written about would feel to know their foibles and flaws were revealed to the world. Did they view themselves the way they are portrayed in these books? Even as I hungrily absorbed every detail of these accounts, I occasionally felt the discomfort of intruding in the most personal way into the lives of people who no longer could respond.
Biographies, autobiographies and memoirs are different genres. A biography is an account of someone’s life written by someone else; it should be complete and should be supported in the narrative or index by reliable, named sources. An autobiography is an account of a person’s life written by that person; it should be complete and supported in the narrative by reliable, named sources. A memoir is a collection of memories that an individual writes about moments or events that took place in the author’s life; it can cover specific periods of time and does not have to provide supportive resources.
I’ve become very selective about the biographies, autobiographies and memoirs I read these days. The best of them are entertaining and enlightening. Some are uplifting and inspiring. And if they do their job, they are memorable.
Here are some highly recommended life stories that may get you thinking about writing your own autobiography or memoir:
Autobiography My Autobiography – Charles Chaplin Sunday Nights at Seven – Jack Benny Knock Wood – Candace Bergen The Ragman’s Son – Kirk Douglas
Biography Louise Brooks: A Biography – Barry Paris Ann Dvorak: Hollywood’s Forgotten Rebel — Christina Rice Bogart – Ann M. Sperber Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption – Laura Hillenbrand
Hybrid Memoir/Biography Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power – Romina Power The Baron of Mulholland – Rory Flynn
Shakespeare had it wrong. Instead of “Beware the Ides of March,” it should be “Beware the Ides of April.” April showers may bring May flowers but April 15th brings tax time; that dreaded date when fear grips our emotions as Uncle Sam grips our wallets.
If you’re a self-published author, or are considering becoming one, you may be wondering what impact your literary endeavors may have on your income tax liability. Or maybe you haven’t even considered the impact. An oversight could cost you, whether you make money or not with your book.
I am not a tax advisor nor do I pretend to be. Tax laws leave me loopy. But there are some basic tax facts every author should be aware of. The first is that even disappointing sales of self-published writing can mean money in your pocket, instead of Uncle Sam’s, come tax time. That’s because the IRS has shifted its view of what constitutes a business versus just a hobby.
The IRS used to consider income-producing activity as a hobby unless it showed a net profit in three of the five most recent reporting years. Now, it wants you to succeed so it can tax your income later. The U.S. tax code permits entrepreneurs to offset the losses of one business from another income as a way to encourage new business.
As a self-published author, you may pay considerable money to editors, designers, printers, publicists and other services to publish and promote your book. Let’s say you spend $6,000 for those services and earn $2,500 in sales. In addition to offsetting your book income tax by $2,500 worth of your expenses, you could also reduce your other income tax by deducting the remaining $3,500 of expenses against your other job income.
The key is to demonstrate a serious intent to operate the new business at a profit; otherwise, it is a hobby. Steps to establish your business intent include setting up a website, printing business cards and promotional materials as well as marketing yourself and your book through social media. Consider establishing a business name and attending conferences. Learn the basic tax rules and follow them, keep your business records separate from your personal records, and don’t hesitate to hire experts for help; these are also legitimate tax deductions.
Depending on where you file your taxes and how you plan to sell your books, other steps you may decide to take include getting a local business license and applying for a resale certificate. You don’t necessarily need to incorporate but you will want to consult a tax accountant to see if you should establish a sole proprietorship business and obtain a Federal Employer Identification Number.
You don’t have to rush into any of these steps and may choose not to unless you see that your book finances reach $5,000 or more. But knowledge is power and could mean more money in your pocket to continue pursuing your literary dreams.
“You must grab the reader in the first three paragraphs of a novel,” I was reminded once again at a presentation by a publisher last week. We live in a world of short attention spans and easily distracted focus. Raised on a diet of Sesame Street and graduating to USA Today, Twitter and Tumblr, our reading habits have been further shortened by social media. So much to read, so little time to read it all. There is no room in today’s literary market for the likes of James Michener.
Pulitzer Prize winner James Michener (1907-1997) was the author of such bestselling novels as Tales of the South Pacific (adapted as South Pacific in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical and Academy Award-winning film), Sayonara, Hawaii, Centennial and The Source. A prolific writer of more than 40 books, often selected for Book-of-the-Month club, Michener was known for his expansive sagas that followed generations of families, set in geographic locales that were described in great detail, including meticulously researched factual history.
Today, agents and publishers would reject Michener’s manuscripts without finishing page one. He viewed place as a major influence on characters, typically using the first 50-100 pages of his novels to describe the geophysical origins of a locale before introducing characters that would carry the plot forward. Readers could skip the lengthy place descriptions but they rarely did because of the strength of Michener’s writing. Today’s authors can’t afford to keep their main characters and action waiting for 50 sentences, let alone 50 pages. Readers have no patience for it. Agents and publishers have no patience for it. Alas, I no longer have patience for it. Sadly, Michener would fail today.
All of the following quotes are from James Michener:
I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.
The really great writers are people like Emily Bronte who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.
I think the crucial thing in the writing career is to find what you want to do and how you fit in. What somebody else does is of no concern whatever except as an interesting variation.
If your book doesn’t keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won’t keep anyone up nights reading it.
Being goal-oriented instead of self-oriented is crucial. I know so many people who want to be writers. But let me tell you, they really don’t want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They don’t want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.
Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual’s right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually.
A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.
A talented young woman recently told me she wanted to self-publish a children’s book and she was sure she could peg the cover price at a number that fit in with the story. She felt sure of her strategy because she had priced the print production of the book and believed the difference between printing and sales would be her handsome profit. Whoa Nelly! She was going to price herself into debt. I saved this author from going bankrupt with a dose of publishing reality I want to share with you.
The end of production is only the first phase of what it costs to get a book into the hands of readers. If you want your book in bookstores and libraries, you need a distribution service such as Ingram or Baker & Taylor; their fee is 15% of the book’s cover price. Bookstores take a 40% cut of the cover price of your book. Amazon, which acts as distributor and bookseller, takes 55% of your cover price.
If you need help creating or running your website, assistance with marketing and publicity, or travel to book signings and other sales venues, you’ll need to dip into your pocket to fund those efforts. (If you go with a traditional publisher, all these costs plus overhead will be deducted from the book’s sales price before you see any royalties; those royalties will be much smaller than you expected.)
To price a book correctly, it’s important to understand all the cost factors associated with a book’s journey from the start. To keep the cover price competitive in its genre and format while preserving a profit for yourself, you need to make smart decisions at every step. The scary thing is that you don’t always know what you don’t know.
Fortunately, there are many resources to help. They include professional associations, writing groups, college programs, magazines, books and the internet. While the internet offers easily accessible free, current information on every topic, caveat emptor: carefully investigate any services that require payment or promise the moon on a shoestring budget; you get what you pay for … which may be less than you need.
Develop your networks. Be generous in sharing what you’ve learned with others because they will remember and repay the favor when they can. Click on the “For Authors” category from the Categories list on this blog site to see my previous posts. Several are specifically about self-publishing and many others will add helpful knowledge for your journey.
Next time someone complains about the cost of a book, you can explain why.
The AWP Conference & Bookfair, an annual destination for writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers, will be held in Minneapolis this year from April 8-11. This year’s conference will feature over 2,000 presenters and 550 readings, panels, and craft lectures. The book fair hosts over 700 presses, journals, and literary organizations from around the world. AWP’s is now the largest literary conference in North America. The AWP website has details.
Book Expo America (BEA), the largest annual book trade fair in the U.S. will be held in New York City this year from May 27-29. More than 750 authors, hundreds of new titles, 1,000+ exhibitors, and four Author Stages, along with the Digital Discovery Zone (D2Z) provide by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) make this one of the best environments for networking, sourcing, and relationship building in the publishing industry in North America. The BEA website has details.
March is the month when changing weather takes on the characteristics of animals: in like a lion, out like a lamb. In literature, a character who goes through an important internal change (in personality or attitude) is called a dynamic character. A familiar example of a dynamic character is Dickens’ Ebeneezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.
Having to resolve a central conflict or facing a crisis results in the dynamic character’s permanent change. The evolving change shows character development. Because resolving the conflict is key to the story, the role is given to a central character rather than a peripheral one.
The best-written characters are multi-dimensional, with good and bad qualities, just like the rest of us. The change in the dynamic character does not affect all those qualities; that would be unrealistic and make the character less interesting, less believable.
Other examples of well-known dynamic characters in literature include:
Hamlet’s changed view of death.
Jean Valjean changes several times in Les Miserables, from ex-convict outcast to honest mayor and beloved father to revolutionary hero.
Sherlock Holmes’ changed view and treatment of women in A Scandal in Bohemia. In other stories, Holmes remains a static character, which makes him an interesting, believable multidimensional character.
Harry Potter changes from an orphaned child to a world-saving wizard adult.
Michael Corleone proves, in The Godfather, that change is not always for the good as he evolves from an optimistic war hero to a ruthless mafia don.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the most interesting characters are dynamic … just like March weather.
If you are one of the chosen frozen who dreams of warmer weather and writing, this is the perfect time of year to start researching the many summer writing workshops, retreats and internships that are offered around the corner and around the world. You can find them by Googling Summer 2015 Writing Workshops. You can also find many of these programs listed in such magazines as Writers Digest and Poets & Writers. The best programs fill up early, so make your move now.
What happens when your reading is interrupted before you’ve finished? If you’re like me, you grab whatever is handy to mark your place. The result is a plethora of markers where you live and work. If a book or magazine is lucky, it has a real bookmark in it; otherwise, a paper scrap, piece of string, paper clip or something more inventive is recruited to service.
Recently, a woman I was in touch with because of my work on Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power, sent me a lovely handcrafted bookmark, part of a line she creates for sale in select stores. Her thoughtful gift, gracing the book currently on my nightstand, got me thinking about bookmarks.
Bookmarks of some sort must have been employed since ancient times when the written word was on scrolls that stretched 130 feet or more. Historians can date bookmarks back to medieval times when books were rare, extremely valuable and vulnerable to damage. Some of the earliest bookmarks, usually made of vellum or leather in various shapes (some quite inventive), date back to the 13th century, often used to hold the place in religious books. One would not dare lay a book on its spine or turn down the corner of a page.
The evolution of bookmarks mirrored advances in printing. In the 16th century, the most valuable books continued to be religious and the reader’s place was kept by “bookmarkers”. Accordingly, designs were exquisite, using valuable materials. The Royal Museum of Brunei displays an ivory bookmark that was made in India in the 16th century, embellished with a geometrical pattern of pierced holes, which was used in illuminated Korans. In 1584, the printer who held the sole rights to print the Bible in the British empire, presented Queen Elizabeth I with a fancy, fringed silk bookmark.
Taking their inspiration from the Queen’s bookmarks, books of the Edwardian and early Victorian eras commonly had narrow silk ribbons bound into them at the top of the spine, long enough to project just past the lower edge of the page.
Commercially-produced, machine-woven detachable bookmarks began to appear in the 1850s. Silk was a favorite material, frequently designed to celebrate special events. Young ladies in the Victorian age were taught embroidery, often showing their skill by producing elaborate bookmarks as gifts for relatives and friends.
As books became more widely available by the 1880s, bookmarks made of stiff paper saw a dramatic rise. Their popularity was helped by companies producing attractive bookmarks as promotional giveaways to advertise their brand. Specialized companies manufactured bookmarks of such diverse materials as gold, brass, bronze, copper, celluloid, pewter, mother of pearl, leather and ivory. Many were shaped like knives or swords, to be used as paper cutters because books in that period often contained many pages that were not completely separated.
Contemporary bookmarks continue to be made in all variety of materials (celluloid has been replaced by plastic) and are as popular as ever. They are such a fixture in our lives that even in the Internet era, we use the term “bookmark” to denote a page or location we want to easily refer back to.
Everyone can use and appreciate a bookmark. If you’re an author, consider giving people bookmarks that promote your books. If you’re looking for a gift that’s always the right fit, you can’t go wrong with a well-made bookmark. Mark my words!
Mentioning Groundhog Day brings more to mind than Punxsutawney Phil and his brethren, those funny, furry rodents (also known as woodchuck, whistle-pig, or land-beaver) who grab the media spotlight every February 2nd. Ever since 1993’s movie hit of the same name, Groundhog Day conjures up the image of living the same experience over and over again.
In movies and in literature, the repetition of events over a few hours or a few days is a plot device called a time loop. Each time the loop “resets”, most characters behave as if they aren’t aware of the loop but the main character (or characters) retains his/her memory or becomes aware of the loop. Awareness allows a character to manipulate events within the time frame, creating different futures. In some plots, the main character may travel back and forth through time in order to relive and manipulate a past event. Each time the loop repeats, with one or more aspects changing, the main character becomes more enlightened. The time frame of a loop continues to repeat until the main character(s) works out the right actions that finally break the loop.
The time loop is most often used in in science fiction but is also effective in fantasy or as a fantasy element in other genres. 12:01 PM, a short story by Richard A. Lupoff that was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction is considered the inspiration for Groundhog Day. It appears in the anthology, The Book of Time.
Other books that effectively use a time loop include: Loop – Karen Akins I Am the Cheese – Robert Cormier The Neverending Story – Michael Ende Replay – Ken Grimwood The Dark Tower (series) – Stephen King Before I Fall – Lauren Oliver
The time loop works in literature because we are fascinated by the idea that every little action we do carries weight. Even the smallest, most mundane things we do are important to the universe. Who among us hasn’t fantasized about being given a chance to do something over again that might change the trajectory of his/her life (just ask Punxsutawney Phil)?
In January alone, there are 13 awards programs for movies in the United States. Some of the more famous ones include Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and People’s Choice. In addition, nominees for Academy Awards are announced. Too much, you say? Not to the nominees and winners.
The abundance of film competitions, famous as they are, is dwarfed by the number of literary awards that are given every month of the year. The most well-known include the Pulitzer Prize, Man Booker Prize, John Newbery Medal, Edgar Awards, National Book Awards, Costa Book Awards, Indie Booksellers’ Choice Awards, Pushcart Prize, Pen/Faulkner Award, Nobel Prize, Nelson Algren Award, Flannery O’Connor Award and Hugo Award. Literary publications, universities and associations also generate writing competitions.
Winning a competition opens up publicity opportunities to build awareness of you and your book(s). Placing a sticker on a book, announcing its award, boosts its chances of being purchased. Winning an award for one book will likely lead readers to your previous books while alerting them to be on the lookout for your future work.
Win or lose, the benefits of contests go beyond possible financial compensation. Challenging yourself to compete against great writers can elevate your own writing (assuming you read previous winning submissions in contests you plan to enter). If a competition provides judges’ feedback, you can gain insights to the strengths and weaknesses in your writing.
There’s a competition for every genre. Guidelines, fees and prizes vary. So do the degrees of competition and the prestige levels. There’s little point to throwing your money and time at competitions that don’t suit your goals or your work. The challenge is in the choosing: what to submit and where.
Amy Edelman, a publicist and a writer who founded IndieReader (“the essential consumer guide to self-published books and the people who write them”) says, “…there are many awards/contests out there and you should carefully read the small print and decide for yourself which make sense. If there is one person reviewing what is probably a ton of books I would question the validity of said award. Check out the judges. Check out the reputation of the organization sponsoring the awards. Check out the media generated for the winners. Check out the prizes and see if there’s something tangible, like a review. If you get only cash you’re essentially back where you started from.”
Writer Christopher Feilden posts a list of book competitions at his website. Writers Digest and Poets & Writers are two publications offering regularly updated lists of writing competitions that include book competitions.
Book Expo America (BEA), the largest annual book trade fair in the U.S. will be held in New York City this year from May 27-29. More than 750 authors, hundreds of new titles, 1,000+ exhibitors, and four Author Stages, along with the Digital Discovery Zone (D2Z) provide by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) make this one of the best environments for networking, sourcing, and relationship building in the publishing industry in North America. The BEA website has details.
No, I’m not talking about Amazon, the publishing giant. I am talking about fearless women in the book industry. In Greek mythology, Amazon women were fierce warriors, strong and brave. In 2014, the real Amazon women were in the book business. While headlines were dominated by the seemingly intractable war between Internet giant Amazon and major publishing house Hachette (see my June 8, 2014 blog post, Burying the Hachette?), these women were insuring booklovers that the literary community would survive and thrive.
Across the country during the 1990s, we saw an alarming reduction in the number of independent bookstores, replaced by mega-merchants offering discounts and the convenience of shopping from home. That shift was captured in the movie, You’ve Got Mail. I wrote about it in my post, Guilty as Charged on March 10, 2013. It’s worth a look back.
Neighborhood independent bookstores are the cornerstones of the literary community. Libraries offer a repository of massive inventories of books but indie bookstores measure the pulse of what’s emerging in literary circles. They can do more to introduce readers to new authors through store appearances and social media, to support book clubs and expos, to host events where children not only handle books but can take them home as their very own. Neighborhood bookstores feed the senses and the spirit.
For self-published authors who may find big box booksellers have erected insurmountable barriers to inclusion on the bookshelf, local independent bookstores are often very welcoming. Considering that self-published books now represent around 50 percent of new titles each year, this means indie book stores may offer titles not found at chain stores and discounters.
The good news in Chicagoland (and I suspect elsewhere) is that independent bookstores are on an upward trajectory. What I find striking is the number of women behind the resurgence. They are either saving stores on the verge of closing by buying them or they are opening new stores. Perhaps there’s a link between the nurturing aspect of women’s lives as mother’s, teachers and counselors that motivates them. It’s just as likely these women see a business opportunity that is both intellectually and financially rewarding.
The culture of reading is in transition: what we read, how we read, where and when we read, how we access what we read. Owning a successful independent bookstore is no walk in the park. Sometimes the best man to get the job done is a woman. All I have to say to each of these real Amazon women is, “You go, girl!”
The uniquely human invention of measured time is never as celebrated or feared as on New Year’s Eve. A tick of the clock or a turn of the page and the calendar begins anew. Triumphs of the past year become endearing memories while tribulations become learning opportunities from which new hope may spring.
Literature recognizes the potent thoughts and emotions that New Year’s Eve evokes in us. We can find references in such classic literature as Silas Marner; Middlemarch; Black Beauty; Little Women; and A Doll’s House. It populates such timeless poetry as Tennyson’s In Memoriam and Hardy’s New Year’s Eve. It appears in modern titles, too, such as White Teeth and The Children of Men.
Writers have a lot to say about New Year’s Eve. Two of my favorite witty quotes are:
Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. — Mark Twain
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. — Oscar Wilde
Authors should take to heart T.S. Eliot’s note on New Year’s Eve: For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.
Wishing everyone a New Year of hopeful beginnings and happy endings!
In last week’s Boston Bound post, I recommended some great books with stories based in Boston. It should also be noted that the city produced great authors for more nearly 400 years. In addition to Hawthorne, James, Alcott, and Plath (mentioned in my Boston post), others include Benjamin Franklin, Phillis Wheatley, Edgar Allen Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost, Jack Kerouac and Dennis Lehane. When you’re in Boston, check out the stately Boston Public Library. Founded in 1848, it is the second largest public library in the United States, behind only the Library of Congress.
In follow-up news to my June 8th post, Burying the Hatchette?, there was much to be thankful for in late November with the news that Amazon and Hatchette reached a compromise to their long-running, nasty feud. It meant that booklovers’ voices were heard and books from the fourth-biggest U.S. publisher were once again accessible through the dominant internet bookseller. Each side of the battle can claim a degree of victory but the war is far from over. Stay tuned.
When I attended the Chicago Book Expo on December 5th, I came across something called Polyphony H.S. I knew “polyphony” means “many voices” and I assumed “H.S.” stood for “High School” but I was not aware of such a school anywhere. When I stopped at their exhibit table, I realized that not all schools are housed in buildings. Schools are wherever we learn.
Celebrating its 10th year, Polyphony H.S. is an international student-run literary magazine for high school writers and editors. The non-profit company that publishes annually in August is based in Evanston, IL. The work that appears in Polyphony H.S. is professional quality, written and edited by high school students from public, private and home school throughout the English speaking world.
Just like their top-of-the-line adult counterparts, Polyphony H.S. awards cash prizes for excellence in poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. The publication’s Advisory Board comprises A-list authors. Among them are Alex Kotlowitz, Chang-Rae-Lee, Stuart Dybek and Scott Turow.
While many high schools produce handsome and creative student publications, Polyphony H.S. elevates and expands the experience for students as authors and editors. Every author who submits a manuscript gets detailed feedback. Every student editor benefits from National Editor Training Workshops.
Alex Kotlowitz says Polyphony H.S. is “A Paris Review for the young. Daring. Provocative. Exhilarating.” For more information, visit the Polyphony H.S.website.
I’m not off to see the wizard but from November 13th through the 17th, I will be in the land of wizardry: Hollywood. I’ll be there for the final events of a 7-month-long Centennial Celebration of screen legend Tyrone Power. This is also the final leg of promotional activity for the Centennial Limited Edition of Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power, written by his daughter, Romina Power. I’ve played a pivotal role with the book, most notably in the past year as editor, publishing supervisor and marketer.
In the past year, I’ve moved from writing about what it takes to produce and promote a book to actually doing it. I’m glad to say that what I’ve written holds true in the real world. Books are like a 3-legged stool. The legs represent: writing, publication and promotion. The stool will not stand and the book will not sell without all three legs sturdily in place.
Writing means the original work and good editing. Publication means production and distribution. Promotion means reader awareness from day one going forward. While writing might be a singular effort, one must partner along the way if success is to be achieved. I invite writers to read my past blogs for helpful information about taking a book from conception to celebration. You’ll find these posts by clicking the category: For Authors.
As every author knows, there is always an interesting story behind the story; how a book is conceived and born. The goal of Book●ed is to enhance books for readers by bringing the back story forward. That is what our webcast interviews do. Last year, I took a hiatus from the interviews to work on the Tyrone Power “project” (book and centennial events). Along the way, I’ve been asked to work on other book projects. I hope to return to the webcasts but until then, I will continue my blog posts and invite you to watch past shows in the Book●ed Archives.
Who doesn’t have the great American novel waiting to be written? Or maybe it’s a collection of poetry begging to spill on to pages of a book? Nearly everyone I talk to confesses at some point to harboring the dream of being a published author. Writing groups are gaining in popularity, with members ranging from the pure dreamers to ambitious authors who have prepared a manuscript and are searching for the path to publication. Are you one of these writers?
The dream of having your book published is accompanied by the expectation that it will be purchased to be read; that fortune will accompany fame, or at least cover your publishing costs. This hope exists whether your book is published traditionally or self-published.
With traditional publishers, production, distribution and related professional costs are born by the publishing company but authors have become more responsible for their own promotional efforts; and the book’s “life” is under the control of the publisher. Self-published authors bear total responsibility and costs but maintain total control of every step.
Whether you go the traditional route or self-publish, keep your day job. Until your book sells in the several thousands of copies, the only riches you will receive will be the knowledge that some people are reading your work. How can this be when hardcover books sell for $25 and up, a paperbacks sell for $15 and up, and eBooks run $7 and up? Where does the money go?
Welcome to “trickle down income” in the publishing world. If your book is published traditionally, you will periodically be paid a royalty for books sold after the publisher deducts all its costs plus its profit. If you self-publish, you pay yourself … after you pay anyone you employ to get your book into the hands of readers: editor, proofreader, technical formatter, cover designer, printer, (possibly a warehouse), distributor, marketer, (maybe a web designer), administrator.
Production is not necessarily the most expensive factor. Distribution takes a huge bite off the retail price. Authors can expect a wholesale discount of 40 percent to be taken off the retail price by major book stores and big box stores. Libraries typically take a 20 percent discount. Distributors take 15 percent on top of those discounts. Sellers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble act as both distributor and seller, taking 55 percent off your retail price. If you use an agent, expect 10-15 percent off the wholesale price to be collected for services.
Ongoing promotion is a book’s life insurance. Regardless of how a book is published, authors are expected to oversee this job. Maintaining websites, arranging book signings, giving talks and doing interviews are some of the recommended promotional activities.
Some expenses occur once while others will be recurring. Every responsibility you handle yourself rather than hire out is more money in your pocket … if you know what you’re doing and you don’t mind spending your time on it … time you could use to write your next book.
Scared? Don’t be. Knowledge is power. Empower yourself by learning all the aspects of taking your brainchild from start to a successful finish. But, at least for now, don’t quit your day job.
I’m taking a 2-week break from blogging. No, not vacation. Fishin’ for book sales as part of a 2-day Tyrone Power Centennial Celebration in Wilmington, North Carolina. For information about the two events taking place, visit TCM News. The lead story and the third feature story are two examples of how to promote a book by relating it to other events.
My April 28, 2013 blog – The Great Cover-Up – discussed the impact of book covers on sales. I was reminded of the post when I learned of the uproar over a recently released edition of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It seems the latest cover of the classic book – written for children but carrying the undercurrent of adult themes – has a decidedly adult image; it features a young girl who hauntingly resembles the murdered Jon Benet Ramsey and most little pageant queens in the Toddlers and Tiaras television show.
Presumably, the girl on the cover represents one of the significant characters in the book, but she is not the most significant character or even the most significant secondary character. However, her depiction on the cover is intentionally shocking. Some critics call the new cover “creepy”.
This is a far cry from previous covers of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that are brightly colored and usually cartoonish; the most famous popular cover was the 1995 fourth edition cover, created by illustrator Quentin Blake who frequently collaborated with Dahl on his books.
While the publisher of the Modern Classic edition (Penguin UK) intended their new version to attract adult readers, it is disconcerting to readers who consider this as solely a children’s book, imagining the characters as depicted on earlier covers or through Technicolor fantasy movies.
A similar backlash was launched after the Leonardo DiCaprio movie version of The Great Gatsby became the source of a new book cover, replacing the iconic design chosen by the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“People respond the way they do because they care, and they care about the book the way they remember it,” said Chip Kidd, a New York-based graphic designer who churns out about 75 book covers a year.
Classics are classics for a reason. People embrace the full book experience – at least with printed books; eBooks are less likely to build the same adoration. Classics remain with us, they are ageless. They feel more solid and reliable, not fleeting like the images and messages that bombard us daily through modern technology and a changing culture.
When I’m home, I prefer to read hardcover books but when I travel, I choose paperbacks. The reason is obvious: portability. Eventually, I will give in and get an eReader because it trumps paperbacks for portability, except that paperbacks don’t require battery power. With digital books, I will miss the sensory pleasures one gets with the touch or smell of paper that paperbacks offer. Even with an eReader, I’ll probably still carry a paperback when I travel.
I hadn’t given much thought to the health of the paperback industry until a couple of months ago when I saw an obituary for a man named Oscar Dystel. No, I hadn’t heard of him either, but I learned he was the publisher who “saved the paperback” in the mid-1950s.
When Dystel arrived at Bantam Books, founded in 1945 to maximize profits from new paperback production advances, the company had gorged on success but overextended itself and was on the brink of bankruptcy. As Bantam’s new president, Dystel reduced inventory while expanding publication to classics, school and children’s books. He also had a keen sense for what the public would respond to: appealing covers on the outside and riveting stories on
the inside. In just a few short years, he turned around Bantam Books, setting new standards that other publishers followed.
Another major paperback publisher, Penguin, celebrated its history in 2009 with a commemorative retrospective book, The Book of Penguin. It opens, “This is a book about the most advanced form of entertainment ever. You can pause it at any time. Rewind and replay it if you miss a bit … It’ll fit in your pocket. It’s interactive … It’s pretty cheap. It’s completely free to share. And it lasts a lifetime. This is a book about books.”
In the five years since that self-celebration, eBooks have swept the market. In 2011, Amazon reported that eBooks outsold paperbacks and hardcovers combined. The upward trajectory of eBooks continued, at the expense of paperbacks. The 2013 BookStats report noted that eBook sales grew 45 percent since 2011, capturing 20% of the trade market. More ominously, Publishers Weekly said trade paperbacks saw a sales decline of 8.6 percent and total mass-market paperback sales fell by 20.5 percent between 2011 and 2012.
Before you mourn the death of paperbacks, consider this: sales reports don’t account for secondhand sales. There are no secondhand eBooks but secondhand paperbacks are wildly popular. Also, there are some genres that don’t sell well as eBooks but flourish in paperback form; popular narrative nonfiction and the pop-science books, for example.
The strongest hope for the continuation of paperbacks may lay with the intense market interest in indie books, a key force behind the growing popularity of indie bookstores. Readers are searchers. The physicality and staff experience offered by those stores offer “discoverability” – an element missing from digital books and online booksellers. Paperbacks make discoverability more affordable.
The role of books in all their forms is evolving. Fortunately, there’s a place for all of them.
