publishing

SCARED SHITLESS - Robert Gregory Browne

By Edward Nawotka, Editor-in-Chief

In today’s feature story about Book World Prague 2012, fair director Dana Kalinová notes that the fair sold out for the first time, despite the ongoing economic woes of Europe. When asked why — beyond the fact that the fair has worked hard to build its reputation and audience — she offered: “Maybe people are looking for something in books. I don’t know, but I would like to believe that.”

Yes, there may very well be something people are looking for in books that they can’t find elsewhere, especially when times are tough. But what is it? My guess: the information in books offers an alternative to the so-called authorities — be they politicians, bankers or the daily media — who are so often wrong these days. Books, rightfully or wrongly, come with genuine authority. And in an era of instant information, constantly changing opinions, and even outright fear, there’s something comforting in knowing that a book has been labored over (often for years) and, one assumes, vetted by interested parties with maturity, perspective and experience (something often lacking in our authorities). What’s more, if you don’t like what a book is saying, you can simply close it and put it on the shelf. You can’t do that with your political and economic leaders.

And let’s not forget something even more fundamental: on a dollar-per-hour basis, books still offer one of the very best entertainment value propositions available.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

By Michael Stein

PRAGUE: “Everybody is crying, there is a drop in sales of up to 20%. There is a big problem with piracy as well as a big problem with the copying of textbooks. Nevertheless, for the first time in its history BWP was completely sold out,” said Director of Book World Prague Dana Kalinová, who is well aware of the multitude of difficulties facing the Czech and global publishing industries.

It seems logical that the success of a book fair would be tied to the economic strength of both the people who sell books and the people who buy and read them. Yet the indications from Book World Prague 2012 (BWP), which took place this past weekend, point to an ongoing and vigorous interest in the world of letters.

As baffling as this seems, Kalinová thinks that the fair’s growing reputation both at home and abroad might have given it a relevance that keeps exhibitors and book buyers coming regardless of the overall economy.

“I’m still trying to explain this to myself. Maybe it’s because the book fair is strong enough now from the media and promotional point of view, as well as in visitors and potential customers, that it represents a sales channel.”

Kalinová says that having such a successful fair during bad economic times is not wholly unprecedented. She recounted how at the outset of the current financial crisis she and other book fair directors received a letter from [Gabriella Adamo] the organizer of the book fair in Buenos Aires.

“She wrote us that when Argentina was in crisis and facing bankruptcy it was very hard for them to decide whether or not to organize their book fair that year. They decided to go ahead and it turned out to be one of the best and most successful in their history.”

Beyond the Numbers

Nevertheless, Kalinová insists that BWP can’t become exclusively devoted to book sales but has to retain a rich and diverse program of events, readings and discussions. This year’s fair was a big success in this respect, as a large number of discussions and readings were standing room only. Besides, a strong literary program that draws people in should provide benefits to booksellers as well.

“If there is a really good program then publishers can be sure that readers will come and spend money on books. How much money they will spend is really hard to tell now.”

The difference between this year’s fair and last year’s (read our report here) can’t only be measured in numbers. With last year’s guest of honor being Saudi Arabia, Kalinová experienced a backlash whose vehemence she hadn’t expected. “It didn’t cause problems exactly, but there was lots of negative energy and I was quite surprised. I expected some criticism but not to such a high degree.”

What she found most frustrating was how there was little to no acknowledgement of BWP bringing in Arab writers and setting up panels on the issues of censorship and free speech. “Everyone was criticizing us but because the Saudis didn’t lift a finger to do anything in the program. We created all the forums on Arabic literature ourselves, and no one was discussing that.”

Around the Black Sea

With Romania as the guest of honor this year, the fair went much more smoothly, and that in spite of the collapse of Romania’s government less than a month before the fair opened. Romania has had a consistently strong presence at BWP and is strongly promoted internationally. To capitalize on the country’s higher profile, BWP made a program of writers from countries that, like Romania, border the Black Sea.

This meant that besides Gabriela Adameşteanu and a large group of younger, emerging Romanian writers the program featured writers from Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey and — one of the stars of the festival — Russia’s Ludmila Ulitskaya. Having these writers speak together on panels devoted to their connection to the Black Sea exhibited shared aspects of literary and historical influence that even many of the writers participating in the discussion had never realized existed before. One of the highlights of the fair was a group reading of Black Sea country writers put on by Literature Across Frontiers at Prague’s Václav Havel Library.

Kalinová says that some of the countries and languages represented in the Black Sea theme are heavily under-published and she hopes the exposure and link to stronger and better represented literatures such as Russia and Romania would aid them in raising their profile.

Yet one area of consensus that arose from these discussions was that countries on the Black Sea look much less towards each other than they do towards larger Western markets. Kalinová says that even Czech publishers are looking west at the expense of their nearest neighbors.

“Romanian literature has potential on our market but I’m afraid publishers are more oriented towards Anglophone literature or other big literatures, and they aren’t so focused on countries like Romania.”

While BWP can’t redress this balance in one fell swoop, the sight of Czechs walking out of the fair with new translations of Romanian books shows that steps can be taken to broaden people’s literary horizons, even at a time when money is tight.

And as to why book fairs can do so well during economic downturns, Kalinová offers one more potential answer. “Why is that so, when there’s a crisis? Maybe people are looking for something in books. I don’t know, but I would like to believe that.”

DISCUSS: Do Books Have More Appeal During Tough Times?

I don’t know about you, but I hate disappointing people. Authors have something to say, a message to get out, or a story that has to be told. They may have products to sell, too, but it’s no small thing to put your name on a book and send it out into the world.

Publishing promises to fulfill the goals we have for our books. But it’s no fun sitting across from an author and listening to her describe the book she dreams of publishing, only to realize that she’s stumbled into one of the biggest traps for self-publishers.

What’s that trap? Trying to create an “impossible” book.

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This post, by Janet Kobobel Grant, origiinally appeared on the Books & Such Literary Agency blog on 5/14/12.

The other day I was talking with an editor about digital rights the publisher wanted back even though those rights had reverted to my client. I was surprised to hear her say: “We have ended up promoting authors’ books that are published by other publishers when we offered titles for free. That offer cost us, but other publishers benefited.”

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How can publishers thrive in a digitally-disrupted world? David Borgenicht, president and publisher of Quirk Books (best known for publishing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) has some advice for other publishers. The five quick tips basically boil down to creating as engaging a product as possible, and then marketing effectively in order to grow new [...]

The announcement that Waterstones, the nearest UK equivalent to Barnes & Noble as a bookselling chain, will be selling the Kindle in their stores came as somewhat of a shock.

There had been rumors that B&N was closing in on a deal to partner with Waterstones on the Nook.

The difficulty in making deals around a reading device and supporting ecosystem is that the sales of content subsidize the sale of the devices. It’s all part of a total equation around the “lifetime value” of the customer. The device-supplier really requires the ebook sales to make the device sale profitable.

So when Kobo did their deal with WH Smith in the UK (and FNAC in France) last Fall, it made sense to me why they’d do it rather than Waterstones. At that time, Waterstones was saying they’d deliver their own device.

Knowing what B&N has had to spend in development to make the Nook work across a store and revenue base several times as large as Waterstones, that always seemed like a very heavy lift. It wasn’t a surprise when Waterstones kept missing delivery dates for its device nor when the rumors shifted to them doing a device deal with somebody else. Since Kobo already was working with their biggest competitor, the logic said it had to be Nook.

I don’t know anybody who predicted it would be Kindle.

Michael Cader in Publishers Lunch reads the press releases the same way I do and we both get the message that the only ebooks Waterstones will share revenue on are those that are purchased over Waterstones’ in-store wifi network. (That network doesn’t exist yet; it’s being built now which is why they won’t start selling Kindles for a few months yet.)

Cader quotes Tim Hely Hutchinson of Hachette as being “fully supportive” of the deal. Since his two biggest customers have just joined forces, I can imagine that his private thoughts might be a bit more troubled than his public pronouncements. (When presented with lemons, make lemonade.) But I wouldn’t pick a public fight with my biggest sources of revenue, either.

How will Waterstone’s benefit from this deal? Well, they’ll make some margin on the Kindles they sell. They won’t make much selling ebooks if the only ones they’re paid for are the ones transacted in their stores. I’ve seen some speculation on an email list that they’ll use the Amazon connection to get more promotional money from publishers, but since they’ve already kicked up discounts considerably, I’m not sure how much blood is left in that stone.

It would be bad practice to criticize a deal when one has no idea about the details. And it could be that Amazon made Waterstones an offer that it would have been crazy for Barnes & Noble to try to match or for Waterstones to turn down.

But it is hard to escape the conclusion that this arrangement will accelerate the British public’s move to ebook reading and, at the same time, strengthen what is already the strongest book retailing platform. Amazon’s commanding share of the online print market and their share of ebooks can only rise from the commanding levels (often referred to as 90%, but I don’t know if that’s accurate) they now hold.

Waterstones’ claim that they will both be growing their online print business and delivering their own ebook store might indeed be sincere, but they are almost impossible to take seriously.

It all started harmlessly enough with Amazon’s Kindle with Special Offers. That’s the cheaper Kindle that displays ads when the device is in sleep mode or at the bottom of the screen when paging through the owner’s catalog of books. It is very unobtrusive and, since it lowered the price of the device, has made [...]

From The Unoffical Apple Weblog: If you’re someone who does a lot of work on the road, and needs to reference PDF source material, you’ll find that QuickSearch PDF (US$4.99) from Olive Toast Software is the tool you didn’t realize you needed. It has one job to do — to help you find information inside large PDF [...]

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Reactions of surprise and bemusement have continued in the trade today in the wake of this...

Originally published on Ebook Friendly. Check all cartoons.

From the press release: A new New York Times bestseller has captivated BooksOnBoard audiences on both sides of the Atlantic this week: Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. Historical fiction is one of those genres that doesnt often make its presence known on our top ten lists, remarked Nathan Johnson, BooksOnBoards Director of Operations. [...]

From the press release: CourseSmart®, the world’s largest provider of eTextbooks and digital course materials, today announced its continued international growth with the launch of an eCommerce platform in the UK and Europe. The platform provides students access to eTextbooks and digital course materials anytime, anywhere from any web-enabled device. Students in the UK and Europe will also [...]

The Booksellers Association's chief executive Tim Godfray has said Kobo, Anobii and Hive will...

From an article by Farhad Manjoo in Slate: …   It’s taken time for the magazine industry to catch up to the new iPad—only in the last few weeks have some of my favorite magazines, including the New Yorker, released apps that take advantage of the Retina display. But now that they have, the iPad has [...]

From paidContent: Hachette, which has not made new e-books available to libraries since 2010, is reconsidering the idea. In a pilot program starting this spring (which is…now?), the publisher is working with two e-book distributors to bring a “selection of HBG’s recent bestselling e-books to 7 million library patrons.” Hachette would not confirm which distributors [...]

Here’s part of an article by Chris Walters from his BookSprung blog: Kobo’s new web app, released earlier this week, is a great first move at breaking free from Apple’s App Store extortion. Good for Kobo, I say. Unfortunately, it keeps the same design and user experience as the official Kobo app, which means it’s [...]

By Edward Nawotka, Editor-in-Chief

“India’s 19,000 publishers…have flooded the market with badly edited, similar sounding stories having a mechanical Bollywood-style boy-meets-girl-breaks-up-meets-again formula with lots of sex thrown in,” writes Tanuj Khosla in today’s lead story about the burgeoning YA writing scene in India. He goes on: ”A friend of mine in Delhi who is currently penning a young adult novel was told point bank by the publisher to add three to four ‘scenes’ in the book as then only the book shall sell,” adding, “I was completely shocked when told that teens in schools buy books based on the number of ‘scenes’ in them.”

Surprise, sex sells — 50 Shades of Grey, anyone? — but does that mean that Indian YA fiction has lost it’s way, as Tanuj suggests? Perhaps, perhaps not. Sex has always been a part of Indian literary history — the Kama Sutra, anyone? — but his objection here is less about the sex, than the simpleminded tastes of readers.

If literary publishing is anything, it’s an effort to provide thoughtful, lasting and meaningful alternative to base entertainment. But it is often as if publishers, in an effort to cash in on a trend or make a quick dollar (or several million in the case of 50 Shades of Grey) are more than willing to cater to readers — and their own — basest desires. Can the two impulses co-exist? Yes, of course. The question of whether they should is merely rhetorical since they clearly already do.

But I can excuse YA readers for seeking out sex in books? They are younger than the adults at whom 50 Shades of Grey is aimed at and most likely lack the maturity to fully understand the emotional ramifications of what’s going on in that book, to name just one.

Who among us didn’t underline particularly hot and heavy passages in our books as teenagers? Or seek out that one title our parents kept on the high shelf? But what’s unsaid here is that kids today have much more easy access to depictions of sex than ever before, especially online. Perhaps we should even be grateful that they’re seeking them out in books in the first place.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

Last week I wrote about my experience with Barnes & Noble’s customer service and how frustrating I found B&N’s attitude. Ted Weinstein twitted about the article and received back a suggestion that ‘Dan’ at B&N be contacted, with an e-mail address. Ted was kind enough to post that reply as a comment to the article. [...]