ForeWord Publishing Insider
Industry leaders highlight current trends and the latest headlines
 Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Five lessons corporate publishers can learn from independents

You know that book publishing is in a moment of crisis when the big New York publishers start talking about cutting back on their glam literary lunches. Yet just the other day Jonathan Burnham, publisher of Harper, was quoted in the New York Times musing about"whether it's absolutely essential to have a lunch here or there."

Sure enough, recently Houghton Mifflin suspended acquisitions, laid off staff, and saw its publisher resign. Thomas Nelson cut 20 percent of its workforce. Random House announced a major reorganization. Penguin imposed a salary freeze on many of its workers. Borders cut hundreds of corporate jobs. Barnes & Noble reported multimillion dollar losses. And the president and CEO of Simon & Schuster warned that worse could lie ahead.

Digital media advocate Steve Rubel went so far as to declare that print itself is in its death throes, and he predicted that print media will be extinct by 2014.

That's not going to happen. Printed books are a proven technology. A commercial book trade has existed at least since the first century of the common era. The earliest existing dated book, from 868, is still usable, while digital documents from just twenty years ago can barely be deciphered today.

Still, it is clear that the book publishing industry needs to make adjustments to respond to the rise and digital media and the fall of the economy. In many ways, independent publishers are better prepared for this transition than are the large corporate houses. So let's look at five lessons smaller publishers can offer their bloated rivals.

1. Streamline your operation for maximum efficiency

Small publishers have always played on an unlevel field. The corporations that control most of publishing also own means of distributing and publicizing their titles. (The largest book publishing companies are owned by Bertlesman, News Corp, Time Warner, Disney, and Viacom, who also own countless newspapers, radio stations, and magazines.) As a result, the smaller publishers have become lean and efficient, eliminating many of the redundancies of the larger organizations.

Right now I am reading a book by David Silverman called Typo: The Last American Typesetter; Or, How I Made and Lost $4 Million (An Entrepreneur's Education) (Soft Skull, 2007). In it Silverman describes the way a huge typesetting organization handled a job: "Each book required a job estimator, a customer-service person, a setup person, a keyboarding manager, outside keyboarders, one or more typesetters, and art specialist, a 'proofer' (it took me a while to figure out this was the person who ran the laser print), one or more quality-control people, a system-setup person (a whole position to set up file folders on the system), a technology specialist for when things went wrong (they always went wrong), a production supervistor, a plant manager, a shipping clerk, and a billet.... There had to be a better way."

There is a better way. Using software like Quark and InDesign, a small team of employees with flexible job descriptions can produce books for a fraction of what it costs large organizations with entrenched redundancies of operation. But beware -- such software enables an ignorant designer or typesetter to do serious damage. Small publishers should consult books like Robert Brindghurst's The Elements of Typographic Style in order to learn the basics of sound book design.)

2. Publish books you believe in

I'm currently a reader for the Northern California Book Reviewers 2008 Translation Award. There is a strong group of excellent translations contending for this award. Who are the publishers of these books? They are City Lights, Dalkey Archive, Green Integer, Kaya, Melville House, Milkweed, New Directions, North Atlantic, Omnidawn, Wesleyan, Whereabouts, and Yale. They are all independents and university presses -- not a single corporate publisher is represented!

It wasn't always that way. Alfred A. Knopf built the publishing house that bears his name by publishing books in translation. But today Knopf has turned its back on that tradition and publishes fewer translations than some publishers whose employees number in single digits. High-quality literary translations might not offer the quick profits than a little picture book about cats might bring in (I know an editor at a larger house who calls himself their token editor "for books with words"), but once independent publishers find the market for their unique type of publishing, so long as they are putting out excellent books they are likely to develop a solid base that will see them through the ups and downs of the marketplace.

3. Develop the backlist

Books like this are seldom designed to capitalize on a passing fad or a blip of celebrity gossip -- they are books that are likely to remain pertinent for many years. Because bookstore-oriented publishing is so frontlist-loaded, it is difficult to get big numbers out of the backlist using traditional channels of marketing and distribution. Collectively, however, backlist books can produce a steady stream of sales that can level out the up-and-down curves created by orders and returns of frontlist titles.

With frontlist publishing you are only as good as your current book, and for the most part you are not building a foundation for the future. Backlist publishing, on the other hand, helps to sustain a press when new titles fail to meet expectations. New techniques of small-run printing make building a backlist more economically feasible than it was in the past, when larger numbers needed to be printed in order to reduce unit costs. Some backlist books can even be kept on a publisher's list through print on demand.

4. Build your personal network

One of the reasons that book publishing has been particularly vulnerable to the economic downturn is that it has been slow to let go of antiquated models of operation. In the past, a title was announced and bound galleys were sent to hundreds of book reviewers. The reviews created demand for books, which were picked up by a large network of independent bookstores. To encourage the stores to give shelf space to the books, publishers offered them more or less on consignment. Early readers further built demand through word of mouth. Bookstore buyers noted the interest and reordered the title, and healthy sales resulted.

Hardly any of this structure still exists in the same way. Newspapers have been folding and cutting book reviews -- there are only a few major book review sections left. Independent bookstores are a much smaller segment of the market than they used to be. Books stay on shelves for shorter periods of time, so that word-of-mouth has less opportunity to be effective. Book reorders are less likely to be made by knowledgable staff who have interacted with customers than by automated computer inventories that may fail to pick up on reader enthusiasm. Books are often sent to the wrong stores, only to be sent back to publishers as returns or hurts -- it's said that today only UPS makes much money from book publishing.

Most smaller publishers have identified a particular niche, an area of publishing in which they are passionate and knowledgable. This enables them to find alternative ways of finding and introducing themselves to the primary market for their area. The internet offers many opportunities for social networking that publishers would be wise to take advantage of.

Consider the success of the Obama presidential campaign, with its focused approach to marketing. Robert Niles of the Knight Digital Media Center has observed that "Republicans mocked Obama's experience as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago. But Obama's community organizing skills defined his campaign. ... [T]his will be the new roadmap for election campaigns: do not rely on ads and news coverage to convince people to vote your way on election day. Instead, recruit volunteers throughout your community and use the power of their personal relationships to build a network of loyal supporters that expresses its support through publishing, demonstrating, organizing, recruiting and, ultimately, voting. Then send those volunteers into new communities, to build new personal relationships that can extend your campaign into fresh territory."

Publishers should consider this model and see if similar opportunities for building networks of support exist in their areas of publication.

5. Think about the book as an object

Finally, it is important to remember than digital publishing is faster and in some respects more flexible and convenient than print publishing, and it routinely reaches much larger audiences. Purely as a means of delivering words to readers, print cannot compete with online alternatives. Larger publishers have been trying to reduce the expense side of their finances by lowering the quality of production, for example by printing on paper that is barely distinguishable from newsprint and probably has about the same life expectancy.

I believe this is a mistake. One great thing the book has going for it is its aesthetic quality, which far surpasses that of digital publishing. A well made book is a treat for the hand and the eye.

Independent publishing is never going to be an easy business. But as long as independent publishers do not lose sight of the goal of making the best books they can in the best way that they can, their books will continue to find readers.

Posted by: Tom Christensen

Independent Publishers | Innovation | Publishing

posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2009 3:46:45 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Part III I Self-Publish Again, But I Finally Get It Right
After my first two publishing disasters, I was in no hurry to publish a third book, but it remained a longer-term goal. In the meantime, I worked on “building my platform” and refining my humor writing skills, taking them as uproariously high as possible. (I don't know why, but I fantasized about one day having a reviewer call my work “trenchant.”) I had already been sending out twice-monthly humor columns, called “Off My Noodle,” to email subscribers for a few years, which were also posted on my web site, www.judygruen.com. While no one was paying for the subscription, I rarely missed my self-imposed deadlines. I tried to sell the columns afterward, but I have weaned myself off that habit: now I only write original material for my regular paying gigs, and then adapt the columns for my email subscribers. After all, my editors want original material, not “reprints.”

After a few years, I had amassed enough Noodles (high-humor, zero carbs!) to fill another book, even after weeding out the weaker or dated material. But if selling humor is a hard sell, selling a collection of humor columns is doubly so, since I was not David Sedaris or Dave Barry. I briefly thought of changing my name to “Dave,” but feared it would confuse my friends and family. Yet I knew I would buck the odds again. True, I had shown appalling taste in publishers so far, but my persistence created undeniable momentum in my career: My first two books had won awards from the publishing industry, I still had the bragging rights over the other PR and sales successes, which I had achieved on my own. I also had begun speaking on occasion—something I knew I needed to develop as a tool to drive book sales. I was selling my work consistently to a variety of media outlets.

With hope triumphing over experience (again), I spent months re-editing the columns I chose for the book, organizing them into themed sections. It was a point of pride with me that I did not just toss everything together that I had ever sent out and slap it between two covers. This collection of what I considered my “best of, so far” became The Women's Daily Irony Supplement (which earned the Gold Award from ForeWord Magazine in the humor category for 2007).

I found an agent who loved the manuscript and shopped it around for many months, starting at the top of the publishing food chain. The reactions fell into three categories: I was very funny but my platform wasn't big enough, my platform was great but I wasn't that funny, or they already had another woman humorist in their list. After more than a dozen rejections we had to conclude that I was again looking at very small indie houses or self-publishing. I appreciated my agent's hard work, and we parted on good terms.

I took several more months before deciding what to do, because I figured if I made a third stupid mistake I'd have to kill myself, and if I did that, who would take the kids to the orthodontist? (Either that, or I could write a little memoir called, Smart Women, Foolish Publishing Choices. But who would publish that?) I emphatically did not want to go POD, yet it seemed like my only option. I settled on one POD company whose references checked out, but I still felt that POD still had too many strikes against it, and couldn't bring myself to sign the contract. One day, almost in desperation, I picked up a magazine from a consortium of indie publishers that had been collecting dust on my desk for weeks. I called the organization and asked if they could think of any member publishers who might take an interest in me. They suggested I contact Beagle Bay Books, and since I had nothing to lose, and my dog is half-beagle, I sent them an email. Jacqueline Simonds wrote back right away, which made me momentarily suspicious: if she's such a great publisher, why is she paying attention to me? I had fallen into the mindset of Groucho Marx's joke: “I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.”

I shook off my concerns (after all, not only did the Simonds have a beagle, but his name was Bertie, which I knew was from P.J. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster series, which told me they appreciated literate humor. Such are the weird idiosyncrasies that form a person's decision-making.) I emailed several of their authors for references, and found only universal praise for the Simonds. Shortly after, I signed with Beagle Bay, who published The Women's Daily Irony Supplement under their Creative Minds imprint in April 2007.

Working with Beagle Bay has been a total pleasure. Finally, I was working with reliable and honest professionals who I knew had my best interests at heart. We, too, have been mystified by the failure of another PR coup—I had a quote from my book on more than 5 million Starbucks cups—to spur sales, but together we have worked to move the book forward and to help it find its rightfully larger audience. The Women's Daily Irony Supplement has also scored many publishing awards, and Jacqueline and I tried to capitalize on that by writing a funny press release called Humor Writer Achieves “Athlete's Feat”, tying it into the Summer Olympics.

I'm convinced that much of the difficulty in breaking through to a larger audience is due to the rapidly changing media environment and the drastically lessened space in newspapers and magazines for the kind of slice-of-life humor that I write. That, and the fact that I don't have my own prime-time television program. In my final blog installment, I'll write about what I've learned works, and what doesn't, in trying to promote myself in a tough niche.

Posted by: Judy Gruen

Independent Publishers | Promotion | Publishing

posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 9:58:13 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Part II: My OOP Book Goes to Print Again, but All I Got Were These Lousy Attorney Fees
I meet another writer online whose first book is about to be published by a small house. We have an immediate rapport, and I tell her my tale of woe about my publishing disaster. She offers to tell her publisher about me. Who knows what might happen?

Here's what happened: I am about to make an even more colossal, much more costly mistake than I made by entering into a "Hey, kids! Let's make a Broadway show!" agreement with my graphic designer friend. Good thing I went to college and grad school to make me so smart.

My new writer friend connects me with her publisher, whom I will call "Bellatrix Lestrange."  Lestrange is young (too young, I wonder?), enthusiastic, has nearly a dozen titles in circulation, talks a good game, is impressed with what I achieved in PR and sales on my own. She sees I'm a hard worker, and sends a contract with a lot of bad clauses in it. I hire an agent to look at it for me, and while I get some of the bad clauses excised, I lose the most important battles.

Eager to get Carpool back in circulation, I sign the contract, give her the book for no advance whatsoever and agree to write a second book for her, also with no advance. Well, after all, publishing advances are getting smaller and smaller. If my books do well, I'll make it up on the other side, right?

In the meanwhile, my friend's book is published, riddled with errors. I worry, as Lestrange now controls the future of Carpool and my next book also. In fact, it takes me four attempts to get them to fix the typos and other mistakes that I had found in the page proofs of my second book, Till We Eat Again: Confessions of a Diet Dropout, including mistakes that were added by Lestrange's mother, who with zero qualifications whatsoever "edits" my book.

When I open the first box of Till We Eat Again, a book I loved working on and was excited beyond belief to finally see, I feel physically ill: it looks like it was produced on a 1985 dot matrix printer. I have visions of my book launch party and already feel embarrassed at taking people's money for this shabbily printed book. I hide my dismay as best I can.

The "royalty" statements are also suspiciously complicated, with columns and columns of confusing numbers. It seemed designed to obfuscate, and after hours of pouring over them, I discover dubious accounting practices, such as double-billing me for returns and weird overhead charges. I ask for clarification on the statements, but wouldn't you know it? The "accountant" is always out of town!  

Things go from bad to worse. I compare notes with other authors similarly shackled to the same publisher, and we all come to the inescapable conclusion that Lestrange has taken us all for a ride. Several of us even fly halfway across the country to appear at a legal proceeding against her brought by one of the authors. Many thousands of dollars later, I ransom my books via an intellectual property attorney, the same books that I had given away for free. It's hard to admit all my dumb mistakes publicly, but if it helps someone else be more careful, to do more homework, I'll be glad.

This was a painful way to learn that it was not enough to have met an author thrilled with her publisher when the author-publisher relationship was so new. I have since cautioned every would-be author who asks me for advice to get several references from authors who have at least a year-long relationship with a publisher before signing a contract. There is too much on the line, too much a publisher needs to show they can deliver professionally over a sustained period, before you can safely assume you're dealing with a pro.  

Now I had two books OOP, but both books had won awards for humor, I began to be invited to speak at conferences, and my fan base was growing. Like an addict, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about a third book. Good thing I have a sense of humor.
    

Posted by: Judy Gruen

Independent Publishers | Publishing

posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 9:11:45 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Why aren't there more nonfiction graphic novels?

“Graphic novel” is a weak name. For one thing, it sounds like smut. (“Man, that novel was so…so graphic!”) Besides, it implies that a book-length comic book must be fiction.

And that’s a rotten shame, because nonfiction graphic novels have a huge potential readership. The Zogby polling group just released a new survey on books and reading. It found that the most popular genres after general fiction are nonfiction: history, current events / politics / international affairs, biographies, and religion / philosophy. Library Journal’s 2008 book-buying survey says that the books with the highest circulation are in the medicine/health category. An Associated Press / Ipsos poll says that the most-read books in 2007 were the Bible and other religious works; history and biography were popular, too. Nonfiction sells.

So why does nonfiction account for only two percent of all graphic novels?

I took that figure from Amazon.com, which lists 74,021 graphic novels, of which only 1,573 are nonfiction. Quite a few of them aren’t graphic novels at all but prose nonfiction about comics like Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography and The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America.

Maybe there are so few nonfiction graphic novels because they don’t sell. Or maybe not.

Rank Amazon’s GNs by sales. You’ll find that the top one percent – in fact, the top one-third of one percent – includes plenty of nonfiction. There’s history and current events like The 9/11 Report and Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History series, and memoirs such as Fun Home, Persepolis, and Maus.

What’s more, Joe Sacco’s work of comics journalism Palestine seems to find new readers every time the Israeli-Palestinian conflict heats up. Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is virtually required reading for anyone interested in comics. And Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor became an Oscar-nominated movie.

Publishers for kids know the strength of nonfiction GNs. Capstone Press’ Graphic Library series has dozens them, covering history, biography, and science (including – cough, cough – my own Samuel Morse and the Telegraph). Lerner Publications has its Graphic Universe line, Rosen Publishing has Graphic Nonfiction, the British publisher Osprey’s Graphic History imprint focuses on wars and battles, and Gossamer Books publishes nothing but nonfiction graphic novels.

But where are the graphic-novel equivalents or adaptations of the nonfiction that adults buy? It’s hard to find comics versions of spiritual and self-help books like The Purpose-Driven Life, The Secret, The Last Lecture, and A New Earth. There aren’t many political manifestoes like Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope and Ron Paul’s The Revolution. There’s a shortage of GNs full of advice along the lines of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, or Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. And where are the GN editions of food books like The South Beach Diet? As my retailer friends say, we’re leaving money on the table.

If publishers start generating graphic novels for grown-ups in a variety of nonfiction genres, will retailers and librarians stock them? Maybe not immediately, but I think it’ll happen. I can imagine publishers producing floods of squarebound comic books full of happy-talk spirituality, oversimplified investment counseling, rants about government, and hardnosed commands about how to eat, behave, feel, think, and live.

Say, publishers? Take your time, okay?


Posted by: David Seidman
Independent Publishers | Innovation | Publishing | Graphic Novels

posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 4:32:11 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Wednesday, June 04, 2008
"Me Too" is Not the Formula for Success, or Why Memoirs are Not Dead and the Debut Novel is Crackling Hot
Following the advice of bloggers and magazines is a sure recipe for entrepreneurial ruin. Does this mean don’t read the blogs or magazines? NO! It means, make the news, don’t follow it. Or—to paraphrase a successful ad campaign: “If you read it, it’s history, if you do it, it’s news.”

Reporting Versus Analyzing

ForeWord, true to its name, is almost certainly the best of the trade magazines—very ForeWord thinking (the theme of my blog today—and clearly the most useful source of information for any independent publisher, independent bookseller, or independent author or librarian. And no, I’m not suggesting you stop reading the trades. Rather, that as a publisher, agent, librarian, bookseller or author, you owe it to yourself to read all the trades—especially the innovative ones such as ForeWord—to give you the foundation from which to launch your new ideas.

But make no mistake—no entrepreneur survives on other people’s ideas. No author succeeds by cloning Harry Potter or The DaVinci Code—or Kunati Books. (Mind you I was tickled to find an indie publisher who "borrowed" our tag line: "Controversial. Bold. Provocative." ) No publisher can thrive for long with an unchanging list of ideas, concepts, marketing plans or authors.

So, read the trades, and the blogs (especially this one, and my publisher blog: http://www.kunati.com/our-publishers-blog/) but only as a base for new-thinking. What’s In and What’s Out is not a good foundation for publishing decisions.

What’s In; What’s Out?

This is the biggest issue I have with the larger magazines and newspapers and their predictions of What’s In and What’s Out in any area: books, fashion, food, wine, you name it. Some journalists and bloggers take on the role of creating fads and fashions, instead of reporting on them.

Independent “Fill-in-the-Blanks” Do It Best

Fortunately, readers don’t always follow these trends, and publishers who simply try to follow fads often find these titles heading straight to the remainder tables.

ForeWord-thinking indies often take the larger risks to introduce new talent, ideas and concepts. I recently read a blog that proclaimed, “Indie’s find the new authors, big publisher’s poach them.” Well, that may be an exaggeration, and clearly the authors have the right to profit from their new-found fame.

But it does highlight the role Indies have taken on; Indie publishers find the new talent and through innovation help them succeed, assisting debut authors to build their brands and careers. Indie booksellers do the same by hand-selling books. Independent magazines such as ForeWord, even more so. Read the story of ForeWord’s inspirational start-up in the 10th Anniversary issue of the magazine. Indies (in any field) are the unsung heroes, you could say.

An Inelegant Segue...
I’ll gratefully make a small plug here that only subtly ties in with my point in this blog: First happy 10th to ForeWord (much deserved!) And thank you ForeWord for recognizing the role of the Indie Publishers with your new Independent Publisher of the Year Award… I’m beyond delighted Kunati and our author’s were honored, and am so much hoping this inspires other indies to innovate, take chances and find new talent. Which is my crazy segue into …

Memoirs… In not Out!
Today I spent two hours chatting with a very talented memoirist with an important story to tell about abuse. Now, I was trying to explain, “post Frey, memoirs are out” but I found myself not believing it. And, in the end, I made an offer on this most wonderful book.

When I look at our book list, I see a dozen memoirs. So, clearly, we don’t believe they’re "out." They sell well. They are not famous people—just important stories from real people with genuine writing talent. Such as Mothering Mother: an important story of a daughter coping with her mother’s Alzheimer’s. And Paul Cook’s new memoir Cooked in LA: a stunning story of addiction to fame, alcohol and drugs. And most certainly Wendy Aron’s amazing Hide & Seek, both a memoir and a story of recovery from one of America’s most debilitating conditions: depression.

Clearly, we don’t believe memoirs are dead. Today, I saw Publisher’s Weekly described Memoirs as “Unstoppable” and cited bidding wars on memoirs. “Publishers continue to snap up memoirs, undermining the perception that the genre is embattled in this post-Frey, post-Seltzer era.” Indies, of course, knew this long ago. It's not news to us.

Novels, a Shrinking Affair?
Commonly accepted “publishing trends” indicates that novels are shrinking affair, certainly for the debut author. Now, here we may be somewhat different from the prototypical indie, and clearly different from the larger publishing houses. We love debut fiction and fiction in all categories. It’s one of the reasons why we’re in business. And we continue to show that debut fiction can be successful, even in a 1 million plus title universe, where self-published fiction will soon outnumber trade-published titles.

But What is the Secret?
Hard work? Innovation? Risk-taking? Creating new trends? All of the above. Our director Kam Wai Yu created the first book trailer back in the eighties. Movie trailers were his inspiration, but it hadn’t been done. Why, we asked? The synergies of two industries combined to create a new phenomenon. Now, we lead with book trailers. But, it’s hardly considered innovative now. Almost mainstream. Nice to set the new mainstream I suppose.

So, on to the next innovation. Blog tours. Okay, that’s mainstream now too. Ezines. Been there, done that. Social Marketing 2.0. Very yesterday. What’s next… well, I’ll share, but not today. (Hint: I share often at http://www.blogertize.com)

Does this Mean You Must Invent?
Of course not. It does mean you must be an enthusiastic early adopter. Make it your own.

By watching ForeWord and the blogs, you stay on top of the next great trend: interactive trailers, paperless galleys, paperless catalogs, live web, online PR... And then you add your own personality to what has proven successful. Blend your brand of enthusiasm with the hottest new trend. Ignore the big publisher trends. By the time you hear what’s hot, it’s yesterday. Live author chat? So old now. Virtual book plates. Done. Think beyond.

Make it your own. Work it (that’s the hard work part). Take risks, especially the ones that only cost time versus money. Invest the time (who needs TV time or sleep?—if I wanted TV time would I be writing this blog?) These are the tools of the indie. There’s no secret.

We Just Want it More
Why does this work for the indie? It’s simple, really. We want it more. We work harder because we want it more. There’s no stopping innovation--and innovation has always come from individual minds.

Individuality is definitely the territory of independent publishers, independent booksellers, and independent magazines such as ForeWord. We have to invent to succeed. We have to work to grow. And we do it with a big smile, because enthusiasm is a big part of the formula for success.



Posted by: Derek Armstrong
Fiction | Independent Publishers | Innovation | Memoir | Publishing

posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 9:11:10 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [4]
 Thursday, May 15, 2008
From a Publisher’s Mailbox — Real Answers to Author, Agent and Reader Inquiries
What could be cooler than opening my overflowing mail box, answering a few authors, and sharing my responses with the world? Of course, names are not included, but I think these authors won’t mind sharing their important questions.

For the most part, I believe my answers reflect a typical indie publisher’s response—if they have time to respond at all. We do try to always respond quickly to inquiries and as fast as we can on queries. So, let’s have some fun:

Reader Question: “Which is more important, reader reviews and opinions or professional reviews?”

My Answer: “I’ll have to hedge my bets on this one. Trade reviews from ForeWord, Publishers Weekly and Booklist are vital in launching a title, but we find that ultimately reader buzz and online reader reviews carry the most weight in the shelf-life and ultimate sales of our titles. Even customers who buy in bricks and mortar stores will research online reader reviews at online stores. We find readers—based on informal anecdotal evidence—will happily read through 80 reader reviews before making a decision.

Author Query: “Dear Agent, I am seeking representation….”

Ummm… bite your tongue, Derek, bite your sarcastic tongue! I’m sure my replies were quite civil (I hope!) but this is really not the way to invite a “please send” when querying a publisher. We get this one a lot. Please take the time to research my name, or at least write “Dear Editor or Dear Publisher…”

Fan Query: “Why did you decide to publish The Last Troubadour novels as three books set one year apart in release dates? I'm telling everyone to read, but I’m a little annoyed that you’re making me wait a year. What happened to Ramon Troubadour?”

My Answer: “Annoying is my middle name. Sorry. As publisher, we felt a 1400 page book might be a little bit too heavy for the average weight-lifting reader. Never fear. Fall is not long off. Thank you for the compliment, but I’ll never tell, on pain of death, what happened to Ramon Troubadour….”

Author Question: "Is there something you’d like to see submitted that hasn’t yet dropped into your lap?"

"I have to tell you…I love your strategy and insight…What I’d really like to know…Is there anything in particular (subject-wise) that you haven’t yet found ? Is there something you’d like to see submitted that hasn’t yet dropped into your lap?...Here’s my problem—I’d like to know what genre is selling right now, and what isn’t. What type of fiction can actually cause a “buzz”? Or…is it only nonfiction that is on the publisher’s mind at this time?"

My Answer: “At Kunati, we haven't yet felt the urge to assign, since we're riding a tsunami of submissions as it is right now. I suppose if we did assignments, it would inevitably be in nonfiction, which is the area most publishers count on to "pay the bills." Fiction is more a passion and love, and the nonfiction helps pay for our addiction to good fiction.

“Because fiction is about passion and love, we really can't assign. It has to be driven by the author's passion, heart, interest or experience (a lot of publishers actually phone prospective authors to probe them on their life experiences—it's that important to credibility in a novel—and this is ALWAYS done in Hollywood for scriptwriters). I couldn't in conscience direct you to a genre or subject for fiction. You have to navigate your own passions.

“Buzz in fiction is always historical. Just when you think you know what's hot right now, suddenly everyone's buzzing something else. And since publishing is always months behind the market, due to editing and printing, trade reviews and distribution, you'll never be ahead of the buzz. By the time the "me toos" come out, as we saw with The Da Vinci Code, it's already too late. So I can only advise you to follow your passion, blend in a good dollop of life experience, and have fun with it. That will show, and it will, in the end, find a home.

Agent Question: “As an agent, I represent several top authors. Can I expect Kunati to review my manuscripts as a priority over unagented submissions? Do you accept simultaneous submissions?”

My Answer: “Not the answer you’ll want to hear, but we give no priority to agented submissions. We do respect the professionalism and selection process and rigor you deploy, and we expect quality. The review, once started, might be slightly faster simply because you probably researched carefully our preferences and the market comparables. But we do not read agented submissions ahead of unagented. They are read in the order they are received. Yes, we accept simultaneous provided you mention this in the cover.”

Author Question: "How long does it usually take to get a response?"

"I submitted two queries to you, the bold and provocative press, thinking you were looking for real controversial stuff. Haven't heard from you either on…How long does it usually take to get a response? Let me know, because I like your press a lot."

My Answer: “Since we don't require agents, we have to read thousands of submissions (literally), so lately it's been months rather than weeks. You can politely follow up a month or two after submission if you haven't heard, but be cautioned that you must provide the DATE (exact) of your original query PLUS your original email (if you use multiple emails, and you give us the wrong one, we will not find your submission on a search)…”

Posted by: Derek Armstrong
Independent Publishers | Publishing

posted on Thursday, May 15, 2008 9:11:39 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [0]
 Wednesday, May 07, 2008
How to get published (and have a happy editor)
A guest blog by Kunati's editor in chief, James McKinnon

Playing the role of acquisitions editor in a small publishing house can be very rewarding. I get to read submissions from authors all around the world on every imaginable subject, fiction and non. For someone who loves to read, it's a dream job.

Well, perhaps I should clarify. Not all submissions are created equal. There are rather more submissions that end up rejected than accepted. Being rejected doesn't necessarily mean the submission isn't of high quality, of course. Years ago there was a television show called The Waltons. On it, John-boy Walton was an aspiring author. In one episode he received a rejection letter from a publisher and he was dejected. His wise old grandmother said wisely, when I go shopping for gingham, I don't buy lace, no matter how pretty it is. This has stayed with me ever since. Authors who are rejected by a particular publisher should keep it in mind. You might have been rejected because you submitted lace when what they wanted was gingham.

Which brings me to the topic at hand. Here, in no particular order, are a few ways you can improve your chances of getting your work published.

Be professional.
The more professional you look the more willing the editor will be to give you his much-sought-after time. In the case of my publishing house, Kunati, we accept submissions from unpublished, unrepresented authors and we accept them by email. This is almost unheard of in the industry. It gives writers unprecedented access to a publisher. But it does not give writers the right to toss off a poorly written, badly spelled, incomplete query that shows a total lack of respect for the person reading it. Me.

Instead, compose your query carefully with emphasis on the book, not on yourself. State simply and clearly what it is about, what it is called, how long it is, why you think it should be published and why you think it should be published by the particular publisher you have queried. On this latter point you need to have done a little research so that you do not send lace to a gingham buyer. As obvious as it may seem, be sure that you send your query about an illustrated book of garden flowers to a publisher who publishes that type of book. Failing to follow this simple rule will guarantee a rejection. And who needs rejection?

Be sure that your query and other materisls have been checked for spelling, grammar and punctuation. You are a writer. Demonstrate as much in everything you write. Do you think an editor will be impressed by a query full of errors? Or do you think the editor will say to himself, if I take on this "writer," I will be making more work for myself, correcting all his errors?

Follow submission guidelines
Every publisher and literary agency has its own guidelines. Read them before you send anything. Don't send a complete manuscript if the guidelines stipulate three chapters. Don't send hard copy if the publisher (Kunati) prefers electronic. If the submission guidelines request a synopsis, include one. And here's a little secret: nobody likes to read a synopsis. They are almost invariably boring and badly written, but they're necessary, sort of. Speaking entirely personally here, I hardly read them. I skim to look for main plot points, main characters, a sense of beginning, middle and end. And this is important: include the ending of your novel in the synopsis. Don't be coy and think that you're going to tease the editor into asking for your manuscript. Tell me how your story ends so I'll know that you know how to tell a story with a reasonable, logical conclusion. And keep it short. If you send me a ten-page synopsis I guarantee you will put me in a bad mood. Is this what you want from your potential best friend?

Be careful when you "follow up"
This point pertains particularly to my work at Kunati, but I'm sure there are equivalents in other author-editor relationships. Because we accept email submissions, we get a lot. Really. A lot. I keep them in folders with labels such as November Queries, Active Consideration, Non-Fiction and so on. If you have queried Kunati and wish to do a follow-up because you haven't heard from us in "six months," be sure to send your follow-up from the same address as your original query came from, and be sure to include the exact date of the original query. This is important because when an author emails me a follow-up, it makes me feel guilty. When I feel guilty, I must make the guilt go away by whatever means. So I will search for that original query until I find it, and then respond. If I cannot find the original query, I will feel even more guilty, thinking that I might have deleted it, or somehow lost it. At this point I will respond to the author doing the follow-up and apologize for not being able to find the original query. If the follow-up author then replies— "Oh, did I say March? I meant July. And by the way, I've got a different email address now. Could that have something to do with it?"--which emotion do you think will replace the aforementioned guilt?

Posted by: Derek Armstrong
Independent Publishers | Promotion

posted on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 10:25:52 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Just One More Year
In 1976, when I quit my job as an associate editor for the Wm. C. Brown Publishing Company, I figured I knew enough to start my own publishing house. Hey, I was young. For the next three years, Avery Publishing Group operated out of the basement of my house and my partner’s garage. We began producing college textbooks and quickly morphed into a niche house specializing in non-traditional markets—from pregnancy to childbirth to military history. To the great relief of my very understanding wife, we eventually moved out of the basement into the front offices of a local printer. While Avery continued to expand its titles into other niche marketplaces, some of our books started to find their way into trade bookstores—a marketplace I had avoided like the plague. Luckily, we found the very laid-back Charlie Winton and his company, Publishers Group West. They were happy to take over our trade sales, and we were happy to let them. By 1990, Avery was in its own building and finally turning a profit. Not a big profit, but enough to satisfy the bank and allow us to borrow more money when we needed it. By that year, I had figured out that I really did not know as much about publishing as I had originally thought. We were certainly good, but not good enough to be considered great.

About that time, I met a gentleman named Nathan Keats, the publisher of Keats Publishing. Nathan had been in publishing since the early ‘40s. He had put together one of the best alternative health publishing companies in the country. He was a crusty maverick, said what was on his mind, was highly innovative, and loved life. I was a wise guy with a sense of humor and I had been following his publishing house as I developed Avery’s own alternative health list. We hit it off the first time we met at the old ABA (now called the BEA). He told me something that has always stuck with me. He said that if you can stay in publishing long enough, you will eventually come out with a bestseller. When he told me that, I asked him to define “long enough.” He answered, “You’ll know how long when it happens. You just have to keep at it.”

In 1991, Avery published Juicing for Life. The juicing craze was just beginning and it became our first major hit. We sold over 700,000 copies in its first six months of publication. From that point until we sold the company in 1999, we couldn’t do anything wrong. It was an amazing ride; one bestseller begat another. Nathan couldn’t have been more pleased by our success—and I couldn’t have had a better mentor. Nathan was someone I could call to ask questions, bounce ideas off of, and learn the secrets of being a publisher. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years before I sold Avery. I did, however, get the opportunity to tell him how much his friendship had meant to me.

Two months after selling Avery, I started Square One Publishers. Having owned my own publishing firm for over twenty-three years, I found myself back at square one—just in case anyone was wondering where the company name came from. It’s now been eight years since we started, and while we have developed a solid backlist and have a number of very strong titles, we are still looking for our first major bestseller. While I no longer like to make predictions about my titles, I think this year we will have our first two bestsellers: Does Your Baby Have Autism?, thanks to the unique breakthrough offered by its author-researchers, and Taking Woodstock, owing to it having become Ang Lee’s next movie project. I am also hoping that eight years is, in fact, “long enough”—yet I also hear Nathan telling me to “never count your chickens before they sell.” We will do our best to make this year, Square One’s year; and if it isn’t, all I have to do is try and stay in business for one more year. Somewhere in that thought—planted in my brain by Nathan—is the hope and passion that continues to drive me and most other publishers forward.

Thank you, Nathan.   

Independent Publishers | Publishing

posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 3:42:03 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [0]
 Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Book Business—Twenty-Years From Today
While Jules Verne was pretty good at predicting the future, I usually dismiss modern-day prognosticators. They don’t seem to get it right when it comes to politics, stocks, or bestsellers. On the other hand, since this is my blog—and I’m not going to write about politics, stocks, or bestsellers—what the hell. We live in an age of technological wonders. It seems that breakthroughs in the field of digital electronics occur every selling season like clockwork. I have now discovered that the television I currently have hooked up to cable at my home will shortly need another electronic gizmo to work. All of this has got me thinking about where the book publishing business will be in about twenty years. I use the period of twenty years because that usually connotes the space between generations.

As a baby boomer, I grew up reading books printed on paper—not unlike the last hundreds of generations before me. However, I now find myself living in the “digital” age—an age in which I keep missing all those seminars on “Publishing in the Digital Age.” I know it’s coming, but I don’t think it’s just around the corner. Let me tell you why.

When I was growing up, I used to listen to AM stations—that is, until FM started playing rock ’n roll (in stereo, no less!). From there, it was on to 8-track players (and some really interesting wardrobe choices) and then cassette tapes. This was followed by CDs, which were followed by  MP3 players, iPods and downloads—and this was all happening just in my car. And you wonder why the music business is in such a mess.

As my generation grew up, music was such an integral part of our lives that we were always looking for that perfect sound. If the equipment we were listening to became obsolete in a few years—or until the car’s lease was up—that was perfectly okay; we’d accept the change and move on. As a generation, we were trained to accept change in order to keep up with the latest musical-producing device.

Yet as much as our musical equipment changed, books remained an unchanged product, allowing only for the development of “books-on-tape.” My generation and then Generation X simply did not have any other choices to select from. Today, however, things have changed. We have e-books, downloads, and handheld reading devices; none of which seem to excite my generation and the X-ers. Of course, paying $299 to $399 for a device that needs to be constantly recharged, is easily broken, lost, or stolen also doesn’t seem like a big plus. The fact is that the generations not raised on GameBoy is not likely to give up their paper books now or perhaps even later—unless the technology begins to encompass a whole lot more than books and drops its price to below $99.

On the other hand, the younger generation out there who were raised on electronic games may absolutely embrace these advancements. However, since they still need to graduate high school and get jobs (good luck to them.), we will not see any dramatic acceptance of these products for at least the next ten years. I therefore predict that our use of traditional paperbound books will continue to remain steady for as long as the Boomers and the Gen X-ers continue to buy books.

What will change dramatically over the next few years, in my opinion, is how that “paper” book will be produced and delivered to its readers. This will change the publishing industry as we know it and impact greatly on retailers of all printed matter. Am I starting to sound like Nostradamus yet? With the development of digital printing a few years back, the printing industry went through a great deal of change and upheaval trying to keep up with the new emerging technologies. Today, we have POD (print-on-demand) presses that can produce one book at a time. This has produced an enormous amount of new books to become available (if not actually sold) online. And as this technology is refined, the machines producing the books will become smaller and more sophisticated. What we will have is a single machine capable of printing and collating the interior text in black and white; printing a color cover; and binding the interior to the cover to produce one commercial-looking, single bound paperback. And that future is already here in the form of the Espresso Book Machine, a complete one-stop printer capable of storing thousands of titles in its memory bank—and that will eventually change everything.

While the bookstore still has its share of bestsellers and perennial backlist titles on its shelves, it will also have several machines capable of printing almost every book ever published in any language requested. Should any of the bookstores’ shelved stock sell out, the manager simply prints out what’s ever needed. Libraries will have the machines available for its patrons--as will supermarkets, health food stores, drug stores, toy shops, or any other retailers that cater to any niche market(s). Publishers themselves will have these machines to produce review copies whenever needed.

The economic model for publishers should improve as well. As a book is electronically purchased, a percentage will be paid directly into a publisher’s and/or author’s account. While this amount may be smaller than the traditional revenue made, the savings for the publishers will more than offset the smaller profit.  No longer will publishers have to spend money maintaining stocked inventory, warehousing, or shipping. Nor will they have to contend with returns, damaged books, or overstocks. The system of distribution will become completely electronic. No book will ever be out of stock. For the first time, smaller independent publishers will be able to compete with mega-publishers on an even playing fair.

And of course, as with the coming of the automobile and its impact on the horse carriage trade, there will be changes in the industry that rely on the old book publishing model. The need for distributors and wholesalers will be greatly reduced, as will the need for traditional book printers. Online booksellers will take a beating—unless Amazon chooses to buy Borders (but we’ll leave that for a future blog). And as these industries may devolve or evolve, new ones will emerge to meet the new economic models to come.

The fact is we are definitely living in a time of great change. However, we still have a long way to go to get to that future. And, of course, I could always be wrong. But hey, that’s what happens when you make predictions.  

Posted by: Rudy Shur

Bookstores | Digitization | e-books | Independent Publishers | Libraries | POD | Publishing

posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 9:37:54 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [2]
 Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Lessons From Lenny Riggio
The first time I had met Len Riggio—well, maybe not so much met him as heard him—was in the early 1970s. I was the New York City field rep for the William C. Brown Publishing Company, a college textbook publisher. Len was the owner of the off-campus NYU bookstore. One of my tasks was to visit college bookstores and learn which titles had been adopted for various courses. To do this, I needed to schmooze store managers, and ask nicely if I could look through the textbooks on the store shelves. The books were usually arranged by department and course number so they were relatively easy to identify. As I walked into this particular bookstore, I noticed that there were no customers. I also noticed there were no salespeople. I was in downtown Manhattan in the middle of the afternoon, and the bookstore was devoid of people.

“Hello! Anyone here?” I called out.  No response. I proceeded to the back of the store. “Hello! Is anybody home? . . .” Nothing. I walked back to the middle of the store thinking this just wasn’t right. As I was about to repeat my hello, I heard some muffled noises coming from behind a large closed door to my right. I began thinking, Great, either I’ve just walked into a robbery in process or I’m on Candid Camera (yesterday’s version of Punked). Hoping for a possible shot on TV, I slowly opened the door . . . and was greeted with a barrage of expletives that floated up from a stairwell. Obviously something was going on in the basement below. As I called down to ask if the store was open, a man holding a big box of books appeared and began making his way up the stairs. “Look kid” (I was actually a kid then), he said, “we just had a flood in the basement, and I’m a little busy.” I told him I was with a publisher and asked if I could help. He handed over the box of books, pointed to a space against the wall, and told me to put it there. Then he turned immediately and headed back downstairs.

I took off my jacket, and waited at the top of the stairs for the guy to reappear. As I waited, all I could hear was the angry voice of some man barking out orders amidst a sea of colorful curses. As I was handed the second box, I asked the guy, “Who is that down there?” “That’s the owner,” he replied, “and I don’t think he’s too happy.” I stayed there for several more trips, and as I waited, I could hear the guy who was lugging the boxes repeatedly say to the owner, “Lenny. Relax!” Needless to say, Lenny did not relax.

Some time later, I learned that that bookstore had closed, and I figured I was never going to have the chance to meet Lenny. Shortly after, the original Barnes & Noble bookstore declared bankruptcy and all of its assets were up for auction. A Publishers Weekly article spelled out who had bought what: The name and titles of the Barnes & Noble publishing house had been purchased by Harper & Row, and the bookstore itself was bought by a group that was headed by a Mr. Leonard Riggio, the former owner of—you guessed it—the off-campus NYU bookstore. And the rest is history.

So what’s the point? After facing difficulties and setbacks in his own bookshop, Len Riggio took a bankrupt business and turned it into this country’s largest bookstore chain. The flood in his basement didn’t stop him, nor did the eventual closing of that bookstore. He had the vision, the energy, the experience, and the guts to do it again—and this time he did it right. So what does this have to do with independents in the book business? Plenty.

Over the years, I’ve heard indie publishers and bookstore owners actually admit that they love books, but hate marketing them. And they wonder why large corporate giants continue to beat their brains in. If independents intend to be successful in this business, they not only have to love books, they have to learn to embrace every aspect of marketing. If one strategy doesn’t work, try another. Learn from both your successes and failures. If you want to have a viable operation, look at what other successful entrepreneurs do--learn from them. Energy that is directed towards the right vision can make it happen, just like it happened for Len.

As a book publisher, I can’t tell you how many of my authors have had signings at bookstores that turned out to be disasters--embarrassments for them, and a loss of potential sales for the bookstores. Yes, putting up a poster telling customers about an upcoming book signing is a good start, but for most bookstores, it’s also the only marketing they will do. Typically, bookstore owners are thinking “Hey, shouldn’t marketing be the job of the publisher and author?” Perhaps it is, but shouldn’t driving more customers into the store be an owner’s top priority? Do you think it’s a coincidence that the most successful indie bookstores also have the biggest turnouts for a majority of their book signings? And not just for big-name authors! Even their lesser-known authors draw sizeable crowds. Again, with proper marketing, they make it happen--all it takes is energy and vision.

Now I don’t claim to be the smartest business person in the book business, but as an independent publisher, I have always tried to learn from those who failed (avoiding the pitfalls that brought them down) and from those who have succeeded (borrowing their good ideas). As an indie in the book industry, if you intend to stay in business during today’s down-turned economy, you should always remember that no matter how flooded your basement gets, you must never allow it to drown your dreams.

Posted by: Rudy Shur

Bookstores | Celebrities | Independent Publishers | Promotion

posted on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 2:24:19 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Wednesday, April 09, 2008
So you wanna be a publisher?

For independent publishers, it is the best of times and it is the worst of times. And yes, I know I took that line from Dickens—but it is absolutely true. Today’s breakthrough technologies have allowed more people to print books than ever before in the history of mankind. Years ago, the cost of editing, typesetting, printing, and promoting a book made publishing prohibitive for most. Now, we are able to digitally typeset and print a single copy for peanuts. This remarkable technology has ignited the entrepreneurial spirit in thousands of people here and around the world. Now, we can all be publishers! Every would-be author can see his or her name on books; children can give their grandparents a copy of their latest handy work in a bound edition; and no books need ever go out of print again. Could it be the dawn of a new golden age of independent publishing? I don’t think so.

About sixty years ago, an individual in England would have to work years to become a bonafide publisher. They would first work as a publisher’s apprentice, and then move up the ranks. After years of service, they would hopefully be granted a certificate letting the world know that they have proven themselves worthy of being called a “Publisher.” Publishing was considered a trade, but that was then. Today, it seems all you have to do is get on the right website, download your file, and within a few days your book will arrive at your front door. And yes—according to the website copywriters, you have just become a publisher. The truth—and what the website will not tell you--is that your book has been printed, which is, in fact, not the same as being published. And while it may look, feel, and even smell like a book, it is not a published work.

For the indie publisher today, publishing is a hard-nosed, fight-for-every-sale, better-know-what-you-are-doing business. Financially distressed distributors can bring you down; vendors think nothing of holding onto your money for months at a time; and, even when you think you are ahead of the game, there are those unexpected returns to put a dent in your cash flow. And just like that smell of napalm in the morning, I love it. What I don’t love, however, are all those people who tell anyone with a computer that printing a book makes them a publisher. For every one of those folks who buy into it, there is another person willing to teach them how to create a bestseller, how to get free PR, how to become rich—off of their book. The truth is the only people becoming rich are the people printing the books and selling the seminars.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with lots more people becoming publishers. Independent publishers have always been the driving force behind innovations, discovery of new voices, and quality over profits. However, if you are going to be a publisher, you not only need to know how to run a business, you also need the drive and instincts to run it. Take courses on the subject. PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association, offers great workshops on the subject. Talk to people who are in the business. Read books about the subject. Send some time walking the halls of the BEA. Do all you can to prepare to be brutalized, and then when you think you are ready, ask yourself one question. Do I want to run a business or be a writer? And if you truly want to be a publisher, then go for it.

I answered that question years ago, and have never looked back.

Back to you.
Rudy Shur
Publisher
Square One Publishers

Posted by: Rudy Shur

Independent Publishers | POD | Publishing | Self-Publishing

posted on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 11:21:24 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Friday, April 04, 2008
Underland Press Unveils Debut List
The first year in any business is a sink or swim time. In publishing, there are two first years: the planning year, when you find your distributor, raise your capital, set up your web site, and buy your titles; and the printing year, measured from the day that your first book arrives crated at the warehouse. I am in my planning year now. My print year starts in the Winter season, 2009.  

For my first print year, I was looking for books that fulfilled both my creative and my capitalistic vision. The books needed to be good, but they also needed to be marketable. I wanted to fall in love.

And I did.  

My first book is Brian Evenson’s LAST DAYS. Currently the MFA director at Brown, Brian is my perfect kind of writer—a writer who walks the line between the literary world and the genre world, a writer who knows a good story and who knows how to write it well. He has everything: craft, structure, character-driven plots. He’s an NEA recipient, as well as an O. Henry prize winner. He translates from French, he’s won the Horror Guild Award, and his last book, The Open Curtain, was picked as one of the ten best books of the year by Time Out New York. All that, plus he’s a great guy to have across the table at a meal. You can read more about him here: http://www.brianevenson.com.

I met Brian at BEA, when I was an editor at Dark Horse. He agreed to write an Aliens novel for Dark Horse, which was a bit of a triumph, I thought. LAST DAYS is a detective novel set in a secret society of self mutilators. The detective was kidnapped by members of the society, and is forced to solve a murder mystery for them. It’s a down the rabbit hole kind of story, where nothing is as it seems.

My second book is Jeff VanderMeer’s third novel set in the Ambergris world, FINCH. I met Jeff through Brian, and, though Jeff and I have never talked face to face, we carry on a lively email correspondence. Jeff pitched me a Predators story when I was an editor at Dark Horse. The resultant Predators novel is also a bit of a triumph.

Jeff is one of the most prolific writers I’ve met. He has ten (yes, ten!) books coming out next year. He’s widely considered to be one of America’s best fantasy writers, having won the World Fantasy Award, been translated into 17 languages, been featured on the NYT’s blog and Wired.com. He’s kind and intelligent, and also a gonzo marketer, with ideas coming out of his ears. Read more about him (and see some pretty cool art) at www.jeffvandermeer.com.

FINCH is a noir tale, set in a world where the gray caps, mysterious underground inhabitants, have taken over the city. Martial law is in place. Against a backdrop of oppression and rebellion, the hero, John Finch, must solve an impossible double murder while trying to make contact with the rebels. His girlfriend, Sintra, might or not be the leader of the resistance. Something is about to happen.  

Third up? Will Elliott’s PILO FAMILY CIRCUS. Talk about the genre / literary crossover… The book is about a troupe of demonic clowns working in a between-worlds circus. The currency that the circus runs on is bits of white crystal—or souls. The writing is smart, dry, and humorous. The book made me both look over my shoulder in fear, and laugh out loud. The word Elliott creates crackles with tension. He’s a fantastic writer, and to think that this is only his first book…

I bought the North American English rights to Will’s book from Quercus, his U.K. publisher. The book was originally printed in Australia, where it won the ABC prize. The novel also won the Aurealis Award, the Shadows Award, and the Ditmar Award. Elliott got a nod from the Sydney Herald as the best young novelist for 2007.  

And about the wovel? Last week, I found my wovelist. He’s young, he’s smart, he’s ready for a break out from the limited edition publishers. He’s Kealan Patrick Burke, and if you haven’t heard of him, you will.

His wovel, called The LIVING, is set in a world torn apart by civil war—the undead humans versus the living humans. The undead are not your typical zombies. They were created by genetic mutation, and they are the underclass of this new world. Our heroine, Madison, might be the last hope for peace in this world. The wovel follows Madison’s attempted escape from a city ravaged from the civil war.

In preparation for writing this wovel, Kealan sent me not a plot synopsis but a conflict synopsis. With the help of the readers, who will vote on the plot branch points as they come up, Madison might escape from the city alive. Or she might not… The readers get to decide. Read more about Kealan at his web site www.kealanpatrickburke.com.

I can’t announce my fourth print title yet, because the contract isn’t signed…

Know these authors? Have thoughts about the lineup? Comment here, or write me at Victoria@underlandpress.com.

And thanks for reading the blog. It’s been fun to write for ForeWord. Keep in touch by visiting www.underlandpress.com, and signing up for our newsletter.

Best of luck, and happy reading…

Victoria

Posted by: Victoria Blake

e-books | Fiction | Independent Publishers | Publishing

posted on Friday, April 04, 2008 10:42:23 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [3]
 Thursday, March 06, 2008
New Beginnings -- Underland Press

    They say that starting a business takes twice as long as you think it will, and costs twice as much. When I heard this-on NPR, the week before I was going to leave my good, solid editorial job to start Underland Press-I thought, Nah. Not me. I have a plan.
    What was that plan? To start a publishing house with between five to seven titles in the first year. To be distributed by one of the industry heavies. To develop my web site beyond industry boundaries. To only publish what I love, and to love what I am sure I can sell. 
    I love stories that scare me. I like weird things-monsters and magic and characters with nothing to lose. More than anything, I like to be intrigued and entertained. I started Underland Press to bring the best of the world's weird, scary, odd, unsettling and strange stories to life and to light.
    So how's it coming? I left my editorial job in October. In the last five months, I've been to Frankfurt and back, found a lawyer and fired a lawyer, negotiated for five books, read eleven manuscripts, taught myself QuickBooks, opened two bank accounts, designed one cover and three different business cards, had in-depth discussions about the definition of "weird," been yelled at by one agent, and been reduced to tears exactly twice.
Also: I signed a distribution contract with PGW. I bought the rights to three of my five books. My web site is coming along, and I'm about ready to announce something big.
    I might be four months behind where I wanted, but my launch won't take twice as long.
    I might be spending more on my web site than I wanted, but the business won't cost twice as much.
    Plus, I am having a blast.

ForeWord has asked me to blog about my experience starting a genre press. If there's something you're interested in, please ask. Next week, I'm planning to write about the creative vision behind Underland, and what my definition of genre is. I wish I had a web site up for you to go to, but it's taking a little longer than I hoped… Maybe by the time I next post…

Posted by: Victoria Blake

Independent Publishers | Promotion | Publishing

posted on Thursday, March 06, 2008 10:54:23 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #    Comments [0]
 Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Author Brand Is the Ultimate Secret of Book Sales Success, Built With Killer Tactics Such as Book Trailers and Author Marketing Groups
Let’s call it Web 3.0 — The Cure-All For Book Sales Horror Stories

How do publishers and authors beat the odds—that terrifying Nielsen Bookscan report that nearly 80% of books in the market sell less than 99 copies in total?

One of the key reasons authors bury Kunati Books in submissions—8,500 submissions per year is pretty much a “drowning in manuscripts” scenario—is our “marketing-first” approach to publishing. Quill and Quire profiled Kunati Books as “what a publisher looks like if the marketing department runs things.”

A How-To: Web 3.0 from the Experts

Step-by-step I’ll cover the top-line tactics that we’ve proven work, starting this week with our own killer applications: book/novel trailers and the author marketing group. Next week, I’ll reveal our Web 3.0 Social Marketing Program.

Bear in mind these are methods we’ve proven to work, beating the odds with all of our released titles—by a good margin. It’s not Quantum mechanics, and anyone can do it, but I’ll warn you—these methods require talent, hard work, long hours, commitment, discipline, planning and heart. Heart, because that’s what keeps you going seven days a week during launch phase. If that sounds like too much, stop reading now. You’ll get nothing from this how-to.

The Author-Publisher Partnership—Your Online Marketing Group

The most important anchoring strategy I can offer, fundamental to that all-important author-publisher partnership, is the Author Marketing Group. Every publisher who works with more than one author should have one. We set ours up as a free private Yahoo Group, inviting all our authors to participate by email.

Everything from author ideas to tips to events are discussed, topic by topic in this private “forum.” Our authors get to know each other. They buzz each other’s books and events. They tell everyone about their friends. They link their blogs to each other.

Big news is conveyed seamlessly to authors. As long as the group remains dynamic and interesting, every post is read by authors. Our Kunati Authors Group now has an archive of 6,500 past posts, fully searchable by new authors who join and want to “catch up” on how-to manage a book signing, how-to approach a bookseller CRM or manager/owner, how-to set up a Facebook page, how-to use Widgetbox. It’s all there. Priceless.

The Author Brand—Everyone’s Secret Weapon

I write this without fear that our authors’ egos will suddenly inflate to unmanageable levels. I also write this as a publisher who virtually specializes in debut authors with no brand awareness. Ultimately, this is the “secret weapon” we wield, the key to beating the odds. Even a debut author must become a “name brand.”

Treat Every Author as a Celebrity and a Friend

Celebrities can be friends, too. We hope to make our authors celebrities. And we hope they’ll stay friends forever. It requires hard work, a true partnership between author and publisher. Starting, of course, with the Online Marketing Group.

Step two is an innovation of our creative director Kam Wai Yu. Kam invented the book trailer back in the dark ages when 1 megabyte of Ram was too expensive for most designers—back before anyone even know what QuickTime was in the distant 1990. His innovation, an innocent one, would change everything online. Now, no one in publishing would think of launching a book without one, right?

Book Trailers—If Done Right, the Most Important Tactic of All

Pretty much everyone does them now, but hardly anyone does them well. Why? Because they’re too rushed, not thought out; they try to do too much.

To do a trailer that works requires time and talent. The trailer should be as good as the book. Remember, we’re building the author brand. The trailer is the 30 second stand-in for a book that someone is going to invest days in reading: reviewers, librarians, booksellers, readers.

It must build the author’s brand in two minutes. At Kunati, Kam spends weeks on each trailer, not days, carefully scripting, adding sound F/X, building it in proper animation software. And it shows. Each one is a priceless work of art. Each one is memorable. Each one is distinctly the author’s brand.

A Good Trailer Results in Reviews

With Kam’s trailers, every single one of our debut authors has received big trade and newspaper reviews that sold books. The credibility alone, of an apparently big budget trailer, overcomes the “debut author” stigma. I remember one magazine editor (it might even have been someone at ForeWord), commenting on how the “trailer DVD” sent with the galley made such a difference, especially since they’d never heard of either Kunati or the author.

The book trailer alone for The Last Troubadour directly sold thousands of books, and helped build my own author brand. If we had done nothing else, the trailer would have made the book a success and built a fan base. You can view it here: http://www.kunati.com/the-last-troubadour-historical/

Burn it to a DVD for Reviewers, Load it On Your Web, Watch the Sales Come In

Each prospective reviewer should receive your trailer with an author sell sheet, the galley and a nice presentation. The trailer should be right on top on the book web page—the first thing a visitor sees. They sell books! Every time.

Quick Trailer Tips

• Take your time and do it right. Hire the best if you can’t render the best. If you can’t afford to do either, skip the trailer altogether and find another way to impress reviewers, readers, librarians and booksellers (next week’s topics)
• Burn a DVD for reviewers. It can make a difference when a reviewer is deciding where to spend his or her valuable time. A typical reviewer or editor must choose which of the thousands of books in the pile to review. Stand out from the pile.
• Use YouTube to host your videos. Not only do you build a social network at YouTube, you can embed their code on your website, in your emails and in your blogs without uploading the video countless times.
• Do not use voices or actors. It’s doubtful you can afford a good actor. A bad actor can cheapen the author’s brand, turn away reviewers and readers. Even a good actor weakens a book video because readers want to visualize their characters for themselves.
• Use images, appropriate music and sound effects and—one long, run-on sentence, just a few words per screen sequence. Skip the punctuation and paragraphs. It’s just a teaser!
• Do it right, or don’t do it.

Three Examples of Correctly Rendered Trailers that Sell Books
I’ll share three we launched recently for three spring titles, two for debut authors. Almost immediately after the trailer launch, advance orders doubled. The only other tactic proven to hit advance sales so hard are good reviews. And trailers help there as well. It’s win, win.

Try these links out, and see if you don’t agree. These not only sell books, they sell author brands to reviewers, librarians, booksellers and readers. Take them for a spin. You’ll love them:

• The wild and wacky world of Alban Bane in MADicine: http://www.kunati.com/madicine/
• The DaVinci Code killer Hunting the King from Peter Clenott:
http://www.kunati.com/hunting-the-king-peter-clenott/
• The gripping and too-real “ripped from the headlines” story of Karen Harrington’s http://www.kunati.com/karen-harrington/
• Check out last season’s blockbusters here:
http://www.kunati.com/kunatis-famous-novel-trailers/?currentPage=2


Social Marketing for Books Taken to the Next Level

Almost every publisher and author these days claims to have a MySpace page, and if done properly, they have a few thousand friends, post a blog daily and update their friends with bulletins. This is Web Marketing 2.0, and it’s important. But to really make a difference, go Web Marketing 3.0.  Next week, I’ll cover how to do this.

Meanwhile, get busy with your author marketing group and your book videos and novel trailers. Post your trailer links here in comments. We’d love to see them!

Posted by: Derek Armstrong

Book Trailers | Branding | Independent Publishers | Promotion

posted on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 10:06:02 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #    Comments [7]
 Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Staggering Statistics in Book Publishing can Read Like a Stephen King Horror Novel. Is There Any Hope for Authors and Publishers?
Warning — May Cause Nightmares.

Book industry numbers are cold-sweat terrifying for publishers and authors alike. According to Nielsen Bookscan, 3,000 books are published per day in the United States alone (as reported on www.deadlyprose.com). ForeWord can review at most a few thousand per year. Publishers report an average of 2,100 submissions per year, totaling 132 million submissions. Just under one percent are accepted for publication.

In the face of these staggering odds, is there any hope for authors and publishers?

The Majority of Books Sell Fewer than 99 Copies
Of the 1.2 million titles tracked by Bookscan in 2006, only 2.1% sold more than 5,000 books, 16.6% sold fewer than 1,000, and a terrifying 79.6% sold fewer than 99 copies. The 99 copies are no doubt the reason only one percent of authors’ submissions make it through the arduous publisher-review process.

This is all the stuff of wake-in-a-sweat nightmares: 63,000 publishers vie for readers with their wonderful author lists (according to Dan Poynter’s ParaPublishing.com).

The terror is no less for authors: only six conglomerate publishers publish fewer and fewer debut authors and less and less fiction. Then the real horror story commences as a book makes it into distribution. The bestseller dreams of authors and publishers are splashed with the cold water of real numbers.

Negative or Naïve?
Am I being negative or naïve? Perhaps both. The naïve part of the equation is my firm belief there are ways to break through these barriers to success. Kunati  was founded with this goal in mind, and has proven it can work.

Heather Shaw touched on one important element of the success formula in her insightful Blog on book covers. When competing with 1.2 million titles, first impressions (impact) and credibility are vital. These are the twin functions of a cover.

What Works for Selling Books?
Websites, book videos and novel trailers, author critique groups, social marketing, author Blog tours, old-fashioned but still-important book signings, and publicity are the proven methods for marketing. I hope to focus on these in future Publisher Insider Blogs in a more how-to format.

Innovation begins with a study of what works. Read every Blog in the ForeWord archive and every article in the magazine. Visit the sites of successful publishers—the innovative publishers who lead with new ideas such as novel trailers, Blog touring, online publicity. (hint, hint, Kunati). Read every page on sites from innovative publishers.

Getting Noticed is the Primary Goal
My message is simple. With these horrifying numbers, being noticed is almost the only thing that matters—for both authors and publishers. Many authors are creative, even brilliant, yet if they can’t market their “author brand” no publisher is interested.

The publisher faces an epic battle analogous to a Tolkien quest to get attention in the marketplace. The publisher must build the authors’ brands, edit the manuscripts for the market, arrange distribution, obtain reviews from magazines (which choose from millions), then sell to wholesalers, retailers and finally readers.

The Retailer
How does a retailer choose which titles to carry? The average retailer chooses to stock a few thousand copies per year, far less than 1% of the titles available—similar in numbers to the reviews published annually by ForeWord. That’s not a coincidence.

Publisher and author success relies on buzz, which is a combination of review exposure, social networking, book cover designs, author activities such as Blogs and signings (the two types of touring, virtual and tangible). The last part of the equation is wonderful content.

Innovative Authors Look Beyond Good Prose
With the knowledge that more than 80% of books published are going to fail, how can a publisher risk taking on new, unproven property? How can an author convince a publisher to take them on?

There are certain musts in an author presentation, and in our evaluation of the author:
• Is the query well-written? An author who doesn’t polish a query until it becomes the choicest morsel of prose ever written has no chance at all.
• Is the idea compelling? Yes, tell us the comparables (claims of being the next Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter are overused though!), but what’s the UNIQUE aspect—the high concept. No matter how small, there must be one.
• The sample chapters? Same story. If those three chapters aren’t pure masterpiece, the editor will tend to move on.
• Did they read the submission guidelines on the website? One mistake here disqualifies most authors. Take the time to study your prospective publisher.

Innovative Publishers Look Beyond Agents
Unlike many publishers, Kunati accepts un-agented submissions by email. How can we do this, given the awful odds against a new author’s success?

We certainly acquire agented manuscripts, but the creative-process required for an author to pitch a manuscript is clearest sign of ambition, drive and creativity. We believe in the un-agented submission. It allows the author to prove they can develop their author “brand.” Other things we look for:
• Is the author realistic about his/her prospects?
• Is the author able to work with the publisher at making the book as marketable as possible? Considering the numbers, this might be the most important of all.
• These days, we also look for authors who are savvy about online marketing, blogging, MySpace and social marketing, and who are not shy about public appearances. Some writers are notoriously shy, preferring to hide behind their keyboard.

Successfully Marketing Books Require a Publisher-Author Partnership.
The truth is, only bestselling authors receive major publishing support in marketing. A publisher’s first duty is to market to the trade. That’s a big job. Stores stock thousands out of the millions of titles. Just getting the books into distribution is monumental. Trade ads, reviews, advance reading copies, publicity, great book covers, strong web presence, book trailers—these all help. Even the big conglomerate publishers typically stop there. There’s not much in the way of marketing dollars left for end-reader marketing for 90% of authors. Hand-selling from retailers and buzz becomes the key to success.

Hand-selling and Buzz
Book selling is still very much a word-of-mouth business. Readers don’t always respond to what we think they will. Social marketing, in all its aspects, it the true secret of any book’s success. Books can become bestsellers when just one influential person finds it and starts buzzing (Oprah will do.)  Social marketing involves building a broad network of friends.

Ultimately, the true secret to publishing success is a strong partnership between authors and publishers, working together to create buzz. This is a big topic, and the subject of next week’s Blog.

Posted by: Derek Armstrong

Bookstores | Branding | Celebrities | Independent Publishers | Promotion | Publishing

posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 10:01:32 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #    Comments [10]
 Wednesday, February 06, 2008
What do librarians, book publishers, O.J. Simpson, Steve Jobs and Amazon have in common?

This week, a “close friend” of O.J. Simpson offered Kunati—a publisher focused on “controversial and provocative books”—a tell-all book project: “O.J. told me that I was the only man he was comfortable enough to talk openly with. Web of Controversy will remove the public facade of O.J. Simpson.” Nice friend. More O.J. controversy. Will it sell? Almost certainly.

Condemning Controversy?

Why are readers receptive to controversy? Judging from a report I received this week—the Library Open Access report “Tracking Challenges in Libraries: 2007 Results”—the opposite is true. Patrons are vocal in condemning anything notorious or contentious. It seems that some library patrons would bring back book-burning. So, why do Kunati’s provocative books sell so well? Why do controversial books such as The Da Vinci Code become bestsellers? How is it that publishers can turn controversy into bestsellers and provocation into opportunity when some readers seem vocally in favor of censorship?

Violence, Racism and Promoting Witchcraft

The easy answer seems to be the power of the silent majority—enlightened readers—voting for freedom and fun with their wallets. Librarians, publishers and booksellers continue to offer these books despite a vocal minority. Among the condemned titles from library patrons in the “Challenges” report were: Oliver Twist (for violence), Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby Girl (for racism), and—of course—Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass for religious viewpoints. I recall Harry Potter being on a previous list for “promoting witchcraft.” The list of 36 “patron condemned” books in the 2007 list included my favorite classics, making me wonder if this is indeed a 2007 report. Fortunately, the librarians—stewards of free thought—denied all requests to “burn” or remove books.

What’s so Controversial?

A quick analysis of this most entertaining report from librarians shows the most common reasons for requests to “pull” books off library shelves, in order of prominence, were: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit language, violence, offensive language. Thank goodness for librarians, otherwise all of my own novels would be burned:

  • The Game: let’s see, explicit violence, offensive language—it is a thriller, after all

  • The Last Troubadour: ah, religious viewpoint for its portrayal of the Cathars as heroes and the Inquisition as evil?

  • MADicine: oh, probably everything on the no-no list.

I suppose I’d be in good company with nearly all of Kunati’s popular books—including a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and a NY Times bestseller. Not to mention the rest of the “challenges” list: Exit to Eden, The Monkey King, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Rainbow Boys, Fly on the Wall, and the entire religion-based bestselling Left Behind series.

Steve Jobs says, “No One Reads Anymore.”

It seems that Apple’s Steve Jobs believes “people don’t read anymore.” The computer guru declared in his keynote at MacWorld 2007 that Amazon’s new e-ink reader was “dead on arrival” with a sweeping, and inaccurate, statistic: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.” Good to know, Steve. I guess Job’s forty percent only read controversial books?

According to a landmark study of 10,800 Americans by Persona Corp in 2007: 30.6% “Can’t live without books”; 23.4% “LOVE books”; 20.9% “Read regularly”—totaling 74.9% of all Americans. I guess it depends on whether you make phone gadgets or publish books which survey you trust, although a quick look at actual book sales indicates Persona’s study is closer to the right number.

Book Sales Over 36 Billion Net in 2007

Net revenues on book sales, according to The Book Standard, were up another billion dollars to $35.69 billion net sales in 2006 and another 1% up in 2007. After removing the 162 million in sales, which are exports, this translates into approximately billions of books sold in a nation of three hundred million. Even a rough averaging works out as every man woman and child in America reading at least 12 books each. Clearly, Steve Jobs has some research to do. And Amazon’s out to prove Steve wrong, putting all their sizable marketing muscle behind the Kindle, a device that, by all accounts, might become the iPod of e-books.

Librarians and Publishers Do It For Love

Contrary to the doom and gloom scenarios often painted in the trade news, books are not only alive and well and flourishing (sales continue to go up, and contrary to Steve Jobs, we’re reading books) but the trade remains an important champion of free thought and free will. Is there anything more important to a free nation of free people? I don’t think so.

So next time you visit your public library, don’t forget to shake your librarian’s hand and say “thank you.” Independent booksellers and small press publishers—who publish and sell books for love, not profit—equally deserve the support of free-thinkers everywhere. I’ll go one step further, at risk of offending my beloved indy booksellers—bravo to Amazon, for ignoring the e-book’s checkered history and coming out with the Kindle. We may be a fragmented industry, but we come together for freedom—and we do it for love.

Posted by: Derek Armstrong

Independent Publishers | Publishing | Reading

posted on Wednesday, February 06, 2008 2:08:56 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #    Comments [12]
 Tuesday, December 11, 2007
A Rose (Of Sorts) By Any Other Name ...

A little over two-and-a-half years ago, the scholarly publisher for whom I work, Princeton University Press, achieved the unlikely goal of placing one of our titles at the top of the New York Times bestseller list: Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit. Weighing in at 80 pages in a small 4x6 format, Frankfurt’s book became an instant classic, and its author, an elderly and distinguished philosopher and teacher, something of a pop culture icon.

But for those of us at PUP, some of the most interesting action on this title has since occurred far from the roar of the American bestseller lists, and the media, including The Daily Show, and 60 Minutes, that popularized this book: that is, on the translation front. Now appearing in some twenty-five translated editions, On Bullshit has quietly achieved the status of an international publishing phenomenon.

Appearing in languages as diverse as Finnish, Hebrew, Portuguese, Catalan, Japanese, German, Czech, Korean, Indonesian, Serbian, and Italian, On Bullshit now travels under a remarkable variety of titles and covers. The Italian edition sports my favorite Euro-title, the expressive, Stronzate; the Finnish edition, Paskapuheesta; the French, De l’art de dire des conneries; the Portuguese, Da Treta; and the Brazilian Portuguese, Sobre Falar Merda.

And yet, according to my colleague Ben Tate, PUP’s Director of Subsidiary Rights and Translations Editor, many of the foreign editions have retained the English term, “bullshit,” either as their title or in their title of their respective editions. Some of these include the German, Danish, Swedish, and Dutch.

Adds Tate, “among the those editions which conveyed the book’s title in the local language, only the Italian comes closest to a straightforward translation, as “stronzate” means bullshit in the literal sense of cow excrement, but also in the sense which Frankfurt is considering. The rest of those publishers who sought to localize the title either had to approximate the expression using several words or had to settle for something close but inexact, such as the Brazilian Portuguese edition, Sobre falar Merda (On talking Shit) or the French edition, De l’art de dire des conneries (On the Art of Saying Crap) . Indeed, that is the reason so many of the publishers left the word untranslated. It’s a unique word with a specific history, and its meaning as addressed by Frankfurt is underpinned by the crassness and vulgarity of its literal meaning. It’s a special word.”

And while many of the international editions have emulated PUP’s sober, monochromatic cover, some of our foreign co-publishers bravely chose to go the graphic route, in the process rendering some pretty imaginative cover art. The Dutch edition is a shocking pink, the Portuguese edition sports stripes. Truly amazing is the Japanese edition which features anatomical images.

What are the lessons for publishers and authors in this international story? First, size—in this case, brevity—matters. Since time immemorial, book editors have encouraged authors to keep their books brief, partly—though not entirely—because foreign publishers find it easier (cheaper and faster) to translate shorter books. This is an object lesson in that sage bit of editorial advice.

Second, ideas matter. Say what you will about the nature of the subject, bullshit is an idea and Harry Frankfurt treats it as such—that is, philosophically. Ideas, if they are engaging, travel to the far corners of the earth, and so do good books about ideas.

Third, on a more anthropological note, the global popularity of Harry Frankfurt’s book suggests, and to put it more emphatically, confirms, that “bullshit” as a cultural feature knows no boundaries. We Americans have no monopoly on it. It is everywhere.

Last, but not least, the fact that so many of our foreign co-publishers used the English-language title, On Bullshit, attests to the enormous power of global English as an all-pervasive cultural force and, I suspect, of the enduring power of American popular culture.

So much for my brief publishing disquisition on the international aspects of this remarkable little book. I’d better stop now, lest I find myself engaging in more stronzate than I’d like to be accused of.

Posted by: Peter Dougherty

Independent Publishers | Publishing | Translations

posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:35:55 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Wednesday, November 28, 2007
What Senator Kennedy’s $8 Billion, I Mean Million, Deal Should Mean to All of Us, Or Perhaps None of Us
Even if you are a dedicated liberal Democrat with a jones for anything Kennedy, do you really think Ted’s book is going to be interesting? Do you really think he’s going to write about the alleged philandering, partying, Chappaquiddick, dysfunctional relatives, misogynistic nephews, and homicidal cousins? If he does, I’ll shell out for a copy. More likely, he’ll tell us about his life in government and gloss over the rest. I’m sorry, but reading about that sounds like an intellectual form of “water boarding” (definition: A weird and legally questionable torture technique).

As publishing professionals, let’s follow the money. No, let’s fantasize about the money. An 8 @#%* million dollar advance! How many independent publishers can compete with that? It’s a rhetorical question and I assume we all know the answer. Grand Central, formerly part of Time Warner AOL, now part of Hachette, a French based, otherwise referred to as “Freedom,” 10-figure communications conglomerate, won the competition to publish the book. The French have always had a thing for the Kennedys, Jerry Lewis, and the willingness of Americans to bleed out on French soil.

In the days when book publishing assets were actually owned and controlled by the people whose names were on the mastheads, we were all independents. Some were big and some small, but the buck always stopped at the desks of the people who owned the firm and only cared about publishing books.  There’s no way that kind of money would or could have been concentrated on a single acquisition. Banks would not have extended that kind of credit line to even the largest houses, and there were not any multinational conglomerates in command yet to subsidize outsized advances and write-off the subsequent losses.

In less than a generation, a huge dichotomy has developed between the mega houses and everyone else. Except the term “mega” is misleading, because within the body of the conglomerate, the trade book publishing assets may amount to little more than the tip of one small toe nail. The book publishing companies get pulled around and traded like indentured servants. Firms like Grand Central have nothing to say about who owns them or from which nation their flag is planted. Perhaps there’s no reason to care, but most American book publishing assets aren’t domestically owned and haven’t been for years. This isn’t to suggest that the American based editors and other professionals are not entirely dedicated to their craft, but it does mean they ultimately have to answer to powers that would otherwise have nothing to do with the book business or this country. For them, it’s business. So at the end of the day, retiring Presidents and politicians can look forward to trading their connections and influence for multi-million dollar book advances; on the surface, all they have to do is deliver an “acceptable” manuscript. Behind the scenes? Well, what would you do under the radar for 7 to 8 figures?

Let’s go to the proverbial Main Streets, where privately owned publishing companies still exist and often thrive. This is where the real passion for books will be found. The only inhibitors will be poor choices or practices by the proprietors. This is probably not the soil within which the Kennedys and other celebrities will plant their so-called books. But it is where the word “independence” achieves its highest meaning and purpose. If there’s ever a day when conglomerate publishing is entirely controlled by “other” agendas, independent publishing will be here to save everyone.

Posted by: Jeff Herman

Celebrities | Independent Publishers | Publishing

posted on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 10:27:00 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #    Comments [1]

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