Last week, my final thoughts were about community. If you'd asked me a year ago, I would have said, "Absolutely, reading is a solitary activity. Just me and my book. And maybe a glass of wine." Today, as I'm thinking about reading, I'm realizing that it's not the "me" activity one would imagine.

When I was in the third grade, my teacher would read us a chapter from a book every day. My favorite was Island of the Blue Dolphins. The entire story played out miles from my home—I could see the island from the highway. My mom, the librarian, read to the family during dinner. My favorites from her were the King Arthur stories. Man, I have a weak spot for knights in shining armor.

For a few years, my husband and I had this thing where we'd play the audio version of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash while on road trips (we don't take many and it's a long book). We'd both read this one separately, of course—how can you be an early Internet geek without a little Stephenson on your reading resume?—but it was just as much fun to hear it together. We'd listen, we'd pause, we'd discuss, we'd remember.

Back when it was first released, we were also playing online with friends in San Francisco. Nobody did anything but play in those days. This was when a graphic, web-browsery thing called NetCruiser was all the rage. Back when it was the height of cool to play chess via email. Back when you could see what was new on the Internet—the entire Internet—and still have time to experiment with the early version of chat.

And we talked about books with those friends. Talked about Snow Crash. Wow, we thought, imagine a virtual world. If you've been to Second Life, you're thinking, "Maybe next virtual world." But no matter, it's a book that came to life. Imagine that...someone imagined a reality, and then someone made that imagination real.

Fast forward to 2008. I've been a member of my book club for about ten years. I'm one of the newer members, though not the newest. I joined after they'd done the Jane Austens and some Russians (saving, however, The Brothers Karamazov for me). That was when we had the "old" list. We've integrated a new list because there were titles on the old list that nobody wanted to read, though a few die-hards insist we have to give it a shot. So once a month, we get together to talk about one book, though we talk about a lot more (there's a reason it's also known as "wine club").

Think about it. You read, however you read. I know people who, for various reasons, are audiobook-only readers. I know people who are blind readers. I know people who read slowly, excrutiatingly slow for someone like me. I know people who rival me in speed (I can't help it, even when I want to linger...). The one thing we all have in common is that reading is just part of the experience.

The best often comes when we talk about the story, the words, the vision, the ideas. Every person comes away from the book with something different. No two people have the same experience when they read a book. It's all about putting impressions together. Books, and I'm talking fiction in particular, are about community. We read, but that's only a piece of the experience. Our relationship with a book doesn't end when we read the final sentence. For some of us, our relationship with certain books never ends at all. And we want to share our thoughts about that book with everyone we meet.

A lot of people worry about the future of the novel. I don't. I do worry about the business of publishing because the industry depends on ad hoc groups to build community and sustain community and maintain the passion necessary to keep the world excited about book—and I'm going to tell you, the kind of community that this industry needs requires more resources (yeah, that's code for money) than the current business model permits.

We live in this crazy new world that throws old rules over for new rules without a passing thought. Old rules in the book biz were top down, you told me what I wanted to read. Now I'm telling you what I want to read—I want dialogue with authors, booksellers (really, I wish  more booksellers were working together to, I don't know, create consortiums of passion for books), publishers, everybody.

Community only works if everyone contributes. For this first decade and a half of what is our online revolution, readers, especially, have brought the passion and the innovation while the publishers have remained on the sidelines. But if I'm building my half of the bridge and you're waiting for marketing to devise a project plan, then I have other worlds to explore. If we don't want to talk about the publishing industry in the past tense, then the publishing industry needs to change how it relates to books and readers.

I am not 100% sure of how one goes about building a perfect reading community online (and offline, because it ain't about one medium), but I do know that leaving it up to the readers and authors isn't enough. We need serious industry investment into building serious community. Serious communities require sustained involvement, or if not sustained, then a loom big enough to handle the warps and wefts of individual involvement.

There are communities out there—Shelfari, LibraryThing, Goodreads, among others—and it's a joy to see how these groups are growing and changing. How word spreads from one reader to the next about tools and resources and fun. Like so much of what is happening online when it comes to books, these communities thrive despite the publishing industry. Imagine the possibilities if the industry side of the business threw as much passion into these communities as readers do.

When it comes to building a community of book people, so much of the burden is placed on those who read books (also known as consumers). Maybe once the professionals were able to remain up on the hill, above the community, living off the labor of those on the street. If that time ever existed, it's over now. If the publishing industry doesn't invest in the reading community in a serious, meaningful, sincere manner now, then maybe, like newspapers, the publishing industry as we know it will cease to exist.

Like I said, I'm not worried about the future of the novel. Story will survive. It will thrive. But the industry, the thing we know as publishing? It has to join the community or be cast off into the wilderness.

Or maybe I should just say this: I like to talk about books. Don't you, too?

Posted by: Kassia Krozser

For a few years now, I have bemoaned the dearth of publishing industry professionals at the annual South by Southwest interactive conference. It's not geared specifically toward publishers; though, in many ways, it's telling that online media, the motion picture business, gaming, and the music industry have come to dominate the festival. Why is publishing left off the roster?

Publishing people should attend the interactive festival for a few reasons. The first, of course, is that it's still cutting edge (though, as the size of the crowd increases, that's waning)-- what's being talked about in panels and at parties is what you're going to be chasing after in a year or two. The second that one this is made clear by SXSW: storytelling rules.

Gamers, particularly, get this. They understand that it's not enough to have guns and dragons and scantily clad women. The underpinning of great games is story. What gamers really get is that games are defined in many ways. Sometimes games are played individually, sometimes they're played by groups of people in the same building, sometimes they're played by groups of people within the same region, and sometimes they're played by groups of people separated by geography.

Games, like reading, make people happy*. Games, like reading, invite people to share in a common world with common rules. Games, like reading, offer an alternative to the humdrumness of day-to-day life. Games are fun. Reading is fun. It's no wonder that gamers focus on the importance of storytelling.

But today's games get that participants don't exist in one space at one time. There are options for everyone, be it the solitary soul or the gregarious joiner. Books are like that too -- reading, the act of processing text on the page into brain waves, is something we do alone; but we love to share the story, the experience, the words, the nuance.

To me, the future of publishing is tied to the future of storytelling. The future of storytelling requires the realization that we started out by campfires listening to tales and we have been telling stories in all shapes and forms ever since. Books, as we like to imagine them, are relatively new in our human history. Books, if I may commit heresy, are a means to an end: one way to tell a story.

I am not much of a gamer, just ask my mother. She and my sister play Scrabble like it's a blood sport; I play for the sheer joy of the game. They hate me. I am madly in love with story. When I look back at what has engaged me through the (many) decades, story, mostly in text format, is front and center. I am happy to meander through convoluted plotlines, as long as I can trust that it's all going to come together in the end...even if I disagree with how it happens.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this over the past year, and it still feels weird to write it loud: publishing can learn a lot from the gaming industry. Hmm, maybe not learn a lot, but remember a lot. Remember that it's the story, stupid. Remember that it's the reader who matter. Remember that we're not picking up books to make ourselves miserable.

Most of all, remember that reading is supposed to be fun.


Posted by: Kassia Krozser

“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

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