suricattus

1. It's Jackie Kessler's fault... she started talking about the remake of Jaws, and asked "what's next?" My answer: A remake of The Sound of Music. With rappers.

"The hills, the hills, oh yeah the hills they are a-Live, they're alive, come on, y'all say it 'cause you know it, uh-huh, the hills are a-Live with music..."

I'd say I'm sorry but I'm really not. [I thought about going hardcore but there are delicate flowers and underage kids who read this blog...]

2. Haynes to publish Wallace & Gromit manuals!

3. "An overwhelming majority of publishers believe that e-books should be less expensive than the printed version, but only 15% support Amazon.com flat-rate of $9.99 on front-list titles". Hrm. I'd like to see it at least 25% cheaper, but people really do need to understand that e-books yes really do cost $ to produce and, perhaps more to the point, are considered along with all other editions in the overall costing of a book. Discuss in comments.

4. I am taking Senior Feline to the vet this morning. She used to be pretty good about that...not so much anymore. Pray for me...

5. After that, I will be off to see Bruuuuuce at Giants Stadium, where it is reported he will perform the entirely of "Born to Run." I have sort of mixed feelings about this, but the fact that this means I will get "Meeting Across the River" makes me a very very very happy camper. [trivia point: B2R was released on my birthday]. I may or may not Tweet the concert, depending on how crazy it gets and how cold my hands are...


and a bonus! 6th thing, to remind you that the voting is open for the feline picspam caption contest, and the open thread is still running, downstream...

See now, that's why I rarely post about the details of my job -- crickets chirp. So you have only yourself to blame when the craft posts dry up entirely. So there.

Did a good day's work yesterday morning, then spent the afternoon wandering the Museum of Natural History, then out to dinner, during which my cell phone died. (yes, Nea, the same thing that happened when I was down there.) Fortunately, after a reboot and all-night recharge, it recovered (zombiephone!). Anyone else there with a G1 from T-Mobile have this experience, or is it Just. My. Phone?

Meanwhile, a very interesting tidbit from Tools For Change: What Ebook Resellers Should Learn from Scribd. Specifically, realtime sales information. What's most interesting to me is not just that Scribd is doing something right, but that the ability for other e-retailers to do the same is either here, or approaching here. Now to see if anyone takes up the gauntlet....

well, it looks as though the voting LJ-public wants a contest involving an ARC. So we'll see what we can do (I may also do one for a Tuckerization, but that will require more thought -- and you'll have to work harder for that one!)

Woke up this morning @ 4:30. In the morning, yes. No, I don't know why, either. It was decent sleeping weather, and the Skelaxin is supposed to make me sleepy. My alien biochem apparently disagrees (non-drowsy cold meds make me nap, too. I am Contrary). Made up my to-do list and was suddenly sleepy, but by then the coffee was done and then it was time to go to the gym, and here we are at Monday 9am.

Some Publishing Stuff:

"Three Amazon inventors set out to correct what they felt was a real problem: that 'out-of-print or rare books ... typically do not include advertisements ... the content is fixed and, therefore, has not been adapted to modern marketing.' Their solution is spelled out in newly-disclosed Amazon patent applications for On-Demand Generating E-Book Content with Advertising and Incorporating Advertising in On-Demand Generated Content.

As mentioned here earlier, Borders has decided to give Amazon a run for the money. And they're doing it the smart way -- by being inclusive. Until recently in the United Kingdom, people wanting to buy an electronic book-reading device had little choice of machines. This week, the bookseller Borders launches its own e-book reader, which promises to ignite competition at last.

Of interest to only a few here: Penguin UK is cutting about 100 people, and Helen Fraser is retiring. *blink* Huh. Innneresting, said the former Penguinite. Not indicative, necessarily, but interesting.

And y'all know that the government is looking into the Google Rights Grab Settlement, right? I have no predictions either way, except that ain't nobody looking out for the authors 'cept the authors (and their agents, natch)

Yes. This.

Yes I remember what it's like to be poor and not to be able to afford the books you want. I remember days when I would literally skip meals in order to save up the cash to buy a new book, and making do with the limited selection at the library. But back then it never occurred to me to start stealing books to feed my habit, and it wouldn't occur to me now.

As I've said before and I will say again -- if publishers can't sell an author's books and make a profit, they will drop that author. You aren't supporting your favorite by pirating copies -- you're destroying them.

(and no, we're not going to do it fortheluv. Do you work every day at your job fortheluv? Or do you do it to buy food and pay rent and medical insurance? How about your favorite actor? Should they do it fortheluv? Or your favorite band? How about your doctor? Your teachers?)


I'm going to go look at some pictures of puppies and kittens, now.

You write, and you write, and you do the best you can, and you hope for a cosmic alignment or a break from the fates, and you write and you work and you do the best you can, and you keep the faith, and sometimes eventually you get that cosmic alignment and that break of fate, and the rest of the world suddenly takes notice of the work you've been doing all these years, and you get to send around an email that says:

"18 years, 33 books, and on May 10 I finally hit the NYT Bestseller list."

Yay to Christie Golden, who can now put "New York Times bestseller" on her byline for ever and ever amen.


[and to anyone who lives with/is friends with/is family to a writer -- yes, it often takes this long, and this many books. Show a little love and understanding, and don't ask your two-or-three-books-published author when they're going to hit the bestseller list. If they could manage it by sheer talent and willpower, they'd be there already.]

oh god. *dies of the funny and the truth*

Novelists Eric Puchner and Katharine Noel collaborated on a long essay for The Rumpus about the tricky art of marrying a fellow novelist.

The footnotes are what makes the thing. But oh dear. Yeah.


EtA: and for those still following the Kitchen Kronicles, the plumber is here, and we are waiting on the wayward granite delivery/installation guys....

-- I was attacked by a nap monster! But awake now and revving up again. Three things to share with you:

-It looks like Blood From Stone got my usual 4 star rating from RT, bless them. Anyone got the actual print review? And fashionista_35 to the rescue, as usual:

"Gilman's sixth -- and hopefully not final! -- Retrievers novel is of a piece with the others -- paced at breakneck speed, compulsively readable and with a believable story. Wren continues to be a compelling protagonist, and her relationship with Sergei is as steady and as sure as her magic." Woot! and emphasis mine, natch.


-"Growls Garden" is surprisingly good to edit with. And now people who thought they knew my musical taste are going "Growls Garden? Clark? Gilman? WTF?" *laugh* My tastes, they are eclectic. Yes. The soundtrack for "Mustang" though is totally Chris Isaak, and the Bonnie books demand smooth jazz, while the Vineart books tend to veer from trance to opera. No, I don't know why, either.

-- And now, the Essential Mockery Moment:

In my spam filter this weekend, an e-mail from one Dr. Michael J. Duckett with the subject header "Make big money writing books."

( Okay, you guys KNOW I HAD to click on that, just for the inevitable amusement factor. )


And yes, this has already been forwarded to Writer Beware, I suspect by a LOT of people.

so, according to MediaBistro, JABberwocky claims it's "the #1 agency for fantasy and science-fiction authors."

hrmmmm.

I think we need a throwdown, myself. DMLA claims, hrm, Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, Patrica Bray, some guy named Jim Butcher, David Feintuch, Nalo Hopkinson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, C.E. Murphy, Ken Scholes, Ekaterina Sedia, et moi....


Anyone got the current roster for Russ Galen? How about Writers' House?

Barnes & Noble Acquires Fictionwise

Barnes & Noble announced that it has purchased the e-book retailer Fictionwise for $15.7 million in cash today.

The major e-book company operates two websites, Fictionwise.com and eReader.com, and both will remain functioning after the sale. According to Fictionwise, founders Steve Pendergrast and Scott Pendergrast will continue to operate the e-book retailer as a separate unit under the Barnes & Noble umbrella.

Here's more from the official release: "Barnes & Noble said it plans to use Fictionwise as part of its overall digital strategy, which includes the launch of an e-Bookstore later this year. In addition to the closing purchase price, Fictionwise may receive earn out payments for achieving certain performance targets over the next two years." (Via TeleRead)

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/web_tech/barnes_noble_acquires_fictionwise_110402.asp

I really, really like this guy:

(commenting on how many of the confirmed layoffs @HarperCollins had come from editorial) "It seems that the people responsible for 'sales' of our books should be just as accountable as the people who purchase them," he observed. "After all, if you can't find a book in a bookstore to buy, whose fault is that? The author, the publisher, or the sales rep who couldn't get it merchandised and stocked correctly?" - Stephen Viscusi, himself an HC author, of, ironically, Bulletproof Your Job

(via GalleyCat)


Yeah, I know salespeople get laid off too, don't throw things at me. But having been through a few purges in my time, and seen more at a remove, I have to say that the attitude of Corporate during layoffs always seems to be "well, we don't need so many editors, the survivors can just do more work*" but the sales force is like the mafia -- protected.



*I have never, ever, ever met an editor who was not already overloaded with projects. Ever.

First, the bad news: As is already known to the Internet, Realms of Fantasy is being shuttered. Sad day for those of us who read short fantasy fiction (and the staff there too, natch). And so much for the submission I had there. *sighs* I don't think this is Doom, but it's not good news, obviously. Is short fiction dying, or is it moving to another format (electronic) entirely? The discussion rages on. Me, I'm still not ready to call for last rites for the short story. We'll see.


However, in the good news category, I came home to a box of mass market editions of CURSE THE DARK. Yay! So for your amusement, edification, and shopping needs, I give you LAG's release schedule for the first half of 2009:

*January: nothing.
*February: still nothing. Buy other peoples' books.
*March: the mass market release of CURSE THE DARK and BRING IT ON Pre-order 'em now! (seriously: pre-order them now. Bookstores are standing by. And you'll get a sneak peek at Blood From Stone, too!)
*April: the trade edition of Midnight Cravings, the novella anthology containing Anna Leonard's "Dreamcatcher," first time in paper form!
*May: Blood From Stone. Book 6 in the Retrievers series, and a whole new chapter in their lives... This one's PB-riffic!
*June: TBA


Under 'No news': I did not come to the end of Part II -- I am close, but said hellwithit and went downtown for Puppy Time and dinner, instead. Tomorrow is another workday. Tonight, I have to do some invoicing and bill-paying...

However, I am amused to note:

1. I have my hero riding hard all day -- at a steady walk, broken by an occasional trot, and stopping when it's too dark to see the road.

2. I actually know how a sea-serpent would eat someone.

Bargain Hunting for Books, and Feeling Sheepish About It

"For readers and collectors, these resellers, as they are called, offer a great service. Lost in the hand-wringing over the state of the book industry is the fact that this is a golden age for those in love with old-fashioned printed volumes: more books are available for less effort and less money than ever before. A book search engine like ViaLibri.net can knit together 20,000 booksellers around the world offering tens of millions of nearly new, used or rare books.

One consequence has been to change the calculations involved in buying a book. Given the price, do I really want to read this? Now it’s become both an economic and a moral issue? How much do I want to pay, and where do I want that money to go? To my local community via a bookstore? To the publisher? To the author?

In theory, I want to support all of these fine folks. In practice, I decide to save a buck."


EtA: just to clarify, y'all do understand that the above is from the article, and not my own words? I didn't bring the world "moral" into it....




Comments?

Lots of discussion across the blogosphere about What's Wrong with Publishing, How Publishing Is/Isn't Dying, etc and What it All Means.

To that I can only say what I've been saying about the economy all along: it didn't get broken overnight, and if it were easy to fix -- a simple matter of changing A for B -- it would have been don already. Really. TBTB? They're not stupid, most of them. Venal, short-sighted, and stuck in a previous generation, maybe, but not stupid. And none of them want to lose their jobs (or answer to corporate head-choppers) for screwing the pooch if they can avoid it.

So what's the answer? Damned if I know. Got some ideas.

-Telling shareholders to take their narrow profit margin and be happy with it, damn it.
-Adapting faster to new technology.
-Bringing prices back into line with reality -- I love me some books, but even for my addicted-to authors, $25-30 is a lot to shell out. Give me a $12 trade paperback and I'll go away happy. A $6 mass market, likewise. Yes, I know what production costs are. See points 1 and 2.
-creating a single industry-wide format for e-books, by god, and telling manufacturers to create readers around that, rather than scattering their focus.
-Creating a new delivery system -- I used to think that direct-from-publisher sales were a bad idea, because it limited reader access. Now I'm not so sure -- if you can skip around from imprint to imprint via websites to look at what's available, is that any better/worse than a bookstore? And that way every title could be showcased, not just what a buyer thinks will sell. On the other hand, that puts a lot of people in the chain of events out of work, too. So...



Meanwhile, all I can do is keep on keeping on. 38 pages and one rather major comment to hammer into better shape, and HARD MAGIC is done. I've rescheduled my dinner plans [pity the person keeping company with a writer on deadline!] and plan to hit fini by the time I sleep. That may not be until dawn, but...

and more to the publishing industry: this

At Random House, it was clear that saving the imprints was key. Markus Dohle talked about aligning “existing strengths and publishing affinities” and how this imprint or that will be better, stronger, safer. As if that matters. Who really cares if Crown or Knopf or Ballantine or Bantam Dell survives? I’m serious. Who. Cares.

No really, who cares if these groups are retaining editorial independence while combining strengths? Is that really going to change the business dynamic, or is it just focusing on the wrong problem?


Speaking as someone who still has a (thankfully fading) emotional attachement to the imprint she used to run, I understand the insider's view of imprints -- it's your baby, your identity, your chance to say "this is what I think is good." And in a perfect world it would be a useful and understood brand. But that's a lot easier to do in specialized genres (DAW, Baen, Nocturne, etc). For general fiction? Not so much. Not much at all, in fact.


Y'know, it's a very weird thing, being an insider-trained writer. I'm never quite sure if I'm a Christian or a Lion.