Sunday, November 28, 2010

Transformations

All work and no play makes Robin something something. Spent most of my holiday weekend doing work for a class or one job or another. The amusing part is that I've begun to consider my work for the agency sort of a reward for the rest of it. I think I've gotten all that I'm going to get out of school, which is fine since this is my last semester, and Big Corporate Internship isn't bad. I do get free books and there are those departmental lectures I go to. It's just that the day to day work is so humdrum. Lots of mailing and data entry and things like that. And being that it's a big company, interns usually don't even know WHY we're doing what we're doing. They say comb this, double check adresses and make a mailing list for publicity and I do. That said, some fun things happening at said agency include

1) Author Laban Carrick Hill has a book that's a contender for the 2011 Caldecotts. For those who don't know, Caldecotts are one of the big awards for children's books, specifically illustrated ones. I never buy books because of awards, but schools and libraries do. Just being a contender is a pretty big deal. So congrats to Mr. Hill.

2) I read a rather unique novel written by one of the house authors on Friday and Saturday. I actually had to really rush with my feedback, which is a shame. Suffice to say that normally, anything remotely resembling poetry that isn't an epic sends me running for cover. However, this novel in verse was really quite enjoyable. It ain't perfect but it's damn good, and, despite being nine million pages, actually a really quick read. Being that the author reads and frequently posts to this blog, I demand bragging rights when it gets sold. As if I had anything to do with it being so neat.

On a side note, said novel in verse was a sort of romance/coming of age/emotional transformations drama. And it got me thinking about personas. I think I mostly have three. One is the persona I reserve for myself and mostly involves quiet contemplation. Believe it or not, I'm a meditative kind of guy. Errr, provided I'm doing two or three things whilst I meditate. So really, introspective and reflective more than meditative. But whatevs. Then there's my public persona where I become a clown. A british clown in particular, given my tendency to use terms like "bugger" and "telly", my ocassional lapses into cockney and most obviously, the addition of "bloody" onto every third word. Finally there's robo persona. For a guy everyone seems to think is crazy, I'm frequently hyper rational, and the more people you surround me with, the more I become the voice of reason. Here's how this works.

Big crowds at the house. Many relatives to visit. No plan for how to do so, and a lot of work that needs doing. I pull my brother aside.

"We need to consider the most logical method of discharging as many familial obligations simultaneously as possible." I proceed to outline a plan to hold off on one visit until the next day when we can visit two at once and so on. My brother just looks at me.

"What the hell is your problem?" he asks before wandering back to the kitchen.

Now alone, I reflect on the situation. A mental image comes to my mind in which "familial obligations" are a gooey white substance, and I discharge them by popping pustules. This makes me laugh out loud.

"What is he cackling about in there?" someone asks from the other room.

"Who knows? He's freakin' crazy," my brother says.

"I can bloody well hear you, ya bloody bastards," I announce before retreating to our cold, subteranean basement to read a novel in verse without interruption.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Five Days finale?

Finally we’re coming to the end (days 3, 4 and 5, I guess?) of our bizarre query mini-series. This time I’m just going to bang out the details really fast. I hate having to spell everything out. Best if you can see the problem yourself.

Autistic Baby Super Heroes- Got a query from a woman bemoaning the lack of literary heroes for the autistic-and-under-ten crowd. So naturally she felt she’d fill it with an autistic super hero toddler whose sidekick is his talking spandex costume. If I recall, their nemesis is a hanger. I’m not sure if that was supposed to be some veiled morality play about how abortion is evil or if I’m just an awful human being for thinking that. Oh, and she’s a psychic medium who communicates with severely autistic children who can’t speak. After reading her query, I had only two questions-would she hold a grudge? And as a psychic medium would she be able to track me down?

Smartass- Got one query from a guy with a fairly interesting but familiar sounding story. The query letter was about a paragraph long and riddled with typos, which was par for the course. The manuscript was a mess. Then I realized it sounded familiar because it was virtually identical to Wiseguys, the book Good Fellas is based on. Some time after rejecting him, he sent a followup telling us that we were fools and he’s glad “none of you blood sucking agents” signed him because he printed it POD, made a site, a trailer, and was selling it personally. And after two months of making promoting it his full time job and spending several thousand dollars, he sold five hundred copies. Yeah. Really sorry I missed out on working with such a pleasant, upwardly mobile fellow.

Mr. Everyman- Got a query recently from this older fellow. Actually, he seemed like he’d be a great guy to talk to at a barbecue or something. But his book was a memoir. About his totally ordinary life. That was his tagline. The ordinary life of an ordinary man. Sure, he was personable and clever, but what’s the hook to the memoir? Still, it might’ve been worth perusing until I saw the table of contents. It had a hundred chapters or so. A total word count of 324,000+ words. In the face of such verbosity, what can I say?

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

German Bros

A little over a week ago, I was able to attend a presentation by the international sales coordinators at Big Corporate Internship. Unfortunately, there were some distractions. For one, lots of facts and figures rather than what it is that they do. For another, a very attractive young woman in a low cut blouse who kept reflexively putting her pen in her mouth and taking it out every 20 seconds or so, always holding it ever so lightly. Fortunately, I’m a master of looking at one thing and listening to another and I still got most of what was going on. Here’s some highlights-

-International Sales are still strong. If anything, they’re getting stronger. Europe likes indie stores, and the rapidly expanding Asian Market (comprised largely of people learning English) favors big, fancy, world class operations. Everywhere the sales are pretty big and expanding. Hooray?
-International Sales’ return rates are very low. Part of it may be how they do business abroad, but mostly it’s the high shipping costs to everyone from the Publisher, to distributors like Baker and Taylor, and then to the stores themselves mean that they don’t buy if they aren’t pretty sure about what they want. Compared to sales in America where things are bought, returned and re-bought before they were even paid for the first time, it’s a pretty favorable model.
-The England office handles most of the sales in Europe and former British colonies, but has also moved on to producing about 80% of its own material for the domestic British market. Their original materials have a tiny share of their native market, but it’s increased at an extraordinarily rapid rate considering they’ve only been doing their own acquiring and editing for maybe five years.
-Canada insists it’s better than America in everyway including but not limited to education, pollution, crime rates (with the exception of car thefts), hours worked per week (28?) Vacation days per year (20?), average amount of sex, and average disposable income. What a snooty lot. They’re still just distributors for headquarters though. Uppity Canadians better remember that America is the media exporter and Canada the importer. Where’s their superiority now? That said,dude did make it sound like a wonderland, so if they had equivalent media production I just might move there myself, long’s I don’t need to deal with self important nationalists.
-Germany buys more books in English than any other foreign country which doesn’t speak English as the primary. Thanks guys. According to the presentation, 2 of BCI’s books are in the top 20 at the German Amazon right now- The Bro Code and the Play Book both by Barney Stinson of How I Met Your Mother fame. Weird. On another interesting note, South Korea was number two or three, with a similar proportion to another mid-size Asian Nation. You’d think given that Japan’s population is triple that of the ROK’s that they’d buy more, but I guess they’re media exporters just like us (#5 in sales I think). But then again, so is Korea just on a smaller scale. Korea, you’ve impressed me once again. Shame about that whole divided history thing. Remind me one of these days to try and convince my country to give a rat’s ass about what you’ve been doing since the war. Some day when I have lots of time and don’t mind wasting it on an unconcerned Joe Public.

Well. I was going to finish up the Strange Query mini-series here, but I think I’ve been babbling for too long already.

So Join me next time for “The Query to end All Queries” OR “Five Days and Four Nights in Fabulous Rejection Pile Part III.”

Monday, November 22, 2010

Five Days and Four Nights Pt. II (Pronounce “Ptew!”)

First of all, let me just say that apparently 4/5 voters think I'm really awesome. Hooray for me. And also loaded questions. 1/5 said I was fairly awesome and 0/5 said I was barely awesome. I think two weeks is a bit long for a poll though, so I'm ending it a couple days early and moving on.

Continuing my mini-series of notably strange queries is a book whose concept and author I kind of liked. For starters, it had a really kick-ass opening line which I won’t repeat here, but met any challenge you could make for a clever, pithy, memorable, brief, funny, cynical opening line. It was great. Got my attention immediately. When I quoted it to others at the agency, they laughed out loud hearing it. They did not “LOL” they laughed. As in, I saw their reactions. Threw back their heads and guffawed like wolves howling at the moon. It was just that good. I further felt a connection with it because it was a young (college age) absurdist. I really wanted to take the guy personally under my wing. I actually asked my boss at the agency if I could contact him privately and help him with his book because I was so convinced this kid had potential. Unfortunately I was told it would essentially be a conflict of interest, so I did not.

Anyway, he clearly did need my (or someone of equal or greater skill than myself) to help him out because the majority of the included narrative was… well, it didn’t flow quite right. It wasn’t very much like a book. It was like reading a stand up act. A series of loosely connected events injected with humorous insights that came straight out of left field. In short: he writes like I write. He’d make a good comedian. It doesn’t translate so well to a novel.

I made the amateur mistake of giving him some feedback. I also totally overlooked the fact that his original query didn’t contain an actual query letter, just the sample. I sent a personalized request to see it rather than our form “please see our rules regarding submission” response. The result was that this bright eyed youth, who probably hadn’t gotten anything back from any other agencies yet (except rejections perhaps) was very interested in a dialogue. Which I wasn’t. These issues are pretty much yae or nae and after reading, I could see that there was absolutely zero chance we’d rep that book or that author no matter how much potential I thought the kid had. It was a sort of painful and awkward situation from which I had to extricate myself.

Oh well. If you’re out there, kid, I’m still rooting for you. And for the rest of you, I think his work in progress was called The Longing of Shina Ryo or something like that (a title which reminds me of the also awesome and absurd animation called “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”). I’m still hoping that he’ll really work it and find an agency that does that kind of book and that we’ll all be able to see it in print some day. Good luck, young’un.

For the rest of ye, the lessons are as follows, as I have said many times; pick agents who represent your kind of work, follow their submission guidelines, and try not to sound pushy- even if you aren't too demanding, with how busy agencies can be, you don't want to risk it.

Next time, some words about a presentation on International Sales I attended last week at Big Corporate Internship and a rapid fire multi-piece conclusion to the all time strange queries series in "German Bros" OR "Five Days and Four Nights In Fabulous Rejection Pile Pt. III"

Friday, November 19, 2010

Five Days and Four Nights in Fabulous Rejection Pile

I don’t want to repeat myself too often, but query letters are a subject on which I spend an inordinate amount of time at the agency, and it’s something every author wants to know about. I’ve already discussed issues of copy editing, pitch, length, and various other elements, and surely I will again. So this time, I’d rather present a few case studies in how not to be published.

My absolute all time favorite has got to be The Messenger of the Covenant one. So, this author sends us her NF book proposal. Okay, well that’s already a little odd because we don’t really do non-fiction unless it’s a memoir or something with a narrative, but I let that slide. So the book turns out to be an examination of the mythos of the Messenger of the Covenant which runs throughout Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Well, we also don’t really do spiritual books, so this author was really missing the mark on who to query in two ways at once. Not a good start.
The proposal itself was fairly professionally done with a detailed table of contents and what not. The book’s hook was that it made the claim that the Messenger was a Jewish woman. Okay. Cool. I think that’s the only thing that kept me reading although the scriptural basis for this argument was not explained in detail within her query. Then came the chapter summary in which she put forward the case that SHE was the Messenger of the covenant.

Nope, that’s it. I’m done. I send a rejection. Two months later we get a reply from her saying that she never queried our agency, but it just so happens that she is in fact writing a book and it must be providence that we found her, so she re-pitched her crazy book to us.

Lady, listen. It was an e-mail. I hit reply. Your original query is right there. How can you possibly say you never queried us? Besides, I went out of my way to NOT personalize the form rejection at all. No “This was neat, but that needs work.” No “It’s neat, but we don’t really do that here.” No “send us your next work.” I mean, nothing. Just pure, uncompromising “go the hell away.” So why are you still talking to me? Did you honestly think that I spend my day making up e-mail addresses and sending preemptory rejections to everyone in the universe? What the hell? Suffice to say, if I ever see another query from that particular author, all the claims that she’s switched to a new medication and she’s doing much better won’t convince me to read her seriously again.


Join us next time for “1001 Awful Queries” OR “Five Days and Four Nights Pt. II”

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Robin's Rules of Better Business Part 1

Rule Number 1: Know Thy Mailguy

It may sound strange but this is probably the first and most significant rule in almost any job. Look around you at the office. Especially if you’re a director or an exec, how many interns, assistants and others appear to you as mere functionaries? Sure, getting to know the people at the top is important to rising through the ranks. But you’d be surprised how much your success depends on how well and how quickly these “mere functionaries” do the work you want them to do.

Recently, at my big corporate internship, I was barraged with requests from three different departments to do these mass mailings all at the same time. Nevermind the actual work of it. I go from being super busy to bored out of my skull lickety split, ‘specially around these parts, but that’s office grunt work for you. The real problem is that, believe it or not, marketing interns do not have much in the way of shipping supplies Truthfully, nobody does in this place. Sure, padded envelopes if you know where to look, but I needed boxes. Big ones. And kraft paper. And bubble wrap. I had very little of these things, only that which I personally squirreled away from incoming packages. I had enough for maybe a quarter of the stuff they wanted me to send.

Fortunately, I had made a point of getting to know the mail guy from the start.

He introduced me to the mailroom staff, who let me take as many boxes as they had and hooked me up with as much bubble wrap as they could spare. Not much, but it was enough to get the job done, albeit with a minimum of protection. When that still wasn’t enough boxes, the mailguy showed me to various departments around our massive, labyrinthine building which frequently toss boxes. And he helped me take a giant pile of them back to my place so I could get the job done. Then he stalled the UPS guy so I could get it all out the same day.

I’m interning at this giant corporation, see (in addition to my work at the literary agency) . And a few years back, before I started grad school, I was actually running a mailroom and working as the assistant Facilities manager of another company. Here’s something I learned by doing this; “functionaries” know their stuff. They know damn near everyone. They know where the supplies are. They know what the processes are. And in my case, I did everything from security cards, building maintenance, working with third party contractors, and approving payment for the supplies you wanted to changing toner and cleaning out the bloody fridge every Friday for lazy bums too good to toss their own putrefied fruit cups. Even if the “functionaries” are huge jerks, you still need them. It’s just a bonus if they’re as awesome as the mail guy in my office. And let’s face it. These people do not win awards or get recognition or bonuses or raises or promotions. No one works their way up from the mailroom anymore. Hell, our mail room is an independently contracted third party hired by building management. There’s no incentive for them to be as awesome as my mail guy except work ethic and job satisfaction. So do them, and consequently yourself a favor. Know thy mail guy. Say hello in the morning. Thank him when he breaks his spine to deliver ten giant boxes of books to you only to be rewarded with a similar outgoing pile. Shoot him a joke now and then. Do the same for interns and assistants and other “lowly” staff members. I think you’ll find that any good leader will need the support and loyalty of “functionaries” more than they need the approval of their peers.

Join me next time in “50 Ways to Lose Your Reader” OR “Five Days and Four Nights in Fabulous Rejection Pile”

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Insanity Defense

Okay, so remember how I offered interviews and cross promotion and stuff? Well, one person's moved on that so far. You can see the resultant guest blog post here. It's chock full of my usual great advice, extreme hyperbole, and randomly inserted foul language. I've even been told that I've covered the topic in mustard and put it to bed. If you can figure out what that means without any help, you deserve a cookie.

Anyway, today I'd like to discuss something that's only tangentially related to Publishing. Unless you happen to be Seth Godin, in which case you probably get this sort of thing every day of the week from publishers. It's a little thing I like to call the Insanity Defense. Essentially, it's a method of "winning" every debate no matter how badly you've been outmaneuvered by claiming that the other party is crazy. This is especially easy to do if the person on the other side of the table is actually saying something new or significant. No matter how foolish "classic wisdom" can be, most people will unerringly take it over a well reasoned argument. Here's a few recent examples from my own life.

Example 1: I go to get something to drink one night and my mother is watching TV. It's a Geico commercial parodying the antique road show but doesn't really say anything about Geico until the very last second, and then it's just the name.

Me: Man, what a failure of a commercial. They didn't even try and sell us anything.
Mom: It's not a failure. All we have to do is remember who they are.
Me: Really? When was the last time you changed insurance?
Mom: Before you were born.
Me: I see, I see. And when have you ever changed because of a commercial?
Mom: Well, never.
Me: Fascinating. Do you know the difference between one company and another?
Mom: Not really.
Me: And how many insurance companies can you actually name?
Mom: Well, Geico. And Metlife.
Me: So the commercial which just ended and the one you've had for at least a quarter century. Anything else?
Mom: Allstate. And that one with the hands.
Me: That is Allstate.
Mom: Oh.
(Pause)
Mom: How about that woman with the face?
Me: The one Jesse hates? Progressive.
Mom: I think that's it.
Me: And how many insurance commercials have you seen in your life?
Mom: At least fifteen every night on prime time TV alone. Tens of thousands, easily.
Me: And you're going to defend their efficacy after everything you just said?
Mom: You're crazy. Of course they work. I mean, that's a given.

Really? It is? What if insurance sells because you're legally obligated to have car insurance if you drive a car? Just a thought.

Here's another- I was reading the Onion a week or so ago in the school computer lab before a class. The girl who sits next to me saw what I was looking at, an article with a name like "Kim Jong Un Privately Doubts He's Crazy Enough to run North Korea"

Her: What's that?
Me: The Onion.
Her: And what's the onion?
Me: It's a vegetable. Tends to make people cry. Delicious when sauteed.
Her: You know what I mean. Is that article for real?
(pause)
Me: The Onion is comprised of humorously false news stories.
Her: Well that's stupid. Why waste your time with fake news?
Me: They might be made up, but they can still be significant.
Her: Nothing fake can have significance.
Me: Didn't you used to teach a highschool lit class? What exactly did you teach them? Because I'm guessing the works of Hemmingway and Shakespeare weren't much use seeing as how they're fake and all.
Her: You're crazy.

Huh. Coulda fooled me. Indeed, I must have fooled myself. Because I thought that was a pretty infallible argument that undercut her only stated reasoning (which was no reasoning at all but a hypocritical axiomatic statement). But I must be wrong.

How does this relate to publishing? Well, I mentioned Seth Godin before. He believe the whole infrastructure is inherently broken. I wouldn't go that far. Not every author is Seth Godin. They don't have the experience or desire or following to break free. The problem is, publishers know that and assume everything will continue exactly as it has because that's how it's supposed to be. And I think they're shooting themselves in the collective foot. Unsurprisingly the people most agressive in their belief that changes are coming are A) Agents who mostly use it as a method to try and negotiate better contracts for their authors (e.g. e-book royalty rates should be higher because we don't need you to publish it.) and B) The tech crews, who are apparently the driving force behind eliminating "windowing"- releasing the e-bok after the hardcover for fear it would cannibalize sales. However, I've only seen a handful of people within the industry who look even farther than costs or methods of production or release dates. And you know what? Depending on how prominent e-books become and how well publishers shift in the future, the business might continue almost unchanged. One department's budget gets slashed and given to another. Fewer dollars on production, more on editorial or marketing. But it could also overturn the whole structure. I don't know that I'd go as far as Godin in saying that it's fundamentally broken, but I have a mental image of a time where publishers work on COMMISSION in a SUPPORT ROLE while AUTHORS retain COPYRIGHT. Naturally, most people I talk to think this is crazy. Even suggesting higher e-book royalties is crazy in their eyes. Even my feeling that sales departments are losing value as retail outlets shut down is viewed with suspicion even though it's the logical outcome and obvious parallels between companies like Borders and B&N can be drawn to FYE and Virgin music retailers. I think it's not crazy at all. And yet people tend to categorically reject not just the single most extreme end result I bothered to hypothesize, but every single element that could make it happen.

I dunno. Maybe I am crazy. Or maybe I just like to be prepared for whichever way the wind blows rather than assuming it will always be exactly the same. Either way, I beg you all to put the Insanity Defense aside, now and forever.

Join me next time in "A Corporate Fairy Tale" OR "Robin's Rules of Better Business"

Friday, November 12, 2010

Zen and the Art of Interning

Recently, I was able to attend a library conference hosted by Big Corporate Internship held in our building. It was pretty interesting. Here’s a few things I noticed.

1) Librarians are really loud. People were complaining and slamming their office doors in protest and stuff. That made me giggle a little.
2) It was virtually all women- and the men were about ten years younger on average, though because there were literally only three men in the room if you discounted one of the company’s editors, and one of them couldn’t have been much older than myself.
3) Boy, they don’t mess around about what books they want people to push. They open with one book which also gets an author Q&A and was the focus of a big book giveaway, plus a special speech by the children’s publisher and one by the editor. The rest? Eh, who knows. Big thing here, come and get it. Hot off the press.
4) An interesting note about covers. I thought that book was some touchy-feely tragic teen romance. That’s not entirely inaccurate, but the author likened it to a Handmaiden’s Tale (an excellent, classic dystopian) and mentioned that the problem was that women only live to 20 and men to 25, creating a population problem which reminded me of Logan’s Run, and coincidentally, I actually just watched the movie version of Logan that very morning at like 4 AM. Because y’know. I lead a blessed existence. Without insomnia, I’d have no culture at all. Anyway, once I actually heard the premise of the book, I had to agree that it was a good cover, but I think that must be one of the hardest jobs in publishing- making a cover attractive, explain enough in so little space to outsiders to give them an idea of the contents and have something that resonates closely enough with the text to feel right to people who are actually reading it.
So, I moved some things around, but it was nothing compared to the heavy lifting and things I had done for the event earlier in the week. I had to pop out really early because time stands still for no man and I work for three different departments, so yeah. But it got my Friday started on a good note.
Naturally, Karma decided to crack me upside the head as soon as I got back to my desk. One of my three bosses wanted me to create a bunch of new lists for professional conventions of what books to send for display there. And the only interesting one: North East Political Science Association’s deadline was already past, so I wound up not doing it. I had to move straight on to Gerontology. Egh.
Naturally, every book was something like “Last Days” or “Mind Over Menopause” and I was starting to really hate myself. Then I remembered the Zen (Chan in China) tradition of masters asking answerless questions of their followers to meditate upon for hours at a time until it drives them absolutely ape shit. So I decided that if Karma had declared war on me, I’d fight back with everything I’ve got. I am not a number! I am student rc81201n! Anyway, I asked myself “What the hell is wrong with me?” and after about 3 seconds of quiet meditation sitting in the lotus position with my hands folded in a Mudra in the shape of Mt. Meru, I got a cramp and decided “Don’t Worry; Be Happy” was a good enough solution. That Lotus/Meru crap is too Tibetan for Zen anyway. And never mind that the exercise is supposed to be about the process of meditation and not the end result. Considering Zen Monks have been ordained for declaring that Buddha was a pound of Flax and then smashing urns filled with rice, my answer seemed good enough for a first try. They love that spontaneous nonsensical crap.
Not one to rest on my laurels or my lotus (?), I returned to work and saw my next title was “Dare to be 100.” I couldn’t help it. I immediately began composing a song titled “Dare to be Senile” hence parodying Weird Al parodying The Talking Heads and suddenly all was right with the world. Apart from the stares of colleagues.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Bugger

You know what the problem is with writing these posts ahead of time whenever I happen to have a moment to spare? The documents end up on computers elsewhere, say, the school computer lab and are consequently not availible for me to copy paste from word to blogger when the time comes. Sigh. So I'll just have to do a different topic today, but it's an important one.

Namely- What is the value of a publisher? I can't tell you how often I've asked someone in the business if they think authors *really* need a publisher, and with a grand total of one exception to date the answer has always been "Have you ever read self published books? They're so bad! Of course authors need editors."

But that isn't what I asked. I asked if they needed publishers. It astonishes me that people, especially sales and production staffers are defending the entire industry model based on someone else's job. For starters, editing is far from the entirety of publishing. They also produce the physical product. Design the interior. Market it. After editing, marketing and publicity are the big ones. POD and e-books can get around the financial risks, and simple designs are acceptable, and since sales is only interested in selling into bookstores, if you aren't relying on brick and mortar outlets, who needs sales? And for a super niche product? You might be better off on your own. I've seen a few queries where some very knowledgable enthusiasts have sold say, 500 copies of some ultra niche hobby (model trains come to mind) to specialty stores. I wonder what an author like that expects big businesses to do for him. But there are still many functions that few authors are both willing and able to do for themselves beyond editing.

Secondly, editing is not the exclusive jurisdiction of book publishers. Agents edit to varying degrees. So do packagers. You could hire a freelance if you were so inclined, though that frequently amounts to freelance copy editing and not the comprehensive story/tone editing peformed by someone whose entire career and not merely next paycheck depends on the product ultimately produced.

Regardless, it feels to me like publishers are largely unaware, or possibly just refusing to acknowledge the danger of this assumption. Basically, if you listen to the more tech saavy people in the industry, like Michael Healy of the google rights registry, it's entirely possible that within the decade, if not far sooner, a tipping point will be reached and digital versions of the products become at least as important if not moreso than the physical. You can already see the ground work for this. Borders is basically bust and Barnes and Noble, rather than trying to fill the vacuum left behins is also contracting. Are indies expanding? Nope. How about other major chains? Nope. And this is at a time when still only 5% of total sales come from digital versions? What happens at 30? Or 40? You might be surprised to know that CD sales still rival MP3 sales. So many people think they're only 10 or 20 percent. Last I checked, I think they actually made up sixty percent still. However, that 40% that migrated absolutely obliterated the music retail business. What will production do with themselves when they only need half the initial print runs and then do all reprints through POD? What will sales do with themselves when there are only a handful of outlets to sell into? These departments are, in my mind, in grave danger which they refuse to acknowledge.

Now the fun question for you guys, since you're basically all authors is "how will this affect your working relationship with publishers and the payout you get for your book?" I have some thoughts. Maybe I'll even share 'em sometime.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Linkage

For those of you desperate to hear my zen thing, worry not. It'll be posted tommorow. In the meantime, I thought I'd check out what you, my readers are doing when you're not....umm, reading my blog. And let me tell you, it's no easy job trying to keep track of you lot and the myriad cool things you do. Here's just a sample of things from the other day.

First, samples of creepy-cool guy Jeremy Shipp's current book. I hadn't gotten a chance to read him before. I have some doubts about pacing, but it's just so beautifully "WTF?" You all should totally check it out.

Secondly, this budding novelist is so far ahead of the game for his age that it ain't even funny. Hell, I analyze things to death for fun and I wasn't half so dedicated to analyzing writing as this one. Keep it up, young 'un and you'll be quite a skilled writer before long.

Third, a self identified crazy person as if writers don't all have a hypersensitivity to their quirks) had a couple of really solid blog posts. One of them made me feel like I needed to rearrange my own posting schedule by deftly covering a topic I intended to revisit right arounf the same time. Thanks a lot. The other is an interview with an agent who knows what she's on about. How do I know? Because her advice to writers agrees with mine. What more sure fire test could there be?

Of course, there's a whole lot more going on than that. You lot tweet so damn much it makes my head spin. It also means I can't use my beloved "Tweeting is the natural act of the twit" joke. Lots of other good blogs and things too. Then again, for what little it's worth, I'd like to support each of your efforts, so I doubt this will be the last time I'll call focus on things you all write or call to my attention. And if there's anything you think I can help you with, my e-mail is in my profile. So don't hesitate to send me an e-mail demanding I pay you homage or whatnot. I'll help, I'll help. Just don't hurt me.

And if any of you need me (you poor bastards) I'm also availible for interviews, treasure hunts, masquerade balls/murder mysteries, performing as a magician for children's birthday parties and as a dancer for bachelorette parties. Rowr.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Democracy, Drudgery, and Domination

So apparently my first blog poll wasn’t much of a hit. I thought the question rather inspired, myself. “What salad dressing most reminds you of world domination?” The choices were Caesar, French, or Red Wine Vinaigrette. Caesar won in an epic landslide with an infinity percentage lead over the competition in a 1-0-0 vote. Between the recent elections and this poll showing, I felt the need to don a trench coat and my best Eric Idle impersonation and head out to ask The Man in the Street “just what is democracy?”

After hours of vigorous research, I obtained these responses
37 people ignored me entirely
16 shot me angry glances
9 said “Fuck off”
7 Didn’t know English
4 Pretended not to know English even though it was pretty obvious that they did

I love New York. Anyway, there were also several other responses in negligible amounts including one response of “Spare some change mister?” which I later realized was a brilliant lampooning of the undue influence money has on democratic processes. A real philosopher, that one.

Oh wells. I figured I’d get over it. After all, it was surprisingly light when I left home this morning. No driving in the pitch black amongst t miserable and bleary eyed shmucks more afraid of hitting runaway deer with their enormous tanks than my innocent little Camry. No sir. Now I dealt with miserable, bleary eyed shmucks more concerned about hitting deer than me when it was light outside. What a vast improvement. Until I got on my train and saw that it was ultra crowded because apparently the highly paid lawyers and such who I ride the train with down from Westchester into NYC, who make tons of money and insist that their snot is of more social consequence than your entire family ever has been and ever could be don’t know how to set alarm clocks. Yes. I can see how daylight savings time could be complicated. Fall back, Spring Ahead. It’s a lot to remember. You can’t expect these marketing moguls and brain surgeons to be able to remember something so difficult. They’re busy with more important matters. Like screwing you out of your money.

And on a final note, apparently the famed Nathan Bransford has resigned from being a literary agent. Oddly, I got this one straight from the horse’s mouth. Which is unusual since I rarely check his twitter feed, but then immediately saw the news reiterated in many other places. And oh was there wailing and beating of chests as if the man were dead. As for me, I don’t mind too much. Okay, so he was super cool. But his absence creates a vacuum of power and thus begins Phase III in my latest plan for world domination. Now all I need is a bottle of Caesar dressing, a pair of pliers, and a tuna salad sandwich and then the world will be firmly, inescapably trapped within the palm of my hand. Muahahahahaha!

Next time on Crewd Philosophy: Zen and the Art of Interning in which our hero attends a Librarian’s Conference and comes to understand the value of meditation.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Wheel of Morality

Well, with the elections behind us, it’s time for me to return to more literary concerns. Like morality. Wait. What?

Well, I’ve, been reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. I don’t like him as much as I like Richard Dawkins. Or as much as Dawkins likes him. For those who are curious, Harris is one of the so-called “Four Horsemen,” a group of articulate, very public writers who have concerns about the use of religion in modern society. Time was, I was a bio nerd. It’s the coolest science because it isn’t mathematical like physics. It’s all observation, memorization and analyses. Like a social science. My favorite topics were micro bio (especially Virology), genetics, and evolutionary theory. Richard Dawkins is an Evolutionary biologist, who first became known for his theory of the Selfish Gene. Unsurprisingly, I’m a big Dawkins fan. Dawkins is really pushing Harris’ book (and others such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Because you know, he’s just awesome like that). So I’m reading Harris’ book.

It’s okay.

At the most basic, it has two premises
1) Morality doesn’t come from religion
2) Science can and should be the basis for morality.

On point one I agree fully. On point two... Maybe? He defines it too narrowly, but if you look past his definition to the substance, he has the right idea. Really, science already can and does inform morality. What he wants to say is “we should pay more attention to it.” Really, morality is a product of reasoning. Science, viewed as a reliable source of information and a good way to hone one’s ability to reason is therefore an important tool for making moral decisions. So in principle, I agree with the guy pretty much 100%.

The problem is that he also ACTS like I do. Except even worse. He’s extraordinarily abrasive, and highly dismissive of pretty much everyone in the entire world other than himself. Academics, scientists and journalists are broadly declared as living in Ivory Towers with stars in their eyes who are either to delighted by diversity to ever question morality, or who are liars putting on a show and making claims about morality they can’t reasonably support.

Okay, I understand. I’m an academic too, more or less. You want people to listen, you take your argument out a step or two farther than you expect people to go. Most people won’t rush immediately to your side. So your goal is to shift the middle ground. Like dragging a rug with a man standing stock still on top of it, you’re changing their position without them actually having to move. Establishing a new base line. But Harris gives the impression that he’s looking for a fight. If you fight fire with fire, you end up with a bigger fire. And on the one hand, he absolutely hates cultural relativity but admits again and again to multiple peaks and valleys (i.e. good and bad moral choices) available at every junction. So what exactly does he stand for? How absolute is morality in his mind? How much room is there for debate? Does he expect anyone to listen to him when he’s such a huge jerk all the time? All excellent questions. I have my own answers, but I’m curious to know his.

Personally, I’m of the mind that a truly top notch education solves all. It gives us information and teaches us to reason, which is pretty much what he’s looking for, and does so organically rather than by picking fights, which would make it a much more long term solution. His book is largely comprised of “Here’s an example of a very smart scientist who is totally unreasonable about morality.” That’s all fine and good as far as it goes, but the argument is that science can determine morality (he defines the moral choice as that which is best for human well being). He constantly cites medicine as a self-evident example of science being moral. Better health = better life. But that’s about as far as he goes with it. He never gives it a practical application for real life issues. He just keeps yammering on about how the mutilation of female genitalia is not acceptable, moral relativity be damned. Dude, you’re preaching to the choir. And spitting in my face. And not telling me anything new. Turn around. Your audience is out there. This whole clog dance on my toes routine is getting old.

Still a good read for anyone interested in issues like social-behavioral theory etc. but is he as good as Dawkins? Not even close. And I still think that the neo-Hobbesian Rational Peasant by Samuel Popkin is the best book of this kind. Someone should tell Harris that he’s not the only smart man in town and that his objective view of morality should probably consider the significance of condescension.