Do we still need publishers?

The bestselling author of the Alex Rider series speaks out

For those who missed the report of a really terrific speech by Anthony Horowitz that was the lead post on the Guardian books blog yesterday (28 February), here is the link

Amusingly, Horowitz jokes about the failings of publishers and editors -- but then he comes to the serious conclusion that the book world really does need them. 

Reading a paragraph from an unnamed bestselling author of self-published books (which he quotes, in all its clumsiness) helped him make up his mind.

And then there is what his editor calls "all the peripherals" -- the promotion, the advance, the marketing and the expert editing.  As he remarks wryly, when he was a start-out author, the first three seemed to be in short supply -- but the professional editing really did "strike a chord."

Having a publisher in some way "raises the bar," he says -- "they provide an imprimatur, a sort of  quality control."  He also likes the feeling of belonging to a longheld tradition -- a tradition that goes all the way back to Gutenberg.  

" Am I mad to think that if publishers were a little less interested in story, character, style, originality, design, typography, literacy, good grammar, education, enlightenment ­ and a little more interested in making money, they might have fewer problems?" he says "But is that not also, at the end of the day, something to celebrate?"

"Five years from now, there may only be ebooks.," he admits. "Fifty years from now, people may not even read at all. But I'm glad I wrote what I did when I did. One of my favourite authors, George Orwell, said this:

 "All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon which one can neither resist nor understand.

 "I think that's very true, but I think it's also true of publishers," Horowitz concludes. "Are we in intensive care? I don't know. But if we are, I'm strangely relieved that we're there together."

So loyalty is a factor, too.

Winning history of wine-growing district

History of world-famous wine-growing district shares award

Wellington author, Roberta McIntyre, author of The Canoes of Kupe:  A History of Martinborough District (Victoria University Press, 2002) and Whose High Country: A history of the South Island high country of New Zealand (Penguin 2008), learnt last week that her earlier book had won the J. M. Sherrard Award in New Zealand and Local History.

Her first thought was that she was the subject of a joke:  whoever got an award ten years after publication? The Canterbury Historical Association letterhead looked genuine, but she made further checks. Sure enough it was real and three days later a certificate arrived.

Anticipating her cheque in the mail, Roberta went shopping!

 * * * * *

The J.M. Sherrard Award, the only national award for local and regional history in New Zealand, has been almost a decade in abeyance.  It is worth $1,000NZ.  As it is divided among recipients when there is more than one, Roberta shared her happy surprise windfall with Colin Amodeo, who with Ron Chapman wrote Forgotten Forty-Niners: Being an account of the men and women who paved the way in 1849 for the Canterbury Pilgrims in 1850 (Christchurch, Caxton Press, 2003) and Deborah Dunsford for Doing it themselves: The Story of Kumeu, Huapai and Taupaki (Auckland, Kumeu District History Project, 2002).

Courtesy Sarah Gaitanos

Mass market paperback sales down over 40%

Well, it was no surprise that digitals have eaten into paperback sales, but the extent was not expected

Jason Boog at GalleyCat reports that according to the Association of American Publishers (AAP) net sales revenue report for December (chart embedded above), adult mass market paperback sales dropped 40.9 percent compared to the same period the year before. Overall trade sales declined almost three percent, dipping from $561.3 million to $545.1 million.

During the year to date, overall trade book sales saw a four percent drop and mass market paperback sales declined nearly 36 percent for the year. While eBook sales increased 117 percent last year, they still have not closed the gap with declining print sales.

Right-wing genes

In the late seventeenth century, a particularly nasty tyrant ruled Morocco

His name was Mulai Ismail, and he was a sadist on an epic scale.  He once sawed a living man in half vertically , and he kept a menagerie of wild beasts he fed with screaming slaves.

He was also a very active progenitor, notorious for seizing and impregnating captured Christian virgins, despite having a huge harem at his disposal.  By the time he died, in 1727, he had sired at least 500 sons.

A fascinating article by the evolutionary anthropologist, Laura Betzig, which is currently in press at the journal Evolution & Human Behavior, points out that this kind of predation on women was not at all uncommon.  In studies of emerging civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Mexico and Peru, she has consistently found a deliberately created system where powerful leaders "harvested" hundreds of young women and systematically impregnated them. 

"In China they had it down to a science," she said.  "Yangdi, the 6th-century Sui dynasty emperor, was credited by an official historian with 100,000 women in his palace at Yangzhou alone."

And it happened in Europe, too, where for generations it was reluctantly accepted that the lord of the manor had first rights to the village women, in the system called droit seigneur. As Laura Betzig remarks, "Lords then had sexual access to hundreds of dependent serfs."

This sexual exploitation of the vulnerable masses came to an end with the European discovery of the Americas, Betzig point out.  Migration to the new land offered an escape from despotic regimes for millions of people -- millions who were carrying with them the new notions of democracy.  She is to publish a book, The Badge of Lost Innocence in which she explores this further.

In the meantime, however, the genes of those greedy, violent, sexually predatory despots have been passed down to millions of living people. 

Does this help to account for contemporary greed, violence, and worldwide abuse of power?

It's an interesting thought.

NZ Post Children's Book Awards finalists announced

An exciting mix of old and new names

Emerging authors and illustrators have made every category of the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards this year, alongside their better known counterparts.

Announcing the finalists today, convenor of judges Gillian Candler said the judges were excited by the emerging new talent.

"We're looking for great quality books that will grab children and make them want to read and the judging panel unanimously agree each of this year's finalists do exactly that," Candler said.

For the first time this year, a young adult graphic novel - Shaolin Burning by Ant Sang - is a finalist in the picture book category which is generally dominated by books for the very young.

The judging criteria mean that illustrated books are judged in either the picture book or non-fiction categories.

Finalists were selected from more than 130 children's books published in New Zealand in 2011 and submitted for the awards.

Winners will be announced on May 16.

As well as winners in each category, the judges will decide which author wins the New Zealand Post Children's Book of the Year prize.

School age children also get to their say, with voting for the children's choice award starting today.

Finalists in the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards:

Picture Book:
The Cat's Pyjamas by Catherine Foreman
Rāhui (Maori version) by Chris Szekely and illustrated by Malcolm Ross
Rāhui (English version) by Chris Szekely and illustrated by Malcolm Ross 
Shaolin Burning by Ant Sang
Stomp! by Ruth Paul
Waiting for Later by Tina Matthews

Non-fiction:
Digging Up The Past: Archaeology For The Young & Curious by David Veart
Kimble Bent: Malcontent by Chris Grosz
The Life Cycle of the Tuatara by Betty Brownlie
New Zealand Hall of Fame: 50 Remarkable Kiwis by Maria Gill and illustrated by Bruce Potter
Nice Day for a War: Adventures of a Kiwi Soldier in World War l by Chris Slane and illustrated by Matt Elliott

Junior Fiction:
The Flytrap Snaps by Johanna Knox and illustrated by Sabrina Malcolm
Just Jack by Adele Broadbent
The Loblolly Boy & the Sorcerer by James Norcliffe
Super Finn by Leonie Agnew
The Travelling Restaurant by Barbara Else

Young Adult Fiction:
The Bridge by Jane Higgins
Calling the Gods by Jack Lasenby
Dirt Bomb by Fleur Beale
Sacrifice by Joanna Orwin
Yes by Deborah Burnside

Fairfax reports a plunge in profits

Profits have dived at Australia's Fairfax media

Australian publishing giant Fairfax, the major rival in the country to Rupert Murdoch's News Limited, reported a 44 percent plunge in first-half profit Thursday due to flagging print advertising revenue.
Fairfax Media, owner of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age in Melbourne and the Australian Financial Review, posted an Aus$96.7 million (US$103 million) net profit for the six months to December, compared with Aus$172.3 million previously.

However, the culprit appears to be the economy, and not competition from the internet.

The publishing group's chief executive Greg Hywood cited "extremely poor advertising conditions" in Fairfax's major markets, where income fell 10 percent, with the company "particularly exposed to stresses in finance, retail and real estate sectors".

The author who outsells JK Rowling and James Patterson

Yesterday (25 February) a conference was held in Sydney to celebrate the life of an author many today have never heard of, and yet who outsells JK Rowling, Charles Dickens, and James Patterson on the gargantuan book site, ABE Books.

Who was she?

Georgette Heyer.

My mother adored her books, and I still have her well thumbed copies of The Cornithian and These Old Shades.  She was certainly not a lonely fan. Sedate, yet, sparkling with humor, with gutsy heroines and handsome rakes in need of reforming, with a guaranteed happy ending, Georgette Heyer's Regency romances were beloved by millions -- and still sell.

They were, I suppose, the "chick lit" of the time.  I read them avidly, and learned a love of history from their wonderfully detailed late eighteenth century settings, which were usually the nicer parts of London.  Later, I realized they were just light and lovely imitations of Jane Austen -- in the very best of taste, and with the same adroit avoidance of any mention of anything nasty going on, such as the wars with the French and Napoleon -- but still I could understand why my mother and her friends loved them.

It's an attraction that lingers.  Over the decade, Georgette Heyer has consistently featured in the ABE Books list of ten most popular authors.

There's an Aussie connection to the Heyer success story.  Linda Morris relates in the Brisbane Times  that five years after publishing Georgette Heyer's first novel, The Black Moth -- a cloak-and-sword romance written to amuse her convalescent brother --   the young author's London publishers received a congratulatory letter from an Australian librarian.

Heyer was a ''bonzer woman'', the librarian gushed, and ''all the girls who read the filthiest books read hers''.

The antipodean fan mail was one of the first intimations that Heyer had brought something new to the romance genre and convinced her publisher, Heinemann, it should dedicate an Australian print run, according to new biographer Jennifer Kloester.

The mystery of JKR's defection

The stunning news that JK Rowling is shifting to adult fiction has intriguing background


According to the Daily Mail, it was announced at the end of January that JKR had reached a settlement with Christopher Little, the agent who Discovered her.  An astute fellow (or maybe psychic), he discerned the potential of the Harry Potter books, after the author had been rejected by a number of publishers. 

Apparently, Mr Little (70), who was seriously ill at the time, received a letter in July 2011, informing him of the end of their 16-year association.  Miss Rowling (46), had joined a new agency, set up by lawyer Neil Blair, who had been Little's business partner. 

The settlement with Mr Little is believed to be worth millions.  Undoubtedly, she can afford it:  the switch from Bloomsbury (the publisher of the Potter books) to Little Brown, is estimated by industry insiders to be worth five million pounds.  But there must have been a good reason for the shift.

According to insiders in the industry, Christopher Little can be difficult to work with, having obstinate ideas about commission and so forth.   More relevant, however, is that JKR and her new agent, Neil Blair, had worked closely together on the Pottermore project, which -- as everyone knows -- was a digital creation as well as a book.

"The catalyst for the split," according to Adam Dawtrey, writing for Variety, "was Rowling's revolutionary move, masterminded by Blair, to become her own digital publisher by creating the Pottermore website."

The website, built by design agency TH_NK with tech support from Sony, created a social networking universe around the books and Rowling's vast archive of background material.

A lawyer who studied at Exeter College, Oxford, and College of Law, Guildford, Blair was head of business affairs, Europe, for Warner Bros., before joining Christopher Little's agency in 2001.  From then on,  he acted as JKR's "key dealmaker," and when he set up his own company this northern summer, he took JKR with him.

The Blair agency currently operates out of the TH_NK office in East London.

It is amazing to think that just six years ago Blair, the Little Agency, and JKR herself were being scolded by the digital world for refusing to release the Potter books in eFormat.

Shakespeare's Globe receives £1.5m from private donor

An anonymous private donor has given £1.5m to Shakespeare's Globe, the theatre has announced.

The money will go towards the £7m needed to build the Indoor Jacobean Theatre - aimed to be the most complete recreation of an English renaissance indoor theatre.

The donor has also pledged to double the donation, providing the Globe manages to raise £1.5m by itself.

Work is scheduled to start in October following the Globe's summer season.

"Our wonderfully generous anonymous donor has given this money to enable us to complete the Indoor Theatre, but also by doubling donations we receive, we hope that this will encourage others to support this important project," said the Globe's chief executive, Neil Constable.

For lots of information about the new Globe Theatre visit their website

Shakespeare's Globe to feature in "Space"

London 2012: Arts Council names commissions for 'Space'

By Jenny Minard for the BBC

Shakespeare's Globe and the John Peel Centre have been confirmed as organisations involved in a new digital project as part of London 2012.

The Space - a multi-platform initiative - was launched to showcase some of the best digital art works in the country.

It has commissioned 53 projects to be broadcast on computers, mobiles, tablet computers and internet-connected TVs.

The British Film Institute will also get involved and provide films, some of which have not been seen before.

Run by Arts Council England and the BBC, the aim is to build the digital skills and capability of the sector in the run-up to the Olympics.

"The Space will stimulate a dramatic step change in skills development, creative learning and collaboration," Alan Davey, chief executive of Arts Council England said.

Batman comics snare $3.5 million

WOW! BAM! POW!

A "jaw dropping" collection of early comic books has sold for $3.5m (£2.2m) at auction in New York.

The trove of 345 comics had been bought by the late Billy Wright from Virginia when he was a boy.

A copy of Detective Comics No. 27, which sold for 10 cents in 1939 and featured Batman's debut, got the top bid on Wednesday - raising $523,000.

The collection was found last year when a relative of Mr Wright was clearing a basement in his house.

Read more

JK Rowling signs for adult novel

JK Rowling's First Adult Novel Is Coming, From Little, Brown

Obviously, JK R has noticed that her fans are growing up

Little, Brown has world English rights to the first novel for adults by JK Rowling, the company announced Thursday morning. Little Brown UK publisher David Shelley will serve as Rowling's editor and Michael Pietsch will oversee publication in the US. All other details--title, pub date "and further details about the novel will be announced later in the year." But one important element has been settled: While the world waits for Pottermore and the Harry Potter ebooks, Little, Brown promises they will publish "both in print and ebooks."

Rowling says in the release: "Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world. The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry's success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher.  I am delighted to have a second publishing home in Little, Brown, and a publishing team that will be a great partner in this new phase of my writing life." Rowling was represented by Neil Blair at The Blair Partnership.

PEN/Faulker Award finalists

The finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction:

Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin
Don DeLillo, The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories
Anita Desai, The Artist of Disappearance
Steven Millhauser, We Others: New and Selected Stories
Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic

It is very interesting that there are two short story collections included in this shortlist.  I have always loved the short story form.  Not only is it convenient -- as a friend once said, you can read one while you are waiting for the potatoes to boil -- but it is compact and efficient.  The author faces a taxing task, as at least one good character has to be drawn (two is better), the setting sketched out vividly, background to the situation made clear, and, on top of all that, a story told, with a snappy or thought-provoking conclusion.  Well done, it is immensely satisfying.

This was the way I first explored mystery and science fiction, and discovered many great writers.  But yes -- they were read as pulp fiction (if you can consider the much mourned Argosy as a pulp magazine), and therefore low on the pecking order.  It was a lucky author or editor who was able to publish a hardback collection.  In fact, back in the eighties, a prominent publisher told me that publishing a book like that had to be a labor of love, as "short story collections don't sell."  That short story magazines have struggled over the following years, with many disappearing from the scene, has seemed to prove his point.

Now, I feel as if this has changed, quite suddenly and dramatically.  Short stories and short story collections have become respectable. Indeed, the UK Book Trust has a page dedicated to the short story, calling it "one of the most exciting and important literary forms." 

Stephen King as original as ever

Yet another innovative idea

The Bookseller reports that Hodder & Stoughton is to publish an original audio digital short story by bestselling author Stephen King, with plans to release through audible.co.uk and iTunes on 23rd February.

Editor Philippa Pride bought British Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, in the title, Mile 81, through Chuck Verrill of Darhansoff and Verrill in the US. It will be priced £7.99 and will include a bonus story, The Dune, which was originally published in Granta's October 2011 issue, as well as an excerpt from 11.22.63, King's latest full-length novel.

At Mile 81 on the Maine Turnpike is a boarded-up rest stop where Pete Simmons, along with other high school students, goes to get drunk and get into trouble. He has drunk a whole bottle of vodka when a mud-spattered station wagon veers into the Mile 81 rest area, and the driver's door opens but nobody gets out . . .

What Authors really think about Self Publishing

They all think differently ...

Ian Rankin reckons that authors "really need publishers", especially "as more content floods the market, of varying quality."

In fact, he made a speech about it, at the 20th anniversary of his publisher, Orion, at the Natural History Museum in London.

Rankin said that publishers were needed by authors to produce "well put together, well edited, displayed and marketed" stories to "fans of the written word in all its forms". He said: "Publishers need authors but authors really need publishers, especially as more content flood the market of varying quality."

G. P. Taylor (The Dopple Ganger Chronicles), who self-published successfully eight years ago, and was then picked up by a major house, thinks quite the opposite.  Indeed, he is considering going back to self-publishing, saying "With the number of authors out there, I'm just one of many midlist writers ... with self-publishing, it's a case of if it's good, people will buy it, and with the Internet you can get people to notice it."

Horror novelist David Moody agrees with that emphatically.  Though published by Thomas Dunne, he confided to The Guardian that he is "actually a little miffed" that he is not self-publishing. 

"This new route to market is, in my opinion, becoming a viable alternative to the old submission and rejection merry-go-round."

The insensitivity of bankers

Or maybe they enjoy laughing at themselves, judging by this Aussie news item

Two hundred of the Commonwealth Bank's best bankers will be treated to a pirate fancy dress party at a lavish do in the Victorian seaside town of Lorne.

News Ltd reports the CBA staff have been told to come dressed as a pirate, wench, rascal, scoundrel or villain, with those refusing to join in the fun ordered to walk the plank.

The bank says it isn't paying for the party on March 5, adding that third party suppliers are picking up the tab.

News of the big party comes just days after the bank raised interest rates on its customers despite the Reserve Bank holding the cash rate steady.

Last week ANZ came under fire for its decision to send its top performers on a luxury cruise to Malaysia's Langkawi islands.

8GB $199 Nook tablet released

Dianna Dilworth on GalleyCat reports

In a move to compete more directly with the Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble has released the $199 8GB Nook Tablet, a 7-inch color screen eReader tablet. Like the Kindle Fire, the new 8GB Nook Tablet has half the storage of the $249 16 GB Nook Tablet.

The space should be plenty for reading eBooks and streaming movies on apps. The company has also dropped the price of the Nook Color to $169.

Barnes & Noble also released its earnings report today and revealed that the Nook business — which includes devices, digital content and accessories – increased 38% during Q4 2011 to $542 million from Q4 2010.

eBookNewser has more: “… unit sales for the various Nook devices increased 64% during the third quarter as compared to the same period in 2010. Digital content sales, which includes eBooks, digital magazines and apps, increased 85% on a comparable basis.”

Cambodian media publish Khmer Rouge apology

Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court said Tuesday that media in the kingdom were publishing an apology by a Khmer Rouge jailer imprisoned for life in a bid to provide "reparation" to genocide victims.

Kaing Guek Eav, who oversaw the deaths of some 15,000 people at S-21 prison in the late 1970s, earlier this month had his punishment for war crimes and crimes against humanity increased on appeal.

The court said that statements of apology and acknowledgements of responsibility made by the defendant -- better known as "Duch" -- during his trial were being published in newspapers, websites as well as radio and television stations starting on Tuesday.

Apparently, the apology has given some satisfaction to the few survivors of S-21.

Hyperpolyglot

At last count, Wiki Coffin could speak five Polynesian dialects, as well as English, Portuguese, and Bahasa, the lingua franca of the South China Sea

In the stories, picking up the local language is a case of necessity, as well as convenience.  He's just plain lucky that he can do it.

Wiki's ability to absorb foreign tongues is by no means unique, however.

Publisher HarperCollins has been searching for the UK's most multilingual student, and has discovered a 20-year-old Oxford University undergraduate who can speak 11 languages. And a new book, Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners, by Michael Erard, suggests that some linguistically gifted people learn new languages just for fun.

In the UK, there has been a growing anxiety over the failure to learn additional languages. More and more children have been giving up even trying to grapple with foreign verbs and nouns since the last government made learning foreign languages optional in England from the age of 14.  Fortunately, however, as Vanessa Barford describes in a story in the BBC News Magazine, there are many people who want to speak a second language.  And, for some people, two can never be enough. They might not even settle for twenty.

Welcome to the world of the hyperpolyglot. 

Palin needed to read more, lots more

Sarah Palin 'believed Queen was in charge of British forces in Iraq'

Sarah Palin believed that the Queen rather than the prime minister was responsible for the decision to keep British forces in Iraq, according to research done for a new film chronicling her brief political rise.

The former Alaska governor reportedly made the comment during the 2008 presidential campaign as aides to John McCain, the Republican candidate, scrambled to bring his surprise-pick running mate up to speed on foreign affairs.

Her confusion emerged during a coaching session with Steve Schmidt, a top McCain adviser, who asked Mrs Palin what she would do if Britain began to waver in its commitment to the Iraq war.

In one of the many rambling responses that steadily eroded her credibility during the campaign, Mrs Palin reportedly replied that she would "continue to have an open dialogue" with the Queen.

A horrified Mr Schmidt informed her that that the prime minister, then Gordon Brown, would be responsible for the decision.

Read more on newstrack India

Exciting new Australian writer

The Library Journal hands out a rare accolade


At regular intervals The Library Journal previews books that are set to launch in the months to come, the highlight being "Barbara's Picks," a small selection of promising books that has been chosen by the editor, Barbara Hoffert.  To be featured on this is an impressive boost, especially for a debut novelist.


Here is what she has to say about this new Aussie on the scene:

Stedman, ML. The Light Between Oceans. Scribner. Aug. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781451681734. $25. HISTORICAL

After World War I, Tom Sherbourne takes a job as lighthouse keeper on isolated Janus Rock, off the coast of Australia, where the supply boat comes only four times a year. His spunky wife, Isabel, suffers two miscarriages and a still birth in three years, so it’s no surprise that when a boat washes up carrying a dead man and a live baby, Isabel persuades Tom not to report the incident and takes the baby as hers. That causes trouble, of course, when they eventually return to the mainland. Big in-house excitement for his first novel, which will be backed by NPR coverage and a reading group guide. Tops on my reading list.

Twickenham Film Studios set to close

There goes a large slice of film history

Twickenham Film Studios, recently used for "The Iron Lady" and "My Week with Marilyn," has gone into administration.

The renowned studio, which was due to celebrate its centenary next year, will be wound down between now and June.

Gerald Krasner, who is handling the administration, said the the business had lost money over the past three years.

"I doubt it will be retained as a film studio," he said.

Half of the 17 employees have already left.

The remainder are working their notice, Mr Krasner added.

"We are selling it on," he told the BBC News website. "Everyone will then be paid in full."

Classic movies shot at Twickenham, which opened in 1913, include include Sherlock Holmes film "The Missing Rembrandt," made in the 1930s, and the Beatles films "Help" and "A Hard Day's Night."

Roman Polanski's "Repulsion," "Alfie," starring Michael Caine and "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" also made use of its facilities.

More recently "War Horse" and "Horrid Henry: The Movie" were made there, while director Phyllida Lloyd completed post-production on "The Iron Lady" at the historic studios.

Sad, sad news indeed.  Read the full story.

Woody Allen wins Writers Guild honor

Veteran film-maker Woody Allen has won the original screenplay prize at the Writer's Guild awards for his romantic comedy "Midnight in Paris."

The best adapted screenplay award went to Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash for "The Descendants."

TV honours went to "Modern Family," "Breaking Bad," and that extremely well-done revisitation of The Manchurian Candidate,  "Homeland."

From the BBC

Books with background music

What can beat the sound of the wind and the waves?

Nothing, in my opinion.

Just recently, folks on the great facebook site, All things nautical, have been posting videos of storms at sea.

Here is one that is really stomach-churning and spectacular

What ruins it, in my opinion, is the intrusive music.

And now, I hear, music is going to come with eBooks.

The first to have background music was the YA novel The Power of Six by Pittacus Lore.

Then came The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jane Eyre, Romeo and Juliet, and The Three Musketeers.

Oh dear, the ashes of those great old writers must be rotating in their graves.  

But the producers of this musical background treacle are proud of themselves.  Paul Cameron of Booktrack (who is all of 35 years old) told the NYT, "It makes a new and engaging way to read." 

Not only does it "enhance the experience" but it titillates the imagination "and keeps you in the story longer."

Two new musically enhanced books came out toward the end of the year: Solace by Jay McInerney and -- I don't believe it! -- In the South by no less than Salman Rushdie.

You pay three bucks extra for the sound-enhanced versions, and you have to go to Apple's App Store to get them.

Believe me, I won't be trying.

And, by the way, the painting is of the old grain-carrier Grace Harwar, and is created by my husband, Ron Druett

New service for self-published eBooks

This is a new way to jump on the bandwagon

Perseus Books has started a marketing and distribution service for authors of self-published eBooks.

It's called ARGO NAVIS AUTHOR SERVICES.

The revenue split is exciting -- the author gets 70% and the distributor keeps hold of the rest.

Unfortunately, you have to have an agent in the link.  This new service is available only to authors who are represented by an agent who has put his or her name on the dotted line, and agreed to an arrangement with Perseus.

Otherwise, it sounds great.  David Steinberger of Perseus told The New York Times that, "We have heard from authors that they may have a book that's never been published, but it doesn't fit what their existing publisher is looking for."

Curtis Brown, one of the agencies that has signed up to the arrangement, said through Tim Knowlton that this was an appealing option for authors whose books had gone out of print or books for which the author had retained the eRights.

"For any book that has potential for significant sales," he said, "it's going to be a good opportunity."

All you need is to explore ....

Marking up that eBook

"Reading with a crowd."

The Authors Guild Bulletin reprints a "Short Cuts" column by James Meek that originally appeared in the London Review of Books, one that reveals a situation that I had never heard of, or imagined, before, and which I quite frankly find creepy.

While reading a tome he had downloaded from Amazon via the Kindle app on his iPad, Meek was so struck by the vivid veracity of one sentence that he employed a little gadget that allowed him to underline it, presumably so it could be easily found at a later time.

To his amazement, he found that someone had done that already.

It was a spanking new electronic book.  No one else had read it on his iPad.  When he downloaded the text, it was like buying a brandnew, unopened volume in the bookstore.

Yet when he touched the underscoring with his fingertip, a bubble appeared, with the disconcerting message, "Eight other people highlighted this part of the book."

How the devil did it happen?

It must have been like that moment in a crowded subway car, when one finds that the total stranger just behind you has the nerve to read your book or your newspaper (or, these days, you eReader) over your shoulder. 

Meek calmly observed, "I'd become one with the metareader, locked in a cloud computing mind-meld with eight people."

 I would have probably squeaked, "Eeek."

The function, it seems, can be turned off, but nonetheless it is out there -- what Meek calls "the ghost library, where poltergeistic fellow readers may not only be reading the same book as you at any moment but actually underlining the page of the book you are reading seconds before you get to it."

As I said, it's creepy.  Meek goes on to ruminate (very logically and sensibly) that the digital revolution means you can chuck out all the junk books, and keep "only the loved and the beautiful."  But, for me, the very thought that ghost readers are underlining sentences in the same ghost library is an excuse to stick to paper and ink. 

Tunisian prosecutors, 1, paparazzi, 0

Gossip photography earns trip to jail

Three Tunisian journalists have been arrested after publishing a photograph of a footballer frolicking with a nude woman, raising fears of a media crackdown by the country's new Islamist rulers.

The Attounissia newspaper printed a photograph on Wednesday of German-Tunisian football player Sami Khedira of Real Madrid dressed in a tuxedo with his hands covering the breasts of his otherwise naked German model girlfriend, Lena Gercke.

The photograph drew an angry response from the country's public prosecutor who ordered the detention of Nasreddine Ben Said, Attounissia's publisher, Habib Guizani, its editor-in- chief, and Hedi Hidhri, the editor of its world section, according to Chokri Nafti, a spokesman for the Justice ministry.

I suspect that for once the rightwingers will have a lot of citizens on their side.  And Tunisia can rest easy in the sure knowledge that Rupert Murdoch is not likely to retire to their shores.

Italian film based on Julius Caesar wins Berlin award

Italian docu-drama "Caesar Must Die" wins the Golden Bear prize at the Berlin Film Festival.

The film, directed by veteran brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, follows a group of real-life convicts as they rehearse for a prison performance of Julius Caesar.

Critics said the fact that most of the cast were prisoners intensified the drama of Shakespeare's tragedy.

The film was among the favourites to win the prestigious award.

"We hope that when the film is released to the general public that cinemagoers will say to themselves or even those around them... that even a prisoner with a dreadful sentence, even a life sentence, is and remains a human being," Paolo Taviani, 80, said as he accepted the prize.

His brother Vittorio, 82, read out the names of the inmates who took part in the film.

Wise words from Scott Turow

E-books don't furnish a room; they don't offer the same reminders, as the presence of a physical book does, of past reading experiences, or the same testimonial to who you are that's silently offered by a book you put on your shelf."

--Scott Turow

How often have you walked into a person's living room, and summed up his or her personality by browsing their shelves? In the past, someone with no books on display at all definitely did not get a tick (Kiwi for check mark) from me . . . but now I have to make the mental reservation that that person just might have several thousand books on a tablet.

Quite apart from its impact on this trivial kind of social behavior, E-publishing is not all doom and gloom. Traditional barriers to publication have been lowered.   That lack of interest from editors and agents is no longer as scary.  The new freedom to self-publish allows new voices to be heard -- voices that could become important.  And, because of wholesale digitization of resources, research is suddenly a lot easier.


However, the hazards are obvious.

Scott Turow, President of the Authors Guild (pictured), pointed out some of them in the latest Bulletin of the Authors Guild. in his message "From the President" (that also included the thought-provoking observation printed at the head of this post). 
"But far and away the greatest risk of e-books and e-readers is book piracy.  Book pirates, who almost inevitably work offshore, can scan and digitize a new book instantly ... Unchecked, book piracy will destroy the retail book business, much as the illegal swapping of digitized music led to the demise of most retail outlets for popular music ...

"The resulting drop in earnings for authors and publishers and booksellers will wither our literary culture ... Wiping out the rewards literally means toppling one of the pillars of our democracy."

Read MORE about the Bulletin of the Authors Guild

Banning Mark Twain

"The truth is,"

wrote Mark Twain,

"that when a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me."

A Giggle at Kindle

Whimsy works

I really like the cartoon on the cover of the latest The Authors Guild Bulletin

According to the credit, the artist, Kevin Sanchez Walsh, is a freelance artist and longtime contributor to the Bulletin.

A portfolio of his more serious work can apparently be found HERE

Sir Frederic Madden, librarian

A great Victorian scholar

Frederic Madden, born in Portsmouth in February 1801, was the kind of scholar normally associated with the Elizabethans. Though he attended Magdalen Hall, Oxford, family circumstances meant he had to earn his own living, and so he was prevented from taking a degree.  To make up for this, perhaps, he educated himself — he took private lessons in Hebrew, and taught himself Syriac, while along the way he became fluent in several classical and European languages, including Anglo-Saxon.

In 1824, he landed an interesting job, as copyist to Sir Henry Petrie, keeper of the Tower records.  His ambition, however, was a post at the British Museum.  He tried for a job in the librarian there in 1826, and was turned down, but then he got a temporary position as a temporary cataloguer.  This was his foot in the door.  In February 1828 he was given the job of assistant keeper in the department of manuscripts, and was promoted to keeper in July 1837.

Once established, he turned the old institution upside down.  He instituted regular cataloguing — a terrific and ongoing job, as he was also acquired on a grand scale.  Following the end of the Napoleonic wars, the market was flooded with manuscripts, and Madden took full advantage of this to double the size of the Museum collection.

Madden was a great curator, too.  Many of the acquisitions were in a poor state, and so he set up a system for conservation and binding.  And, in true curatorial fashion, he disapproved of the fashion for putting manuscripts on public display.  Naturally, then, the new trade of photography was ideal for him.  In 1856 he set up a museum studio, where a photographer (Roger Fenton) was set to the task of making facsimiles.

His single-mindedness and obstinacy earned him enemies within the Museum.  One, the principal librarian, Sir Henry Ellis, was tartly described by Madden in his journal as 'always an ass; always a bully; always a time-serving, lick-spittle booby and blockhead.'   He accused Ellis as being the 'slave' of  Sir Anthony Panizzi, the keeper of printed books, who united in himself, according to Madden, 'all the villainy, cunning, fraud and diabolical qualities of both Richelieu and Mazarin.'

A great pity, as the quarrelling overshadowed what the Oxford Dictionary of Biography calls a "deserved reputation as a giant of Victorian scholarship."

Read about all this, plus Madden's surprisingly racy social life, in the story by Michael Borrie

Another mystery bookstore for sale

From GalleyCat

By Maryann Yin on February 15, 2012 3:16 PM

Mary Alice Gorman and Richard Gorman, the current owners of the Mystery Lovers Bookshop, hope to sell the Oakmont, Pennsylvania store after 21 years.

Interested parties should visit this webpage about the store and the potential sale. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the shop has hosted events headlined by bestselling mystery authors including Jo Nesbo, Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane.

Here’s more from the Gormans’ email announcement: “There are wonderful opportunities for our store that include eBooks, revitalizing the cafe business, expansion of genres, consideration of new sidelines and dozens of others. However, taking advantage of these opportunities requires a new set of younger eyes, hands and backs.”

Nazi comedy "Iron Sky" raises eyebrows at Festival

Blame that impish Finnish sense of humor

A Finnish sci-fi comedy about Nazis invading Earth has become the favorite conversation topic at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

Iron Sky is a B-movie spoof that has been screening at the Festival's sidebar event, called Panorama.
The plot revolves around a group of Nazis who escape to the moon at the end of World War II, whose descendants plan a new assault.

The film is slightly futuristic, being set in 2018, when a Nazi soldier comes face to face with a US astronaut.

Added to the farce is a US President with more than a passing resemblance to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, and a navy cruiser called the USS George W Bush.

Iron Sky's production team have appropriated the conspiracy theory that the Nazis had an advanced UFO project during World War II.

Even the financing arrangements were original --  most of the funding for the £7m project was obtained after an online appeal to fans.

After successfully using the public to generate funding, its producers aim to launch a series of comics and licensed merchandise.

Director Timo Vuorensola (whose last work was a Star Trek pastiche called Star Wreck) describes Iron Sky as a "stupid joke" -- and it has had some pretty terrible reviews.  Nonetheless, I can't wait to see it.

Dutton editor-in-chief Ben Sevier in new venture

Guilt-edged mysteries to go digital

It's always great to hear news of Ben Sevier, who edited my Wiki Coffin mysteries when he was at St. Martins Press.  Alas, when Ben left SMP, the Wiki Coffin book series died a natural death, though the hero himself lives on in a series of stories in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, thanks to the huge enthusiasm of Linda Landrigan and her able editorial assistant, Jackie Sherbow. 

The latest Wiki Coffin story, Salt, is in the issue of the magazine that is hitting the stores right now.


Ben's career at Dutton (an imprint of Penguin) has been meteoric.  

Sevier (pictured) joined Dutton as Senior Editor in January 2007, became Executive Editor in 2009 and was appointed Editor-in-Chief in 2011.
Now, according to Publishers Lunch:

Dutton will join the digital imprint movement later this summer by relaunching its Dutton Guilt-Edged Mysteries line, which published hardboiled and noir titles from 1947 to 1956, as an ebook-only venture. The new program, overseen by Dutton editor-in-chief Ben Sevier, will publish stories and novellas ranging between 10,000 and 50,000 words on a monthly basis and will launch with NPR news editor Krishnadev Calamur’s debut novella Murder in Mumbai.

"The re-launch of Dutton Guilt-Edged Mysteries is a fitting tribute to Mickey Spillane, one of the 20th century’s bestselling and most beloved novelists," Sevier said in a statement. The new imprint is built to find fresh voices in crime fiction and publish them using distinctly 21st century techniques." The imprint says it will publish one title annually from Book Country's community of writers.

Closure of one Wellington Whitcoulls likely

The mystery of the two Whitcoulls stores might be solved

Until quite recently, there was only one Whitcoulls bookstore in downtown Wellington -- the grand heritage building in Lambton Quay, pictured above.

Then the troubled bookstore chain was bought by Anne and David Norman, of Pascoes Jewellery and Farmers Department Store fame.   At the same time, they bought the few Borders stores, including the one that was also in Lambton Quay.  Because this ex-Borders store is just a small frontage away from a Farmers store, I imagined that they would turn the two into one big Farmers.  But no, the signs came down, and signs went up, and the ex-Borders store became a second Whitcoulls, just a hop, step and jump from the original. 

So we Wellingtonians have had the strange situation of two stores with the same name and the same stock in the same street.

Now, it appears that the heritage store will be closed down.  The Wellington City Council has declared the wonderful old building to be an earthquake risk, which needs to be strengthened.

No press release has been issued, but according to an item in today's Dominion Post, it is understood that the first, original, wonderful Whitcoulls store will be closed by May 31.

Oh dear, I do hope they don't tear down that lovely old building ....

St Valentine -- who was he?

Happy St Valentine's day! 

But who was he?

"Valentine" (meaning valorous) was a common name in ancient Roman times, so there are plenty of candidates for the saint.  However, the story of the "Valentinus" who inspired all those cards and flowers seems pretty clear:  He was a priest who married Christian couples, back in Roman catacombs time.

Found out in this nefarious habit, he was brought up before Emperor Claudius (the Second), who really rather liked him.  Indeed, they got along so well that Valentinus made the fatal blunder of trying to convert the emperor.  Irritated, Claudius condemned to a very nasty fate -- to be beaten with clubs and then beheaded.

He first appeared in literature in no less than the Nuremberg Chronicle, printed in 1493.

Alongside this woodcut portrait of him, the wording describes Valentinus as a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius the Goth. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn't do it, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate [circa 269] and buried on the Flaminian Way.

According to legend, while in prison Valentinus fell in love with the blind daughter of his jailer.  He wrote her a letter signed "Your Valentine," and after his brutal death her sight was miraculously restored.

He is the Patron Saint of affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travellers, young people ... and manufacturers of greeting cards.

Tweet at your peril

Malaysia defends decision to deport tweeting journalist

The Malaysian government has defended its deportation of a Saudi journalist accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in a tweet.

Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said the deportation to Saudi Arabia was legal and that Malaysia cannot be seen as a safe haven.

Hamza Kashgari, 23, (pictured) was sent back to Saudi Arabia (where, it is reported, he is likely to receive 500 lashes) on Sunday.

Mr Kashgari's controversial tweet last week sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats.

Insulting the prophet is considered blasphemous in Islam and can be punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.

He has since removed the tweet and apologised for his comments -- in which he had confessed to ambivalent feelings about the prophet. 

Read the full story

Library in a Box

Portable Libraries for Developing Countries

I was intrigued by today's post in the Small Press World blog (link on the right) describing Tardis-like "libraries" popping up in the USA. 

So I went onto the internet.  And, I found the "Library in a Box" project.

The Hester J. Hodgdon Libraries for All Program is a Colorado-based, tax-exempt, charitable foundation established in 2003 to support the San Juan del Sur Biblioteca and to promote lending libraries in Central America to bring library books to children of impoverished families in Central America, focusing on Mexico.

The success of that first library led to the formation of the Library in A Box Project.

And this is how it works:

The system can be purchased at cost for around $250 and an application for a seed collection of 100 books is available with specific guidelines built in.

So, what does it contain?




Kit Description:
Supplies for one “Library in a Box”:

2 Green Boxes
1 Borrowers Book Gaylord # 2528
1 Actas Book
(No more Borrowers books and sheets are available)
500 Register Form
1 Accession Book Gaylord # 2530
500 Labels 1” x 2 5/8” Laser 5160
250 Print or Write 1” x 3”
1000 # Accession Sheets Gaylord # 2525
1 File card transfer case lid style R54-80842 Highsmith
500 Library cards- 500/pkg R54-80627 Highsmith
100 Self adhesive laminate cards 100/pkg R54-16857 Highsmith
500 Pressure sensitive due date slips 500/pk R54-30680 Highsmith
4000 Plastic library logo book bags Gaylord or Highsmith
Library name stamp
300 Notification Card
500 Registration Cards - printer provided
500 Borrowers Log cards – printer provided
300 Information Book Mark (“how to keep the books from the library safe”)
Journal book for each project

The System:

Library Cards
Blue are for the public libraries
Yellow are for circulating/ lending school libraries
Red are for Mobile Projects

Borrower’s Log Cards
Blue are for the public
Yellow are for schools
Green are for Mobile Projects

For the Library:
• Actas books can be used for Mobile Journals
• Mobile Projects require a separate set of accession and borrowers journals
• Books allocated for the Mobile Projects should be logged and numbered in their own accession book or data area if computerized
• Church Related Online Software Systems, Inc. CROSS is an excellent low cost database priced at $145.00 and used by American Embassy Libraries worldwide. www.cross-products.com
• Suggestion: New books that are duplicates of books in the stationary library system can be allocated the old number and the older book placed into the Mobile collection. This is a good idea when projects are new and there is question of the safety of the books.

For Mobile Projects:
• A collection of toys, coloring supplies, and a focal piece, ie: Play a quick game of hopscotch or have the kids make giant bubbles during the mobile sessions.
• Use plastic tables and chairs and bring pencils, pens, etc. for registration
• Try to find a tent
• Locate a battery operated radio or tape deck
• Bring water for the employees and volunteers
• Have snacks available for the employees and volunteers
• Discuss providing a small snack at some locations for the students?

And what does it have to do with the Tardis-type libraries described by Small Press World?

Absolutely nothing at all, I suspect.