Palins may file case

Palin Accuses McGinniss of Defamation and "May" File Claim


Publisher’s Lunch reports that Sarah Palin's Anchorage attorney has written to Crown Publishers, claiming that Joe McGinniss's book THE ROGUE has "defamed" the Palins.

It also makes the rather convoluted argument that McGinniss somehow "waived the attorney client privilege" when he made a casual reference in an email to what Random House lawyers told him, hoping to use that to access the publisher's legal correspondence with the author.

The foundation for this is an e-mail dated January 27, 2011, allegedly written by McGinniss to a potential source. The posted text opens, "Legal review of my manuscript is underway and here's my problem: no one has ever offered documentation of any of the lurid stories about the Palins."

Later, it says: "Thus – as Random House lawyers are already pointing out to me – nothing I can cite other than my own reporting rises above the level of tawdry gossip. The proof is always just around the corner, but that's a corner nobody has been able to turn."

Unsurprisingly, in view of this, Palin's attorney claims "it is malicious for your company to publish a book where it, and the author, admit that they were fully aware the statements in the book were false, intended to be false, and were intended to harm." He adds: "There is no evidence that Mr. McGinniss somehow magically discovered 'new sources' between January of this year and the present date. Certainly the book does not report any."

Crown sees it differently, of course. In a statement, the publisher said, "After a thorough and careful examination of the book, including probing discussions with the author about his sources, we are confident that the reporting it contains is solid, reliable, and well-substantiated."

Tim Severin’s pirates

The PIRATE series, the adventures of Hector Lynch

Tim Severin, explorer, film-maker and lecturer, has made many expeditions, from crossing the Atlantic in a medieval leather boat, to going out in search of Moby Dick. He has written marvelous nonfiction accounts of all these expeditions, most of which I have in my collection.

My personal favorites are Crusader, The Spice Island Voyage, and In Search of Moby Dick. This is because I have personally visited the exotic lands described in these books, and always thrill to the acute sense of being there that Severin conveys. But don’t just read those three – all of these travel accounts are well worth the time and effort.

It is no surprise that they have won many awards, including the Thomas Cook Travel Award, the Book of the Sea Award, a Christopher Prize, and the literary medal of the Academie de la Marine. It was a surprise to me, however, that Tim Severin should launch himself into fiction.

The pirate books – Corsair, Buccaneer, Sea Robber – are the first Severin novels I have read. There was a Viking series – Odin’s Child, Sworn Brother, King’s Man – that sold very well, but somehow the set passed me by. Therefore, I was not sure what to expect.

The novels, I found, are picaresque – travel stories without much plot, in which the protagonist goes to exotic places, and has things happen to him. The hero is captured from an Irish village as a teenager, becomes a slave in barbarous Barbary, and progresses from there to pulling a sweep in a French galley, and so on through books two and three to life as a pirate in various guises, often under captains with famous names. It is all stirring stuff, its only drawback being that, l ike Don Quixote, Hector Lynch never seems to be in charge of his own fate, which tends to make him rather colorless.

But I did find the same wonderful background scenes that mark Severin’s travel books, along with the sense of veracity that can only be achieved by a writer who knows the sea intimately, in all its moods. Another plus is Severin’s painstaking research into pirates of various kinds. I thought I knew a lot about the history of piracy before I started the series, but I learned a great deal more. These books will not be given away – I will be keeping them as valued textbooks, to be looked up whenever I want to check details of piracy in the Mediterranean, the West Indies, the Pacific Ocean, and the East Indies.

Despite the lack of compelling plots I recommend this series to anyone interested in the history of piracy, and who would like to know how it felt to sail in those seas in those days. But what I am really looking forward to is Tim Severin’s next exotic adventure, and the wonderful book he will write about it.

Louisa Gurney Hoare, childhood upbringing pioneer

Ever heard of Louisa Hoare? Neither had I, not until I read her feature on the online Oxford Dictionary of Biography, but she had quite an effect on the way we bring up our children today.

Louisa was born in Norwich, September 25, 1784, the seventh child of Quakers John and Catherine Bell. One of her sisters was the prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry, while two of her brothers, Joseph and Samuel, were famous philanthropists, and a third brother, Daniel, was a wellknown banker.

Their mother died when her youngest child was only three, but the role of matriarch was swiftly taken up by the eldest daughter, also called Catherine, but known as Kitty. There might have been some premonition of this, because Catherine senior left a memorandum concerning the education of her children, and what their daily routine should be like. Reassured by this, Kitty ruled with a light hand, so that her siblings’ childhood was one of lighthearted play, unusually adult debate, and freedom to raid the library for whatever reading material they liked.

All the children were encouraged to keep journals of conscience – diaries in which they recorded their state of mind, as well as the events of the day. Louisa excelled at this, being candid as well as thoughtful by nature. She recorded adolescent passions, her love of nature, her dislike of injustice, and her disgust when her 12-year-old cousin took the liberty of kissing her. Over the years, however, her feelings about the last changed. That cousin, Samuel Hoare (who grew up to be a banker), became her husband.

The family always thought that Louisa had the greatest intellect, energy, and ability of them all. She played a background role in their concerns and campaigns, such as the anti-slavery movement promoted by her brother-in-law Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, and the prison reform movement of her sister Elizabeth Fry, but her own passion, greatly influenced by the memorandum left by her mother, was the education of parents in the art of child-raising. In a word, Louisa Hoare was the Dr. Spock of her day.

Her first book on the subject, Hints for the Improvement of Early Education and Nursery Discipline (published in 1819), claimed to be the “simple result of experience.” In fact, it was an expanded version of a memorandum she had written for the nursemaid who helped care for her firstborn child. A particularly successful book, it sold well in both Britain and in the United States for more than eighty years.

So what did she recommend? Louisa was a great believer in rules and routine, kindness and tolerance. Discipline, she said, was designed to “preserve children from evil, not from childishness” – though regulated, childhood was supposed to be joyful. Parents, she said, should respect their children, and treat them justly, understanding that they, too, had rights. Most importantly, parents should set a good example. Then, when their children imitated their speech and actions (as children do), they would not feel ashamed.

Obviously, she followed her own precept. Louisa died in Hampstead on 6 September 1836, the idol of all of her six children.

From garden shed to Hollywood

Lost Hitchcock classic found

This week, the earliest known Hitchcock-directed film will be screened in Los Angeles – thanks to a film collector in New Zealand.

The only known print of the 1923 film “The White Shadow” lay stowed in a garden shed in the North Island town of Hastings for several decades, along with hundred of other films from the silent movie era.

It was part of the collection of Jack Murtagh, a cinema projectionist who liked to hoard copies of the films that ran through his spools. Murtagh died in 1989, leaving a rich legacy for film buffs. His collection, which includes newsreels and short features, have been bequeathed to the New Zealand Film Archive.

Now Hollywood is benefiting, too.

The most unauthorized autobiography ever?

WikiLeaks founder furious about unauthorized autobiography


Back in March this year, the first draft of Julian Assange’s autobiography was delivered to British publisher Canongate. Of course it was accepted – but between submission and acceptance, Assange changed his mind.

Canongate admit that Assange tried to stop its publication, but said they are proud to publish the “passionate, provocative and opinionated” book.

Assange has condemned their actions, saying that Canongate acted in breach of contract, and, what’s more, had personally assured him that they would not publish the draft.

“This book was meant to be about my life’s struggle for justice through access to knowledge. It has turned into something else,” said Assange.

“The events surrounding its unauthorised publication by Canongate are not about freedom of information. They are about old-fashioned opportunism and duplicity – screwing people over to make a buck.”

The book, based on conversations Assange had with ghost writer Andrew O’Hagain, and called Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography, arrived in British bookstores this week.

Happy 100th birthday William Golding

The author of Lord of the Flies was born on September 19, 1911, in Newquay, Cornwall.

His father, Alec, was a revolutionary thinker, being an atheist, a socialist, and a rationalist, while his mother, Mildred, was of more Gothic-romantic bent, infamous for terrifying her family with Cornish ghost stories. Both parents were accomplished musicians, and William and his older brother played violin and cello.

While working as a shoemaker, Alec became qualified as a science teacher, and went on to teach at Marlborough grammar school in Wiltshire, where his son, William, was a student. Alec became formally qualified, wrote science textbooks, and was appointed a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. His practical, scientific bent of mind, combined with his atheism, had an enormous effect on his son William’s writing.

In 1930 William left home to attend Brasenose College, Oxford, starting off by studying natural science, and then swapping to English literature. He graduated in 1935, then studied for a diploma in education.

In 1934 he published a small volume of poetry, but this was not a commercial or critical success. The following year he left Oxford to move to London, and became involved in theatre. This, too, was not a success, and in 1939 he took up a teaching post at Maidstone grammar school for boys. In September that same year he married Mabel Ann Brookfield, and settled down to the life of a family man and schoolmaster.

It was the Second World War that decided the course of his life. William volunteered for the Royal Navy, enlisting as an ordinary seaman. When sitting an examination to become an officer, he answered a question on the difference between a propellant and an explosive in such erudite detail that he was sent to a secret research center.

While there, he was injured in an explosion, and after recovery, he asked his bosses “to send me back to sea, for God's sake, where there's peace.” Amazingly, the Admiralty listened. He was sent to a mine-sweeper school inScotland, then to New York to wait for a mine-sweeper that was being built on Long Island. By a quirk of fate, minesweepers were no longer used to the same extent when he returned to Britain, so he was given command of a small rocket-launching craft, instead.

The war changed William Golding’s view of mankind. As he wrote, “Before the second world war I believed in the perfectibility of social man; that a correct structure of society would produce goodwill; and that therefore you could remove all social ills by a reorganisation of society.” The war forced him to decide that “anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey must have been blind or wrong in the head” – that when social controls collapsed, most people would end up behaving with brutality and inhumanity. It was an attitude reflected in all his writing from then on.

In 1945 Golding returned to Bishop Wordsworth's School to teach English and classics, and write several novels, all of which were rejected. Then came a manuscript that he had titled “Strangers from Within.” After being rejected by 21 publishers, in September 1953 it arrived on the desk of Charles Monteith, a young editor at Faber. Monteith recognized its greatness – and also its flaws. Luckily, William Golding was amenable to heavy editing, including the cutting out of several lengthy scenes, and cooperated, too, when Monteith suggested that he find a different title.

Golding’s suggestions were “A Cry of Children” and “Nightmare Island.” It was another editor at Faber, Alan Pringle, who suggested “Lord of the Flies.” The novel was published on 17 September 1954, exactly a year after it had been submitted.

Everyone knows that story that made Golding a household name – the marooning of a group of boys on a desert island, the struggle for supremacy, and the Gothic inevitability of violence and death. It is a grim, doom-laden rewriting of “Swiss Family Robinson” and “Coral Island.” Lord of the Flies received warm reviews, and endorsements by influential writers, including E. M. Forster, C. S. Lewis, and T. S. Eliot, who described it as “not only a splendid novel but morally and theologically impeccable.”

In America it initially made little impression, but by1957 the paperback edition had attracted a huge cult following among university students, and from there it moved rapidly into the mainstream. The novel became a classroom text at secondary and tertiary level in America and Europe, and by the end of the twentieth century it had been translated into over thirty languages, with worldwide sales estimated at over 10 million copies.

In 1983 Golding was awarded the Nobel prize for literature, one of only five British writers to have received the accolade. In 1988 he was knighted.

Golding died suddenly of a heart attack, aged eighty-one, on the morning of 19 June 1993.

So-called revelations in Sarah Palin biography

The whole USA, it seems, is laughing about the 320-page “tell-all” by Joe McGinnis.

Three particularly lurid accusations:

SEX. During a 1987 NBA event called "The Great Alaska Shoot-out," Palin seduced pro baller Glen Rice. There is a hint of a claim that Palin had a "fetish" for black men.

ADULTERY. Palin had a six-month relationship with her husband's business partner in the mid-'90's.

DRUGS. Palin was once seen snorting cocaine off the top of a 55-gallon drum while snowmobiling with friends. And, oh yes, she smoked pot with a professor while at Mat-Su College.

Worth reading?

I don’t think so.

Those bestseller lists

In New Zealand, it is reported that Whitcoulls is no longer going to release sales figures to Nielson data collectors.

Naturally, not having the Whitcoulls figures will damage the reliability of Nielson figures, as I believe the chain accounts for about 40% of the market.

But is it bad news?

The Nielson data is of great value to publishers who want to keep track of book sales -- including those of authors published elsewhere. It has helped editors to make an educated guess about how well a book proposal from a previously published writer was likely to sell.

Writers, however, might heave a sigh of relief. In the past, editors might take a gamble on a great manuscript from a relatively unknown author. Once the hard, reliable figures were out, however, promising writers were all too likely to be doomed by less than wonderful previous sales, particularly of debut books.

Nielson figures are also used to produce a local “bestsellers” list, and so it is possible that the withdrawal of Whitcoulls will spell the demise of these.

Again, would this be bad news?

New Zealand nonfiction will always do well. There seems to be an inexhausible local market for books about Maori culture, biographies of New Zealand personalities, beautiful photographic essays, and cooking books with a New Zealand theme. Plus anything blokey, like rugby, fishing, and bikes. International visitors, particularly during huge promotions like the RWC, carry a lot of nonfiction books away with them, too – as do Kiwis who are visiting friends and family overseas. With such a range of great stuff on offer, and with personal interests so very much in play, bestseller lists are unlikely to be consulted.

As for New Zealand fiction, I have always thought the bestseller list equally irrelevant, but for a different reason. I am told that locally published fiction commands only 5% of the market, as people in general turn to international bestsellers – usually potboilers – for recreational reading. One would expect, however, that New Zealand novels are not so easily discarded after a quick peruse. In my humble opinion, the fact that New Zealand publishers have ensured that New Zealand fiction writing is of reliably high quality is more important than instant sales. Bestseller lists are ephemeral by nature, and the durability of so many of the novels that have been written by New Zealanders and published by New Zealand firms should be a matter of pride.

Borders sells off intellectual property rights

Borders held an auction for its intellectual property Wednesday.

Hilco Streambank, which conducted the proceedings and fielded offers from ten bidders, announced they had sold various assets for nearly $15.8 million. Hilco Streambank was vague on exactly who bought what asset, initially naming only Barnes & Noble and Berjaya Books among the "multiple bidders" who each acquired pieces of Borders' IP, including a global portfolio of trademarks, the Borders, Waldenbooks and Brentano's trade names, various domain names, and the Borders.com website. Barnes & Noble paid approximately $13.9 million, but no one has specified yet what they bought.

Berjaya Books owns and operates Borders Malaysia, which licensed the name from the parent company until its liquidation, and they are reported to have paid $825,000 for trademarks in Malaysia.

Among the other purchasers: Pearson Australia bought the Borders name in Australia and New Zealand (to go with the bookselling website under that name, as the physical Borders bookstores in New Zealand will operate under the Whitcoulls banner) for $450,000; Popular Holdings paid $100,000 for the Borders trademarks in Singapore; and Al Maya International paid $500,000 for trademarks in the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states.

The bidders evidently included "booksellers, major publishing companies and internet only retailers" who engaged in an auction going 50 rounds before the winners emerged. All sales are subject to approval by federal bankruptcy court and a hearing is set for September 20 on the matter.

In a statement general manager of AlixPartners and last-person-standing Borders ceo Holly Etlin said: "We are very pleased with the successful auction. The participants clearly recognized the significant strategic value in the Borders name and other assets linked to the Borders customer base, and the Borders estate benefited as a result."

A separate sale process for additional Borders internet addresses is underway.

That Google case

Chin Approves Schedule for Discovery and Motions Moving to Google Books Trial




At today's court hearing to update Judge Denny Chin, the parties to the Google Books case brought no dramatic reports of progress on a settlement (as widely expected), despite the judge's warning the last time around to work out a deal or prepare to litigate. So Judge Chin followed through on his promise and scheduled a pathway to trial.

Attorney Michael Boni, speaking for the Authors Guild only this time, said the authors organization remains in "active discussions" with Google about a settlement as part of a "parallel track" of preparing for litigation. Representatives of the Association of American Publishers thought they had "made enough progress with Google" to believe a new settlement could still be a possibility, but they agreed to adopt the proposed order moving to litigation.

In a brief statement afterwards, the AAP said "today, we informed the court that the Association of American Publishers, the five publisher plaintiffs and Google have made good progress toward a settlement that would resolve the pending litigation regarding the Google Library Project. We are working to resolve the differences that remain between the parties and reach terms that are mutually agreeable.

The judge called for discovery to begin now and run through March 30.

And so the wearisome procedure continues. By Publishers Lunch our reporter Sarah Weinman's count, the weary Judge Chin held his head in his hands three times during the relatively short hearing. The process has already taken so long that the original magistrate who might have helped with the settlement has retired. (And Chin is supposed to have a full caseload on the Court of Appeals; he doesn't even know where a trial would be held, since he is losing his courtroom).

But Judge Chin once again actively encouraged both parties to seek him and the court out to help arrive at a settlement agreement.

When Chin asked attorneys for the Guild and the AAP if their case would still ask him to evaluate whether Google's snippets qualify for fair use, they indicated they have moved on from that argument (as has the world), and would focus on the copying, scanning, storing and distribution of entire books. Boni, for the Guild, confessed that the situation had changed dramatically since their case was first filed -- "books are being distributed in ways we couldn't even envision back in 2005.”

A so-English murder mystery

Three Silent Things


One picks up the most surprising books at the public library, occasionally – and sometimes they are most pleasant surprises.

I borrowed Margaret Mayhew’s Three Silent Things (Severn House, 2008) for the simple reason that very good friends have the same surname (happy birthday, Donald!).

I must add that there was some encouragement from a short extract from the Booklist review of one of Margaret Mayhew’s previous books (and apparently the first in this series), called Old Soldiers Never Die, which was featured on the front jacket.

“Recommended to anyone who likes the classic English village mystery,” it read. I love the TV series “Midsomer Murders” simply because of the lovely English houses and gardens, the plots often being best disregarded, and so I felt quite optimistic when I turned the first pages.

I wasn’t let down. Three Silent Things is replete with village greens, atmospheric English pubs, thatched houses, and pretty English gardens. It also has wonderfully eccentric and memorable characters, including a cat with distinct personality, known by the name of “Thursday.” This, it seems, was the day of the week it adopted the protagonist, a likeable and not-at-all-doddery retired colonel.

The murder is understated, and the denouement not unexpected – though I thought the Colonel extremely daring to reveal the identity of the murderer to the murderer himself, alone and with no witnesses. It was quite a step away from the usual assembling of the entire cast of characters before the detective unburdens his carefully thought-out conclusions. But, while it may have undermined credibility a little (as I couldn’t help but wonder why the murderer didn’t simply indulge in another murder), it certainly did not detract from the charm of the book.

I will be reading more from the author. And what were the three silent things? Read the book yourself, and find out.

Anniversary brings avalanche of 9/11 books

NEW YORK (AFP) - The tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks has unleashed a publishing avalanche, with a crush of new books about the fateful day and new editions of older works like Noam Chomsky's "9-11."

Among the new accounts is "After the Fall: New Yorkers Remember September 11 and the Years that Followed," which sets out to show how New York changed after the attacks that brought down the World Trade Center.

The book presents interviews with hundreds of people from different parts of the city -- first responders, taxi drivers, teachers, artists, religious leaders, immigrants -- by Columbia University's Oral History Research Office.

"The result is a remarkable time-lapse account of the city as it changed in the wake of 9/11," its publisher The New Press says in an introduction to "After the Fall."

Another new book is "The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden" by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan Drawing, which publisher Ballantine Books touts as "the first panoramic, authoritative look back at 9/11."

It draws on recently released documents, interviews and "the perspective that can come only from a decade of research and reflection," Ballantine says.

September 11 and its aftermath also have inspired works of fiction like "The Submission," a novel by former New York Times reporter Amy Waldman.

It imagines what would have happened if a jury responsible for picking a proposal for a memorial at Ground Zero had chosen a design by an American Muslim architect.

At least two books are cast as tributes to the victims of 9/11, including "9/11: The World Speaks," which includes more than 200,000 messages from people from around the world who have visited the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, which opened in 2006 near the site of the Twin Towers.

The attack was the deadliest ever on US soil with Al-Qaeda militants in hijacked airliners toppling the New York landmark, smashing into the Pentagon, and crashing into a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died.

The anniversary has also been an occasion to re-release books which some critics consider fundamental to understanding September 11 and the war against terrorism that has ensued over the past decade.

Madonna auditions star via Skype

Madonna signs up Australian actress Abbie Cornish after a Skype interview.

In the search for stars for her new period movie W.E., Madonna has turned to modern technology.

Madonna wanted to speak to Cornish personally, but there was a hitch. The pop idol was in NYC, and the actress was in Australia.

“We had a Skype meeting from my mum’s office,” revealed Abbie Cornish, adding that it was one of her life’s most interesting moments. “Three hours later, I got a phone call that I got the gig.”

Her calm demeanor helped – courtesy of the date line. “I was 24 hours early to my meeting because Australia is a day ahead.”

She had been informed that the meeting was on Wednesday at 1pm. She phoned, and lo, in NYC it was Tuesday. “It took a little while until I realized that I was a day early.”

The inadvertent rehearsal was a big help. “I got a lot of the nerves out of the way.”

Australian media groups feel threatened

Australian media groups up in arms


In Australia, the Labor party has launched the first big inquiry for twenty years into print and online media, much to the alarm of major news groups.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced that an independent inquiry would be held, in response to government concerns about the blurring of hard news and private opinion in Australian political coverage. This, in itself, was triggered by the privacy issues raised by the News of the World hacking scandal in the UK.

School Library Journal contest

They both like lunch. They both like reading. They both have hair. They both have feet. They both have families. They both like each other. They're BFFs!		But when playground playmates tell them boys and girls can't be friends, their friendship is tested. Told with humor and heart, this story celebrates the importance of recognizing and keeping a true friend.

1 Grand Prize Winner will receive a complete set of Freckleface Strawberry books and a signed print by New York Times bestselling illustrator LeUyen Pham, created just for your library! 5 Second Place Winners will receive a signed copy of Freckleface Strawberry: Best Friends Forever and a matted limited-edition Freckleface Strawberry print. 12 Third Place Winners will receive a signed copy of Freckleface Strawberry: Best Friends Forever. Contest ends October 10, 2011. Click Here for complete sweepstakes rules.

The sweet smell of the printed pages

And let's not forget the aroma of beautiful leather bindings.

I'm not convinced that the smell of books is all that seductive.  Instead, I tend to think of the time I unwrapped a three-volume set of the Betsy Wynne diaries, kept during the Napoleonic Wars.  I had paid out big bucks for this rare publication:  Betsy was of intense interest, because she was newly married to Captain Thomas Fremantle, and on board the frigate Inconstant when Horatio Nelson was carried on board with a gravely wounded arm.  The arm (his right) had to be amputated, and Betsy nursed him back to health and future fame.

But when I opened the package -- oh boy.  Whoever had pre-owned the set had been a chain smoker.  Until the set was well aired (it took about a year), I couldn't bear to read it, as just a few pages would have me sneezing and set my eyes to streaming.  What a pain!

So I could have done with the following product, perhaps, though who knows what it would have done to mere paper?

An aerosol e-book enhancer

• Home
• Aromas
  • Classic Musty Smell
  • Crunchy Bacon Scent
  • Eau You Have Cats
  • New Book Smell
  • Scent of Sensibility
• About
  • Compatibility
  • Warnings
• Support

The smell of e-books just got better

Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience?
Have you been avoiding e-books because they just don’t smell right?

If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book.

But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer.
Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much. With Smell of Books™ you can have the best of both worlds, the convenience of an e-book and the smell of your favorite paper book.

Smell of Books™ is compatible with a wide range of e-reading devices and e-book formats and is 100% DRM-compatible. Whether you read your e-books on a Kindle or an iPhone using Stanza, Smell of Books™ will bring back that real book smell you miss so much.

Is it a joke?  Presumably -- but who knows?

ePublishing for the uninitiated

Wise words from a resourceful author

I was intrigued by a post from Christchurch blogger Joan Curry (see link to the right), and contacted her for more details, which she readily provided, along with permission to reproduce her remarks.

The post is worth reading in its entirety for the laugh it will give you at the end, but the paragraph that really grabbed my attention was this:

"I have spent the last week revising and reformatting the writing manual I wrote two decades ago, so that I could publish it as an ebook. The manual was out of date, and a bit creaky here and there. It mentioned pens and paper and tape-recorders and sticky tape, and barely acknowledged the existence of the personal computer. There was advice that was no longer relevant, and there were also, shame on me, typos. So I read the formatting guidelines from smashwords.com and set about bringing the manual into the 21st century."

So I wrote a comment to her post, asking for more info, and Joan kindly replied in an email:

"Smashwords offers a publishing forum, and it's free. Let me just say that I wrote that manual 20 years ago, from course notes that I developed when teaching basic creative writing to adult students at the Canty WEA. That manual was a simple thing - about 140 pages, it was photocopied and spiral-bound, and sold for $20 post free to people (not bookshops) throughout the country. I did very nicely out of it, after paying photocopying costs and income tax.  I let it lapse (still have three or four copies but have done no marketing for years) but the rise and rise of the ebook seems to offer new opportunities.

 "Hence Smashwords (and plenty of other such sites) - a free forum as I say. They provide a style formatting guide - free - which my son downloaded to his brand new Kindle and left with me for a weekend. I read it through twice - a very comfortable, easy-reading experience I have to say, never having read on a Kindle before - and took copious notes. Then started on re-formatting, then uploaded.

 "Smashwords take the book, check it immediately for formatting errors (because ebooks can be read on anything from mobile phones to PCs and dodgy formatting can scramble text), then put it in the "pending review" basket for humans to look at. (I think for things like dodgy content, pictures that don't transfer properly and so on). If all's well, the book goes into the premium catalogue, from where it can be distributed to all booksellers that retail ebooks - Barns and Noble, Amazon etc. Even if it doesn't make the premium catalogue the book can still be bought by anyone who clicks "buy" on the page where the book is displayed, and pays, upon which the book is downloaded to their Kindle, PC, Kobo, iPhone or whatever.

 "The writer is in control of everything, including the price. Ebooks are cheap - really, really cheap (prices have to end in .99 to comply with Barnes and Noble requirements) - but the market is world-wide.

"That manual doesn't owe me anything. It hasn't cost me anything to go the ebook way. I have put a price of US$2.99 on it, set a sampling percentage of 20% (they can read that much before they buy) which is not much more than they could do in a bookshop anyway. I look forward to seeing what happens. And I lie in bed at night wondering what else I could make an ebook out of, out of the stuff I've got lying around! What's to lose? 

"If you want to take a look, just for fun, go to http://www.smashwords.com/ and search for Joan Curry. That will take you to my page. It's actually very exciting - the concept I mean."

SO -- indeed I searched, and read with growing interest.  Then I searched for another self ePublished author, Shayne Parkinson, who is doing very well indeed with her historical series of novels set in New Zealand, also originally produced on smashwords.  Shayne has her eBooks featured on Kindle, though Joan does not seem to have gone that route yet.  So how did Shayne do it?

The questions proliferate.  The jacket design, for instance, always an important selling device.  Who produces that?  And how is it linked to the text?

And how do smashwords make any money?

As Joan Curry says, it's actually very exciting.

The concept, I mean.

A most amiable lady courtier

Not just goodnatured, literate, and beautiful, but extremely open-minded, too.


The Oxford Dictionary of Biography once again explores the life of a most remarkable woman.


Mary Lepell's birth, on 26 September 1700, was commemorated in a rather unusual way.  Her father, who had been born in Germany, arrived in England from Denmark in 1683, as a groom of the bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne.  In March 1704, he became a lieutenant-colonel in Lord Paston's regiment of foot, and just one year later was given his own regiment -- with leave to recruit his men.  A resourceful fellow, he recruited his own daughter, registering her as a cornet.  Naturally, Mary was paid -- a salary that continued after she had grown up, and become maid of honor for Caroline, Princess of Wales.


A sparkling and literate lass, she played a vivacious part in the literary circle that surrounded the princess.  John Gay called her "youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepell," and she even managed to charm (and maybe even seduce) the waspish Alexander Pope, who described her being taken "into protection" by two maids of honor on a visit to Hampton Court -- Miss Lepell, he said, "walk'd all alone with me three or 4 hours, by moonlight."  In March 1720 she stayed with Pope at his house in Twickenham, Middlesex, allegedly for the benefit of her health.

On 21 April 1720 she married John Hervey in secret, so her payments as a maid of honor would continue.  On 25 October their union was finally announced, and they moved to a fashionable house in Bond Street, and Mary became known as Lady Hervey when her husband's elder half-brother Carr died in 1723.

She and her husband were perhaps the most celebrated couple in the court of the prince and princess of Wales. In the words of the second verse of a ballad by Pulteney and Chesterfield:
 

Bright Venus yet never saw bedded

So perfect a beau and a belle
As when Hervey the handsome was wedded
To the beautiful Molly Lepell.

Of course she was the subject of gossip.  When she bought a new house in Great Burlington Street for her growing family (she ended up with four sons and four daughters) in 1725, the Duchess of Marlborough alleged that the money had come from the four thousand quid she had been given to desist from openly flirting with King Geoge I. 

John Hervey was bisexual as well as handsome, but this doesn't seem to have worried Mary a whit -- indeed, she became great friends with his male lover, Stephen Fox, selling him her house in 1730, and in 1740 she allegedly  lent a later passion of her husband's, Francesco Algarotti, the money he needed to leave London and move to Berlin -- maybe to get him out of the way.  In the summer of 1735, she cooperatively spent the time in France, despite  her pregnancy with her last child, Caroline, allowing Hervey to revive his affair with a female lover, Anne Vane.

 Despite this open tolerance, for some unknown reason John refused to see her for several weeks before his death, on 5 August 1743, and the fashionable world was shocked by the terms of his will, which left Lady Hervey no more than her jointure of £300 a year. The will did not reflect a breach in the family. Lady Hervey lived at Ickworth with her father-in-law, Lord Bristol, almost until his death in 1751.

After that, she lived a life of politics and letters, much of it in France, until she was immobilized by gout.  Lady Hervey died in September 1768, and Walpole wrote an epitaph for her gravestone.

Rugby World Cup, the beginnings

It all began with a guy who picked up the ball.  And ran with it.

His name was William Webb Ellis, and he was born on 24th November 1806 in Salford near Manchester, Lancashire.

William attended Rugby school from 1816 to 1825.  He was noted as a good scholar and a good cricketer, though it was also noted that he was 'rather inclined to take unfair advantage at football. The incident where Webb Ellis picked up and ran with the ball in his arms during a football match is supposed to have happened in the latter half of 1823.

The sole source of the story of Webb Ellis picking up the ball is Matthew Bloxam, a former pupil of Rugby. In October of 1876, he wrote to The Meteor, the Rugby School magazine, that according to an unnamed source the change from a kicking game to a handling game had "...originated with a town boy or foundationer of the name of Ellis, William Webb Ellis".

On 12th December of 1880, in another letter to The Meteor, Bloxam stated: "A boy of the name Ellis – William Webb Ellis – a town boy and a foundationer, ... whilst playing Bigside at football in that half-year, caught the ball in his arms. This being so, according to the then rules, he ought to have retired back as far as he pleased, without parting with the ball, for the combatants on the opposite side could only advance to the spot where he had caught the ball, and were unable to rush forward till he had either punted it or had placed it for some one else to kick, for it was by means of these placed kicks that most of the goals were in those days kicked, but the moment the ball touched the ground the opposite side might rush on. Ellis, for the first time, disregarded this rule, and on catching the ball, instead of retiring backwards, rushed forwards with the ball in his hands towards the opposite goal, with what result as to the game I know not, neither do I know how this infringement of a well-known rule was followed up, or when it became, as it is now, a standing rule."

Was he a crank, or was he telling the truth?  Who knows?

After attending Oxford University, William Webb Ellis entered the Church and became chaplain of St George's, Albemarle Street, London and then rector of St Clement Danes in The Strand.
In 1855 he became rector of Laver Magdalen in Essex where there is now a Webb Ellis stained glass window. A picture of him (the only known portrait) appeared in the Illustrated London News after he gave a particularly stirring sermon on the subject of the Crimean War.

William Webb Ellis passed away on 24 January 1872 and is buried at Menton in the South of France.

How did he get there?  That's another mystery.

Texting is 21st century poetry

Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy says texting is the new poetry

 

Britain's first female Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, says texting is a modern form of poetry and an ideal vehicle for the Facebook generation.

"The poem is a form of texting... it's the original text," Duffy said in an interview with the Guardian.
"It's a perfecting of a feeling for language, it's a way of saying more with less, just as texting is."

Duffy is launching a competition for secondary school pupils, who will be invited to write their own anthologies.

Entrants can be groups or individuals. They will be given a budget to work with, and the aim is to encourage a stronger relationship between children and the world of poetry.

The deadline for entries is 1 March 2012 and the winning anthology will be announced three months later.

The winner will be chosen by a panel of judges including Duffy, Liz Lochhead, the Scottish makar (national poet), and Gillian Clarke, the national poet of Wales.

Their anthology will be published by Picador, and Duffy will visit the winning school.

BBC

SF/Fantasy racing ahead in popularity stakes

In a rare gleam of light in a dismal publishing scene, the SF/Fantasy marketing is growing.

Science Fiction and Fantasy represent just 6% of the book publishing market, but is growing by almost 50% each year.  Sales are forecast to reach nearly six hundred million dollars in 2011, despite the overall market decline.

Predictably, Amazon is jumping onto the bandwagon.  The Kindle store at Amazon.com is offering a free subscription to the digest edition of that longstanding favorite, Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. Kindle customers get access to all of the magazine's editorial content -- editor's recommendations, "Curiosities" (odd books of enduring interest), film reviews, book reviews, cartoons and humor, and "Coming Attractions" (highlights of each issue) -- along with one short story, all at no cost.

Customers can start reading the magazine today on their Kindle or free Kindle reading apps for Android, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
Predictably also, Stephen King warmly recommends the move.

Secrets of WTC wrecked ship revealed

Fossilized maritime history

This is fairly old news, but new facts have come to light

Unraveling the mystery surrounding the shipwreck found last year during excavations of the World Trade Center site has resulted in several facts as well as theories. The 18th century vessel, probably a single-masted sloop, measured approximately 50 feet long, and had a shallow, double-ended draft aided by a small, tapered keel built of squared-off hickory that that ran from stem-to-stern. The hull was built from Philadelphia oak trees -- one of which had lived for at least 111 years and was still growing in 1773, its youngest sapwood preserved in one of the boat's timbers.

Maritime historian Norman Brouwer had suggested that the unusually crafted sailboat was from a small rural shipyard and the trees for its timber from the same forest. "The data we see suggest something very similar," says Neil Pederson of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory's Tree Ring Lab in Palisades, NY. "It's an interesting intersection in experts," he told Discovery News. He was part of a four-person dendrochronology team from the Tree Ring Lab working on samples of the vessel's white oak planks and its hickory keel. Other tree species used in the boat's construction included spruce and southern yellow pine, reported wood deterioration researcher Robert Blanchette of the University of Maine.

Source

                   

Mass market paperback sale down over 60%

From Jason Boog at GalleyCat on mediabistro.com

 

According to Association of American Publishers (AAP) sales figures for June 2011, net revenues from adult paperback sales plunged nearly 64 percent compared to the same period last year.

At the same time, eBook sales were up 161 percent–read more at eBookNewser. See the eye-popping figures in the AAP’s chart embedded above–five major print categories all recorded decreases.

Google buys prime restaurant guide

Google Buys Zagat

From Publishers Lunch.

Zagat, which first was put up for sale in early 2008 and failed to close a deal, has been acquired by Google. Terms were not disclosed (for now; they will probably be disclosed when Google files their quarterly report).

The company's Marissa Mayer blogs, "Their surveys may be one of the earliest forms of UGC (user-generated content)—gathering restaurant recommendations from friends, computing and distributing ratings before the Internet as we know it today even existed.... I'm incredibly excited to collaborate with Zagat to bring the power of Google search and Google Maps to their products and users, and to bring their innovation, trusted reputation and wealth of experience to our users."

Nina and Tim Zagat write that they will contine as co-chairs and expect to "greatly expand." They note, "We have spent enough time with Google senior management to know that they fully share our belief in user-generated content, and our commitment to accuracy and fairness in providing consumers with the information necessary to make smart decisions about where to eat, travel and shop."

What is really interesting is that it puts Google into the book business with the Zagat Guides.

The New Zealand version is DineOut, which is -- as far I know -- entirely web-based.  When in this country, it is just as useful as Zagat when choosing a restaurant -- and it can be useful to be able to warn others of potential disasters, too.  Witness our embarrassing experience at a local (and posh) suburban restaurant, which advertised BYO meaning you could save damage to the pocket by taking along your own drink.  We are not wine drinkers, so took a beautiful bottle of Chimay Grand Reserve, warmly reviewed by those who know their Trappist beers.  It was also expensive, probably costing twice as much as the supermarket-purchased wines that sat on most of the other tables. 

But what happened?  The proprietors refused to serve it. 

"It's beer," they sneered.

Pasifika writer to pen a tale of two Samoas

As a girl growing up in Otara, Auckland, Marisa Maepu knew something wasn’t quite right.

A voracious reader, Marisa couldn’t understand why there weren’t stories around that reflected her way of life as a young Samoan girl growing up in south Auckland.

Marisa went to Auckland University and completed a Master of Arts in English under the supervision of a great Samoan poet, Albert Wendt, and Whale Rider author Witi Ihimaera (who is Maori), but still she felt puzzled about the lack of Pasifika writers in general, let alone Samoan ones.

In 2006 Marisa decided to deal with this  by writing her own stories -- the kind of tales she’d always wanted to read when she was a child.

It was a decision that led swiftly to success.

Marisa won a Spasifik Magazine/Huia Publishers short story competition in 2007, and was selected for publication in the New Zealand Book Month Six Pack anthology in 2008. She is currently polishing off a collection of 15 short stories for publication, and has written a number of children’s stories in the Samoan language to support teaching of the language in schools.

And now she is off to Hawaii, courtesy of a Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writers’ Residency. Marisa leaves Wellington on 14 September to take up her three month residency at the University of Hawai‘i’s Center for Pacific Island Studies in Honolulu, and write her first novel.

Sala ma Sina (the working title of Marisa’s novel) follows the lives of Samoan twin sisters who are separated at birth. The girls grow up in Western Samoa, American Samoa and New Zealand during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, a period of historical significance and great social change in all three countries.

  

Borders and Whitcoulls in Wellington

Wondering when your local Borders will close?

In the States, Borders Group entered liquidation this summer, closing its remaining 399 stores and cutting around 10,700 employees.  Jason Boog of GalleyCat @ mediabistro.com reports that on the bookseller’s Facebook page, you can now see a list of the closure dates for your local Borders bookstore.

Whether that is a hint to rush in and buy up books at firesale prices is beyond me to guess, but it does remind me of my book-buying foray yesterday.

I couldn't find what I wanted in the grand Wellington Whitcoulls flagship store at the southern end of Lambton Quay, so I headed north about 250 paces to Borders.  Not only did I find the books, but the nice young man at the counter accepted a Whitcoulls gift voucher.

"Borders and Whitcoulls are the same now," he said.

I knew that already.  Both bookstore chains were saved by David and Anne Norman, of Pascoes Jewellers and Farmers department stores fame.  Now, obviously, they are to be combined.

"So what is going to happen to this store?" I asked.  Borders is almost cheek by jowl with a Farmers store, so I half-expected him to say that the two premises were going to be combined into one Farmers store.

But no.  The general understanding among the staff is that the Whitcoulls store is to be closed, and the whole operation moved to the Borders premises.

Excellent news for the wonderful Unity independent bookstore in Willis Street, as the competition will be that much further away.

Dead fish cause big stink

Not exactly Written Word, but I can’t resist passing this on, because it’s so hilarious.

Victoria Ward reported it for the Telegraph. 

Tourist David Copp, 46, was taking a nice family stroll around the docks at Ilfracombe Harbour (Devon, England) when his nostrils were assailed by a nasty smell.

A smell, surprise, surprise, of fish.  Not just fish, but dead fish.  A trawler had just come in from an honest day’s work, fishing.  As evidence, there were twelve crates of fish and crabs on the deck.

He said the sight of all this carnage left his children, aged seven and nine, “quite distressed,” and so he complained to the harbourmaster.

“It’s not the sort of thing you want to see on holiday,” he said.

The harbourmaster, Rob Lawson, tried to introduce Mr. Copp to the reality of making a living as a fisherman, but with little luck.  His suggestion that children with sensitive stomachs shouldn't be taken down to wharves where real fishermen work seems a good one, but it fell on deaf ears. The unhappy Mr. Copp simply took his complaint to the local paper, which printed it (tongue in cheek?), much to the disbelief of Ilfracombe citizens.

What the crew of the trawler, named Lady of Lundy, thought of it is unknown, but the locals were more vocal. “Does he think fish comes in packets?” one demanded.

Portrait of a remarkable woman

A reader, Emily Smith, has posted a fascinating comment on my post about Jane Gomeldon

When researching the short but interesting life of Sydney Parkinson, draftsman on board Cook's Endeavour, I discovered to my amazement that he had a much loved cousin, Jane Gomeldon, who was not just a (kind of) poet, but a flamboyant feminist, too.

To repeat the nitty-gritty:

Born Middleton, Jane was a Quaker, born in Newcastle to a family of Quaker glassmakers, and because of this background was unusually well educated for a woman of that time. Unfortunately, however, she fell in love with a cad at a very young age, and had the bad judgment to marry him. This was Francis Gomeldon, an officer in a Regiment of Foot.

Quickly realizing her blunder, she fled to France, where she had many adventures in the guise of a man, including paying court to a pretty young nun, who was silly enough to elope with her. In 1740 her estranged husband placed an advertisement in the Newcastle Journal, announcing that she had left him. Jane responded with her own advertisement, describing his cruelty, and accusing him of ransacking the fortune her mother had left her, despite the legal requirement written into it reserving it for her own use. In 1742 she brought a suit against him, on the grounds of cruelty.

Eight years later, her husband died, but -- surprise, surprise -- left nothing to her in his Will. Luckily, it seems, she was still solvent, because after cousin Sydney was hired by Joseph Banks to travel with him, she hatched a plan to voyage on the Endeavour, too. It came to naught, unfortunately. While she would not have been the first woman to go around the world dressed as a man, she certainly would have written a very good book, revealing who knows what ...

Emily pointed me to the British Museum, which holds a portrait of Jane, and also a mezzotint of the portrait.  The mezzo is reprinted above -- next to the famous self-portrait of Sydney.

The family resemblance is truly remarkable.

A tempting maritime read

A biography of an infamous seafarer by another seafarer -- at last.

The Australian  Age has run  a very warm review of Bligh, Master Mariner by Australian yachtsman, journo, and maritime historian Rob Mundle.

It concludes:

Mundle's Bligh is a meticulously researched biography that benefits from its author's seafaring experience and ability to write with bracing vitality of the trials faced during the age of exploration. If it does, at points, sail close to the wind of corrective hagiography, it remains a book that will gladden the heart of anyone with an interest in maritime history.



Definitely on my must-read list, so expect my own review in due course.  Meantime, you can read an interview with the author on the Booktopia blog.

Booker shortlist announced

Awards: Booker Shortlist

The Booker Prize shortlist was announced today, and the best-known author among the candidates is Julian Barnes and his book The Sense of an Ending. Barnes (pictured) has made the shortlist three times before without winning, and is joined by only one other prior nominee, Carol Birch for Jamrach's Menagerie.

There are surprises. Alan Hollinghurst's highly-praised novel The Stranger's Child has missed out. Two debut novelists, Stephen Kelman and A.D. Miller, are included.  Most of the publishers are second-tier affairs.  Obviously, the shortlist announcement is going to lead to a lot of champagne-supping. 

US rights to all but one title are already spoken for, and four of the five are already on the market in the US. The missing one is Barnes' book, though Knopf have it slated for a January 24 release.

The full list (with the winner to be named on October 18):

Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape)
Carol Birch, Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate)
Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues (Serpent’s Tail)
Stephen Kelman, Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
A.D. Miller, Snowdrops (Atlantic)

Commercialism and free Wi-Fi

Free public Wi-Fi to be turned off for That Rugby World Cup

Last Thursday, to great public acclaim, a free wireless internet network was turned on in Wellington's CBD (Central Business District).

The network -- called "cbdfree" -- is available in outdoor areas from Westpac Stadium near the Railway Station, to the Embassy Cinema in Courtenay Place, hub of the cool little capital city's nightlife.  Along with the free network along the waterfront that is provided by TradeMe, New Zealand's answer to eBay, it means that Wellington is the first city in Australasia to provide a free comprehensive service.

It is helped, of course, by Wellington's wonderful compactness.  (It is possible to walk from one end to the other of the CBD inside an hour, much of it along the spectacular waterfront.)  Certainly an enviable asset.

But it is now announced that it is going to be turned off inside the Stadium for the duration of the Rugby World Cup.  Media who want to report on the game have to pay for wireless services provided by an outfit called Gen-i.

Gen-i, an Australasian company formed from three previous businesses (remember Computerland?), has won the contract with Rugby World Cup Limited (RWC Ltd.), which will charge media $250 per person to access wireless internet during pool play and $50 each for knock-out matches.  Plus Goods and Service Tax (15%).

Free Wi-Fi will be available as usual outside the Stadium -- and that includes the concourse.

The service has proved a huge hit.  It was used by 2,300 people on its first day, 77% of them connecting with Apple devices, such a iPhones and iPads.