I think blogs were created for the very reason of attacking articles like Lev Grossman’s Good Novels Don’t Have to Be Hard, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. This article is so annoying and so preposterous that it’s actually dangerous.

It opens with Grossman’s praising “plot” as a sort of guilty pleasure that we crave but find our “attachment to storyline” to be “disgraceful.” That said:

If there’s a key to what the 21st-century novel is going to look like, this is it: the ongoing exoneration and rehabilitation of plot.

OK, so I’m not entirely clear on what he means by “plot,” but more on that in a second. First off, here’s his bit on the Modernists—those assholes that destroyed our guilty pleasure of reading books with plots:

Where did this conspiracy come from in the first place—the plot against plot? I blame the Modernists. Who were, I grant you, the single greatest crop of writers the novel has ever seen. [. . .]

But let’s look back for a second at where the Modernists came from, and what exactly they did with the novel. They drew a tough hand, historically speaking. All the bad news of the modern era had just arrived more or less at the same time: mass media, advertising, psychoanalysis, mechanized warfare. The rise of electric light and internal combustion had turned their world into a noisy, reeking travesty of the gas-lit, horse-drawn world they grew up in. The orderly, complacent, optimistic Victorian novel had nothing to say to them. Worse than nothing: it felt like a lie. The novel was a mirror the Modernists needed to break, the better to reflect their broken world. So they did.

One of the things they broke was plot. To the Modernists, stories were a distortion of real life. In real life stories don’t tie up neatly. Events don’t line up in a tidy sequence and mean the same things to everybody they happen to. Ask a veteran of the Somme whether his tour of duty resembled the “Boy’s Own” war stories he grew up on. The Modernists broke the clear straight lines of causality and perception and chronological sequence, to make them look more like life as it’s actually lived. They took in “The Mill on the Floss” and spat out “The Sound and the Fury.”

Granted, the Modernists did a lot of interesting things to the structure, form, content, and style of the novel. They did “break” the Victorian form; they made something new. But does this mean that The Sounds and the Fury has no plot? The story is out of order and told in a relativistic fashion, but there is a “story.” There are characters, events that follow one another, conflicts and resolutions. There is a plot—just not the sort of plot Grossman likes.

I’m going assume (from Grossman’s grand statement below about the future of the novel) that what he means by “plot” are fairly straightforward linear narratives that are realistic, recognizable, simple-to-follow, and tend to have genre elements. I hate even writing “simple-to-follow,” since something that’s difficult to one person can be easily comprehended and enjoyed by another, but, well, in Lev’s unfailingly rational attack on “plotless novels,” he sort of brings it up:

This brought with it another, related development: difficulty. It’s hard to imagine it now, but there was a time when literary novels were not, generally speaking, all that hard to read. Say what you like about the works of Dickens and Thackeray, you pretty much always know who’s talking, and when, and what they’re talking about. The Modernists introduced us to the idea that reading could be work, and not common labor but the work of an intellectual elite, a highly trained coterie of professional aesthetic interpreters.

We all know that Art should never be confusing, or challenging, or “difficult”! Why didn’t Joyce spend his life churning out detective novels? Finnegans Wake should’ve been a sci-fi novel!

I think we can all agree that some of the modernist masterpieces Grossman has in mind — Ulysses, Sound and the Fury, The Waste Land — are not brainless mind candy to be consumed on the beach or the toilet, but labeling them as “difficult” brings with it a ton of baggage that, in the end, can be extremely damaging to book culture and the appreciation of literature as a lasting art form.

Because what usually happens after someone labels a book (or group of books) as “difficult,” they then go on to belittle this book (or books) as essentially unreadable, not worth your time, or as “work”:

After all, the discipline of the conventional literary novel is a pretty harsh one. To read one is to enter into a kind of depressed economy, where pleasure must be bought with large quantities of work and patience. The Modernists felt little obligation to entertain their readers. That was just the price you paid for your Joycean epiphany. Conversely they have trained us, Pavlovianly, to associate a crisp, dynamic, exciting plot with supermarket fiction, and cheap thrills, and embarrassment. Plot was the coward’s way out, for people who can’t deal with the real world. If you’re having too much fun, you’re doing it wrong.

There was a time when difficult literature was exciting. T.S. Eliot once famously read to a whole football stadium full of fans. And it’s still exciting—when Eliot does it. But in contemporary writers it has just become a drag. [. . .]

Nam Le’s “The Boat,” one of the best-reviewed books of fiction of 2008, has sold 16,000 copies in hardcover and trade paperback, according to Nielsen Bookscan (which admittedly doesn’t include all book retailers). In the first quarter of 2009 alone, the author of the “Twilight” series, Stephenie Meyer, sold eight million books. What are those readers looking for? You’ll find critics who say they have bad taste, or that they’re lazy and can’t hack it in the big leagues. But that’s not the case. They need something they’re not getting elsewhere. Let’s be honest: Why do so many adults read Suzanne Collins’s young-adult novel “The Hunger Games” instead of contemporary literary fiction? Because “The Hunger Games” doesn’t bore them.

And there we go. So here’s the basic argument: no “plot” = difficult = boring = elitist = doesn’t sell in a supermarket.

When I first read this article, I was totally outraged—this article essentially attacking all the books that I like, all the books that I publish, all the beliefs I hold dear about the power of literature as art. And all based on the belief that there’s a certain type of book that appeals to a mass audience and therefore sells astronomically well, and that sales figures trump quality every single time. It really shouldn’t be surprising that we’ve replaced critical appreciation with “units shifted” in our hierarchy of artistic values, but even so, it still pisses me off.

And letting my prejudices show for a minute: This sort of argument is intended to direct young writers into producing more “readable” books. Books with “strong plot” and “realistic characterization.” I don’t want to take away from these sorts of books, but there’s no reason that a certain portion of authors can continue to work in the Modernist (or Post-Modernist, or whatever label you want to apply to these “difficult,” “plotless,” “boring” books) vein creating art that requires a more sophisticated reader willing to contemplate and explore.

And on a really selfish note: I don’t want to live in a world completely dominated by genre fiction and “plotted” novels. I want more variety. I want books that I have to read twice. And yes, I realize that Stephanie Meyer and Jodi Picoult already rule the day, and yes, I realize that one WSJ article isn’t going to alter the course of the novel, but I don’t like Lev’s alone in his beliefs. In fact, his argument is perfectly in line with all corporate publishers—publishers whose accountants would love to eliminate every “unprofitable, difficult, plotless” book from the company’s list. (As I’m writing this, PW Daily arrived with news that Random House’s profits fell a whopping 35.5% for the first half of 2009. Goodbye, “difficult” literature!)

The one potentially redeeming part of Grossman’s piece is his list of authors who are revitalizing the novel:

The revolution is under way. The novel is getting entertaining again. Writers like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Donna Tartt, Kelly Link, Audrey Niffenegger, Richard Price, Kate Atkinson, Neil Gaiman, and Susanna Clarke, to name just a few, are busily grafting the sophisticated, intensely aware literary language of Modernism onto the sturdy narrative roots of genre fiction: fantasy, science fiction, detective fiction, romance. They’re forging connections between literary spheres that have been hermetically sealed off from one another for a century. Look at Cormac ­McCarthy, who for years appeared to be the oldest living Modernist in captivity, but who has inaugurated his late period with a serial-killer novel followed by a work of apocalyptic science fiction. Look at Thomas Pynchon—in “Inherent Vice” he has swapped his usual cumbersome verbal calisthenics for the more maneuverable chassis of a hard-boiled detective novel.

This is the future of fiction. The novel is finally waking up from its 100-year carbonite nap.

These are all fine writers, and I wouldn’t dispute that they’re all doing good work, but in terms of the article, it once again falls back on binary divisions, praising this novelists for writing “entertaining” novels with “entertaining” being defined by what’s “fun” for Grossman to read.

What a complete mess of an article! I’m not going to list everyone that comes to mind, but Mark Binelli, Antonio Lobo Antunes, Meredith Brosnan, Dubavka Ugresic, Jose Manuel Prieto, Attila Bartis, Roberto Bolano, etc., etc., have all written very entertaining novels over the past couple decades that would be considered “plotless” and “Modernist” by Grossman. I know I’m rambling now, but I really don’t even know what the point of his article really is. A self-justification for his own reading habits?

Generally speaking, I’m a fan of the “fixed book price agreement” that’s in place in a number of countries around the world. (At least 18, according to Wikipedia, aka America’s Best Source of Information.) I’ve mentioned a few times in posts here on Three Percent, always emphasizing the way that it slightly levels the playing field by preventing massive corporations from offering discounts on shitty best-selling books that are so deep that no independent store can possibly compete.

Harry Potter is the ultimate example of this. Several major retailers (ya’ll know who they are, and they know as well) essentially sold Harry Potter at a loss in order to increase the number of sales and customers. (I remember when I was at Quail Ridge Books, it was cheaper for us to buy copies of HP from Costco—god help us all—than it was to purchase them directly from Scholastic.)

One of the main arguments for the fixed book price—which, if I haven’t made this clear, is a law that ensures the same book is sold at the same price at all outlets—is that it allows smaller stores to carry a more diverse stock. It sort of hampers the blockbuster model and, in theory at least, promotes a more healthy book culture in which presses can publish poetry and survive, and bookstores aren’t overrun with stacks of shitty popular books.

All that said, I was pretty surprised to come across this essay by Kim Heijdenrijk about why the fixed book price agreement (of FBPA) is damaging to independent stores.

Living in a country that prides itself on its insane laws protecting free economic principles, I probably shouldn’t comment on how well (or poorly) the FBPA actually works. But wtf, it’s America, I’m writing for a blog, etc. So, here’s Kim’s main arguments, and my socialist cautionary counter-arguments.

It was then that I learned how much is earned on a book. Or better said: how little. And this particular shop got quite a big margin, since it is so large and well known. I was shocked. When speaking to my boss about it, he merely said: “Why do you think we also have a music store, a coffee shop and an office supply store?”. Point taken. It is almost impossible to survive on the sales of books alone. Even with a relatively big margin.

This particular Dutch bookstore is very fortunate. A success story if you will. But only because of the business strategy they chose. Books as a core business, other products to stay afloat. How many independent booksellers are in the position to do this? How do you get people to buy at your shop instead of the big chains that are on every high street? The obvious – if not the only – way is to do what supermarkets do. Have a sale. Lower the prices of particular products, in this case particular books. A very good idea, if the Fixed Book Price Agreement did not forbid it.

OK, yes, price is one factor on which a business traditionally differentiates itself, but really? As stated in paragraph one, the margin for books is pretty much shit. So a sale will only effectively improve your long-term business if the people you attract through temporarily lowering prices are converted into loyal customers. And unfortunately, that’s pretty unlikely. The second an independent store starts offering a discount, a chain store will offer a larger one. And if the tacit assumption is that customers are “rational economic agents” (this is a bullshit pro-capitalist belief, but I’m going to let it ride for now) that make decisions primarily because of price, they’ll end up shopping at the indie store’s competitors.

Now the idea behind the FBPA. The idea is that bookshops make the most money on bestsellers. These books, like Harry Potter or the Da Vinci Code, cost little effort to sell. And hardly any advertising money for the bookseller, because these books get enough exposure. Without the fixed book price, a bookshop could offer these books at competitive prices to lure readers into their shops. With the fixed prices, the booksellers loose [sic] this advantage.

Wait a second here . . . So, you have a handful of mega-bestsellers, books that you don’t have to do much of anything to sell by the gaggle, books that you could sell at regular retail price and no one blinks—these are the books you want to sell at a discount? In an industry in which breaking even is a pretty significant accomplishment, this seems like a bad decision. Bookstore owners cherish the time when they actually made money on books like Harry Potter instead of fighting to breakeven, or having to expend a ton of rhetorical energy to convince customers to pay the extra $2 and buy the book from an independent so that that store can continue to serve its local community. Overall, this point seems massively misguided.

The publishers want the bookstores to promote lesser known – more specialized – books instead of the ‘high flyers’. They want to create ‘bibliodiversity’, as is stated in a paper by the International Publishers Association. To make sure that the shop owners practice this innovative word, the publishers offer a guaranteed/larger margin on the bestsellers. This way everybody wins. The publisher knows that the ‘big’ books will sell anyway and therefore they can give a good profit margin to the bookseller. The bookseller should be able to fund the promotion of the ‘small’ books because of this. And they live happily ever after . . .

Exactly.

The so called ‘benefits’ for these little shops can only be viewed as ludicrous. The fixed book price would protect them from the competition of supermarkets in their area that sell books at bargain prices. For this reason the independent bookseller in less convenient places would have a better chance of survival. I would advise the creator of this benefit to pick up an economy book. [Again, sic] The buyer of books in the supermarket is, of course, an entirely different person than the one purchasing a book in a bookshop. The books available at supermarkets are there for the impulse buyer. A person who does not read a lot and heard from a friend that he should read a certain book.

Veering off for a minute into socio-economics (and a totally different topic), I’m pretty much against books being sold in supermarkets. Not only is the selection totally weak, but Wal*Mart/Sam’s Club/Costco detract from the public perception of the bookstore as a unique, worthwhile business. Books in supermarkets are pure commodities, no different than frozen peas. There will always be a specialized group of bookstore lovers who would rather shop for real literature in a real bookstore, yet there’s a growing number of people who believe literature equals the latest Jodi Picoult book on sale for 25% off right next to the super-sized tub of KitKat bars. (I believe they call themselves “Pi-Cultists.”) Yeah, that’s what the world needs now.

One thing Kim doesn’t bring up are the other ways independent bookstores could differentiate themselves in lieu of discounts. The shopping/browsing experience is influenced by space, by design, by customer service. Independent stores tend to be more community-focused and customer-oriented than their corporate equivalents, and also tend to know a lot about actual books that they can recommend to their clientele. There are many more value-added aspects a store could emphasize than price. Trying to fight Goliath by knocking $1 off the list price is a slippery slope to utter bankruptcy.

Today’s Boston Globe has one of the most upsetting articles I’ve read in a long while. Entitled “Stimulus Funding for Arts Hits Nerve,” it’s about the furor over the $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts that was included in the stimulus package that passed the House, but is absent in the version before the Senate.

Representative Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican, wants to transfer the proposed NEA funding to highway construction. He failed to get the House to vote on his proposal, so he is now trying to get on the conference committee that will determine the fate of the funding. “We have real people out of work right now and putting $50 million in the NEA and pretending that’s going to save jobs as opposed to putting $50 million in a road project is disingenuous,” Kingston said in an interview yesterday, adding the time has come to examine all of NEA’s funding.

And when it was pointed out that the unemployment rate for artists was the same as the entire workforce (although it’s worth noting that there’s 46% unemployment rate among actors, and 19% for dancers), you get gems of logic like this:

But opponents of the funding say that many groups of workers don’t receive special funding. Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Cantor, said the provision “uses taxpayer dollars on NEA programs instead of common-sense tax relief targeted to revitalize small businesses and create jobs for middle-class families facing economic challenges” and “fails to meet the standard necessary to be included in an emergency economic recovery plan.”

If I could do a videocast, everyone could see how visibly pissed I am about this . . . Putting aside questions about funding for the arts and how NEA’s money is allocated to both organizations and artists, and ignoring for a moment the oft-documented fact that arts spending does create jobs, let’s just look at the number for a second: this $50 million for the NEA is 0.006% of the total $819 billion package.

Not 6%. Or even 0.1%. But 0.006%. 1/16,380th of the proposed spending.

And that’s not even factoring in the $800 billion plus that allowed Wall Street firms to stay in business and give themselves $20 billion in bonuses. The proposed $50 million for NEA is 1/400 of the amount these people—“people” who essentially ran a Ponzi scheme that bankrupted the world and has damaged everyone’s quality of life for years to come—received just last month thanks to nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer money.

But politicians are pissed about giving money for arts organizations or artists? Really?

It’s silly to have to make an argument for the arts, and trying to change a typical politicians mind is about as easy as ending world hunger, but really, the value of what the NEA does goes well beyond the jobs it creates. The arts make life better. Plain and simple. And spending a infinitesimal part of a stimulus package on arts organizations benefits the entire country.

Dana Gioia has an awesome quote in this article:

Dana Gioia, a poet who was NEA chairman until last month, recalled that when top Roosevelt aide Harry Hopkins was asked why the government wanted to hire so many artists and writers, he replied, “Hell, they’ve got to eat just like other people.”

Gioia, reflecting on that comment, said, “As far as I’ve heard, nothing has changed about the dietary needs of artists.”

I feel like we’re right back in the mid-1990s. . . . Initially, one might think that the arts would benefit with a democrat in the White House. But historically, that hasn’t really helped, and it’s during these periods that the NEA comes under the most scrutiny and loses the most funding. Clinton never stood up for public arts funding, probably due to the fact that from a presidential perspective there’s not much at stake and to use up political capital on something like this just isn’t worth it.

I really hope Obama is different. If he doesn’t go to bat for the arts and for including this pittance in the ever-ballooning (and rightfully so) stimulus efforts, all of his promises of change will ring awfully hollow to me.

Following up on yesterday’s rant about v-books, from what we can find, Amazon is the exclusive retailer for these videos. I’ll bet that’ll go over well.

When HarperCollins announced their latest innovation—“video books”—earlier this week, thousands of people around the country came up with the same joke: “yeah, video books . . . they’re called movies.”

But honestly, that’s just the tip of the stupidity iceberg. First off, here’s the idea in full from the article in the Washington Post, which is shockingly unironic (I think—the final sentence is really confusing):

For those who don’t have the time to listen to an audiobook, let alone read a hardback or e-Book, HarperCollins brings you: the video book. Perhaps fittingly, the first author to get the video treatment is BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis, whose book, What Would Google Do?, will be available in all the other formats as well, WSJ notes. News Corp.‘s HarperCollins has been noted for its digital experiments the past few years, but it’s still being cautious about the prospects for video books. It expects to produce about six titles for video in house, which will be available for download on iPods and iPhones. [. . .]

Jarvis’ video book goes on sale Tuesday and retails for $9.99. The 23-minute video has Jarvis speaking into a single camera with a white background. Instead of reading directly from the book, which was published last month by the company’s Collins Business imprint, Jarvis runs through the basic concepts in the book, such as how Google has been able to compete so successfully on the web and what can be learned from its practices. If HarperCollins can make a go of v-books, perhaps Google will be the one to pick up a few tips for generating revenue from YouTube.

Yeah, really. HarperCollins wants you to pay $10 to watch a v-book that’s not actually a book but a video about a book shot with a single camera in a white room.

On second thought, maybe this is some mad genius idea of theirs . . . I mean think about it, people like TV right? I mean, they’re not too keen on reading, or attending readings, or watching Book TV, or whatever other book related activity one might think of, but hey they like TV, no? So why not just put the books on TV! I mean, don’t act them out or any of that period shit, don’t even let the author read the book, just put him in front of a camera to talk about the book. He won’t read from the book or anything mind-numbingly boring like that, just talk about the big concepts. The things you need to know for cocktail parties. Kind of like video CliffsNotes. You know, it’ll be like an infomercial. But one that people will pay for . . .

I can only imagine how many hundreds of thousands of dollars were pissed away on this, and how many meetings took place without anyone pointing out just what a bad idea this is. Did they run this by a single reader?

Over at the Literary Saloon, — Litblogging’s Finest Source of International News — Michael Orthofer reports on Daniel Kehlmann’s article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung railing against the German Book Prize.

I can’t read the article in the original (which can be found here), but Michael’s summary makes it seem like Kehlmann’s shooting off in fairly uninformed manner. (Which is sort of what I’ve come to expect after seeing him at the PEN World Voices Festival last year.)

Apparently he first complains that if a book isn’t on the GBP longlist, it has little chance of being reviewed. Which smacks of bullshit and a bit of a personal grudge perhaps?

But this is the best (in Michael’s translation):

And one knows — I went through it myself — that nominated authors are unofficially informed that staying away from the ceremony would lead to an automatic disqualification. Even if a book is an epochal success, if its author is not willing to swallow some sedative and physically take part in the competition, he won’t receive the prize, a decisive distinction from the National Book Award or the Booker Prize, that as a matter of course regularly are handed out to absent authors.

Er, uh, not. In fact, as Michael points out, it’s right in the NBA guidelines that not only does the author have to attend the ceremony, but he/she “must agree to participate in the Foundation’s Website-related publicity, including on-line “chats” with readers across the country.” And the promotion synergy doesn’t stop there. Also according to guidelines, publishers of the finalists have to pay $1,000 to support promotional activities, pay for their author to attend the ceremony, and purchase medallions from the National Book Foundation to affix to finalists and winning titles.

I hate to suggest that such cooperation helps increase the reach and attention of the National Book Award and may be one of the reasons that so much attention is paid to the winner . . .

I also have to say that Kehlmann’s suggestion of abolishing the longlist is silly from the point of view of a foreign publisher. The German Book Office and others do a fantastic job of getting the word out about new German titles, but nevertheless, a number of books slide right by. This longlist (and Michael’s suggestion of making the list of 160+ nominees available) provides publishers like Open Letter with another source of information. Another list of potentially great titles. Instead of eliminating the longlist, I wish someone would provide sample translations of these books. . .

Over the weekend, the Huffington Post published Part 1 of an essay by Richard Laermer called “Why Book Publishing Is Dead.”

Now, I’m one of the first people to jump on the bandwagon and criticize the publishing industry (or book industry as a whole) for it’s lack of innovation and odd practices. (As a sidenote: why doesn’t the Borders “concept store” have a TV in the fiction section running book trailers? There’s one in food, one in magazines, one in travel—along with a computer where you can book your vacation—and a whole digital center . . .) It’s easy to pile on publishers for being slow and antiquated, but it’s helps if the one doing the piling has some semblance of knowledge about the industry. . .

After reading this Laermer piece—which does contain a few accurate points—I wasn’t sure who should be more embarrassed: Laermer for writing something so ignorant and ill-informed, or the Huffington Post for running this.

Here are just a few of the gaffes:

1. Who’s in charge here? How can a 22-year-old editor bid on a book? What does a post-graduate $32,000-a-year fresh-out know what will hit with the public? Why does this frequently appear to be a case of the nuthouse leaving the inmates to decide!

There really aren’t any 22-year-old editors acquiring books. At best, this 22-year-old editor has to convince his/her boss and the marketing team about a particular title. If you want to talk about the cliched “inmates running the asylum,” then at least blame the marketing folks who could give a damn about quality and really only care about the bottom-line.

3. The editing is done exactly how far in advance? If I write a book that is to come out in say December of 08—they have to have it in February. Why? ‘Cause they have a “schedule to follow,” but it would seem with digital technology you should be able to write right up to the deadline (like we do online).

Uh, wow. You’re right, design, production, pre-press promotion, and printing can take place in minutes these days. No really, isn’t there some P.O.D. thing or whatever? And galleys—screw that, we need to give our writers more time to tinker rather than promoting books to booksellers and reviewers. I’m sure that will work out well. (Granted there are some books—current affairs for instance—that benefit from a short lead time, but Punk Marketing? Kinda doubt it.)

8. You won’t publish me even if I’m the next Tolstoy unless I have a platform of my own? Yeah I get it. I’m all about the podcasts, the blogs, the articles, the mini-tours, the loud hawking, what is dubbed “relentless” push for my product…. In 2002 I got myself booked with the then-adorable Katie Couric on Today Show for trendSpotting and I told the people at Penguin-Putnam who thought I was kidding (“Well, let’s see”) —and when I was scheduled they didn’t bother to alert sales force, stores, or anyone. So 20 million watched me cavorting with that perky thing, and a dozen books were in stores. Publishers don’t know how to sell, that’s the fact. They wait. Very Darwinian. If something takes off THEN they start pumping out the marketing.

This point I think is valid. The sales links between author and customer (author —> agent —> editor —> marketing —> sales reps —> buyer —> bookselling clerk —> customer) can breakdown in a million different ways, and not taking advantage of publicity is a bit problem. But “cavorting with that perky thing” sounds a bit creepy to me . . .

12. Small publishers? Nah, don’t think so. I found they were just as cheap-headed as their older brother, and only provided support when the author paid his own way. Seems like the small publisher is a misnomer-like indie film. Neither exists except as marketing gimmick. In the long run, small comes knocking with finger-in-air offers like the Midwest publisher who nervily said “Here’s five grand” advance for a book about the porn industry’s history of influencing business decisions thru history . . . (Where’s Judith Regan when I need her!!!)

Wha?? Small publishers. . . . indie film . . . doesn’t exist except as marketing gimmick? Head. Exploding.

To answer my earlier rhetorical question, I’m the one who should be most embarrassed, for letting this bug me and wasting precious time writing and thinking about it.

The other day NPR ran this segment about Wordsmiths in Decatur, Georgia, and the store’s recent decision to ask for donations from customers in order to stay in business.

In its typical middle-of-the-road objective, NPR’s focus is on whether it’s good or bad for people to donate to a for profit business, presenting both “sides” of the issue in a half-ass, intellectually non-stimulating way. Aside from Wordsmiths owner (who has been successful in raising funds from his customers), they also interview an economist who presents the pat, anti-nonprofit viewpoint that if a business can’t break even, it may not deserve support from the public, and then follow up with Mark Sarvas who points out that maybe the rules for donations should be relaxed for literary efforts, since this isn’t exactly a growth, or even financial stable, industry.

It would take weeks of posts to really parse through an issue like this, but because of some activities I’ve been engaged in recently (including a couple I can’t really talk about until later this fall), the publishing/bookselling model and the nonprofit world has been on my mind quite a bit.

First off, to provide a bit of the contextual background that NPR didn’t, there is at least one very successful nonprofit bookstore in the U.S.—Woodland Pattern in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They became a nonprofit in 1979, and here’s a basic description of their activities:

The center houses a bookstore with over 25,000 small press titles otherwise unavailable in our area. Because we are nonprofit, our inventory decisions aren’t dictated entirely by commercialism. As booksellers and as presenters of art and literature, we want people to know that there is more than what you see at your chain book store, more than you are taught in school, more than what is reviewed in the papers. We hope to act as a catalyst, putting readers together with small press literature. Come browse our selection of poetry, chapbooks, fine print materials, broadsides, and multicultural literature. We think you’ll be impressed!

Our space also includes an art gallery where we present exhibitions, artist talks, readings, experimental films, concerts and writing workshops for adults and children.

A few years ago, Chapters: A Literary Bookstore in Washington, D.C. decided to become an nonprofit as well, in part by making the store part of a larger 501©3 organization called Wordfest that directed an international poetry festival. For a variety of reasons I don’t even fully know, this relationship didn’t work out, and Chapters was eventually forced to close. The remarkable Terri Merz is still looking for a space to reopen, which will hopefully happen soon, since D.C. needs a great indie store, especially since Olsson’s is struggling.

On the horizon is The Great Lakes Literary Art Center at Shaman Drum Bookshop. Karl Pohrt and I talked briefly about this when I interviewed him a couple weeks back. Karl’s a pretty modest guy, so on his behalf I’ll talk about how amazing this is. Rather than sell his store—which is a fixture of Ann Arbor life, and would probably find a buyer pretty quickly—he’s decided to give it to the community. A pdf of the complete GLLAC Development Plan is available online for anyone to peruse.

One of the things that went unmentioned in the NPR piece (in part because it was outside of the scope, and rather than look at Wordsmiths as an example of a expanding business model of the nonprofit bookstore, they went for the “fair and balanced” is-this-a-good-idea? approach) is what makes a nonprofit bookstore a nonprofit.

Almost everyone knows that most book related business don’t make much money. Sure the big media conglomerates (that are much more than just a publisher) have significant profits, but even then, the margin for a publisher or bookstore is incredibly low compared to other enterprises. As a result, people working in the book trade are usually very underpaid. Which is why it’s tricky to get younger generations to stay in the book business. And why B&N and Borders are filled with “clerks” not “booksellers.” (More on that later or in another post.)

As Richard Nash says, independent booksellers and publishers are just two fuck-ups away from bankruptcy.

But that’s not what makes a store/publisher a nonprofit. A tax-exempt 501©3 organization, can be literary, dedicated to the “advancement of education” or to “eliminating prejudice and discrimination.” Reading the actual description, this seems like a sufficiently broad category, and one that would encompass bookstores that are doing something more than just selling books.

For instance, both Woodland Pattern and Shaman Drum are dedicated to cultivating readers, in part by offering free literary activities, workshops, etc. They are engaging with readers and helping foster a better community through literary works and activities. They’re not just clerking books a la the traditional box store or a supermarket. They are interacting with the public in a different, more meaningful way. And these activities—if they are to have any impact—cost money. And, in my opinion, deserve to be supported through tax breaks, state and federal funding, and donations from individuals.

The current business models we have are totally broken. Distribution is handled by a select few, book coverage (at least print style) is decreasing, very few authors can survive on their writing alone, and people are working in the industry out of love and passion, surviving on small salaries.

Which is why the more I think about it, the more this NPR piece irks me. Granted, they might not find the idea of exploring this nonprofit model as interesting as I do, but the focus they went for is such an odd take that it’s almost ridiculous. And I never like it when economists sugges things about society (such as implicitly favoring the business that can make money instead of the business that enhances cultural life) since I tend to disagree almost 100% of the time with their suggestions.

OK, enough ranting for the moment. Tomorrow (or Friday) I do want to write something more about publishers and booksellers and how they interact (or don’t) with readers, which I think is another important aspect of the wider context for this story.

After a week of writing about how much I loved the editors week in Argentina I hate to do this, but I have to go on a bit of a rant about the U.S. Embassy in Argentina.

It’s important to provide a bit of background first: Fundacion TyPA supports a number of artistic activities in Argentina, including this “Semana de Editores,” which consists of ten participants from around the world who come to Buenos Aires and spend a week learning about Argentine literature, with the goal that they will then return home and publish a few Argentine works in translation. Or at least develop a greater understanding and appreciation of Argentine culture and be in a position to share information about what’s going on in Argentine literature. (Which is what I hope I’ve been doing through these various blog posts.)

Thanks to the economic collapse of 2001 (I almost wrote, thanks to the IMF’s mistreatment of Argentina, but this isn’t the blog for that kind of debate), the government doesn’t have a lot of money to invest in cultural activities such as this. (Just imagine losing two-thirds of your money overnight and watching the poverty rate in your country skyrocket . . . Cultural exchanges automatically fall into the “luxury” category following such a severe economic collapse.) Nevertheless, the Argentine government goes on, inviting ten people a year, paying for their hotels, meals, transportation around Buenos Aires, etc., etc. (And really, this was one of the most well organized, well constructed editorial trips I’ve ever been on.)

The only thing they can’t afford to pay for is the flight to Buenos Aires. Instead they ask the various embassies in Argentina to support the cultural exchange by providing $1,000-$2,000 to pay for an editor (or two) from their country to participate in this trip. Most agree willingly and see the benefits derived from such an experience. I know that Ori Preuss met with the Israel Ambassador to thank him for subsidizing his trip, and the two women from Germany were sponsored as well and had a long meeting with the Goethe Institut. And I’m almost positive all the other embassies supported their editors—France, Italy, China, etc.—that is, except for America.

I’d heard before that the American Embassy in Buenos Aires was never fully supportive of this program. That they’d paid a few hundred dollars here and there, but never the full amount, and never consistently. Which, in my opinion, is absolutely disgraceful.

It’s not about the money. To me, the experience I just had was worth every cent of the cost of a plane ticket, and I’m sure many other American editors and translators would agree. But, still, it’s absolutely ridiculous that the U.S. government can’t give the Argentines $1,000 in support of this trip. Absolutely ridiculous and embarrassing. Seriously, the U.S. pissed away many more thousands of dollars in the time it took me to write this sentence. But provide a minimal amount of money, a token amount really, more a symbol that yes, the U.S. does believe in cultural exchanges—that’s apparently impossible.

But it really is up to the government how they spend the people’s tax money. (And there are good cultural programs in place, such as the State Department’s support of the International Writing Program at Iowa.) And I wouldn’t really even be that upset if I hadn’t stumbled upon Embassy’s stand at the Buenos Aires Book Fair.

Seriously, it’s all about space exploration. Yes. Space. Exploration. At the Buenos Aires Book Fair. And no, I have no idea either what these two things have to do with one another.

Here’s the “explanation” from the U.S. Embassy’s website:

The United States Embassy will participate in the 34th Buenos Aires International Book Fair. During the 50th Anniversary of NASA (National Aeronautics and space Administration), the Embassy booth theme will focus on the important advances in science and technology developed by the United States. Books, videos and related items from space exploration will be shown at the booth. Visitors will have the opportunity to feel like an astronaut for a while and take a photo wearing a space suit.

Really? In a space suit? How, um, great. I can’t imagine that anyone goes to the book fair all manic about the possibility of learning about space travel . . . Of trying on a space suit! And if this isn’t disturbing enough, follow the thread of some of the other events the U.S. is sponsoring at the fair:

The Embassy has prepared a large number of activities during the Book Fair, including the celebration of the “United States Day” on April 29.

The Embassy is proud to announce the visit of the distinguished writer and journalist Tom Wolfe, who will give a lecture and sign books at the Fair. Mr. Wolfe will also meet with Argentine representatives from the cultural and media arena.

Fernando Caldeiro, American astronaut born in Argentina, will talk about his experience working at NASA and how to become an astronaut.

How to use Internet to start your writing carrier [sic] will be the theme of a roundtable by American authors.

Granted, some of the other events the U.S. is involved with (such as the panel featuring Argentine writers who had attended the Iowa International Writing Program) are pretty interesting, but from the above, it’s clear that exporting relics of American culture is much more important than facilitating a true cultural exchange.

I doubt anything will come of it, but I’m going to write to Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne (BNS-PublicOpinion@state.gov) to let him know how disappointed I am and to encourage him in supporting this editors week in future years. Really, it’s more for my own personal sense of closure, to express to someone in power that I think the U.S. should be supporting exchanges like these across disciplines and around the world, and that by essentially shunning Argentine cultural organizations, they’re acting as a poor representative of American culture—something that I’d like to distance myself from.

Just to make it clear, these are my opinions alone, and in no way reflect Fundacion TyPA, or anyone else. And I’m really just irked by this particular situation—the International Literature Exchanges and Translation Fellowship programs at the National Endowment for the Arts demonstrate that there are people/governments organizations concerned with supporting international literature and cultural exchanges. It’s just that when I arrived in the Atlanta airport to the shocktastic blatherings of CNN, I realized just how screwed up our priorities are.

For me, Kate Foster’s review in the San Francisco Chronicle of Lieve Joris’s The Rebels’ Hour perfectly illustrates some of the ridiculous hangups Americans have when it comes to nonfiction and the representation of “truth.”

The Rebels’ Hour is in an interesting postion—it’s a work of “literary reportage” that is “based on real characters, situations, and places, without ever coinciding with them completely.” The publisher—Grove/Atlantic—categorized this as history, and included the following note on the copyright page:

The Rebels’ Hour falls into a category—literary reportage—that has a long history worldwide, but does not have an established tradition in the United States. As Joris clarifies in her preface, “the facts in this book have all been researched in minute detail, but in order to paint a realistic picture of my characters I’ve had to fill in some parts of their lives from my own imagination. It was the only way to make the story both particular and general.” The end result, as one French review noted, is a book that is “even truer than truth” (Afrique-Asia). Having had to choose between fiction and nonfiction, we felt The Rebels’ Hour belonged on the shelf marked nonfiction.

All of this is why I didn’t include the book on our translation database. I even brought this up with Lauren Wein (the book’s super-cool editor) and she agreed that it shouldn’t be counted in the translation list, since it’s clearly not fiction.

Not so, according to the Chronicle. Instead, they label Foster’s piece a “fiction review” and she explains her own viewpoint right away:

This setup, which includes changing the protagonist’s name, will make some readers uncomfortable. After all, in a war-torn country with the largest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world, there is more than a story to tell; there is a record to set straight.

(To be honest, American readers need to be made uncomfortable. In fact, I would argue that making people uncomfortable is a mark of a great work of literature.)

Grove went out of their way to explain the book’s situation (written in a style that really is pervasive throughout the rest of the world) and Foster foregrounded that “questionable” position at the beginning of her piece—but did she then need to criticize the book based on its shortcomings as a novel?

Despite Joris’ vivid details – the putrid smells of sweaty young soldiers and death, generals constantly gabbing on cell phones, a protagonist partial to milk and Fanta – the story doesn’t read like a novel, and Assani never comes into clear focus.

And it’s not as lyrical as a book of poems either! I don’t know when this hang-up started—maybe with James Frey? (At Dalkey we encountered a bit of this in regards to Voices from Chernobyl, a collection of interviews with Chernobyl survivors that have been recast as (gasp!) monologues. Are the responses exactly the same as the actual people gave? How much did Alexievich pretty it all up? It’s worth noting that this won the NBCC Award for Nonfiction, so I think it’s clear that some people can understand and appreciate this type of “reportage.”)

Regardless, every month there’s a new scandal re: someone making shit up about their lives. Most of the time it’s an American writer elaborating on their past in order to profit and sell more books. And get on Oprah. And intentionally deceive the American public for personal gain. I completely agree—this isn’t cool and is more than shitty. But is that situation analogous to The Rebels’ Hour? Not by a long shot. But Americans, in their typical Puritanical way, are too uptight to understand that there are gray areas, that nonfiction is never objectively “true,” and that the memoirs everyone gets all bent out of shape about—when they find out they’re chocked full of lies—aren’t worth worrying about in the first place.

OK, I’m done for today . . . It’s just so discouraging that Americans seem to have a hard time enjoying/learning from other cultures because they can’t write books according to our prescriptive standards and rules . . .

The London Book Fair has always been one of my favorite conventions. London by itself is always fantastic—although way too expensive these days (thank you depressed American economy for making my dollars completely worthless)—and the fair is a more calm, friendly version of Frankfurt. (And, on a personal sidenote, the best thing I ever wrote—in my opinion—was a LBF report for the Words Without Borders blog a few years back. It helped that my fucking hotel room flooded, giving me lots of frustrating bureaucratic encounters to rank about . . .)

This year I’m skipping in favor of an Editors Week in Buenos Aires that starts on Saturday. (Two continents in two weeks was a bit too much for me.) What’s weird is the startling lack of coverage by American media outlets and bloggers about this year’s fair.

PW is doing their thing, but aside from that, the best coverage is overseas. (Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind has a good roundup of the little coverage that’s out there, and points to both Publishing News and The Bookseller for decent updates.) I know Bookslut is there covering the fair, but I can’t find any pieces by her yet.

Seems like the kind of thing GalleyCat used to cover until they co-opted Gawker’s tone, writers, and interest in book covers. (Still a very interesting blog—although I do take issue with the Unboring Book Blogs and the inclusion of the hardly bookish Fimoculous whose last post about books was from frickin’ April 7th! And here I thought I was being lazy!)

All this is to say that this situation kind of sucks. I know some of the LBF is insider baseball with the deals and digital announcements and whatnot, but there are events that would be interesting to the general public. In fact, come to think of it, I haven’t seen much about the Free the Word! festival either. I thought I could live vicariously and hear about the swanky parties I’m missing. The great book international books that are being shopped unsuccessfully or otherwise.

Hopefully I’m missing a treasure trove of LBF info . . . If so, please let me know where it is.

I hope I’m

We announced the first Titlepage.tv episode yesterday and then watched about 15 minutes before leaving it paused on a goofy Charles Bock grimace for the rest of the day.

That’s approximately 10 minutes, 33 seconds more than Jessa from Bookslut watched.

And Sarah Weinman has a list of ten ways to improve the show, including:

• TV-friendly clothing for the authors. Yes, this is airing as a taped show on the Internet but TV rules still apply. Richard Price and orange do not mix. Charles Bock wearing a rock t-shirt is fine; Charles Bock wearing a rock t-shirt underneath a True Value shirt, not so much.

• More fun. This is Titlepage’s biggest failing. Where was the humor? Richard Price is a funny guy but hardly any of his sense of humor came through. Charles Bock tried but he struggled to fit in. Choi and Harrison could have been more entertaining had they been given the chance. Menaker was so preoccupied with being serious that he missed opportunity after opportunity for memorable entertainment. Yes, it’s great to have authors talking about books but in order to rise way above the noise, that signal had better be really, really dynamic.

To my dying day I’m going to hold out hope that there could be a fun, engaging, intellectually stimulating, TV show about books. This may not be it, although here’s to hoping that Titlepage learns from its mistakes and blossoms over the next few episodes.

Here’s my prediction though: Lots of people will watch this and think—hell, it’s not that hard to put together an internet show that’s at least this good. A bunch of different programs will suddenly come into existence, a few of which are actually quite good. Around the time that we find out that one of these new ones is 10 times more popular than Titlepage there will be a big media backlash against these “amateur” programmers, dismissing internet programs as “not the real thing.” A divisive spat will ensue mimicing the whole bloggers vs. print thing, and readers will be back where they started with nothing worth watching.

The Winter List of the NBCC’s Good Reads program—where NBCC members recommend the best fiction, nonfiction, and poetry they’ve read recently—is now available online.

In addition to simply promoting this list, the NBCC is arranging 15 events in 15 cities to discuss this list and the recent NBCC nominations. These events really are taking place across the country, making it easier for non-New Yorkers to get involved.

Not a lot of translations on the list (by “not a lot” I mean one book), but it’s an interesting list:

Fiction

1. *Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson (Farrar Straus & Giroux)
2. *The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz (Riverhead)
3. Diary of a Bad Year, by J.M. Coetzee (Viking)
4. People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
5. Zeroville, by Steve Erickson (Europa)

Nonfiction

1. The Rest Is Noise, by Alex Ross (FSG)
2. *Brother, I’m Dying, by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)
3. In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press)
4. Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks (Knopf)
5. *The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein (Metropolitan)

Poetry

1. *Elegy, by Mary Jo Bang (Graywolf)
2. *Time and Materials, by Robert Hass (Ecco)
3. *Gulf Music, by Robert Pinsky (FSG)
4. *The Collected Poems, 1956–1998, by Zbigniew Herbert (Ecco)
5. Sharp Teeth, by Toby Barlow (Harper)

My one criticism of this is that it’s functioning more like an NBCC best-seller list rather than a recommendation of the best books to read now. The eight titles with asterisks all appeared on the fall list, so less than half of these titles are “new” recommendations.

I have great hopes for this project—because NBCC is involved and its constituency is top notch—but I’d rather see a list of fifteen new books each time. Aren’t these the people who should be the most knowledgeable about the latest releases? I may be on my own here, but that’s what I’d like to find out about. After winning the NBA, getting truckloads of review praise, being on the fall Good Reads list, and everything else, what I don’t need is another recommendation for Tree of Smoke. I get it—it’s a book a lot of people like. I’ve moved on. . . .

Here are two wonderful, oh so inspiring quotes about reading that are perfect for a Monday morning. The first is from Steve Jobs and actually came out a couple weeks ago. In reference to Amazon’s Kindle:

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

All Jobs has to say is something like, “I don’t think we’re going to make an iReader, but books are cool,” and the lemming-effect would set in and millions of i-hipsters would rush out to bookstores across the country . . . instead, it’s door-locking, fetal position time . . .

And then, in today’s Shelf Awareness there’s this depressing news and quote:

Sadly the Reading Room in Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas’s only general independent bookstore selling new books, is closing by the end of March. According to Las Vegas City Life, the casino owners are betting that a different kind of retail operation in the space will appeal more to the casino’s somewhat younger visitors. As City Life put it, “when that younger, hipper tourist hits a mall on the Strip, he’s more likely looking for designer jeans than the collected works of Jean Genet.”

What really bugs me about both of these quotes is the implicit belief that it’s perfectly OK to bash literature and reading. Tell someone that theatre is a dead art. Or that we should close down the symphony orchestra because it’s not hip. That art museums are only for old people. I’m sure people would be up in arms about any one of these statements. But when it comes to literature/reading, it seems like book culture just passively stands there taking the abuse. Well, of course no one reads Genet these days . . .

Screw it. No more Mac products for our office until Jobs recants this ridiculous remark. And screw Las Vegas. BEA should pull out and go somewhere literary in 2010. At least someplace with a frickin’ bookstore.

From Cracked

Do you love to read books but hate reading books? Amazon.com finally has the answer for you.

It’s called Kindle and it’s described as a “wireless portable reading device,” where the screen is so realistic and glare-free, it’s almost like reading a book. You can bring Kindle with you on long train rides, to class, the library, and anywhere else you can take an actual book. At $400, the Kindle is perfect for someone desperate to live out that book-reading adventure they could only fantasize about for years. [. . .]

You know what else feels like real paper and doesn’t require cables or monthly bills? Fucking books. [. . .]

Also, I know that when I go on long trips, I like to start reading a new book, get disgusted by its content and move onto another book immediately. I like to do this about 200 times, so I can see why the Kindle might come in handy. Further, it’s only 10.3 ounces which is great. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve just thrown out the window because, at 15 ounces, the bastard was just so damn heavy.

Evan at A Different Stripe points out a rather odd statement made by Daniel J. Kramer about the Espresso Book Machine on On the Media:

“Now, instead of spending years tracking down Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, you just print it out, go home with a copy of it in your back pocket and finally read it.”

Well, uh, there are two big problems with this. First of, “NYRB”: reprinted Anatomy of Melancholy a number of years ago, so “tracking it down” really consists of typing the words “Anatomy” and “Melancholy” into Amazon, or simply walking into any bookstore in the United States.

And as Evan says, “At 1424 pages, I don’t know that it would be all that easy to put this wonderful tome in your pocket!” Having seen an online video about the EBM, I think it would take about 4 hours to print and bind this book . . .

I’d be more interested in these ideas about the future of the book if they weren’t usually accompanied by silly, unrealistic statements, or if they didn’t involve a gadget with—as Ed Park put it —a “weirdly Fahrenheit 451–ish name.”

I frequently complain about how far behind the times the publishing field is when it comes to technology. I’m not talking about e-books or single-copy pod machines (although there is that), but simply about the fact that there’s a frickin’ TV station for cats, yet when it comes to books there’s nothing.

Well, except for Book-TV, which The Guardian does a better job explaining that I can:

Mercifully restricted to weekend broadcasts, it is quite possibly the worst channel in the US – worse than the KKK phone-ins and home-made comedy shows on cable access, worse even than C-Span, the non-stop live feed of all the men and women in Congress striving so selflessly to improve the lot of the rich. It’s bad. Really bad.

Let us begin with the issue of production, which could not be more amateurish. Usually a programme on Book TV consists of a single camera pointed at an author talking and reading in a shop, which is then broadcast unedited, after which another single camera will be pointed at another author talking and reading in a shop, which will then be broadcast unedited, and so on and so on for about 48 hours. Book readings are of course dull and pointless affairs at the best of times, but there are a few authors who can chat entertainingly, perhaps even informatively, and tell amusing stories. Unfortunately none of them ever appear on Book TV.

As they say in Britain, Daniel Kalder is spot-fucking-on. And it’s not just the quality of Book-TV (which really is shit), the topics and readings pretty much suck as well:

The channel lays emphasis on heavy tomes about history and politics, usually American, and if an author with knowledge of a foreign country appears then he will probably be interpreting it in relation to US foreign policy. The viewer is therefore treated to readings by smug academics flogging their most recent eruption of careerist logorrhea, books on the likes of Thomas Jefferson that will be read by no-one save their own unfortunate captive audience of undergraduates.

So please, before we scare the children off books forever, this really should be taken off the air, or revitalized into a station actually worth watching. How hard would it be to get some lively hosts—like Jon Stewart for example—who can discuss literature (including fiction) in a way that’s not mind-numbing and depressing.

And please, someone should buy C-SPAN a video editing program. The quality of Kige Ramsey’s YouTube sports videos make Book-TV look like a high school project.

I’m only half-kidding when I say that I think there would be great support for a slick station devoted to books with interviews, reality shows about publishing, half-hour shows devoted to particular genres, engaging events and readings, book trailers, and once again, coverage of fiction.

As a publisher, I would love for such an outlet to exist. In this age of declining book reviews, when we know that radio and TV are more powerful outlets, we should take advantage of the interest Americans have in channel surfing and create something that does a good job representing our interests instead of constantly lamenting the fact that not enough people read.

James Frey’s million dollar advance.

Taking into account all personnel, marketing, production, translation expenses, it costs about $35,000 for a publisher to do a work of literature in translation.

Using this figure as the base, just the advance for Frey’s new, and I’m sure, uber-craptastic, novel is worth 28 translations.

(Great that Gawker catches him in another lie re: writing short stories.)

Yesterday, Joe Wikert wrote an interesting post about publisher brands in response to a “post by Lissa Warren” on the Huffington Post.

Quick, name you favorite book. Now, quick, name who published it.

Gotcha, didn’t I?

It’s a bit cute, but Warren’s point is obvious—non-industry people don’t pay attention to who publishes what.

True, when browsing we may be mildly impressed by a title that has Knopf on the spine, or Norton, or Houghton, or Farrar, Straus and Giroux. We may select a Harvard University Press book over a similar one published by the University of God-Knows-Where. We may even smile and nod in recognition when we see that a collection of poetry has been put out by Copper Canyon or Graywolf Press. But I’d argue that recommendations by family and friends, and fabulous covers, and favorable reviews, and favorite authors are much more likely to catch our attention than a dolphin logo or a Borzoi silhouette.

And Joe Wikert backs her up:

Do you ever think about particular publishers when you’re looking for a book? If you’re like the vast majority of the book buying public this rarely if ever crosses your mind. You don’t care who the publisher is. You might be interested in the author or maybe the series but publisher names are a lot like record labels; they aren’t the primary (or even secondary!) brand on the product.

All this makes sense, especially when we’re talking about best-sellers or mainstream titles. Who really gives a shit whether Simon & Schuster or Penguin published French Women Don’t Get Fat? (It was Knopf.)

But I think the situation is different when you look at literary fiction and independent presses. Presses like New York Review Books, Archipelago, New Directions, Dalkey Archive, Soft Skull, Melville House, etc., all publish a certain type of book, and because of this, they all have loyal followings.

Record labels might be an apt comparison. Places like EMI or Columbia are so big and diffuse that the good music is mixed in with everything else, and the overall “brand” doesn’t mean anything. On the other hand, Matador, Merge, Thirsty Ear, Aum Fidelity—these labels have a focus, and I know what to expect from them. And yes, similar to the publishers mentioned above, I seek them out online and in stores to see what they’re up to this week.

John Freeman—President of the National Book Critics Circle—has a post at his Guardian books blog about the recent report that 25% of Americans didn’t read a book last year.

America has always had one of the lowest literacy rates in the western world. The former book review editor of the LA Times, Steve Wasserman put it bluntly. “Reading has always been a minority taste in America,” he said, “and that’s OK.” But I think what we’re seeing now is something new which has to do with how a culture operates when all values become subservient to that of making money – when reading is not supported either from on top and from below.

I like Freeman’s take—and the aggressive way he points out the flaws in the overall system.

At the same time, the industries which support reading have been ground up and fed through the increasing corporatisation of American life. Book publishers and newspapers have been bought up by giant conglomerates. Publishers, once mildly profitable, have been forced to keep up with blockbuster driven media; newspapers, once wildly profitable, have been used as cash cows. And now that the media companies are done with these newspapers, those same owners are cutting back on all forms of news, including book pages.

This is something I completely agree with. To go a bit further, the rush for sales, for money, for readers, is, in my opinion, resulting in the production of a lot of craptastic books. Books I’m happy no one is reading. Great literature is out there, but you have to wade through mountains of shit to find it, and if people who don’t read a lot get caught up in the shit, I can’t imagine why they’d want to continue spending their time reading. TV is way more entertaining. . .

OK, I’ll get off my soapbox and let Freeman point out some of the good things going on:

In fairness, some attempts are being made to counteract these trends. The National Endowment of the Arts has started up a program called The Big Read, which turns entire cities into book clubs. Online sites and journals like The Complete Review and the new and improved Bookforum have started up to counteract the loss of book coverage in the media. On television, shows like the Colbert Report and the Daily Show dedicate half of their entire program to conversation with an author. And Dave Eggers has turned his McSweeney’s journal into an empire of generosity, starting up drop-in tutoring centers like 826 NYC and 826 Seattle. Visit one of these and it’s hard to doubt the lure of reading and writing.

Counteracting Stuart Walton’s Guardian blog in which he basically declared that drinkers make bad writers,, today we have A. N. Wilson’s proclamation that banning public smoking is pretty much the end of English literature.

What do the following have in common: Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, T S Eliot, W B Yeats, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Evelyn Waugh, Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis?

The answer is, of course, that if they were to come back to life in Gordon Brown’s Britain and wanted to go out to their club, or a restaurant or café, they would not be allowed to indulge in a habit which sustained them during the most creative phases of their lives.

Not afraid of taking a few steps beyond the bounds of rational thinking, Wilson pretty much declares that non-smokers putting pen to paper are destined for mediocrity:

I have been racking my brains to find a single non-smoker among the great English poets or novelists of the 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th centuries. Possibly, Keats had to lay off the pipe tobacco a bit after he developed tuberculosis.

Otherwise, from Swift and Pope to Cowper and Wordsworth, from Byron to Charles Lamb, they were all smokers.

Heroic Beryl Bainbridge keeps on smoking for England, but will there be any more writers in the years to come, following in her heroic steps?

According to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday, one in four adults didn’t read a single book last year. The typical person claims to have read four, and if you eliminate the group that read zero, the average number of books read was seven.

Of course, women and “older people” were the most avid readers, and “religious books and popular fiction were the top choices.”

As if all this isn’t disturbing enough, here’s a nice quote explaining the situation:

“I just get sleepy when I read,” said Richard Bustos of Dallas, a habit with which millions of Americans can doubtless identify. Bustos, a 34-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company, said he had not read any books in the last year and would rather spend time in his backyard pool.

Nice. Probably an atheist as well.

Who are the 27 percent of people the AP-Ipsos poll found hadn’t read a single book this year? Nearly a third of men and a quarter of women fit that category. They tend to be older, less educated, lower income, minorities, from rural areas and less religious. (All quote via ABC News.)

The NEA’s Reading at Risk study (Executive Summary and full report available online in pdf format) is more comprehensive and just as fascinating. And also makes me want to go back to my corner with my tears and Speed Dating.

I remember seeing the larger-than-life posters at BEA a couple of years ago, but I naively believed that this was a fever-dream that would never become reality . . . unfortunately, the Harlequin-NASCAR partnership has been even more successful than anyone predicted.

Although this is a serious blow to my belief in humanity, I should’ve seen it coming. I mean, who doesn’t want to read Speed Dating, the cover of which prominently features a NASCAR car, a scruffy, blond-haired dude with passionate eyes, and the exellent slogan, “Feel the RUSH on and off the track.”

And after you’re done with that, who wouldn’t move on to read Full Throttle, No Time to Lose, and Speed Bumps?

Jesus, I’m going to go vomit now and ball myself up in the corner of my office. . . .

More on the LongPen via GalleyCat:

After limited success with Margaret Atwood’s device at the Edinburgh Book Festival – enabling Norman Mailer and Alice Munro to make “appearances” – the book-tour substitute device will make its debut into a record store and several bookstores in Canada, the United States and England for a trial run that could bring fans and their idols closer together. The London Free Press reports that kiosks will be set up at the World’s Biggest Bookstore and HMV’s flagship record store in Toronto, Barnes & Noble in New York and Waterstone’s in London beginning after Labour Day, and could expand elsewhere if successful.

And at only $2,000 per “appearance,” I’m sure publishers will be all over this to promote their up-and-coming authors.

So after commenting on the ridiculous LongPen a couple of times in the past week, I sat down to read the September issue of Harper’s last night and found this item in the “Readings” section from the LongPen website:

Where did the idea come from?

As I was whizzing around the U.S. on yet another book tour, getting up at four int he morning to catch planes, doing two cities a day, eating the Pringle food object out of the minibar at night as I crawled around on the hotel-room floor, too tired even to phone room service, I thought, “There must be a better way of doing this.” With LongPen, the author could make “appearances” in different countries all in one day. The in-store book signing would be enhanced. You could have an event with three different authors: a big one, a medium one, and a local one, in the same store on the same afternoon, one after the other.

Pringle food objects! Man, The price of celebrity is rough. I’m glad there’s an impersonal, mechanical object capable of making life easier for certain authors and totally commodifying the author event experience.

Following on my unabashed DailyLit love, this announcement from HarperCollins sounds so 2006:

HarperCollins Publishers is pleased to launch Browse Inside for the Apple iPhone. Browse Inside digitally replicates the experience of browsing the pages of a book prior to purchasing.

Granted, I’m not a fan of the iPhone (I’ve already got my spam filter ready for your hate mail, so bring it), but regardless, this sounds pretty lame. They’re providing 10-page excerpts? Wow. I never would’ve thought that publishers could use the Internets to provide excerpts of books to readers. So revolutionary!

Doesn’t help that the list of available books is filled with suck, including Winning by Jack Welch & Suzy Welch and When the Game is Over It All Goes Back in the Box
by John Ortberg.

Disagree if you will, but to me this is yet another example of a company trying to take advantage of a flashy new toy but simply doing the same old thing in a way that doesn’t really add anything to the reader/customer’s experience.

Despite Bookninja’s report that over 700 people lined up to get books signed by the LongPen at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, I still refuse to believe this thing is going to catch on.

For those unfamiliar few, the LongPen is a huge machine that allows readers in one place to “communicate” with an author through video-conference technology, and more importantly, get their book “signed” by a big-ass pen.

Or, as the LongPen people put it:

The LongPen™ is a pen, like any other pen, except it operates over the Internet using electricity and fiber optics. But from your perspective, it still works via your brain, eyes, arm, and hand, like any other pen. It’s just that the nib and ink are at a different location from you.

For the autograph session itself, you [the author] sit in a chair with an electronic writing tablet on the table in front. This tablet shows what you are signing at the event location. There is also a vertical screen at face level that shows the fan at the other end. That person sees you too. You have direct eye contact and can talk together.

According to fans, this is a more intimate experience than a traditional signing, as you are looking directly into the face of the fan, as opposed to briefly looking up from your chair when signing in person. The video conferencing also makes it easier for the fan to be expressive about your work, as the technological distance makes them less nervous.

More intimate? Really? I really love intimate encounters mediated by technology . . .

The book, or CD, or other object that you will autograph is placed under the pen at the other end. It is captured on camera, so you see it on the electronic tablet in front of you. You pick up the magnetic pen and sign it. You treat the tablet just like a piece of paper – you can rest your hand on it. Then you push “Send” and the pen inscribes the object, in real ink, at the other end. It writes everything exactly as you have written it at your end.

What’s most inane is that the LongPen is now marketing itself as “green,” and includes a graph of metric tonnes of carbon emissions saved by “pioneering” authors participating in the project. I can’t even type a snarky comment about how lame this is.

I have a million bones to pick with this—especially with the overly aggressive LongPen sales folks who pester people at BEA—but all I want to do for now is revise my statement that I “refuse to believe this will catch on,” to “I sincerely hope this idea dies a quick death.”