Bowker's "2008 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics and Buying Behaviors Annual Report"

Bowker (the company that distributes and assign ISBN numbers to books) and Publisher's Weekly (the biggest publishing industry magazine) have released a new report about consumer book purchases and reading habits. For a mere $1000, you can buy and read the whole report. For the rest of us there is the press release.

The press release notes that eBooks and digital publishing are the bright notes in an otherwise dim industry outlook. The also offer the following info:

• 57% of book buyers are women yet women purchase 65% of the books sold in the U.S.
• Mystery books are the most popular genre for book club sales, with 17% of all purchases of mystery books coming directly from book clubs
• Generation X consumers buy more books online than any other demographic group, with 30% of them buying their books through the Internet
• 21% of book buyers said they became aware of a book through some sort of online promotion or ad
• Women made the majority of the purchases in the paperback, hardcover and audio-book segments
• Men accounted for 55% of e-book purchases

del.icio.us Tags: books,ebooks,e-books,publishing. bowker

eBooks, Digital Publications and Publishers

If you wonder why bookstores keep going out of business and why publishers are losing money, here is a clue:

I don't think I've ever heard a reader say: "I want more fancy digital stuff in my eBooks! I want videos and audio and animations!" . . . The publishing business ought to concentrate first on their core value: getting books people love to readers who love them. --- Anonymous "Publishing Professional"

First let me give the guy (I assume it is a guy) credit for the statement that he hasn't heard a reader say they want more "digital stuff" in their books.  This is a depressingly accurate statement.  Readers, the dying breed that still exist probably don't say that.

 

The problem is that there are several generations (GenX,Gen Y, the Millennials and whatever comes next) that have been raised to EXPECT digital stuff (videos and audio and animations and links) as a part of any media they consume.  What would FaceBook, MySpace or even Twitter be without digital stuff?

Sure, they read.  Text will always be with us.  But it is mostly a big stretch to call them readers.  They are in fact consumers and creators of digital stuff. 

They are not patronizing Borders or Barnes and Nobles.  They are increasing relying on information they download from the Internet.  Much of it free.  Who needs bookstores?

When it comes to publishing the problem is slightly different.  The Internet has enabled almost anyone with something to show, say or sing to publish their work.  This is incredibly artistically liberating.  It is, however, rarely lucrative.  Most of the owners of the intellectual property do not make any money at all. 

As people come to expect more interactive publications there is an unfortunate downside.  Many works of genius may never be commercially viable because the author lacks the skills or the ability to assemble a team. 

This is where Publishers become incredibly important.  Their role in this new world is to find those geniuses, help assemble teams and promote the finished publications.  If  the current batch of publishers want to remain in business they will have to substantially change their outlook and attitude.  I'm rooting for them!

del.icio.us Tags: books,ebooks,e-books,publishing industry,digital media,digital reading

Headliner Books -- Nearly Instant Publishing From Headline to Book

After complaining about the need for editing on House of Cards, I find that maybe I am being a little too picky.  Evidently rushing a book to market is a new trend.  Of course it is a trend that serves no purpose if it means that the book reach the market as a poorly organized, poorly edited collections of words and paragraphs. 

The New York Times this morning, has a fascinating article by Motoko Rich entitled You've Read the Headlines.  Now, Quick, Read the Book. 

Rich reports that publishing is starting to pick up it's pace:

But as the metabolism of the culture has sped up in the digital age, pockets of the publishing industry are prodding themselves out of their Paleolithic ways and joining the rush, with more books on current events coming out faster than ever before.

She sites George Soros'  latest book The New Paradigm for Financial Markets which was published as an eBook a mere ten days after it went to the publisher.

Not to be out done, Robert T. Kiyosaki, the best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad has taken to posting each chapter on the web as he finishes it.  The entire book, Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money is due out in paperback form in September.

Several years ago Steven King was one of the authors who pioneered the idea of posting book chapters online.  Several years later we began to see books complied from blog posts like Chris Anderson's The Long Tail.  This year we are seeing  books that are nothing more than complied Twitter Posts (Tweets).

All of this activity still comes back to the central question; what exactly is a book?  eBooks have obliterated the idea that is something contained between two covers. 

Yet, Publishers still seem to think that a book is just a collection of words bunched together in sentences and paragraphs with an occasional picture thrown in.  They see their job in terms of acting as a gateway to the marketplace.

They fail to recognize that they are more than basic content providers.  The Internet is slowly doing away with gatekeepers.  Unless Publishers find ways to add value to raw information by presenting it in a organized and useful fashion they will go the way of all dinosaurs.

del.icio.us Tags: publishing industry,ebook,e-books

The Book as a Form of Presentation Art

I have received a batch of emails related to the paper book as an artifact of past glory in paper publishing over the holiday weekend. One of the rather more prominent members of the group contributing to the thread involved called books in paper form a fetish. I was, in fact, quite amused by much of the content of that thread. The future is seldom what we expect it to be.

Paper publishing is obviously being altered and even threatened by digital publishing. Of course every form of information will be altered or replaced by newer, more complex digital forms over time. The key qualifier here is, “Over time,”; and the key question in the thread is how long will this replacement process take in the case of the written word presented in book form?

The continued use of paper is clearly more expensive in many cases than the simple act of moving a digital file from one place to another. It is also clear that many more forms of digital information can be included in publications that enjoy the flexibility of digital publishing over paper. Still and all old habits die hard. I still have several newspapers delivered to my driveway even as I use the Internet to read several more each day.

How fast will all of the replacement of paper take place and how soon will I be forced to do without my many pages of birdcage liners that grace my weekly recycling contribution? I am reading about the future as I have done most of my adult life. In the future virtual reality will eventually take over the process of transferring complete information about any life experience.

Technology in terms of the presentation of information is clearly expanding our options. I wonder if any of the people contributing to that thread really understand exponential growth in technology and what it means to all of us. The capacity of single computers will exceed the capacity of the human brain somewhere in the next two decades if Ray Kurzweil is to be believed.

From that point to the point in time where exponential growth in data transfer technology and computing capacity lead to human minds with millions of times the capacity for data transfer and data manipulation of the current human mind is short indeed. I suspect that most of the people contributing to that thread can no more comprehend a world where living thousands of virtual lives in one short period of time will be a common experience than can I.

The time devoted to reading one book might instead be devoted to experiencing the lives of all of the characters in a lifeline presentation series in that world. Of course this idea presupposes that someone could be bothered to produce such a presentation in a world where the computers are the majority of the conscious minds around.

Exponential growth in computing power and data transfer capabilities dictates that such a world will be upon us before the next generation grapples with its somewhat diminished mortality. If, as Ray suspects, we are mere decades from downloading human consciousness into those immensely expanded computers mortality itself will be drastically altered if not eliminated.

So I find myself amused by the parochial nature of the discussion in that thread. It is not only the art of the book or the written word that is under duress here. It is more appropriate to consider what will happen to the art of experiencing life itself and how that will be transferred in such a world as will exist before this century is half over.

We do live in interesting times don’t we?

del.icio.us Tags: ebooks,books,publishing,digital reading,book technology,Kurzweil

Books, eBooks and the Reading Public

Ever wonder who buys books and why? 

Well, if you have, there is a nifty service out there that tracks that kind of info.  The service, PubTrack, does online surveys of the book buying public.  And the results for 2007 were reported last week by Publishers Weekly.

Much to Henri's amusement, I am a person who is fascinated with statistics like these.  And yes, I know about "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics."  I guess it is the accountant buried in my soul that loves to quantify things.

I love the fact that fourteen billion dollars was spent on books!  It is interesting that only 3.2 billion (23%) was spent online. And I (for one) am less than thrilled to find out that only 3% of book purchases were non print (eBook and Audio Book) versions. 

PubTrack breaks the reading public into five groups:  Teens (13-17), Gen Y (18-28), Gen X (29-40), Boomers (41-59) and Matures (60 and up).  The statistics are then broken up to reflect buying habits and attitudes.  Each group has some noteworthy feature:

• Only 9% of Teens actually buy books and when they do they primarily read fiction.
• Gen Y consumers buy only 14% of the books sold but they buy about 1/3 of all those books online and are the biggest group (4%) of non print book buyers.
• Gen X is interesting in the fact that there is nothing unusual or particularly interesting about them and that they closely mimic the statistics of the matures.
• Boomers are the largest segment of the population (33%) and spend the most money on books. 
• Matures read the most fiction of any group -- 56% and purchase very little online. 

Mildly interesting stuff. But as I looked over the stats I begin to wonder about trends, since these age groups are a moving target.  So just for fun I took a look at what happened when you combined the stats for Teens and Gen Y or what happens when you combine Boomers and Matures.  Probably only interesting to me. . .

Except that the trends when you combine Teens and Gen Y are probably a  peak into the future.  Like everyone in publishing, I have a great curiosity about what is going to happen.

When you reduce all the statistics to some simple percentages the picture becomes pretty clear. 

	Teens +GenY	GenX	Boomers	Mature
Population	25%	21%	33%	21%
# of books buyers	29%	24%	23%	24%
# of books purchased	18%	22%	32%	28%
$$ spent	24%	24%	30%	22%
% purchased online	49%	26%	22%	14%
% non-print	6%	3%	3%	2%

 

I'll save your eyes and point out the really clear points about the combination of Teens and Gen Y:

• They purchase only 18% of books
• 49% of those books are purchased online
• 6% of books bought are non-print version

Obviously, the future of printed books and they way they are bought is changing and will continue to change as the matures die out and are replaced with teens.  This is a pretty grim picture if you are a traditional publisher or one of the big three book retailers.  But if you are Jeff Bezos or an Amazon shareholder you probably feel pretty good about yourself.

 

Just one more piece in the growing evidence that publishers are going to have to change or perish.

del.icio.us Tags: books,ebooks,digial reading,publishing industry,the future

The Roiling Role of Publishers

 Here is Henri's take on James Glieck's New York Times Article How to Publish without Perishing.  Enjoy! 

I’m confident that James Glieck is sufficiently abused by now that he won’t mind serving as an object lesson. If you haven’t heard he consigned the world publishing industry to the Limbo of artisans in a marketplace where books in print are only bought because of their beauty. By doing so he entered the publisher free zone, called the blogosphere by some, without a helmet.

Of course his article was published in the NY Times so he at least had the services of an editor, thousands of coworkers and, oh yes, a publisher to get his article out to the public. The real discussion on the Internet related to this was whether to bury him in purple prose or a nice puce necktie made of paper.

A lot of amusing stuff got said at his expense but none of it will really matter. We are going to be so far beyond the printed word before long that a generation from now children will be asking, “What is a keyboard, daddy?” Being a good dad he will have to rummage around in his virtual garage to find one to show them.

The invention of writing was a real hallmark in the development of human society. It allowed ideas to stick around long enough to be dissed by the next generation as, “Old hat,” remember that phrase? Of course the next few generations are going to be developing total immersion virtual reality and that will probably put paid to the written word once and for all.

The extension of the human memory made possible by writing is now meeting the challenge of the extension of the human environment made possible by the computer. I’ve been reading a lot lately about how much impact computers will have on the human mind itself within a couple of decades.

It seems likely that within the next two generations computers will be directly connected to the human brain. In that world there will be no need for sitting at a keyboard, you will be able to write and edit text faster than the speed of thought. Computer time is significantly faster than the human finger or even the human mind.

As computers get more and more powerful eventually they will exceed the capacity of any single human mind. Some of the prophets out there are clearly of the faith that computers will pass up humans in thinking capacity by 2030 and never look back.

As for me,I will be so old that a virtual life may be the best option unless the optimistic among us are right and we will be able to rebuild our bodies by then. Of course I really doubt that I would ever voluntarily undergo the blessings of the kind of hormonal vitality that goes with excessive youth again for any reason.

I’ll probably wind up living my virtual life sitting in my perfectly comfortable virtual chair in front of my virtual fireplace petting my virtual cat and reading my copy of the one millionth virtual tome in my favorite series by the greatest virtual author of all time, myself. No publisher needed, thank you very much.

Is the Digital Era creating New Life for P-Books?

After a very long weekend of too much food, too many relatives and too little sleep, I woke up yesterday, poured a cup of coffee and started reading the New York Times.  The first article to catch my attention was How to Publish Without Perishing.

In this piece James Gleick opines that there is a bright future for printed, bound books:

I think, on the contrary, we’ve reached a shining moment for this ancient technology. Publishers may or may not figure out how to make money again (it was never a good way to get rich), but their product has a chance for new life: as a physical object, and as an idea, and as a set of literary forms. . . .

Go back to an old-fashioned idea: that a book, printed in ink on durable paper, acid-free for longevity, is a thing of beauty. Make it as well as you can. People want to cherish it.

Really?!

While I find this an interesting view, I wonder if Mr. Gleick has been out and about in the real world lately.  Has he been to his local bookstore?  Does he have any contact at all with "the younger generation"?

Later in the day I found myself inside the local Barnes and Noble.  In our town, they have the best selection of CDs and it is Christmas time. 

The store was moderately busy.  A few people in the coffee shop, a few people sitting in the oversize chairs (mostly they looked like they were waiting for someone), a bustling staff and a handful of customers. 

I took a seat and did some intense people watching over the next half hour.  Anything was better than facing the chaos in my house!

I found the demographics very telling.  I saw children (approximately 5-13) accompanied by parents; I saw middle aged women, and I saw old men and women.  Aside from the staff, I did not see one person between the age of about 13 and 30.  None!

I was willing to chalk it up to a very unscientific survey and leave it at that.  I decided I better quite procrastinating.  So I started gathering my stuff and getting ready to go clean up my house.  And then I saw her.  A real life teenage girl.  She just appeared before my eyes. I was so intrigued by the sight I just stared.

She looked around for a moment, and then she threw herself into a chair with a big sigh.  She routed around in her jean's pocket and pulled out a cell phone.  Within seconds she was texting away.  Totally ignoring all the beautifully bound books along with everyone in the store.

I for one, am unwilling to bet that she will someday wake up and find a book a thing of beauty; something to cherish.  I doubt that she will see a book as an idea or a set of literary forms.

She may see it as furniture (a great way to warm up a room and give it a little class).  Kind of like the antique rolltop desk I inherited from my grandmother.  Beautiful but with very limited usability.   

del.icio.us Tags: ebook,e-books,digital reading,publsihing,books,p-books

Of Google, Random House and eBook Royalties in the Digital Age

OK, I have to admit it, last week was an amazing week (and not just because of Barak Obama).  I'm talking the book world here, not politics. 

First Google announced that it had finally settled it's lawsuit with the Authors Guild, AAP (American Association of Publishers) et al.  The simple version is that Google won the right to put a lot of copyrighted material online without first seeking rights from each individual owner. In other words, ordinary people will have an unprecedented ability to search (for free) and access (for a fee) books that formerly lived only in university libraries

Under the agreement, unless authors specifically opt out, books that are out-of-print but still copyrighted will be available for "preview" (a few pages) for free.  And to obtain full access there is a a fee. For access to in-print books, "rightsholders"  must opt in, but the basic structure remain:  preview free and access for a fee.

Where it really gets interesting is when you look at the fee structure.  It is fairly long and involved, but basically, Google pays approximately 60% royalties on any money received.  Even better, authors can be paid directly.

Right on the heels of this news, Random House, not to be outdone, also introduced a new royalty structure.  They, too, are going to pay e-book royalties based on the actual net moneys received by the publisher.  Not on as a percentage of list prices as they have always done.  AND they are going to pay the author a whopping 25% royalty from these monies.

Here, quoted directly, is the Random House logic:

1. The new rates are very much in line with the e-book and digital audio rates being offered today by our major competitors.
2. The way the market is developing, the publisher's list price will soon no longer be a relevant basis for calculating royalties in the digital environment.
3. The electronic formats are not as inexpensive to produce and publish as many believe [...] We have made substantial investments, and we will continue to invest, in related digital infrastructure, such as the creation and maintenance of a digital archive, and in the development of the market for electronic formats.
4. The new ebook rate continues to compare favorably to the rates we pay for other formats in which books are made available.

Well, they are right about one thing -- the market is changing. 

The problem for Random House is that they (and their major competitors) don't really understand what the change is or how it is going to affect them. 

Somehow, the fact that Google has defacto set the standard for royalties in the digital age went right over their head! 

Even worse, is the fact that as Google is opening the market and actually compensating authors they are fighting to maintain the their perceived status and the status quo. 

Wanna take a bet on which approach will win?

del.icio.us Tags: ebook,e-book,royalties,google,random house

eBook Stats - Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

I don't know about you, but these days I am looking for any good news I can find!  Last week I found some:  the IDPF (International Digital Publishing Foundation) says that eBook sales for August of this year are up 83% over August of last year.  And year to date, sales have grown 53%.

I am so impressed that I have actually printed the latest IDPF graph and posted it on my bulletin board:

The idea that anything is growing in this economy is novel enough.  But the idea of publishing as a growth industry makes me laugh out loud.  This is my own personal version of change I want to believe in.

Remember, the IDPF numbers are very conservative and quite limited in scope.  Their website notes these caveats:

• The data represent United States revenues only
• The data represent only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels
•   Retail numbers may be as much as double due to industry wholesale discounts.
• The data represent only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers
• The data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales
• The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers
• The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is "All books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-held reading devices"

Presumably the Amazon Kindle numbers are buried in these statistics.  Add to that the factiods that the biggest retail distributor of books, other than Amazon is Ingram Digital (ID). Last month ID reported that they "enjoyed record third quarter growth with downloads more than double the same quarter last year".

Maybe a statistician could figure out the impact of Kindle on these numbers.  I can't.  All I know is that after years of believing that eBooks would eventually catch on; it looks like it is finally happening.  And that, folks, is economic news that makes me happy!

del.icio.us Tags: ebook,e-books,ebook statistics,publishing industry

Going Green - Publishing, Books Sales and eBooks

Here is the strangest business model I have ever heard of.  It goes like this: 

A company creates billions of units of a product. 

They send them to retailers all over the world. 

The manufacturer then spends millions of dollars in marketing the product. 

If the retailers don't sell the product they can send the item back -- no questions asked.

The Manufacturer, as a way of compensating for returns, raises the price of the item which, of course, makes it less attractive to consumers.

Kinda surreal, huh? 

Welcome to the world of publishing where this is exactly how things are done. 

Most publisher have two warehouses:  the "happy" warehouse filled books to be distributed to stores and the"sad" warehouse which contains returned books.

The best case for returned books is that they will be resold at cut-rate prices. The worst case is that they will have their spines sliced off and then be dumped into a "recycling" machine to be chewed up and spit out as bales of paper.

What makes this especially insane is that most publishers in an effort to create a blockbuster hits, ship an ever-increasing number of books to stores, hoping to hit the jackpot.  This means that stores are sending an ever-increasing number back to publishers.

The most current verifiable statistics are for 2005 and they show that

• Unit books sales were 1.5 Billion
• 31% of all books were returned to the publisher

In other words 465,000,000 books were returned to publishers for sale as remainders or for destruction. 

That is a LOT of paper!!  And it is a whole of of $4.00 per gallon fuel to truck all those books around the country -- twice.  How in this day and age of shrinking resources (paper, water, fuel) and global warming this can possibly continue?

Short answer, it can't!

So you can imagine my amusement when I look at the New York Times Best Sellers.  This week there are two best sellers touting the wonders of going green: Gorgeously Green by Sophie Uliano with a forward by Julia Roberts and Growing Up Green by Diedre Imus.  They are, of course, in wide paper distribution.  At least 1/3 of them will be returned to the publisher.

I think I am going to sit down and write a letter to Sophia, Julia and Diedre explaining that if they are serious about going green they should be pushing their publishers to promote digital books.  After all eBooks are not only less expensive for the publisher they are truly earth friendly, green publishing. 

del.icio.us Tags: ebook,e-books,publishing,book returns,julia roberts,gorgeously green,imus

The Naked Violin

This is not technically a publishing item, but it is about the creative use of digital downloads. 

Tasmin Little is a gifted violinist.  She started her career, a child prodigy at 7.  As an adult she champion's not just her instrument, but "classical music" as a whole. 

This year she has a new project -- The Naked Violin. 

The Naked Violin is a series of recordings that feature the violin -- all by itself.  No orchestra, string quartet or other accompaniment.  Just the naked violin.

She is taking the project on the road next summer.  The tour and indeed, the entire project, was created with the express goal of making classical music available and accessible.  The concert tour has scheduled several unlikely venues -- a women's prison, an Oil Rig and some shopping malls.  She says that this project is about "removing barriers."

As part of the project, she is offering eight recordings along with spoken information as a FREE download on her site.  The entire CD which normally would sell for around $20 is there for anyone to download.  She wants you to download the CD and to take Tasmin's Three Step Challenge:

Step 1

Listen to my spoken introduction and download my CD.

Step 2

Take some time to listen and get to know these pieces. Then write to me and tell me what you like (or don’t like) about each piece.

Step 3

Go to a concert, buy a CD or write and tell me what barriers still remain to prevent you from wanting to do either! 

Email:tasmin at tasminlittle.info (You'll have to type this address as she wants to avoid SPAM as much as possible)

I took the challenge. 

Her spoken introductions are clear, interesting and very informative.  They really make the music come to life.  This is way better than any music appreciation class I was forced to take!

The recordings are awesome.  I have listened to all of the cuts a couple of time and most of the Bach ones five or six times.

I'm still thinking about Step 3.

 

del.icio.us Tags: tasmin little,naked violin,violin,downloads,music downloads

eBooks and Publishing News 2/21/08

First a correction!

I got email from Jenny Murphy at Guerilla PR. She wrote:

Thanks for writing about the “Plant a Tree” drive. I just wanted to take a moment to clarify the purpose of the $5 gift certificate to iChapters.com. Our intention was to give you an opportunity to try out the site for yourself, before representing it to your readers. I’m sorry if that was unclear.

So, looks like I misunderstood and I stand corrected; they weren't trying to bribe me after all and I shouldn't have crumbed on them. My apologies to iChapter and Guerilla PR.

Keep up the good work!

Fairfield Research Make eBook Predictions

Publishers Weekly is reporting on a research report that estimates that somewhere between 6.8 and 16 million adults will download a digital book in the next few (?) years. I consider this WONDERFUL news!

The report also finds that 17% of current book buyers say that would seriously consider purchasing a digital book. 55% of books buyers are planning to stick to paper, thank you very much; but there are 27% who are "ambivalent"; they just might be persuaded.

The finding that fascinates me the most, however, is their of the profile of the most likely buyers: employed males ages 25–34 with income over $100,000.

I emailed fairfield@navix.net for an executive summary and am anxiously awaiting it.

Heads Up -- It's almost here!

Read an eBook week is almost here. This particular week's celebration was created by Rita Toews. For some amazing facts about eBooks and pBooks visit her site -- www.domokos.com/readebookweek.html. Mark your calendar for March 9-15.

del.icio.us Tags: ebook,e-book,read and ebook week,fairfield research,iChapters

Literary Fiction or Genre Fiction

The review comparing and contrasting the The Senator's Wife and Mermaids in the Basement got me to thinking about how publishers (and readers) classify fiction.  For example, The Senator' Wife is considered by the publisher as literary while Mermaids in the Basement is genre (romance) fiction.

The publishing industry uses two broad categories: 

• Literary fiction: loosely described as award winning and critically acclaimed.  This is fiction that addresses serious issues and is more generally character centric than plot driven. And finally, these are works that use beautiful language that is rich in vocabulary and lyrical in description. 
• Genre fiction or "popular" fiction: SciFi, Romance, Horror, Mysteries etc.  This is narrative and plot driven writing which is often formulaic, uses simple language and is calculate to create an immediate emotional response.

Here is my rule of thumb:  Has the New York Times reviewed it? 

Yes, means it was either written by a mega-selling author or it is classified as a literary work.  No, almost certainly means it is a popular/genre title.

The thing that keeps coming up for me is that Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Mary Shelly and  Mark Twain were never considered "literary" in their time. I am not sure that Jonathan Swift, Alexander Dumas or Sir Thomas Mallory were either.

What these authors have in common is that they have have all written books that people are reading and enjoying decades later. 

The best definition of literary fiction I have heard is:

Literary fiction is fiction that endures; books that are read and enjoyed a hundred years later.

I would love to be around in 2100 to find out what books have endured and are considered "classics". 

What writers will be remembered and read? Will it be Nora Roberts, Steven King, John La Carre or (heaven forbid), Dan Brown?

Which of the award winning titles from the last few years will be read and enjoyed?  Will it be Gilead (Marilynne Robinson), The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen) or The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood)?  

Or will the whole idea of literary fiction and books be a quaint old fashioned curiosity?

Technorati Tags: ebooks,books,book reviews,genre fiction,scifi,romance,horror,literary fiction

Odd bits of publishing news this week

What about Oprah and her Book of the Month Pick? With Love in the Time of Cholera Oprah has picked (IMHO) a rather bad chick lit title. It is supposed to be literature when in fact it is a rather boring tale full of high drama and unrequited love.

OK, I confess -- I couldn’t make myself finish it. My analysis: a big bunch of romantic claptrap! And boring to boot. Really, any one of us could come up with at least a dozen more deserving books.

Author Jennifer Weiner, however, has the best has the best quote on the Oprah's pick:

An author who's won the Nobel Prize? Who's got a movie coming out next month? Who's already been an Oprah pick?. . . Seriously, what's the Girlfriend Of Us All going to choose next? The Bible?"

Speaking of Bibles Here is an interesting press release from the Green Press Initiative. They are announcing that Publisher Thomas Nelson will be shipping out a new Bible next week.

The hook? This is purportedly the first to be published entirely on on paper that has been recycled and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as coming from trees harvested according to environmentally sound practices.

Nice – but it makes me wonder if the Green Press Initiative has ever heard of eBooks.

The Most Creative Book Teaser Ever Author Kelly DiNardo has a new biography in the works: Gilded Lili, the story of striptease artist Lili St. Cyr. She invited her blog readers to create an ad for her. Here is the winning entry:

Publishing, the First Amendment and Excruciatingly Bad Taste

So here’s my guilty secret: I have been surreptitiously following the saga of O J Simpson and If I Did It.

First, Harper Collins (under the editorship of Judith Regan) was going to publish it. Then they weren’t. The Brown and Goldman families sued to stop it and ultimately it was used as an excuse to fire Judith Regan. Then the Goldman family decided to go ahead and publish it – over the Brown family’s objections. A bunch of booksellers declared they would not sell it. . . Now they are going to.

Please note, I am leaving out all the parts about pirated copies, the boycott movement, the law suit, the Arnelle Simpson factor, the Goldman family explanation of why they want to publish this book, the current Brown/Goldman feud.

Never mind that this whole thing is an exercise in excruciatingly bad taste; it is still great theater with much sound and fury.

My biggest source of entertainment has come from listening to the tortured logic of all parties involved: ‘You know, it is a confession’; ‘it will help battered women’; ‘it finally tells the truth’; it ________ (you fill in the blank since evidently, any excuse will do).

But seriously, if you ever wonder about the human capacity for hypocrisy -- this is a wonderful case study. The range of reactions is a great window into the American psyche and the point at which expressed values and money intersect. :

• Initially, there was a public outcry against this book even as it rose to the number one position on Amazon’s presales lists
• No one wanted it published, but thousands of people wanted to see the pirated copy on BitTorent (took their server down). If you are interested, you can still get a pirated copy (just for the record, I have restrained myself – so far)
• The Goldman family wanted this book stopped until they figured out how to make money from it. How disgusting is that!?
• The Brown family contents that this book will hurt the Simpson children. Like they don’t know what happened?
• Barnes and Nobles took the high road and decided not to sell the book.
• Then decided to sell it online but not in the store
• Now, Barnes and Nobles is pleased to join Amazon and Borders in selling this book online and in the store.

I am not exactly in a position to get on my moral high horse here. This very post shows that I have been as titillated as anyone.

My fill in the blank?

Well, it’s all about the first amendment and the right to free speech. (Pretty intellectual, huh?)