Veronica Lifts Off At Last! 23 January 2012
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Uncategorized.3 comments
Today is a special day.
Lifting Up Veronica by K.C. Ball began serialization this morning at 12:01 AM, and for me that marks both the end of a long road to get to this point and the beginning of a whole new adventure.
Things I have learned so far:
- Promotion is by far the hardest part of publishing, and it’s a fine and delicate line between sharing and shilling.
- It’s both exciting and stressful to be right on the cutting edge of publishing, doing something different. There’s no textbook for this. Most bloggers and reviewers don’t know quite what to make of it. Even dedicated readers who are comfortable with technology and flash fiction and reading online need to be convinced to give it a try. Every day there’s some little thing that I think maybe I should try differently next time, some area where I need to sharpen my skills, some new angle to look at. The learning curve is steep and I never quite know what’s coming, and I love that.
- The level of support and interest from my personal friends, online acquaintances, and EDF readership has been completely unbelievable. I have been particularly surprised to see who among my various circles has stepped up to support this project. Even beyond just buying a subscription, it has truly amazed me to learn just how many people believe in me and my publishing venture enough to reach out and spread the word among their circles. All I can say is, wow. Colour me stunned.
- Plenty of people out there think that a) small presses aren’t worth anything and if you’re not one of the big six you should just go home and cry and that’s never going to change, b) all publishers are parasites whose reign is coming to an end as self-publishing is teh awesomez and writers can get to all the readers by themselves, and/or c) book bloggers are the new gatekeepers and arbiters of what’s good and what’s not, so better start bowing and scraping now. It’s kind of depressing to learn how many book people think like that, really.
- There are some absolutely wonderful people in the writing and publishing world and it’s a privilege to know them. Especially K.C., who is not just an amazing writer but an all-around lovely person and super professional and a pleasure to work with.
- I’m now certain that I’m meant to be a publisher. I love this work. It’s like being an explorer discovering hidden treasure, and being the one to carry it out of the jungle and show it off to everyone — I didn’t create the treasure, and it isn’t my treasure to keep, but I get to be the one who holds it up and says, “Hey guys, look what I found! Isn’t it beautiful?!”
Playing Your Way to a Plot 6 January 2012
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Advice For Writers.Tags: games, inspiration, plot, Tiny Tower, writing
5 comments
Some of us play a few rounds of solitaire or sudoku before settling down to write. A ritual? A focusing technique? Procrastination? Whatever you call it, some of us need to do it and can’t get started writing without it. I’m much more of an editor and publisher than a writer these days, but when I do write, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, copywriting for hire or a project of my own, I simply can’t get started without a round or two of something calming (usually solitaire for me, but sudoku will do, or Minesweeper or Bingo Blitz — anything seems to work as long as it’s pattern-oriented and not too complex). I don’t think this need is uncommon, and most writers who admit to it don’t seem overly embarrassed about it. After all, it’s just a matter of routine, like needing your tea or coffee in a particular mug, adjusting your chair for comfort before settling down, or putting on your preferred “writing music”. Creative people are supposed to have quirks — something to admit to in an interview once you’re wildly successful, as your secret to the brilliance you put on the page: “Well, I always have my round of solitaire before getting started, but just one, you know?”
Many writers are also gamers who take their MMORPGs and quest-based games very seriously. Although I think the character and story elements of those games have a lot to do with why writer-gamers enjoy them, there’s also enough game-culture and respect out there that dedicated gamers don’t tend to be embarrassed or in denial about their enjoyment. One can have a rich engagement with a MMORPG character and world (my World of Warcraft paladin has plenty of backstory and personal life) but it doesn’t tend to do much in the way of idea-sparking and plot generation since serious games come already fully fleshed out with complex worlds and quests and so on. Unless your goal is to write media tie-ins, and there’s nothing at all wrong with that, you honestly do NOT want to have a warrior, a hunter, and a priest setting out from a Goldshire-like village to… well, you know.
Writers are much less likely to confess to playing (and enjoying) social and app-based games that don’t fit the “ritual” model or a big-name gaming franchise — we’re supposed to be much too busy and creative to be entertained by FarmVille and its ilk. However, I suspect that many more writers do enjoy these sorts of games than will admit to it… because they are essentially world-building games, and that’s what writers do.
When you build your village, your farm, your castle, or whatever else the build-it game of the moment has to offer, aren’t you — as a writer — actually imagining a whole lot more into it than is there in the game? Don’t you start to find it boring and quit as soon as the game stops introducing new plot-worthy elements?
Instead of cringing at the admission that you (sort of) find the latest sim-whatever fun, ask yourself what it has to offer you as a writer. (And if you’re a scoffer at these types of games, give one a chance and see what it can do for you.) Literally, play your way to a plot.
I got an iPad for Christmas, and subsequently discovered Tiny Tower by NimbleBit LLC, which I think may be the best-ever idea sparker available for writers. And it’s free, even. All you need is an iPad or iPhone (though from a creative point of view it’s more inspiring on the iPad as the graphics are bigger and you can see more detail), and apparently there’s a version for Android too. Best of all, it’s not a “social” game, so you don’t have to annoy your friends with it.
Basically, you build a tower, floor by floor — here, have a look at mine. You choose whether the floor is going to be residential, food, retail, recreation, service or creative, and then it generates the details for you (with the option to edit background colours and business names, but that’s it). My first food level came up as a coffee shop, my second came up as a sushi place. My first retail floor turned out to be a toy store, and my second was shoes. The residential floors work the same way, with widely varied and random decor; the selection I’ve seen so far includes ghastly 70s with macrame flowers, trendy safari decor, budget student place with cardboard boxes, pretty New England beadboard wainscoting, and more.
Then the characters, called “bitizens”, move into your residential floors and you put them to work in your shops and offices. Everything is pixellated just enough to leave your imagination room, but drawn clearly enough to spark ideas. The bitizens are generated randomly enough to please any writer, from a full complement of skin tones and hair colours, with an assortment of facial hair and eyewear details, and accessories from Alice bands to hard hats — and I’m not sure the random generator thing altogether differentiates male from female accessories, as I definitely saw one with a mustache and something that was either a hair bow or cat ears. There are also some costumed ones — I’ve seen a mime, a Star Trek red shirt, and the Phantom of the Opera — most of which just travel up and down the elevator, but I had a female in a pig costume move into one of my apartments. A pig costume. There’s a plot starter if I ever saw one… why would anyone be wandering around in a pig costume? Oddly enough, her dream was to work in women’s fashion.
Yes, the bitizens all have dream jobs, names, varying levels of employment skills/preferences, and they even come with birthdays. So you get your tower going, and you look around for a protagonist. Reginald, working at the coffee shop and dreaming of owning his own diner? Tracy, who’s found perfect happiness at the laundromat, even though she’s not very skilled (could she have a disability to account for her low scores)? Wilma the paintball enthusiast, working at a comedy club to pay the bills? Jesse who works at the bank and wishes he were a private eye? Tiny Tower has offered me all of these possibilities and more.
And then there are the plot cards. At least, I call them plot cards. A little blue square randomly pops up at the bottom of the screen asking you to find a particular resident because… his long-lost sister is looking for him! There’s a singing telegram just arrived for her! The president has been kidnapped and he’s the only one who can help! (The plot cards pop up fairly frequently, so you can either go with what you get or wait until you get one that piques your writing interest.)
Then earn some coins, build some more floors, watch more characters move in… and off you go, with friends and foes and love interests galore.
So next time you’re stuck for inspiration, try Tiny Tower (or any build-it game) instead of solitaire, and see where it takes you.
And Sometimes It All Seems To Go Right 22 November 2011
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Happiness.4 comments
Readership at Every Day Fiction is going up.
Our commenters are being awesome. Over the last few days, everyone has pretty much managed to be courteous and sensible, and our thoughtful and intelligent readers have gotten into some interesting discussions about story logistics and issues — which is, after all, the whole point of having comments: to discuss the story! Plus we’ve had awesome authors joining the comments threads to participate in the discussion of their stories, without taking anything too personally or getting bent out of shape, which makes the discussion that much better (in fact, today’s author called it “an engaging community of readers and commenters” on his blog, which makes me jumping-up-and-down happy). I particularly enjoy it when the conversation goes in unexpected directions. How does someone with a touch-related superpower eat? Is the time-travel thing really sci-fi, or is it a unique pick-up line in a romance? This is where all the hard work pays off. Awesome literary conversation, happy authors, happy me. Big bubble hearts to everyone.
The cover art for Lifting Up Veronica is at the photographer and should be ready on Wednesday. Given that the preliminary sketches were so amazing that I could have used one of them for the cover, I’m a little bit excited to see the finished image. Nico Photos is a truly brilliant artist and it’s an absolute honour to have him on board for this.
And we’re testing out Vanilla forums, first for the Every Day Novels forums, and then if all goes well, hopefully we will migrate the whole EDF family onto it. It’s beta only right now so I won’t post a link yet, but I’m absolutely in love. So intuitive and easy to use.
I’m reading a manuscript that will potentially be our second offering from Every Day Novels, and I can hardly put it down to get other work done. More bubble hearts.
Finally, I had a Facebook message from one of my happiness people today, someone I hadn’t heard from in a while. You know how some people just seem to bring joy with them? People who always leave you feeling better about everything rather than worse? I don’t mean people who are all sunshine and sugar and Pollyanna perkiness — they usually end up leaving everyone else feeling worse — but rather people who have the effect, after you’ve talked to them or spent time with them, of making you think all your dreams are possibilities and the world is actually a pretty decent place.
So today my dreams are possibilities and the world is a decent place to be.
And I hope a little bit of my glow rubs off on you too.
Getting Comfortable With Paying for the Right to Consume 18 November 2011
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Random Thoughts, Uncategorized.Tags: Books on the Radio, digital content, ownership, rights
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On Wednesday, a tweet from Books on the Radio and subsequently a Facebook discussion drew my attention to an article titled “RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases“.
Well, no, of course you don’t, and you probably don’t own your ebooks either. Didn’t everyone know that?
Any time the consumption of content is dependent for access on a proprietary system or service, ownership is impossible. If your music files are (legally) playable only on iTunes, or if your ebooks are (legally) readable only on an app or product from Amazon or Apple or wherever you bought them, you don’t have the free title implied by the word “own”. Your privilege to consume the media you’ve purchased can be withdrawn if the content seller ever decides to block or close your account, and the fine print gives them the right to do just that.
Buying digital media in any proprietary format is essentially the same as paying for access to any other digital content — playing a MMORPG such as World of Warcraft, watching movies through Netflix, etc. — the only difference is that, instead of paying a monthly access fee for the privilege of accessing the content, music and ebooks are often (though not always) accessed on a per-item payment basis. And based on what I’ve seen, no one seems overly troubled about not “owning” the contents of Netflix or WoW. No one expects to be able to keep on accessing the contents and benefits of those sites after cancelling their subscriptions.
This suggests that as a society of digital content consumers, we are getting comfortable with the concept of paying for the right to consume it without needing to own it.
Still, we seem to have a bit of a problem when it comes to ebooks and digital music.
Could it be that we still think of “books” and “music” as physical objects? After all, the idea of a book or a CD/cassette/LP as an “ownable” item is pretty much ingrained in us.
I remember my uncle giving me a paperback copy of Dragonflight for Christmas about a million years ago (I was probably about thirteen or fourteen, not sure now) — I still have it, a little bit dogeared and more than a little bit loved, and with it goes the memory of that Christmas and the thrill of discovering a new favourite author. I have an equally cherished old paperback Signet Classics edition of Romeo and Juliet that accompanied me on many kayak camping adventures with my father, as one of our rituals after making camp for the night was to read Shakespeare aloud. And I have an ancient audio cassette of Servant’s Caught in the Act of Loving Him, given to me by a boy named Caleb from my swimming class in the summer of 1984 — his parents were in the band — I’ve often wondered what happened to him. I could go on, listing dozens if not hundreds of other cherished books and tapes, and later CDs, that I’ve gathered over the years, each one tied to a special memory or associated with some place or time or holiday or event in my life. Many are signed by the author, or inscribed by the gift giver with date and occasion.
The point is, we form attachments to physical objects.
Readers have never owned the content of printed books either. Listeners have never owned the songs they’ve played. That’s what copyright is all about, and those little messages saying all rights reserved and no part of this publication may be reproduced, etc.
But we were accustomed to owning the physical representation of the creative material, and inherent in that ownership was a lack of limitation as to how we could treat it — not the content but the physical form in which it was purchased. No amount of legal wrangling can really prevent people from doing as they please with material objects that they own, whether that’s buying and selling, or lending and sharing, or giving as gifts and hoarding as treasures. The physical packaging of creative material hovers between two worlds, since it blends the right to access and consume the creative content (a permanent, indefinite license for as long as the item survives in a consumable form) with the ownership of a physical object (with all the marketplace value and sentimental attachment that implies).
Ebooks and digital music have no physical representation. There’s no object to be owned, and nothing to which you can form an attachment — one digital copy of a text or music file is generally indistinguishable from another, so it’s impossible to feel sentimental about a particular collection of bytes. There’s no rational difference between access to an ebook and access to a sweet apartment in Second Life; both are content that one entity can licence the use of from another entity, under whatever terms both parties can agree on. As long as that works for you, embrace the digital age. Just don’t assume that you “own” anything.
If the first part of the problem forms when we expect to have some form of ownership of ebooks and digital music, because we’re conditioned by the past to expect ownership of “books” and “music”, the second part of the problem forms when content vendors present the licence to consume as “ownership”. Netflix and WoW don’t pretend anywhere along the line that you own anything; it’s clear to everyone right from the top that the subscription involves access and consumption, not ownership. But sellers of ebooks and digital music know that on some level we expect to “own” our books and music, so words like “licence for personal use” and “access to content” (and the limitations around that licencing and access) are not placed front and centre but tucked away, nowhere near the “buy it now” button.
Going forward, I think that consumers of digital content are going to develop an increased understanding of what it is that we are buying — that our comfort level with paying for the right to access and consume digital media is bound to grow as it becomes more and more the norm. I also hope sellers of digital content are going to support that comfort level by being honest about what it is that they’re selling, rather than playing on our physical-object possession impulses.
For myself, when I want to own a book, I will buy it in hard copy — preferably as objectively lovely an edition as possible (I personally tend to favour foil-stamped clothbound hardcovers with beautiful dustjackets and nice quality creme pages), preferably from a bricks-and-mortar independent bookstore — and whenever possible I will have it signed by the author. I will ask people who give me print books as gifts to incribe them with the date and occasion, and I will remember and value the giver and the occasion whenever I re-read the book. I will embrace my object-possession impulses.
On the other hand, when I just want to read something, I’ll go and browse my favourite digital content stores and, if I see something I like at a reasonable price for access and consumption, I’ll go right ahead and pay to download it, without expecting “ownership”. I can live with an indefinite long-term rental.
“Needs Editing” Is So Easy To Say 13 November 2011
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Random Thoughts.3 comments
“The first paragraph needs editing.”
“This whole piece needs a further round of editing.”
“Isn’t anyone editing this stuff?”
“Could be improved with more editing.”
“Needs editing.”
Right. And even, fair enough. But helpful? No.
We see some variation on “needs editing” regularly in the reader comments at Every Day Fiction. It’s also a popular critique from new slush readers who don’t yet have much experience with the job. And what it really says is: “I didn’t think this was good enough/up to my standards, but I either can’t be bothered or don’t know how to pinpoint what I didn’t like about it.”
To be helpful and to avoid the appearance of laziness or lack of critical thinking, “needs editing” needs to be modified — “needs editing for verb tense issues” … “needs editing for overuse of modifiers” … “needs editing to achieve smoother sentence structure and flow” … “needs editing to correct awkward and unnatural dialogue” …
However, looking at any of those examples, can you tell me how “needs editing” adds anything except a pretentious scold to the problem being addressed? Even as an editor I try to avoid applying those words in critiques unless I am discussing a specific issue that can be addressed through a revision of the (unpublished) piece.
Furthermore, once a piece has been published, “needs editing” is pretty much a slightly offensive way of saying “this isn’t good enough for me” — it assumes that the author hasn’t already edited the piece to the best of his/her ability, and it implies that the publisher of the piece should have done better, either by editing it properly or by not selecting it in the first place. Of course, I’ve no doubt that there are some people who do assume and believe exactly that, and feel no compunction about saying so, but I also know that many readers fall back on “needs editing” as a quick and easy generic criticism without thinking too hard about it. I don’t like to think of well-intentioned readers getting lumped in with the self-righteous orifices like that, but it’s bound to happen — in commenting on writing, as in the writing itself, word choice does matter.
(As for me, no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to help applying mental tags like “lazy” and “clueless” and “rude” when I see those “needs editing” comments. Sorry, and all that.)
Having Your Cake and Eating It Too 11 October 2011
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Publishing Industry.3 comments
As I was doing a little bit of industry blog-hopping this morning, I came across an interesting post on the writing blog Nail Your Novel. Although there’s nothing overwhelmingly new in the post itself, the two points Roz Morris makes are good ones that can never bear too much repeating. While I’ve never agreed with the writing cops out there who think that every writing rule needs to be followed 100% of the time (you know the ones: “Aha! I spotted one instance of the passive voice and two said-bookisms in that story, context is irrelevant, shame on you!”), you’ve got to know the rules before you bend them. Ignoring basic cooking techniques altogether doesn’t create a gourmet masterpiece, does it? And while you’d think it would be common sense to revise any writing before sending it out, sadly that point needs almost more repeating than anything else.
But what really struck me was a theme that came up in the comments on the post.
The discussion turned, as it so often does, to self-publishing. Now, I have nothing against self-publishing — in fact, for the right kind of person, it can be the best choice (Robert Swartwood is a great example of a good fit for self-publishing; he’s confident, a strong self-promoter, willing to invest the necessary time and money for a quality finished product, and with a degree of notability from his work with hint fiction that makes him stand out). But self-publishing is a choice, and frankly, if you choose to go that route, you don’t get to moan about the downside of it, just as you don’t get to moan about not keeping all of the profits when you go with a traditional publisher.
On the subject of editorial and proofreading assistance, one commenter noted, “Many of us don’t have the money to hire someone to help us, so what should we do?” and suggested critique partners as a solution. Another commenter responded in agreement, adding that “many of us can’t afford big time editors”.
Ah, but if you want to keep all of the profits, you have to make all of the investment up front, and that includes any editorial services you might need, not to mention good quality original cover art, exterior and interior layout, proofreading, marketing expenses, review copies… all the things publishers take care of at no cost or risk to you, because it’s a publisher’s job to take on that risk and expense. It’s very nice if you can persuade people to do these things for free or at cost when you choose to self-publish, but it’s a bit rich coming from proponents of Yog’s Law — if money should flow toward the writer, why should the graphic designer, illustrator, editor, proofreader and promoter work for free?
Writing groups and critique partners are a great idea during the creative process. But be extremely wary of assuming that all good writers make good editors and proofreaders. Many fine writers do not have the objectivity to edit another writer’s style or separate themselves (and how they would tell the story) from what’s on the page, and then proofreading is a separate skill altogether.
Put it this way: we recently embarked on a semi-major home renovation project — we had a choice between a jack-of-all-trades handyman (who would do all the plumbing and electrical himself) and a professional contractor (with an experienced carpenter and labourer, and professional subcontractors brought in to wire and plumb and paint and tile). We chose the contractor, and everything has been on time, on budget, and left neat and tidy at the end of each work day, plus we have the confidence of knowing that the electrical and plumbing have been done properly and to code.
If you don’t want to (or can’t) put good money behind your writing to give it the best possible start in life, maybe self-publishing isn’t such a good fit for you. Maybe that’s what publishers are for. And now, I’m off to look at some portfolios and hire an illustrator for the cover of K.C. Ball’s novel. ‘Cause I’m a publisher.
Boycott? Seriously? 20 July 2011
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Publishing Industry.Tags: qarrtsiluni, simultaneous submissions
2 comments
I’m always interested in what other fiction magazines are doing. After all, I wouldn’t be operating and editing a fiction magazine if I didn’t value the concept in general. No one does this for the money… EDF is special to me because it’s (partly) mine, but naturally I’m interested in other magazines too — the work they’re publishing, their guidelines and policies, how they handle the various challenges.
So even when I’m drowning in my own submissions pile and have a hundred administrative tasks waiting for me, I try to make a little time each week to look around at magazines that are not part of the Every Day Publishing family. It’s my little way of staying connected with the wider literary world.
Different magazines have different ways of doing things. Some send impersonal form rejections (we don’t) — and I fully understand why, given some of the insane reactions some writers have when they’re actually given reasons why their stories were rejected. Some close submissions from time to time or only have designated windows where submissions are taken (we don’t) — and again, I completely understand why, since the mountains of slush pile up quickly and it would be nice to have a chance to catch up without more coming in. Some don’t pay their authors at all, and some pay professional rates (we do the best we can in the middle with a token payment and wish it could be more). Some charge reading fees from authors, or subscriber fees from readers (we don’t, but the money would be nice…).
The fact is, I know that the realities of editing and publishing are slightly different from magazine to magazine, depending on manpower, financial resources, publishing schedule, target readership, and so on, so I don’t assume that there’s only one best way to do things. It has to be what works for each magazine and its readers and authors and editors. And frankly, I trust and respect my team and my readers and my authors enough that I don’t feel I need to tell anyone how to make decisions. Nor do I need to attack the policies of other magazines. I look around at what others are doing; I learn from it if I can; I assume that what they’re doing is what works for them at the time.
I was saddened, therefore, to come across the following from the qarrtsiluni submission guidelines:
People sometimes ask us how we feel about simultaneous submissions. We feel that however you choose to submit your work is your own damn business, and we urge you to boycott any publications whose editors feel otherwise.
Boycott? Seriously?
Because… that’s talking about… me and my magazine-baby! No, I’m not arrogant enough to think that whoever wrote that bit of copy was specifically thinking about me personally and EDF, but I’m an editor who doesn’t take sim-subs.
The fact is, Every Day Fiction doesn’t accept simultaneous submissions for two very specific reasons:
- The first reason is that we ask authors to accept our standard contract on submission, and doing so grants us rights that may not be available if the piece is under consideration elsewhere. Obviously the rights revert unused if we do not accept the story for publication, but in the meantime we have a contract problem if someone else accepts the piece and another contract is entered into while ours is still valid.
- The second reason (related because it’s the reason we do the contract on submission) is that we sometimes have a very fast turnaround between acceptance and scheduling for publication (it can be less than 24 hours if we’re looking for something specific) which doesn’t leave us much of a margin for worrying about contracts at that end, and certainly no margin at all for problem-solving if someone is a trifle behind on notifying us when a piece has been accepted elsewhere.
I can’t imagine the nightmares of having to chase down thirty authors a month to organize contracts after acceptance. What if one is away on vacation? What if another has changed his/her email address or upgraded to a more aggressive spam filter? I’m already swimming in administrivia that gets in the way of actual editing work, and Steven Smethurst’s excellent submission system automates the whole contract process so neatly when the story arrives in the system that I don’t even need to think about it. Also, it makes sense to put the contract right up front; if you don’t like the terms, decline the contract, then the system refuses the story and that’s the end, no time wasted on anyone’s part. My job would also be immeasurably more difficult if I couldn’t accept a story at the eleventh hour and throw it right into the table of contents to be posted that same night. There are months when I’m trolling through the slush piles, literally at eleven o’clock at night on the second-to-last day of the month, looking for one more humour piece for an empty Monday slot or needing something speculative or suspenseful to balance out a particular week heavy on literary introspection.
So it’s not as though we’ve said no to simultaneous submissions just because we can, or to be jerks to the poor authors, or for kicks because it’s funny. We’ve talked about it a lot over the four years since Jordan and Steven and I first sat down together and wrote out our original guidelines page in 2007, and refusing simultaneous submissions is still the best way for us to keep things running smoothly.
Personally, I think that most writers are smart enough to decide for themselves whether a chance of being published at EDF is worth giving us an exclusive look at their work for the 60 to 90 days it takes us to reach a decision. We probably do miss out on some excellent stories because of it, just as we probably miss out on some excellent stories from writers who’ve decided they won’t submit to magazines that pay less than semi-pro rates, but it is what it is.
And I’m glad Every Day Fiction’s submission guidelines don’t have anything mean and antisocial in them.
Kindling That New Relationship Energy 20 March 2011
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Publishing Industry.add a comment
Thanks to a Google alert on Every Day Fiction, I came across a forum thread today entitled “a new kindle user“. It was, shall we say, enlightening to see a discussion about e-books that wasn’t coming from a writing or publishing source or even a forum devoted to literary discussion — there’s plenty of noise out there from industry-involved people, but not so much from regular readers who don’t have a vested interest in the outcome of it all one way or the other.
Some of my favourite tidbits are:
- “I haven’t bought a full-price book yet.”
- “I made sure to tell her to look at the free list first, then she spotted some dollar books too.”
- “I have only had my Kindle a week and i have read four books.”
Interesting stuff, in light of all the fuss about how e-book sales have shot up after Christmas due to all the e-readers received as gifts while print book sales have fallen.
So, clearly readers are snapping up the free and ultra-cheap reading material that e-readers have made accessible. Especially the classic stuff; who wouldn’t want a nice free e-version of Pride & Prejudice, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, or some handy Yeats or Shakespeare?
All the stats I’ve seen simply indicate that sales of e-books have skyrocketed since Christmas, but I haven’t seen any breakdowns between freebies, ultra-cheap “dollar books”, the still-pretty-cheap ones in the $3 to $5 range, the close-to-mass-market-price ones in the $6 to $9 range, and the “full-price” ones that pop over $10. Are any of these new e-reader owners buying e-books for higher prices? The ones where you can pay $30 for the just-released hardcover or get it in e-book form for $17?
More to the point, though, are these e-book sales still going to be through the roof in July? October? Next year? And will print book sales still be down once the economy recovers?
When I first got my Kindle (a couple of years ago now), I too went through an excited spell of purchasing books for it… Whee! Shop in bed, shop on the bus… wow, I can shop for books anywhere! But eventually the novelty wore off, until I got my iPhone… Oooh, look, a Kindle app! Oooh, I can buy a new book on my phone, what fun! And then the novelty of that wore off too.
That euphoric, impulsive feeling also happens when people are in the early stages of dating; it’s called New Relationship Energy. Sadly, it doesn’t last, much as we wish it would. With relationships, no one expects it to last — you enjoy it and make the most of it, and when it ends, you’ve either got a solid foundation for a lasting partnership or, well, you move on.
Isn’t it much the same with electronic toys? Don’t we dive headlong into the giddy fun of playing with a new phone or computer or music player, getting all of our preferences set up just the way we like them, justifying purchases of apps and software and cases or covers and other lovely add-ons because it’s all part of the rush? But those purchases aren’t indicative of long-term usage and purchasing patterns, any more than someone’s behaviour on a third date is going to be indicative of his or her behaviour as a partner three years ahead.
I don’t think we have enough data yet to define exactly how people are going to use e-readers and e-books through the coming years. They’re definitely a permanent part of the literary landscape and they aren’t going to go away (just as mobile communication devices aren’t going to go away, just as computers aren’t going to go away) but it’s a bit early to be pinpointing their permanent effect on readers everywhere based on that New Relationship Energy – I seriously doubt that the new Kindle owner who squeed about reading four books in his or her first week is going to continue to buy and read four e-books a week indefinitely.
My Kindle, on the other hand, is an old friend at this point. I still take it when I travel. I still buy the occasional e-book, usually something that I would previously have bought as a cheaply made bound-to-fall-apart mass-market paperback to read once. Its ability to subscribe to newspapers and blogs is nice. But I continue to add to my full-to-bursting real-world bookshelves as well, because once the fuzzy glow of newness wore off my e-reader, I remembered how much I enjoy print books too. I love the smell and feel of print books, and the fact that they can be signed and inscribed and treasured as objects of beauty as well as conveyors of words. I don’t mind curling up in bed with my Kindle, I’m well used to it by now and it doesn’t feel strange or unpleasant to me at all, but it doesn’t replace the familiar comfort of an old many-times-read book-friend or the crisp fresh-pages feel of a brand new print volume.
The good news is that, unlike with people, we’re not expected to choose only one forever. We’re not disrespected and called “alternative” (or worse) for enjoying the written word in multiple formats. I can have my Kindle and my print library too, and I suspect that I always will.
Publishing in a Multimedia World 10 February 2011
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Happiness.add a comment
Not so long ago, I never would have thought I’d say the words “video trailer” in reference to a magazine, at least not with a straight face. Trailers were for movies, weren’t they?
And yet here I am today, thrilled to bits about Every Day Publishing’s first video trailer (for Ray Gun Revival):
Maybe trailer is a word we’ve chosen in the books-n-words industry because we’re not comfortable with what it really is. Because, let’s face the truth, no matter how cool and beautifully produced it is, and regardless of the fact that it’s on YouTube rather than television, it’s a commercial. An ad. Crass salesmanship at its finest, same as what’s used to sell yogurt or razor blades. Two minutes and 36 seconds worth of promotional “story”, a mini film intended to hook viewers’ interest and draw them in, and… well, not exactly make a sale. I mean, there’s nothing to buy. Read the damn magazine, for free. Yes, we must convince them to do that. Twist their arms.
But whether you call it a teaser or a trailer or a commercial or a clip, it’s actually pretty exciting to have taken this step. We are multimedia. We are keeping up with society and technology – if the world is on YouTube, then as a publisher I’d rather be playing “A Whole New World” than “Memory“. Now we just need to finish developing our e-books and iApps to sell, and we’ll be all set, the very model of a modern online publisher.
In any case, I’m so impressed with the work Andy and Jordan and Steven did on it (and Rod’s acting and Adam’s voiceover too). Here’s the production blurb:
This trailer was shot over a weekend in Ellinger’s parents’ house for a budget of under $100. We shot with a Canon T2i SLR that cost under a thousand dollars and edited the whole thing together with Adobe Premier. Everything is hand made, and the blue screening was accomplished with blue tissue scotch taped over the window. The music was made available through Creative Commons by the St. Matthews Choir, and the image is courtesy of the Hubble telescope, also in the public domain.
My favourite moment is when Banner Cooper-Smith adjusts his belt buckle.
It’s great to see Ray Gun Revival rise again, blasting off this month with stories from Larry Hodges, Mike Resnick, Michael Merriam, and Geri Leen. It’s great to be part of making that happen. And it’s really a lot of fun to be splashing an Every Day Publishing video trailer around for it.
That Genre Known As Literary 6 February 2011
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Random Thoughts.6 comments
I’m not sure exactly how “genre” fans get away with bashing “literary” writing, and “literary” readers and writers get away with mocking “genre” fiction, given that “literary fiction” is just another genre. It has its various styles, techniques and conventions, just as every genre does; it has its past masters and its modern greats, as do all other genres; and it has just as much imitative dreck as any other genre, too.
I think the problem might be that the word “literary” is confusingly close to the word “literature”, which suggests that there may be some relationship between the two (other than that both involve reading, obviously). But to make that assumption presents a serious problem: it means that either you have a special limited genre only open to total geniuses, and less-than-perfect writers are not allowed to call their work literary, or you have a situation where free passes to the genius club are issued to anyone who writes literature… er, literary fiction.
Can you imagine a world in which only the most skilled writers were allowed to term their fiction romance, and anyone learning his or her craft who attempted a romance piece would be mocked and told to call it humour or just “other” instead? Or a world in which any science fiction story was automatically considered literature?
So, no. The literary genre does not somehow equal great literature.
Literary fiction does mean an emphasis on style, form and language. The literary voice is often distinctive. Story arcs in literary fiction are often more subtle than in other genres, and may appear in the form of a character arc, a moral or emotional arc that takes place within the protagonist. Does this make it automatically better or worse than any other? No. That would be down to the writer’s skill.
I don’t believe in a free pass for any genre, I don’t believe in a genre label that excludes the less-skilled, and nor does it make sense to me to deride any genre as a whole.
In my work for EDF, I read stories of every genre and style from writers of all skill levels, and there’s just one thing I know for sure – a good story is a good story, and when it grabs you and won’t let go, you don’t even notice the genre label.
