On Writing and Publishing

This piece was in the New York Times on March 6, 2012. It is a fascinating look at what the “next new wave” (for prose) will be. • Miniature E-Books Let Journalists Stretch Legs By Dwight Garner The Kindle Single is not a promising name. It sounds like a new kind of prefabricated fire log, or a type of person you might meet on the dating service eHarmony – perhaps a lonely independent bookstore owner put out of business by Amazon.com. Here’s what Kindle Singles actually are: probably the best reason to buy an e-reader in the first place. They’re works of long-form journalism that seek out that sweet spot between magazine articles and hardcover books. Amazon calls them “compelling ideas expressed at their natural length.” If I didn’t loathe the word “compelling,” I’d think that wasn’t a half-bad slogan. I recently sat down and read 15 of these boutique minibooks. . . .

I got this from mediabistro: eBook sales increased 17% in 2011 according to research from R.R. Bowker. In a presentation at the Digital Book World conference this week, Kelly Gallagher, VP, publishing services at R.R. Bowker, shared this data. Interestingly, 74% of book buyers have never bought an eBook, though 14% of these people own either a tablet or an eReader. “They may have gotten them as a gift, but haven’t used them yet,” said Gallagher. According to Gallagher, eBook sales vary across genre. Fiction carried eBook sales representing 26% of eBook sales in the third quarter of 2011. Cookbooks on the other hand only represented about 3%. Interestingly, about a third of buyers are driving about two thirds of overall purchases. These power readers buy at least 4 books a month. “We’ve got to keep our eyes on these folks if we want to see the growth,” said Gallagher. Gallagher said . . .

Bloomberg Businessweek’s January 25th cover shows a book engulfed in flames. The book’s title? “Amazon Wants to Burn the Book Business.” A towering pile of books dominates the front page of Sunday’s NYT Business Section. The pile starts well below the fold (print edition), breaks through the section header at the top of the page, and leans precariously. Books are starting to tumble off. “The Bookstore’s Last Stand,” reads the headline. These stories capture pretty well the state of book publishing: this appears to be no ordinary, cyclical crisis that future authors and publishers will shrug off. To understand how the book industry got into this predicament, however, a broader perspective may be needed. The cover story of February’s Harper’s Magazine provides that, discussing a fundamental shift in the federal approach to antitrust law that’s affected bookselling and countless other industries. It’s a story that hasn’t previously been told in a . . .

[RPCV Jason Boog (Guatemala 2000-02) is the editor of the important industry page, GalleyCat, which is part of mediabistro.com site. If you write, and or you are interested in publishing, you need to check out this site. Jason writes today a timely piece on the state of book pubishing.] “According to the Association of American Publishers (AAP) net sales revenue report for December, adult mass market paperback sales dropped 40.9 percent compared to the same period the year before. Overall trade sales declined almost three percent, dipping from $561.3 million to $545.1 million. “Overall trade book sales saw a four percent drop and mass market paperback sales declined nearly 36 percent for the year. While eBook sales increased 117 percent last year, they still have not closed the gap with declining print sales. “Here’s more from the release: “The December report represents data provided by 77 publishers and only sales of the . . .

In a newsletter from the new owner of the wonderful Washington, D.C. book store, Politics & Prose, there is word that the store is going “electronic.” Here’s what the owners had to say a few days ago. No doubt some of you received gifts of electronic readers for Christmas or Hanukkah this holiday season, and you’re probably thinking about which titles to download. Did you know that you can buy eBooks through Politics & Prose? Or that the price of most eBooks through P&P is the same as at other online retailers? We are continuously surprised to learn that many of our customers aren’t aware that P&P offers both online ordering of physical books and downloading of eBooks.  You can place your orders online any time of day or night, seven days a week through our website:  www.politics-prose.com. You can also come by the store or call us at 202-364-1919 if you . . .

The Peace Corps in its long history has attracted more than a few non-RPCVs to write about us! Most of the books have been non-fiction, and serious attempts at evaluating the worth and worthiness of what we are all trying to do. I’m thinking of Robert Textor’s Cultural Frontiers of the Peace Corps, MIT Press, (1966) and All You Need is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960, Harvard University Press, (1998.) Then there are the novels! One of my favorite is by Tama Janowitz, entitled A Cannibal in Manhattan about an RPCV who brings her cannibal husband home to New York City, with dire consequences for all. (Crown 1987). There are other novels. Carter Coleman’s The Volunteer, published in 1998 and set in East Africa; Richard Dooling’s masterful White Man’s Grave, from Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998. That is set in West Africa! Most of the early “Peace . . .

In The Wall Street Journal (Friday, December 8, 2011) I read an article about Darcie Chan, a full-time lawyer who drafts environmental legislation during the day and at night, after she has put her toddler son to bed, writes novels. Finishing her first novel, and after dozens of publishers and more than 100 literary agents rejected, she had a decision to make: quit writing or get published someway. Not giving up, and reading about e-book publishing, she decided to publish the book herself and went ahead and bought some ads on Web sites that target e-book readers, paid for a few reviews, and priced the book at .99 cents. She has (so far) sold more than 400,000 copies. What gives? According to the Association of American Publishers digital self-publishing has serious drawbacks. While e-books are the fastest-growing segment of the book market, they still make up less than 10% of overall trade book . . .

[ First posted on Peace Corps Writers in September, 2008, Lawrence F. Lihosit pushes and shoves RPCVs towards sharing their experiences in print.]  You Can Publish It By Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) Within three years, this nation will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Peace Corps’ inception with parades, speeches, and book sales. It is very rare that a government program captivates the American imagination. In the first half of the twentieth century only two programs did, the WPA and the CCC. In the second half, it was NASA and the Peace Corps. As we near this anniversary, there will be incredible interest in the program and us, the foot soldiers. If you have a story to share, this is a great time to write it down. Keep your dreams humble. After all, you write for your children and grandchildren. If you really cared so much about fame, glory, . . .

by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) After extensive editing but before sending your Peace Corps Experience book to a publisher, consider presentation. Your book will be on the Library of Congress shelf (as well as other libraries) for many years, representing a nugget of history-your experience. This book will aid our children and grandchildren to understand what this American experiment was like. Regardless of who prints it, why not consider quality befitting this role? Just as you did not embark upon a cheap tourist junket but an arduous trek perhaps inspired and most definitely sustained by true grit, this sort of unusual adventure deserves a like presentation. The majority of books published are mass market paperbacks, tiny paperbound books printed with small letters on cheap paper. Although inexpensive, they are more difficult to read, fall apart faster and generally look like a plastic flip-flop. Your book should be more like . . .

Self-Published Quality Format by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) After extensive editing but before sending your Peace Corps Experience book to a print-on-demand publisher or printer, consider presentation. Your book will be on the Library of Congress shelf (as well as other libraries) for many years, representing a nugget of history-your experience. This book will aid our children and grandchildren to understand what this American experiment was like. Regardless of who prints it, why not consider quality befitting this role? Just as you did not embark upon a cheap tourist junket but an arduous trek perhaps inspired and most definitely sustained by true grit, this sort of unusual adventure deserves a like presentation. The majority of books published are mass market paperbacks, tiny paperbound books printed with small letters on cheap paper. Although inexpensive, they are more difficult to read, fall apart faster and generally look like a plastic flip-flop. . . .

I got this piece of publishing news from Gallery Cat Editor, our own Jason Boog (Guatemala 200o-02) who reports daily on what is happening in the world of publishing. Jason writes: “According to the Association of American Publishers (AAP) net sales revenue report for September 2011, the adult mass paperback category declined 54 percent (to $31 million) in September compared to the same period last year. “At the same time, adult hardcover sales dropped 18 percent (to $148.3) while eBook sales doubled to $80.3 million. Above, we’ve embedded the AAP’s sales chart. “Here’s more:  “With September also being the start of the 2011-2012 academic year, Higher Education showed a nearly 9% gain in net revenue vs September 2010. Additionally, there was significant growth in the category of Professional Books (in the Professional and Scholarly Publishing division) in September, increasing nearly 13% … The September report represents data provided by 80 US publishers and is produced by . . .

My family knows to buy me Hemingway books for my birthday. If there is no new Hemingway book, I get socks! This fall, however, there are three new books about Hemingway, and two of them have come my way. The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume I: 1907-1922 and Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961 by Paul Hendrickson. It was published by Knopf last month. And Hemingway’s Boat is a wonder of a book! Let me confess that Paul Hendrickson and I share something of a history, though we have never met. Both of us attended Saint Louis University as undergraduates, and both of us came under the magical spell of Dr. Albert Montesi, SLU’s famous creative writing teacher. Paul came to SLU years after I attended college and did not join the Peace Corps. He went onto become a staff writer at The Washington Post where he also wrote books, one being The Living and the . . .

An article in The New York Times on Monday, October 3, 2011, says it all. Written by Julie Bosman, the news account begins, “The Perseus Books Group has created a distribution and marketing service that will allow authors to self-publish their own e-books.” This venture is called Argo Navis Author Services and at the moment is only available to authors who are represented by an agency that has signed an agreement with Perseus. One major agency, Janklow & Nesbit Associates has signed up so far.  The article goes onto say: “The new service will give authors an alternative to other self-publishing services and a favorable revenue split that is unusual in the industry: 70 percent to the author and 30 percent to the distributor. Traditional publishers normally provide authors a royalty of about 25 percent for e-books.” Perseus is not alone. Last week I heard from my own agent and agency, . . .

The current issue of  the Authors Guild Bulletin has a column, “Along Publishers Row” by Campbell Geeslin that has a number of great comments and remarks that I want to share with all of the writers out there! We might find some wisdom here. For example: Jessamyn West believed “Writing is so difficult that I often feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.” F. Scott Fitzgerald said: “An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterwards.” Raymond Carver had this to say: “I made the story just as I made a poem, one line and then the next, and the next. Pretty soon I could see a story–and I knew it was my story, the one I had been wanting to write.” The late Sinclair Lewis said, “It is . . .

By Jason Boog on July 26, 2011 5:14 PM University of Wisconsin Oshkosh assistant professor Sue Fondrie has written the worst sentence of 2011, winning the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with the world’s worst opening to an imaginary novel. Here is the winning (?) sentence: “Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.” This prize is part of an annual bad writing competition that began in 1982 at San Jose State University. The contest was named after Victorian novelist Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton  an author famous for writing the opening line: “It was a dark and stormy night.”