Book People

If you live in the Austin area, come over to BookPeople this evening.

I, along with Nan Cuba, Katherine Catmull, and Suzy Spencer make up the panel. We'll be talking and taking questions from 7pm to 9pm.

Our discussion topic is:
How does a writer achieve emotional resonance in his/her narrative?  How can one attain the mindset to accurately convey a tone or a character's depth of feeling?  Authors often mine from their own lives -- tapping into emotions, experiences, or memories in order to recreate the right mood or state of mind on the page.  But how?  And at what cost?
It's free to attend.

BookPeople is located at 603 N. Lamar.

Once you park, head up to the third floor. You can use the elevator in the back of the store.
 

Publishing News 9/27/2013

Belgian researchers report the enticing aroma of chocolate inspired bookstore shoppers to stick around longer, and boosted sales of certain genres.

They report shoppers  are more likely to engage in leisurely browsing—and ultimately purchase books in certain popular genres, including romance novels—if the store is infused with the scent of chocolate.  

Agents:

Laney Katz Becker has joined Lippincott Massie McQuilkin as an agent. Previously she was at Markson Thoma.

Hellie Ogden has joined Janklow & Nesbit UK as an agent.  She will be building a list at Janklow & Nesbit for a range of authors. She has been translation rights manager and agent at Greene & Heaton.

Harry Endrulat has joined The Rights Factory as an associate agent.

Who Will Survive?

Hilary Melton-Butcher sent me the link to an interesting blog post written last month by Kirsten Winkler. Winkler discusses the future of libraries and bookstores. She feels bookstores and libraries are becoming the collateral damage of the eBook revolution. She, like most of us, hope they survive.

Winkler notes that a lot of libraries are lending eBooks. Personally, I like that. It will help them stay relevant. I still worry about bookstores, though. She talks about those stores where the owner or employee knows books and can direct you to exactly what you’ll like. We used to have stores like that. My favorite was owned by the wonderful mystery author, Jan Grape. She was that kind of person. She knew mystery and she knew (and still knows) every big mystery author in the U.S. But she and her husband retired. Unlike Winkler, I don't know of any big chain stores now with that kind of personnel. Certainly not B&N or the other big names.

And I really don't like Winkler’s idea that if I buy an eBook in a bookstore for my iPad, the publisher can track me via my cell phone. She sites it as a possible way for bookstores to make money:

For the economic model, there could be revenue share based on location, e.g. if a customer decides to buy an ebook when he is inside a bookstore or library, the device would know this due to GPS and location awareness and therefore the publisher would share revenue the same way as with physical books.

'Course the publisher could probably track me via the iPad, too, as I sit in my living room dowloading. I harken back to the days of Down With Big Brother, which didn't work then and won't work now.

Link over and read the article. There’s also a video to watch. Both of them have some interesting points. Thanks Hilary!

Google Invades Canada

As of yesterday, Google Inc. opened it digital bookstore to Canada, according to the Financial Post. It’s called the Google eBookstore. Canadian readers can “download digital books which can then be read on tablets, e-readers and PCs.” In addition, Canadian booksellers can sell their books online.”
The good news is that: “Google eBookstore in Canada will boast a library of “hundreds of thousands” of digital books for sale, as well as more than two million public domain books, which will be offered for free.”

The bad news: “…there will be fewer free books available in Canada than in the U.S. according to Scott Dougal, Google’s director of product management for Google Books.”

But then, there’s more good news: “Readers will be able to enjoy Google’s e-books on just about any device, including smartphones and tablets powered by the company’s Android operating system. However, the books will also be available on Apple Inc.’s iPad, as well as on e-readers from Kobo, Sony Corp. and Barnes and Noble’s Nook.”

Check online for more info, including a video.

Any Canadians here? Do you like that Google eBookstore is now in your country?

Casualties of War

The war between Amazon and Barnes & Noble is heating up. Not unexpectedly, you and I, the readers, may be the casualties. I was reading an article by John R. Quain on FoxNews about the war and had a sinking feeling that readers will be the ones who take the hit in this fight.

Amazon is coming out this Fall with its Amazon Fire, an eReader with color (think iPad). They’ve made a deal with DC Comics to be the exclusive reader for about 100 graphic novels from DC Comics. As you might have guessed, Barnes & Noble was not happy about this exclusive deal and immediately pulled all of those titles off their shelves in their bookstores. As John Quain noted:

If publishers are going to enter into a format war based on exclusive arrangements with specific booksellers, why should the company dedicate its valuable shelf space to books that its own customers can't buy on its Nook device?

On the other side of the issue, Barnes & Noble has exclusive deals for titles, like the interactive Peanuts books. And on another side of the issue, some publishers such as Macmillan and Simon & Schuster don’t let libraries lend their e-books.

Already, writers are struggling to get their books ready for a widespread array of formats. One is hard enough, let alone multiple formats, although there are some sites that will format for several different devices.

So here you’ve got this war going on between the big boys and, in the end, readers are likely to be the casualties. What happened to the idea of having an e-format that was readable on all eReaders? That was my hope – probably just a wish in the wind. This battle may continue until one company crushes the others or someone leads the giants into compromise.

As a writer, what do you think of this war? As a reader, how does it affect you?

POD with Your Espresso

I’ve blogged before about Print on Demand and the Espresso machine. Personally, I think it’s one way for bookstores to survive and remain relevant. An article in The Wall Street Journal agrees with me.

If you’ve never heard of the Espresso machine … it’s about the size of a desk and can print a book in a few minutes. So, you see a book online, perhaps mentioned on Goodreads or a blog or on the best-seller list, and you want it. If your local bookstore has an Espresso machine, you go there and, hopefully, have it printed and ready to take home in minutes. I say, hopefully, because the particular book you want would need to be on their list of books they can print.

Publishers seem to be jumping on board with this idea. HarperCollilns is about to make 5,000 current paperbacks available via the Espresso. You might ask why other publishers wouldn’t follow suit since there are paperback and hard cover books not available in stores. (They often are not available because stores only have limited room to stock books, especially when big name authors can have twenty or fifty or even more copies of the same book.)

One leading publisher who asked not to be identified said his company is unlikely to make more titles available, in part because they are concerned that bookstores with the machines might then order fewer titles.

This seems like shooting yourself in the foot to me. If there is always one copy for readers to look at, then that’s all you need. They can sell hundreds of copies without having to stock that many. Which means they can have a display copy of many, many more books, and they won’t have to pay to ship back the remaindered books.

You might wonder if POD books will cost more.

Brian Murray, chief executive of HarperCollins, said that the paperbacks printed by Espresso will list for the same price as the traditional paperback version.

I don’t know what the revenue split with authors would be. That would vary from publisher to publisher, I suspect, until some “standard” is figured out (even now that varies).

In most cases, HarperCollins will receive about 70% of the revenue from an Espresso-printed title, with the retailer taking 30%.

What do you think about buying your paperbacks via a fast-printing machine? Do you think such a machine would make it a bit easier for local or lesser-known authors to get their books into the hands of readers? Is it a possible rescuer of the print book?

Changing Times

I was reading an article in The Wall Street Journal called “Borders Succumbs to Digital Era in Books,” when I came across two lines that said so much about the state of print publishing. The article focuses primarily about how the demise of Borders bookstores is changing more than just the lives of readers for whom the local Borders was the only bookstore nearby, although that aspect was addressed with this line:

The closures will make Barnes & Noble the only national bookstore chain in the U.S., leaving some Americans to drive long distances to find the largest collections of new bestsellers or wile away the hours among the stacks.

But to me, the real telling line that affects writers was this one:

Publishers, already grappling with seismic shifts in their business, including the demand for e-books, now are trying to gauge how many fewer books they should print, both in terms of physical copies and the number of new titles.

A writer’s advance is most often associated with how many books the publisher thinks you can sell. Fewer print stores mean fewer print sales. If there’s no store near you, you’re more likely to buy via an online store or not at all. And fewer convenient bookstores will most likely lead to higher sale of eReaders, which lowers print sales.

What do you think? Will remaining bookstores focus on high-selling celebrity books? Who will get hurt the most -- midlist authors, newbie authors, small press authors, or …? Will this lead to more eBooks and eReaders or possibly more online bookstores?

Saving Bookstores

Larry Wilson with the Pasadena Star-News has a couple of ideas on saving the brick-and-mortar stores. E-books are really hot right now. So hot, some are predicting the demise of the print books and, thus, bookstores.

Here’s one suggestion:

Long troubled by Amazon - which, by the way, should be forced to man up and pay sales tax just like the bricks and mortars sooner rather than later - the few cool bookstores left are now being battered by ebooks.

One advantage physical bookstores have over virtual bookstores is this:

But there's one thing the independents can offer that cyberspace never will - author events. Book signings. Talks. Chances to sit in the same room with, or maybe even shoot the breeze with, your favorite writers.

Wilson suggests that bookstores need to start charging for author events. One store in California, Kepler’s, already charges.

Attendees at many readings are charged a $10 gift card, which admits two. (If they buy the author's book, it's free.)

As one person said: “"We're a business," the marketing manager of the Harvard Book Store told The New York Times. "We're not just an Amazon showroom."”

What do you think? Would you pay to hear an author speak? Would you only pay if it were a best-selling author? How about a new, local author?

P.S. Come back Saturday for another Mermaid Tale. I was asked when I planned to do another and I realized it’s been a year since I told a Tale.

Bookstores are Adapting

Some of you may remember a bit of a rant I went on about Bookstores last month. In that post I said:

if bookstores want to stay “the primary vehicle for book discovery” they need to totally revamp their thinking.

Well, people listened to me! Okay, they never even heard of me, but some bookstores ARE taking the initiative to save themselves. Yay! I love bookstores.

Publishers Weekly has an article about how some bookstores are developing new concepts of what a bookstore is. They are reimagining their stores.

"I think there's hope," said events director Karen West of Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif., which is considering adding an Espresso Book Machine to offer self-publishing to those at the store's writing conferences.

HugoBookstores, which has three locations in greater Boston, will begin testing knitting next month. … co-owner John Hugo decided yarn could be the right sideline.

Bluestockings in New York City, for example, has begun commissioning cards from local artists, while [Words] in Maplewood, N.J., stocks T-shirts from all nine local elementary schools.

At McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Mich., manager Matt Norcross does tech seminars for customers to show them how to download a digital e-book and associate e-books with his store.

At Village Books in Bellingham, Wash., co-owner Chuck Robinson has begun selling iPads through an agreement he worked out on his own with a local Apple dealer, who built a kiosk in his store.

What ideas do you have to keep bookstores relevant and in business?

Bookstores

My question to you is: In this rapidly changing world of books, what is the purpose of bookstores? An immediate answer might be: to sell print books. Of course, that’s true. But in this age of digital books is that its primary purpose?

In a column in Publishers Weekly, Chris Morrow said that the bookstore is where people find good books. “The role of the bookstore as showroom, as filter, as arbiter of taste is here to stay and needs nurturing.” He calls bookstores publishers’ “best marketing and sales outlets.”

Personally, I’m not so sure bookstores are the arbiters of taste. Those bookstores carried stacks of Snookie’s lastest book, right next to other celebrity self-promotion books. Every politician, past or wannabe, can get his/her book on the shelves.

I think if bookstores want to stay “the primary vehicle for book discovery” they need to totally revamp their thinking. First, instead of depending on publishers to tell them what is worthy and good, they need to think for themselves. Second, stop carrying three hundred copies of a celebrity or wannabe-celebrity/politician’s book, which in a month they’ll have to return to the publisher. Third, change their entire model of selling books. They can still be the place people browse for books, but they will be a different store. Instead of three or five or fifty copies of a book, they’ll have one. That one copy is for patrons to look through. If they decide they want the book, they have it printed out there on the premises.

Doing it this way would allow a bookstore to have many, many more books “in-stock” and ready to buy. People like going into bookstores. I love browsing through books. But bookstores are not arbiters of taste. And at this point, they can’t shelve enough books. Last week, I wanted a particular, extremely popular book. I went to my local B&N. They didn’t have it. I drove to a close-by town to their B&N. They didn’t stock it. I came home and ordered it online. I wanted that book and I wanted it in print. If they had had an Espresso machine or another such printing machine, they could have printed it in minutes and sold it to me. Instead, they lost a sale and bit by bit, they’re losing customers and money.

What do y’all think?

Reading Your Expresso

Interesting news from Jason Boog over on GalleyCat. Remember the Expresso machine? Been a while since we talked about the machine that prints books super fast, since all the talk in the news world focuses on e-books lately. But here’s a boost for the Expresso Machine.

Xerox Corporation has teamed up with On Demand Books, the company that makes the Expresso Book Machine.

In the new partnership, the Xerox 4112 and the Espresso Book Machine will be marketed and sold together--capable of creating a new book in minutes with "the capacity to print more than 40,000 paperback books per year."

What this means is that:

On Demand will now have the considerable resources of Xerox at its disposal, in terms of a sales force and a trusted name in the business of copying things fast ... There are only 21 stores and libraries that currently have the machines, but through this agreement, you can bet you'll see more of them--On Demand hopes to get 80 machines in the world by the end of 2011."

We’ve all been wondering when and if the Expresso Book Machine would ever take off. This looks to be a promising union.

Independents are Hanging In

Not talking politics here. We’re talking bookstores, of course. KARE11, the local CBS channel in Minneapolis - St. Paul ran a story about 3 independent bookstores struggling to stay afloat.

As Kyle Porter, author of the online story, said:

Independent bookstores are closing all over the country.

The good news is that two in this Minnesota area are still alive. The Bookcase is the oldest independent bookstore in the Twin Cities. One reason it survives is because it’s next to one of the first original Caribou Coffee shops. They also offer a wider selection than most other stores. (On a side note, I thought it funny that earlier this month The Bookcase hosted the author of “How Starbucks Saved My Life.”)

Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s in Minneapolis specializes in Mystery and Science Fiction novels. The owner admits it’s tough, but they, too, hang in by having a huge selection: around 10,000 volumes.

Besides having a large selection, both stores give a lot of personal service to their clients.

I, personally, like independents. They tend to know their books. It’s been my experience that if I go into an independent and ask for an author or a protagonist or a book similar to some other series they take me to the bookshelves and offer suggestions - rather than boot up the store computer.

Books for Fun & Enlightenment

If you’ve not heard of Abe Books, you might want to check them out. They sell books: textbooks, rare books, all kinds of books.

Today, just for fun, I thought I’d introduce you to their Weird Book Room. The books there are bizarre. In other words, weird.

This week’s Weird Book of the Week is:
The Teach Your Chicken to Fly Training Manual by Trevor Weekes.

Not interested in chickens? How about tattoos? Then try:
Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan by Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov, and Alex Binnie.

Or how about this one, first published in 1951:
Nudism in Modern Life: The New Gymnosophy by Maurice Parmelee.

This one might just be the winner of the longest title:
Impeccable Birdfeeding: How to Discourage Scuffling, Hull-Dropping, Seed-Throwing, Unmentionable Nuisances and Vulgar Chatter at Your Birdfeeder by Bill Adler Jr.

I know some of you will want to get:
50 Ways to Use Feminine Hygiene Products in a Manly Manner by B. Koz.

Perhaps you could use:
The Bible Cure for Irritable Bowel Syndrome by Don Colbert.

But, if that doesn’t work, you may want:
Toilet Paper Origami by Linda Wright.

Abe Books has got lots of weird books. And you can always suggest ones you think they’re missing. What’s the strangest book you’ve ever read?

Twitter Discussions

For those of you who think Twitter is trivial or only for selling stuff or self-promotion, you might want to think again. Twitterers are doing more active back-and-forth discussions. One such discussion took place this past Sunday.

The discussion primarily involved independent booksellers, who talked about ideas like making it possible for customers, through in-store kiosks, to access a database of bookseller reviews, view digital content, and browse inventory.

You can go read Breathe Books’ manager Jenn Northington’s summary of the discussion on her blog. You can also go on Twitter and read the posts by the participants and others by searching for #indiekiosk. Keep in mind that when there’s an online discussion about a subject that interests you, you can participate. That # sign means it’s a discussion. If it were a private discussion, the participants would be DMing each other without the # sign.

At War

Did you know there’s a war going on in the publishing industry? No, it’s not between print book and e-books. (Finally! A bit of news not about e-books or e-readers!)

According to the Wall Street Journal, the war is between Amazon and Wal-Mart. It started last Thursday when Wal-Mart started selling its 10 most anticipated hardcovers for $10 each when pre-ordered online. Amazon promptly matched the offer. So Wal-Mart countered by slicing its price to $9. Amazon followed suit. Then Wal-Mart, determined to have the lowest online price, dropped theirs to $8.99.

David Young, chief executive of Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, said he and other publishers “feared the online pricing could hurt small independent book sellers and big retail chains.”

How could it do that?

If the industry's top books continue to be sold for $9 online in the future, Mr. Young said, it will be increasingly difficult for publishers to launch what he described as "the writers of tomorrow," because the book market may have narrowed significantly.

The veteran publisher said when major retailers are allowed to sell below cost, it represents an aggressive form of price deflation that creates "all sorts of disturbances in the market." He noted that in France it is illegal to sell a book below cost, adding, "I would welcome similar legislation here."

Barnes & Noble and Borders are not matching these online prices. For the most part, the big bookstore chains are not talking.

Most U.S. executives at the fair declined to speak publicly about the price war, for fear of offending either of the retailers.

The Lost Book

Okay. I admit it. I ordered The Lost Symbol for my husband’s birthday. It should arrive tomorrow. ‘Course, it doesn’t really matter since DH is out of town. I’ll have to tell him, though, or he’ll stop at the airport and buy a copy. Grr. He does that sometimes. He liked Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, so he’ll read this, I’m sure.

Apparently lots of people are planning on reading it. The New York Times reports Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group is going all out to whip readers into a frenzy. Can adults be whipped into a frenzy? Never mind, don’t answer that all your erotica romance writers.

Twitter clues have been coming out since June 23rd. The Today Show’s Matt Lauer had to sign an agreement not to reveal what was in the book before he was allowed to read it and do a weeklong countdown to publication. Amazon is keeping their stockpile under 24-hour guard in a chain-link enclosure that requires two people for entry. The latest count is that Amazon had 70,000 advance orders by customers, putting The Lost Symbol in the No. 1 best seller slot on Amazon -- last week. At least half of all Borders stores plan to stay open until after midnight tonight so impatient readers can buy a copy of The Lost Symbol at 12:01 a.m. Walmart is offering a 52% discount on pre-orders. Barnes & Noble and Borders are giving a 40% discount. Knopf Doubleday will release the ebook of The Lost Symbol on the same day as the hard copy comes out.

The New York Times gives these few hints about the book:

Robert Langdon is the protagonist again; it is set in Washington; the action takes place over the course of 12 hours; it features a deep look into the Masons.

I’m sort of looking forward to information on the Masons. My grandfather was a Mason. I have no clue what that means. Plus, I liked The Da Vinci Code, so as soon as DH is finished reading The Lost Symbol, I’ll snatch it up.

Free e-Reader, Free e-Books

I got an email on Friday (and a lot of you probably got the same one) from Barnes & Noble. After our recent discussion of Barnes & Noble competing with Amazon for e-readers, I found the email quite interesting.

B&N not only wants you to buy e-books from them; they want you to come to their stores to do it. They’re now offering complimentary Wi-Fi service in all stores -- no fees, no charges. As they put it:

With complimentary Wi-Fi service in all stores, Barnes & Noble is like a home away from home. Stop by. Enjoy a cup of coffee or a light meal in the café. And be sure to bring your laptop or smartphone so you can check your email and browse eBooks in our new online eBookstore.

Oh … to sweeten the enticement, they’ll let you download the FREE (all caps is theirs) B&N eReader app, which they say will work with iPhones, BlackBerries, PCs and Macs.

And! ... if you download the eReader right there from your computer as you read their email, you’ll get free eBooks.

Okay, clearly this was a sales pitch. Big time. But are all sales pitches bad? When we talked about this B&N vs. Amazon thing, some of you thought it was a good idea, especially since B&N’s e-reader seemed compatible with more versions of e-books. So, will you take advantage of this offer of free eReader software and free books and free WiFi in their stores? I’m thinking about it … I like books and I do like free.

A Novel Idea

Everyone knows bookstores are struggling. From major chains like Borders to small indies, sales are down and stores are closing and bookbuyers are cutting back on orders and skipping authors.

There’s a bookstore in Grand Rapids that’s trying a novel idea to pull in readers. And I think it might just work.

They’re getting their liquor license.

There used to be a wonderful small indie store in the town next to mine who sold wine. They had a small counter with about three chairs where you could have a glass of wine and talk to the two owners. Or when they had an author visit, you could take your wine to your chair. They ended up having to close their doors after a couple of years.

But the Schuler Books has a bigger idea. All four of their stores have fireplaces (there would be a draw for me, even in our mild winters down here) and cafes. Now they're looking to add drinks in their downtown Grand Rapids store.

“The vision is it's an enhancement to the bookstore and our cafe and provides an alternate place where people can relax, browse the books and enjoy food from our cafe," [owner] Fehsenfeld said. "We're feeling this will be able to maybe lengthen our hours into the evening more."

Apparently, Grand Rapids makes it cheaper to have a liquor license downtown than elsewhere.

Fehsenfeld envisions adding beer and wine to his cafe's extensive coffee menu, so bookstore patrons could have a glass with dinner, browse the books, relax by the fireplace and maybe listen to a live concert.

Sounds good to me. A roaring fire on a cold night, a glass of deep red wine, a good book, music. Take me away, Schuler Books.