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I consider myself to be a spiritual person, though not a member of any religious tribe. Among the great influences that have shaped my thinking (aside from frequent psychedelic trips in mid-life) is Buddhism and the Tao te Ching. The Buddha taught that desire is the cause of unhappiness: if one rids themselves of expectations, one rids themselves of disappointments. Lao Tse, in explaining the spiritual life says those who talk don’t know and those who know don’t talk. All of this is also summed up in the Desiderata, one of the dictums being that the universe is unfolding exactly as it should.
These thoughts are things I frequently fall back on so as not to get caught up in the frustrations life readily throws one’s way
Accordingly, I prefer serendipity to discipline when it comes to spiritual practice and believe that courses for self-improvement are doomed to fail. While sitting in a lotus position and meditating was worth trying, this practice was much more likely to make my hips ache than further enlightenment. And though I never considered myself “enlightened,” I do testify that I fully accept myself as who I am. Which means that while I can talk myself out of expectations, anger and disappointments, I also know that things come up that simply piss me off. So let me share some of them with you.
Today’s topic came about when I first read the Arts section of the June 26 issue of The New York Times. The lead story, written by Motoko Rich, was headlined "James Frey Collaborating on a Novel for Young Adults, First in a Series." Yes, that James Frey, who, as Ms Rich wrote, “was famously caught embellishing details in A Million Little Pieces.” And, despite the fact the Oprah disowned him for his deceits, “Two years ago he reportedly received more than $1 million as an advance for Bright Shiny Morning from Harper Collins. Although the book received mixed reviews, it garnered a notable rave from Janet Maslin in The New York Times. According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of retail sales, Bright Shiny Morning sold 71,000 copies in hardcover and 10,000 in paperback.” What is this new collaboration about? Frey “is working with another writer and anonymously shopping around a young adult novel called I Am Number Four.” This collaboration between Frey (acting anonymously) and “an unnamed up-and-coming writer,” is being pitched by one Eric Simonoff, a literary agent at William Morris Endeavor. Frey came up with the idea of a “proposed six-book series,” about “a group of nine alien teenagers on a planet called Lorien, which is attacked by a hostile race from another planet. The nine and their guardians evacuate to Earth, where three are killed. The protagonist, a Lorien boy named John Smith, hides in Paradise, Ohio, disguised as a human, trying to evade his predators and knowing he is next on their list.”
Reading this article set off a connected series of things that pissed me off. But before firing artillery at The New York Times, let me also say that I love this newspaper, which I’ve been reading for 60 years now, starting as a teenager, commuting from my parents’ home in Queens to The High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. It has consistently given the widest, fairest and best print coverage of news, political skullduggery, and the arts. I also had the opportunity to work there one year, while attending NYU’s College of Medicine as a “night intern,” seeing people who were sick and taking splinters out of the eyes of pressmen who set hot type way back then. So, naturally, I've always had high expectations for this Grey Lady.
When Judy and I began publishing 30 years ago, we happily found extraordinary support in Sunday’s Book Review section. To start with, Thomas Lask, in his “End Papers” column, somehow picked up on a letter we wrote to the Authors Guild, announcing that we were starting an imprint called Second Chance Press, seeking to give worthwhile books, out-of-print for at least 20 years, a second chance. This resulted in our being sent 600 books, and the six we chose made up our first list. Later, under editors Mike Levitas, Becky Sinkler and Chip McGrath, we often had review coverage of three or four of our 12 titles a year, nearly all for Permanent Press releases. If coverage is far less now, I can’t bellyache, for review space has been so drastically reduced. Insofar as the daily Times was concerned (an entirely separate division), Anatole Broyard wrote an exceptional review on Thursday, January 31, 1980 for Richard Lortz’s The Valdepenas, our very first review from our very first list. I mention all this in order to set the table about expectations and the “pissed off” phase one goes through when such expectations are not fulfilled.
Reading Motoko Rich’s James Frey story made me realize how pissed off I‘ve felt in the past about the daily Times Monday through Saturday book coverage. Since Broyard’s review, there have been over 7,000 additional reviews in the daily editions over the past 29-and-a-half years, and not one other book of ours has gotten coverage: this despite the fact that in that period of time we published a Nobel Prize winning author (Halldor Laxness), 12 novels by a Nobel Prize nominee (Berry Fleming), had a National Book Award finalist (Sandra Scofield), Hammett Prize and Edgar Award finalists and winners (Randall Silvis, Domenic Stansberry and Reed Farrel Coleman) and, in 1998, won the equivalent of a publishing Oscar: Literary Market Place’s LMP Award for Editorial Achievement—a prize open to every publisher, large and small, in America, and voted upon by our colleagues in the book industry. This failure to reappear in the daily Times made me think of the remark by a frustrated Hollywood ingénue, who once said, “Who do you have to go to bed with to get into this motion picture?” Obviously I’ve never figured that one out, but if I have to sleep with Eric Simonoff, Frey’s agent, to command this sort of space for one of our authors, I’ll have to take a pass because—no offense Eric—I’m simply into women.
A few weeks ago I read a scathing Times book review by Janet Maslin. I remember when Janet went from film critic many years ago to being one of the daily book critics. I’d always appreciated her intelligent movie reviews and wrote to her, hoping that she might have an interest in some of our titles, while telling her about the drought we’d been experiencing. She responded positively and asked us to send her future releases, which again raised expectations, since Michiko Kakutani, the Critic Emeritus during this period of time would never answer queries. But nothing came of that, either. Which made me think “Why, in this age of reduced coverage, would critics bother to give scathing reviews when there were so many good books out there that never get covered at all.” This practice pissed me off as well.
In Motoko Rich’s James Frey coverage about I Am Number Four (with a plot that seemed perfect if you were either retarded or a teen-aged reader or writer), it’s important to note that no publisher in the United States had yet bought it. Therefore it was a non-story when it came to art and culture, though it might have made sense in the business section of the Times under a headline such as "Book Written by Two Famous Anonymous Writers Fails to Find a Publisher"… maybe a take off on "GM Fails to Find a Buyer for Pontiac." I was again pissed off that a guy who conned Oprah and the reading public with his first book was again getting so much coverage in the Arts section while far better and lesser known writers were getting no attention at all. One of my only compensations was reading that the million dollar advance paid for Frey’s Bright Shiny Morning would never be earned back by Harper Collins. Based on the sales Ms Rich reported, I would be surprised if it earned more than $150,000 to $200,000 dollars…an $800,000 plus loss for Harper Collins. And people in the business wonder why the book industry is in trouble?
Lastly, her article raised the question of why so many critics and columnists take the Nielsen BookScan figures seriously, despite their claim that they track 70% of retail sales. Last year, after one major publishing house expressed interest in reprinting one of Chris Knopf’s mystery novels, they told me that one problem was that, according to BookScan, we had only sold 400 plus copies, when in truth we were in a third printing and had sold 4,500 copies. It’s a fact of life that in today’s climate, reprinters only want to take on titles that have proved to be somewhat successful. When BookScan underestimates Chris’s sales by 90%, this poses an insurmountable barrier. So I called BookScan and spoke to one of their directors who informed me that they don’t track library sales or sales by small independent bookstores. They do track sales in some huge discounted superstores (think Target and Walmart), sales at airports, at the big chains like Barnes & Noble and others of that ilk, as well as Amazon.com. Since we never sell to any of the chains, for reasons explained in earlier blogs, nor airport shops, nor superstores, we are up the proverbial shit’s creek in getting accurate and substantiated sales figures out for our titles, as we rely heavily on library sales and sales to the small independent bookstores (and Amazon, too…which is where BookSpan probably got their 400 plus sales report from). I now think of BookScan as BookScam and get “pissed off” when their figures are taken seriously for anything other than blockbuster sales.
And here’s my final report, this having to do with having read a piece called Book Brahmin: Steve Hockensmith in Shelf Awareness, an online book industry daily newsletter on July 10. There was a huge photo of the cover of his novel The Crack in the Lens, accompanied by the following text: Steve Hockensmith is the author of the Holmes on the Range historical mysteries for St. Martin's Minotaur. The first book in the series was nominated for the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony and Dilys awards. The latest, The Crack in the Lens, hasn't been nominated for anything, but maybe that's because it won't be out till July 21. Hockensmith and the narrator of his books, cowboy detective "Big Red" Amlingmeyer, share a blog at stevehockensmith.com.
What pisses me off about this posting is that these distinctions Hockensmith has supposedly earned are misleading to the point of fraudulence. Being nominated for all these awards doesn’t mean a thing, other than the fact that the publisher nominated it (publishers can’t nominate for the Nobel prize, however). For the thousands of books nominated for most awards, the only thing one can honestly brag about are ones that are finalists or winners, and very few nominees gain that status. But a member of the public reading this copy would assume that Hockensmith was a marvelous writer. If this copy is written by the people who run Shelf Awareness, shame on them. If, on the other hand, it is a paid advertisement from St. Martin’s Press, it should be labeled as such. In any event, it makes me skeptical about continuing to read this newsletter. Chris Knopf has been a finalist for three book awards and a winner of one, and some of the folks at Shelf Awarenss know this, though there’s been no mention of his actual accomplishment. I’d say that if you want to tap into a good writer's web site, try our mystery writer instead; Chris Knopf at http://www.sameddie.com/.
If books sell by word-of-mouth and coverage—which they do—and if one values quality over celebrity and spin, it should be clear that the things that piss me occur when the undeserving get coverage while quality novelists get the short end of the stick.
I welcome your comments.
Marty
Monday, July 13, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Gobbledygook versus Substance
Gobbledygook:
As in politics, so be it in the corporate world, where spokespersons continually put the best face on what they are doing. With respect to publishing, most anyone in the business of publishing books—from big-time to smaller houses, to agents and scouts, and even to printers—will acknowledge that things are crappy, with layoffs and shrinking acquisitions the rule. Independent bookstores will also testify to this, where their existence has been under assault for decades as the expansion of chain stores have put so many of them out of business. However, there is one player on this stage who continues to spin optimism as deceptive as what we witnessed from General Motors, AIG, and nearly all the investment and large banking corporations which, up until they folded, were assuring investors that things would be fine and not to worry. So it is not surprising that the biggest bookseller in the world would be singing this same siren’s song.
This déjà vu experience came to me again on May 21, when, in their online daily edition, Publishers Weekly featured an article with the following headline: Sales Fall Less Than Expected at Barnes & Noble; Has Improved Outlook. Reading the copy, however, puts the lie to this optimism from the first sentence on: “Sales fell slightly less than expected in the first quarter ended May 2 at Barnes & Noble, declining 4%...” but “since the retailer had expected a decline in sales of between 6% and 9%,” Len Riggio and the gang at B & N considered this a sign of “improvement.” Digging deeper into this article it appeared that B & N's net losses in the first quarter amount to $2.1 million (nearly four times higher than first quarter losses last year) despite cost-cutting efforts and plans to close 15 superstores this year. While lesser losses than predicted hardly indicates good times ahead, it's common practice on Wall Street to underestimate profits and overestimate losses. Then, when the actuality shows greater profits and lesser losses, one can claim things are turning around. In the end, though, this is simply another case of putting lipstick on a pig.
One need only add to this the fact that Barnes & Noble is also planning to take over the Borders Group (which also operates Waldenbooks and is the 2nd largest chain in America). However, sales at Waldenbooks fell 19.9%, there were 11 store closures, and a 5.5% drop in same store sales. “A series of one-time expenses ate into the company’s bottom line resulting in a loss from continuing operations of $86 million compared to a loss of $30.1 million in last year’s first quarter.” To lower costs in the quarter, Borders cut capital expenditures from $27 million to $2.4 million and reduced inventory by 22%.” This planned acquisition reminds me of G. M.’s acquisitions of Hummer, Saab and other auto companies which have since proved toxic and were soon sold off because of continuing losses. Nor is it impossible that America’s largest bookseller could go the way of America’s largest auto company. Perhaps not, but don’t bet against it. After all, Barnes & Noble stock has fallen from $44 a share in June 2007 to half that amount today—a statistic that is not mentioned in B & N’s rosy press releases. I’ve news for you, Mr. Riggio: the only good news in all of this, is that the vulnerability of B & N could auger well for the return of the local independent bookseller, an essential component to those of us interested in preserving quality fiction.
And here’s another bit of gobbledygook concerning the recent Book Expo held in New York City last month and, as usual, reported on dutifully by all major news media as an important cultural/business event that serves to publicize “What’s hot” and “What’s not.” While there were quotes from various editors about “Big Books” and “Buzzes,” the most important news was rarely mentioned: the fact that only one fourth of those attending were booksellers. Total attendance was 29,000 plus, of which 17,000 were exhibitors and only 7,000 book buyers; the remainder were mostly people working for the media who were covering this “important event,” and trying to find substance in a gathering that had little to offer. (Unreported in the media was our one little event of importance: that Chris Knopf’s Head Wounds won an important mystery award sponsored by the IBPA—the Independent Book Publishers Association.)
Substance:
Two weeks ago I read the lead review by Robert Pinsky, our former Poet Laureate, of Elmore Leonard’s 44th thriller, Road Dogs, in The New York Times Book Review, and then heard the two of them on an hour long NPR radio station. It was a thrilling review and interview and I had to get a copy. Ever since reading Leonard’s Cuba Libre, some dozen or more years ago, I was enthralled by his talent. I’ve since read over 30 of his novels and, like others, came to consider him the best crime writer ever. If, at age 83, his novels have lost a bit of punch, so be it; he’s still the real deal and deserves every bit of attention he gets.
Last week I read Road Dogs and once again Chris Knopf came to mind. I remember that when we received Chris’s manuscript for The Last Refuge five years ago, I found myself musing over how much Knopf and Leonard had in common; both being masters of dialogue who create memorable characters, add dollops of humor to balance tension in their plots, and have their own, though different, poetic sensibilities. I also felt Refuge to be more engaging than Elmore’s The Hot Kid, released earlier, which I had just finished. Again, this time, for all the praise for Road Dogs, I once more thought it not as tight and engaging as Chris’s latest release in his Sam Acquillo mystery series, Hard Stop, and the two other novels sandwiched in between. While Knopf has not yet hit the “Big Time” with three books under his belt and a fourth just released weeks ago, it took Leonard a good half-dozen attempts before he came to major prominence; a prominence achieved by turning out one wonderful read after another before his artistry became impossible to ignore. Here again the similarities are evident.
When we published The Last Refuge in 2005, it was greeted by critical acclaim, seven international sales, a rave review by Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times Book Review, and repeatedly drew comparisons to not only Elmore Leonard, but to John D. MacDonald, and Ross MacDonald. Plus it was a finalist for the 2006 Connecticut Book Award.
Chris’s second, Two Time (2006), again gained excellent reviews, more international sales, and now Sam, his protagonist, was being compared to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, and Robert Parker’s Spenser. Two Time was one of thirteen mysteries listed in Marilyn Stasio's "Recommended Summer Reading" column in The New York Times Book Review in 2006, and was listed in Entertainment Weekly as one of the 50 "Hot Picks" of that summer. Publishers Weekly chose it as one of the “Best 100 Books for 2006.” It, and Philip Roth’s Everyman, were runner-ups for the 2007 Connecticut Book Award.
Head Wounds (2008), the third in this series, again gained great critical acclaim, and on May 28 (during the poorly attended, and mentioned, Book Expo) was awarded the prestigious Ben Franklin Award for Best Mystery this year. It was also a finalist for the ForeWord Magazine Mystery Award. All three of these Sam Acquillo mysteries made the Book Sense/Indie Next Lists, all were recorded by Blackstone Audiobooks, all were taken by Wheeler in the US for large print editions, and all were done by Random House Canada. All told 21 international rights have been sold for this series with one or more taken in England, Spain, Japan, Turkey, Italy, and China.
We’ve already signed up his “stand alone” thriller, Elysiana, for 2010, and Chris is working on a fifth Sam Acquillo mystery for 2011. In addition, he’s signed a two book contract with St. Martins for a mystery series featuring Jackie Swaitkowski (Sam’s ditzy female lawyer)—both novels have already been purchased by Random House Canada and Blackstone Audiobooks (our partners since “Sam One”—The Last Refuge—was published). At this rate, his current productivity rate is akin to that of Elmore’s, insofar as he will have authored eight thrillers within a seven year period of time. And like Elmore (who worked as a copywriter at an ad agency for seven years while working on his fiction), that’s exactly how Chris began as well.
Is it little wonder then that I see Chris as following in the Elmore Leonard’s footsteps? If any of you have read both Knopf and Leonard, I would welcome your comments. If you haven’t read any of Chris’s novels, I’ll gladly introduce him to you at no cost: all you need do is email me (shepard@thepermanentpress.com) and ask for a pdf copy of The Last Refuge, and I will gladly send it to your computer for downloading.
Marty
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Where I Left Off
In my last blog posting, Bad News/Good News, I promised to continue my comments on where the publishing industry stands right now. And the news, generally speaking, is glum indeed—particularly among the giants in the industry. Simon & Schuster’s parent company, CBS, announced that the publishing house had an operating loss of $2.1 million compared to operating income of $14.6 million in last year’s first period…a $16.7 million decline, as sales declined nearly 20%. Harper Collins reported almost the same sized drop in revenue and a $38 million loss. And Bertelsmann reported that total revenue fell 7%, with the company having a net loss of 78 million euros ($106.4 million) compared to earnings of 77 million euros ($105 million) in last year’s first quarter—a net decline of $211.4 million. Though no mention was made of Random House’s performance, Bertelsmann expects revenue and profits to decline for the year.
The good news, though, is that The Permanent Press is doing a hell of lot better than any of the giants, as our income from book sales have more than doubled from the same period last year. Of course, we’re not dealing in the millions, only in the tens of thousands, where total income from book sales came to $105,000 rather than the $42,000 posted for last year’s first quarter. The bad news, for us, is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to collect money from our largest wholesaler, Baker and Taylor, who owe us $101,000—$46,000 of which is more than 90 days overdue. This has produced a squeeze based on success, where our printers are eager for prompt payment and our major wholesaler seems intent on holding on to our funds for as long as possible. My guess is that this is due to the financial pinch everyone is suffering. Hopefully this will be resolved shortly, because B&T has been a much better wholesaler than Ingram, who we dismissed two years ago…along with attempts to sell books to the Barnes & Noble stores.
It’s peevish, I know, to hold grudges and delight when others in the business, who have treated us badly, suffer. But, hey, I’m neither Mother Theresa nor Gandhi, and so the declining fortunes of Barnes & Noble put a special smile on my face. Back in 2004 we published Kay Sloan’s The Patron Saint of Red Chevys, and it was made A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. That’s when the trouble started. We were told by Jill Lamar, who headed this program, that this would mean a large purchase, display space with other Great New Writers selections, and that B&N would discount all these books at 20% and put flyers all over their stores. But we were urged to reduce our projected $26 publishing price to $21.95 “so that we can sell-through and this should help a great deal.” Well, they were the experts. How could I resist. The upshot was that they order 3,300 copies directly from us which caused us to order 5,000 copies instead of the 1,500 we had planned on. When, four months later, they returned 3,000 copies I was shocked. “What happened,” I asked Jill. “You didn’t get enough publicity for it,” she answered, apparently oblivious to the “sell” that B&N would be supplying that very publicity.
I decided, after that conversation to speak with a publishing friend, Jill Schoolman, at Archipelago who, the year before had a book chosen for the Discover program. It turns out she had the same experience, being told by Jill Lamar to reduce her price, and how this would result in selling most if not all copies. B&N ordered 4,000 copies of her book and, four months later, returned 3,600.
Worse yet, these returns, though purchased from us directly, were returned through Ingram—ninety percent of them in unsaleable condition. The dust jackets were scuffed, or the edges of the spines or book covers were dented, and more than half of them had Barnes & Noble stickers on the front cover. Had B&N returned them to us, I would have rejected them, and so I called Ingram and complained on two grounds: one being that they hadn’t ordered through Ingram and also that the cartons Ingram returned the books in were poorly packed so that book shifted about loosely, causing additional damages. Ingram’s answer was that “We have an open return system and accept books back whether they are ordered form us or not,” and they took a credit for these returns of $33,000. “But they were poorly packed. Do you send books to bookstores loosely packed?” “No, we secure them in boxes with shrink wrapping around the lot of them.” “Then why don’t you do that for returns to publishers?” “It’s too costly.”
I demanded that they take back all the damaged books and credit us back for them. “Sorry, we only allow a maximum of 10% in credits a year no matter what the reasons. That’s just the cost of doing business with us (along with charging us for maintaining our books on Ingram’s website)” Well, the good news that came out of all this is that after a year in which Ingram ordered books from us, and paid us nothing until their chargeback was eliminated, we fired them. And, surprise, surprise, we found that our sales not only were unaffected, but that we were now able to sell to Amazon.com directly, who never over order and pay within 30 days time, instead of having Amazon order from Ingram.
Good riddance to these aggravations—which leads to this piece of advice to small publishers: avoid both Barnes & Noble and Ingram like the plagues they are. (Another ridiculous hurdle that B&N imposes on small publishers is that—unlike the way they treat the giants—their Small Press buyer will order only after seeing finished copy of the book, by which time one has already settled on a print run determined in part by advance orders.) Barnes & Noble is just another superstore, like Walmart, that likes to stock its abundant shelves with merchandise at no risk to them, since everything is returnable, even if it's left in shabby condition, while the Discovery program served their purposes of cloaking themselves, however falsely, with having "literary" sensibilities. But deep down, like Ingram, they treat their suppliers shabbily, for their overwhelming concerns are with their "bottom line" profits. Despite their public gloss and insider reputations, publishers deal with both of them at their own risk. To have any chance of long term success means dealing with booksellers in a mutually beneficial and respectful way, which is why we prefer the small, independent bookstores over the chains, and reject high-handed wholesalers like Ingram.
Okay, enough with the complaints. Here is the unabashedly good news from The Permanent Press:
Chris Knopf’s Head Wounds is one of three finalists for both ForeWord Magazine’s Mystery Award and the IBPA’s Ben Franklin Best Mystery Awards for 2009. Ceremonies in New York City by the Independent Booksellers Publishing Association on May 28 will announce winners in all categories. Also, Chris had a wonderful interview in The Hartford Courant in their Sunday, May 10 issue with Carole Goldberg, a member of the National Book Critics Circle, in which he had sage advice to give to writers. The link to it is well worth reading on line:
http://www.courant.com/features/booksmags/hc-curtain0510.artmay10,0,1830655.story
The American Library Association nominated Ivan Goldman’s novel The Barfighter (released in April), as a 2009 Notable Book. Ivan, besides his knowledge of boxing, was also a Rhodes Scholar and has a wonderful blog, “Digging Deeper” that nails it politically. His latest, a must read, is entitled Obama Lets Financial Dogs Out, is one of the best takes on Obama’s financial advisers. You can read it by clicking on to his site: http://www.ivangoldman.blogspot.com/
Here’s some other blog news: Louise Young, whose novel Seducing the Spirits will appear in November (one of two first novels we put up for the $10,000 Mercantile Center for the Novel’s First Novel Award and for the National Book Award —the other being J.P. White’s Every Boat Turns South, appearing in September) had her Red Room blog chosen as the best blog of the week a couple of weeks ago by this writers site (http://www.redroom.com/), and Charles Davis (whose classic first novel Walk On, Bright Boy, drew rave reviews, whose second, a satire, Walking the Dog, was published last year, and whose gripping third novel, Standing at the Crossroads will appear in 2011) had his blog chosen the week after that. On our recently updated website, http://www.thepermanentpress.com/, you can see and read about Louise and Jay’s novels listed under forthcoming books. Both are very special. Charles's fiction is in our Backlist.
A last word concerning Award nominations: M.F. Bloxam’s The Night Battles and Amy Boaz’s A Richer Dust are finalists in the ForeWard Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards in the Literary Fiction category.
And another bit of excellent news: Connie Dial’s Internal Affairs (due in July) received an unsolicited and powerful endorsement from one of America’s premier mystery novelists, Thomas Perry, an Edgar Award winning and national bestselling author who called it “A fascinating thriller in which the savage murder of a female police officer with an edgy personal life exposes an LAPD we haven't seen before: the gulf between careerists and crime-fighters; the half-supportive, half-cutthroat coterie of high-ranking women; the undercover surveillance specialists who are never in the news. Connie Dial brings a fresh, authentic voice to the genre… a talented writer with an observant eye and a good ear for dialogue. It was a pleasure to read her first book.”
Until the next posting and, as always, I welcome your comments.
Marty
The good news, though, is that The Permanent Press is doing a hell of lot better than any of the giants, as our income from book sales have more than doubled from the same period last year. Of course, we’re not dealing in the millions, only in the tens of thousands, where total income from book sales came to $105,000 rather than the $42,000 posted for last year’s first quarter. The bad news, for us, is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to collect money from our largest wholesaler, Baker and Taylor, who owe us $101,000—$46,000 of which is more than 90 days overdue. This has produced a squeeze based on success, where our printers are eager for prompt payment and our major wholesaler seems intent on holding on to our funds for as long as possible. My guess is that this is due to the financial pinch everyone is suffering. Hopefully this will be resolved shortly, because B&T has been a much better wholesaler than Ingram, who we dismissed two years ago…along with attempts to sell books to the Barnes & Noble stores.
It’s peevish, I know, to hold grudges and delight when others in the business, who have treated us badly, suffer. But, hey, I’m neither Mother Theresa nor Gandhi, and so the declining fortunes of Barnes & Noble put a special smile on my face. Back in 2004 we published Kay Sloan’s The Patron Saint of Red Chevys, and it was made A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. That’s when the trouble started. We were told by Jill Lamar, who headed this program, that this would mean a large purchase, display space with other Great New Writers selections, and that B&N would discount all these books at 20% and put flyers all over their stores. But we were urged to reduce our projected $26 publishing price to $21.95 “so that we can sell-through and this should help a great deal.” Well, they were the experts. How could I resist. The upshot was that they order 3,300 copies directly from us which caused us to order 5,000 copies instead of the 1,500 we had planned on. When, four months later, they returned 3,000 copies I was shocked. “What happened,” I asked Jill. “You didn’t get enough publicity for it,” she answered, apparently oblivious to the “sell” that B&N would be supplying that very publicity.
I decided, after that conversation to speak with a publishing friend, Jill Schoolman, at Archipelago who, the year before had a book chosen for the Discover program. It turns out she had the same experience, being told by Jill Lamar to reduce her price, and how this would result in selling most if not all copies. B&N ordered 4,000 copies of her book and, four months later, returned 3,600.
Worse yet, these returns, though purchased from us directly, were returned through Ingram—ninety percent of them in unsaleable condition. The dust jackets were scuffed, or the edges of the spines or book covers were dented, and more than half of them had Barnes & Noble stickers on the front cover. Had B&N returned them to us, I would have rejected them, and so I called Ingram and complained on two grounds: one being that they hadn’t ordered through Ingram and also that the cartons Ingram returned the books in were poorly packed so that book shifted about loosely, causing additional damages. Ingram’s answer was that “We have an open return system and accept books back whether they are ordered form us or not,” and they took a credit for these returns of $33,000. “But they were poorly packed. Do you send books to bookstores loosely packed?” “No, we secure them in boxes with shrink wrapping around the lot of them.” “Then why don’t you do that for returns to publishers?” “It’s too costly.”
I demanded that they take back all the damaged books and credit us back for them. “Sorry, we only allow a maximum of 10% in credits a year no matter what the reasons. That’s just the cost of doing business with us (along with charging us for maintaining our books on Ingram’s website)” Well, the good news that came out of all this is that after a year in which Ingram ordered books from us, and paid us nothing until their chargeback was eliminated, we fired them. And, surprise, surprise, we found that our sales not only were unaffected, but that we were now able to sell to Amazon.com directly, who never over order and pay within 30 days time, instead of having Amazon order from Ingram.
Good riddance to these aggravations—which leads to this piece of advice to small publishers: avoid both Barnes & Noble and Ingram like the plagues they are. (Another ridiculous hurdle that B&N imposes on small publishers is that—unlike the way they treat the giants—their Small Press buyer will order only after seeing finished copy of the book, by which time one has already settled on a print run determined in part by advance orders.) Barnes & Noble is just another superstore, like Walmart, that likes to stock its abundant shelves with merchandise at no risk to them, since everything is returnable, even if it's left in shabby condition, while the Discovery program served their purposes of cloaking themselves, however falsely, with having "literary" sensibilities. But deep down, like Ingram, they treat their suppliers shabbily, for their overwhelming concerns are with their "bottom line" profits. Despite their public gloss and insider reputations, publishers deal with both of them at their own risk. To have any chance of long term success means dealing with booksellers in a mutually beneficial and respectful way, which is why we prefer the small, independent bookstores over the chains, and reject high-handed wholesalers like Ingram.
Okay, enough with the complaints. Here is the unabashedly good news from The Permanent Press:
Chris Knopf’s Head Wounds is one of three finalists for both ForeWord Magazine’s Mystery Award and the IBPA’s Ben Franklin Best Mystery Awards for 2009. Ceremonies in New York City by the Independent Booksellers Publishing Association on May 28 will announce winners in all categories. Also, Chris had a wonderful interview in The Hartford Courant in their Sunday, May 10 issue with Carole Goldberg, a member of the National Book Critics Circle, in which he had sage advice to give to writers. The link to it is well worth reading on line:
http://www.courant.com/features/booksmags/hc-curtain0510.artmay10,0,1830655.story
The American Library Association nominated Ivan Goldman’s novel The Barfighter (released in April), as a 2009 Notable Book. Ivan, besides his knowledge of boxing, was also a Rhodes Scholar and has a wonderful blog, “Digging Deeper” that nails it politically. His latest, a must read, is entitled Obama Lets Financial Dogs Out, is one of the best takes on Obama’s financial advisers. You can read it by clicking on to his site: http://www.ivangoldman.blogspot.com/
Here’s some other blog news: Louise Young, whose novel Seducing the Spirits will appear in November (one of two first novels we put up for the $10,000 Mercantile Center for the Novel’s First Novel Award and for the National Book Award —the other being J.P. White’s Every Boat Turns South, appearing in September) had her Red Room blog chosen as the best blog of the week a couple of weeks ago by this writers site (http://www.redroom.com/), and Charles Davis (whose classic first novel Walk On, Bright Boy, drew rave reviews, whose second, a satire, Walking the Dog, was published last year, and whose gripping third novel, Standing at the Crossroads will appear in 2011) had his blog chosen the week after that. On our recently updated website, http://www.thepermanentpress.com/, you can see and read about Louise and Jay’s novels listed under forthcoming books. Both are very special. Charles's fiction is in our Backlist.
A last word concerning Award nominations: M.F. Bloxam’s The Night Battles and Amy Boaz’s A Richer Dust are finalists in the ForeWard Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards in the Literary Fiction category.
And another bit of excellent news: Connie Dial’s Internal Affairs (due in July) received an unsolicited and powerful endorsement from one of America’s premier mystery novelists, Thomas Perry, an Edgar Award winning and national bestselling author who called it “A fascinating thriller in which the savage murder of a female police officer with an edgy personal life exposes an LAPD we haven't seen before: the gulf between careerists and crime-fighters; the half-supportive, half-cutthroat coterie of high-ranking women; the undercover surveillance specialists who are never in the news. Connie Dial brings a fresh, authentic voice to the genre… a talented writer with an observant eye and a good ear for dialogue. It was a pleasure to read her first book.”
Until the next posting and, as always, I welcome your comments.
Marty
Monday, April 6, 2009
Bad News/Good News
In the body politic there is bad news and good:
The bad news, as Robert Reich declared last week (underlining what many of us had already concluded), is that we are now in a “Depression” which will likely worsen in the immediate future. The good news is that we’ve got a president who combines warmth, wit, intelligence, and compassion and who is committed to changing the status quo. The up-side of all this is that this crises provides the impetus to establish a saner economic system to curb cut-throat capitalism, lower the gap between the super-rich and ordinary people and provide better social safety nets (including universal health care, and “green” legislation that can slow down the toxicity that is poisoning us all).
These same contradictions and opportunities apply to the business of books. The news here is incredibly bad, and worsened by the fact that there is no president who can reform this system—just a lot of large corporate publishers facing declining sales who are scrambling to avoid massive red-ink by laying off workers, putting moratoriums on acquisitions, and closing imprints. Last week Publishers Weekly, in an effort to help so many senior people who’ve been pink-slipped, added to their daily on-line edition, a free listing of those suddenly out-of-work and a way to contact them if openings developed elsewhere. Yet conversations with Rudy Shur at Square One, Dan Simon at Seven Stories Press and other publishers/editors make it clear that there is no new hiring going on.
General Motors made a case that if they disappeared, so would tens of thousands of others, like suppliers and dealerships. As large publishers continue to shrink, so do opportunities for their suppliers: new and mid-list writers (who find it extremely difficult to find their way into print) and literary agents, who repeatedly tell me how their business has fallen off because of unprecedented difficulties in finding spots for the writers they represent. Adding to this toxicity is the disappearance of newspapers and the drastic reduction of book review space.
The good news is that this collapse will necessarily change the paradigm of how the written word becomes a book and how these books become marketed. Clearly CEO’s of most major publishing companies did not anticipate these circumstances and the personal heartbreak that has followed. To expect change from above is the same as expecting executives at AIG or GM to reform the banking or automotive industry. As I see it, the operative term for viability and change in our business would be one coined in the 60’s: “Small is Beautiful.” And I believe that is already happening.
I take it as good news that the chain bookstores are in serious trouble. Decades back, neighborhood bookstores accounted for more than three quarters of book sales while employing people who enjoyed reading and could recommend titles to customers. The chains totally reversed these percentages by their own rapacious practices: buying in larger quantities while demanding bigger discount from publishers, charging publishers for display space, and offering steeper discounts to customers. Using their profits to open ever more stores, they drove countless independents out of business. In effect, like Citibank, Chase, and others in the banking system, the Daltons, Borders, Waldenbooks, and Barnes & Nobles (who even started competing with publishers by publishing their own titles that they would sell exclusively in their stores) came to dominate retail sales, while selling publishers on the idea that they were too big to ignore. But without dedicated staff who read and hand-sold, it did little to help bring new writers to the attention of readers. “Too big to fail” is the mantra of collapsing banks in seeking bailouts. But bailouts are unknown in the publishing industry. And, in truth, when entities become too big, as the chains have become, they become de facto monopolies. So let us rejoice in the troubles at the chains and welcome back the neighborhood book store.
Offsetting the bad news of disappearing newspaper reviews is the good news concerning the incredible proliferation of online and blog review sites. Books sell, essentially, by virtue of word-of-mouth. The question has always been, in this nation of 300 million people, "How do potential readers first discover a book?" Clearly, reaching pockets of readers around the country is much more likely through blog reviewers than getting a review in any big city newspaper, which only attract a local audience at best (and a limited one, too, since only a minority of newspaper readers actually read book reviews: another reason why papers are cutting down on them). The only national newspaper that still has a separate book review section is The New York Times, but their shrinking Sunday book section typically restricts themselves to 5 fiction reviews and 10 non-fiction reviews—hardly a way of spreading much word-of-mouth for relatively unknown novelists. Therefore bloggers and online reviewers, who have far less interest in celebrity authors and books about celebrities, far more interest in discovering new talent than repeating coverage of old talent, and who seem at least as interested in fiction as non-fiction, are a welcome transformation.
All of the bad news for conglomerate publishing should spell good news for small publishers who are sent more and better manuscripts from authors and agents and who can gain far better access to reviews because of the internet. I know that despite all the gloom and doom, our good news is that sales of our fiction were higher in 2008 than they were in 2007, and that this year—with the publication and fine pre-pub and widespread online reviews of Efrem Sigel’s The Disappearance, Daniel Klein’s The History of Now, and Ivan Goldman’s The Barfighter—they have started off significantly higher than our 2008 sales. And, being small, we have not had to lay off any staff. The bad news is that sub-rights income has declined significantly, for there is no market for selling paperback rights in the United States and a declining market for translation rights sales abroad, since large European and Asian publishers are having the same economic problems as the major American publishers. But, overall, this is something we can live with far better than the Monsters of the Midway.
Years ago I came to realize that the corporate publishing practice of tossing out several hundred titles a year and hoping that some of them will stick to the wall was not a sound business model. Economically speaking, it's far more effective to put out a dozen or so books annually while paying attention to promoting each and every one, for it requires less staff and office overhead, allows the selections to be more focused and refined, and offers greater protection against the vicissitudes of the larger economy and the marketplace. Given the current climate, I would say that the concept of "Small is Beautiful" provides a better template for the future of book publishing than the one currently in place.
Part Two to follow in my next blog posting. Other news on our website www.thepermanentpress.com.
Marty
The bad news, as Robert Reich declared last week (underlining what many of us had already concluded), is that we are now in a “Depression” which will likely worsen in the immediate future. The good news is that we’ve got a president who combines warmth, wit, intelligence, and compassion and who is committed to changing the status quo. The up-side of all this is that this crises provides the impetus to establish a saner economic system to curb cut-throat capitalism, lower the gap between the super-rich and ordinary people and provide better social safety nets (including universal health care, and “green” legislation that can slow down the toxicity that is poisoning us all).
These same contradictions and opportunities apply to the business of books. The news here is incredibly bad, and worsened by the fact that there is no president who can reform this system—just a lot of large corporate publishers facing declining sales who are scrambling to avoid massive red-ink by laying off workers, putting moratoriums on acquisitions, and closing imprints. Last week Publishers Weekly, in an effort to help so many senior people who’ve been pink-slipped, added to their daily on-line edition, a free listing of those suddenly out-of-work and a way to contact them if openings developed elsewhere. Yet conversations with Rudy Shur at Square One, Dan Simon at Seven Stories Press and other publishers/editors make it clear that there is no new hiring going on.
General Motors made a case that if they disappeared, so would tens of thousands of others, like suppliers and dealerships. As large publishers continue to shrink, so do opportunities for their suppliers: new and mid-list writers (who find it extremely difficult to find their way into print) and literary agents, who repeatedly tell me how their business has fallen off because of unprecedented difficulties in finding spots for the writers they represent. Adding to this toxicity is the disappearance of newspapers and the drastic reduction of book review space.
The good news is that this collapse will necessarily change the paradigm of how the written word becomes a book and how these books become marketed. Clearly CEO’s of most major publishing companies did not anticipate these circumstances and the personal heartbreak that has followed. To expect change from above is the same as expecting executives at AIG or GM to reform the banking or automotive industry. As I see it, the operative term for viability and change in our business would be one coined in the 60’s: “Small is Beautiful.” And I believe that is already happening.
I take it as good news that the chain bookstores are in serious trouble. Decades back, neighborhood bookstores accounted for more than three quarters of book sales while employing people who enjoyed reading and could recommend titles to customers. The chains totally reversed these percentages by their own rapacious practices: buying in larger quantities while demanding bigger discount from publishers, charging publishers for display space, and offering steeper discounts to customers. Using their profits to open ever more stores, they drove countless independents out of business. In effect, like Citibank, Chase, and others in the banking system, the Daltons, Borders, Waldenbooks, and Barnes & Nobles (who even started competing with publishers by publishing their own titles that they would sell exclusively in their stores) came to dominate retail sales, while selling publishers on the idea that they were too big to ignore. But without dedicated staff who read and hand-sold, it did little to help bring new writers to the attention of readers. “Too big to fail” is the mantra of collapsing banks in seeking bailouts. But bailouts are unknown in the publishing industry. And, in truth, when entities become too big, as the chains have become, they become de facto monopolies. So let us rejoice in the troubles at the chains and welcome back the neighborhood book store.
Offsetting the bad news of disappearing newspaper reviews is the good news concerning the incredible proliferation of online and blog review sites. Books sell, essentially, by virtue of word-of-mouth. The question has always been, in this nation of 300 million people, "How do potential readers first discover a book?" Clearly, reaching pockets of readers around the country is much more likely through blog reviewers than getting a review in any big city newspaper, which only attract a local audience at best (and a limited one, too, since only a minority of newspaper readers actually read book reviews: another reason why papers are cutting down on them). The only national newspaper that still has a separate book review section is The New York Times, but their shrinking Sunday book section typically restricts themselves to 5 fiction reviews and 10 non-fiction reviews—hardly a way of spreading much word-of-mouth for relatively unknown novelists. Therefore bloggers and online reviewers, who have far less interest in celebrity authors and books about celebrities, far more interest in discovering new talent than repeating coverage of old talent, and who seem at least as interested in fiction as non-fiction, are a welcome transformation.
All of the bad news for conglomerate publishing should spell good news for small publishers who are sent more and better manuscripts from authors and agents and who can gain far better access to reviews because of the internet. I know that despite all the gloom and doom, our good news is that sales of our fiction were higher in 2008 than they were in 2007, and that this year—with the publication and fine pre-pub and widespread online reviews of Efrem Sigel’s The Disappearance, Daniel Klein’s The History of Now, and Ivan Goldman’s The Barfighter—they have started off significantly higher than our 2008 sales. And, being small, we have not had to lay off any staff. The bad news is that sub-rights income has declined significantly, for there is no market for selling paperback rights in the United States and a declining market for translation rights sales abroad, since large European and Asian publishers are having the same economic problems as the major American publishers. But, overall, this is something we can live with far better than the Monsters of the Midway.
Years ago I came to realize that the corporate publishing practice of tossing out several hundred titles a year and hoping that some of them will stick to the wall was not a sound business model. Economically speaking, it's far more effective to put out a dozen or so books annually while paying attention to promoting each and every one, for it requires less staff and office overhead, allows the selections to be more focused and refined, and offers greater protection against the vicissitudes of the larger economy and the marketplace. Given the current climate, I would say that the concept of "Small is Beautiful" provides a better template for the future of book publishing than the one currently in place.
Part Two to follow in my next blog posting. Other news on our website www.thepermanentpress.com.
Marty
Saturday, March 21, 2009
An Auto-Interview (which has nothing to do with cars)
I've thought it might be interesting to post a blog from time to time where some of our writers were interviewed. But rather than fall into the James Lipton trap where he would always ask his actor interviewees the same questions, I thought it might be more rewarding if the authors could interview themselves. Since Daniel Klein's The History of Now has just been published, without further ado, here is his Auto-Interview:
Walter Ygo: So tell me, Danny, what’s an old guy like you--and I don’t mean just chronologically old, I’m talking dentures, hearing aids, Viagra in the medicine chest old--so what’s an old guy like you doing writing his first literary novel?
Danny Klein: Well, Walter, truth is I wasn’t ready to write something like The History of Now until now because I’m a slow learner. It took me all these years of writing humor, philosophy, detective novels, and thrillers to learn the craft of long fiction. How to organize it, how to write it fluently, and perhaps most importantly for me, how to rewrite it patiently.
Walter: So what’s the deal with Permanent Press? It ain’t exactly Penguin Books, you know. And I can’t imagine they gave you much of an advance.
Danny: How true. The advance just covers a round-trip to Boston (taxes not included.) But these Permanent Press people liked the book for all the right reasons, they got it out before I bit the dust, and the principals there, Marty & Judy Shepard, are cute…Oh, and anyway, Penguin isn’t in the market for new fiction these days. But the good news is that Penguin bought the paperback rights to Tom Cathcart’s and my bestseller, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar for big bucks and then gave us a huge advance for another, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk through those Pearly Gates, so I could afford to go with Permanent.
Walter: I see that you call The History of Now a philosophically inclined novel. That sounds like hype to me. And a little pretentious on top of that.
Danny: Yeah, well, maybe I overdid that philosophy angle in the publicity. But philosophical ideas of historical cause and effect did play an organizing role in my mind when I began thinking about the book. Not heavy philosophy, just a guiding principle. Mostly it’s a story of life in a small town.
Walter: I see you live in a small town--Great Barrington, Massachusetts. So is this a roman a clef?
Danny: Jeez, Walter, are you talking French? Sounds a little pretentious to me. Anyway, no, it’s not a roman a clef--the characters are one hundred percent fictional. The geography and demographics of the town--plus a bit of the history--is patterned after Great Barrington, but not the characters. They could be from any town.
Walter: Okay, they always make me ask this one: Why did you become a writer?
Danny: My mother used to say it was the only work I could get where I could make a living telling lies. That was as close as she ever got to approving of my vocation…What can I say? I like making up stuff, love the English language, and in particular, I like working for myself…Anyway, at my age, it’s the only thing I do better than I did when I was younger. For everything else, it’s the other way around.
Walter: Fair enough. Okay, finally, how would you rate The History of Now in terms of contemporary American fiction?
Danny: It’s probably closer to old fashioned story-telling of the Richard Russo variety than, say, what younger writers are doing, say the late David Foster Wallace. I think it’s well written, for what that is worth, and the characters believable. But do I think people will be reading it years from now? No way, Walter.
Walter: Okay, I’ve had enough.
Danny: Me too.
That's it for Danny's interview, which I hope you've enjoyed. I'd be glad to receive other Q&A interviews from authors we'll soon be publishing (send to shepard@thepermanentpress.com). Also welcome are any proposals for other formats...or topics you'd like to talk about or have me address.
Marty
Walter Ygo: So tell me, Danny, what’s an old guy like you--and I don’t mean just chronologically old, I’m talking dentures, hearing aids, Viagra in the medicine chest old--so what’s an old guy like you doing writing his first literary novel?
Danny Klein: Well, Walter, truth is I wasn’t ready to write something like The History of Now until now because I’m a slow learner. It took me all these years of writing humor, philosophy, detective novels, and thrillers to learn the craft of long fiction. How to organize it, how to write it fluently, and perhaps most importantly for me, how to rewrite it patiently.
Walter: So what’s the deal with Permanent Press? It ain’t exactly Penguin Books, you know. And I can’t imagine they gave you much of an advance.
Danny: How true. The advance just covers a round-trip to Boston (taxes not included.) But these Permanent Press people liked the book for all the right reasons, they got it out before I bit the dust, and the principals there, Marty & Judy Shepard, are cute…Oh, and anyway, Penguin isn’t in the market for new fiction these days. But the good news is that Penguin bought the paperback rights to Tom Cathcart’s and my bestseller, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar for big bucks and then gave us a huge advance for another, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk through those Pearly Gates, so I could afford to go with Permanent.
Walter: I see that you call The History of Now a philosophically inclined novel. That sounds like hype to me. And a little pretentious on top of that.
Danny: Yeah, well, maybe I overdid that philosophy angle in the publicity. But philosophical ideas of historical cause and effect did play an organizing role in my mind when I began thinking about the book. Not heavy philosophy, just a guiding principle. Mostly it’s a story of life in a small town.
Walter: I see you live in a small town--Great Barrington, Massachusetts. So is this a roman a clef?
Danny: Jeez, Walter, are you talking French? Sounds a little pretentious to me. Anyway, no, it’s not a roman a clef--the characters are one hundred percent fictional. The geography and demographics of the town--plus a bit of the history--is patterned after Great Barrington, but not the characters. They could be from any town.
Walter: Okay, they always make me ask this one: Why did you become a writer?
Danny: My mother used to say it was the only work I could get where I could make a living telling lies. That was as close as she ever got to approving of my vocation…What can I say? I like making up stuff, love the English language, and in particular, I like working for myself…Anyway, at my age, it’s the only thing I do better than I did when I was younger. For everything else, it’s the other way around.
Walter: Fair enough. Okay, finally, how would you rate The History of Now in terms of contemporary American fiction?
Danny: It’s probably closer to old fashioned story-telling of the Richard Russo variety than, say, what younger writers are doing, say the late David Foster Wallace. I think it’s well written, for what that is worth, and the characters believable. But do I think people will be reading it years from now? No way, Walter.
Walter: Okay, I’ve had enough.
Danny: Me too.
That's it for Danny's interview, which I hope you've enjoyed. I'd be glad to receive other Q&A interviews from authors we'll soon be publishing (send to shepard@thepermanentpress.com). Also welcome are any proposals for other formats...or topics you'd like to talk about or have me address.
Marty
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Zeitgeist
One of the great joys inherent in our annual Virgin Gorda vacation is letting go of schedules, waking when the mood suits us, reading on an uncrowded beach, snorkeling over one of the finest reefs in the Caribbean, watching incredibly beautiful sunsets and naming what we see in the cloud formations. The biggest decisions to make concerned where would we go to eat each night and what would we order. Judy and I could get away and know that The Permanent Press was in excellent hands, with our dream team of Rania Haditirto at the helm, aided and abettted by Susanne Gustafsson, our extraordinary intern from Sweden, and Stefanie Beroes, who heroically kept up with orders and collections. But I must say after 12 days of rest and recuperation, returning home and getting back to work was equally exciting.
Rania, who is 31, and Susanne, who is 27, provided a file containing more more than a dozen new reviews for upcoming titles, including two fine pre-publication reviews in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly for Hard Stop, Chris Knopf's fourth Sam Aquillo mystery due in May (to see these latest accolades and others go on to Chris's website: http://www.sameddie.com/), and filled us in on the continuing success of Efrem Sigel's The Disappearance (now in its third printing) and Daniel Klein's The History of Now (ranked at 20,000 at Amazon.com earlier today). They also decided we weren't "hip" enough, so they've put The Permanent Press on Face Book. Frankly I don't understand the benefit of all this, but I'm not autocratic enough to say "Enough." Maybe they are on to something that I fail to see.
This possibility occurred when I read in today's New York Times that HarperCollins--a month after closing down their Collins imprint due to the implosion facing all of the conglomerate publishing giants--was starting a new imprint, It Books, that would focus "On pop culture, style, and content derived from the Internet, like a planned collection of Twitter posts called Twitter Wit." Another title for their 21 title fall list includes "The Style Strategy by Nina Garia, a judge on Project Runway." If that is "hip," I want no part of it.
It seems to me that "publishng" is a broad term that consists of two very different approaches that are increasingly apparent during this economic mess: a situation more aptly called "The Great Depression 11," rather than pretending we are in a "Recession." In one corner are those marketeers who seek to commission or hook on to something they believe to be trendy. And in the other corner are those who prefer to discover exciting writing that is more timeless. If I were a betting man, I would predict that It Books, headed by Carrie Kania will fail despite the blessings of Michael Morrison, president and publisher of HarperCollins, who said that "I think we've pulled together the best people wihin our company who are really interested in this and are targeting them to all work together to tap into the Zeitgeist."
Please, Michael, let me give you Webster's definition of Zeitgeist: The spirit of the time, the intellectual and moral tendencies that characterize any age or epoch. If Twitter and Style represent the moral and intellectual tendencies of today, I think you are simply trying to dress up dross with the lipstick of a "hip" German noun. Listen, if you are simply seeking to boost income, why not try starting a "Zeitgeist" greeting card line, like Hallmark, charge $5 for an envelope and a folded card, and stop pretending that It Books is some sort of novel approach. Here's another approach: Why not just try to discover more original books?
Whatever you do, Michael, here's my blessing for you: gesundheit! Or, as Danny Klein quipped, "There's nothing so dated as avant garde passe."
Marty
Rania, who is 31, and Susanne, who is 27, provided a file containing more more than a dozen new reviews for upcoming titles, including two fine pre-publication reviews in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly for Hard Stop, Chris Knopf's fourth Sam Aquillo mystery due in May (to see these latest accolades and others go on to Chris's website: http://www.sameddie.com/), and filled us in on the continuing success of Efrem Sigel's The Disappearance (now in its third printing) and Daniel Klein's The History of Now (ranked at 20,000 at Amazon.com earlier today). They also decided we weren't "hip" enough, so they've put The Permanent Press on Face Book. Frankly I don't understand the benefit of all this, but I'm not autocratic enough to say "Enough." Maybe they are on to something that I fail to see.
This possibility occurred when I read in today's New York Times that HarperCollins--a month after closing down their Collins imprint due to the implosion facing all of the conglomerate publishing giants--was starting a new imprint, It Books, that would focus "On pop culture, style, and content derived from the Internet, like a planned collection of Twitter posts called Twitter Wit." Another title for their 21 title fall list includes "The Style Strategy by Nina Garia, a judge on Project Runway." If that is "hip," I want no part of it.
It seems to me that "publishng" is a broad term that consists of two very different approaches that are increasingly apparent during this economic mess: a situation more aptly called "The Great Depression 11," rather than pretending we are in a "Recession." In one corner are those marketeers who seek to commission or hook on to something they believe to be trendy. And in the other corner are those who prefer to discover exciting writing that is more timeless. If I were a betting man, I would predict that It Books, headed by Carrie Kania will fail despite the blessings of Michael Morrison, president and publisher of HarperCollins, who said that "I think we've pulled together the best people wihin our company who are really interested in this and are targeting them to all work together to tap into the Zeitgeist."
Please, Michael, let me give you Webster's definition of Zeitgeist: The spirit of the time, the intellectual and moral tendencies that characterize any age or epoch. If Twitter and Style represent the moral and intellectual tendencies of today, I think you are simply trying to dress up dross with the lipstick of a "hip" German noun. Listen, if you are simply seeking to boost income, why not try starting a "Zeitgeist" greeting card line, like Hallmark, charge $5 for an envelope and a folded card, and stop pretending that It Books is some sort of novel approach. Here's another approach: Why not just try to discover more original books?
Whatever you do, Michael, here's my blessing for you: gesundheit! Or, as Danny Klein quipped, "There's nothing so dated as avant garde passe."
Marty
Sunday, February 15, 2009
The Network is Growing
It's ironic in that tomorrow, the 16th, Judy and I leave for our annual warmth, water, and sunshine vacation in Virgin Gorda--one of the most beautiful places left in the Caribbean (we return on March 1). And yet, for the first time in 13 years, I have a reluctance to go, because the work here has been so exciting over the past month and a half that a good part of me doesn't want to leave. I fear I am becoming a bookaholic.
This excitement is fed by many streams. In early January I emailed 109 writers we've published asking if they would be interested in helping form a "collective" of sorts by joining together to spread the word about the quality fiction we publish. I offered them advance copies of any book we're going to publish or have published in the past, at cost ($8/copy, including mailing)--or $88 for all 13 novels coming out this year, with some bonus books thrown in. (This same offer, incidentally, is open to any of you reading this blog). My hope was that they would talk up the books they liked, post reviews on blogs or Amazon.com, suggest them to book clubs at a 50% discount, and think of other avenues for spreading-the-word. The results have been heart-warming: 34 of them wanted to be on an email list where we would send them pre-publication reviews so that they could order any titles of interest. 24 chose to be on this "pick what you want" list; 8 subscribed for everything, and one--Joan Schweighardt--signed up two of her writer friends so that we have a small nest of these "word-of-mouthers in Albuquerque, and 10 full year subscriptions. Joan, who wrote Virtual Silence, Homebodies, and Island, which we published between 1992 and 1995 (and who has also worked in publishing as an agent) developed her own word-of-mouth network several years ago. "I stopped relying on print reviews a long time ago," she said. "The best book recommendations always came from friends who know me. One of the things we do over Christmas is give one another three of the books we read in the past year that we were most excited about." Great appreciation as well to Charles Davis, a Brit who lives in France, who downloaded Daniel Klein's The History of Now and whose masterpiece, Walk On, Bright Boy, we published last year. The review he wrote--a brilliant analysis of Klein's novel, would make him a finalist for a reviewer's "Oscar" if they ever had such awards.
Another stream has had to do with discovering some extraordinary non-professional reviewers through places like Library Thing, where we've offered 20 free copies of recent and future titles which are quickly snapped up. 15 may never see the light of day online, a few others may write reviews that are positive or negative, but the writing isn't something that thrills or captures my imagination. But every now and then, I read a review that is so articulate, so richly expressed and profound that one wants to embrace the reviewer as a literary soul-mate. Bloggers like Wisteria Leigh, Allison Campbell and Heather Tieg come immediately to mind, and I welcome being able to share good books with them. Then there are people like Rebecca Durfor who published a modified version of my third blog, "Saving Quality Fiction" on RebeccasReads, featuring it as an editorial. Or Clark Isaacs, who is a fellow literary junkie and blogger.
A final network stream had to do with writing to over 50 print reviewers who we'd been sending advance copies of every book we've published for the past 10 or 15 years, with diminishing returns, telling them that this process was like treading water in a rip tide, and proposing the same email system as we started using with our supportive authors. 24 of them responded affirmatively, and after sending them our last 6 reviews in Publishers Weekly, several asked to see specific titles (including a reviewer who hadn't covered us for a half-dozen years who now guaranteed coverage for two titles). So all this adds to my excitement. It's a privilege to be in touch with print reviewers with whom you can have an exchange; a sharp contrast to people like Michiko Kakutani at The New York Times, who we've sent books to for 15 years without ever getting a response to a letter, an email, or a telephone call. It's liberating to send selectively to two dozen reviewers and stop knocking on the doors of people who will neither review your books nor talk to you.
Given all these changes, some pretty terrific things have been happening with or February, March and April releases. Efrem Sigel's The Disappearance sold out one week after publication and another printing will be delivered by February 25. Efrem's novel and Danny Klein's The History of Now have both made upcoming Indie Next Notable Lists from the American Booksellers Association (which picks the top 40 titles published every month by virtue of booksellers' nominations). Both were also purchased by Blackstone Audiobooks, for those who like to "read" while driving. And our April novel, Ivan Goldman's The Barfighter, has been getting pre-publication raves both here and in the U.K. Reviews for all these books can be seen on our website: http://www.thepermanentpress.com/ .
Lastly, some years ago a visitor at the Frankfurt Book Fair mentioned that China would be increasingly open to Western literature. Now, with excellent representation in China by Jackie Huang and Daisy Wang at the Nurnberg Agency, these women have, over the past three weeks, made 5 subrights sales for our books, consisting of The History of Now and all 4 of Chris Knopf's Sam Acquillo mystery series (The Last Refuge, Two Time, Head Wounds, and the forthcoming Hard Stop due in May).
So it's off on vacation later today. But I can't wait to get back home at the end of February, hear from you, catch up on work, and post another blog during the first week in March. I would hope, if you find these blogs worthwhile, that you will subscribe to them if you haven't already done so, and pass them on to others who might have some interest. It all helps us expand the network.
Marty
This excitement is fed by many streams. In early January I emailed 109 writers we've published asking if they would be interested in helping form a "collective" of sorts by joining together to spread the word about the quality fiction we publish. I offered them advance copies of any book we're going to publish or have published in the past, at cost ($8/copy, including mailing)--or $88 for all 13 novels coming out this year, with some bonus books thrown in. (This same offer, incidentally, is open to any of you reading this blog). My hope was that they would talk up the books they liked, post reviews on blogs or Amazon.com, suggest them to book clubs at a 50% discount, and think of other avenues for spreading-the-word. The results have been heart-warming: 34 of them wanted to be on an email list where we would send them pre-publication reviews so that they could order any titles of interest. 24 chose to be on this "pick what you want" list; 8 subscribed for everything, and one--Joan Schweighardt--signed up two of her writer friends so that we have a small nest of these "word-of-mouthers in Albuquerque, and 10 full year subscriptions. Joan, who wrote Virtual Silence, Homebodies, and Island, which we published between 1992 and 1995 (and who has also worked in publishing as an agent) developed her own word-of-mouth network several years ago. "I stopped relying on print reviews a long time ago," she said. "The best book recommendations always came from friends who know me. One of the things we do over Christmas is give one another three of the books we read in the past year that we were most excited about." Great appreciation as well to Charles Davis, a Brit who lives in France, who downloaded Daniel Klein's The History of Now and whose masterpiece, Walk On, Bright Boy, we published last year. The review he wrote--a brilliant analysis of Klein's novel, would make him a finalist for a reviewer's "Oscar" if they ever had such awards.
Another stream has had to do with discovering some extraordinary non-professional reviewers through places like Library Thing, where we've offered 20 free copies of recent and future titles which are quickly snapped up. 15 may never see the light of day online, a few others may write reviews that are positive or negative, but the writing isn't something that thrills or captures my imagination. But every now and then, I read a review that is so articulate, so richly expressed and profound that one wants to embrace the reviewer as a literary soul-mate. Bloggers like Wisteria Leigh, Allison Campbell and Heather Tieg come immediately to mind, and I welcome being able to share good books with them. Then there are people like Rebecca Durfor who published a modified version of my third blog, "Saving Quality Fiction" on RebeccasReads, featuring it as an editorial. Or Clark Isaacs, who is a fellow literary junkie and blogger.
A final network stream had to do with writing to over 50 print reviewers who we'd been sending advance copies of every book we've published for the past 10 or 15 years, with diminishing returns, telling them that this process was like treading water in a rip tide, and proposing the same email system as we started using with our supportive authors. 24 of them responded affirmatively, and after sending them our last 6 reviews in Publishers Weekly, several asked to see specific titles (including a reviewer who hadn't covered us for a half-dozen years who now guaranteed coverage for two titles). So all this adds to my excitement. It's a privilege to be in touch with print reviewers with whom you can have an exchange; a sharp contrast to people like Michiko Kakutani at The New York Times, who we've sent books to for 15 years without ever getting a response to a letter, an email, or a telephone call. It's liberating to send selectively to two dozen reviewers and stop knocking on the doors of people who will neither review your books nor talk to you.
Given all these changes, some pretty terrific things have been happening with or February, March and April releases. Efrem Sigel's The Disappearance sold out one week after publication and another printing will be delivered by February 25. Efrem's novel and Danny Klein's The History of Now have both made upcoming Indie Next Notable Lists from the American Booksellers Association (which picks the top 40 titles published every month by virtue of booksellers' nominations). Both were also purchased by Blackstone Audiobooks, for those who like to "read" while driving. And our April novel, Ivan Goldman's The Barfighter, has been getting pre-publication raves both here and in the U.K. Reviews for all these books can be seen on our website: http://www.thepermanentpress.com/ .
Lastly, some years ago a visitor at the Frankfurt Book Fair mentioned that China would be increasingly open to Western literature. Now, with excellent representation in China by Jackie Huang and Daisy Wang at the Nurnberg Agency, these women have, over the past three weeks, made 5 subrights sales for our books, consisting of The History of Now and all 4 of Chris Knopf's Sam Acquillo mystery series (The Last Refuge, Two Time, Head Wounds, and the forthcoming Hard Stop due in May).
So it's off on vacation later today. But I can't wait to get back home at the end of February, hear from you, catch up on work, and post another blog during the first week in March. I would hope, if you find these blogs worthwhile, that you will subscribe to them if you haven't already done so, and pass them on to others who might have some interest. It all helps us expand the network.
Marty
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