down the writer's path

Internet Tools for Writers: JacketFlap networks people in the children's book industry

Social networking is here to stay. So if you're among the thousands of writers who have not made an attempt to tickle any social networks such as MySpace, Facebook or Twitter, it's time. Anyone remotely connected with the children's book industry should take a look at JacketFlap.com. You'll not only find authors and illustrators, but you'll run across reviewers, librarians, agents, booksellers, publicists, teachers, and even students. This is a growing community with a database of books, just released books, reviews, children's book-related blogs and publishers. If you're already published, you may discover your name and book is already listed. If that's the case, it's time to update your profile before anyone else does. Best of all, JacketFlap is free.

I came across JacketFlap yesterday during a search of my name. The site only had my name and the info on DIVIDED LOYALTIES. So I cruised around the site, read all about it, and updated my profile. It was easy and didn't take long. You can make it as concise as you wish. I was even able to have a feed to this blog show up on my profile page. If you're a writer or illustrator, JacketFlap is one more way to promote your books and your work. In addition you can find other writers and "friends" who will network with you. At the very least your profile is one more page that will show up on a Google Search. The best JacketFlap offers is a connection to the publishing community that may lead to more book sales and possible future work.

In order for the community to grow, JacketFlap awards points when you update publisher information, new contacts, or referrals. The points accumulate and gift certificates are earned. So, don't forget where you first heard about JacketFlap and spread the word. I find the site pretty impressive. Take a look and then come back and give me your thoughts. If you're in the kiddie lit field, why not join me--and don't forget to "friend" me--at JacketFlap.com.
--
More info: USING FURL; USING OUTLOOK; USING GOOGLE ALERTS; USING GOOGLE DESKTOP SEARCH; USING THE BLOG READING LEVEL TOOL; USING VISUAL THESAURUS

Tonight Blog Radio's Wayne Hurlbert interviews Blogcritics publisher Eric Colsen

Two of my favorite online friends get together for a chat on Blog Radio TV tonight.

Entrepreneur and internet publisher Eric Olsen, CEO of Blogcritics, describes how to manage large staff organization, including huge numbers of volunteers, to boost your business or non-profit organization success. Eric Olsen is my internet radio show guest on Blog Business Success; hosted live on Blog Talk Radio.

I've received many great tips reading Wayne's blogs and Eric has provided me with an online publishing venue for several years now. They're great guys and both have a lot to share.

The show airs live tuesday, tonight, October 23, at 8:00 pm Eastern.

David Halberstam's death due to student's driving

Apparently the death of nonfiction Pulitzer prize-winning author David Halberstam is being attributed to the graduate student driver. He made an illegal turn that left Halberstam vulnerable to oncoming traffic. The oncoming car hit the passenger side and crushed Halberstam. The 26-year old student is being charged with vehicular manslaughter.

As writers we probably seldom give thought to the potential hazards of life in the book lane but certainly one of them is that most authors are at the mercy of other drivers when touring the various cities. PR escorts, writing group members, conference volunteers generally pick up authors and see to it that they get to their hotel and interviews before driving them back to the airport. There is a huge level of trust, but I don't think the driving records of many of those who act as the author escort are checked. Perhaps they should at least be discussed. Halberstam's death is a tragedy. He is dead. His work could be considered unfinished, and his family is deprived of having him for however many years he had left. The young man who caused the accident, the graduate student who looked upon Halberstam as a mentor, must now faces legal charges as well as deal with the realization that he caused Halberstam's death.

LOLCats, dangerous boys, punctuation, and Potter: Trends that capture and plague us

Like a vast ocean that constantly churns, today's culture--thanks to the Internet--moves at a rapid pace and surprising bits of flotsam become visible. Houston's Chronicle ran a rather large photo of a cat standing on his hind legs and pawing at the air next to a headline with poorly-spelled words. It took up a lot of space--some above the fold--on the front page of the Chronicle's business section. Yes, I do tend to gravitate toward animal photos but a headline reading "I'M IN UR NEWSPAPER WRITIN MAH COLUM" is a guaranteed stopper. I mean, I am a writer, and I once spent a lot of time learning how to spell.

The piece, written by Dwight Silverman, is a fun read with plenty of links and information. My main problem is that it reads more like a life-style, pop culture article rather than one that would appear in a business section. As a reader I kept looking for the expected bit of business application. A few facts did appear at the end, and readers who blog may be left with a bit of blogger-envy. The I Can Has Cheezburger? site opened for business in January and now "gets between 350,000 and 500,000 page views a day" and submissions of "300-500 LOLcat images a day." Now that's growth. This site urges readers to submit their own photos and captions. The unanswered question is, how do you come up with an idea that that is capable of generating a "subculture, complete with its own conventions and subgenres" and apply it to a business model?

LOLcats is a bit like the Harry Potter mania and other sudden literary and cultural explosions that leave writers asking why they didn't think of that idea. It seems so simple. In retrospect some may appear obvious, even predictable. Given that The Lord of the Rings made it onto the screen twice and achieved literary cult status years ago, I'm not sure why the publisher of the new Tolkien The Children of Hurin ran such a small initial print run--unless it was to fan book collector fever. Less obvious but perhaps still predictable is the success of the latest British literary invasion, The Dangerous Book for Boys. Harry Potter caught the imagination of millions, young and old, and revived a dead genre. I'm not sure its metoric rise could have been predicted, but The Dangerous Book for Boys and even Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation are books that seem to run counter to a prevailing attitude in the culture. Both fill a need, albeit one that may be unspoken. The Dangerous Book for Boys is an echo of the past for the boomer and WWII generation; but it also offers parents and young boys alternatives to the modern, Internet and video-centric lifestyle activities that push, pull, and plague them. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation steps into the confusing morass of today's slipping grammar skills and offers a simple and direct path out of the punctuation jungle.

In the meantime, I'm left realizing that I now not only have to figure out all this texting language but also something known as "kitty pidgin."

City Blogging: A new media trend in travel writing

I've resumed posting over at blogHOUSTON, a weblog dedicated to “Houston politics and current events, local media, and thoughts on the city’s cultural and entertainment options.” My niche is primarily arts and entertainment with a strong literary slant, of course. Not being up to date with the local music scene and being that rare individual in today's visual society who does NOT go to films, I generally leave those reports to the others. Thankfully, Houston is a big city with a large appetite for culture and entertainment so there’s plenty of venues and subject matter left. It's nice that all that Houston research for the travel books continues to pave the way for additional writing projects even today. Five years ago I would never have said I'd be part of a group blogging about Houston. I had barely heard mention of writers providing content material for major online corporate sites such as MSN City Guides or Expedia. For me, blogHOUSTON is a great fit. No pressure in posting, and I can share info about places and events that catch my attention.

Kevin Whited, editor and web guru for blogHOUSTON, has done a great job in executing his idea for a blog about the city. He cites the now-defunct LAexaminer.com (run by blogger/journalist/musicians Ken Layne and Matt Welch) and LAobserved.com as inspiration. Of course, Kevin's own highly praised PubliusTx personal blog had to have provided some creative sparks. I ran across his earlier blogs several years ago and we exchanged a few emails prior to the launch of bH. I followed the blog’s early days and appreciated it when he linked to this site and mentioned my work. Eventually he suggested I join them. Trust me, I was flattered. It took a while but eventually it happened. Then life became a bit more complicated and postings everywhere dwindled. But recent events have opened up new writing time and I’ve keyboarded my way back to his blog. Here are the links for last week's posts. Read ‘em and comment if you’ve a mind to.

Surprise! Gas prices are up.
Have a bloomin’ buggy weekend at BUGstravaganza!
Murder by the Book hosts a triple header that ends with Lee Child

Publishing News: Narrative Magazine expands in growth and content

Narrative Magazine, an online favorite of mine, is having one heck of a year. The readership has doubled, the magazine remains free, the contributors continue to be paid, the annual contest grows, and big things are afoot. The magazine now includes poetry, and Michael Wiegers, the executive editor of Cooper Canyon Press, has agreed to be the poetry editor. Narrative's new issue is the first to publish poetry by novelist David Guterson. You'll find Guterson's poetry along with short stories, an excerpt from Ron Hansen's novel Exiles, a profile of Ann Beattie, essays, a memoir set in mid-twentieth century New York, a coming-of-age tale by Nathanial Hawthorne, and the usual assortment of book reviews. Why free? Narrative is a nonprofit organization with a mission to use the Internet to bring readers and storytellers together online, and by the results it's easy to see they are doing a bang up job.

That's not all. In their Editor's Note, Carol Edgarian and Tom Jenk report that Narrative is now the publisher of StoryQuarterly.

This past March, Narrative had the good fortune to become the publisher of StoryQuarterly, a little magazine that’s been around as a hard-copy annual for the past thirty-two years and that last summer made its inaugural foray into the online world. SQ, as it’s called by its familiars, has been shepherded in recent years by the indefatigable, gracious, and spirited efforts of publisher and editor Marie Hayes, whose care and attention to writers is legend within the world of small magazines and in the teaching and writing community. Marie has sustained SQ as a place hospitable to all writers who care about good work and especially to writers who are starting out. As SQ moves forward with Narrative, Marie will continue to provide a guiding hand, and SQ, which has long had the welcome mat out for new writers, will open its door even wider: in the past, submissions were accepted from November through January, but beginning this summer, SQ will accept submissions year-round. A notice will go out letting you know when the new SQ submission system is online, and SQ’s editors will look forward to reading your work.

Some of our readers have asked about the editorial crossover between SQ and Narrative, and we’d like to answer several central questions now. Each magazine will maintain its own identity. A submission to one magazine will not be a submission to both. Each magazine will have its own separate submission system. There will be some overlap in staff and services, such as art and technology, and for the sake of combined strength and for the support of each magazine, there will be collaboration on projects, such as events and story collections, but each magazine will have its own character and pursue its own vision. Other questions will be addressed in a Frequently Asked Questions section to be posted in SQ and updated in Narrative this summer. An updated SQ Submission Guidelines page will be posted in the next SQ, which will go live in July, just in time for summer reading!

For those of you who hate to read online and prefer to have actual hardbound copy in your hands when reading, starting with the September issue Narrative and StoryQuarterly will be offered in print-on-demand format. The magazine also has plans for something called Narrative Backstage which sounds like it will be a lot of fun for those who support the magazine by way of donations. There will be previews of unpublished works, audio files, video footage of authors, and exclusive stories. Sounds like they've hit on a great way to thank their financial angels.

If you enjoy good writing, give Narrative Magazine and StoryQuarterly a try. There's pretty much something for everyone.

Publishing News: Agents step into the Simon & Schuster fray

The Author's Guild and its members are not the only ones citing the dangerous path Simon & Schuster (S&S) has chosen in changing their contract language concerning book rights and electronic warehousing. Jim Milliot at Publisher's Weekly continues his chronicle adding the concern of a number of agents. Writer's House Simon Lipskar calls it a "rights grab" and worries about the impact on his clients. Gail Hochman, president of the Association of Authors Representatives, considers the change "a mistake." Brian DeFiore of DeFiore and Company, says S&S is "asking for something no one else has."

Clearly S&S has chunked a massive stone into the big publishing pond and the result will continue to churn for some time. Agents and authors will have to think long and hard before they even consider approaching S&S. If other publishers move in the same direction, all authors may have to rethink their game plan. Milliot cites George Borchardt of the George Borchardt Agency as seeing the change having the potential to create a two-tiered system where only big authors would get a decent contract.

And where is Simon and Schuster in all this? Why on the side of the authors, of course.

This is a huge shift in perception by a traditional publisher about the reality of today's publishing market. With the advent of electronic publishing, writers have had to deliberate over which publishing avenue to take. At a certain point, many must decide if they want to spend the months, even years, assailing the traditional publishers or consider whether it would be better to cozy up to the inviting electronic publishers. Those willing to devote a large chunk of time to marketing, hustling, and publishing opt for the self-publishing model. Still others take into consideration their potential for an audience, their need for immediate publication, and their sincere desire not to learn the ins and outs of the publishing trade and pounce on print on demand for their immediate needs. Now a traditional publisher has scanned the horizon and figured out that electronic publishing is here to stay. So they might as well gobble those rights up, too.

Simon & Schuster's position is that they are offering a service to their authors and an "unprecedented opportunity." Their authors will benefit because S&S will now be able to "keep their books alive and selling." But will they? Or will Simon and Schuster opt to allow some of those rights to lay dormant? If not, will the books of the lower tier of authors be folded into such a large database that it will take a clever hacker with the patience and desire of Sisyphus to search and find such buried literary gems?

Am I overreacting? I don't know. You have only to see how midlist authors fare to figure out that a publisher may devote its resources elsewhere and be completely willing to allow books to be pulled from the bookstore shelves. The technology may change, the acquisition of rights may evolve, but will the thinking of those who make decisions that control the life of a book and the direction of an author's career change?

You tell me.
______
For more information, read Jim Milliot's work at Publisher's Weekly: 05/18/2007-2, 05/18/2007-1 and 05/17/2007.

Publishing News: Simon & Schuster brings copyright issues to a boil

I received word today that publishing giant Simon & Schuster is now intent on extending their copyright control of an author’s work “in perpetuity.” This is a drastic shift and one I’ve been worried about for a number of years. Normally, traditional publishers—at least the decent ones—allow the author to re-gain the rights to a book after the book has gone out of print or fallen victim to low sales. This allows the author to have some control over their work and allows them to choose whether they want the book to remain in print either by self-publishing or, now, by taking the digital route. Simon & Schuster says no. They want to retain copyright to the work as long as it can be available in any form even if they have discontinued print runs and have no available copies left for traditional distribution into the bookstores. Anyone offered a contract is essentially being asked to give up any chance of reclaiming their work. For bestselling books this may not be a problem. But for authors whose books have a shorter shelf-life, this has a definite impact. What if the publisher retains the rights but does nothing? They can keep your work (just in case) and it may never see the light of day again.

Now, I know how frustrating it can be to have a work locked up by a publisher. When the publisher refuses to return the rights and also refuses to do anything else with a work, the work is consigned to limbo and the author enters a type of publishing hell. The author may know a small audience still exists but the publisher may deem it too small to consider. So they do nothing. This can—if he or she lets it—drive an author nuts.

The slippery slope of intellectual property rights is cause for concern. With the advent of the Internet and the appearance of the electronic publishing medium, it was merely a matter of time for this type of rights grab to raise its ugly head. In past years, authors have seen their ability to retain rights shrink. Twenty years ago publishers cared little about the ancillary rights. This at least provided some form of contract negotiation tactic for authors to gain control of their work. Then the publishers saw the gleam of the screen and slowly enfolded film rights into their assumed portion of control, then the digital world exploded and electronic rights began to beam brightly and catch the publisher’s eye. With the advent of publishing on demand (POD), it would seem publishers have their eyes wide open to the possibility of the never-ending book.

What to do? Well, for one thing writers and authors could become more literate about intellectual property. Few writers pay attention to their literary rights until the contract is slapped in front of them—at the exact moment when they are blinded by the light of publication—and rush through the process without even knowing what they are signing. Even those who are represented by an agent should arm themselves with knowledge and question all contract clauses to make sure they understand what they are signing. Consider carefully whether this is the right route to go for this particular work. Given this new dimension, the authors may have to live with their decisions for a long, long time, and they will have no one else to blame but themselves if, in the future, they find they have made a mistake that impacts them severely financially. Definitely think twice before signing with Simon & Schuster. Get legal advice before you write your name. (Of course all contracts should at least be reviewed by an entertainment lawyer with experience in the publishing industry.)

You also may want to consider supporting The Author's Guild. Below is the Member Alert from the Author’s Guild that outlines the new Simon & Schuster contract language. The email is reprinted with their permission as stated below.

UPDATE 05/18/07: Read Publisher's Weekly article by Jim Milliot

Where have all the book reviewers gone?

Apparently newspaper editors across the country are taking the hatchet to book review sections. Crime writer Michael Connelly highlights the trend in a recent article in the LA Times and questions the impact of such decisions on newspapers, the publishing industry, and the reading public. Unless their books conformed to specific criteria or expectations, new authors have always felt the sting of rejection from traditional book review editors. With the coverage of books being substantially cut, if not obliterated, today’s authors must become versed in alternative outlets if they are to survive. Will sites such as Blogcritics.org democratize the book review process and finally release the grip traditional book editors have had on the fate of new books? Or will it be even more difficult for authors to find their audience? Worse, are Connelly’s fears prophetic and the slashed book review sections do, indeed, spell the demise of a reading public? For today’s authors, these are just a few more troublesome questions to add to the mix.

For more information, read Connelly’s The folly of downsizing book reviews, CJR Daily’s The Organic Link Between Books and Newspapers, and NYT's Are Book Reviewers Out of Print?

News: David Halberstam dies in car crash

The six o'clock news just reported that noted journalist and historian David Halberstam died in a car accident in California today. I'll have more information about him later but I wanted to note that he will be missed. Over the years I've spent many hours listening to him speak on C-SPAN. Halberstam earned a Pulitzer at the age of thirty for his work on Viet Nam.

Update 6:48 pm: Here's a link to the International Herald Tribune Story. (For more information about David Halberstam, click here for Wikipedia entry.)