Lean Publishing

What do you get when you distill modern book business through the structure of tech startups? You get Lean Publishing, a means by which a writer can look at book production as a profit-building exercise. You won't find any writing tips or methods for overcoming writer's block in this manifesto. Peter Armstrong has produced a plan that puts people with an idea on the same path of Angry Birds, rather than the traditional route of finding a literary agent.

Every problem looks like a problem with the pipes when you ask a plumber, and Lean Publishing is much the same case. Armstrong's background is in a web development and architecture start-up, so fixing the problem of developing a profitable book, of course, looks like something to be solved the web start-up way. Many of the terms and ideas sound very foreign to somebody who has no connection to that world, but there is one advantage to the language of VC start-ups. "Creatives" are the people for whom the start-up system was built, and the methods for navigating a start-up are suited towards directing creative people through business minefields. There's a reason that much of the internet was created by art majors who quickly hired a CFO once checks started coming in: a creative founder needs that sort of help to reach a profitable end.

As such, the people who can benefit the most from Lean Publishing are the people stuck on the traditional publishing path. The process requires giving up the usual process of getting words onto paper, and introduces the scary idea of making ideas available to readers (and the competition) before the text is complete. The Blooker Prize was a bit ahead of its time in recognizing that a worthy book could come from the web. The success of Julie and Julia, the 2006 Blooker winner, should have inspired more in that direction, but taking that route to publishing lacked the roadmap to such success. Lean Publishing hopes to brandish a machete and clear that road, blazing a new path to long-form writing success through the methods that built the internet into what it is today.

(Via.)

Paris: City of Night

A couple days ago I reviewed David Downie's new book, Paris City of Night, at Collector's Quest. I tried not to rave about it too much — it's a good book, but not an awesome book — but I was taken aback by the quality in a rather generic suspense novel, by an author better known for cooking and travel books, from an obscure small press, with a rather unimpressive, nondescriptive cover. There's an inherent bias against books that don't premiere in a bestseller list, but that's an learned trait and I should know better than to make that assumption on my own.

Underlying this revelation is a disappointment in the publishing industry; there is an attitude that, unless a novel comes with a huge budget, larger advance, and a marketable name above the title, it must be crap. The film industry got over that showy bias with events like Cannes and Sundance, and, heck, the Fargo Film Festival — every mid-sized city devotes a few days in its arts calendar to celebrating the underfunded, experimental, and unmarketable films made by up-and-comers. There's a definite difference, since reading is a far less communal experience than watching films is, but if the Oprah Book Club is any indicator of how lesser-known books can benefit from singular public events, I wonder why there isn't more to support books this way. If you watch the higher-brow talk shows, including The Daily Show, interviewees are as frequently promoting a new book as they are promoting a new film, even if they're just a talking head they're introduced as "author of the new book…" The basics are there, they just lack that extra step into the public eye.

Cannes and Sundance benefit from backing by artists themselves, but so much of their provenance is marketing. Knowing Sundance exists and has a relevance comes before considering Sundance winners as quality art. I don't think book fairs do this: Sundance may have a tradeshow feel, but the premieres and exposure shows less of a corporate influence. Books have awards, and being nominated for the Man Booker, the NBA, even the Lulu Blooker, all have similar gravitas of getting an award at Cannes, but there is less pomp and circumstance, and fewer 'minor' rewards to books that place or show. Books don't have the same sort of exposure other media get at Sundance or sxsw, and the publishing industry, especially books like Paris City of Night, suffer because of it.

The Enthusiast, by Charlie Haas

Charlie Haas has made a name for himself writing for a variety of outlets, from the big screen to magazines, but he'd never put out a novel before. His first attempt at long-format fiction, The Enthusiast, has been on shelves for two weeks now, and I got a chance to review it over at Collector's Quest. Maybe I identified well with the main character because I spend hours each week writing about elaborate postage stamp forgeries and Hawai'ian currency. I know what it's like to have to compose an article about something I have little personal interest in, but others take very seriously. It's a wholly enjoyable book, maybe not something that'll change people's lives or spawn a new genre, but worth picking up this summer and reading on vacation while the kids scream and tumble over each other at the beach. The book's characters get over hipstery angst as the book moves along, ending up with pretty much all of the cool, young characters becoming cool, older adults — it's sorta like the fantasy beneath Sex in the City, but where you still get to have kids and a mortgage and mature friendships.

I don't know why I'm surprised, but given our reputation as the northern Edge of the World, I was amused to see a shout-out to North Dakota in the book, in regards to a publisher who buys up little obscure magazines, polishes them, and turns them into commodities:

…"People hate us."
"I don't think—"
"Hate us. Because we came along and said, 'What if this was a business?' We go to buy someone , and the first thing they say is, 'Gee, do we have to leave North Dakota?' I say, 'No, because we want to preserve that unique character.' They say, 'Oh, that's great, because my brother Zeke is here, and my dog.' I don't want them near here. A square foot in North Dakota is free…"

Eh, playing to stereotypes a bit, but it comes from the mouth of a Californian publishing editor, who probably knows about as much about North Dakota as…well…people from any state that doesn't border us. But, Zeke? The only place I've met a Zeke is Missouri; we tend to stick to classic Germanic or Nordic names. But, land does come cheap out here, if you don't plan on driving to the grocery store more than once a month.

The Enthusiast includes some fun towards the back. In a section called "P.S." (that's why Amazon has the weird title in their system), the novel tries to go all BluRay on you by adding a handful of "special features," no doubt traded for fifty pages of advertisments in the library edition. There's a canned interview with an author, an interesting article that in ancient times we would have called a "foreword", a "mix tape" list of appropriate music selections for various characters and locales, and one page of reading group questions. That last one…well, here are the recommended questions for the night scheduled to discuss The Enthusiast:

Who brought this salad?

Is someone sitting here?

Did we talk about changing to Thursdays?

What does anyone think about painting this room orange?

Did you read the book? Will it ruin it for you if I talk about it?

Haas has a strong future with The Onion, it seems. It elicited a chuckle from me, but cost his publisher a few thousandths of a cent to put into every copy of the book, so I don't know whether this sort of additional material adds much value to a book, but I won't complain if all books start coming with it.

Bookaholics Anonymous

As a cute pejorative, calling a book lover a "bookaholic" is somewhat apt. Anyone looking at our house would certainly call us one, with the stacks on the diningroom table waiting to be shelved, provided we have some shelvespace. There is certainly something compulsive about our book acquiring, so much so that we recently grabbed them out of the trash during Cleanup Week. We might be obsessive, but that's just part of our charm, you know.

At the Book Industry Conference recently, Simon Juden of the Publishers Association in the UK announced their new marketing plan, admitting it was edgy, and that was a selling point over duller and less fun plans that came out of the brainstorming. The idea was to promote books under the umbrella of bookaholism. "Once you've started it's hard to stop," as a nod to their addictiveness; "Books are mind expanding," stretching the -aholism suffix to cover drug addiction references; "Consume no less than one a month," to hint that one's consumption must be monitored. There is still that cute pejorative underneath, but, wow, the UK must have a view alcoholism more in a Foster-Brooksian way than a MADD way.

At least here in the U.S., alcoholism is deeply attached to great harm to onesself and loved ones. We to glorify excess drinking more than other countries (the ubiquitousness of beer pong & beer bongs are both big recognizeable icons of that), but there's a distinct gravity to the accusation of being an alcoholic. Once you've moved into alcoholism, you've been branded as destructive to yourself and others, and you've got a disease that you'll need to manage for the rest of your life. Books are already teetering against the accusation of being harmful and dangerous: it's not the best thing to associate books with. Start labelling WeightWatcher's dinners with the tagline "You've Come A Long Way, Baby," and you might see a negative reaction to the product. The music industry could have gone with "CDs are for everybody" in the early eighties. Engendering an underlying uneasiness of a product's safety with a tagline that associates it with disease isn't helpful.

Despite the negative association with alcoholism in the U.S., chocaholics, workaholics, and shopaholics still roam our streets, without people immediately associating them with liver disease and tragic car wrecks. However, I'd say they get passes because chocolate, work, and shopping are all virtues of the American culture; imbuing those virtues with an underlying negative reminds that too much of a virtue could be bad. Lumping books into the 'virtuous' column is an excellent idea, but the publishing industry intends to use it as a way to attract customers, due to an existing negative. Chocolatiers refering to customers as chocaholics is a witty self-deprecating response because, well, most people already like chocolate. They are not going to convert somebody who doesn't like chocolate by associating its addictiveness with alcohol or illicit drugs. Workaholism and shopaholism are even being treated as pop-culture diseases; again, not a way to bolster the economy by declaring all Americans become workaholics and shopaholics (although that's another discussion). With books already tagged with a stigma of not being as fun as other pasttimes, and possibly having dangerous ideas inside, the attempt to make it a cute cultural disease is a nice attempt, but woefully weak when it comes to attracting bookbuyers. Book lovers like myself may understand and appreciate being called a bookaholic, but the rare reader who sees an ad suggesting they become a bookaholic may not be as turned on as the publishing industry hopes.

(cartoon adapted from here)

Neglected Books

From a link found in the comments section of this article, comes the website Neglected Books. The site chronicles great books that, for whatever reason, have fallen off publisher's backlists -- but are slowly being rediscovered by reprinters and reaching bookstore shelves again.

Vander Ark's New Potter Book

Followup: Steven Vander Ark, recently banned from publishing a Harry Potter lexicon, has moved forward with a new Potter-related project. It will entail more analysis, investigating the real-world connections of the Potter universe, and less direct content from Rowling's mind -- a definite application of fair-use that shouldn't cause the legal wranglings he experienced with his Lexicon. (Via.)

Banning Books Increases Exposure

Attempts to ban books have had much the opposite effect: readership and scholarly attention grows the more negative attention a piece of media gets. 2 Live Crew would like you to know that they figured it out twenty years ago. No word on if it counteracts the legal hell a publisher or author experiences in trying to defend their work, though; even a successful defense against an obscenity charge could bankrupt most small businesses and freelancers.

Reading Esquire In Prison

Inmates do well to spend their time reading, when they've got nothing much else to do. As a publisher, I'd say about once every three months we get a letter from a prison inmate asking for a catalog, or at least more information on the kind of books we publish. The letters rarely contain any useful information (is this for personal use, library-stocking, profit-making resale?), and some clearly have no idea what kind of a publisher we are. However, Wifey and I were talking about this on the drive to Wisconsin a few weeks ago, and noted that one out of every 140 Americans are in prison (source: 1 2 ) is a significant portion of society for whom having access to books would be a greater benefit than most recreational readers. It made us wonder if there's publishers or distributors catering to this, ahem, "captive" market, providing non-contraband books that would provide a value to an incarcerated person, possibly with funding from non-profits or federal grants due to the beneficial nature of the business. As a small niche business goes, we know crime and prisons aren't going away anytime soon, and that's the market to get into according to most entrepeneurial advice.

Stuart Little v. NY Public Library

In 1945, Stuart Little was first put into print, after much support from the creator of the children's library, Anne Carroll Moore. Moore, sadly, will become the tiny mouse's greatest opponent -- preventing Stuart Little from inhabiting the shelves of public and school libraries for a time, and possibly cutting off Little from wining literature awards it deserved. The public spoke: teachers and students disobeyed the critics and found EB White's book worthy of library inclusion, and petitioned their local libraries to include it. As the article says, Moore's failure in opposition to Stuart Little "...was like watching a horse fall down, its spindly legs crumpling beneath its great weight."

(via)

Business 2.0 Closing Up Shop

Business 2.0 is closing up shop -- but they say it's because of a lack of advertisers, not a lack of readers. Part of me wonders if this will (or should) drive a shift to book publishing on topics formerly dominated by magazines; the impermanence of a magazine is supplanted by websites and blogs, but the internet can't produce the permanent-reference aspect of a book. Magazines on paper: not worth the expense. Books on paper: still worth the money spent. Readers will always be readers; give them something they'll value, rather than something advertisers value. This should add up for publishers looking at how to publish their words.