Endless Knots

"The Future of Books"

In gathering info for a report on the future of media, I came across "The Future of Books" by James Warner in McSweeney's Internet Tendency. This pretty much explains where we're headed in the next 70 years. I won't wreck it for you. Here's where it starts:

2020: All Books Will Be Cross-Platform and Interactive.

Future “books” will be bundled with soundtracks, musical leitmotifs, 3-D graphics, and streaming video. They’ll be enhanced with social bookmarking, online dating, and alerts from geo-networking apps whenever someone in your locality purchases the same book as you— anything so you don’t have to actually read the thing. Authors will do their own marketing, the reader will be responsible for distribution, the wisdom of crowds will take care of the editing, and the invisible hand of the market will perform the actual writing (if any). Writers will respond either by going viral or by going feral.

Limoges Pride and Prejudice Book Box from The Cottage Shop

 

Roland's July Newsletter (with a "Note from a Reader," i.e. me)

A few months ago, Peter Sarno, Roland Merullo's publisher for Lunch with Buddha, among other titles at PFP Publishing (here's the story of how Roland came to publish with Peter -- and check out the PFP site, some great authors including another Endless Knots favorite, Askold Melnyczuk), wrote asking if I'd contribute a "Note from a Reader" for an upcoming newsletter. It's in the July newsletter (scroll down to the picture of me looking like I'm on TV, which I was when this photo was taken), just out, and available here. It doth begineth:

I recently received an email from a friend.

 

It wasn't the first I've received on the subject of Roland's books because I have recommended his work before - many times before. I've bought his books for friends...and been a bit of a volunteer one-woman marketing agency for his work. "I am so indebted to you," Sarah's email began. "I have been reading Roland Merullo's books and savoring them. I really enjoyed his memoir, moving and so honest with wonderful reflections. I like the way he writes and his choice of content...He is both honest and reflective."

 

I agree.

 

As many who follow what Roland's been up to know, he turned down a six-figure advance with a major publisher to bring out Lunch with Buddha with PFP/AJAR Contemporaries. He's on to other projects now, as he always is, prolific and tireless.

 

Lindy Hess changed our lives and those of so many others

It was 3 AM and I woke, cold, which, given the heat of the past weeks, seemed impossible. None of my tricks for getting back to sleep were working so I engaged in the one activity that we now know is the worst, reading on a screen where, as usual, I went straight to the obits. There Katie Hafner's extremely sad one about Lindy Hess, who ran the Columbia Publishing Course.

Photo by Lilian Kemp swiped from NYT obit and how Lindy looked when we met her (thanks)

We met Lindy in 1981 on the very day Reagan was being sworn in as president and the hostages were released in Iran. About nine months earlier, Jeff Stamps and I had sold Networking, our first joint book to Methuen, the British publisher, which was starting up an American list (for the publishing historians, Fred Jordan, for many years of Grove Press, was the publisher of this effort). The sale was thanks to Ron Bernstein, our agent at the time. But not long after we'd signed the contract, Ron called to say that Methuen's parent company in the UK had decided to cancel its plans to publish an American list. He was reassuring that he could sell the book again, which he did in very short order at a bit more than twice the original advance to...

Lindy Hess at Doubleday. It was a good break for people bringing out their first book with a major publisher. Lindy knew what she was doing. At 31, she was such a pro that the venerated old house had given her control of an imprint (Doubleday Dolphin). Because she appeared to be so knowledgeable and clearly was very talented and because we'd done the deal on the phone without meeting face-to-face, I thought she'd be much older than I. Instead, when we went to the swanky building on, was it Park Avenue, we were greeted by a woman three years younger with shoulder-length hair held back by a, was it velvet, headband that she removed and reinserted every few minutes. We talked in her office for a while about what was ahead in the process, mentioned that "Jackie Onassis" was now an editor at Doubleday, described her as "very nice" and "hard-working," and shortly thereafter asked if I needed to use the ladies room.

We went together and, as we stood in front of the mirror fidgeting with our hair after peeing -- isn't that part of the ritual: pee, wash your hands, fuss with your hair? -- she said I looked "elegant." I was wearing a long-sleeved ivory silk blouse with a self-tie that I'd borrowed from my friend-neighbor Emily, a dark-blue, knee-length wool skirt with two unusual pleats and one pocket that was stitched not quite right (I'd gotten it at a designer-discount shop) causing me to fuss with *it* constantly, and the most expensive pair of tall boots I'd ever bought, then about five years old. It felt like quite a compliment standing with "my editor" in Manhattan.

Things went well. Lindy liked the book and, when we made a most unusual proposal, she was game, a story I told here about four years ago. We were, how do you say, computer-savvy early on and thus had the ability to write, edit, and create the files for typesetting the book electronically. Doubleday had never done this but Lindy's response was enthusiastic. She inquired around to make sure it would work; she got a positive response; and she gave us a second contract for the typesetting, which, by today's standards, was a GIANT KLUDGE. We wrote the book on a Wang 2200, whose files were then converted by Typesetting Service in Providence, RI, that had a Digital PDP-11 and which could then output and paste-up pages in the format and design that Doubleday specified. It was the first time Doubleday had ever done a book this way and it worked. (The only thing that went wrong was that the FedEx truck delivering the final paste-ups had an accident on the West Side Drive in NY!)

Shortly after the book was published (my memory is that it was only weeks), Lindy left Doubleday and, if I've got this right, moved to Boston, and not long thereafter married her husband Bill Appleton. I was happy for her and sad that our acquisition editor had orphaned our book. A very nice guy took over -- Gerry Helferich -- who later went on to work at Wiley (a later publisher of Jeff's and my books) and who now writes his own books.

We saw Lindy a few times after she moved to Boston, us visting her house, she visting ours, but as time went on, we lost touch. Then about five years ago, David Miller of Garamond Agency, a new agent whom we worked with for a while, told us he was going to teach at the Columbia Publishing Course, which led to a discussion of the program and, alas, that's where Lindy had ended up, spending 25 years making that program and many of its graduates extremely successful.

Once you've been published, you can never be unpublished. There have been other people who have come along in the years since Lindy published Networking, people whose work has made a very big difference in Jeff's and my writing careers but Lindy was the first book publisher and I'd give anything at this moment to see her take that headband out and put it back in.

 

 

 

Following directions from paperblog

I was approached by paperblog.com, asking if I'd like to register my blog with them. After consulting my panel of experts, i.e. I posted a notice in my status on Facebook, asking if anyone knew anything about paperblog, I decided to do it. Paperblog is an aggregator, based in Paris, with a nice layout and nice content so, hey, thanks, er, merci, [email protected] for asking.

After several failed attempts to register (not sure why), I received this note from Emma this morning:

Hi Jessica,

We see that you have successfully submitted your blog. Before your articles can appear on Paperblog however, there is one last step- you must authorize your blog by following the steps on this page: http://en.paperblog.com/flux/validate/

The easiest way to do this would be to add the Paperblog phrase to any existing or new article on your blog: I confirm the subscription of this blog to the Paperblog service under the username jlipnack

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Best Wishes,
Emma

Therefore:

I confirm the subscription of this blog to the Paperblog service under the username jlipnack

A woman as editor of the Boston Globe?

No, I've got no inside info nor am I starting a rumor (not deliberately anyway :) but...how 'bout it? With Marty Baron going to the Washington Post where he's replacing a man and whereas he replaced a man here in Boston and as only one newspaper of a major city (New York Times, interestingly the owner of the Globe) has a woman as editor, e.g. Chicago Sun-Times, Miami Herald, Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, and...need I go on...all have men as editors AND insofar as we've just elected our first senator who is a woman in Massachusetts PLUS our neighbors to the north have a slate of all women representing them, one has to ask: Isn't it time?

(And before someone pipes up with this: Yes, women have been publishers of major papers for a long time.)

Ever since Margaret Fuller nabbed the greatest number of headlines of her time (famously writing 250 articles in 18 months for the New York Herald Tribune following her stint as the first editor of The Dial), the path to the editorial top of newspapers has been paved with testosterone, often very good testorsterone, mind you, but still, it is 2012.

A little googling reveals that a woman did edit a Boston newspaper at one time. 170 years ago, according to the New York State Library's Women in Journalism: Newspaper Milestones:

Cornelia Walter was editor of the Boston Transcript and the considered to be the first woman to edit a major newspaper in the United States. One of her reporting highlights came on August 3, 1842, during a race riot in Philadelphia, in which she chronicled the plight of the black citizens who had been victimized and left homeless.

Meanwhile, I'm very happy to report that the paper where I got my start, The Pottstown Mercury, has as its editor, Nancy March.

So, Boston Globe Search Committee, how about it? Can you live up to the great standard set by The Merc? (Yeah, I know, The Times is a tad more impressive to some of you rubes...)

 

Pub date for "Lunch with Buddha"

This is from Roland Merullo's Facebook status, simply too good to just "share" on FB. Book #15+ from, in my view, the best living American writer. I know that's high praise but ... read a half-dozen or so of his books and then decide whether his subjects are as human, compelling, and challenging as life itself -- and whether his mastery of writing is as superb as anyone's-- and did I mention his humor?

Bostonians: Thursday night, as in day after tomorrow, Newtonville Books, 7 PM, for official launch of Lunch with Buddha, in the high 3000s on Amazon at the moment. All the writers reading here know what this means. Go, Buddha!

Now for those of you with normal vision, the words from the man himself:

Status Update

By Roland Merullo

A famous writer friend of mine once said, on the publication date of his book, "you half-expect a parade in front of the house with sirens and a marching band". Today is Lunch with Buddha's oficial pub date and I can't say I'm watching out the window for the big parade. Still, even after fifteen or so of these, it's a nice feeling. My thanks to Peter Sarno and his crew for the massive amount of work they've done, for the investors and Kickstarter contributors, for all the readers our there who make it possible for me to keep going, and for the kind ones who've written encouraging notes. It's a good day. I'm grateful to be able to do this. . . even without the parade.

 

 

"Lunch with Buddha" – Here goes!

It's happening. The e-dition of Roland Merullo's newest, Lunch with Buddha, is out and the launch for the print edition is coming right up, next Thursday, Nov 15, 7 PM, at my hometown bookstore, Newtonville Books. This sequel to Breakfast with Buddha, the laugh-out-loud send-up-with-a-serious-undertone about spiritual practice, has its own think-about-it strain, a grieving husband. Even after reading so many of Roland's books, I'm still not sure how he does it: his clever way of doing analogies without constantly using the words "like" and "as if," his ability to hit the emotional notes with precisely the right pressure, his humor-without-insult. The story of how the book has been published is its own brave tale of friendship, dedication, and good business hunches. Here, the press release.

Roland Merullo’s funny roadtrip novel, Breakfast with Buddha (2007), is in its 13th printing, has sold over 130,000 copies, been optioned for film and translated into Korean and Croatian, and was nominated for the prestigious Dublin IMPAC Literary Prize — a success by any measure. However, for the sequel, Lunch with Buddha, Merullo turned down a six-figure advance and chose a very small publishing house owned by a good friend, instead of going with one of the larger houses that have published his novels to wide acclaim since 1991.

Merullo, 59, and publisher Peter Sarno, 58, grew up within a mile and a half of each other in the working-class city of Revere, Massachusetts. They played, at the same time, in different divisions of the city Little League. Their fathers knew each other well. Peter’s mother and Roland’s aunt were best friends, and their acquaintances overlapped in scores of places, but the two men didn’t meet until 2006 when each had moved far from Revere and each other.

During that period, Sarno had returned to graduate school at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. As part of a course requirement for George Garrett Award winning author and AGNI magazine founder, Askold Melnyczuk, Sarno conducted a craft interview with Merullo based on one of the assigned texts: Revere Beach Elegy, winner of the 2000 Massachusetts Book Award for non fiction. Sarno would later go on to teach literature and writing classes at UMASS. Before the 2011 Spring semester began, he discovered that Elegy, (which had now become one of his own course staples), was no longer available. He contacted Merullo, asking if he could find a way to get it back into print. From that conversation, PFP Publications was born. Sarno proceeded to publish not only five books from Merullo’s backlist, but titles by such notable authors as the aforementioned Melnyczuk, Elizabeth Searle, Craig Nova, Sterling Watson and others.
On November 13th, PFP’s imprint, AJAR Contemporaries, will publish Lunch with Buddha.

The two former Revere kids are doing everything themselves — raising money through an inventive IPO program (more than a dozen investors will each receive a one-time 10% return on their money once the book sells its 10,000th copy) and the on-line crowdfunder Kickstarter, hiring a designer and copyeditor (both of whom are nationally known and happen to live within a few miles of each other and the author on Merullo’s country road), finding printers, putting together a book tour, attending conferences, meeting with booksellers and reaching out to reviewers as well as long time supporters of Merullo’s work.

“We’re determined,” the author says, “not merely to do everything the big publishers do, but to do it better and faster and at a lower cost. Peter and I have been working from breakfast until midnight every day for months now. Our skills complement each other well: Peter’s a detail person, and I’m out in space half the time. He knows the world of computers inside and out, and I can barely send an email. He and his small staff are as devoted to this novel as I am, and after 22 years of putting out books with the publishing giants, I find that immensely refreshing.”

Lunch with Buddha has some refreshing twists, too. There’s an interview (conducted by the noted author Matthew Quick of The Silver Linings Playbook fame) and a reader’s guide between the covers, as well has several hand-edited pages from Merullo’s working drafts, a recommended reading list, and a list of web sites where photos linked to the text can be seen. In addition to the usual hardcover and paperback editions (published simultaneously), AJAR will put out an eBook that will include embedded photos, taken by Merullo’s professional-photographer wife Amanda, from the Seattle-to-North Dakota road trip on which the story is based, and a signed, numbered, limited-edition hardcover with a slightly different design.

“I’ve actually gained a lot more respect for the larger and established publishers during this process,” Sarno says. “It’s not easy reaching an individual author’s fan base, his or her supporters. Or establishing and discovering a new reader-ship in this digital and online world. You’d think it would be. But folks are bombarded with so much info these days that it can be difficult to capture their attention. We’ve employed as many of the new social media tools as we can, and the eBook format has so much potential. Yet, we’ve also gone back to what some would consider the ‘old fashioned’ ways of snail mail, returned telephone calls and cups of coffee with independent bookstore owners, librarians and booksellers as a means of connecting with Roland’s readers.”

The business partners have already contacted many of the book groups that chose Breakfast with Buddha, put together an extensive book tour, including stops in eastern Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New York State, and in the works are radio and print interviews, as well as catalogue and on-line advertising via publishing organizations, Book Buzz, Goodreads, and other reader-centric sites.

“I wrote this novel in such a way that those who’ve never read Breakfast will be perfectly at ease, and those who have read it will continue their American road trip and spiritual search with the eccentric monk, Volya Rinpoche, and the other characters they came to know, “ Merullo says. “This is my 15th publication, and I have to say I’ve never worked as hard or enjoyed anything nearly as much.”

Print books are already available for pre order from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and several independent bookstores. eBook versions will be available in Kindle, Nook, Apple iBook and Kobo formats. Merullo plans to create an audio version in the Boston accent he and Sarno have never lost. Join them for the celebratory launch reading at Newtonville Books in Newton, MA, on November 15th, or elsewhere along the road in November, December, and January (For a list of appearances, visit LunchWithBuddha.com, or RolandMerullo.com, or the Facebook pages of Roland Merullo or Lunch with Buddha.)

Roland Merullo and Peter Sarno thank you in advance for any review attention or off-page coverage you can give to this new adventure, Lunch with Buddha.

The New Newtonville Books!

photo from Newtonville Books website -- thanks

Like many others who live on my side of this lovely metropolis, I was sad to learn that our beloved Newtonville Books, the last independent bookstore in Newton, was decamping to Newton Centre.

Now for those who don't live in (or love) this unique city, it may not sound like much of a difference. One Newton may seem like the next (or the other 13). But our 84,000 residents occupy 13 villages and each is quite different. While Newtonville, where the bookstore opened a dozen-plus years ago, is not as thick with restaurants and high-end shops as Newton Centre, it has its own charm -- an excellent coffee shop, now thriving after five turns in ownership; two bakeries; a vintage jewelry store with no parallel; a good women's clothing store; a thrift shop; a great new diner; a Japanese restaurant; the place where I've bought my glasses for decades; a pet shop that's been the fave destination of generations of Newtonians and where we acquired two dogs; several salons; and of course 45 banks...

Beside all that, it's walkable from my village and so Newtonville Books was a regular stop on my frequent Newtonville visits. Newtonville Books absquatulated to Newton Centre? Harrumph.

Then yesterday there I was in Newton Centre, visiting my favorite cobbler (Pelham Shoe Repair; quick, excellent; and just nice people), when I remembered that I needed to pick up our next book club book (Mistaken by Neil Jordan; positive review; order it from Newtonville Books).

And then there I was in the BEAUTIFUL new Newtonville Books. Just beautiful. Spacious -- and the bookshelves are on wheels so they can be pushed back to make space for readings. An expanded children's book section. Room to step back and read the labels of the sections. A good card section. Lots of light. Just beautiful.

I had the chance to chat with Mary Cotton (co-owner with Jaime Clarke), whose pleasure with how things have turned out is evident from her smile. There's more foot traffic, more evening bustle as people flock to the many restaurants in Newton Centre, and, of course, the advantage of being right on the T, which means people can easily get there without a car (sadly not true on our side of Newton, which only has the commuter rail that, true to its name, only really runs at commuter time). I re-upped by membership on the spot -- and bumped into an old friend.

Just the kind of place that book lovers will linger. The only thing missing is the coffee bar...

 

 

 

 

Revere Beach Elegy reissued

Roland Merullo's meditation, which takes us back to his hometown strip of sand that was America's first public beach then across the world to Micronesia then deep into his own searching psyche, is out again. Revere Beach Elegy collects some of Merullo's essays, disarmingly honest while respecting the privacy that mutes some writers, always make me think and often cry. His ability to move fluidly across the page, funny here, sad there, ironic next, and sometimes purely observational, is remarkable. So glad to see this great writer with a second edition of this lovely volume, first published in 2001, one of his Revere trilogy that includes the heartbreaking novel, In Revere, In Those Days.

Wiley: books, royalties, dust-ups, etc...from a Wiley author

There's a bit of a row going on at the moment of the arcane variety that only authors (and their publishers) can truly appreciate. Not necessarily understand - that might take some accountants, but it's the kind of thing that happens/is happening in publishing that drives everyone involved a bit mad.

Facts: In March, 2010, Wiley and Bloomberg announced a new line, "Bloomberg Press, a Wiley imprint," naming Wiley as the new global publisher and distributor of Bloomberg's books.

We've been Wiley authors for 15 years so have some appreciation for the power of the brand (disclosure: we know and respect a lot of people at Wiley, some of whom are very old friends). Of course, like all authors, we've had our share of complaints but what author can really gripe about receiving regular royalties on a book with multiple translations that came out ten years ago (Virtual Teams)?  Wiley is a very reputable house that's managed to weather the downturn in publishing better than most if not all. Search the stock price and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Now for the dust-up. Some weeks ago Wiley sent a letter to Bloomberg authors explaining the way in which royalty calculations would be done going forward, a change for about 20% of the authors, according to Wiley's press release issued after The Authors Guild took issue with the new arrangement.

To excavate the depth of the disagreement, please read the material from both sides. In brief, there are two principal ways in which royalties, the money paid out to authors, are calculated: 1. on the basis of list price (the price that you see discounted at say, Amazon - here's ours for Virtual Teams (a 35% discount off list); and 2. on the basis of "net proceeds," meaning whatever the publisher receives after everyone in the supply chain takes their cuts. Royalty percentages vary depending on which method is used to calculate royalties -- lower for list (because it's a larger amount); higher for net proceeds (because it's smaller). We have a net proceeds agreement for Virtual Teams and a list price agreement for The TeamNet Factor. Apparently, all Bloomberg authors are being shifted to the net proceeds agreement.

Or, I should say, we would have that agreement if our books were still in regular distribution, which brings us to the next thing that The Authors Guild has pointed out. Like so many other authors whose books still sell in sufficient quantities for publishers to want to keep them on their lists, both of these books of ours are only available now as print-on-demand, POD in the lingo, meaning the publisher doesn't maintain inventory but prints individual copies as they're ordered, likely a somewhat expensive process for the publisher (I don't know the figures at all), which drives the price up (Virtual Teams listed at $29.95 when it first came out in regular distribution; POD lists for $52.50).

Royalty agreements for POD are quite low, which means although the list price is much higher, the percentage for each book sold is low. For the author, this means that fewer books are sold (because market resistance is greater at higher prices) and those that are sold generate a smaller payout. In our case, we're just lucky that Virtual Teams is still in demand. Not true for most authors.

In the case of the Bloomberg authors that The Authors Guild is concerned about, a number (I don't have a precise figure but maybe Authors Guild does and certainly Wiley knows) DID NOT HAVE POD AGREEMENTS in their original contracts. Thus, ex post facto, Wiley is adding contract terms without negotiation. While Wiley may be absolutely right that this will in most cases generate better payouts to authors, the process seems less than ideal.

Blockbuster author Scott Turow is concerned enough that he issued a very quotable statement ("Wiley should knock it off and do the right thing") and I've received a number of emails about this from author organizations that I belong to and from other friends.

I encourage my friends at Wiley to work this through as quickly as possible, sitting down (virtually of course) with each of the affected authors, then making as transparent a statement as possible to the public. The number of authors impacted is very small but the effect on Wiley's reputation could be outsized in proportion.