Per Barnes and Noble:
http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?STORE=book&FMT=physical&CAT=283&SRT=SA
Category Thoughts on Writing
Does Your Blog Have Personality? From Nelson Literary Agency Email Letter for July
A Message from Kristin Nelson
Does Your Blog Have Personality?
Just this past week, I attended LitFest, an annual event hosted by Lighthouse Writers Workshop right here in Denver. During a one-on-one conference, a writer asked me a question about her blog. She mentioned that in order to ease the social-media burden, she was blog sharing with several other writers; each curated the blog a month at a time. She noticed the blog wasn’t getting much traffic and asked me why.
To answer her question, I first had to ask a few of my own.
I asked if she herself follows any blogs. She said yes. Then I asked why. Her answer? Because she likes the content or finds the information useful.
But is that all?
I’m nothing if not persistent. When she looked at me blankly, I said there are dozens of blogs about agents and publishing. Why did she prefer some blogs over others?
It’s not just about content. It’s also about personality.
Blogs have personalities, and readers like to follow bloggers who have a unique style or an appealing voice. A shared blog maintained by multiple writers might lack a distinguishing personality, style, or voice. If that’s the case, chances are good the blog won’t gain much traction.
Watching her “Eureka!” moment made me think that you might find this information helpful, too. So ask yourself: Does my blog have a distinct personality? If the answer is no, then maybe blogging isn’t the right social-media platform for you.
And that’s my agent public service moment for July.
How to Keep Your Mind from Plagiarizing?
Kind of an interesting question to ask. Last time I checked, our minds are the same as we are, which means the question should be: how do I keep from plagiarizing?
Well, that’s simple, do not use someone else’s work as your own. I try to link of use the share button for what I use here. It’s that’s not available..then I post the writer’s name along with the article. That lets everyone know that I’m not trying to pass off someone’s work as one of my own. Now, when writing fiction it tends to be a bit more difficult.
As a lot of people have said before, ideas aren’t protected. Now, how you go about expressing that idea..now that’s a different story. The best way around the issue is to not do it in the first place.
Much Ado About Nothing?
An indie publisher wonders who the government is protecting in its e-book-pricing lawsuit
By Martin Shepard |
Jun 21, 2013
I’ve been going nuts lately reading about the government’s prosecution—or is it persecution?—of Apple and five major e-book publishers (who account for the majority of trade book sales), and I feel impelled to get some things off my chest and clarify my mind about this confusing issue. The longer the lawsuit plays out, the more absurd it becomes. The U.S. attorneys accuse the defendants of collusion. “We must protect the public from those conspiring to control prices of e-books.”
To my mind, authors need more protection than the public. In the end, any book is an author’s creation, and the writer deserves the fairest shake he or she can get. No two books are alike—all are individual creations—and the idea that e-book prices would uniformly rise if Apple and the publishing conglomerates got their way, as the government suggests, is hard to accept. I don’t know how the Big Six divvy up e-book sales with their authors, but I’d surely like to find out. Maybe the prosecution could ask the witnesses from the five publishers accused in the case about this, since the government’s attorneys are on a fishing expedition and can ask anything that stirs the pot and creates drama. Could there be collusion among the publishers on this score, too—figuring out a system to shortchange their authors? It’s certainly a possibility. Perhaps they pay royalties on e-book sales on a scale equivalent to royalties paid on sale of physical books. But then again, the Department of Justice is not committed to protecting authors’ rights, but rather to protecting those of consumers, who want to pay less for e-books. Perhaps another investigation is in order.
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I think it’s proper for publishers to treat electronic sales the same way we do all subright sales: dividing the income on a 50/50 basis with writers. After all, it represents income that comes into our hands out of the blue, without us having to do anything further as publishers and without requiring further investment on our parts—just like income from film options, foreign and domestic sales, and excerpts. I also believe that publishers have the right to set prices on the e-books they publish—just as they have a right to set prices on the physical books they publish. If Apple allows publishers to set their own prices, that’s a good thing. If wholesalers wish to give greater discounts, that’s up to them. But if Apple only takes 30% of the e-book selling price, then a $10 sale nets the publisher $7, and the author—under our system—earns $3.50 per sale. On the other hand, if Amazon takes 50% and overrules the publisher’s asking price by deciding to sell the same book for $8, the publisher nets $4 and the author earns $2. Big difference, wouldn’t you say?
The very idea that the public needs protection in these instances seems absurd, since a book is not a necessity like food or fuel or electricity. Books and e-books are, in the end, entertainment: entertainment that the public can purchase, or take from any public library at no cost whatsoever. But if the Justice Department starts prosecuting publishers and book retailers in order to “protect the public against price rises,” who knows what other forms of entertainment might come under investigation in the future.
Frankly, we adore Kindle sales, though Amazon often lowers prices to less than those we suggest. But it pays on time (unlike many bookstores and wholesalers) and accounts for over 80% of our e-book sales. If anything, authors would benefit if publishers could have some certainty about the net receipts they’ll earn on e-books sold through different retailers. Amazon would still have the choice of lowering its discount or not, in order to compete with Apple and others—and publishers would have a guarantee about what the net will be.
To me, this lawsuit is a glaring example of government excess, providing big headlines concerning “conspiracy” and “protecting the public,” while wasting taxpayers’ money and going after the wrong people, for all the wrong reasons. But America thrives on confrontations and conflict—be it between sports teams or legal teams, or publishers and retailers.
Ultimately Shakespeare, and Faulkner, said it best: the case is “much ado about nothing” and “sound and fury”— quite dramatic, but empty of substance, other than burnishing prosecutors reputations and defense lawyers incomes.
Martin Shepard is copublisher of the Permanent Press.
Little Good News from Barnes & Noble
Jim Milliot |
Jun 25, 2013
With losses mounting in its Nook segment, Barnes & Noble reported a net loss of $154.8 million in the fiscal year ended April 27, 2013 compared to a loss of $65.6 million in fiscal 2012. Total sale fell 4.1%, to $6.84 billion. As sales of Nook devices sag, B&N announced that it will be adopting a “partner-centric” model to manufacture its color tablets as part of an effort to significantly cut expenses in the Nook group.
In fiscal 2013, Nook segment sales fell 16.8% (including a 34% decline in the fourth quarter) to $776.2 million. The segment racked up EBITDA losses of $475.4 million compared to $261.7 million last year; $222 million of the fiscal 2013 losses were due to inventory charges. B&N said it will continue to sell existing devices through the 2013 holiday season and will continue to develop its Simple Touch and Glowlight e-readers, the two lines that generate the most content sales, in-house. On the digital content side, sales rose 16.2% for the full year, but were down 8.9% in the fourth quarter due to difficult comparisons with last year’s Fifty Shades and Hunger Games successes. CEO William Lynch repeatedly stressed that the emphasis in the year will be on cutting Nook losses and pointed to the $26 million in expenses it cut in the unit in the fiscal fourth quarter which he said came from reductions in marketing costs, lower headcount, and other savings initiatives. Lynch acknowledged that the losses in the Nook group were “much higher than expected.”
B&N will continue to add content to its digital stores, including apps and e-books, executives said. And a spokesperson said the company still expects to have 10 international Nook stores by the end of 2013.
In retail trade, sales for the full year fell 5.9%, to $4.57 billion although EBITDA rose to $374.2 million from $322.5 million. B&N attributed the decline to a 3.4% drop in comparable store sales (8.8% for the quarter), lower online sales, and store closures. Executives said “core comps”-presumably of books and educational games and toys–“were essentially flat” in the year. B&N closed 18 outlets in fiscal 2013 and opened two leaving it with 675 trade stores at the moment. In fiscal 2014 it will open up to five stores and close 15 to 20.
B&N did not have a positive outlet for fiscal 2014 for the retail stores, forecasting comp declines in the high single digits. College group comps are expected to fall in the low single digits. B&N will spend $75 million on the retail stores in the current year, money that will be spent on new stores and maintenance of existing outlets.
Asked several times by analysts of the status of the discussions with Len Riggio to buy the retail stores, executives had no comment and declined to give a timeframe for when a decision will be made.
ALA 2013: Jaron Lanier Tells Librarians Why Information Shouldn’t Be Free
In an early morning talk, Jaron Lanier, the technologist and bestselling author of You are Not a Gadget, kicked off the ALA 2013 auditorium speaker series with a rousing wake-up call to librarians: don’t let technology dehumanize the world.
In a fascinating indictment of our developing digital economy, Lanier told librarians that the digital architecture we have chosen so far represents the “the wrong kind of openness, and the wrong kind of free,” and has led to a rise in big computing that is “crippling our institutions,” and actually leading us toward economic ruin.
photo: Andrew Albanese
Jaron Lanier signing books at ALA 2013.
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For such a dire message, the messenger, in his famous long dreadlocks, was remarkably amiable, and held librarians rapt attention for over an hour as he outlined the thesis of his forthcoming book Who Owns the Future. While praising the ubiquity of information in the digital age, Lanier decried the way our networks have developed thus far, which has given organizations with the means to harness great computing power to parse citizens’ information to create schemes that enrich themselves, while shifting the costs to us.
“People who design these information networks like to believe it is totally free,” Lanier said. “And that’s a problem.”
In fact, he explained, using the metaphor of “Maxwell’s Demon,” a tenet of thermodynamics, “information is real work.” He spoke of the insurance industry, which can now use computing and network power to analyze statistical data and dump high risk patients. Of course, he noted, while that increases the insurance industry’s profits, society is left to pick up the cost. He also cited WalMart, which once used its computing power to assess its suppliers’ costs, so it could negotiate lower prices. But while that led to lower prices for consumers, it also led to lower job prospects for them. “They have created a private scheme for themselves,” Lanier explained, “but the risk radiates out to society.”
The fuel of these schemes, of course, is information, which is now increasingly freely harvested. “You are being modeled,” Lanier said of users who search on Google, and post on Facebook. “While you can tend your profile on facebook, you don’t get to see your real profile,” he explained, describing it as a “giant statistical mosaic.” And by creating models that are even just slightly more reliable than random, these companies, reap fortunes.
One such company, Lanier pointed out, is Amazon. “Amazon is ruining your business,” Lanier said. By creating its “price bot” Amazon ensures that will never be undersold. Using a “giant far-away computer” Amazon robs local players of the ability to compete, and gathers crucial customer data. And, while consumers may only see lower prices and convenience, such practices are take a toll on society at large. Even while making a choice that appears to be in your interest, such as paying a lower price, it is in fact to your detriment, Lanier argued.
Still, Lanier sounded hopeful that the public would eventually catch up, and correct course. He described the issue as “epochal” and estimated that we have about 20 years to fix the situation. After his talk, librarians were eager to ask questions, with one asking if librarians were part of the problem since they buy information and make it available for free?
No, Lanier said, because libraries hold patron information private, a value that should be embraced.
Top 10 Bestselling Science Fiction Adventure Novels
Here’s today’s listing from Barnes and Noble:
http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?STORE=book&FMT=physical&CAT=283&SRT=SA
English Help For Writers
Should help clear some of the issues we all face.
http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/difficulties/difficulties.html
Publisher’s Weekly Bestsellers: July 1, 2013
The Magic of Memory
As an author, Neil Gaiman has been prolific but never predictable in a career that spans novels, short stories, comics, screenplays, Doctor Who episodes, and unclassifiable multimedia projects like his recent Blackberry-sponsored A Calendar of Tales, which was inspired by readers tweets. With The Ocean at the End of the Lane—debuting at #3 this week on our Hardcover Fiction list—Gaiman is back with a traditional novel that explores the lines between adulthood and childhood, reality and magic. The 40-something unnamed narrator returns to his childhood home and recalls a strange family named the Hempstocks, and their daughter Lettie—and his own, bewildered seven-year-old self encountering a world of magic. The multiple levels of memory give Gaiman the chance to explore how the way we remember things makes them magic. The theme of the stranger in an enchanted world informs most of Gaiman’s work—Neverwhere, Coraline, and the Newbery Award–winning The Graveyard Book all contain similar themes. But it also recalls Gaiman’s very first sustained work, a 1987 graphic novel called Violent Cases, which reimagined his own childhood encounter with an osteopath who used to work for Al Capone.
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Given Gaiman’s huge following, the book’s strong debut is no surprise—nor is the sold-out, multicontinent tour he’s currently engaged in. (This week he appears in Seattle; Santa Rosa, Calif.; and Ann Arbor, Mich.) Gaiman’s next few projects return to multimedia: the picture book Fortunately, the Milk (illus. by Skottie Young in the U.S. edition), a Sandman prequel, and a stint co-writing Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy comic with Brian Michael Bendis.—Heidi MacDonald
Evanovich, Accomplice Work ‘Heist’
Bestselling Janet Evanovich (100 million copies in print is not an unbelievable number) signed an eight-book deal with Random House’s Ballantine Bantam Dell in June 2012, as reported in PW, and there’s little doubt that she’s worth the astronomical paycheck that won her over from St. Martin’s in 2010. The contract was for four more books in the Stephanie Plum series—Plum being the lingerie buyer from Trenton, N.J., who loses her job and becomes a bounty hunter—and four books in a new series written with Lee Goldberg, a bestselling author and a television writer for the series Monk. The debut title in the series with Goldberg, The Heist, hits our Hardcover Fiction list this week at #2 with 35,000 copies for its first week. Evanovich kicked off publication with an appearance on the CBS Early Show and, according to v-p and director of publicity Susan Corcoran, there are more than 500,000 copies in print. Quite a send-off to introduce the team of FBI Special Agent Kate O’Hare and con man Nicholas Fox, who, the jacket copy tells us, O’Hare “wants in more ways than one.” —Louisa Ermelino
No Place Like Dome
The King rules again—this time on the tube. CBS reports that the first episode of Stephen King’s Under the Dome miniseries drew a hefty audience of 13.1 million on June 24. According to a New York Times prediction, that number, from preliminary overnight ratings, is likely to grow, especially when delayed viewing is included. The premiere also played well with the audience that counts for many advertisers—viewers between 18 and 49—where it registered a 3.2 rating. That would count as a hit rating any time of year, noted the Times: “in the summer, when networks have a hard time eclipsing a 1 rating in that category, the numbers for Dome represent a breakout performance.”
Entertainment Weekly, too, noted King’s video success, scoring it B and calling the series “the most-watched summer debut on any network since NBC’s The Singing Bee in 2007.” The article also added that Under the Dome “continued the apocalyptic-TV winning streak: AMC’s The Walking Dead, Revolution and now Dome—which isn’t about the end of the whole world, obviously, but tells an apocalypse story on a small-town scale.”
According to the New York Daily News TV critic, “As usual, CBS shows a good eye for action drama, airs of vague mystery and psychological setups that upset the characters’ equilibrium. It’s really just classic drama executed well, and it has propelled CBS to the top of the heap. By those criteria, Under the Dome hits its marks.”
Given the TV series’ acclaim, it’s no surprise that Gallery’s trade paper edition lands on our list in 10th place with 13,869 year-to-date sales. Originally published by Scribner in 2009, Dome’s hardcover and trade paper editions (the first paper version came out in 2010) total a whopping 907,217 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan. —Dick Donahue
The ‘Peregrine’-ations Of Ransom Riggs
For a title that originally pubbed two summers ago, there’s a pretty sizable amount of current activity surrounding the bestselling novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. A trade paperback edition has just been released, with a 175,000-copy first printing; the author, Ransom Riggs, went on a two-week, nine-city tour earlier this month; and the new edition has landed at #2 on our Children’s Fiction list. Miss Peregrine, a YA fantasy illustrated with black-and-white vintage photographs, was described by PW as “an enjoyable, eccentric read, distinguished by well-developed characters, a believable Welsh setting, and some very creepy monsters.” Nielsen BookScan charts sales for the hardcover version at just under 450,000 copies, and Quirk Books reports total sales across all formats at 1.3 million. On the horizon: a graphic novel edition from Yen Press, due in October; a sequel, Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Children, scheduled for next January; and a film, to be made by Fox (the slightly retitled Peregrine’s Home for Peculiars), which has a July 31, 2015, release date. The movie is bound to get even wider attention for the novel: Tim Burton has just been announced as director. —Diane Roback
Animal Origins
Stephen C. Meyer enters the Hardcover Nonfiction list at #10 with his latest book, Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. As Meyer notes, when Charles Darwin finished writing On the Origin of the Species, there remained a significant and controversial puzzle in his theory of evolution: the “Cambrian Explosion,” which refers to the rapid appearance of animal life 530 million years ago. Darwin acknowledged that this appearance of animal life was confounding, since there was no evidence of similar ancestral forms in earlier geologic history. Meyer, who directs the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, expands upon arguments about the origin of life in his previous book, Signature in the Cell, to suggest that the Cambrian animal forms might have arisen from intelligent design. According to the theory of Intelligent Design (, certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, rather than undirected processes such as natural selection. To launch the book, Meyer has appeared on numerous radio shows, including Moody Radio’s In the Market with Janet Parshall, several programs on Salem Radio, DialGlobal Radio’s Denis Miller Show, and Premiere Radio’s Coast to Coast. The book has also been excerpted online in World magazine. —Jessamine Chan
New Davis Imprint Named 37 Ink
The new Atria Publishing Group imprint formed by recently hired Dawn Davis will be called 37 Ink. According to Atria, the imprint name was inspired by the 37th parallel north, which intersects California, Africa, and Italy, three geographic touchstones of Davis’s life, “and is reflective of the breadth of voices and viewpoints that the imprint will publish.” In addition to unveiling the name, Atria announced that 37 Ink’s first book will be released this July. The Butler: A Witness to History is by Wil Haygood, a Guggenheim and National Humanities fellow and prize-winning journalist,will be a companion to the Weinstein Company movie starring Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Robin Williams, and Vanessa Redgrave.
The former publisher of Amistad, Davis joined Atria April 1 and will do about 10 books annually with the 37 Ink imprint.
Talia's World 