Written on the Bed Sheets of Paper

Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson, is the book that opened me up as a reader and as a writer. It is also the book that helped me come out of the closet.

It was assigned in a class my first year of college, and it found me at the perfect moment in my life. Written on the Body is a beautifully composed novel that is written from outside of the confines of gender lines. The narrator is a genderless voice that ushers the reader though the treacherous terrain of a highly passionate extramarital affair.

The beginning of the book is an extended poetic musing on love and loss and the intense passion that is doomed to die because it burns so hot. Every time I read it, I remember the way I felt when I first creased the back of the spine and read the opening pages. The words seemed to express everything the angsty, lovelorn, and confused 18-year-old version of me was feeling. Each sentence seemed to cut so deep into my chest I thought my heart might fall out. And, in a way, it did.

I remember the sense of agony and satisfaction that I felt reading those words. It was as if this person had ripped open the pages of my journals, read between the lines, and wrote them back to me in an anonymous letter that smelled of distant perfume. It was as if this voice on the page had seen my face and showed it to me in a beautifully ornate two-way mirror. I thought I had been looking only at myself, but it turns out there was someone else there all along.

Up until that point I had been writing short stories that I did not fully understand. I did not know where they came from, or why some of the characters seemed like strangers to me. I remember one particular story that I kept rewriting. Over and over I would go through and change all of the “he”s to “she”s and then back again. It wasn’t until after I read Written on the Body that I was able to make sense of the things I was writing and the emotions I was feeling. I was able to take the “he”s and “she”s out of my writing all together and recognize that sometimes the distinction of one over the other is a matter of little consequence.

Who needs an editor?

(Um…everyone.)

I just read a fascinating blog from Carole Baron about the need for book editors (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carole-baron/do-you-really-need-an-edi_b_476612.html). She writes very astutely, if you ignore the handful of grammatical errors, about this rising misconception that digital books mean the end of publishers, and more specifically, the end of editors. This idea that editing is on its way towards obsolescence is something that has been plaguing me for a long time, and it was nice to read about it from the perspective of a working big-house editor.

I mean, what better example of the importance of editors than a blog post written by an editor that has mistakes? If she can’t produce flawless writing, what makes anyone think that an author is suddenly capable of producing error-free writing? Digital format did not suddenly make us better writers, did it? I think not.

As publishers, we are more than just the human version of spell check. We decide what to publish, and then become accountable for its success. We act as the filtration system for the over abundance of work that is produced. In the grand publishing scheme, editors are the fine mesh that ultimately sifts the good out of the heaps and heaps of mediocre.

Or, at least, that is how it is supposed to work. With so many books produced every year, the market is already saturated with a whole lot of nonsense. Some work bypasses the filtration system already, due to the relative ease of self-publishing (for those with the finances to support the endeavor).

Now more than ever, editors are necessary to uphold the integrity of published work. Imagine what the bookstore shelves would look like without someone standing by to say “no” to the crap.

Light...Camera...Publish?

Now is the time for innovative thinking in the book publishing industry. We’re all creative thinkers here right? It certainly seems like the big guys (read: Big 6) are running out of old business models to fall back on, and the little guys (read: small independent publishers) have a chance to pick up some real ground in the industry. Because they are not set in their ways, small publishers will be much more agile as they attempt to re-rout for the changing road ahead.

One new model is loosely based on the movie industry. While Hollywood seems like a questionable role model, this could be a promising step for publishers. Next month, Five Stones Press will release The Fall, the newest book from David Fulmer, a notable mystery author. When his book did not get picked up, Fulmer decided to take matters into his own hands. Some writers would see this as the time to self publish (or find a new “life’s calling”), but Fulmer’s not ready to give up yet.

Because he already has a loyal following, Fulmer (along with two business minded friends) started a publishing house that will fund their publications by selling shares of the book to investors. This is a potentially brilliant breakthrough. If people are willing to contribute money so that investigative journalist can keep writing, surely that will help keep their favorite authors on the new release shelves.

In this particular model, though, the success is contingent on an author’s previous reputation, because let’s face it, people are willing to pay more if they know they are going to like what they get. This is new territory, but perhaps Five Stones Press will be the next publishing star.

What is it? I want it!

Usually I am not a big fan of receiving email marketing. I don’t like being solicited for money. My email inbox is already flooded, and I’m not always eager to give out my email for new marketing materials. However, when there is something that actually appeals to me, I do sometimes respond to email marketing by sending my hard earned money through the series of interconnected tubes that is the internet.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I am a big fan of groupon. Groupon is a magical website that saves me money on things I may or may not have otherwise bought. This, you see, is the sheer genius of it all.

Groupon emails me every day or so to tell me about some fabulous deal (be it food, drink, goods, or services) that is relevant to my geographical location. Each deal is essentially a gift certificate to the respective business on sale for upwards of 50% off. Similarly, about 50% of the deals themselves appeal to me.

(Upon deciding if the deal is interesting enough to possibly buy, I investigate the business. This didn’t even occur to me until I bought a super cheap deal for an oil change, but had to drive all the way down to Milwaukee to redeem it. After that groupon was cashed in, I decided to make a habit of checking the location and driving direction to any business I wasn’t familiar with. Though, I might drive all the way back down there for a good deal on gas.)

I have to say, I have never been more responsive to any other email campaign.
• I think what is so wonderful about it is that it offers me such good deals on things that I might, potentially, buy anyway. This targets the convenience shopper.
• I am a sucker for a good deal. In this way, groupon targets the deal seeking, dollar stretching, bargain shopper.
• But groupon’s success also boils down to the urgency of the thing. Because each deal is only available for one or two days, the groupon shopper must act fast. Here, they are targeting the impulse shopper, the kind of shopper who will buy it because it is here now.

One of their other main strategies is that they make it extremely easy to buy their product. The first time you buy a groupon you create an account with a credit card number that they keep on file (securely) and save for later. That way, anything you want to buy is just one click away.

Also, it doesn’t hurt that the website copy is quirky and fun to read, even if it seems a bit irrelevant at times.

Rethinking Keywords

Rethinking Paper and Ink: The Sustainable Publishing Revolution is a sustainably published book about sustainable publishing. What better way to examine green publishing choices than to publish an eco-friendly book?

For the first publication in the Open Book Series, Ooligan Press students teamed up with the Green Press Initiative and sustainable publishing professionals. The book explores the process of producing an eco-friendly publication, and describes the choices they made in order to produce the book as sustainably as possible.

Not only does Rethinking Paper and Ink: The Sustainable Publishing Revolution aim to reveal the process of producing greener publications, but it also aims to teach others about the small choices that make a big difference in the home and workplace.

Rethinking Paper and Ink: The Sustainable Publishing Revolution is printed on 100% post-consumer waste (PCW) recycled paper. The Open Book Series, so named for its goal to remain as transparent as possible about the sustainable publishing process, continues to produce eco-conscious publications.


Keywords:
Sustainable Publishing
Sustainability
Green
Greener
Recycled paper
PCW (post-consumer waste)
Eco-friendly
Eco-conscious
Open Book

books.biz

After our discussion of what people want when they go to a publisher’s website, I relayed the information back to my co-manager of External Promotions, or, as it is sometimes called, the events group. We immediately contacted digital in order to find out what we needed to do to get a calendar of events of the Ooligan page.

Simon and Schuster must have been listening in on our class discussion as well, because they have just launched a brand new site specifically geared towards those in the publishing business. After much thought and a whole lot of blogging, the online marketing class concluded that there really is no good explanation for why all the big publishers market their websites to the book buying public. So, it is news worthy (thanks PW) when one of the big boys decides to launch a site that might actually be helpful to some of the people who actually do business with the company. The site (http://www.simonandschuster.biz/) is the “source of corporate information and B-to-B resources for Booksellers, Media, Authors, Partners, Vendors, and more…” Hazzah

The site is a bit overly complicated, however, and the seemingly easy layout proves to be more convoluted than it first appears. To begin with, there is a main box in the center of the page displaying a succession of snippets about the features of the site. “Great,” I thought, until I tried to read the copy and found that it changes about ten seconds too early each time. “Oh well, I’ll just click the handy links that correspond.” Foiled again. The flashing, link-like red arrows are nothing but dead ends. This is a perfect example of what not to do when designing a website. In class we talked about the fact that there is a certain set of expectations that we must abide by when designing a good website. I think perhaps the S&S team missed that class.

But when it comes right down to it, this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. Once they work out the kinks, Simon and Schuster could go down in history as the first big publisher to realize what the internet is for.

Riddle me this: What's the opposite of 1984?

I have been thinking a lot recently about the future of books in terms of the publishing industry. What are we going to do about DRM? Is apple going to rename the “unicorn” (a.k.a iPad) so that it doesn’t sound like a feminine hygiene product? Is Amazon going to put the “buy it now” buttons back on Macmillan’s pages? The funny thing is, though all of this contemplation— the writing and reading and talking about books, I have not given a whole lot of thought to the books I would like to see on the shelf in the next few years. Then I came across this question on a site: What book do you think will be on the NYT bestseller list in 2020?

This is a rough draft of a submission I am working on. It is supposed to be a one-paragraph answer. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.

The year is 2020. Chelsea Clinton has just been voted the first woman president of the United States America. We are 3 years into the analogue revolution. The great internet epidemic of 2017, known by the survivors as the blue screen of death, has led to communities of people with common interests meeting face to face, relying entirely on word of mouth. With the fall of the internet came the rise of the “outernet,” a place where you must be present to purchase goods, and you have to send a physical, handwritten card to your aunt Mildred instead of texting her "hpy brthday." For 12 months the #1 New York Times bestseller is Say it to my Face: A Survivor’s Guide to Life After Facebook. It is printed using recycled house paint on “paper” made from fused-together, post-consumer plastic grocery bags. It is available exclusively through the publisher’s bookstore.

Goliath vs. Goliath

This week, one of the giants of the book industry faced off against the giant of the, well, everything industry. Macmillan vs. Amazon is a total conundrum for me because I like to rout for the underdog. Clearly, in this situation, there is no such dog. They are two over-dogs, barking at each other from either side of a chain link fence. There was a lot of dirt kicked around, both dogs showed their teeth, and Amazon even sunk its teeth in a little before realizing it was actually biting itself on the (proverbial) rear end.

When the dust finally settled, Amazon went limping home with its tail between its legs. Some people rejoiced. The headlines read “Victory for publishers everywhere!” But I am skeptical. Sure, if Macmillan makes a stink about something, Amazon is much more likely to respond then if Mom’n’Pop Publishing were to make the same case. However, just because Macmillan was able to wiggle their way out of the $9.99 price cap, doesn’t mean that we are free from the monopolizing hand of Amazon.

By raising the prices of e-books, consumers will be expecting more from the ebooks they buy. For publishers like Macmillan, this could pose a bit of a problem. First of all, Macmillan (unlike smaller publishers) has a huge backlist of titles that are not easily converted to digital content. Also, so far, it doesn’t seem like publishers really know what people want from their ebooks. I certainly hope that Macmillan has not bitten off more than it can chew. I also hope they can figure out a way to make people want to buy ebooks. People will not spend $14.99, or $9.99 for that matter, for poorly formatted, unreliable books.

Amazon needs to be careful the way they treat publishers. Even though Amazon has a lot of characteristics that make it like a publishers, I would venture that they still need the big dogs of publishing to make their business work. They need to be especially careful now that the “unicorn” has arrived and the apple bookstore is ready to open its digital doors.

I think there has to be an easy answer in here somewhere, I just don’t know what it is.