Evelyn Waugh once said that the golden rule of book reviewing is that you should never give a bad review to a book you have not read. This is now seen as rather old-fashioned and romantic. No book reviewer ever has time to read the whole book, not for the money they are paying you. The vital thing is to give the impression that you HAVE read the whole book.

• Masterclass: how to write a book review

The post On The Secrets Of Book Reviewing appeared first on Booksquare.

Two technology giants — Google and Microsoft — are currently engaged in major book digitization efforts. While their approaches differ (slightly), they have similar goals. Yes, the desire to make information readily available is one. Making money is the other. All that lovely text will be used to propel advertising revenues. The side benefit will be increased book sales for those whose works are accessible to the seeking-and-finding search crowd.

(Though we are focused here on Google and Microsoft, do not forget that Amazon is lurking in the shadows, planning to make major moves in this arena as well.)

The Microsoft initiative has been moving slowly, but steadily, forward. Google has been moving full steam ahead. Microsoft is trying to avoid the legal battles being faced by Google. Google is citing increased book sales due to their initiative. Both companies are doing the publishing industry a huge favor.

The publishing industry has been remarkably precious about protecting copyright while acknowledging the importance of digitizing back catalog (we are making the rather bold assumption that most works published since at least the mid-nineties are already in digital format). While some publishers are moving forward, most are not. We understand: turning paper into bits and bytes is not a cheap undertaking. Even as Microsoft signs deals with scanning specialists, there is still considerable expense involved.

What publishers don’t seem to get is that Microsoft and Google want to bear this expense. They are willing to put up their own money to digitize books — and, no, they are not doing this out of the goodness of their little corporate hearts. They fully expect that the return on investment will be massive. In exchange for digitizing books, they will earn advertising dollars based on search results. They will also — mark our words — probably make money on alternate distribution methods (electronic books, print-on-demand) for books.

As publishers look at older titles, they’re going to be doing cost-benefit analyses, and many books are going to be found wanting. This is a basic fact of doing business. Titles with the potential to sell only a few to none copies aren’t likely to be digitized under publisher initiatives. Google and Microsoft, however, understand that having that one book in search results meets the needs of someone — because there’s always someone — out there in the world. What appears to be a loser for the publishing house becomes a winner when someone buys the book (or buys an excerpt of the book, as the case may be).

This only works if the book is readily available in a searchable format. If the text is behind an impenetrable digital curtain (or, worse, sitting gathering dust on a warehouse shelf), then nobody will find it, nobody will buy it, nobody will read it. Publishers know their business very well; and, as someone pointed out to us yesterday, Google knows search. Very well. It makes sense for publishers to work with experts in the field, no?

Publishers will, after all, require the services of the search giants even if they do choose to go the digitization route alone. No point in doing all the work if nobody can find it (and we must be cruel here: people don’t know who published this obscure work or that seminal piece). Search engine optimization is an entire industry, and it makes sense that publishers would partner with those who know what they’re doing. Sure beats litigation.

One important thing for publishers to remember will be that it’s all about the consumer (again, people who buy stuff). As they rethink their search giant strategy (and we believe they will), no exclusive deals with this company or that company. You don’t know whose search engine is preferred by the consumer seeking your product. Why limit your audience?

In the meantime, Microsoft is still unable to accept electronic versions of books. C’mon guys — it’s been nearly six months since you launched the project. Getting already-digitized product should be the easy part!

• Deal takes Microsoft further into Google territory

[tags]publishing, google, microsoft, books, digital books[/tags]

The post Digitizing Books, Again appeared first on Booksquare.

While some artists can go on forever — Mose Allison, one inspiration for “My Generation”, can keep on singing forever as far as we’re concerned — sometimes it is important to stop while you’re ahead. We are reminded of this as we witness the end of Lemony Snicket’s series of Unfortunate Events. With Book 13, the long, sad tale of three orphaned children comes to a close.

Even as fans sob and try to find meaning in a heretofore unheard-of 14th chapter, they must know inside that this end is a Good Thing. Stop now, they secretly acknowledge, before you become silly. Irrelevant. The Who.

Same goes for Harry Potter. There will be a next big thing to fill the hole in our hearts and Harry will continue to live on for future generations, just as the Lemony Snicket books will. If only Elizabeth Peters had found J.K. Rowling’s fortitude — her Amelia Peabody series has lasted far too many books beyond what it should have. There is a point when a series becomes a parody of itself, and even the introduction of World Wars cannot hide the fact that this series has grown monotonous. Characters who were formerly charming are now irritating.

Why is it that some authors persist long after the useful life of a series? Janet Evanovich once said she stopped writing romance because she ran out of positions; one wonders if she’ll stop writing Stephanie Plum stories because she’s running out of ways to blow up cars. There comes a point where writing in the safe zone — familiar characters, scenarios, and outcomes — simply put the audience to sleep. Yet so many authors do it. Over and over and over.

What is the cure? Bravery and imagination. You must be bold and cut the ties with series that have grown stale, or better yet, have a plan for the series that includes an ending. Stop letting them spiral out of control. Stop adding long-lost cousins who will prolong the agony. It is okay to let go — those fans who are clamoring for just one more story aren’t begging in your best interest. They will abandon you and your series in a New York minute. They have other series, other media. They don’t need you and your one book a year. They need constant stimulation. Do not trust these voices.

In television, it’s called “jumping the shark”, the moment when a series is officially phoning it in. Lemony Snicket and J.K. Rowling know enough to stop before they’re dropping dimes into the neighborhood pay phone. The Jam knew they were over long before their fans were quite ready to accept the truth. Pete Townshend knew the truth in heart, but couldn’t quite reconcile it to the life he’d started to lead.

We say goodbye to A Series Of Unfortunate Events. But we do it knowing it left us at the right time.

The post Do You Remember The Jam? appeared first on Booksquare.

“Wha?” you say? “You mean someone’s finally put the pieces together?”

Yes, that’s it exactly. The publisher of the book that introduced us to the Metaverse — a virtual world where people enter into personal and business transactions of all types — has created a special offer for residents of Second Life, a virtual world where people enter into personal and business…well, you know the rest. Since Snow Crash introduced many of the concepts being used in environments like SL, it is only fitting that the publisher try to sell the book that started it all.

(By the way, you have read Snow Crash, haven’t you?)

Penguin UK is looking to expand their use of Second Life (and presumably other online venues, though we would never pretend to know the minds of publishers), and are looking for suggestions for books that fit the bill. We do not know if the publisher has the rights to the collected works of William Gibson, but surely Idoru or Pattern Recognition fit the bill. Yeah, that’s us, always giving it away for free.

Through some bizarre, sick twisted sense of territorial rights, this offer is only open to UK residents. Which, if you think about what’s being sold and to whom, is a bit of a unwelcome intrusion of Real Life. Especially since the products are available in ebook and audiobook format.

Yeah, even when we’re excited, we need our daily dose of snark.

• Residents of Second Life – Welcome To Penguin UK

The post This Penguin With Snow Crash Walks Into A Second Life appeared first on Booksquare.

How many of the new words captured in 2006 will achieve permanence is anyone’s guess: only a tiny percentage of words will ever gain entry into the Oxford English Dictionary and the waiting list of words is long.

• Catherine Tate’s ‘bovvered’ set to be included in Oxford dictionary

The post On The Tough Battles Faced By Words appeared first on Booksquare.

• Book Covers – While there have been a few documented instances where the author’s name does not appear on the cover of a book, it is common practice to have both the title of the novel and the author’s name (or pseudonym) prominently displayed.
• Titles on Individual Pages – Depending on the style of the publishing house, a book’s title and/or the author’s name may be repeated at the top of every page between the covers. Mr. Head asserts this is “…a clear testament to Susan Combs†insatiable ego and desire to see her name in print…” More than likely, it is how the publisher typeset the book.
• Shelf Life of Books – In light of recent scandals, Mr. Head’s desire to protect “the young People of Texas” is admirable. However, since Ms. Combs published her book with Meteor’s Kismet line in 1990, we can safely say that there are few chances of said young people will stumble upon this book and be traumatized for life. Not having read the work, we cannot say if the same will be true for Ms. Combs’ children. It’s always uncomfortable to discover that your parents have imaginations.
• Extracts – Though Mr. Head uses the word “extraxts”, when violating a person’s copyright by reprinting work in a manner that goes beyond fair use, it is more appropriate to spell the word correctly. That would be “extracts”. Also, it is always a good idea to follow the letter and spirit of the law when attempting to gain higher moral ground.
• Pornography – Mr. Head asserts that Ms. Combs’ romance novel is “pornographic”. We assert that Mr. Head is clueless. Human beings have sex. Quite frequently if anecdotal data is to believed. Sex is not pornography. Reading about sex is not enjoying pornography, as a matter of course. Writing about sex is not writing pornography. In novels, any aspect of the human condition is fair game.

  As for this so-called pornographic novel’s impact on the fine residents of Texas? If Mr. Head had done a modicum of research, he’d know that the fact the Romance Writers of America was founded in Texas — and the state is home to more romance authors than any other state (okay, we’re pretty sure that’s true) — undermines his assertion “…that the People of Texas will not knowingly tolerate a pornographic book writer holding a State Office of Public Trust.”

• Arrogance – To be a published author, you must have some degree of arrogance. You must believe in your talent to the degree that you can complete the book and submit it to a publisher. Then, of course, you must sit back and let the public sling arrows. That being said, this comment does not meet our personal standards of arrogance:
  

  “I wrote the book nineteen years ago. I received lots of congratulatory letters. Iâ€ve served with distinction. Iâ€m sad that the book company is out of business because I wonâ€t get any more royalties.” [Statement from Susan Combs]

In this politically charged election season, we are proud to do our little part to aid voters in making tough decisions. We assume the Comptroller of Public Accounts in Texas will be dealing with such matters as money and math, but also believe that it’s important for a public official to understand how books work (ha! get it?) and that “mainstream” is traditionally treated as a compound word.

Please, please, please let this be a joke. Our faith in humanity is tenuous at best.

(Special thanks to our favorite purveyor of corrupting novels.)

• Meet Fred Headâ€s Republican Opponent Pornographic Book writer Susan Combs. Susan Combs is not who she says she is.

[tags]romance novels, politics, publishing, books[/tags]

The post Open Letter To Texas Voters appeared first on Booksquare.

The problem, of course, is that there’s always a bigger, scarier monster in the closet, and even the superstores are nervous. As venerable institutions like Tower Records face the end of their storied lives, independents are growing increasingly…creative. And some of them are really grasping the one thing they’ve said all along: it’s the community, stupid.

If there is one thing the Internet has taught us, it is that humans (our particular species) are semi-social creatures. We like to hang out in places that feed our particular interests, and we like to interact with those who share those interests. The problem being, of course, is that some of have very narrow interests. Back in the olden days, these were called the derogatory “niche”; today, they earn the admiring description “niche”.

Granted, some niches are bigger than others (example: knitting niches, surprisingly big), but independent bookstores are seeing the value of targeted, serious niche selling. Granted, this concept works a bit better in larger urban areas where there is sufficient aud…

Oh wait, what are we saying? This is the Internet Age. Niche retailers can build real-life and virtual communities. It’s like magic. It’s a way of doing something the mega-chains cannot. The biggies simply don’t get online community-building the way independents can. In trying to be everything to everyone — in the least offensive manner possible — the chain stores manage to do nothing for anyone. We don’t even think that Amazon’s recent forays in the Wild World of Web 2.0 have done much in the way of community-building, but maybe we’re hanging out with the wrong crowds.

Niche booksellers — okay, let’s be plain-spoken here, booksellers who target specific genres — have an incredible advantage. Knowledge. Generally, the booksellers are genre geeks, be it horror, mystery, romance, or science fiction…or any genre in-between. In the Tower Records article noted above, one complaint that Kirk voiced (but didn’t write about) was the lack of knowledgeable clerks. When you go into Borders, chances are you’ll find someone who reads, but not necessarily someone who reads deeply in your particular genre. A niche retailer will not only be intimately familiar with the arcana of the world of Hobbits, but so will the clientele. Oh, yes, it’s weird, but only if you don’t inhabit the world.

[Caution: marrying into the geek community can have detrimental effects on your ability to remain above it all. You may find yourself defending the very thing you make fun of. Sorry, totally off-topic, but we felt it was an appropriate warning.]

Niche retailers offer deep catalog, not just the latest hits. They offer readings and signings and discussions with authors who are so off the Barnes & Noble radar, they’ll never be found. They offer ephemera. They offer conversation. They offer community. And they can bring this whole enchilada together in the physical and online space. This is what they mean by the best of both worlds. Please note that we are talking about possibility here, not necessarily execution. We’re the idea people.

While others worry about the death of the independents, we see hope and light. Normally, this means we’re running a fever; today, it’s just excitement at possibilities.

• Genre bookstores hold off big chains

[tags]geeks, niche, books, bookstores, tower records[/tags]

The post The Niche Rises Again appeared first on Booksquare.

Lynne Scanlon notes that making money the traditional way (selling a book to a publishers, receiving an advance, earning out an advance, waiting months and sometimes years for royalties to be paid) doesn’t really work for her. Let’s all face facts: if you’re writing to get rich, you might also want to consider winning the lottery as a back-up plan (also, note our advice below). Scanlon has decided to (catch phrase alert!) monetize her blog.

It is a natural urge to try to make money doing what you love or do best. Especially if you have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people reading you ever month. If you compare the daily readership of some blogs to the sales of most authors, the differences would make most publishers cry. However, the financial models are very different.

Scanlon discusses potential avenues for earning revenues (ads, ads, and sponsorships). These are, indeed, viable sources of money. We have had some modest success along these lines with other sites in the BS family. However, that success came not because we slapped up ads and counted the money as it rolled in. There are three basic elements that are essential if you’re serious about making your online ventures pay. These are not big secrets, by the way.

• Niche – You need to figure out where your blog fits into the grand scheme of life. If you regularly visit grocery stores, you’ll notice that there are very few general interest magazines on the racks. Each and every publication differentiates itself (not all successfully) by targeting a specific niche. The Real Simple niche — people looking to streamline their lives in an upscale-ish sort of way — is very different than the Budget Living niche.

  To be a successful paid blogger, you need to know your niche and write about it. Sites such as Boing Boing get a pass on this rule because they have built a massive audience by targeting a wide range of interests with a geek perspective. Boing Boing is an exception, and if you read it regularly, you’ll understand why. In the world of blogs, specific trumps general.

• Content – People do not generally come to your blog (or website) to admire your brilliant design. Okay, if it’s a brand-spanking new look, maybe you’ll get a rush of traffic admiring your lovely colors and hot boxes, but generally design doesn’t a destination make. People visit blogs and websites for content.

  Content comes in many forms: text, sounds, and images. We’re going to focus on text, because, well, our particular niche is very much into the written word. You’ll notice that A-List blogs have certain things in common, mainly good, strong writing with distinctive voices. Original content matters; repurposed, cookie-cutter content doesn’t work. Hmm, sounds like the publishing industry is dictating the rules of the Internet, no?

  Your content must be engaging and interesting. It must inform people about the topic at hand. It must be evergreen. Okay, it should be evergreen — content that gets digested by search engines and ranks high in Google (or other search engines) when people type in key phrases. Content that drives traffic to your site long after the post is off the home page. Yes, there are exceptions to this rule. There are always exceptions.

  You would think that writers would be particularly inclined toward creating good content. Let us add one more rule: frequent content. You don’t have to post twelve times a day, but you do need to post often. Daily, weekly, whatever your schedule, but the more you write, the more content. If it’s good content, then that leads to more traffic. Vicious circle, yes.

  In other words, bloggers who make serious money off their sites often treat their blogs like full-time jobs. Or part-time jobs if they’re thinking the money will be less serious. Successful bloggers are constantly writing and networking and doing all the things that writers do to sell their words. Because there’s one more key element of paid blogging:

• Traffic – We’re not going to pretend we understand CPMs and all that advertising lingo. There are books, we’re sure, that explain it all. But we do understand the basic laws of traffic: you don’t make money off your blog if you don’t have decent traffic. Ten, twenty, one hundred visitors a day is simply not going to cut it (unless you have a high-paying niche and click-happy readers).

  Building website traffic is an art form, meaning it’s far more complex than we can get into here and now. You need a target audience, you need content — fresh and evergreen, and you need to employ traffic-building strategy. Very rarely do you build it and they come. As we’ve discussed in the past, this involves linking to others and community and writing articles that people want to link to, posts that people want to pass among their friends. Work, you know.

  You can, possibly, buy traffic, but that capital outlay won’t do you much good if there’s nothing behind it. People who come once won’t come twice if there’s no reason to make the effort. Have we mentioned the part about good writing and distinctive voice?

Bloggers do get paid for their work, and writers, especially, are well-positioned to take advantage of the medium. In order to make money off your site, you need to make your site a destination. Throwing up a bunch of links or grabbing canned content won’t do the job. And thus ends today’s rant.

[tags]writing, publishing, blogging, paid blogging, content[/tags]

The post Three Easy Steps To Earning Money From Your Blog appeared first on Booksquare.

Publisher’s Weekly reports that an entire session, thrillingly (and we do mean that sincerely) called “Publishers and Search Engines: Facing the Challenge” discussed an approach called Automated Content Access Protocol, or ACAP for short. Basically, it will be a way of standardizing content publishing across platforms and devices.

This is really, really important if the publishing industry wants to see any modicum of online success. We cannot say how critical it is that publishers understand that a rash of competing standards will turn off consumers. ‘Round about Christmas of this year, a whole bunch of consumers — again, they are the people who spend the money on products — will be discovering the joys of DRM. Some will learn this when they open little boxes containing a product made by Microsoft called “Zune”.

And they will be discovering that you can only buy songs for the Zune at the MS Zune store. If someone in their household previously bought that same song at, oh, the iTunes store, the two devices are not compatible. Please, for a moment, recall the unprecedented success of the iTunes store and iPod device. The market saturation is stunning, and there’s a chance that an iPod already lives in a household where a Zune is being adopted.

Zune/iPod families will not be happy to learn that they’ll need to purchase the same song multiple times in order to play on different pieces of hardware. Factor in the sad reality of other hardware manufacturers deciding that competing standards can only be a good thing, and you’re looking at a consumer revolution. Because those who purchase content want to be able to access content.

People will be online in a New York minute to find ways to break the DRM. Not because they are bad people, but because they have already purchased the content. Fast forward a year or two to the promise of the digital home. Already devices allow consumers to access their music and, theoretically, film libraries wirelessly. But recall that iTunes only works on the Apple devices, Zune is a Microsoft product, Unboxed from Amazon uses another format. And so it goes. Content providers who lock into exclusive deals with select service providers are killing the audience.

Likewise, publishers who go off and sign up for proprietary DRM are only hurting themselves. There comes a point where protecting content might as well mean locking it in a vault and throwing away the key. Consumers don’t mind paying for content (most of them, anyway), but they do mind roadblocks that limit access to the content they’ve purchased. Publishers — a group that includes those people with big corporations behind them as well as those sit down at write for fine publications like Booksquare — who do not understand this will find themselves on the losing end of the new media revolution.

And, yeah, we’re gonna be saying “We told you so.” Frequently.

• Content Concerns Aired at Frankfurt

[tags]digital rights management, drm, zune, ipod, itunes, publishing, content[/tags]

The post How To Avoid The (Anti-DRM) Revolution appeared first on Booksquare.

Harlequin, the world’s leader in romance fiction, is not selling books in sufficient numbers. It’s not that the audience doesn’t exist; it’s that the publisher can’t seem to find the readers. Looking back at our archives (we do not advise doing this without a stiff drink), we see that over and over, there’s a similar theme. Harlequin books are not selling like they could or should.

We’re not going to rehash our previous rants. Much. Harlequin’s problems, as we see them, are many. It’s been clear since the mid-90’s that the publisher lost the interest of many long-time readers. This was due to what can now be called the “Cowboy/Baby/Bride” era. It was an ugly time. Just as Harlequin should have been drawing in a younger readership, it alienated that potential audience with books that were limited in scope — there is an audience for cowboys, an audience for babies, and audience for brides. There is even an audience for all three at once.

But Harlequin seemed to revel in all cowboys/babies/brides, all the time. Just glancing at the titles of American releases tells the story (though, you will note, as we did, an addition to the list: daddy; seriously, daddies, daddies everywhere, and not a bit of variety). The joke was that even if a book didn’t feature a cowboy, baby, bride, daddy, or even virgin, the title still suggested that it might. There’s a point where the titles of novels become so ridiculous, they alone turn off readers.

Recall, if you will, that this was the dawn of Amazon’s reign, and consumers who wanted to read Harlequin books had to race to their local retailer (not as easily located as you’d imagine) while the books were still on the shelf. Once in the store, readers, those lovely folks who plunk (or is it plop?) down cash, were faced with a vast ocean of sameness. This is how so many formerly core readers were lost.

It is also how casual browsers were lost. Despite all the different lines and book covers, there was a sense of everything being the same. As the audience began to embrace edgier, more urban fare, Harlequin’s category lines hunkered down in the traditional realm. Do not mistake us: there is room for more traditional reads, but the publisher went too far in one direction. It lost momentum.

Harlequin editors would argue that so many cowboys and babies and brides were on the shelf because they sold. Fair enough, but did those sales come at a cost of new customers?

Another flaw in the Harlequin model — and this was formerly a strength — is the distribution model. We once spent three weeks going from retail outlet to retail outlet, trying to find a Temptation title that we knew for a fact was for sale. Three weeks, multiple outlets, different cities (what can we say, have car, will drive it). We wanted this book, and, thankfully, Amazon came through at the end.

In the process, we discovered empty racks at Target, sparse selection at Borders, more empty racks, and general frustration. When a reader is motivated, she’ll seek out a book. When a reader is browsing in a store, she’s going to want the selection available immediately. The one-month-on-the-shelf model was great for its time, but this is the modern world, and empty racks are not what a publisher should be offering a reader.

Harlequin lives and dies by its lines, and there’s not reason to think that’s going to change in the near future. However, as the recent demise of Bombshell and other lines suggest, maybe it’s more about variety within the established lines rather than creating new imprints for every little trend. Hmm, we like that. More variety. Even more visual variety — we fear this might be too radical a suggestion, but what do we have to lose?

Cutting staff at Harlequin will certainly increase the bottom line. For corporate parents, that’s a fine goal. However, unless Harlequin seriously addresses the reasons why readers are going elsewhere, the story we’ve been reading for the past two years isn’t going to have a happy ending.

Update: Just moments after posting this, we hear rumors that several editors have been let go already. Yeah.

[tags]publishing, reading, romance novels, harlequin, torstar[/tags]

The post Ranting and Raving, Harlequin Style appeared first on Booksquare.