unavailable in Australia

Only one of the Barry Lopez titles that audible.com has is available for download in Australia.

Congratulations

… to Nic Brasch on his win in the Australian Educational Publishing Awards for The Science Behind.

No we didn't publish it. Macmillan Ed did. (Congratulations to Stuart and Col among others.)

But we did publish So You Want To Be Prime Minister (famously read to a class of primary students on TV by Julia Gillard shortly after publication last year) and Gallipoli: Reckless Valour, both very excellent books by Nick Brasch.

Not fair!

It's frustrating - ebooks and audiobooks I want to read, and listen to, are just not available to an Australian purchaser.

Here's a list of what I couldn't buy this week:

Plainsong (Kent Haruf) audiobook

A Wrinkle in Time audio book

We're in effect being intellectually impoverished by the way ebook market is evolving. An American reader has more access to much more reading (listening) than an Australian reader. The Australian government should look to an e-equivalent of the 30/90 day rule to force books to be available here in this territory.

And the same goes for music.

The publishers benefited from the introduction of the 30/90 day rule here so it would be a shot in the arm to the local branches of the multinational publishers based here. A win/win situation!

Final Twilight film due …

for release on November 16 2012. The end of the franchise is nigh? The of vampires as a genre? The end of paranormal (aka bit lit) as a genre?

"Blokes, Books and Brekky"

I've been off talking to Scotch College boys and their fathers about recommended reading for boys - with James Roy, Leesa Lambert, Eva Mills and Kristin Gill. After much reduction (using intense heat) I got the list down to ten series and authors, which was still too many for the 5 minutes of allotted time.

Here's a long (but still incomplete) list of picks:

For lower secondary (and upper primary):

Dragonkeeper series by Carole Wilkinson. - Carole helps everybody to realise that they have a special talent. A beautifully told magically realist tale.

The Cherub series by Robert Muchamore - AND the Henderson Boys. The poms do spies and thrillers really well.)

Boy Soldier series by Andy McNab - another good pommy spy writer.)

Town by James Roy - for those who love dipping into linked short stories)

Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials - the movie was The Golden Compass, which was not a patch on the books.

Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy

The Spooks Books by Joseph Delaney

Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games. Two books out and one to come. Enough political depth to provoke thought. The provinces versus the centre

Black Dog's the Drum series.

Hatchet and its sequels, by Gary Paulsen

Shirley Marr's Fury - smart and sassy, a bit girly for guys just maybe, but a guy needs to know how girls think.

The Mortal Engines series by Phillip Reeve (and his Here Lies Arthur)

Leviathan by Scott Westerfield

anything by Morris Gleitzman. My brother picked up Two Weeks with Queen at 36 and commented on how good it was without thinking of it as a book for kids.

Eragon and Brisingr

Con Iggulden is hot at the moment and keen on Mongols

Louis Sachar's Holes (and the rest)

William Nicholson's Wind on Fire series

Patrick Ness's

Tomorrow When the War Began - after you've seen the movie, which is due out in September

The Joshua Files

Garth Nix of course. Any of his series.

Alex Rider

Charlie Hickson's Young Bond

Mark Walden's Hive series

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

The Joshua Files

And for the older reader

Q&A by Vikas Swarup - the book on which Slum Dog Millionaire was based.

Hostage by Karen Tayleur - a road book.

Ellen Hopkin's Burned, Crank, Tricks and Glass - that's three books - just out from Simon and Schuster.

Scott Westerfield's Pretties etc

The usual thriller culprits: Dan Brown, James Patterson et al

John Green, maybe try Looking for Alaska

Annie Rose's Sex and Other Stuff - essential reading

Mama's Song by Ben Beaton, for how blokes think girls think.

Qantas and Virgin Blue carbon offsets are not tax-deductible

Carbon offsets that are done direct with Qantas or Virgin Blue for business flights are not tax deductible!

A business is much better off making an offsetting donation through Greenfleet. This renders the Qantas and Virgin Blue programs very unattractive. The airlines should be lobbying the government to change that — if they're smart.

Of course any offsetting personal donation with Greenfleet is just as deductible.

That's a message worth getting out and about.

Gorgeous new Fitzroy graffiti appears overnigh

I drive down Marion Lane every day on my way to work and this morning as I swung around the corner into Marion Lane these visual treats appeared - as if by magic. It's a graffiti style I've not seen before - lovely brushstrokes, and a lovely freehand used in constructing the images.

From Melbourne, the Australia's graffiti capital!

black dogs

When we chose the name black dog it was in tribute to a couple of black dogs we'd know. Zac was a dog I'd had a university. He was a bitzer with a good chunk of cattle dog. Black with brown eyebrows. Smart. Fast. And his own master. Frank, Maryann's father, always had dogs on the farm, including, of course, Blackie. We thought there was something quintessentially Australian about the name black dog. There is and there is something quite international. From gelato in Chicago to restaurants on Martha's Vineyard, everybody loves a black dog. And there's lots of folklore about black dogs. Here's but one link.

IPod = change agent

There's British Bookseller report online that says a minority know about the Kindle, fewer know about the Sony ereader, but lots know about the iPad (even before its British release). The spin from the Bookseller was that the ebook threat is overstated but I'm hearing that its the iPad that's going to make the change.

I'm hearing lots of talk about the iPad being considered or trialled in schools - that will change the reading habits of a generation.

ebooks better or worse for so-called mid-list authors?

I'm with Richard Curtis on this one.

you have to love the thrillers that come through the email.

I am Captain Jim Hatchett of the US Marine Force on Monitoring and Peace -keeping mission in Baghdad-Iraq. On the 7th day of June 2009, we were alerted on the sudden presence of some Terrorists camping in a suburb not too far from Karbala here in Iraq. After Immediate intervention, we captured three (3) of the Terrorists, twenty-six (26) were killed leaving seven (7) injured.In the process of torture they confessed being rebels for late Ayman al-Zawahiri and took us to acave in Karbala which served as their camp. Here we recovered several guns, bombs and other Ammunitions including some boxes among which two contains nuclear weapons, one filled with hard drugs(cocaine) and the other four to my amazement contain some US Dollars amounting to $30.2M after I and two of my junior intelligent officers counted them. I however instructed them to keep this in high secrecy.I am in keen need of a “Reliable and Trustworthy” person like you who would receive, secure and protect these boxes containing the US Dollars for me up on till my assignment elapses in here in Iraq. I assure and promise to give you 30%
of this fund, however feel free to negotiate what you wish to have as your percentage in this business. Please assure me of your keeping this topmost secret to protect my job with the US Monitoring and Peace-Keeping mission.

A role for George Clooney?

Ink48 and Comic Sans

I'm staying at Ink48 Hotel in New York. It's new but it was once a printing factory. The meeting rooms are named after fonts: Helvetica, Garamond, and Courier. But no Comic Sans?

Rejection is hard II

Sometimes we want to publish a script and the author rejects us. The rejection boot is then on the other foot to what it usually is.

That's what happened today. We were interested in a script that had been submitted to us but after a few conversations the author said no this morning. Nobody likes rejection but it was the right decision.

We do want a close relationship with the author and with the script. We want to be involved. We can even be quite directive as editors. That's us, and it works for authors who like and benefit from that sort of support, from that sort of editorial conversation, from that sort of a conversation about where his or her writing is going. That's the concept of the publisher as a "house".

But it doesn't work for everybody. And its a prick of a place to be in when it isn't working - for everybody; when there is a mismatch between expectations. And I think many authors so want to be published that they say yes that's what I want, without exploring what the editorial relationship will mean for them and their book(s). Some, usually experienced, authors are clear sighted but there's lots of myths hanging around about what publishers should or should not do.

So the author in this case made the right call about what she wanted. And though it hurts, it's a decision that I respect her making. For us it was a process worth going through to establish that it was the right call.

I'm looking forward to seeing that manuscript as a book in a bookshop one day (soooner rather than later).

iiNet not guilty in Oz but Limewire guilty in US

iiNet was not held responsible in Australian courts for customers downloading content illegally but Limewire is being held responsible in the US courts.

In the iiNet judgement Australian Federal Court judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy said: "It is impossible to conclude that iiNet has authorised copyright infringement... (it) did not have relevant power to prevent infringements occurring,"

US District Court Judge Kimba Wood said, "The evidence establishes that LimeWire users directly infringed plaintiffs' copyrights, and that LimeWire engaged in purposeful conduct intended to foster that infringement"

Apple bigger than Microsoft

It's extraordinary! Apple's market capitalization is more than Microsoft's, at least according to some reports, though others disagree. Whatever the status now Apple is predicted to surpass Microsoft this year.

Ten years ago such a thing would have been unthinkable, which makes Apple's triumph is all the more interesting as a business story.

Apple's growth has been on the strength of the iPhone and other pieces of cleverness. As a longer term user & fan of Macs, I am so pleased to see a smart and stylish company being rewarded with success. For Mac fans it feels like the world has come along to join us.

more on agency pricing

This is worth a read (and the comments):

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012168.html

My understanding is that publishers are in the box seat with agency pricing as they can control and enforce the price in a way they couldn't with pbooks. The eworld actually gives (large) publishers more control.

That's one of the scary things about ebooks and downloaded music. The owner or licensor of the copyright can reach right into the guts of your computer via the channel of supply and manage the rights embedded in 'your' books and music.

Melissa (downstairs) only buys CDs - she wants to have something physical for her money, something she can fall back on when the online world gets a bit screwy.

Agency pricing is putting publishers in the box seat

BooksOnBoard sent out the following note. I found it interesting how quickly things can change in the online environment: with the tap of a few keys a big chunk of the catalogue comes down and on the other hand how complex the software systems are to manage the change.

There's no change to the audio catalogue. No agency pricing change, or already sold on the agency pricing system? And I'm not sure why: "choose the MP3 versions where available to avoid Digital Rights Management issues"?

Dear BooksOnBoard Customer:

You may have noticed a change in our store the last few days. While ALL of our UK store titlesMailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "www.booksonboard.com" claiming to be (www.booksonboard.co.uk) are still available and most of our US eBooks are still available, some are temporarily unavailable in the US store MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "www.booksonboard.com" claiming to be (www.booksonboard.com). We still have more than 70% of our US eBook catalog available for you. We also still have all of the audio books we carried previously from ALL of the publishers available in both stores.

As you can see by this newsletter, there are some very good books and some really great deals available, including New York Times bestsellers from Danielle Steel, Stephenie Meyer, and Elizabeth Berg - all with great discounts AND significant Rewards Dollars. Additionally, we have great prices for the audio book versions of most of these eBook titles. (We recommend you choose the MP3 versions where available to avoid Digital Rights Management issues.).


We expect to have almost all of the missing titles back by the middle of the month (we do recommend backing up your files to avoid rare issues like this). This issue is due to the sudden switch to a fixed price system (aka agency pricing) by 5 of the 7 largest publishers last Thursday. Over one thousand other publishing imprints are NOT going to this system, including our 3 most popular publishers. Their titles are all still available on our site at good discounts and with Rewards Dollars.

In this agency pricing system, retailers act as agents for the 5 agency publishers . The publishers assign a Required Ebook Price (REP) that every retailer must charge to customers. BooksOnBoard’s systems were ready for this change on April 1, but the publishers and our wholesalers – dealing with a more complex set of circumstances - have not yet been able to change their systems to accommodate the tricky changes required to get ebooks from these publishers to you under the new system. These changes involve unique sales tax requirements by each publisher depending on where the publishers have offices, changes in territories for titles that have yet to be fully disclosed to us, and a tracking system so that the 5 publishers can be certain we are not discounting their titles. The publishers, unfortunately, underestimated the task and gave the wholesalers only two weeks notice of the change.

In the meanwhile, we still offer 250,000 titles for sale, including everything from Random House, Harlequin, McGraw Hill, Kensington, Samhain, and over a thousand more publishing imprints. These represent your most popular publishers and most of the eBooks our customers want are still on the site. These titles also continue to enjoy discounts and Rewards dollars when you buy.

Thank you for all support of our shop in the past. We look forward to serving you in the future.

Sincere regards,

Bob LiVolsi
CEO & Founder

Short and Scary

It's lovely to see the news about Short and Scary getting out there. Here's a link to Sheryl Gwyther comment. And Sheryl's story is well worth reading.

no twitter or blogs in China

It was frustrating not to be able to twitter or blog from China, where I was for a week from last Wednesday. When I went to do either the message came up that I couldn't access the server. I could access Chinese language blogs (which I couldn't read) but I couldn't access English language blogs.

I assume freedom of speech, so it was a small but stark and frustrating personal reminder of what happens when it just isn't there.

ereader market research

Twice in the the last three days, while I've been reading my Sony e-reader (a manuscript), while waiting for a coffee people have come up and asked me what it is and what do I know about e-readers. Both were keen readers, both loved the printed book AND both wanted something they could take travelling. They both said they did a lot of travelling. The attraction for both readers was something light with lots of books on it. They wanted a choice of reading while they were away. The young woman this morning also wanted not only leisure reading but textbooks for the course she was studying. Maybe this is where the e-readers will establish a foothold in our market (from a giant sample of two) - people doing a lot of travel who are willing to invest in a device small enough to hold in your lap while reading and with the advantage that it gives them a huge choice in reading.

Obviously its the best way for me to do market research on e-readers is to stand around (or sit) in public, reading my e-reader, and wait for people to come and ask me.

interactive ebooks

I haven't blogged in ages but I was inspired by this article in the Huffington Post. I like the idea of adding bells and whistles to a book - as a maker of books - but I'm not a believer. A book is not about choice; it's about an author taking the reader by the hand and leading you where they want to take you. That gives the reader a sense of security that is the pleasure of reading. Too much choice destroys the willing suspension of disbelief (in the case of fiction) Once a teen reader leaves a book for a game, they won't be coming back. I'm not convinced that more, more choice, is better.

P or E kids books

worth a read from a teacher: link

territorial copyright

Territorial copyright is frustrating in an online world for those ebook and audio downloaders who don't live in the states. For international sales for ebook online retailers its going to be a major point of difference. Here's the newly branded Kobo's statement.

ebooks for children

This is cute - and interesting.

Authors depart

I've belatedly ripped the environmentally unsound plastic covering off my latest edition of BRW to discover that 4 authors departed from the Top 50 Entertainers list this year: John Flanagan, Bryce Courtney, Donna Hay and Garth Nix. There's only one author left on the list, Rhonda Byrne of The Secret fame, and her earnings have plummeted from $5.2 million last year to $2.1 million this year. It hardly looks like it was a great year at the top-end of publishing - sadly.

John Le Carre leaves Hodder …

an interesting article in The Guardian here,

which ignores independent publishing. It's a common journalistic error to overlook the most interesting part of the industry

celebrity bios

It's good to hear that Michael Parkinson believes that "many showbiz memoirs aren’t worth the paper they are written on". quoted in Crikey

Anonymous writes a book

Wayne Carey's dreams of an anonymous life [this morning's Sun-Herald] and has written a book to prove it.

eReader is slow but nice

My Sony eReader is nice but slow - slow to load and then re-index - and the battery has drained inexplicably on occasion. I can't get it to work smoothly with my Mac, as, say, the Mac does so very sweetly with the iPhone. Signs of a nascent technology with Sony?

The ink is not as nice to read as ink on the page but I can carry so many manuscripts at a time. I am growing to like it

Talking of Macs it's nice seeing Apple doing so well.

Barnes and Noble are launching an eReader

called the Nook. Now taking pre-orders. Is it available internationally or US only?

editing children's books

The challenge I find is reading a manuscript (which I'm doing right now on a manuscript I'm loving) with an adult mind and from the point of view of a reader of the target age. Then I'm challenged by figuring out what the target age for a particular book really is - and accurately filtering that is a key editorial task in children's books. If I read the book with the wrong age in my head or with too much of an adult mind I come up with the wrong editorial decisions, and suspending the adult mind is like suspending my critical faculties on how to make a book better.

eBooks in Australia

Here's a press release from the APA - well worth reading!

Australia needs to get its ebook walking shoes on - we're behind developments in the UK and the US, especially the US and we need to be able to read our books in the form we want to. Without a development like this we could be shut out of reading many of our own books as ebooks.

Media Release

18 October 2009

eBooks to go on over-the-counter sale in Australia

Australians will be able to buy digital books over the counter at bookstores from next

year using a digital distribution system constructed for Australian book publishers.

The move will bring easy availability of eBooks in Australia a step closer, says the CEO of the

Australian Publishers Association, Maree McCaskill.

“Right now, take-up of eBooks in Australia has been hampered,” she explained. “Sales of

eBook readers have been slow because of cost and availability issues, and there is no simple

system for eBook distribution.

“This new system will allow Australians to download digital books quickly and simply via

participating bookstores. This will make a wider range of eBooks more freely available,” she

said.

All booksellers using the APA’s TitlePage program will be able to access the system.

Customers wanting to buy eBooks can go to a participating retailer, check the title they want

is available in the right format and price using TitlePage, then give the store their email

address and pay for the book.

The new system will email customers a unique web address they can access to download the

book at their convenience.

Ms McCaskill said the system is expected to be operating in the first half of 2010.

“TitlePage was a world industry first, and this addition will be a groundbreaking industry

solution for Australian retailers and consumers,” she added.

“Australian booksellers have been looking for an industry solution to enable them to

participate in this market, and this system will minimise risk for them in a fast-moving

landscape.”

The CEO of the Australian Booksellers Association, Malcolm Neil, welcomed the move,

saying: “This innovative initiative taken by the APA will ensure Australian readers have

access to the choice of retailer which suits them in this exciting new market.”

Ms McCaskill said the APA expected to be working closely with booksellers on the

implementation of this new digital distribution system.

“The decision demonstrates the importance of maintaining territorial copyright for books in

Australia. This is what gives publishers the security to make this major investment in new

technology, ultimately to the benefit of consumers,” she said.

Media contact: José Borghino 0413 998 033

Social Media comment from the lovely Shop Sui

Down the road in Gertrude St is Sylvia Tai's delightful Shop Sui - all things whimsical, especially, as the name suggests, an Asian take on something Western. And there's this gorgeous child's tee that I noticed yesterday.

This is worth a look …

Results of NMC Two Minute Survey on eBooks

And here are my questions (for Australian readers):

Have you started reading your first ebook this year but not completed it and not attempted to read another?

Have you downloaded an audio book online this year?

Are you planning to buy a Kindle?

Kristen, do have a look at this …

link

Marieke in The Age

I've subscribed.

Garret enviromental scorecard

Yes to fourth uranium mine Four MIle in SA.

Yes to Tasmanian pulp mill, subject to the affluent level regulations being met - let's see, if the mill is built, whether the affluent levels are breached.

No to saving single-species. Links here and here.

ebooks = the reading experience

The success of the ereaders/ebooks will in the end be about the reading experience. An ereader offers a lot - lots of books in a convenient package. Will most book buyers - those that buy a book on holidays or for a plane ride - buy a dedicated device? I don't think so. They'll stick to the occasional paper version purchase.

Where ebooks will replace the paper version is on the phone. And reading Persuader and Jack Reacher on the Iphone hasn't convinced me that it's a desirable reading experience, even for a plot driven thriller. A back lit screen and titchy little pages interferes with my willing suspension of disbelief: I not getting lost in the book. It's paper for me for pleaure reading, with a book on the phone as a back up.

underworld memoirs

What's a not-for-profit university press doing publishing the memoir of an underworld figure? What social merit is there in the book? How credible is the content really? The pendulum has swung too far from "not" towards a (hopeful) "profit". It's a failure of the imagination.

translation…?

"If you look at Lonely Planet, the future of our business is really about form factors and the way consumers will engage with those form factors, which is technology driven. It is about communities of interest that emerges around the content, which is empowered by technology. Then it's about the services that we stitch into the fabric of the offerings, which is enabled by technology. We spend a lot of time thinking about that." Matt Goldberg, new CEO of Lonely Planet, quoted in the AFR, 29 September 2009

Why I love Fitzroy

Found on the footpath outside the Housing Commission Flats in Fitzroy:

Sony eReader reliability

My Sony eReader is decidedly glitchy — and I'm having to use that hi-tec tool, the bent paperclip, to reset more than I think I should, and for awhile it refused, just refused, to charge. I notice that some others are reporting similar problems on the web. Maybe it's because I'm using it in a Mac environment.

Jammie Thomas

The Americans tend to be much more heavy-handed in defending copyright than say the Europeans. I only just caught up with what was happening to Jammie Thomas thanks to T-post.

The publishing industry needs to avoid a heavy handed pursuit of the individuals in an eBook world if it wants to win the hearts and minds of consumers. The British PA president Simon Allen said recently: " We won't be interested in a single consumer - more when we see people going about [piracy] in an organized and concerted way. We have to be careful not to be seen protecting our own turf in a very old-fashioned way - just protecting our interests." (In a marketing sense: who'd choose to make a single mother who is also a native American as the example in a test case?)

PS Allen also said the end of territoriality would shift English-language publishing to the big players in the US. & he identified the problem (presumably no longer a "problem" here if the PIRs are lifted) of "leakage": low-costs editions from emerging markets being sold into higher-cost Western markets.

Multiple platform books

Simultaneously publishing books on multiple platforms is an interesting idea (link), a print book an ebook and an audio book. Then I could read the book in hardcopy, listen to it in the car on the way to work and then read it on my iPhone in the line at the bank. A way of being able to pick up where I left off is the challenge.

PIR commentary by Natalie Hicks in the Age

There's an excellent and thoughtful article in today's Age by Natalie Hickey (an intellectual property partner at Mallesons Stephens Jacques). It's a reply to Guy Rundle's article in the Sunday Age, which, to crudely summarize, said we may as well get rid of the Parallel Import restrictions because the digital future is here. It is interesting how digital is has recently become a much larger part of the PIR debate. And we do need to look at digital territorial copyrights and how the information playing field is tipping towards the US due to the weight of its market size.

Natalie begins with a nice reminder of the physicality as virtue of the book - who will inscribed a digital book as a present that will come as a reminder everytime the book is opened. So books won't disappear even some functions are replaced. So PIR restrictions do matter.

She describes the fear among writers of globalization, meaning writers need to write for a global market - homogenously; and that there will be a loss of editorial staff here. (Of course a significant part of the importance of the the PIRs to the Australian publishing industry is about the right of publishers to create an Australian edition of an overseas book. Australian writers are threatened, the argument runs, by booksellers buying overseas editions (on which authors receive a lower royalty) and by the threat of remainder copies of their own books being sold here, replacing the local edition on which they'd receive a royalty. Natalie sees the PIRs as a plank in Australia's protection against globalization of the publishing industry.

I very much liked her comment: "Maintaining our cultural voice is central to the retention of an Australian identity." And that's something I believe we should address as the rate of digital globalization speeds up. How do we assist Australian publishers and writers "to predict and adapt to digital environments" in a way that maintains (or even enhances) our cultural voice.? What is the governments legal role in this? What policy should the government have? Should it create a digital territorial copyright? Is it acceptable that we can't access Australian works on say a digital audio platform where those with a US IP address can? Is there a role for the government in digitizing out-of-print Australian works, along the lines of Google Books?

Facebook and borders

I am fascinated at how rapidly social networks are evolving to become more and more powerful in the political arena, as they are woven into the fabric of of our lives, not just in terms of promotion in political campaigns but also, recently, in delineating countries and borders. On Facebook you can now mark Israel as your country of origin; in the past it had to be Syria or be left blank. Facebook is now part of a 40 year old dispute. There are now virtual countries on the web that will parallel the actual. The web will become a source of authority that will define much of our lives.

US editions in shops

I see that Borders is offering both the US edition and the local Scribe edition of Norman Doidge's bestselling "The Brain that Changes Itself" and the bestseller page for non-fiction lists shows the (cheaper) US edition, which they have in stock. The US cover is much less appealing, much more American in taste. Henry Rosenbloom of Scribe built the success of the book through his marketing efforts, but he doesn't reap all the benefits of his effort. Without Henry's work many Australian readers wouldn't know of this title. This is an example of what the Productivity Commission would like to see happen for more books.

Interesting:

Interesting

ebook sales up exponentially for June

The IDPF report that trade ebook sales were up 136% on June 2009 on the same month in the previous year. The figures are for the US only, which is the most developed market, and the sales remain only a tiny slice of overall sales. It be interesting to see the figures for the Australian market, or for one of the European markets.

Booker shortlist 2009

No Australians in the Booker shortlist this year but there is a resident (who's going for a hat-trick). We do seem to punch above our weight. A rather narrow field of publishers with three from Random and two from Little, Brown.

AS Byatt - The Children's Book

JM Coetzee - Summertime

Adam Foulds - The Quickening Maze

Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall

Simon Mawer - The Glass Room

Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger

The spread

Do ebooks mean the end of the spread (two facing pages), a traditional element of book design?

Rejection is hard

I've just rejected a manuscript - an unsolicited manuscript.

I think authors under-estimate what a difficult task this is for a publisher. I want to believe in every manuscript, every opportunity, that crosses my desk. But I know that there's no market for some, and some (a surprisingly few) just aren't very good, many have the germ of a good idea, and some are good but just not good enough to run the gauntlet of publication. Then I have to believe in the author. Will they put in the hard yards of not only writing but of rewriting and drafting and rewriting again. And then of embracing the critical process of editing. Then of backing the book when it is published and then of doing it again for the next book and the next. Are they hungry enough? Reading between the lines of the covering letter of many of the manuscripts we receive, I sense that the author is in love with the idea of writing. It is a romance not a commitment.

Rejecting manuscripts is my least favourite task. When an unsolicited manuscript lands on my desk there's a reluctance to open it as I'm most likely to have to say no.

Orwellian Amazon

Its interesting that Amazon can reach into your digital lounge room and remove a book from your shelf, as I assume can any of the e-readers selling proprietary ebooks. Publishers have been able to ask booksellers to pull books from the shelves but not consumers, so Amazon's accident has exposed a change in who control text the consumer has purchased.

Orwellian Kindle

early adopters are not just Romance readers but industry professonals

Hollywood studios are proving to be early adopters of e-readers - for the same reasons editors in publishing houses have been. Lots of scripts can be stored on a lightweight device that is quick to get to the right page.

The film studio Lions Gate is issuing execs with Kindle's so that they don't have lug around a briefcase bulging with scripts. It's early days yet but there CIO claims that he's getting hearth wrenching requests to be supplied with a Kindle daily. And there's an added benefit. The shape of the screen enables the viewer to see a whole page of the script at once in standard movie script formatting which allows the experienced reader to figure out the number of minutes of screen time.

Lord opposes file sharing

Lord Mandelson in the UK is proposing to cut off broadband access to the web of anybody caught illegally downloading music from the web. The record companies are for it and the musicians are against it, including Paul McCartney and Elton John.

Thousand of YouTube videos, that came down in a dispute over royalties with the music industry have gone back up.

We're lucky in the publishing industry, living behind protective walls of printed paper. The music industry has to bear the brunt of change first.

The Guardian article is worth a read. I liked this quote from Patrick Racklow, the chief executive of Basca, in particular:

"The problems the music industry faces will not be dealt with effectively through legislation. We can't support these proposals because we don't think it will work, it will cost too much and is far too blunt a tool. The music industry is quite a scary place to be at the moment and we don't know what it will look like in 10 years' time, but if we find ways of licensing, new ways of doing things will evolve. What we can't do is try to push things forward by looking back."

There's a fundamental and fascinating clash going on between creative rights of the individual and of the community, the rights of the consumer and the rights of companies that exploit copyrights.

the 10 most pirated books of 2009

pornographic or nerdy, or: pornographic and nerdy:

link

Step aside Leo for Lee

On Shaun at Nielsen's advice, I've decided to give Tolstoy the flick on my iPhone and try something a little more plot driven to see if I find the experience of reading on my iPhone more attractive. So I've downloaded Lee Child's The Persuader from Random's Free Library on Stanza. I'm on a long bus trip the week after next which will be the perfect opportunity to give Lee a trial. I'll report back.

worth thinking about in terms of Google Settlement

link

Google Books is buildiing a market— a free one at the moment and to quote from the link: "Why is that important if Google is only giving the books away anyway? Because it doesn’t plan to always be giving books away for free."

Google settlement - opt out by the 4 September if you dare!

I've spent part of yesterday and the day before coming to some sort of understanding about the Google Settlement, poked along by the 4 September deadline for opting out, if you want to.

A few imperfect facts I've gleaned.

It is part of the huge shift as publishing goes online. It will set precedents for the future.

Most people are confused by it and in the long run nobody knows really what will happen as no market has been established yet, though Google is establishing one.

It is an issue for publishers based here in Australia, rather than ones with their head office in London, New York and Paris. If the headquarters are offshore, then that's where the decision has been made.

Like most things digital in book publishing, there's not much money in it - yet. And there may never be, or …

The settlement is about making books available to US customers - not to the rest of us, but it is about making everybody's books (pretty much) available to US customers. The information playing field is tilting towards the US and this is part of it (as is the lack of e-readers - notable the Kindle - outside the US). Markets outside the US and non-English languages are being disadvantaged by these shifts. But Google has given a poke in ribs to everybody outside the US to wake up and think about it.

The settlement only relates to book published before 5 January 2009, but it applies to most books before that date with a US copyright, which is everybody but a very few countries, so a huge body of work. It applies whether or not Google has already digitized this work or not.

If your book has been digitized Google will pay you 60 bucks. But I couldn't find that any of our books have been digitized. Maybe children's books aren't well represented in the libraries that Google chose to digitize. I've been told that some not necessarily obvious books have been digitized.

If you opt out, you can sue Google, which is not something I'm likely to do. But if you opt out I guess you could be included in another class action. Opting out seems to be a statement of principle, rather than one of commerce.

If you don't like what Google has done you can also opt in and tell Google to exclude your book(s), or restrict how Google uses your books.

Publishers and authors need to co-operate. The most restrictive request is the one that is implemented.

But there may be revenue from Google if you include your book. Non-Display uses are really bibliographic uses, allowing the user to find out about the existence of the book, the Display uses is where the revenue stream comes in. You need to register to get a revenue stream and if you register to direct Google what it can and cannot do with your book(s)

This is all still to be confirmed in court.

And what happens to books published after 5 January 2009 is not covered by the settlement. So that's worth thinking about.

The next key date is 5 January 2010.

It's complex, so you can't rely on what I've said here - these are just my thoughts and interpretains. If you're a member of the Australian Publishers Association they will have sent some really (no really) handy flowcharts as well as other useful advice.

what they're reading

We're behind in ebook development as we lack a ereader with wide appeal — neither the Kindle not the Sony Reader is available here.

We're the slowest of the major English language markets to adopt digital books. People can read on their phones or on a laptop or desktop (none of which is that flash as a reading experience) but not yet on dedicated reader.

So its interesting to see what they're reading on the other side of the Pacific where the market is more developed.

Allen and Unwin

Just in case anybody missed out: it's nice to see Allen & Unwin, the only Australian company among the big publishers (though it had it's origins in a British company) back in BRW's top 500 private companies at number 458 with a revenue of $96.8m, which is up 33% on last year, for 119 employees (which was an increase of 7.2%).

A great financial result — and a terrific list.

Sony Ebooks and Macs

Sony has recently released software that is said to the eReader compatible with Macs. Maybe I can use my Sony eReader for more than reading manuscripts (though it gets heavy use for that) via Calibre but the news on the web isn't good. Adobe Digital Editions doesn't recognize the eReader which means you can't buy any books from any store but Sony's.

And since it is only available for products identified and sold in United States, or Canada I'm not sure how useful it will be to me. But I've downloaded it and I'll see what happens.

Local (Gertrude St) boy does good

Congratulations to Andrew McConnell on being named Chef of the Year and for Cutler & Co being named Best New Restaurant.

Graphic novels

I'm intrigued by librarians fascination with graphic novels. There's something happen in libraries that isn't happening in book shops. Booksellers I'm talking to say their graphic novels sections are growing - slowly - and I suspect many of the customers buying graphic novels from booksellers are school and public librarians. Clearly kids are borrowing graphic novels from the library or reading them there, but they're not buying them in bookshops. The books kids are buying are old-fashioned long form narratives. A conundrum.

Age Book of the Year

It's really nice to Sleepers Publishing up there, shortlisted and then winning. And of course: congratulations to Steven Amsterdam

Oveseas success

Lili has been a bit of hit overseas.

booming paper street directory sales

It was interesting to read in this mornings paper that the sales of the bound-printed-0n-paper street directories are booming, as are the sales of GPSs. People are using the different forms for different things. The screens are too small on a GPS to give a meaningful context, so drivers use a directory for planning a trip. The paper edition is still an essential inhabitant of every car.

If I'm typical then: I use my iPhone for directions but when I want a context I go the directory. I use the directory a lot less but my car wouldn't be complete without one.

books for girls

It was interesting talking to a student at an all girls school (year 10) who commented that all but one of the books they had read for class in the three years of senior school had had a boy protagonist.

independent vs big business models

Jess, our production co-ordinator, is doing the RMIT course and we've been talking about the differences, in terms of business models, of the large and the not-so large. There seems to be a general assumption that there is one publishing model - a one size fits all. But the more we explore the less true that's seen to be. It's a fascinating exploration.

The Publishing Landscape

I was thinking about where we place the black dog list, what are some of things that drive the list, and where publishing in this country is going in general. As a publisher we want our books not only to entertain but inform. We want the reader to finish a book thinking something new, to be surprised, to have their world view shifted - at least a little.

The Twilight and Harry Potter series entertain, and they've led thousands of children to reading, which is a great thing. But I don't think they inform. They reinforce preconceptions rather than alter them. They entertain by not challenging the reader. We want to do something different at black dog. Carole Wilkinson's Dragonkeeper informs the reader of what it is to be like to be nameless and illiterate, without an obvious talent, yet find the strength within herself; Sue Lawson's After (August) will alter a reader's view of being cool. Karen Tayleur's Hostage (October) will illuminate the reader's view on deceit.

The landscape of publishing is changing - the licks are getting bigger. The mid-list is disappearing. The demand on marketing budgets is increasing. The short-term is strengthening over the long term. The independent booksellers are under pressure. Does that leave us with a less diverse, less interesting publishing and literary landscape?

Are we less willing (as retailers and consumers) to support ambitious writing?

new vogue

A word that is coming into vogue: optic.

as in: "The optic to view much in north Australian indigenous affairs is …" Nicholas Rothwell The Australian July 18-19 2009

Who's bigger Harry or Stephanie?

The Harry Potter series have sold over 400 million copies and the Twilight series has sold over 50 million. Harry, with seven books in the series, was first published in 1997 (11 years ago) and Twilight, with four book in the series - the last was published in 2005 just three years ago. The last Harry Potter was published in 2005 and the last Stephanie Meyer was published last year, and not in the first half. Twilight as a franchise is looking like it is even bigger than Harry.

Will the next mega-YA/crossover/fantasy series be even bigger?

entertaining …

… challenge

Bulwer Lytton competition

I preferred the runners up! (So short should this have been a tweet?)

not back lit

One of the pleasures of the Sony ereader for me is that it ain't backlit. With the constant use of phone and computer my eyes get tired of backlit screens. I'm wondering whether other people are finding the same an advantage?

in praise of the ereader

I'm really enjoying my Sony E-reader. I'm worried. Have I fallen out of love with paper? Or is this just an infatuation with the new. I've been reading manuscripts - it saves paper as I don't have to lug around a huge hefty wad of paper. (Are we going to be driven to ebooks for environmental reasons?) And more - I have access to a whole lot of manuscripts. I can pick and choose -wow! I can browse manuscripts. And I can read in odd moments like I do with a book. And I never lose my place. (And I never discovered I've printed out the whole script without page numbers.) But that's really manuscripts not books. I have one book on there. A book from an overseas publisher (a pdf), so it doesn't feel like a book being read for pleasure (though I'm absorbed). I do get lost though and went back to the computer once and its larger screen to get a sense of where I was in the pdf.

I think they'll take a while to takeoff though especially with teens and even kids. Except as an act of desperation, the phone screen is too small for comfortable reading. The ereaders are expensive (and they're no here yet!) Maybe electronic paper will be the iTunes moment for books. The genres will be conquered first.

What about non-linear books like our non-fiction picture books? Will they ever make and ebook?

Why children's books are underpriced

It's interesting that we expect to pay less for things for children. On Wednesday mornings I go to exercise class with Miles, my ten year old, and we only pay for one. I realised this morning I just expect that. Cinema tickets for children are cheaper, and there's of course student discounts on public transport. And so it is with children's books - we expect to pay less for them than for adult books, even though they cost no less for the publisher to produce. Given the importancy of literacy and a readiness to read to a healthy prosperous society, you might think we'd be willing to pay more, which means there's a lot of unpriced social benefits in children's books.

Short history - only two and a half years

twitter history

Twitter excitement

A catalytic moment that news of Michael Jackson's death circulated first by twitter.

Then people went to the newspapers for more information. (There's only so much you can say in 140 characters.)

Radio didn't disappear when television came along. Reports of the death of paper media have been much exaggerated. But the business models are changing. Newspapers can no longer expect to be subsidized by advertising, or at least classified advertising.

It's an exciting time to be in the media.

interesting:

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=4782

‘Why do children love them [my characters] ? Because I believe in them. Mine aren’t made up. They are real...I don’t sit down to write a story, they come.’

Joshua Gans wrong-headed in the Age

Joshua Gans wrote in the Opinion pages of the Age yesterday: "Here is a curious fact, as an Australian, I cannot buy my own book." In fact, he can buy his own book and he's lucky to be able to buy it in two editions, the Australian edition published by New South or the US edition published by MIT Press. What he's concerned about is that he is unable to buy the Kindle edition for $12.59.

He believes that somehow the removal of the parallel import restrictions, or territorial copyright provisions, would make his book more available to the Austraian reader, and available on Kindle here in Australia What Mr Gans is not appreciating is that this removal would increase the likelihood of his book not being available at all or maybe just in an Australian edition, if he was lucky. The removal of the PIRs would mean there was less incentive for his Australian publisher to sell his rights overseas. It would also mean that his Australian publisher would have greater difficulty publishing his book at all. He could of course go direct to a US publisher but without the incentive of a successful Australian edition his chances would be much reduced of finding a US publisher.

Would his US publisher make the book available here? There's a good chance they would not. And if they did, it wouldn't receive the support an Australian based publisher would give it. There's a good chance as an Australian author Mr Gans would not find his book in his own land.

Amazon has chosen not to make the Kindle available here as yet. That's why he can't buy the Kindle version of his book not because 'publishers [intellectual monopoly holders] have not done the deals to make it possible'.

ban the ebook

The Book Fair in Madrid has banned ebooks - "solo papel". If I'm understanding "Soybits" correctly (with my almost non-existent  Spanish), ebook companies are not allowed to have stands.

Odd. but the Spanish can be such fierce traditionalists.

Aggregators

In the new world of ebooks, the booksellers are called aggregators. Not an elegant and inspiring term. Functional.

The differences

The differences between Australian and US publishing sneak up on me, and startle me. I have a hard time getting my head around the Spring/Fall system of seasonal publishing. US publishers are surprised that we don't publish in season but by month - continuously. The seasonal system does iron out some monthly ups and downs, and makes catalogue production a whole lot easier. 

There's also a love of imprints over here. They proliferate. Some branded with an editor's name. I guess its a response to having a much bigger market. 

And there's the distinction between hardback and paperback imprints. And comes across as quite a gap. Upstairs, downstairs.

And there's no half-way house of the trade paperback.

BEA 2009

We've had a good BEA - maybe that first-time honeymoon experience. But the mood has been glum. Attendances down. Sales in bookshops shrinking. Fear of that "iTunes moment" devastating the printed book industry. Newspapers and magazines - the other print media - closing down.  I can see the "Streamline Moderne" magnificence of  McGraw Hill building as I walk to and from the fair. A testament to the past?

McGraw Hill now makes the bulk of its profits from the rating agency Standard & Poor. Maybe book publishing is about to become a rust belt industry. But I think reports of its death are overstated. Everybody enjoys a moment of mourning (NY Times yesterday article: "Declining sales cast gloom at an expo") but e-books are still a tiny percentage of book sales - $100 million out $25 billion. 

The e-books side of things is exciting and seductive, but I'm thinking it will happen more slowly than the fears of the last few days.

Carnegie and Kate Greenaway award shortlist links

Carnegie

The unifying theme of this year's list is "The complicated business of growing up, particularly as experienced by teenage boys".

And most of the writers are men, maybe unsurprisingly if that's the theme. Is that narrow for such an award?

BOYCE, FRANK COTTRELL COSMIC
Macmillan (Age range: 8+)
ISBN: 9781405054645

BROOKS, KEVIN BLACK RABBIT SUMMER
Puffin (Age range: 14+)
ISBN: 9780141381459

COLFER, EOIN AIRMAN
Puffin (Age range: 9+)
ISBN: 9780141383354

DOWD, SIOBHAN BOG CHILD 
David Fickling Books (Age range: 12+)
ISBN: 9780385614269

GRAY, KEITH OSTRICH BOYS
Definitions (Age range: 12+)
ISBN: 9780099456575

NESS, PATRICK THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO
Walker (Age range: 14+)
ISBN: 9781406310252

THOMPSON, KATE CREATURE OF THE NIGHT
Bodley Head (Age range: 14+)
ISBN: 9780370329291

Greenaway

"The shortlist for the 2009 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal, announced today, demonstrates that picture books are not just for the youngest children but can entertain and enchant all age-groups."

It's interesting to see Bob Graham listed in both the CBCA and the Greenaway.

The CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal Shortlist 2009

BARRETT, ANGELA (text by Paul Gallico) THE SNOW GOOSE
Hutchinson (Age range: 10+)
9780091893828

CRASTE, MARC (text by Helen Ward) VARMINTS
Templar (Age range: 7+)
9781840113235

DOCHERTY, THOMAS LITTLE BOAT
Templar (Age range: 3+)
9781840118261

GRAHAM, BOB HOW TO HEAL A BROKEN WING
Walker (Age range: 3+)
9781406307160

JEFFERS, OLIVER THE WAY BACK HOME
Harper Collins (Age range: 3+)
9780007182282

MCKEAN, DAVE (text by David Almond) THE SAVAGE
Walker (Age range: 10+)
9781406308150

RAYNER, CATHERINE HARRIS FINDS HIS FEET
Little Tiger Press (Age range: 3+)
9781845065898

WORMELL, CHRIS MOLLY AND THE NIGHT MONSTER
Jonathan Cape (Age range: 3+)
9780224070737

a typographic moment at the Wall Street Journal

link

"local books endangered"

Mem Fox has put it neatly in a letter to The Australian that the government earns more from her writing than she does (10% GST v 5% picture book royalty for the author) and with the repeal of PIRs "quintessentially Australian children's books will disappear from our culture and our children will grow up American. End of story."

also worth a look

I'm ploughing my way through the PC submissions. It's educational but masochistic for an Easter Monday - the revised submissions are due in on Friday though. I'd recommend reading Kate Grenville's submission.

Shows you what a dog can do

especially an Australian dog

more independent Australian children's publishers

I forgot Ford Street and I'll go back and correct the post.

Passion

I'm just back from the Productivity Commission roundtable. I was impressed by what a passionate lot we are in the book industry - authors, publishers (small and big) and printers. And how little we are understood outside our industry, and what a bad job we do of communicating what we do, how we do it, and what we are doing for the greater good — until we are pushed.

Australia's contribution to works in the English language

According to Peter Donoughue, Australia contributes 2% of the number of works in the English language; and according to my rough calculations we make up 0.5% of English first language speakers. So we're punching well above our weight. 

"authorship will be everywhere and nowhere"

link

This triggered thoughts about what's going to happen to long-form narrative (aka the book) and to the unique author's voice that comes out of effort and time invested in writing.

A useful list of independent Australian children's pubishers

With the help of the Productivity Commission I've come up with this list of independent Australian publishers as I wanted a picture of this particular slice of our industry.

Black dog (of course) and now in no particular order:

Working Title Press (Jane Covnerton) - gorgeous picture books

Little Hare - broad list but stronger at the picture book end - 50 books a year and six staff.

Wilkins Farago (Andrew Wilkins) - focused on translated picture books as a foundation but Andrew's added a rich diversity on top of that. (1 1/2 staff)

New Frontier - strong focus on picture books and best known for Zen tales series  (two short-listings in the Crichton Award this year)

Brolly Books (Emma Borghesi and Andrew Adam) - strong focus creating books for international markets.

Koala Books  - the core of the list is rights purchasing from overseas.

Era (Rod Martin) - strongly education but also some superb picture books.

Ford Street (Paul Collins) - newer than most with an interesting focus on YA.

And then  a few that are harder to categorize:

Omnibus (Dyan Blacklock) - part of a larger group, but independent in spirit.

Walker Books - a magnificently global independent. 26 staff, and $11 million in turnover, and published 28 Australian created books in 2008. (Sebastian Walker's bio is definitely worth a read.)

Allen & Unwin - too big to be classified as an independent?

Hardie Grant Egmont - part of a larger group, and with a relationship to Egmont UK. Quite focussed publishing, with Go Girls and Zac Power.

Fremantle Arts Centre Press - ngo but independent in spirit.

Magabala Press - ngo and unique.

UQP - ngo, and I'm not sure where they're placing their emphasis in terms of the their children's publishing

Woolshed (Leonie Tyle) - owned by a multinational, but with an independent spirit.

Text - YA focus, part-owned offshore, and with a strong emphasis on rights buying.

I'm less familiar with New Zealand but Longacre and Gecko spring to mind.

I'm sure I've forgotten someone - so apologies, but let me know and I can expand the list.  It struck me what a short but rich list it is. 

book industry figures

Here's a quick snapshot of the book industry courtesy of the Productivity Commisssion Discussion Paper:

The industry is worth $2.5 billion in consumer dollars. or $1.8 billion in what the publishers earn. Foreign rights(and stock) account for $220 million of the that. Direct sales by publishers are estimated to be 15% of the market (I'm assuming of publishers' revenue) or $270 million. 

Education is 40% of the pie, and trade is 60%, which surprised me given that education is everything-but-trade. Trade books are the sort of books you buy in a bookshop, and education includes, primary, secondary, tertiary, scholarly and reference. 

9% of the market is trade children's, which is an understatement as children's books are sold to a lot of schools, so maybe 12%. Adult trade fiction is 15% of the market and adult trade non-fiction is 36% of the market. Adult trade non-fiction includes narrative non-fiction as well as self-help and say cookery (a form of self-help?)

Dividing up the bookselling market by type of bookseller: the chains have 55% and independents 20% and the DDSs (Target, Kmart, Woolworths) 25%. The DDS share has grown sharply in the last 10 years. 

Online sales are estimated to be $100m or 5% of the market. 

What's interesting is how much the figures bounced around when I tried to nail them down.

Worth a look

The story is that this video was submitted for a contest entitled "u @ 50" — by a 20 year old.

link

Bit lit: aka paranormal romance, or vampire books

A delightful term. We were introduced to it yesterday by Audrey (our French intern) in her presentation on French publishing. 

SKUs

Books were once books, then, as business theory took over publishers, books became "products", and now books are SKUs!