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For the next week, this is the office. (It’s nice to have a gorgeous place to go in Maine.)
The West Grand Lake Maine office.
Living on a wooded three acres on the flank of northern California’s Mt. Shasta leaves me little room for improvement in the “view out the window” department, but humans are oddly built; even a stunning view grows stale without the occasional change.
It’s true that writing allows us considerable freedom in how and where we work, but it’s also true — at least these days — it’s hard to make enough money wrangling words to truly enjoy that freedom.
This week, I’m enjoying it.
Keep writing (wherever you are), Tom Chandler.
Sci-Fi novelist Walter Jon Williams explores the collapse of Borders Bookstores, especially in terms of its effects on writers and publishers, and his conclusion isn’t all that optimistic:
How many more Publishing Apocalypses can we writers stand?
Writers and publishers — already reeling from a publishing world turned upside down — will take a hit due to Borders’ collapse, but don’t forget the publishing industry was stumbling before ebook markets exploded, and Borders was… well… stupid.
Their online strategy consisted mostly of sticking their fingers in their ears, and what online assets they did have were simply relabeled versions of other people’s stuff.
This Publitariat blog article assembles snippets from other articles which detailed some pretty appalling management decisions.
For example, rather than send most of their classical music CDs to the metropolitan areas — where demand for classical music was highest — Borders distributed them evenly around the country, shorting fans in metro areas and paying for inventory that was never going to move in rural areas.
Stupid.
And based on this Slate article, “stupid” extended across the enterprise.
The ebook didn’t kill Borders, Borders killed Borders.
And while the publishing industry continues to thrash about in the face of ebooks, I’m going to make a couple of admittedly personal observations about ebooks:
I bought (and read) more books in the last six months (since buying a Nook reader) than I did in the prior two dead-tree years
I bought several of those ebooks largely as a show of support for a specific writer — something I’d never do with an expensive hardback
Ebooks offer more pricing and delivery options than print; that translates to promotional and marketing flexibility, a good thing when you’re trying to hook new readers on a writer’s work
Watching 10,700 workers hit the unemployment lines in a recession that seemingly won’t end (unless you’re a CEO) is not pleasing to the eye, but it’s what happens when the corporate IQ falls below “should be handling sharp objects” level.
(Created by HappyPlace.com [plenty more where this came from] and found at OrgTheory.net)
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As a writer, I love the little writing tools that solve nagging problems. That’s why I write in a programmer’s text editor (Emacs or Komodo Edit). And why I became obsessed with how John August — the screenwriter behind the deeply interesting JohnAugust.com screenwriting blog — posts formatted script snippets on his blog.
The nicely formatted JohnAugust.com screenwriting blog
I don’t need to do this very often (it would have been nice when I blogged about video scripting), but things like this tend to knock around in the back of my brain.
In short, it nagged at me.
I mucked around with code tags and nothing worked — until I discovered August developed a WordPress plug-in that formats the script snippets for you (also available for other CMS installs like Blogger and Drupal).
For infrequent users, there’s also an online converter.
INT. BLOG PAGE
The BLOGGER and READER sit on opposite sides of the screen, staring at each other through the display.
READER
You want to cross a script with a blog post? You’re mad!
BLOGGER twirls mustache, leans forward until nose almost touches screen, pushes key on keyboard. READER’s keyboard flows up, manacles hands, trapping him. READER struggles.
BLOGGER
I’m not mad. I’m a writer.
BLOGGER pushes another key, blog post overlaying screen begins to mutate, snaps off screen to engulf reader’s face.
READER
Aiiiiyeeeee!
BLOGGER
Another satisfied reader.
The screenwriting world is a fascinating arm of the writing galaxy; the stakes are huge, the competition fierce, the failures embarrassingly public and the amount of work done on spec is staggering.
Still, it’s perhaps the most spectator friendly of the writing sports, and while I have zero interest in playing, I am interested for the sheer spectacle of it.
If I find a cool tool along the way…
Keep writing (and uncovering the tools that make it easier), Tom Chandler.
Sure, the clothes are horrifying and the mustache frightens small children, but can you honestly visualize the pitch meeting where the ad agency folks pitched this surreal, multi-dimensional, voice-over-by-alien spot to the client?
I can’t.
I’ll bet the words “cutting edge” were tossed about by the (presumably cravat-wearing) creative director. And that the copywriter was sure — positive even — that he’d acquire Pet Rock levels of fame for this game-changing bit of copy genius.
(Found via the always-interesting HowToBeARetronaut site)
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Given the din surrounding the ebook careers of writers like JK Rowling, Amanada Hocking, Konrath and a few others, it’s sometimes hard to hear the smaller stories in the ebook/self-publishing space.
Fortunately, there are plenty of them.
Stories like that of memoirist Rebecca O’Connor, whose powerful falconry memoir (Lift) was published to much critical acclaim, but — as she noted in this revealing blog post — few sales.
Today, O’Connor’s releasing a $.99 ebook named Rise — a collection of short stories and essays peripherally related to Lift. (Her online release party fires up at 7pm.)
She’s calling attention to the release of the Kindle edition of Lift (sadly, no epub/Nook version yet), and also — I think — testing the ebook waters.
Lift didn’t sell partly because it didn’t neatly fit into a clearly defined category, which nicely illustrates the rut traditional publishing had happily buried itself in; writers are supposed to write deeply meaningful work, but do so while coloring within the lines.
In simple terms, O’Connor went the standard publishing route and it didn’t work out so well. Now she’s trying something different, and though I’m entitled to a free copy of Rise (I bought several copies of Lift), I dropped my $.99 in the kitty, figuring it was a cheap way to help a good writer color outside the lines.
There are more of them than you might think.
Paul Lagasse — like O’Connor — is not exactly playing in the vibrant sweet spot of the publishing industry; he loves to watch (and write) pulpy sci-fi serials — the kind of hoary movie you’d normally see late at night on old UHF TV stations.
His amusingly retro Channel 37 website even reflects that reality:
In the days before cable, SF fans across the country tuned in their favorite UHF stations to watch an endless parade of clunky tinfoil robots, rubber-suit monster menaces, spaceships dangling on strings, and quippy jut-jawed heroes battling it out in front of smoke-filled cardboard sets accompanied by Theremin music.
On Channel 37, those days live on! We offer serial adventures, anthology tales, and feature film-length stories in handy blog form for your episodic delectation. Pull up a comfortable chair, make sure your tongue is planted firmly in your cheek, and relive with us those exciting days of yesteryear, when television was the black-and-white portal to the universe!
They’d dubbed what they do “Neopulp” and yes — there are others like them.
Lagasse publishes serialized versions of his work directly on the site (what — no final episode to Terror From Another Dimension??), and also recently published his first ebook.
Titled Invasion of the Orb Men, it too only costs $.99, illuminating one benefit of low-overhead ebook publishing; you can buy a book simply to support a writer.
I know I did.
Just as advertised, it’s not exactly literature, but it was great fun (and yes, I’m old enough that I’m nostalgic for those movies).
More importantly, Lagasse’s writing neopulp because he loves it, and while digital publishing doesn’t represent a path to the kind of riches so many others are chasing, it is a route to an audience, which touches on what might be the real narrative of digital publishing.
And while O’Connor likely has loftier goals driving her work (she’s also published a novel and a big handful of “how-to” books relating to parrots), it’s also true she gets a second chance courtesy her own hard work — a chance the poor sales of Lift might have denied her in the “traditional” publishing environment.
In that sense, Lagasse and O’Connor might just be the true children of the digital revolution.
Two dollars is a small price to pay to support that kind of revolution.
Keep writing (and reading), Tom Chandler.
Letters of Note remains a favorite blog; it posts images of letters from celebrities/creative people/historical figures (transcribed texts also), and for someone always happy for a peek behind the curtain, it’s pure entertainment.
Today’s letter is from John D. MacDonald, who — as a young writer — endured the usual barrage of editor’s rejection slips. When he became famous and demand for his work soared, he amusingly crafted a satirical “Editor Rejection Letter.”
Dear Editor:
Don’t be upset about receiving this form letter!
We would like to write a personal letter to each and every one of you, but the great mass of stories submitted from this office makes such a procedure impractical. Surely you can understand that!
If by any chance we have been unable to use your magazine, don’t be discouraged. It may not be due to any particular deficiency in the magazine, but instead to the fact that we haven’t recently been writing the type of THING that you use.
Try again, won’t you?
And, we beg of you – DON’T BE DISCOURAGED!
Affectionately,
John D. MacDonald
MacDonald was playing out the fantasy of a lot of writers — and turnabout is fair play in this instance — but his gently satirical efforts were nothing in comparison to Norman MacLean’s rejection letter to a publisher who accepted his first manuscript, then screwed around with it for a while before dropping it.
That manuscript went on to become the hugely acclamied “A River Runs Through It,” and when the same publisher courted MacLean’s second book (Young Men and Fire), he reacted, uhhh… poorly:
You must have known that Alfred A. Knopf turned down my first collection of stories after playing games with it, or at least the game of cat’s-paw, now rolling it over and saying they were going to publish it and then rolling it on its back when the president of the company announced it wouldn’t sell. So I can’t understand how you could ask if I’d submit my second manuscript to Alfred A. Knopf, unless you don’t know my race of people. And I can’t understand how it didn’t register on me – ‘Alfred A. Knopf’ is clear enough on your stationery.
But, although I let the big moment elude me, it has given rise to little pleasures. For instance, whenever I receive a statement of the sales of ‘A River Runs Through It’ from the University of Chicago Press, I see that someone has written across the bottom of it, ‘Hurrah for Alfred A. Knopf.’ However, having let the great moment slip by unrecognized and unadorned, I can now only weakly say this: if the situation ever arose when Alfred A. Knopf was the only publishing house remaining in the world and I was the sole remaining author, that would mark the end of the world of books.
This is only a portion of MacLean’s letter; you can see what revenge (or bitterness) looks like here.
Keep writing (even rejection letters), Tom Chandler.
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