Aug 2 2012
Thursday News: ABA and Barnes&Noble receive permission to file amicus brief; Harlequin earnings up but sales down
Image from BigStock Photo
The Straight Dope: Who decided women should shave their legs and underarms? – “The gist of the article is that U.S. women were browbeaten into shaving underarm hair by a sustained marketing assault that began in 1915. (Leg hair came later.) The aim of what Hope calls the Great Underarm Campaign was to inform American womanhood of a problem that till then it didn’t know it had, namely unsightly underarm hair.” Straight Dope
h/t Ilona Andrews via @ExperimentBL626
The Ex Factor – “A banker writes her first romance novel I was tempted to ask Shoma Narayanan, senior vice-president HSBC, how she found the time to juggle home and work and write a book. Narayanan won last year’s Mills and Boon Passions contest, and M&B India have just published her first book, Monsoon Wedding Fever, which is also the first Indian M&B which will be released globally, according to a press statement from the company.”
Overall this is a fairly good article. I’m excited to read this book and I love that the profile of the author. From the article is a mini summary of the book:
Narayanan’s couple, though, follow the path previous Indian M&B’s — The Love Asana (Milan Vohra) and His Monsoon Bride (Aastha Atray) — have trod. They’re more new-Bollywood than old-world: he’s an architect from Singapore, she’s a consultant in Mumbai, and they find each other a challenge.
Booksellers, Barnes & Noble to weigh in on Apple ebooks case – “The American Booksellers Association and Barnes & Noble say the Department of Justice’s proposed settlement with three book publishers is so inaccurate and harmful to booksellers that they are seeking permission to intervene in the case. They have asked the court for permission to file a “friend of the court” brief, a legal tactic to gain publicity and possibly shape the outcome of the case, and presiding Judge Denise L. Cote has said they may do so by August 15.” Paid Content
Amicus briefs are accepted routinely in cases like this. The standard for an amicus brief is that it adds some new argument not already considered by the parties. Given that brick and mortar booksellers aren’t a party to the suit, it is easy to see why Judge Cote would grant the filing of the brief. It also makes Judge Cote look like she viewed all sides of the argument before coming to a decision
Revenue Down, Profits up at Harlequin in Second Quarter, Digital Royalties to Rise – “After a slow start in April, trending compared to prior year did improve throughout the second quarter and that has continued into July. At Harlequin, we anticipate a decline in second half results attributable to a few factors including higher author royalty rates for digital sales and a comparison to a particularly strong financial performance in the second half of 2011″ DBW
Profits are up even though revenue is down at Torstar. Not sure about the breakout for Harlequin.
Panera, others are planning more pay-what-you-can cafes – “The plan went like this: The menus at Panera Cares Cafe wouldn’t list prices, only suggested donations, and rather than handing money to a clerk, customers would drop their coins and bills into donation bins at the counter. They could pay the full suggested price. Or pay more. Or pay less — even nothing — if that’s all they could afford. But it would be a place where everyone who needed a meal could get one.” USA Today
A couple of years ago, I was in my car waiting to get my hot tea in a coffee shop drive thru. When I got to the service window, I was informed my tea and breakfast sandwich had been paid for by the person in front of me. What an amazing random act of kindness. A while later I was having dinner with my daughter at a local restaurant when the waitress came to tell me another couple had paid for my bill. Since then I have made it a practice to pay it backward (or pay it forward) by buying someone else’s breakfast order a couple times a month. In my mall there is a Chick Fil A and a Panera. Guess which one I’ll be choosing.
Fake Crowdsourced Sex Novel Hoping to “Troll” 50 Shades of Grey Fans | Gizmodo UK – “Some hilarious internet pranksters have released a fake romance novel on iTunes, managing to get the erotic fiction up to #4 in the iTunes chart simply by it looking a bit like senior citizen wank read of choice 50 Shades of Grey. The crowdsourced book, which calls itself The Diamond Club: A Novel and is written by the non-existent Patricia Harkins-Bradley, costs 99p to purchase, with proceeds going to fund some sort of nerd gathering by joke organisers NSFW Show.”” Gizmodo
I don’t know whether to be more disheartened by the pranksters or for the purchasers.
Some clean up items.
1) The Berenstein Bears tried to distance itself from Chick-fil-A and posted a note ostensibly from HarperCollins saying that HC wouldn’t be doing business with Chick-fil-A in the future. HC sent out a statement that what was posted on the Berenstein Bears’ site was “unauthorized. Berenstain Bears try to keep distance from Chick-fil-A NBC News
2) Remember the Chicklitgirls? They were the site that was charging for positive reviews. After the author’s blogpost was picked up by blogs like Popehat and TechCrunch, the chicklitgirls took their site down and put up a “coming soon” page. Now it appears like the site is completely gone as is the twitter feed.
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Aug 02, 2012 @ 09:12:12
So the “shave your underarms” movement was pretty much just like the super strange campaign now to get you to buy deodorant that is supposed to make your unsightly pits more attractive (or more disturbingly, akin to the rip out all your pubic hair and bleach your girly bits so you look like a porn star thing that seems to be happening in certain circles).
I’m more disheartened by the seemingly endless flow of P2P fanfic. I come from a SFF background where some authors embraced their fanfic to the point of editing and publishing anthologies of it, but there’s just something really wrong (ethically) IMO with what is going on right now with all the Twilight fanfic.
Aug 02, 2012 @ 11:45:11
@Isobel Carr:
Recently, one of my favorite fan fiction writers started to retool one of her completed fan fics (not in the Twilight fandom) with the intent of eventually selling it as an original work. She’s started posting chapters of the new, “original” version on a fan fiction site. Now, in her defense, this is a significant rewrite, not just a search/replace character names approach, and she’s a much better writer than 50 Shades’ author.
My feelings regarding this, however, are rather ambivalent because I can’t help feeling like she’s exploiting an the existing fandom for her profit. Yeah, the characters have been revamped and will probably stand on their own, outside of the fandom. But they retain enough of the characteristics that made them compelling in the original work, both stories are grounded in a particular mythology, which probably means a guaranteed audience (sales) from that fandom.
On the other hand, it’s hella hard to sell a book, so there’s a part of me that admires the approach. I eat this writer’s work up like chocolate (at least in this fandom), so I’ll likely buy this fandom-inspired story. Ergo, I guess I’m part of the problem, not the solution. Sigh.
Aug 02, 2012 @ 14:08:23
Darn you, 1915! I wouldn’t have felt so ugly in the hospital when I was not so shaved and the cute worker guys kept stopping by. *shakes fits of rage* Nor would I have forced my mom to bring me a razor to look better when I was able to shower. Almost die and I’m worried about looking pretty. Sad commentary, isn’t it?
Aug 02, 2012 @ 15:13:12
It is bizarre to me that women are pressured to be hairless on certain parts of their bodies (e.g. underarms, legs) and super-hairy on other parts (e.g. eyelashes, scalp hair). Besides the multitudes of mascara ads and hair volumizing/thickening products, we now have eyelash extensions and hair extensions available.
Aug 02, 2012 @ 15:14:34
Re: armpits, I’m convinced that our knees are the next target for attack. Check out a fashion magazine. Hell, check out any magazine with posed pictures of women. Their knees are smooth and wrinkle-free, as if they never bend. Perhaps they don’t. I think future generations of women will be warned of the dangers of bending their knees, and there will be wrinkle and depigmentation creams marketed specifically for our knees. Elbows will follow, naturally. Mark my words!
Aug 02, 2012 @ 15:48:04
Good thing most of the time I don’t succumb to pressure and shave my legs and underarms. Although, I do have to succumb to that pressure when I’m showing legs or wearing short sleeves. Damn you society!
How come there isn’t a pay what you can cafe in Vancouver? Everything here is so expensive, so we probably need one.
Aug 02, 2012 @ 16:25:18
That Panera idea rocks! I also loved your story about the people who paid for your meal and how it made random acts of kindness a habit of yours. So wonderful.
Aug 02, 2012 @ 17:00:41
@Jamie Michele: I think I thinks elbows are already an issue. There was a Neet commercial 20 years ago or so where the model was listing all the products she needed to stay pretty, including “creams for my ugly little elbows”. Plus, I have a friend who exfoliates her elbows, knees, and heels like crazy, because she doesn’t like the colour of the callouses.
I saw a girl on the plane the other day, wearing a mini skirt and hairy legs. I was torn between admiring and envying her chutzpah and thinking she should really be wearing pants. SUCH a product of the patriarchy I am.
Aug 03, 2012 @ 22:16:07
When I lived in Europe and had European boyfriends, I was told by them to NOT shave. They thought it was unnatural looking. It was hard for me at first but then I loved it, not having to deal with the shaving all the time.
The first time I shaved my legs after years of letting it be, I felt gross, like a plucked chicken. Now I just wear pants mostly and don’t care about shaving that often. Screw those who started this.