The Great Famine: Ireland’s Agony 1845-1852  by Ciarán Ó Murchadha: Because apparently one book about innocent people starving to death just wasn’t enough for me. Actually, it wasn’t until I started this book that I realized I had inadvertently grabbed it just after finishing the book on the Siege of Leningrad. This is a well-written book, but too dry and scholarly for me. There are some human moments and personal anecdotes, but they are a bit too few and far between. At the same time some of the details are powerful enough that as a reader I was appalled at the neglect and cruelty forced upon the victims of the famine. The logic of the powers in England is a thing to behold, as when reports that potato crops would fail for a second year in a row prompted closure of relief measures, to avoid the poor becoming too “dependent” on aid. (Not a problem once they are dead of starvation or disease!) I saw some disturbing parallels between the callous attitudes shown by the privileged class in 19th century Britain and similar attitudes found in some quarters in the United States today.

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At Your Pleasure by Meredith Duran: I have really liked every Duran book I’ve read, and this was no exception. At the same time I think maybe it was…slightly forgettable? I don’t know; somehow I just feel like it hasn’t stayed with me the way a really good book should. But sometimes that has more to do with my mood or what’s going on in my life at the time I read a book. Anyway, I should be doing a review of this; maybe I’ll resolve my feelings about it through that.

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Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout: I wasn’t sure I would be interested in this book, Pulitzer Prize or no. It looked like it might be either too women’s fiction-y for me or too literary fiction-y for me. But my sister read it and liked it, and so I gave it a try. Set in small-town Maine, it’s not so much a novel as a collection of stories. Olive Kitteridge appears either as the main character or a minor character in all of them. Olive, a retired school teacher who is large, terse and often unlikeable, anchors the stories and serves as a sort of anchor in the community as well. Over the course of the book, I came to find her strangely loveable even when she wasn’t likeable. The other characters are interesting as well, usually in a quiet way – Strout’s strength is in insightful characterization, not flashy prose or plotting. I ended up liking this quite a bit.

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Grave Mercy by R.L. LaFevers: I grabbed this one on a whim; the elements that aren’t my usual cup of tea were made up for by elements that intrigued me. This is an alternate-history/fantasy hybrid featuring a heroine who is a sort of handmaiden/assassin for the saint of death (!). I’m about two-thirds of the way through, and it’s pretty good, though there’s a slight lack of sophistication to the writing that may be due to the fact that it’s at least nominally a YA book. Also, I would like to see the heroine become a bit more kickass. I plan to review this.

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Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: I believe this was recommended to me in the comments after my review of the clusterfuck of insanity that was Wuthering Heights. Agnes Grey could not be more different. I’m about halfway through it, and so far it’s a very quiet tale about a young woman who leaves her family to work as a governess, which turns out to be a largely thankless task, at least in the case of the two families she ends up working for. Agnes has some interesting observations about human nature, though she’s occasionally a bit superior and even martryish in her detailing of how very mean everyone is to her. But she’s the classic sensible 19th century heroine: kind, down to earth, humble and devout. So far not a lot has happened, though the much-telegraphed romance between Agnes and a country pastor seems like it’s just about to get off the ground, if the two of them would stop acting like 7th graders at their first dance and actually talk to each other. So far, so good.

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North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell: It was the miniseries of this book that got me started as an Elizabeth Gaskell fan; I went on to watch and enjoy the miniseries of her Cranford and eventually the book version of that story. I’m finally getting around the reading this one, and I’m glad I started it. North and South is a more serious and complex than Cranford, but I’m enjoying it so far, and especially like the ambiguity of the characterizations (I’ve mentioned it before but somehow I’m always surprised when pre-modern novels have characters that aren’t black-and-white).

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A Tryst with Trouble by Alyssa Everett: I have a review of this that should run closer to the release date. I’ll just say this: meh.

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Her Husband’s Harlot by Grace Callaway: I actually bought this after reading Dabney’s review. It had its moments (the sex scenes were quite hot) but overall I thought it was pretty mediocre.

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About that Night by Julie James: I’m not a big reader of contemps, and this is only the second book I’ve read from this author (the other was the related Something About You). I kind of just fell into reading this; I opened it up and then couldn’t quite put it down. That sounds like a strong recommendation, but it’s probably just a reflection of the fact that I find contemporaries the most readable of romances; it’s pretty easy for me to fall into reading one. It’s a decent enough read but I’m not sure I understand the fuss about this author. But again, not a big reader of contemporaries, and I find that what makes them readable also makes them a bit forgettable and interchangeable, at least for me.

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Wow, that was a lot of books! I should do these more often.

Until next time,

Jennie

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• Runs on a modified Android platform
• Has limited memory (maybe only 6 GB). Amazon wants you to use the cloud.
• May come with a free Prime membership. (This makes a lot of sense as Prime members get access to a ton of free movies and television shows)
• $250
• Cover flow like navigation
• No camera
• External memory slot

HMBI started its Indian operations in February 2008, printing and marketing books locally. It is currently publishing 20 new romance titles every month, focusing on five series: modern, romance, desire, special moments, historical and the latest one being nocturne.

Still, it’s hard to think of very many writers – save possibly Stephen King – who have moved from genre to literary. The floor seems to slope the other way, and Patriarche concedes that sometimes the difference isn’t so much in what the author has written as in how the publisher opts to describe it. “I’ve seen literary books blurbed as something like ‘the thinking woman’s beach read,’” she says. “And that’s a sign that the publisher is trying to appeal to consumers who are more mainstream. In this aspect the change is more industry-driven than author-driven.”

And “belonging” to these fictional communities actually provided the same mood and life satisfaction people get from affiliations with real-life groups. “The current research suggests that books give readers more than an opportunity to tune out and submerge themselves in fantasy worlds. Books provide the opportunity for social connection and the blissful calm that comes from becoming a part of something larger than oneself for a precious, fleeting moment,” Gabriel and Young write.

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According to the Amazon bio, you are an acclaimed fiction writer which would be why your name is unknown to me. I rarely read outside the romance genre. Your publicist sent this to me and as I do with all books sent to me, I opened and read the first page. The story isn’t very long. Only 25 pages and a little over 5,000 words so by the time I was finished with the first page, I figured I had nothing to lose by continuing on. I know that this might sound cold and a little blase, but this is how I ended up reading the entire short story.

Elise Andrews never could bring herself to marry her high school sweetheart, Griffin, despite dating him on and offer for over a dozen years. The last time he proposed the idea of marriage and Elise decided she wasn’t ready, Griffin moved on. Elise didn’t realize how serious it was until she ran into Griffin’s mother Janice during a holiday break. Griffin had gone to spend the holidays with his new girlfriend’s family, Janice reported.

Elise isn’t struck with longing for Griffin, exactly, but longing for everything that Griffin represented and, of course, Janice. As a motherless child, Janice filled a space in Elise’s hungry heart and that, more than anything kept Elise’s feelings for Griffin alive.

This story, despite it not being a romance and not having a romantic arc worked for me because it was a short story, it had authentic characters, and a hopeful ending. It was a satisfying read and did make me interested in reading a longer work by you. It’s hard to grade a work that is short but at the $.99 price point, it is a definite recommend for me. At a higher price point, I think I might hesitate because of its length. One reviewer on Amazon said she hoped that this was a precursor or teaser for a more fully developed book and I wouldn’t be adverse to a romance between Elise and the grandson who sends Beyonce dance videos to his grandmother. It’s somewhere between a B and B- only because it really is so short.

Best regards,

Jane

Book Link | Kindle | nook | BN | Sony

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E publishing, with its low overhead, provides a safety net for experimental fiction, the bailiwick of literary fiction. E publishing can provide success for more authors with lower numbers of sales. Those who have success in digital format are then pushed into the more expensive, but broader retail base of print publishing.

I argued that “Literary fiction should lead the way in redefining publishing so that those who write feel just as accomplished being published digitally as they do being publishing in print.” My belief that digital publishing could save literary fiction continues unbated.   After reading Liza Daly’s report of Book Camp Toronto, I am even more convinced:

So by the end of the day at BookCamp I felt a little worn down by the amount of fear and negativity that arose in some of the sessions. Particularly dispiriting is that some of the most vocal dissenters were small presses and independent authors, the groups that are most likely to benefit from these transformations in digital publishing.

Let me reassert the argument once again. The lede for the 2006 article in the NY Times entitled “Promotional Intelligence” is this:

The pride and joy of publishing, literary fiction has always been wonderfully ill suited to the very industry that sustains it. Like an elegant but impoverished aristocrat married to a nouveau riche spouse, it has long been subsidized by mass-market fiction and by nonfiction ripped from the headlines. One supplies the cachet, the others the cash.

The Times article identifies how the literary fiction market is failed by the then current book business ecosystem:

• “The whole system is set up for impatience,” said Drenka Willen, an editor at Harcourt
• Familiar voices are in greater demand than new writers
• You have to ship a minimum of 20,000 copies according to Bill Thomas, then editor in chief at Doubleday
• Only so many titles can be pushed per season per Eric Simonoff, a literary agent at Janklow & Nesbit

To some extent, these issues exist in digital publishing as well.   Name recognition sells books in epublishing as much as it does in print publishing. Witness the success of Ilona Andrews’ Silent Blade published by Samhain and currently  at No. 6 on the Samhain Bestseller list (right hand side).   Only so many titles can be pushed effectively by publishers and editors otherwise it is just white noise even in the digital industry.   There are still editing, cover art, formatting issues that are not removed simply when you move from print to digital.

However, you do not need to ship 20,000 copies of a particular title. There are no returns.   There are no shipping, warehousing, remaindering costs.   In sum, a literary fiction book such as Deidre Knight’s fabulous genre bending Butterfly Tattoo does not need to sell 20,000 copies to be shared with the public.   A digital publishing house can take a risk and put forth this type of book with a print version to follow later.

Yet, the literary fiction crowd remains wedded to form giving cachet rather than the product itself.   At the end of 2007, Pan Macmillan announced that it would be releasing virtually all of its books in trade paperback.   This was like a body blow to the literary fiction crowd.

Kirsty Dunseath, publishing director of Weidenfield & Nicholson, said the move could lessen the prestige of the novels. “Coming out in hardback is a statement of confidence in a novel and gets the reviews,” she said. “It doesn’t say much for your confidence coming out in paperback. Anyway,  £12.99 isn’t such a high price to pay – you’d happily pay that for a CD.”

What a disservice this notion, this ideology, is to the authors and readers of literary fiction!   Does the binding and the paper render the novel prestigious or does the content speak for its quality?   This notion that only literary works that have cardboard covers and animal adhesives are worthy of consideration is nonsensical and terribly harmful.   It’s impossible for me to grasp why being publishing in a nudie magazine is more prestigious than being published in digital format.

Hardcovers exist, in my opinion, for the sole purpose of publishers maximizing price discrimination whereby businesses provide variable pricing to individuals based on the individuals’ willingness and ability to purchase. For example, those who simply cannot wait for the next Nora Roberts title, Black Hills, due out in July will pay the hardcover price.   Those who are unwilling to pay the price will wait.   The publisher is putting out the identical content, with slightly different packaging, but at different time periods and thus maximizing the consumer’s willingness to pay.   Hardcovers should not impart value of the content. I think we can all agree we’ve read shitty books published in hardcover and fabulous books published in paperback and vice versa.

Of all the genres, literary fiction is supposed to be above the concepts of commercialism, the idea of writing for filthy lucre.   Literary fiction writers are compelled to write, not for the money, but because the story inside their being simply cannot be contained in their corporeal self.

Literary fiction has the power of perception on its side.   It is the hallowed field of publishing.   If literary fiction would embrace digital publishing as a model and work to find new voices and release them to the reading public, digital publishing would take on the imprimatur of respectability.   What’s stopping you, literary fiction?

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Man titty clearly sells but can it sell literary fiction?   And would the authors who write literary fiction want something like that?   A friend of mine suggested that this experiment was done for Gore Vidal.   My thoughts? Not enough man titty.

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Kassia Kroszer of Booksquare fame posted on Friday an article addressing the publishing industry’s failure to recognize its own money making potential. Publishing views itself on the decline. Print newspaper book review sections have gone the way of the dinosaur. According to the article in NY Magazine, “serious readers” numbered around 120,000 fifteen years ago and have dropped by half nearly every decade which means that we are a nation of about 45,000 serious readers. Serious readers are defined by those who read every night. (It’s not clear whether “read every night” means reads a book every night or merely “reads” every night).

Kroszer points out that the decline in publishing is really a decline in the literary fiction arm of the publishing industry or the one that interests those at the National Books Critic Circle. This is likely true. Literary fiction is suffering. For example, while Oprah has revived interest in serious fiction, interest is not sustainable. Oprah does not sustain reading in general, but reading of the books that she recommends.

Change is slow for publishing.

Publishing is at a crossroads.   It is an industry that has foreseen very little change in the last century.   Mass markets were introduced in the late thirties.   According to one source, Rosemary Roger’s Wicked Loving Lies published in early 1970s was the first genre book to be put out in trade.   The most recent innovation in publishing is (notwithstanding the dreaded super mass market) is digitization.

In arguing against the long tail, Anita Elberse finds that the existing state of publishing does not support the theory that the internet can produce profitable publishing venture without relying on major titles.    Elberse urges publishers to stick with the blockbuster strategy.   The problem, as Kassia Kroszer notes, is that this strategy is primarily responsible for the broken nature of publishing.

I think publishing is fundamentally broken, mostly because a business that relies on mega-hits to justify its existence -’ when those mega-hits are reliant upon capturing the imagination of a broad spectrum of the nation’s citizens -’ cannot sustain itself as it exists today.

The publisher 2007 financials seem to support this.   Penguin  ended 2007 with an increase of 7% in sales  (pdf) with “seventeen #1 New York Times bestsellers, an industry best. Our mass market division achieved a record 46 New York Times bestsellers, up a record 92%.” Random House, who posted a  5.6% decline in sales in 2007, had only two #1 NYT bestsellers. (Source:  Hawes.com).

Epublishing as the new publishing business model.

When I first read Elberse’s article, I tended to agree with her.   Publishing is grounded on the hits and dragged down by the misses.   Of course, misses are anything but the hits.     The problem is that there is an existing model of publishing that defies Elberse’s thesis that publishing can only be profitable with the “big” book.   It’s done everyday in epublishing.   There are well known authors within epublishing (some who’ve gone on to successful mainstream print publishing careers) but few could be considered a blockbuster author in mainstream publishing terms.   

Photo by Edans

I do think that epublishing is stagnating right now, focused too greatly on erotic romance.   However, digital publishing will allow niches to exist and flourish.   Those areas of publishing that are stagnating could find new life in digital publishing where sales of a book need only to be in the thousands instead of the tens of thousands to be measured a success.   Unfortunately literary fiction, a genre that needs revitalization, seems straightjacketed by its devotion to paper, as if a book loses its fundamental nature as a book without print and ink to provide its basis.   

It seems to me that literary fiction should take a look at erotic romance ditigal publishers and try to emulate its success.   E publishing is more than just another medium of publishing.   It is, in fact, an entirely new business model for publishing itself.   E publishing started the psuedo profit sharing that the new arm of HarperCollins is testing: no advances, higher royalties.   E publishing, with its low overhead, provides a safety net for experimental fiction, the bailiwick of literary fiction.   E publishing can provide success for more authors with lower numbers of sales.   Those who have success in digital format are then pushed into the more expensive, but broader retail base of print publishing.

The benefit of digital publishing for literary fiction.

Literary fiction should start trumpeting the value of ereaders, start urging publishers to digitize its backlists and frontlists.   Literary fiction critics, authors, and publishers, should look for ways to capture the attention of busy individuals through serialization, free ebook giveaways, and lower prices for new   titles.   Literary fiction should lead the way in redefining publishing so that those who write feel just as accomplished being published digitally as they do being publishing in print.   

This paradigm shift would benefit readers as well.   If more fiction, beyond romance, would find success in digital publishing it would increase the quality and variety of original e published fiction.   This increase of quality and variety could also increase the number of individuals who read in the digital format.   

Publishing should not be defined in terms of medium.   Books are books, no matter whether they exist in ink or bytes.   And readers, serious readers, are readers no matter the genre.

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