Friday News: Ursula Le Guin’s NBA speech, Google Contributor, Mark Twain’s frontier humor, and a NaNoWriMo pep talk
Publishing NewsAmazon / American literature / crowdfunding / Google / Humor / Mark Twain / NaNoWriMo / National Book Awards / Publishers / western / writing advice16 Comments
“we will need writers who can remember freedom”: ursula k le guin at the national book awards – A transcription of Ursula Le Guin’s speech at the National Book Awards ceremony Wednesday night. Le Guin’s comments have been getting a lot of attention, in part because of her assault on Amazon and her righteous (or self-righteous?) defense of the writer as artiste. The literature loving part of me agrees, but the pragmatist in me finds this derision toward commercialism potentially self-defeating and disempowering to authors as commercial artists.
Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between the production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not quite the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship. (Thank you, brave applauders.)
Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial; I see my own publishers in a silly panic of ignorance and greed, charging public libraries for an ebook six or seven times more than they charge customers. We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience and writers threatened by corporate fatwa, and I see a lot of us, the producers who write the books, and make the books, accepting this. Letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish and what to write. (Well, I love you too, darling.) –Parker Higgins
Google launches Contributor, a crowdfunding tool for publishers – If you are willing to pay to make your favorite websites Google-ad free, Google Contributor might be an option for you. Within this program, you can offer between $1 and $3 per month for specific websites (right now, those sites are limited to the ones Google has partnered with for this program), and when you visit those websites, you will see no Google ads. Gigaom refers to this as a type of crowdfunding, and Google sees it as a way for web publishers to monetize their sites in unique and affordable ways.
The contribution — which is handled through a user’s Google account, using whatever payment method they have chosen for the service — doesn’t go to all of the participating websites, but is only triggered when that user visits a specific site (the service is working with U.S. sites only for now). That way, a Google spokesperson said that readers or users can support only the websites and publishers whose sites they visit frequently. –Gigaom
Once Upon a Time in the West – Ben Tarnoff, whose work focuses on writers like Mark Twain and Bret Harte — writers who were particularly connected to San Francisco and the 19th C Western storytelling vernacular — has written a pretty interesting piece on Twain’s Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and more broadly on the way these “tall tales” of Western America were both a rebellion against Eastern literary traditions and a response to the lawlessness of the frontier. I almost wrote my doctoral dissertation on Twain,so I have a particular fondness for his work, but what I like best about this piece from Tarnoff is the way he contextualizes an emerging form of American literature within a very complex and dynamic set of cultural and geographical conditions.
If the West lent itself to myth making, to the transposition of fact and fiction, it also proved fertile ground for humor. Western comedy grew out of an omnipresent feature of frontier life: its hardness. As Daniel Boone knew, there was no shortage of ways for a man to die in the West. He could die slowly from starvation or exposure, or suddenly, from an encounter with a Shawnee brave or a bear or a bobcat. He could also tangle with his fellow frontiersmen, often the greatest threat of all. The backwoods were full of brutal men. They picked fights with each other on the slimmest pretexts, solely for the pleasure of hurting and humiliating their opponents.
These macho rituals generated their own special language. A Tennessee trapper or a Mississippi boatman might thump his chest and claim that he was a snapping turtle, or that he was endowed with a bear’s claws and the Devil’s tail. The boasts were meant to make the man as fearsome as the landscape he inhabited. They were also self-consciously silly, exaggerated to the point of absurdity. They converted the cruelty of frontier life into a source of cathartic laughter. In a society of strangers, Westerners could gather around the campfire and enjoy a fleeting sense of community as they spun the unfunny facts of their surroundings into surreal comic fictions. These “tall tales” became the basis for America’s first folk art: a set of oral traditions known as frontier humor. The yarns often featured a gristly frontiersman, engaging in fantastical feats of violence and speaking strange, gorgeous slang. –Lapham’s Quarterly
How to Succeed at NaNoWriMo: Advice from Hugh Howey, Marissa Meyer, and Others – Participating in NaNoWriMo and in need of a little inspiration? Publishers Weekly collected some wisdom from November writing vets. Even if you’ve heard it all before, sometimes hearing it again can be helpful, especially if you’re starting to wane at this month’s 2/3 mark.
And while the goal of the program isn’t necessarily to turn its members into professional authors, a number of participants have managed to parlay their NaNoWriMo efforts into published books—and even into full-time writing careers. PW spoke with a handful of these writers, including Wool (Simon & Schuster, 2013) author Hugh Howey and Cinder (Square Fish, 2013) author Marissa Meyer, about how the wildly popular (and wildly demanding) program helped to launch their publishing journey. –Publishers Weekly
When Art & commerce collide. It took Ms. Le Guin’s speech for me to understand what the publishers and authors are really saying (Finally). Books are Art and must be revered which I agree. That apparently means however, a sale price doesn’t properly revere Art, but devalues it. Art then, must only be sold at stores that properly value them through high prices. That’s too bad for me, because books then become museum pieces. “Look, Don’t Touch”. My income simply doesn’t allow for high priced books. I don’t live in the rarified world where money is no object. And because of that, I apparently am not able to properly value Art. My vendor of choice does sell books as well as deodorant and does sell books (probably deodorant too) at affordable prices. That is not proper respect (apparently).
When Art is only enjoyed by those individuals who don’t have to choose between paying bills and buying Art, the great unwashed such as myself, are shut out. Last week when Hatchette and Amazon signed contracts, Neil Gaiman indicated via Twitter that he will now be able to plug his latest book, “Trigger Warnings”. I went to my deodorant vendor to check the price. Last week that book in Kindle format was $17.99 at Pre order, the hard cover was $26.00. I simply Can’t afford that and I very nearly cried. I have enjoyed Mr. Gaiman’s writing for years. I have both print and ebook versions (sale priced) of quite a few of his books. I am now shut out of his writing, as I am of many other authors. I am closing in on retirement (hurrah!!); I simply can’t afford to buy without caution. I have never been able to buy without caution, my income has never allowed it.
If books are not to be “devalued” (i.e. sale prices) because Art, how then do the great unwashed (myself) get to purchase and thus sustain Art. ? Why do high prices mean respect and sale prices mean a lack of thereof? And why does a Pre Order button indicate reverence and respect?
@Deb: Yes! Well said.
I don’t really see an attack on commercialism. Given that most of the rest of her criticism is aimed at things publishers do that she sees as harmful to writers, I think she’s more criticizing publishers interfering with the creative process simply to sell more books, rather than authors who happen to write stuff that sells well.
My first comment seems to have fed Shub-Internet, so I’ll try again.
I don’t think she criticizing commercialism, so much as publishers treating books exactly the same as deodorant, i.e. as strictly a commercial product, there simply to make them money and nothing else.
@Deb, She also criticizes publishers overcharging libraries for ebooks, so I don’t think that’s her view on money and books as art.
@Deb: Historically, the answer was the library. But with their budgets being so restricted and eBook borrowing so hit or miss, I don’t know that this is a workable option for many people anymore.
I think it’s perfectly fine for Le Guin to take an “artiste” position if that’s what she truly believes. And I think it’s fine for people to do the opposite and write to the market (sometimes writing is a vocation; it’s how you pay your bills), or to fall somewhere in the middle (which is where I think most genre authors fall). On a personal level, I truly, deeply, wish the market was saturated with books that were “the practice of an art”, but I think that’s an unrealistic goal.
@Deb: ” My vendor of choice does sell books as well as deodorant and does sell books (probably deodorant too) at affordable prices. That is not proper respect (apparently).”
Like most things in life, it’s a little more complicated than that.
I’m a librarian. I *believe* in the power of books, of great literature and good stories, to inspire and comfort and educate and change lives. I want people to get all the books they want at a price they can afford. I want my library to collect All The Things.
But.
I also want to get all socks and soda and, yes, deodorant, I want at a price I can afford. And so a few Big Behemoth Businesses have figured out how to sell them to me more cheaply than anybody else. And these BBBs have become even Bigger, Big enough to bully their suppliers and their stock clerks and their checkout clerks and boxers and baggers into providing socks & soda & deodorant more and more cheaply. So those suppliers cut corners and the employees take on two and three jobs and my socks start to unravel in the wash and the stock clerks go on food stamps (with my tax dollars.)
But hey, I can buy more cheap stuff!
I don’t carry any water for Big Publishing. They have made lots of greedy, shortsighted, downright stupid decisions. Lots of authors have made pretentious, self-aggrandizing statements. And it isn’t the responsibility (or even in the power) of each individual consumer to fix our broken economic system with their purchases.
But, in the long run, always getting the lowest PRICE — for books and deodorant — doesn’t necessarily mean the least COST.
Anyone who follows the BVC blog is aware of how Le Guin feels about the current behemoths of selling and personally, I can see where she’s coming from even if I don’t completely agree: why not have a grande dame with her own opinion, much like we have the male equivalent. As far as I know she and Cherryh (the men don’t really interest me) also signed some of those unfortunate Author’s Guild messages and I still will buy Cherryh’s books (whereas I can’t stomach buying Orson Scott Card any longer), so I guess I have a pro-female double standard anyway.
Why I’m posting though is this link I got via Martha Wells’ LJ (because I haven’t seen this aspect show up in your coverage yet ^^ )
http://www.xojane.com/issues/daniel-handler-racist-national-book-award
@hapax: I read Deb’s comment somewhat differently. Some of us simply can’t afford books or socks or deodorant unless we find them at the lowest prices. It’s not a matter of whether I’m willing to support the “art” I so highly prize. It’s simply that I can’t because my budget, especially my entertainment budget, is very limited.
So if the book I’d like to read isn’t at a price I can afford, I’m going to look for an alternative. I think that’s one of the real “costs” of pricing books out of mass market.
I think I’m falling somewhere in the middle for all of this.
On one hand, I’m a voracious reader and I 100% COULD NOT afford to buy ALL THE BOOKZ with my current pay grade. I am very cost conscience because I have to be. I can do one of two things: I can focus my budget on one or two authors (my favorite authors but mostly dead) and spend all my money there (cause books prices would go up) OR I can buy lower priced books which spreads my budget across many authors (a lot of whom happen to be alive).
In talking to my husband – he reminded me that a lot of “art” in the past was commissioned – and those who commissioned it paid a pretty good penny. It was the way that art was funded.
I also get wanting to have your dream job that pays the bills…but there’s a reason that it’s called “starving artists.” The current market does not allow for you to decide what you will get for your work. The current market allows you to PRICE your work at whatever price you want…but that does not mean the market will pay that price.
Authors have competitors just like everyone else. And if a large group of them get together and price themselves out of the market…I’m 100% sure that other authors would slip right in and take their customers. If self-published authors still exist in the new world of “Book Art” instead of it being controlled by TradPub.
So, I’m torn. I want people like Ilona Andrews to keep writing…but most of the books I buy today would NEVER pass the muster if the prices were higher.
I don’t see why all books should be treated the same way. Are Patterson and Tolstoy the same?
Do we treat Monet, Thomas Kincaid Painter of Light TM, and my kids’ at projects as the same? Do we sell them the same way?
No.
Yes, some books are art. But, to be appreciated as art, they have to be available to the wider public. Picasso didn’t become famous because his painting were known only to millionaires, but because they could be seen, in original or reproduction by everyone.
@Estara Swanberg: I also have a pro woman double standard. But I can’t imagine reading Marion Zimmer Bradley again. Which makes me realize that I make a distinction between an intellectual or philosophical disagreement with an artist, and behavior I find morally wrong and have a strong, visceral reaction about. I can see why some people are upset with Le Guin’s statements, and I don’t think I agree with some of what she said. But I personally can disagree with her on this and keep reading her – her writing’s a meant a lot to me for a long time, and I haven’t seen anything yet that will keep me from re-reading The Tombs of Atuan for the umpteenth time – unlike say MZB or OSC, who I read and liked back in the day, but have no interest in reading now, knowing what I know.
I do not believe art should be free, nor believe artists should accept squalor as their lifestyle (I don’t believe the authors from Authors United do live in squalor either). I don’t believe publishers should just bow to the vendors, neither the “soft-spoken” booksellers, nor the evil on-line monsters. Contract negotiations are now brutal. The polite, friendly negotiations over lunches have probably been replaced by the “cold, callous” corporate salesman w/out the tea. This in turn seems to equate with a lack of respect for art. That’s complete crap in my opinion. It’s just business.
As a reader I really don’t care about the contract negotiations. I don’t believe I am entitled to cheap books, nor are all books replaceable with a cheaper one. If I can’t afford the book, I can’t buy it and read it. The library would be the answer, but the publishers are not supportive with affordable pricing (nor did James Patterson with his humanitarian donation to some independent book sellers). Ebooks have been a boon to my aging eyes. If the libraries can’t afford the ebooks, I’m SOL there too.
I disagree with plenty of Le Guin’s points, but I think a world without her POV would be the poorer for it.
Plenty of art-is-different-and-special speeches rankle me, and hers didn’t. Perhaps because I don’t think she was saying she thought writers should be able to write what they want without consequence, but because she was saying she hoped that some writers would write what they want, and damn the consequences.
And that part–if she was saying what I heard, which isn’t certain–I do agree with.
@cleo: very good point! I think you’re expressing what I feel underneath about these things.
Re. Le Guin, in many ways, I think her perspective reflects the quintessential traditionally published author. Her concerns are aesthetic in nature, and I respect her championing of commercial fiction as art (along with her advocacy of creative independence). But for those authors who are also performing the function of publisher, it’s not such an easy divide. In fact, in some of the worst ABB cases we’ve seen, the author in question has over personalized the creative process.
In self-publishing, authors must function successfully as creators, producers, and distributors of their own work, and I think there is already a devaluing of how important that business side really is, not only in terms of how a book is marketed and distributed, but how the author-as-publisher engages with readers. And I see Le Guin — intentionally or not — playing into that a bit, perhaps in part because for all of her rebellious language, she’s still part of the old guard to some degree.
@Estara Swanberg: Thank you for sharing that xoJane post on the Handler situation. I have one from Lee and Low Books on tap for Monday’s news, which is similar. But I’ve also been waiting to see if more thought pieces come out, because sometimes it takes a few days post-event for a lot of the good, deep analysis to be written.
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately (not that I have even a little bit of a say in any of it, even as a library director.) With ebooks theoretically making all sorts of books easily available to most people in most places, all at once — assuming they have e-readers — I’ve been wondering what model we could develop that lets people borrow the books they want while still rewarding the author/publisher. Perhaps even rewarding the author/publisher at a more equitable level than we do now.
Right now, I think we are stuck on the idea of a limited number of copies circulating at a time, because that’s how physical copies work. So we’ve created a model based on restricting the number of e-copies, too. And yes, we pay more to license more “copies,” but what if we could provide all those books to people, on-demand, and structure the pay a different way so that it is feasible, but still profitable. Is there a way to do that?
Are books important enough that we should seriously look at how to get them to everyone, and in a timely manner, now that we have the technology? (I think so, but, then, look what I do for a living.)
As far as Le Guin, I’ve always loved her books and mildly disagreed with her views on publishing. But I will say this — unlike some of the other “books are special snowflakes” proponents, Le Guin really does take painstaking care, in both her language and ideas, to elevate her books to art.
I don’t think every book needs to aspire to be “art” — and I also think life’s too short to read things you don’t want to read — but at least in this aspect, Le Guin walks the walk.