Monday News: HarperCollins recruits superstar authors to reimagine Jane Austen novels; Forbes claims indie publishing has not eroded print publishing sales; Wired tip on setting up hotel Wi-Fi using laptop and LAN connection
Publishing Newsbook-covers / Jane Austen / self-published15 Comments
Is Publishing Still Broken? The Surprising Year In Books – While some of the details in the Forbes article is incorrect*, I thought it was interesting that indie publishing has not eroded print publishing revenues. While indie publishing prices may have flattened prices for traditionally published books, the Forbes writer claims that unit sales for traditional publishing has increased by 138 million.
*The article incorrectly states that EL James was self published when in fact she was published through The Writers Coffeehouse. Forbes
Book Covers: Before and After – The New York Times has a small photo essay of book covers, both the original idea and the one used for publication. In the four different examples, some of the more iconic images are really the result of happy accident. In terms of marketing, I think that the two most important elements of any book are the cover and the blurb. NYTimes.com
Hotel Wi-Fi Sucks: Create Your Own Hotspot Using the Room’s Ethernet Connection – Wired has simple instructions on turning your laptop into a wi fi hotspot using the hotel LAN. Those with macbooks can use the Internet Sharing featuring in the System Preferences. For Windows users, get yourself the $13 Thinkix Wifi Hotspot app. Wired
McCall Smith to rework Austen’s Emma – Alexander McCall Smith will be writing an adaption of Emma by Jane Austen. This is part of HarperCollin’s “Austen Project” in which they have recruited Joanna Trollope to redo Sense and Sensibility; Val McDermid to do Northanger Abbey; and Curtis Sittenfeld to do Pride and Prejudice. The greatest modern adaption of Emma has to be the movie Clueless. The Bookseller
Reworking Jane Austen. For why?
I am intrigued to learn, however, that Joanna Trollope is an author of ‘global literary significance’.
Just to add, you could have fun with the idea.
Which famous book would be best ‘reimagined’ by whom?
Matthew Henry’s Commentary as reimagined by Richard Dawkins?
Fifty Shades of Grey reimagined by Stephenie Meyer?
I don’t get reworking Jane Austen. Her plots, if you boil them down to the plot, are pretty trite. P&P and Emma are basically Girl doesn’t appreciate great guy because he’s too arrogant. S&S, Persuasion and Mansfield Park might be summed up as be a lady and you’ll get the guy in the end. Sure, competent writers can do these plots and make an entertaining book.
What makes Austen great is her intricate play on manners and morals and her sly sense of humor and I have trouble seeing any of the above-listed authors that I know capturing that.
We already have Stephenie Meyer’s version of Fifty Shades of Grey: it’s called Twilight- LOL. Seriously, I’m not a fan of all this reimagining: I love the original works, although I did think Clueless was cute.
Having watched all of Wire in the Blood and read several of her books I cannot imagine what Val McDermid is going to do to Northanger Abbey. If I am offered an ARC I am going to jump at it.
I could even see McCall Smith doing a decent job with Emma. My favorite of his series is the one involving the hapless Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld.
Re: modern versions of Emma, I think Pemberley Digital’s (of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries fame) new web series starts today. It’s called Emma Approved.
Val McDermid is redoing Northhanger Abbey? I’m not normally a readaptation girl but even I can get behind that.
@Marianne McA:
Fifty Shades of Grey reimagined by Stephenie Meyer?
Okay, coffee on keyboard first thing in the morning not what I had in mind. :)
I’m still mad at Prep author Curtis Sittenfeld for her purposeful conflation of African American hair and pubic hair. I’ve never forgiven that.
There are already plenty of reimagined Jane Austin out there. There is some horrible stuff and some great stuff like For Darkness Shows the Stars but I don’t see the need in going to a great effort to produce even more.
Curtis Sittenfeld and Pride and Prejudice?! I can’t imagine a greater mismatch. No, thank you.
(I wonder if this review: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/books/review/05SITT01.html will come back to bite Sittenfeld, since P&P, at its most basic, is a rom com about a young woman’s search for love – in other words, the spiritual ancestor of “chick lit.”)
Regarding whether or not Fifty Shades of Grey was self-published…
Many people feel that because it was published as fan fiction, that qualifies the initial distribution of the work as “self-published.” I’m not sure I agree with that assessment (does posting something on a fan fiction site qualify as “publishing” a book?), but it’s not an entirely unreasonable assertion, either.
@AlexaB: It seemed to me that the point he was making in that article was that the content of the book didn’t determine whether it was chick lit, but the style:
I assume that he does Jane Austen the credit of recognising that her style is not chick lit or lightweight. For myself, I’d also want to argue strongly that Pride and Prejudice is not, at its most basic, romantic comedy. Its plot could be construed that way, but a book is more than its plot. The same plot can be written as rom com, horror, literary novel etc. I’d say that Pride and Prejudice better fits the genre of morality tale than romantic comedy.
Got to add to the Val McDermid love. Saw Wire In the Blood on Netflix, immediately went out and bought every book in the series I could find, and have been in word-love with her ever since. Excited for her version of Northanger Abbey.
@Ros:
Curtis Sittenfeld is female.
I’m just not big on using “chick lit” – or romance, or women’s fiction – as a pejorative. Jennifer Weiner does a great, if snarktastic, interpretation of Sittenfeld’s review: http://jenniferweiner.blogspot.com/2005/06/in-between-unloading-my-galleys-and.html
(keeping in mind this was 2005 and chick lit was the height of its popularity).
If P&P merely commented on the mores of the gentry/bourgeoisie in Regency England, today it would be little more than a title taught in the more obscure British literature university courses, like the novels of Maria Edgeforth. So while of course P&P is a morality tale (among many other things), it stays relevant today in part because Darcy’s and Elizabeth’s misunderstandings helped to establish the tropes upon which a thousand romantic comedies have been built. So I’m rather enjoying the irony of Sittenfeld tackling the novel that birthed one of the original chick lit heroines, Bridget Jones.