We’ve all seen firsthand how technological advances change the way we do things.   I haven’t made a phone call since the Internet was invented.  (Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but in my perfect world, I wouldn’t make anymore phone calls.)  Publishing is an old and established profession, but it’s not immune to technology’s advances.  I wrote an earlier post about electronic forms of books and whether their future is brighter (so to speak) than print.   But there are other ways that technology is changing the publishing world.

Recently, I was in New York and discussing my first book with someone in the publishing industry.  My first novel had a different publisher than my others and hadn’t sold very well (except oddly in France), so I was saying that I should try to get the rights back from the publisher and see if anyone might be interested in re-issuing it.  That was a possibility, the insider conceded, but, she added, these days the whole idea of a book’s being out of print has gotten a little fuzzy. 

The cause?  The ability to “print to order” which is becoming more and more widespread.  Kim discussed this in a previous post, focusing on how it might work for booksellers–at some point in the future, rather than having books in stock, a bookstore might have the capability to print a book when it’s ordered, thus sparing the owner the risk of ordering (and paying for) a book he might not sell.

Of course, that means that the book never officially goes out of print: any book could limp along for decades, still “listed” even if rarely ordered.  (This is true even if it’s the publishers and not the booksellers who are doing the printing, an ability that already exists today.) That’s good if you want a copy of it, bad if you’re the author and want the rights back.   At the very least, it blurs things a bit.

The same technology that allows printing to order makes self-publishing cheaper and more available than ever before.  In a recent New York Times article, Motoko Rich discusses the boom in the self-publishing industry.   Print to order technology means self-publishing authors no longer have to spend a fortune having a large initial run of their books made (often to languish unsold in boxes in their basements).  Instead, they can spend less money upfront, only printing as many copies as they can sell.  Online bookselling sites like Amazon offer a forum for self-published books that didn’t exist in previous eras.

One of the very first posts I wrote for my own blog was about how it feels like everyone out there in cyber space is writing–but was anyone reading what we were all writing?  Rich touches on the same point in her article: everyone wants to write books, but that doesn’t mean there’s an audience for all these extra books.  Even with the new technology, self-publishing probably works best for books you simply want to give to your friends and family; without a publishing house behind you, buying you table space and getting your books on the shelves in nationwide bookstores, it’s awfully hard to find readers.  (It’s been done–there are some notable exceptions, self-published books that have been huge hits.  But they’re rare exceptions.)

Of course, on some level, self-publishing is what Kim and I do every time we hit the “publish” button on a new post.  There’s something wonderfully liberating about writing whatever you want and putting it out there without any editorial interference or correction.  (And avoiding the whole “rejection letter” part of any process helps keep your ego healthy.)

According to Rich, an author can  upload a manuscript and for as little as  3 dollars, have a book of it printed up. 

The question seems to be: then what?

Or maybe the deeper question is: what makes a book a book?  The binding?  The quality of the words inside?  Whether it’s sold at your favorite independent bookstore? 

These are questions we’ll have to ask ourselves more and more now as technology makes it easier to print books–and our lifestyles and economy make it harder to sell them.

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts about all this.

First, I’d like to take a moment to say a huge thank you to everyone who has linked to Kim’s brilliant independent bookstore challenge or written us to say what a great idea it is.  I’m with you: I think it’s a great idea and I’m so glad others are onboard.   Kim gets all the credit although I can take pride in the fact that I didn’t stand in her way.  (Well, I did say I was scared of the challenge, so maybe I did stand in her way a little bit, but it takes more than that to deter Kim).  Anyway, yay for Kim!  And yay for everyone who’s enthusiastic about the challenge.

Now on to our friend Laura Sanderson Healy’s review of her favorite bookstore in London.  Laura actually lived in London for many years, so she knows what she’s talking about.   Laura is a former London Bureau correspondent for Time Inc. Magazines’ PEOPLE WEEKLY and its Australian sister publication WHO WEEKLY, and now that she lives in Los Angeles, she’s become a dear, personal friend of both Kim’s and mine.  Here’s her review, posted quite coincidentally on her birthday!  Happy birthday, Laura, and thanks–

On a recent trip to London I took the 14 bus from Piccadilly to Fulham to revisit Nomad Books near Parsons Green. There I pondered many titles unknown in the U.S. and purchased ME CHEETA, the “autobiography” of Tarzan’s co-star, tongue-in-cheek recollections illustrated by modern artwork of the world’s most famous chimpanzee which Sir Peter Blake curated to show alongside his own Pop Art at London’s National Gallery a few years back.

Nomad is a quaint and comfortable port of call for booklovers. Behind its cream-painted Victorian shopfront in Fulham Road is a haven of peace for West Londoners who love its collection of nooks and c ozy corners on various levels. Its tiny, integrated café serves sandwiches, desserts, and hot or cold beverages; you can sip lattes in Penguin Book mugs decorated with titles of novels and their authors’ names and mull over a potential purchase.

Buses blast by outside in the pouring rain as strollers meet wheelchairs on the clogged sidewalk, but inside one can stow an umbrella, wash your hands in the homey-style loo (the size of a bedroom), check if a book has arrived, and sit down on the café side to have a pain au chocolate and a read.

I’ve been going to Nomad for at least a decade for myself and my husband who loves the downstairs reading room dedicated to faraway places that has a fine map table on which to spread out future destinations. It has also been a godsend for helping us keep up with the ever-changing reading habits of our bookworm daughter, now 12, who has meandered from the pastel meadows of Beatrix Potter’s countryside and Ludwig Bemelmans’s Paris to the netherworlds of Stephenie Meye r’s vampires .

Their eclectic selections are legendary throughout Fulham and it is a popular stopping off point; I always run into people I know there, and at times have had the staff give me delicious gossip about publishing. I’ve only just deciphered the curling M.B.S. painted over one hallway where greeting cards line a wall: it stands for Mind Body Spirit. I remember getting the hardback of Anthony Kiedis’ autobiography Scar Tissue there after a staffer raved about it (it made me love the Chili Pepper quite a bit less, even though I learned the topography of Los Angeles and a few quirky celebrity connections) as well as a beautifully bound volume of favorite hymns to cheer my inner Protestant. The front desk by the main entry door is lined with gift books and novelty titles and staffed with knowledgeable and helpful souls who will help you in your hunt for specifics or locate a copy for the next day’s delivery.

The children’s section is housed at the very back of the store in the largest space, and on my visit I ran into an old friend from my daughter’s nursery school who was shopping for a younger child. It’s a place that feels comfortable and never rushed, and that’s what you cannot find in the facelessness of the larger stores, where you don’t feel welcome to curl up and dig in to a book.

Nomad hosts readings by authors and has on occasion writing groups and book clubs. There is no website but they do have a mailing list.

HERE IS THE ADDRESS AND A PHOTO FROM:

http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/1278/3011.php

Nomad Books

781 Fulham Road, Fulham
London, SW6 5HA ENGLAND
T: 020 7736 4000

• HarperStudio is encouraging booksellers to buy the books on a nonreturnable basis by offering a large discount on these books
• Advances are lower to the author in exchange for a larger potential royalty
• People who buy the paper book with be given the option to buy it cheaply in downloadable audio and digital form so it can be read in all formats
• Marketing will concentrate on the Internet by using social networking, Twitter, related blogs and similar avenues

The debut book, Who is Mark Twain?, a compilation of previously unpublished stories, will be out on  April 21st.  Six of the stories are unfinished, so there will be a “I am the Next Mark Twain” writing contest allowing the entrants to finish a story.  I’m looking forward to that!

Many Newberys are Wonderful, but not All

I am an Newbery Medal fan, mostly.  My daughter and I set a goal to read all of the Newbery Medal winners (see how I’m perfect for Reader’s Challenges) before she left elementary school and we made a decent go of it, until we were stopped dead cold by a few of the selections.  Now, I must admit, I’m a little suspicious of the award selections.  A Man Booker Prize winner I’ll pick up without hesitation, but a Newbery I’ll leaf through and read the description.  Some of the greatest children’s literature has won the award, but then there are the other years. 

Tackling Lifes Great Issues

Susan Patron, author of The Higher Power of Lucky and winner of the 2007 Newbery, wrote about some of the Newbery criticism in a recent Los Angeles Times article.  One issue is the seriousness of the topics of the books in recent winners– death, mental challenges such as autism, the absence of one or both parents.  But she points out that Newberys historically have always dealt with the hard aspects of life, when she was younger the issues were death, war, being torn from your family during an invasion and losing a beloved dog.  I believe one of the best ways to confront scary issues is through literature, life isn’t Disneyland and I want my kids to learn that step-by-step, not as one large shock when they leave home. 

While there is always a reason to discuss life, there is never a reason to do it in a boring manner.  Over years of picking books, clearly the Newbery Committee isn’t going to hit the mark every time, who remembers Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark, the winner of the Newbery the year Charlotte’s Web was an honoree?  But they have noted some jewels in the winner and the honoree category:  Old Yeller, Island of Blue Dolphins, My Side of the Mountain, The Door in the Wall, One Hundred Dresses, From the Mixed Up File of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Sounder, The Twenty-One Balloons, Mr. Poppin’s Penguins, Sounder, The Giver, Number the Stars.  As Ms. Patron points out, these books can change your life.

The 2009 Newbery Medal Winners

The American Library Association’s Newbery Committee evaluates all of the books published the preceding year for kids up to age 14 and picks the “author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children published in English in the United States.”  Each year, a new Newbery committee is formed of librarians from across the country.  My favorite librarian, Yapha Mason, served the year Louis Sachar won for Holes and loved the experience.  She described it as “the high point of my career as a librarian so far was serving on the 1999 Newbery committee. I loved reading through the hundreds of novels published that year and then debating their merits with other people who were just as passionate about great children’s literature as me. It gave me a lot of respect for the medal and its process.”  The lucky group of librarians who read this year’s books chose the following:

The Winner

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - the tale of a boy who escaped assassination to be raised in a graveyard with ghosts from various centuries.  Although Neil Gaiman is well known for his graphic novels (see my experience), this is rather a novel with some illustrations by Dave McKean who has collaborated with Mr. Gaiman on several other books.  Listen to the NPR interview with Mr. Gaiman.  Read a review in the New York Times Book Review.

The Honorees

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt - an animal story with a pregnant cat, her resulting kittens, a hound dog and his advice to have the kittens underneath the porch of Gar-man, an embittered old man.  It’s described as a tale of love, loss, loneliness and hope that is likened to Shiloh and Old Yeller.

The Surrender Tree:  Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle – a book of free verse that tells the story of Cuba’s wars for independence from Spain.  The main character, Rosa, is a nurse who helps everyone–black, white, Cuban and Spanish.

Savvy by Ingrid Law - Each member of the Beaumont family has a “savvy,” a special magical power that arrives on his or her thirteenth birthday.  Two days before Mib’s thirteenth birthday, her father is ill and Mibs takes off on an adventurous bus ride to rescue him.

After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson - Three thirteen year old girls bond over adolescence and the lyrics of Tupac’s rap music.  D Foster joins two girls growing up in safe Queens and shows them another side of life along with the true meaning of Tupac’s music.  Just as swiftly as she joined them when Tupac was first shot, she leaves them just before he dies.

Claudia and her co-owner, Liz, chose Echo Park because it is an up and coming area of Los Angeles.  Stories is a cozy neighborhood bookstore with an abundance of paperback books, new and used shelved together.  There is a nice selection of authors with a solid backlist of selections.   We visited just after the new year so the children’s selection was a little sparse due to sales (yahoo!).  There is one shelf of hardbacks, since Stories can’t compete with the big box stores on these sales, they concentrate more on paperbacks and used books. Stories promotes local authors and carries their work on a consignment basis.  Claudia mentioned that it hadn’t occurred to her to sell work on consignment, but that it was a style of stocking books that they are pleased with and open to expanding.

For a store that had been open for six weeks when I arrived, I was impressed by the warm atmosphere.  The chairs for reading and conversing welcome you as soon as you walk in.  The store smelled great from Chef Mike cooking soup in the cafe in the back.  The Mediterranean platter and the Italian platter were fantastic.  It was such a relief to have “my normal food” after weeks of holiday meats and carbohydrates.  The seating area inside the cafe is in process, Claudia said new chairs were on order, but the patio in the back looked terrific.  We were there in a rain storm, so I just peeked, but the entire side wall is a mural and there are several tables and chairs.  It’s the perfect place for all kinds of readings and gatherings through out the good weather months (about 10 months of the year) or just to hang out.

Stories already has an eclectic event calendar.  In December, to celebrate the release of Process Media’s photography book “Pure Country,”  banjo player and former Hee Haw star Roni Stoneman performed at the store.  On Inauguration night, Stories held “Inauguration Subversion” readings and performances.  The kids are welcome always, but especially for the Story and Music hours with Daniel and Hayley.  For February, Stories will be offering “cheap date nights.”  Hey Claudia, our date night is on Wednesdays, we’re looking for something cheap!

Stories Books
1716 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026
T:  213.413.3733

Peter Osmos writes in “Who Says the Book Business is Dead?”that this round of digital readers are the beginning of a new way to receive and read  books.  He believes digital readers work for books (and will work better and cheaper with innovation), but they aren’t as effective for newspapers and magazines.  Moreover, audible reading is taking hold as people are listening to more written word content, “Earbuds are everywhere, and by no means are all of them blaring music.” 

In “An Autopsy of the Book Business” by Jason Epstein, he traces the decline of book publishing to the population shift from cities to the suburbs.  When people congregated in cities, there were independent bookstores with extensive backlists and publishers that printed those books.  When people moved to the suburbs, these stores didn’t have enough traffic to survive with huge backlists, nor were there enough customers in the suburbs to support this type of bookstore.  So, bookstores stopped ordering books from backlists and both publishers and bookstores began to rely on the blockbuster novel for sales and profits.  (Read the recent WSJ article on why publishers will continue to pay huge advances for “blockbuster’ books.  It uses the cat book Dewey as an example.)  He points out that it is exactly these “backlist books” that provide personal insight and wisdom,  ”Would the American economy have collapsed if the casually educated caretakers of our treasure and good name who wasted our wealth on the assumption that greed is self-regulating had read those great conservative skeptics of human nature, Gibbon, Hobbes, Smith, and Burke, or studied the wisdom of our country’s founders?”  One commenter also suggested reading the Bible for learning that nothing is new under the sun.

Mr. Epstein said that publishers started to strive for a level of profit that isn’t possible in this business.  He sees the future in digital readers and on-demand printers that cheaply print and bind books “wherever electricity and the Internet exist.”  What will be important with so much content easily accessible are people to filter and evaluate what is worth spending a few hours reading.

So how should booksellers respond?  A recent post on Booksellers Blog asked exactly that and the discussion it generated is interesting to follow.  Several variations on the theme of bookstores having some sort of download equipment that allowed e-readers to buy a book with a cut going to the bookstore.  Another suggestion is the on-demand printer that would allow a bookstore to order up a book and print it in the store.  All realized the value in shopping for a book in a bookstore, seeing books and having discussions with the staff about recommendations, the question is how to retain those benefits in a changing world. While I don’t know the answer, in fact, probably no one has foreseen how bookstores will change in response to the e-reader, I am more than heartened by an attitude of meeting the challenge rather than being defeated by it.

I’ll be keeping track of my challenges through the Kim’s Nightstand page, please follow along.  Let me know if you’re joining any challenges and maybe I won’t feel quite so obsessive compulsive.

And check out our own Independent Bookstore Reader’s Challenge, we’d love to have you join!

I read the play by Peter Morgan, who also wrote the screenplay, before seeing the movie.    I was intrigued by how the opinions about Nixon were personified by the characters.  Jim Reston voiced the deep resentment of the public for the wrongs Nixon committed and his refusal to acknowledge them or apologize for them.  He told Frost during their first meeting, “The American people need a conviction.  Pure and simple.  The integrity of our political system, or democracy as an idea, entirely depends on it.”  Jack Brennan showed the small segment of the population that continued to respect Nixon for all that he accomplished despite his flaws.  When discussing the interview, he tells Nixon “Frost is just not in our intellectual class.  You’ll be able to dictate the terms.  Rebuild your reputation. . . if enough people saw it and revised their opinions–you could move back East.  Way, way earlier than we’d expect.”  Through David Frost and Swifty Lazar, we saw how Nixon was manipulated to make a buck and that Nixon was in on that game from the very beginning.

Both the play and the movie are an intellectual boxing match.  This story is Rocky with brains.  The first half was the training of both fighters without the great music or running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  The movie did a great job building the tension with the research scenes:  Nixon was preparing with his staff and Frost dropped in on his staff while they worked.  It was hard to know at times who the underdog was, the lightweight interviewer David Frost or the McCarthy protege/Cambodia bombing/Watergate cover up politician Nixon.  In fact, Morgan humanized Nixon to the point that it was difficult not to feel sorry for him at times, but then I would remember my history.  This is an aspect of the movie that the real Jim Reston struggles with, listen to his interview on NPR.

The second half of the movie was Rocky in the ring.  Frost was battered over and over by Nixon’s slick answers and his ability to eat up time reminiscing.  He  started to look like everyone’s favorite grandfather.  Just in case the viewer missed it throughout the movie, a telephone call between Nixon and Frost before the last interview spelled out that only one of them would come out a winner.  Either Frost looks incompetent or he lands the interview of the century and Nixon either redeems himself or is finally trapped into admitting his wrongs.  Nixon tells Frost, “the limelight only shines on one man.  Only one of us can be the winner.  For the other–it’s the wilderness.”  In the end, Frost was Rocky and he delivered the knock out punch. 

Like “Doubt,”  the play is well written.  The screenplay reflects the writing and expands on it as it should moving from a stage to the screen where a broader landscape is required.  Both movies are a thinking person’s drama and both were nominated for the Oscar for Writing Adapted Screenplay.  The other nominees announced today were “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “The Reader,” and “Slumdog Millionaire.”  Surprisingly, “Revolutionary Road” was left out in the cold in this category along with every other major category.  I’ve posted about “Button,” “Doubt” and now “Frost/Nixon.”  I’m looking forward to seeing “The Reader” and watching and reading “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Thank you Robin for the image!

I recently found scores of reader’s challenges on the Internet, I’d never heard of them.  There is a reader’s challenge for everything:  short stories, WWII books, world citizen (history and politics), art history, graphic novels (Claire should join this one), RYOB (read your own books), essays, chick lit (everyone participating in this challenge should read Claire’s three fiction books), Notable books, chunkie books (books longer than 450 pages), young adult books, and many more.  Then it occurred to me, Claire and I could do the same thing.  I’m really excited about hosting our own challenge right here on Bookstore People.  So we’re announcing the Independent Bookstore Reader’s Challenge.  Claire’s a bit terrified about the prospect, but I’m confident she’ll love it. 

Challenge Guidelines

Here are the rules: go to independent bookstores that are new to you between January 1 and December 31, 2009 and have some sort of interaction.  The challenge comes with different levels you can sign up for:

• Scout – Visit 2 independent bookstores (easy!)
• Specialist – Visit 2 subject matter specialty bookstores (i.e., travel, children, cooking)
• Nationalist – Visit 2 independent bookstores and 1 additional bookstore in a state you do not live in
• Continental – Visit 2 independent bookstores and 1 additional bookstore in another N. American country (that would be the USA, Canada or Mexico)
• Globetrotter – Visit 2 independent bookstores and 1 additional bookstore on a different continent (if you’re going to Europe, check out Bookstore Guide)
• Type A Personality to the Max – Satisfy any two categories

We’ll have a page dedicated to the challenge where you can sign up and leave comments.  Plus, we’d love to have a review of the stores you’ve found and liked (we ignore stores with bad service or stock), we’ll post it with a description of you and a link back to your blog (if you have one), just e-mail it to me at kim@bookstorepeople.com.  In fact, we encourage cross posting bookstore reviews so post on your blog, Indiebound, Yelp, City Search, City Guide and any other place that would like it. 

We’ll Give out a Prize!

But wait, there’s even more, at the end of the year we’ll have a random drawing among everyone who satisfied their challenge for a gift certificate from BookSense.  What more could you want?  Sign up now and start exploring the wonderful world of independent bookstores.