Publishers and conservatives

Harry Stein muses on The Future of Conservative Books (City Journal, Summer 2008). That would be nonfiction books.

Side note: what the publishing industry (at the mammoth levels) and I call "conservative" aren't always the same thing. If I were in charge, verbal assaults would have to be called something else.

Stein has a nice overview of how big publishing houses are generally at odds with conservatives, even to the point of failing to promote books they might agree to publish, or somehow not getting around to printing enough books to meet demand should demand pop up despite their neglect. And it's not just the publishers. He also looks at the press, and trade publications, which tend to ignore those non-PC titles they don't savage. Conservatives have to work around these obstacles, which can be substantial.

hat tip: Phil at Brandywine Books

Insert error

In the early '90s, I (naively) accepted a low-budget, state-funded job to write a small local history, something between a booklet and a book.

In this history I included a short passage about a star-crossed missionary couple that came West in 1839.

It was one of those probably-ought-to-be-simple chores that was anything but. On the one hand, I didn't want to plagiarize, but on the other hand I didn't want to introduce new meanings by rewording what little I had to work with. One particularly dicey problem was trying to write up an accident that the wife had. The information I had was that she was seriously hurt when her horse stepped in a badger hole. This may not strike you as a problem as far as retelling goes, but I grew up in horse country, and I was aware that there are several ways of getting hurt in that sort of scenario. Your horse can trip and you can fall off. Your horse can fall and fling you. Your horse can fall on top of you. Your horse can stay upright but panic and ditch you while doing violent maneuvers while out of its head. You can get caught in the stirrup but no longer be in the saddle; at this point the stirrup magically changes from a useful feature to part of an injury factory, the other main components of the disaster workshop being the horse and the landscape. Your horse can trip or jump sideways just so and sling your face into a handy tree limb, with unhappy results. Etc. Etc. Etc.

What I had managed to find in records seemed (one thing with another) to indicate that the horse had fallen. But whether the unfortunate rider got flung, or smashed, or what, was anybody's guess. Not that it mattered, overall, but I didn't want to introduce details that might not be right. I figure that history can get skewed enough without my help.

I didn't have a lot of time to spend on it, but, unfortunately, a small curse seemed to settle on me. No matter which way I went about it, I seemed to be accidentally describing one specific type of crash or another, or one type of injury or another, or I inadvertently placed the accident more specifically along the route than I could justify. Finally, I hit upon "After crossing the Payette River, Mrs. Griffin's horse stepped in a badger hole, and she was badly injured in the ensuing fall."

It wasn't good writing, perhaps, but at least it didn't change history as it had come down to me.

So, finally, I slogged my way through the project and sent it off to the enthusiastic bureaucrat overseeing the project.

When I got the booklet back for review, I found that the friendly bureaucrat's copy edit team had changed "ensuing fall" to "following autumn" - which was off by a season or two, since the Griffins had left the Whitmans and Spauldings in March of 1840, to make their way back to Fort Boise.

That they had started the trip in March was in the same paragraph as the "ensuing fall" business. It should have been obvious, in other words, that I wasn't using 'fall' as a less-academic-sounding version of 'autumn'.

I also thought it should have been evident from the context - horse steps in hole, calamity follows - but obviously I was wrong. I guess I should be glad that March hadn't turned into Two-Step or Double-Time or Journey or something like that. I mean, 'march' has more than one meaning, just like 'fall' does.

Alerted to the horrible possibilities, I read the ms with a fine-tooth comb, and with increasing dismay. The proofreaders had added in railroad lines I hadn't talked about, and otherwise larded the project with factual tidbits I couldn't footnote, and found surprisingly hard to verify.

So I contacted the friendly bureaucrat, and asked him what sources had been used for the additions. I stressed my willingness to change to the new data if it came from a better source than I'd been able to scurry up in the short time between assignment and deadline. The message I got back was that some academic sorts had been asked to proof the text, and they'd put in what they felt like adding. This was fine with me, them being experts and me being nothing but a reporter doing freelance work outside my usual field, but I wanted to check their sources against mine.

I couldn't do it. They'd put in things from memory...

Which, you know, sometimes works.

But since their names weren't on the book and mine was, and since we were on deadline, I put my foot down, and took their pet remembrances out, at least the ones I couldn't back up with written sources at my disposal. At least I hope I got them all out...

I was then (and still am) convinced that a good editor is above rubies. But I am now equally convinced that the editing process can be hazardous to your mental health, not to mention your reputation. Not to mention your ability to tell a story. Not to mention the historical record.

I see that Susan Wise Bauer has been having similar adventures as she watches one of her books move toward printing. Oh, my.

Amish-themed fiction is booming

According to Hitching a Ride on the Amish Buggy - 6/2/2008 - Publishers Weekly, Amish-related adult fiction by Beverly Lewis has reached 4.5 million copies sold, Wanda Brunstetter's Amish novels have topped 2.2 million copies sold - and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Several publishers and authors have gained readers with Amish fiction, and more titles are scheduled for release later this year and into 2009.

Regarding the recent rash of made-up memoirs

Christopher Caldwell has a theory about why various authors have been writing "memoirs" of people they invented. See Tall tales of the would-be victim (Financial Times, March 7, 2008).

hat tip: Real Clear Politics

Book business notes

The traditional book is facing competition. With that in mind, JollyBlogger asks Is Print Dead?. In that post, he links to Why Traditional Books Will Eventually Die (From Where I Sit, November 20, 2007), by Michael S. Hyatt, President and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing. (ed. note: corrected date)

Elsewhere, novelist Rebeca Seitz, who is also president of Glass Road Public Relations, is interviewed at Novel Journey about the world of book publicity. (Previous related post: Creating demand in the book market, Suitable For Mixed Company, Feb. 1, 2008)

Update: Add this to the mix: Online Book Sales Booming (People of the Book, January 29, 2008). That's around the globe, especially in 'developing nations.'

Amazon buying Audible

Amazon is paying $300 million to buy Audible, the largest online seller of audiobooks. Brad Stone reports on the deal and what changes it might bring to the audiobook market, at Amazon agrees to buy online audiobook seller (International Herald Tribune, Feb. 1, 2008).

hat tip: wikio

Creating demand in the book market

From Why Does It Still Take So Long to Publish a Book? - New York Times, by Rachel Donadio:

Technology may be speeding up the news cycle, but in publishing, things actually seem to be slowing down. Although publishers can turn an electronic file into a printed book in a matter of weeks — as they often do for hot political titles, name-brand authors or embargoed celebrity biographies likely to be leaked to the press — they usually take a year before releasing a book. Why so long? In a word, marketing.

[...snip...]

As soon as a literary agent has sold a publisher a book, and even before it’s edited, copy-edited, proofread and indexed, the publicity wheels start turning. While writers bite their nails, the book editor tries to persuade the in-house sales representatives to get excited about the book, the sales representatives try to persuade retail buyers to get excited, and the retail buyers decide how many copies to buy and whether to feature the book in a prominent front-of-the-store display, for which publishers pay dearly. In the meantime, the publisher’s publicity department tries to persuade magazine editors and television producers to feature the book or its author around the publication date, often giving elaborate lunches and parties months in advance to drum up interest.

Read the whole article

Now, as far as I can see, that article applies primarily to certain big name publishers and big name retailers, playing their long-established games. Bully for them, especially if they're publishing something I can sell in my little bookstore. (We have standards they sometimes don't meet, even though we're not as picky as perhaps we ought to be.)

But they're only a segment of the publishing world. They're a significant factor, sure. But if selling books has taught us anything, it's that the big publishers' obsession with creating fads, and replacing them quickly with new fads, isn't what a lot of consumers want.

Good backlist books, midlist books, small press books, niche books, regional-interest books, even self-published books, can do surprisingly well if they're kept in print, and are easily obtained. Novelty sells. But so does something that somebody stumbles across. Or backlist of an author a customer has recently discovered, perhaps years after the publisher has whipped up buzz and then abandoned the titles and the author. I won't be surprised if more big book houses learn to keep more books in their catalogs, long after the talk shows no longer care. We'll see.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but when I read the New York Times piece linked above, the thought that popped to mind was "Me thinks they do protest too much." (However that's supposed to go. Thinks? Thinketh? Protest? Protesteth? I never can remember...) If they want to keep giving elaborate parties, that's their business, of course. But I have to wonder if they're trying just a bit too hard to convince the rest of us that a high-flying style of promotion is necessary, in a day and age in which authors can self-publish, and self-promote, without ever even leaving their home, not to mention that this is a day and age when talk shows and magazines have more competition than ever, and perhaps can't quite drive the popular culture as much as they used to? It's not like the old days, when there were three networks, and no podcasts or bloggers, etc. Is it?

Am I calling big publishers and their marketing departments dinosaurs? Oh, my, no. Think Harry Potter. Think how people lined up to get into stores at midnight. Think how crazy some folks got waiting for the release date, book after book. Think how much people enjoyed the countdown.

Marketing can be powerful. No question. But word of mouth can spread a lot of different ways, and it can and does sell a lot of books ignored by the talk shows and magazines and newspapers. If I were one of those hotshots who is used to being wined and dined, I think I'd be keeping one eye out for signs that the gig was wearing thin. I wouldn't necessarily be sweating, because people who like to live high aren't likely go frugal without a fight. But I would be keeping one eye out.

Tim Challies on his first book

In Reflections from a First Time Author, well-known evangelical blogger Tim Challies discusses book writing, and publishing today. (Via Albert Mohler's review of Challies's book, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment.)

Blogger makes good

Congratulations to Dawn Meehan. Her blogging, about life as a mother of six, has led to significant advertising income, and a two-book deal. NPR has the story (Blogs Scoured for Book Deals, Morning Edition, December 27, 2007).