How long have I been going on about these romance covers that choke the ebook lists? The trend is somewhere from merely tedious to outright infuriating for all but the millions of romance consumers and the folks feeding that frenzy.…
Porter Anderson, BA, MA, MFA, is a Fellow with the National Critics Institute and has done special readings in the psychology of the arts at the University of Bath, UK. As a journalist, he has worked with three networks of CNN (CNNUSA, CNN International, CNN.com) and was on the lead development team for CNN.com Live. He also has worked on The Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, D Magazine, Sarasota Herald-Tribune and other outlets. He writes the weekly (Thursdays) WRITINGONTHEETHER column at JaneFriedman.com and (Mondays) ETHERFORAUTHORS column at PublishingPerspectives.com. Anderson also is a regular contributor to WriterUnboxed.com and to Digital Book World’s (DigiBookWorld.com) Expert Publishing Blog. He has been posted by the United Nations to Rome (P-5, laissez-passer) for the World Food Programme, and served as Executive Producer to INDEX: Design to Improve Life in Copenhagen. He is based in Tampa and his primary medium is Twitter. Follow him @Porter_Anderson
BEA cupcakes: Is This ‘Women’s Work’ About Books?
So the email arrives:
I wanted to share the third video in our new video series Have Your (Cup)Cake & Read it Too! This month, BookExpo America (BEA) and Huffington Post Books are proud to unveil our new video featuring F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby, as well as our very own book-inspired The Great Gatsby cupcakes. When you check out the video you will also see a very special guest—Hollis Wilder, author of Savory Bites: Meals You Can Make in Your Cupcake Pan.
Well, gosh. This one takes some sensitive wording, a calm approach, and some honesty. If you’d like to watch the tape (seven minutes, 14 seconds) it’s here. And if you enjoy it, I won’t hold that against you.
This particular promotional direction has more than one major issue. First, there’s the obvious. Cupcakes. I mean cupcakes. This is a promotion in which a fine young person describes putting a daisy on a cupcake as part of its design. To represent Daisy Buchanan.
Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, typically sells 500,000 copies each year, but in 2013 it has already shipped 280,000 copies, according to the publisher. Ebook sales have been skyrocketing, too: in 2012, about 80,000 e-book copies of “Gatsby” were sold. So far this year, sales have surpassed 125,000.
So we have the new film treatment and its associated new book cover.
Personally, I don’t see why we need that Hollywood cover when the original Hemingway-hated artwork is as classic as Fitzgerald’s book.
But this, too, I’m sure is “marketing genius.”
And you’d think all this new Gatsby-alia for a an 88-year-old landmark in literature would be all the excitement we could eat.
And then the video gives us Hollis Wilder, whose mission and book are meant to persuade us, it seems—I’m quoting her from the video—“to make meals in the cupcake tin, meals that we already make on a regular basis with our children, our families, that we’ve been making for generations.”
In a cupcake tin. Dinner. In a cupcake tin.
Inspecting a Gatsby-esque cupcake, Wilder tells us that whiskey icing “is a little big-girl for me.” Nevertheless, in the service of duty, of course, she eats the cupcake and pronounces it “not a tragedy.”
Hollis Wilder and Barbie-in-a-Cake.
Her ego unimpaired, she reminds us, more than once, that she has won the Food Network’s Cupcake Wars three times.
Which success compels her, apparently, to bake Barbie into a cake.
She shows it to us, saying, “I should be able to have a cake that looks like me to honor that [Cupcake Wars] crown.”
And all of this happens before she mentions Guantanamo. I’m not kidding. It’s quite a video. The promotion is housed on the BookBliss.com page.
You have til 5/9 to read THEGREATGATSBY. Or as I’m calling it until I read it, THEHOLDING-MY-JUDGMENTGATSBY. #cOlbertsBookClub
When I asked Huffington Post senior books editor Andrew Losowsky about this partnership, he couldn’t have been more gracious. I mean, there are fish in barrels here, and he’s really a mensch to get back to me, on his weekend, no less. Here’s his full and intelligent response:
Andrew Losowsky
We run all kinds of book-related stories on our page, serious and frivolous. These videos definitely lean towards the frivolous for sure, but that said, they do convey the idea that there is no single “correct” way to react to a work of literature. If someone expresses their creativity through baking, then we think that is as valid a method of artistic response as a painting or a song. It’s an exercise in lateral thinking that could provide unexpected literary insight, along the lines of DeBono’s Random Entry tool. It’s also not our invention, as there are Edible Book Festivals held across the country and around the world each year, in which bakers compete to reflect the essence of a book in their creations. The videos are a work in progress, but not a major feature of our general coverage, nor of our ongoing partnership with BEA, which will include panel discussions and author interviews at this year’s event.
Francis Cugat’s original Gatsby cover art
It’s important to note, of course, that the Huffington Post and BEA have every right to promote, singly and together, in any way they want to. And Losowsky is right, “There is no single ‘correct’ way to react to a work of literature.” While I may question whether cupcakes and doll desserts do anything for literature—I can’t imagine why the government wouldn’t want to support this, Mr. Patterson, can you?—mine is only one person’s opinion.
*tweets the entirety of The Great Gatsby 140 characters at a time over the course of six days* — Ristolable (@ristolable) April 29, 2013
I’ll tell you where I think this all gets a bit more serious, though. And then I’ll leave the country quickly. I’m reminded of a line from John Updike’s The Centaur. It has stuck with me for decades. Reverand March asks, “Why do all the ladies of my parish bake cupcakes once a month and sell them to each other?” And when I was searching to verify that reference, I came across—isn’t Google grand?—the reason for my real discomfort here. In Why We Don’t Need “Women’s” Ministry at ChurchLeaders.com, Sarah Bessey rather courageously writes:
You know what I would have liked instead of decorating tips or a new recipe? I would have liked to pray together. I would have liked the women of the church to share their stories or wisdom with one another, no more celebrity speakers, please just hand the microphone to that lady over there that brought the apples. I would love to wrestle with some questions that don’t have a one-paragraph answer in your study guide. I would like to do a Bible study that does not have pink or flowers on the cover.
Now, yes, Bessey is working in a different field from publishing. I think the faith is lucky to have her.
Sarah Bessey
But for those of us who find spiritual presence in the world of real literature—and for those of us who want to see women fully integrated into the genuine centers of our modern life, not left to pretty-up the frilly perimeters—there is resonance here. At least, for me. Perhaps you get this, too.
The world can give me cute cupcake designs and decorating tips, scrapbooking parties, casserole recipes, and other ways to pass the time. But truly, with my respect and love, may I be honest? If I wanted to learn how to decorate cupcakes, I would take a class in it. If I wanted to be educated on strategies for decorating my home inexpensively from Winners, I would just, you know, go to Winners. Or Pinterest.
If I wanted to talk about great, powerfully enduring books…?
the great gatsby trailers make it look like gatsby is the main character and not nick hmm — lauren (@wllflwrs) April 29, 2013
To each her own, sure, absolutely. There are, surely, women who must love baking cupcakes about books.
And did anyone wake up one morning and say, “Hey, let’s do a promotional partnership that sort of assigns women to making cupcakes about great literature?” Of course not, certainly not. I know that. You know that. The intentions are good. Look at how carefully Lowsowsky parses his comments.
Im actually pretty upset that in the future, MRSAKERS is going to let her classes watch the Great Gatsby instead of reading it like we did — Shelby Waltrip (@ShelbyLynn_24) April 29, 2013
This is simply the kind of thing we need to rethink in publishing. I’m always going on about the “cute” factor. Can you really tell me that this seven minutes of relentless cuteness is doing a thing to promote reading, writing, and the serious roles of good literature and our important trade in the world?
We need to do the best we can for books. We also need to do the best we can for women, and for men.
And we all must keep an eye out for unintentional missteps. Even the funny ones might need serious review.
Porter Anderson, BA, MA, MFA, is a Fellow with the National Critics Institute and has done special readings in the psychology of the arts at the University of Bath, UK. As a journalist, he has worked with three networks of CNN (CNNUSA, CNN International, CNN.com) and was on the lead development team for CNN.com Live. He also has worked on The Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, D Magazine, Sarasota Herald-Tribune and other outlets. He writes the weekly (Thursdays) WRITINGONTHEETHER column at JaneFriedman.com and (Mondays) ETHERFORAUTHORS column at PublishingPerspectives.com. Anderson also is a regular contributor to WriterUnboxed.com and to Digital Book World’s (DigiBookWorld.com) Expert Publishing Blog. He has been posted by the United Nations to Rome (P-5, laissez-passer) for the World Food Programme, and served as Executive Producer to INDEX: Design to Improve Life in Copenhagen. He is based in Tampa and his primary medium is Twitter. Follow him @Porter_Anderson
Publishers have an opportunity to travel in a different direction: showcase their services, highlight their successes, and exploit their added-value. Lower the draw-bridge and come up with a new way of publishing more authors more cheaply, but better than they [authors] could do if they did it themselves.
For a long time I’ve wondered why trade publishers don’t open up their lists to would-be self-published writers, bringing more of them into the publishing fold, and working with them to build writing careers. The news that has been emerging around Random House US’ Hydra imprint, reminds me why they are wise to have been hesitant.
Based on strong criticism from writers’ groups, authors, and agents, Random House has decided to make major changes in its digital contract…For the profit-sharing arrangement, there’s still no advance. But Random House has eliminated all chargebacks for digital editions, so the split between author and publisher is 50/50 of net revenue (actual sales income) from the first copy sold. In other words: no setup costs, no 10% deduction for sales and marketing.
For the advance-and-royalty deal, authors will receive a traditional publishing contract, with the publisher covering 100% of costs. There will be an advance, and royalties will be paid at Random House’s standard ebook royalty rate of 25% of net. The contract will still be life-of-copyright, but the reversion clause has been improved.
David Gaughran
Nevertheless, Mudville is slow to rejoice, and its caution is prudent.
The new terms from Random House are an improvement on those originally offered. Gone is the requirement for an author to pay back the costs that are normally borne by a publisher – for the ebook version at least. If the book is selected for a print edition, the author will still have to repay those costs before seeing any royalties. From the excerpts of the contract I saw, these include the cost of printing, binding, shipping, storing, distributing, and dealing with returns.
I find it amusing that Random House first stuck to its guns, and then only agreed to make some changes when headlines appeared comparing them to a “predatory vanity press” when they have recently struck a deal to merge with Penguin – who run their own predatory vanity press (which Random House will soon co-own!). But I digress.
That’s the despised Author Solutions, of course, Gaughran refers to. And many authors will not be as quick as he is to curb their own digressions. It’s too easy to look at a moment like this as the one when the articulate and coordinated pressure of an 8,000-member author association fired across the bow of a Big Six steamer and forced it to turn in mid-voyage.
But while I, too, believe this was a pivotal moment—two digital imprints of four had been banned by SFWA, the other two surely would have followed—the worst thing writers can do at this point is to think in terms of vanquishing a major house during the long journey to new industry control.
What can be harvested of Big Six marketing, rights-negotiation, and distribution capabilities is important to retain. Authors need every avenue of production available. The accommodations writers achieve even in imperfect transitional events like this one are of value.
In the end, Jones is correct:
Despite the large number of entities out there that exist only to make money from self-published writers and do so with impunity, it is a different thing when a big publisher goes this route. The raison d’etre of traditional publishing is to take risks on talent, and back their editors to do so. When they get it right the rewards are huge, and will help to ameliorate the cost of the misses.
I keep seeing people write, “It’s a mute point.” I always picture Marcel Marceau gesturing with his hands.
And this must remind us that standing, working publishers are more useful than the hulks of dead ones. The risk-taking function of the standard publisher, as Jones writes, shouldn’t become a thing of the past.
Even with a list driven by would-be self-published writers the publisher should assume the risk. Telling an author that they must pay to be part of the list is vanity publishing; it reverses the traditional approach and undermines what a publisher does. A publisher looking to create such a list should look at ways of taking the cost out of the risk, not passing the costs of the risk on to the author. Hydra’s initial problem was that it wanted to share the risk, but continue to take the rump of the reward (including life-of-copyright).
After outcry, RH says it improves Loveswept, Hydra terms to include genuine reversion, mktg expense cap. http://t.co/UlfJ0WL3TI
Turning the biggest ships under the new tidal force of authorial power may well prove to be just this, an effect of concerted but civil pressure. And course corrections will rarely be complete in a single go.
Jones, Strauss, and Gaughran are all good voices in the widening mix and each has a point to make about the relative value of Random House’s ultimate posture, but only as long as those imprints remain functioning at all. It is better to have come through with the imprints afloat than sinking. And it’s compromise and patience—holding out the chance for discussion Strauss has described as “cordial,” not rancorous—that will keep making it possible for Jones, who has the ear of the legacy establishment, to submit messages like this:
Publishers will need to learn how to balance the competing demands of the different types of authors they will have to manage…But publishers won’t do this if they give the impression of wanting to treat these authors as second-class citizens.
Porter Anderson, BA, MA, MFA, is a Fellow with the National Critics Institute and has done special readings in the psychology of the arts at the University of Bath, UK. As a journalist, he has worked with three networks of CNN (CNNUSA, CNN International, CNN.com) and was on the lead development team for CNN.com Live. He also has worked on The Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, D Magazine, Sarasota Herald-Tribune and other outlets. He writes the weekly (Thursdays) WRITINGONTHEETHER column at JaneFriedman.com and (Mondays) ETHERFORAUTHORS column at PublishingPerspectives.com. Anderson also is a regular contributor to WriterUnboxed.com and to Digital Book World’s (DigiBookWorld.com) Expert Publishing Blog. He has been posted by the United Nations to Rome (P-5, laissez-passer) for the World Food Programme, and served as Executive Producer to INDEX: Design to Improve Life in Copenhagen. He is based in Tampa and his primary medium is Twitter. Follow him @Porter_Anderson
Authors in the Spotlight: How To Turn Your Readings Into Book Sales
with Porter Anderson
Join me in this special three-hour intensive Boot Camp session at Writer’s Digest Conference East (#WDCE) at 12:30pET on Friday, April 5. We’ll look at public presentation for the entrepreneurial author in an interactive, up-on-your-feet workshop format: come with two pages of your work in progress, ready to rock and read.
Having written about AWP in general at Publishing Perspectives earlier this week in Ether for Authors: AWP’s Boston Foray, I want to bring up a yearly factor in this big, big college-festival gathering. And I want to do it carefully, respectfully, and as positively as possible.
In a moment, in fact, I’m going to tell you what I’m not saying. Because it’s very hard, at times, for us to handle this issue without charged feelings waylaying the discussion. And I’d like you to be perfectly clear on what I’m not saying.
Ready?
I am not saying that there are too many sessions at AWP focused on women’s issues. Twenty-three sessions, by my count.
I am wondering why there aren’t more sessions than there are—I count just one—having to do with men’s issues.
AWP claims to be the largest literary conclave in North America, and some 11,000 people are anticipated this week. I’m glad to tell you that in past years, I’ve found the male-female ratio at this gargantuan conference looks to be far closer to 50–50 than you might expect from a 23-to-1 imbalance of gender-themed sessions.
A couple of years ago in Portland, Oregon, in fact, organizers of the Willamette Conference turned men’s rooms into women’s rooms because that major regional conference was almost overwhelmingly attended by women. We guys were left one restroom, which was kinder than directing us to the bushes outside by the parking lot.
Nevertheless, the campus-fueled sessions at AWP are, each year, curious in several regards beyond the lack of real-publishing-world developments, as I mentioned in the earlier article.
Went and registered for #awp13. Heard a speech that mentioned digital is killing everything. Ran into @BiblioCrunch. We know better.
The more-than-500 sessions of the conference are selected from proposals solicited by the governing core of AWP at George Mason University. Indeed, one session at each conference is devoted to making just such a proposal. (Best Practices for Submitting an AWP Panel Proposal this year is at 10:30aET on Saturday, Room 101, Plaza Level, Session #S128, in case you’d like to be there.)
I’m not privy to the system by which sessions are selected. But I get no sense that a Dan Brownish wearing of the hooded cassocks is involved, and I have no reason to think that lots of proposals for men’s-issue sessions are being turned down for any reason.
As might be expected, some of the women’s-issue sessions have the ring of resistance, the good fight, the perceived lack of parity in literature. Such entries are so relentlessly in place each year that you wonder whether anyone would notice if things actually had got better for women since, say, last year’s AWP.
Personally, I’m not persuaded by the VIDA numbers that depict a fearsome bias in favor of men in media coverage of books. My skepticism comes from my own newsroom experience of how books normally enter the system for review-coverage consideration. But regardless of the militancy of some VIDA adherents, any suppression of women’s work and of media-writing by women is a completely serious concern, of course, always well represented at AWP.
The very attractive Starbucks barista says they’re all out of soy milk and they haven’t gotten bananas in weeks. Be prepared, kids. #AWP13
Probably more helpful in bringing the good work of women to light are such sessions as:
Writing the Ends of the Earth: Women Writers on the Arctic and Antarctica. (Thursday, ##153)
Readings from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project (Thursday, #R171)
Women Poets on Mentoring (Thursday, #R251)—I’m glad to see this one’s description mentioning, “Women poets today have a wealth of literary models to turn to in their reading.”
Maybe less effective, for my money, are the politically tinged sessions such as Thursday’s Women’s Caucus (#R274). When that one’s description asks “Where is the place for the women writer(s) within AWP and within the greater literary community?” it seems to me that a 23-to-1 imbalance of women’s to men’s issue sessions calls the question into doubt.
There’s no men’s caucus, of course. What a silly thought.
A double whiskey at the Sheraton bar costs $24. That’s as much as a house in Houston. #AWP13
Probably one of the more intriguing discussions might be heard in Friday’s The Bible, Women, and American Literature (#F268), which promises “five women writers who use Bible-based themes transformatively (sic) in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.”
The entertainingly named Women in Crime is on Saturday (#S136). The speakers are authors who will discuss, we’re told, “their choice to build a crime series around a female protagonist.” Mrs. Marple may ride that bike through the room at some point.
The New (England) Guard: A Poetry Reading (#S205) on Saturday does itself no favors in its description. It’s described as a way to “showcase the excellence and diversity of contemporary New England poetry.” That “diversity” is brought to you by a panel of five women and no men.
Arrived in Boston. Saying goodbye to the letter R now. #AWP13
Similarly, the description of Smart Girls on Saturday (#S256) is about as dispiriting as a visit to Hooters, proclaiming, “‘Girl’ does not denote age but power—no men in it.” Ghetto-ization hasn’t worked yet, and probably won’t work on Saturday, either.
I shall speak about men’s writing: about what it will do. Man must write his self: must write about men and bring men to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies—for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal.
This, in fact, is probably related to the one session directly focused on men’s issues, Writing Masculinities on Thursday (#R117). In that panel, there’s to be a look at work “that reimagines the landscape of the masculine, directly or obliquely, through a dense exploration of subject matter and language.”
And as frequently as we hear in the industry! the industry! that men aren’t reading enough, I’d like to think we might be getting closer to finding more ways to bring things together, not keep delineating them as separate and discrete.
This won’t be that year at AWP, obviously. But perhaps some work with some of the sponsors of the event can help bring some pressure to bear on the session-development process to begin to look at both the practical and economic advantages—let alone the sheer societal good sense—of getting us past gender “caucuses,” for God’s sake, and into more compassionate territory.
Oh god. #awp13 hasn’t even started yet and I’m already completely exhausted.
It is time to liberate the New Man from the Old by coming to know him—by loving him for getting by, for getting beyond the Old without delay, by going out ahead of what the New Man will be, as an arrow quits the bow with a movement that gathers and separates the vibrations musically, in order to be more than him self.
And she is right.
City of Boston urges conference attendees — “please stop taping our accents for research for your short story set in boston” #awp13
Porter Anderson, BA, MA, MFA, is a Fellow with the National Critics Institute and has done special readings in the psychology of the arts at the University of Bath, UK. As a journalist, he has worked with three networks of CNN (CNNUSA, CNN International, CNN.com) and was on the lead development team for CNN.com Live. He also has worked on The Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, D Magazine, Sarasota Herald-Tribune and other outlets. He writes the weekly (Thursdays) WRITINGONTHEETHER column at JaneFriedman.com and (Mondays) ETHERFORAUTHORS column at PublishingPerspectives.com. Anderson also is a regular contributor to WriterUnboxed.com and to Digital Book World’s (DigiBookWorld.com) Expert Publishing Blog. He has been posted by the United Nations to Rome (P-5, laissez-passer) for the World Food Programme, and served as Executive Producer to INDEX: Design to Improve Life in Copenhagen. He is based in Tampa and his primary medium is Twitter. Follow him @Porter_Anderson
As the market evolves, Amazon is becoming a home for readers.
Say what? “A home for readers?” The Evil Amazon? Did the jungle drums just miss a beat?
There is so much for readers to do on Amazon – so much book-related content for them to peruse before buying.
There it was again. I could swear I just heard a friendly word for Seattle.
We have to ask ourselves, with the collapse of physical retail for books, which company will book suppliers want to deal with most? Just as iTunes supplanted record stores, Amazon is supplanting bookstores. Of all the bookselling options out there, only the remaining indie bookstores and B&N are more “bookish.” Should they eventually collapse (or transform or get sold), Amazon will be the most bookish place for readers to go to buy books.
You’re not hearing from some Prime-drunk refugee of the Borders wars here. These are the thoughts of Laura Dawson, Firebrand’s reigning Queen of Metadata, one of our best-regarded publishing specialists, and she’s packing knitting needles, don’t cross her.
@ljndawson And as you say, Barnes & Noble started adding bookish things & services that made people feel better about it. So will Amazon.
In Why Amazon Will Be the Good Guy, Dawson is echoing a jazzy new counterpoint to the shrill call of the poison-dart frog we’ve heard so relentlessly in deepest, darkest Amazonia.
A new slant on the aggressive retailer is beginning to be felt. And this angle doesn’t always turn up along the same lines of debate, which indicates that a subtle but broad-based reconsideration may be underway. Dawson’s not dropping a stitch:
In the late 1990s, the American Booksellers Association sued Barnes & Noble and Borders over what they felt were unfair trade practices… B&N was the king of the discount. And for “bookish” folks, this was a source of friction – the cheapening of books made them seem commoditized, and our beloved independent bookstores were going out of business.
Hunker with me here. This is an argument many can’t see yet.
Amazon has been regarded as less than entirely “bookish” since its inception, when Bezos made it clear that books were just the beginning (and only because books were the easiest products to build a store around).
@DonLinn The premise of “bookishness” made me a little nervous, but it is undeniably a Thing.
Keep listening. There’s more than one line of thinking being updated on Amazon at the moment. You hear it between the blind hate-Amazon monkey chatter and the reluctant growls of slow-moving traditionalists.
The nightmare narrative being spun by the publishing echo chamber is tragically unaware of how Amazon works. Maybe it’s because publishers imagine that Amazon will do what they would do if they had Amazon’s market power.
That artful zinger is launched by another of our community’s well-respected figures, Eric Hellman. In Publishing’s Amazon Powered Future, Hellman proposes one of the most intriguing rays of light to make it through the rainforest canopy, swatting aside the frequently heard fear that once most competitors have languished, Amazon will jack up its now-low prices. The emphasis here is his:
Amazon won’t extort huge sums of money from powerless consumers. Instead, they will ruthlessly bring efficiency to every process involved in publishing. And then they’ll invite everyone to use their ruthlessly efficient services.
What Hellman is saying is that the the real profit centers for Seattle lie in scale-enabling systems, the formidable tidal powers such as Amazon Web Services, which ebb and flow according to supply and demand. He has climbed way up to get a much airier view of Amazon’s corporate basin than most of us book-grubbing ground-dwellers have done.
sobre posición dominante de #amazon dice @jwikert: “innovation is better than predatory pricing”>What if DRM Goes Away? http://t.co/0C1687sK
A beta site dedicated to selling office equipment and industrial supplies to businesses. Amazon Supply offers more than 500,000 products, according to the company, including hose clamps, roller chain sprockets, drill bits, sheet aluminum, brass and other items. The site grew out of Small Parts, a supplier of equipment for science labs, Amazon bought in 2005.
And one of our very best heads, Brian O’Leary is also leading the porters and this Porter toward “Dr. Hellman, I presume,” In A More Likely View.
O’Leary writes:
Hellman’s work is always worth a full read, and I encourage you to take some time with his post.
Me, too. Quoting Hellman at length, O’Leary comes to this intriguing conclusion:
This is the reason publishers can’t beat Amazon: they aren’t even playing the same game.
pH Test Paper Dispensers, remember.
O’Leary goes back to Hellman for a second post. In What Are We About?, he credits Hellman for outlining “how publishers are fundamentally misunderstanding the retailer’s long-term competitive strategy.” And he ends by asking:
If Amazon is all about scale, what are we about?
Needless to say, there are disagreements on the forest floor.
THIS is what is killing publishing –> Amazon: Buy New PB for $10.95. Or the Kindle Book for $13.99. #FAIL
In Aftermath — notes on the Amazon post, another fine observer of the realm, Baldur Bjarnason, weighs in with serious qualms. They don’t necessarily go head-to-head with Hellman’s conceptualization. But they indicate a mistrust of Seattle’s model.
Amazon is taking risks everywhere. They are treating their suppliers, publishers, badly, essentially behaving like monopolists before they have an actual monopoly. Their share price is massively overvalued by any measure. The more they rely on their private ebook format for some sort of lock-in, the more they cut themselves off a growing ecosystem of ebook production and development tools, which requires them to make their own development tools, which further drives down their margins.
@ljndawson @tcarmody @jane_l and they say that publishers don’t need to worry about their brands. Heh. Right.
I’ve heard time and time again recently that Amazon is all about scale, and it is this that will kill off publishers… But I am not sure publishing books is scalable, or will be greatly impacted by it: at least not on the creative side.
Oh, and in case you’ve felt the Department of Justice is losing steam with its lawsuit of the “colluding five” and Apple, outgoing Acting Asst. Attorney General for Antitrust Sharis A. Pozen wants to disagree with you. She was speaking (full text) at the Brookings Institute:
At its heart, this case is about protecting competition, not competitors. And most importantly, it is about lower ebook prices for consumers.
From Jane Friedman’s presentation on first-page red flags at the Missouri Writers’ Guild Conference.
The series of handsome ecru slides you see in this edition of the gas are from Ether-eal host Jane Friedman’s deck for her recent presentation at the Missouri Writers’ Guild Conference.
Friedman spoke, as did another sister in the Ether, Christina Katz.
In keeping with a back-to-basics trend you might pick up on in the writing/craft sections of the Ether, Friedman’s approach is an excellent examination of what to do — and what to avoid — on a manuscript’s first page.
And if you ever wonder why writers can seem so crazed about the difficulty of their primary task (that would be writing, Yuvi Zalkow will remind us a bit later), consider that all the points on these slides are meant to go into a marvelous Page One so that the reader does what? — blows right through it and turns eagerly to Page Two. Where the battle is fought again.
Porter Anderson, BA, MA, MFA, is a Fellow with the National Critics Institute and has done special readings in the psychology of the arts at the University of Bath, UK. As a journalist, he has worked with three networks of CNN (CNNUSA, CNN International, CNN.com) and was on the lead development team for CNN.com Live. He also has worked on The Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, D Magazine, Sarasota Herald-Tribune and other outlets. He writes the weekly (Thursdays) WRITINGONTHEETHER column at JaneFriedman.com and (Mondays) ETHERFORAUTHORS column at PublishingPerspectives.com. Anderson also is a regular contributor to WriterUnboxed.com and to Digital Book World’s (DigiBookWorld.com) Expert Publishing Blog. He has been posted by the United Nations to Rome (P-5, laissez-passer) for the World Food Programme, and served as Executive Producer to INDEX: Design to Improve Life in Copenhagen. He is based in Tampa and his primary medium is Twitter. Follow him @Porter_Anderson
I wanted to share the third video in our new video series Have Your (Cup)Cake 
Personally, I don’t see why we need that Hollywood cover when the original Hemingway-hated artwork is as classic as Fitzgerald’s book.
I’m reminded of a line from John Updike’s 
