Over crash

Wylie Agency authors and authors’ estates (Vladimir Nabokov, Ralph Ellison, John Updike, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, Louise Erdrich, John Cheever, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Evelyn Waugh, Oliver Sacks, Orhan Pamuk, V.S. Naipaul, Martin Amis, and Jorge Luis Borges) are going to be published electronically — and exclusively, for two years — to the Kindle store, and only the Kindle store.

Big trade publishers (your Random Houses, Penguins, and Harper Collins) are predictably unhappy about this (they spend the money to acquire, edit, produce, market, and sell the physical copies of these authors’ novels), as the (probably correct) impression is that Wylie and Amazon are riding on their coattails with what they’re doing.

This is clearly Amazon’s next move in its war to be the dominant player in the market for books. It’s pretty uncool to try and force people to use the Kindle, though. I also know who is actually producing these ebooks on behalf of Odyssey Editions, and unless they have some sort of super airtight contract with both parties, what’s to stop them from cutting the software company out altogether (Amazon is a software company, after all)? Surely Amazon knows the ins and outs of Kindle much better than they do.

Other authors are also dealing direct with Amazon and Apple to release exclusive ebooks, which is fine if they’ve made that conscious decision (and still hold the rights) to ignore other platforms. Maybe an interesting side effect would be a small uptick in sales of physical books if ebooks are not available for some devices.

I’m finding it pretty complex trying to imagine the fallout / effects of this. The books are mostly backlist (i.e. older books) — are people more likely to buy a backlist title in ebook format? Should traditional publishers look hard at their backlists and design covetable new editions (a bookshelf of beautiful books is just so much sexier than a page on a screen)? There’s apparently a huge issue with ebook royalties — I would propose that if authors were keen to command higher royalties, they should be much more willing to work harder on marketing and publicity online, since the online space is exactly where readers expect authors to reach out to them.

Family tickets

Alan Shadrake’s out on bail, he is not free, as the headline of the article in the Guardian implies. If the government thinks someone is rightly or wrongly making them look bad, they will never bow to pressure to give up.

Maybe I’m way too cynical, but this smacks of a publishing publicity stunt purely for an international audience (and motivated Singaporeans); it’s not as though the news media in Singapore will report it in any real depth. I know I sound like a typical realist these days, but I do worry about the paranoia of the Singapore government in trying to contain this desire to speak and express opinions.

I disagree with the stance that foreigners don’t have a right to comment on ‘internal’ matters, as it’s all a matter of context. It’s as though the government hasn’t mastered the putting of things into context — they don’t want to add any complexity to their message, perhaps (my mother always said that all the government’s public communications are written for an educational level of Primary Three).

(Previously.)

A broken slate of grey

I really want to go see David Vann and Anthony Bourdain at the book festival, but given that meeting authors has sometimes resulted in my going away and thinking that they are complete and utter twats, I might not. Ah, the wisdom of experience — it’s far better to never allow reality to intrude on an enjoyable book.

Festival season. Ah. Not my favourite time of year in Edinburgh. As grouchy as I might sound, it’s really highly annoying to have tourists drifting about like lost sheep, spreading their collective girth to take up the entire width of the pavement. Yes, it’s the capital and has all these dirty old buildings. On a nice day it looks great. Fabulous. Please give the people who work in Edinburgh the room to walk to and from their offices.

At least there are free events at the Fringe. Most of them will be shite, but I’ve earmarked three that look like they could be fun (and most definitely not scatological). After last year’s Hot Club of Cowtown discovery at the Jazz festival (Kristen, you should totally go and see them play in Austin this August), I’m looking forward to seeing that programme.

I feel your touch

Y’know, the photo of Tony Blair on the jacket of his memoir (no I won’t be buying it, political memoirs aren’t usually very interesting) looks like the solo effort of someone who used to be in a pop group. I’m not sure that was the effect he was going for.

Knitting is harder

Hm. All I can say is it’s generally those who deal with rights the first time round (you know who you are) who have an issue with giving away ebooks for free. As far as I’m aware, anyway.

You love me really

Our head of sales sent round the first strip on an email. We all laughed at the cruelty. It’s oh-so-true.

Content fillers and links

I’m probably fooling myself, but I think my reticence over talking about my job (online, that is) makes people kind of confused about what I actually do. To add to the ambiguity, here are some books I may or may not have had a part in making websites for:

  1. The Rules of The Game: Neil Strauss’ follow-up to The Game. Feminists and PC types may brand The Game as anti-women and misogynistic, but I didn’t think it was at all. Even the bits about getting girls to cheat on their boyfriends — those women chose to do it. If men with no charisma or natural charm need a bit of help in harnessing their positive qualities to manufacture pulling power, more power to them.
  2. Life of Pi: one of my favourite books in the whole wide world, AND I got to meet Yann Martel (and his girlfriend)! The illustrated edition is absolutely amazing.
  3. The Gift: a scholarly look into the gift culture, first published in 1979, and rejuvenated on the web for some good old-fashioned karma.

Go visit to make me feel better.

Do you want to be my friend?

I’m spending loads and loads of time on social networking sites during office hours.

(Books and reader networking sites, of course. And — ugh — MySpace, too.)

It’s fun, dragging a publisher into the 21st century.

Also, TFIF. The weeks go by so damn quickly but there continues to be a huge, dynamic pile of ‘to dos’ on my list that never seems to go down.

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