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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Drones and Blogs

The twenty-four hour news cycle has been blamed for promoting worthless, mundane nonstories as earth-shattering “Breaking News.” With so much time to fill, networks allow windy anchors to blather on about nothing; much like a blog, I guess. But the twenty-four hour broadcast day also allows networks to bury stories. Many important bits of news are lost in the barrage of vacuous coverage.

 

Even with the thousands of bloggers and news sites out there, many stories are simply missed or intentionally overlooked. I think there are more worthy stories than there are people and resources to disseminate the news. What we need are Robojournalists, News Drones, that can fly about recording human experience and uploading it to the web. Surely, the technology is capable. If the US war machine can pick a target in a desert, fly with a remotely controlled device, and sometimes even destroy the intended target (with a few weddings, nurseries, and picnics mistakenly bombed), certainly they can build News Drones to document every facet of humanity.

 

For more on remote warfare, check out Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. It was prescient.

 

“Poetry is news that stays news,” Ezra Pound, The ABC of Reading.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

A demo of a new song, "On Your Side"

Here is a demo version of a new song called "On Your Side" http://



Change For the Better

A reporter for the local newspaper interviewed me recently for a piece he was planning on the future of print. During the interview he asked what it is like teaching college English these days. Are students interested? Can they look away from their iGadgets long enough to participate in a class? The generalized answer is an overwhelming Yes.

I have been at this teaching gig for not quite six years, so I'm still learning (may I always be learning), but what I've noticed of today's students, compared with students of my era, is that they are less likely to accept rules and paradigms on face value. Likewise for assignments. They see right through make-work projects. Every activity in the class must be justified. The purpose must be clear. In this way, most students are partners in the instruction. This generation has access to facts and dates like no prior generation. For the most part, they don't need their instructors to provide content solely -- at least in the Humanities. There is, of course, room for this "banker's" model of education. The instructor has to determine what is important and is often called upon for the contextualization of facts.

Mostly, the instructor is a guide and a coach, showing students how and where to find what they need, how to interpret the information critically, and how to organize the information for a reader.

The classroom is now a level field and it's tremendously exciting.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Read More Books



When I can afford the luxury, I enjoy sitting in the little used bookstore Read More Books that we run from a small commercial space in our home. Its location is prime, actually: on the main street, next door to a cafe (DISH) and a hair salon (The Gallery). The selection is mighty, if i do say myself, but business is slow. A large sign outfront would help, I know. And this is something I'll get around to someday.
For now, a bunch of booklovers and travellers (travellers always seem to find the place, and never complain about the lack of signage) drop in to browse and pick up a copy of this or that.
In the two years that Read More Books has been around, I've found it entertaining to watch the changing interests of readers. For example, last summer there was a run on Tom Robbins. It was unbelievable. It seemed that touring bands couldn't get enough. There were at least four bands on their separate ways across the country stopping in for T.R. books. The summer before, it was Barbara Kingsolver and Herman Hesse.
This year's been slow. There are not as many travellers about, it seems. Being mid-July, most of the townies have left town for their camps (what most people call cottages). So, we're here with the constant drone of vehicles passing by on their way to the next stop light, and the occassional pedestrian out for a stroll. And that's fine.
Here's what's been selling this summer:
Malcolm Gladwell, I've sold 6 copies of both Tipping Point and Blink;
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann -- not sure why, but there's been a run;
Robert Heinlein, plenty of movement there;
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood -- maybe its the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe or the announcement that scientists are less than a decade away from regenerating human organs, but something's in the air.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Trendy Discussion of Ebooks vs Print

The New York Times is reporting that sales of Amazon ebooks have surpassed hardcover sales, and everyone is hearing the death knell of print. Amazon claims to have sold 180 electronic books for its Kindle device for every 100 hardcover edition. Reading the Kindle's cryptic policy guide and recalling the great Orwellian recall of 2010, one might consider the word "rented" to describe the sales transaction with Amazon.

The article also says that hardcover sales are up 22% overall (source: American Publishers Association), but no one has bothered to notice that.

It's good news then all around then. Book sales are up. Hardcover sales at that.

Personally, I don't think ebooks will entirely replace print. Perhaps newspapers will no longer be paper. Heck, most of them are no longer news. If anything, ebooks and print will exist side by side. Print on demand devices will allow readers to purchase bound books. Small publishers will continue to print their books. I think the print book could become an even more splendid thing with limited runs and meticulously designed and bound editions.

I'd like to see a sales model wherein the electronic book can be purchased with the print edition. Why not let the consumer decide which format is best for the situation?

Monday, July 19, 2010

Beefcake and Brawny Writers

The June/July issue of Poets and Writers features a profile of "young writers to watch for," or some such title of enthusiastic promise. Among the writers discussed is James Kaelan, who will be biking up the coast of California to promote his new book. Not only is Kaelan a "young writer to watch" he also sports an impressive tattoo on his chest and a physique most writers only write about.

Perhaps then it's not surprising that P&W used a photo of the shirtless author on their frontcover. Yet it makes me wonder if the new paradigm of book marketing is based on the appearance of the author. It used to be that an author's photo was plastered on the cover of a book or the cover of a magazine because her or his work was well known or respected. I wonder, based on P&W's latest cover, if the same beauty-based model that has infiltrated the music business is creeping into publishing as well.

I suspect, way down in my potbelly, that aesthetic marketing of books and authors has always been. It's just that most authors are too homely to market for anything but their work.

The Process

Patience is everything.

In August of 2009, I sent my fourth poetry manuscript "Variance" to five publishers. A few weeks later, I received an offer of publication from a small but fairly well-known Canadian publisher. Of course, I was thrilled. But the offer wasn't all it seemed. The publisher wanted me to guarantee that I would purchase a third of the run, which worked out to about $2,000. He was very adamant that his company is not a vanity press (a publisher that will print anything if you pay them enough). I agreed. He was willing to put some money into the project, and, as he said, "we always lose money on poetry." No, this publisher wasn't a vanity press -- they are a subsidy press. This title didn't sit well with the publisher either.

So, I let that one fall away.

A rejection from a second publisher followed: all part of the process.

Then, in November, came a real offer from a very real, small publisher. BuschekBooks from Ottawa offered a no-strings, straight-up publishing deal for a first book of poetry. I accepted.

Many people ask how i choose publishers and markets to send to. It's always a gamble. Sending your work away, you have to accept that it becomes prey to the whims of chance and the tastes of editors. A piece that might be perfect for a specific magazine or journal might find an editor in the middle of the worst day of his or her life. So, it's not enough that the work has to be good. It has to be received at the precise moment when it will be welcomed.

When i first began sending my work away, 24 years ago (yes, it's been, and continues to be, a long apprenticeship) I'd send to the largest markets possible. Write a short science fiction story, it's going to Asimov's. Write a poem, it's going to Poetry. Of course, these were always rejected. After years of this, and needing to make a living at something, I started to pitch ideas for articles to small, regional magazines. The old High Grader, run by now-MP Charlie Angus and his partner Brit Griffin, was a fine publication in my backyard. After a few rejected pitches, I landed an article there and wrote freelance for them for about four years. They were great to work for and they taught me a lot about writing, publishing, and getting the story.

With a few publishing credits to my name, I branched out and began pitching to all manner of magazine -- this was in the mid-90s, the internet hadn't squashed the magazine market just yet -- and over the years wrote CD, book, concert and product reviews, articles on everything from bridge maintenance and snow removal, bloodhounds, and pet cemeteries. It was fun. It was also exhausting.

The freelance writer works every moment of the day, always looking for a story and a market for that story. During the most intense period of my freelance experience, I was sending out about 50 pitches a week and maybe getting 3 jobs/month. Sometimes these were well paying, several thousand dollars for an article with photos. Other times, the gig paid 50 dollars for a CD or book review. It averaged out around $200/job. Considering that each article took about a few days to a week to research and write, it's easy to see that it can be a hard go.

Over time, one builds up a list of clients. Sometimes the unexpected happens, editors change and bring in new writers, magazines fold, or airplanes smash into the World Trade Center.

The freelance market, along with everything else, was shaken by the attacks of 911. One of my most lucrative clients lost all of its ad revenue in one week and folded. It resurrected a couple of years later but as an in-house only magazine, meaning no freelance writers. Other magazines went the same way, tightening the editorial belt.

But I started out discussing a book of poetry, which is an entirely (almost) different thing from freelance writing. First, there is little to no money in poetry. Publishers offering poetry are really doing cultural work on the frontlines. Therefore, it's not about money -- whereas much of the freelance work I've done (and continue to do) was (and is) about money.

Back to the question: "How do you choose which publishers to send a poetry manuscript to?"
Here, for what it's worth, were some of my considerations:

1. What writers are in the publisher's stable? If there are writers there that you admire, good. If you see that some of the writers have gone on to publish more books with the same publisher or with other publishers, better;

2. Are they small enough to care? Will my book be just another in a list that will be forgotten as the publisher labours on its next batch of releases, or will they work with me to promote the book and give some guidance throughout the process? I read everything I could about the publisher, including interviews with their authors to determine whether they stand by their writers;

3. Are their books nominated for awards? It's not about winning, or even being nominated. Awards mean nothing to the work itself. Yet, if a publisher's books are consistently nominated for awards, it means that someone is at work. You want a publisher that will promote the book.

4. How long is the waiting time. I've had manuscripts sit on editors' desks for a year and longer. Life's short, get on with it.

5. How likely is the publisher to read the manuscript and to accept it? With a first book of poetry, or any literary work, it's difficult to get noticed. Many large publishers accept only work submitted by agents. It's unlikely that Faber & Faber is going to accept a first book of poetry from a Canadian poet with a few poems published in literary journals. This is not to say it can't happen. Personally, looking at the pattern of my life and, ahem, career, a contract from F&F seems unlikely. So, go closer to home.

Okay, this should have been two entries: one on freelance writing; one on poetry publishing.

Back to the beginning. I accepted the offer from BuschekBooks. My manuscript underwent significant transformation and will be published as Ghost Music this fall. As of this writing, we are entering the final edit phase, tossing away some poems, polishing others.

I will post all updates and adventures here as the book goes to print and as I wander the earth promoting it, and will try to stay on topic.

Thanks for reading.