New York Times on Self Publishing

Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: January 27, 2009
The point may soon come when there are more people who want to write books than there are people who want to read them.

At least, that is what the evidence suggests. Booksellers, hobbled by the economic crisis, are struggling to lure readers. Almost all of the New York publishing houses are laying off editors and pinching pennies. Small bookstores are closing. Big chains are laying people off or exploring bankruptcy.

A recently released study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that while more people are reading literary fiction, fewer of them are reading books.

Meanwhile, there is one segment of the industry that is actually flourishing: capitalizing on the dream of would-be authors to see their work between covers, companies that charge writers and photographers to publish are growing rapidly at a time when many mainstream publishers are losing ground.

Credit for the self-publishing boomlet goes to authors like Jim Bendat, whose book “Democracy’s Big Day,” a collection of historical vignettes about presidential inaugurations, enjoyed a modest burst in sales in the hoopla surrounding President Obama’s swearing-in.

After failing to secure a traditional publishing deal in 2000, Mr. Bendat, a public defender in Los Angeles, paid $99 to publish the first edition of his book with iUniverse, a print-on-demand company. He updated the book in 2004 and 2008, and has sold more than 2,500 copies. IUniverse takes a large cut of each sale of the book, currently on Amazon.com for $11.66.

As traditional publishers look to prune their booklists and rely increasingly on blockbuster best sellers, self-publishing companies are ramping up their title counts and making money on books that sell as few as five copies, in part because the author, rather than the publisher, pays for things like cover design and printing costs.

In 2008, Author Solutions, which is based in Bloomington, Ind., and operates iUniverse as well as other print-on-demand imprints including AuthorHouse and Wordclay, published 13,000 titles, up 12 percent from the previous year.

This month, the company, which is owned by Bertram Capital, a private equity firm, bought a rival, Xlibris, expanding its profile in the fast-growing market. The combined company represented 19,000 titles in 2008, nearly six times more than Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer books, released last year.

In 2008, nearly 480,000 books were published or distributed in the United States, up from close to 375,000 in 2007, according to the industry tracker Bowker. The company attributed a significant proportion of that rise to an increase in the number of print-on-demand books.

“Even if you’re sitting at a dinner party, if you ask how many people want to write a book, everyone will say, ‘I’ve got a book or two in me,’” said Kevin Weiss, chief executive of Author Solutions. “We don’t see a letup in the number of people who are interested in writing.”
Read the entire article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28selfpub.html?8bu&emc=bub2

John Grisham Interview

Maybe you caught the interview with Charlie Rose in PBS? Grisham stated he gets a germ of an idea for a novel. These ideas came from his legal career. He admitted he would probably not be able to write without his life experience as a lawyer.

Grisham has no formal training in writing, never went to a writing school, but learned by reading books of the sort he wanted to write . He always was an avid reader, but to teach himself the trade, he narrowed his focus. He spent a summer immersed in courtroom novels, trying to figure out what made them tick. He says he works hard to keep his prose lean, aiming to use as few words as possible and avoiding unnecessary tangents.

Poem by Ulrich Wendt

Historical Note:

In the late winter of 1945, Russian troops had penetrated deep into East Prussia along the Baltic coast - a land of dark forests and small farming villages. All those who could, had already fled before the advancing tanks. Inconveniently for his wife and daughter, the village wheelwright lay dying.

- Ulrich Wendt

Instructions for My Funeral

Let’s keep it simple. Neither of you will feel like singing, I suppose,
and the approaching drums are not the kind of music any of us likes.

Don’t dig the grave by night. Do it in the open day
to show that nothing’s being buried here of value.

Ah yes, the spot! Let’s have it by the old pear tree. It doesn’t yield
and if you need to cut the roots, who cares?

Not deep – the ground here’s hard – but deep enough.
And place me facing downward. Otherwise, without a box,
the first few clumps of dirt would be – let’s say – without appeal.

Then leave. For god’s sake leave! And leave the spade to mark the spot.

Others may come with burdens of their own
and they’ll find the digging easier.

2009 Canadian Writers Contest Calender

Hey writers ! A neat book-style calender listing all writing contests, poetry, fiction and non-fiction, in Canada in 2009, is available for the cheap price of $16.95 from White Mountain Publications Box 1178, New Liskeard ON, P0J 1P0 phone (705) 647 8366 or check out www.wmpub.ca.

NOWW Winter Workshops

Mark your calender.

Memoir

with Charlie Wilkins

Thursday, February 5 at 7 pm

Charlie explains cleaning inner sluices or..

the Process of Memoir

Workshops are free to NOWW members, 5$ for non-members

A Poem by Sharon Irvine

I have been to several poetry readings lately. Last night, out in Kaministiquia, sitting with friends, listening to each other’s poems, I was reminded of this poem by the incomparable Sharon Irvine.

THE POETRY READING

Words embracing Words
and us.

Intricate tunnels
of images so distilled
only sweaty concentration
releases them:
sweet summer wind
in a closed room.

So much emotion,
so many ideas
in one small space,
like an electric field:
shared power
to light the darkness of all our caves.

My Worst Books for 2008

I check out a dozen or so novels at a time from the library but if a book does not engage me after the first pages I put it aside. I usually read about half the pile. The list below does not include these rejects but only those books I read and disliked for various reasons.

1. Seducing the Demon: Writing for my Life by Erica Jong. This is a very bad book that tells us little about Jong, about writing or about anything interesting. She gives in full the text of an address to students and it is the same old stuff about the abasement of language that has been around since the Vietnam War or even since the Nazis. She also does not mention Orwell who said it all.

There is a sloppy meditation about Venice. Also how much she loves poetry. Also, we ask, how many famous names can she drop into a turgid narrative. Some are names that are not names as in “a famous author once said to me.”

The demon theme is introduced and dropped. There are a few flashes of wit. Re: Ted Hughes: “You could inhale the man’s pheromones across the table.” She also says a few wise things: “Feminism ebbs and flows like the sea.”

In 2006, Jong is still referring to sex as fucking. Her first book, Fear of Flying is about a woman’s sexual adventures and it was a hit in the 70’s but heterosexual sex has been out of style for a long time now, since the inception of AIDS and later, with the internet and the overwhelming preponderance of porn.

2. Since romance novels make up 40% of all fiction sold, I thought I should read some. I decided to start with historical romance and I was guided by a list “Best Historical Romance Novels,” from “Best Books.” I started with Saving Grace by Julie Garwood. Garwood is the queen of historical romances. The history is bad. The plot is embarrassing – strong woman kills wolves, faints in lover’s arms. There is lots of sex, also embarrassing to read. It is cringe-making stuff to read women’s day dreams, almost as bad as reading Louis L’Amour and men’s daydreams. But this is perhaps worse. Porn, unrealistic and silly drives this book. The tough soldiers turning into sweet pussy cats at the end is laughable but sad too.

3. Lightly Married by Mary Balogh. This is the second in my series of historical romances. As with the first, above, the history is ludicrous, especially the thought patterns of the protagonists. But, I enjoyed this silly book with its absurd plot and common place characters. Why did I enjoy it? Because I wanted the happy ending and various plot devices delayed it. I started several historical romances after this but never finished any. The elements of historical romance are: 1) A heroine who is vulnerable. She is in some kind of trouble and must turn to 2)A handsome, perhaps scary, male hero.3) The hero is tamed through wiles and love. In short, these books reinforce the media idea that a woman can gain power through her looks. Yeah, right.

4. Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear. A mystery set in the 1930’s with a lot of really stupid slang tossed into the clunky writing. The heroine solves mysteries with intuition. Yeah, right.

5. Wordly Goods by Michael Korda – does he publish his own novels? Starts with hero – the hard man type, a billionaire (not million any more) who lives like a recluse etc. Meets heroine who is beautiful of course with a great flawless body etc. They meet at a party. The draw here is the high life, champagne, caviar, art works etc. She rides (superbly of course) on the dangerous horse. Later she swims at Cannes and she swims marvelously. Etc. In spite of Korda’s efforts there is no juice in these people, no flaw and no longing.

After 69 pages, we move into the back story which takes up more and more space as the book goes on. This is Korda family territory—Hungary before the war, the greed of Nazis and Hungarians and the betrayal of the hero’s family who end up in Auschwitz. The hero becomes a slave laborer. Korda wants to give us the grand tour of Nazi atrocities and even has the hero sent to Mengele where he is tortured. His Nazis are always combining threats with discussions of their next meal—a ploy to contrast and point up their venality but overused. They are all snake-like types rather than out-and-out goons. The purpose of the book is to run through the Nazi atrocities. But somehow, the evil of Nazism is trivialized by the frothy lives of the main characters.

6. Cat o’Nine Tails by Jeffrey Archer. A short story collection dealing with criminal activities. He loves the build up, the care with which a criminal sets up the crime and the O Henry like denouement. After a story or two one stops believing that such people exist outside of Archer’s imagination. I enjoyed his prison memoir much more.

7. Short Stories by Kurt Vonnegut. Last stories, speeches and various writings by one of my favorite authors but unfortunately there are some things in here that are not good enough for inclusion. Some of the short stories have good intentions but go nowhere.

8. Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle – This is the woman who walked into doors but Charlo is dead and she is sober and trying to get some sort of friendship with her grown kids. There is really no suspense. We do not think she will go back to drinking because the result would be so disastrous the book would be ten times as long. POV is Paula’s over and over, disorganized, rather dull and stupid.

9. Mavis Gallant – Across the Bridge. Short Stories. She tells us about her characters and she, the narrator, is at a distance from them. She does not like them very much. They are specimens under glass. I did not read all the stories.

10. The Moose House: the Devil in the Closet by Larry Leochko a strange memoir, very poorly written, which tells the tales of a haunted house where the young Leochko lived in Atikokan.

11. Schoolmarm by Penny Petrone. Published by the museum. Lots of great details of teaching life in the early 50’s. At North Bay Normal, a teaching master, “ Miss Grace Morgan summoned all the girls, all 79 of us, to her homeroom to tell is that there were times of the month when an awful odor permeated the building. She advised us to sprinkle baking soda on our sanitary pads in order to suppress the smell. I followed this advice until it was no longer necessary.” This is creepy and bizarre—they all menstruated at the same time?? And the odour permeated the building?? This is a huge building.

Later Petrone goes to Uganda and has the children memorize Down by Sally Gardens with references to “her little snow-white feet” and “her snow-white hand.” More than bizarre. On 1972, she uses the poem The Congo, by Langston Hughes in her teacher training class. She says it would not do for the present but OK for 1972. Yet by 1972, the discussion of racism in discourse was everywhere, with many books, pamphlets etc coming out to advise teachers and writers.

The mood is constantly upbeat and perky, sort of the Doris Day of teaching, and it grates.

12. I Had a Great Front Row Seat to the Greatest Show on Earth: A Collection of Short Stories about Policing in Thunder Bay (1960-1994) by retired Staff Sergeant Jas. W. Forbes. The author is very full of himself, a dangerous individual and not funny. “An adjustment was made to his face” is the worst of the phrases. This guy was a bully but he thinks he is full of fun. A sickening read. Easily my worst book of the year.

Martial Arts by By Keith Johnson

Part one.
Martin’s keen eye for detail had driven him, even as a boy, to faithful and intricate crafting of swords, bows, and spears. His wooden swords were roughed out of hard maple flooring, then tempered by charring and honed sharp on broken field stone. Spear and arrow tips benefited from the same scrupulous attention to detail. Indeed he had even pioneered the “recycle” movement by embedding used razor blades in his hunting arrow heads.

Here, half a world away from those carefree days, he was superbly equipped for the grisly business at hand. Martin wiped his right hand dry on the inside of his thigh and hunkered his shoulders to shield the process as he hastily constructed a cigarette. Explosions from heavy shells and bombs echoed through the hills to the south and east. Counterpoint to this devil’s symphony was provided occasionally by the nasal drone of aircraft engines. Recently, the high pitched descant of human screams had diminished, thank God.

Even in its present condition his khaki uniform instilled in him a sense of pride. It had to, so many of his mates had honoured it so highly. A wry smile wrinkled his face as he thought of Mildred and how she would have yards of advice on how to avoid soiling his clothes. Mud and clay. They cursed it, they slipped in it, they mired their vehicles in it, they avoided it where possible, they hated it, yet there were occasions, even recently when he felt he could not get close enough to it.

Anzio, the landing had been a walk in the park, at least so it seemed to Martin and his team, fellow graduates of Dunkirk and Dieppe. The carnage came later as they tried to consolidate their landing and make incursions into the Alban hills. That was a week ago. The beaches were back there but the moisture laden westerlies kept them constantly aware of their proximity to the sea. The rain guttered down the hill in front of him as he peered over the coping stones of the wall which he dove behind as a low flying Stuka screamed over the rim of the mountains to the south and proceeded to circle around the abbey citadel which commanded this whole valley.

Up there, the old ivy covered walls were quiet now. The brethren who currently occupied the monastery were of a new order, and they were unlikely to lay down their tools to attend vespers even if the hour was at hand. Poised as it was atop the mountain, this old medieval castle had once more become a fortress bristling with armaments, impressively controlling the pass and all the vehicular routes to the north, to Rome. Sure, an air strike or artillery bombardment would have solved the problem, however, believe it or not, the Diplomatic Corps had tied their hands.
This was an historic site. Shunning company of such nefarious greats as Attila or the Visigoths, the Canadians were under orders to apply all lenient means before resorting to utter destruction.

Quiet had returned to the valley. The airplane had departed as unceremoniously as it had come. Apparently, none of the squad had been observed. They would announce their presence at their pleasure.

The smoke from his cigarette was rolling back over Martin’s shoulder. The wind had changed direction, and he became aware that the rain had ceased. A glorious sunset was bathing the matte surfaces of the battlements above in a wash of golden orange. The open expanse below had been laboriously developed into a beautiful vineyard of terraced plots like a great staircase. Pietro, and two other regular members of this Special Forces unit appeared to be bypassing millions of years of evolution by reverting to invertebrate locomotion. Squirming and crawling, they had advanced about fifty yards ahead.

Snuffing his smoke, Martin shifted his pack of goodies, caught up his rifle and wriggled after them. If the weather would cooperate, and with a little luck, after this night’s work, they might be able to realize their orders, which, tersely stated, “reconnoiter site and neutralize enemy.” It would be at least two days before any vanguard of armoured division could reach them. The word “neutralize” seemed so detached, so clinical. Harking back to this grade twelve chemistry-- too alkaline, add a little acid, too much pro, add a little con. Yes, he chuckled to himself we’ll put some Yin in their Yang.

Many of the faces they had seen on their infiltration of the so called enemy lines had not been unfriendly but it was quite a surprise to these seasoned stealth fighters when, two nights ago, a figure materialized out of the dripping shadows of an ancient oak tree. Stepping to the centre of the pathway so it was impossible not to see the silhouette of the raised arms, the apparition approached through the murky darkness. Behind enemy lines, a commando unit, prisoners of war—what’s wrong with this picture? It was only with the greatest restraint that trigger fingers remained tensed and motionless. Thus they met Pietro Valigrosso, who had just committed the most courageously foolish act of his life. The tenuous greeting was consolidated into a budding camaraderie by Peitro’s insistence that the group return with him to his friends where there was warmth, food, and shelter from the accursed rain.

During the night of respite, it unfolded that a cell of resistance fighters had secreted themselves in the wine cellar of this very monastery and had barely escaped the onslaught of the Nazi juggernaut. Martin and his friends had actually been endowed with some of the yield of that cellar and were given to understand that the remaining casks and whatever bottles weren’t looted, had been drained as the guerrillas fled. It was not, perhaps, a great wine but rather a noteworthy one.

The germ of their plan was made possible because of an earth tremor some twenty years ago. It had created such a problem with their wells that the brother monks adopted a more stable water supply. To do this, they employed a fascinating example of perpetual motion, an hydraulic pump. It would deliver water from a small spring-fed creek which seemed to emerge from underground about halfway up the mountain side. The water was constantly being pumped using a few simple laws of basic hydraulics and it required no external forces other than a constant flow of water. The clue to the presence of this device was the characteristic sound it emitted during each cycle of operation. This emanation was an unmusical combination of a gurgle and a belch closely duplicated by the American bittern as its mating call. A string of cement conduits directed the water from pump to hill top. Obviously, there had to be a cistern or tank within those redoubt walls to serve as a head pond for the intricate irrigation system of the vineyard and garden.

As twilight transformed into dusk, Martin, in a running crouch, overtook the other trio about halfway up the slope. There he called a halt and the group huddled under the brow of one of the steps, as the finger of harsh white light from the rotating beacon passed silently over their heads. In muffled conversation, further developments in their scheme were outlined. Martin withdrew three bottles from his pack, also a carefully wrapped package of some white powdery substance. Actually, Marin had detected a white hair-like excrescence hanging from the exposed rock next to the stone wall where he had taken shelter. The cellophane outer cover of his tobacco package held just about all of the stuff he was able to retrieve. ---End of part one.

A Wonderful Poem by Ulrich Wendt

WHAT'S THAT ABOUT?

ONE

Rolling into Winnipeg in the evening from the east,
the sun going down like a disaster movie of the mind,
I have the old familiar feeling that something dreadful is about to happen,
and, as usual, nothing will for a long time:
the children are all right and the house is where we left it.

TWO

It’s true about the ripples in the dark water,
we’ve all made it, this self-conscious metaphor.
But the stone itself is a splash into nothing.
The stone sinks into nothing.

THREE

Over in the rail-yard, beyond the weeds, is a box-car bright with new graffiti.
What’s that about?

Get up in the middle of the night,
knapsack full of rattling spray-paint cans,
find a box-car loaded and ready to move. Important, that last bit,
or it just gets painted over.

Do you do it in the dark? Or are the yard-lights bright enough?
Anyway, some of it’s not bad. But why?

FOUR

Watch your work (if you timed it right) get coupled to an eastward train,
see it out of sight and what? Regret? It could have been the Sistine Chapel
if only there’d been time enough and talent?

Or maybe imagine the journey? Clickety-clacking slowly past the rusty ditches,
and the shiny penny-making Mint, through fields of geese and flax,
rolling faster now to penetrate the shield then mile on mile
of muskeg, rocks and trees, rolling far too quickly past the art-appreciating moose.

Then slowly running through Dinorwic (the only rail-town I remember)
where sharp-eyed boys put pennies on the track to make them bigger
and then more rocks and trees to reach the Lakehead, seaway and the world at last?
For what? To say I’m here, I count?

FIVE

We’re here, we count and maybe that’s enough
but the version I prefer has us huddled in a cave
with the First People out of Africa.

A wall is being daubed with grease and blood
as someone tries the colours in the feeble light;
then the fire is kicked and smudge-faced children let their eyes go big
as the sparks reveal the conscious shape of something strange and new
and all are lost in wonder as the fire dims again.

I Rescued a Human Today

Her eyes met mine as she walked down the corridor peering apprehensively into the kennels. I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her. I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn't be afraid.

As she stopped at my kennel I blocked her view from a little accident I had in the back of my cage. I didn't want her to know that I hadn't been walked today. Sometimes the shelter keepers get too busy and I didn't want her to think poorly of them.

As she read my kennel card I hoped that she wouldn't feel sad about my past. I only have the future to look forward to and want to make a difference in someone's life.

She got down on her knees and made little kissy sounds at me. I shoved my shoulder and side of my head up against the bars to comfort her. Gentle fingertips caressed my neck; she was desperate for companionship.

A tear fell down her cheek and I raised my paw to assure her that all would be well. Soon my kennel door pened and her smile was so bright that I instantly jumped into her arms. I would promise to keep her safe. I would promise to always be by her side. I would promise to do everything I could to see that radiant smile and sparkle in her eyes.

I was so fortunate that she came down my corridor. So many more are out there who haven't walked the corridors. So many more to be saved. At least I could save one.I rescued a human today
Cindy for New Hope Dog ResQ
December 2, 2008

2008 Fovourites

Writer and avid reader Laura Atkinson offers her best reads for 2008:
Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill
My Dream of You by Nuala O'Faolain .
Children of the Day by Sandra Birdsell
Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood

I did not read Lullabies for Little Criminals but it is on my list. Anything by the late great Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain is first rate. Most of her books are in Mary J.Black Library. I enjoyed Children of the Day by Manitoba writer Sandra Birdsell. Her novel, The Russlanders is one of my lifetime favourites. Moral Disorder by Atwood is a collection of her incomparable stories. I read the first story in the Guardian when I was in England. This story is a masterpiece and it alone makes the price of the book worthwhile.