SOME PUBLISHING TRENDS

For the entire article go to: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6516743.html
While trends cited were for 2008, most of the items listed will, in our opinion, carry over into 2009 and beyond.

"The popularity of e-books will increase, with titles formatted for Amazon’s Kindle leading the way. Content for the Sony Reader will sell faster than ever, but by this time next year, Kindle-compatible books will be outselling them by more than 2 to 1...e-books will still make up a tiny share of the market—no more than 2% of sales for most titles—and will contribute only a minimal amount to publishers’ bottom lines.

Publishers will start acquiring specialized Web sites to get content for their books and to target niche audiences. By year-end, every major publisher will need to have an understanding of how to put a value on Web sites...

Although overall sales will remain paltry, increased activity by publishers selling direct to consumers from their Web sites, particularly digital downloads, will lead to “read and listen” bundles of e-books and digital audio and other pricing experiments...

Publishers will push harder to publicize books through the Internet channels as print and broadcast media continue to lose audience to the Web, in particular subject-specific sites."

Mike Shatzkin is founder & CEO of the Idea Logical Company (www.idealog.com) and has been speaking, writing and advising on digital change in publishing for nearly two decades.

WOMEN IN AN ISLAMIC CULTURE

THE PUNJABI'S WIFE is a great read for those interested in the plight of women living in an Islamic culture. This true story is revealing to those who have any doubts that Muslim woman are not treated as second class citizens.

During changing American social conditions in 1968, a naïve nineteen year old Midwestern girl marries an older Pakistani man and moves to Lahore where she lives as a Muslim wife for almost two years. This young girl does not realize that her new husband married her to gain American citizenship and return to the United States. Her life in Pakistan is filled with adventures shopping bazaars, dancing girls, an Islamic red light district, historical Moghal architecture and social turmoil. Slowly these Pakistani real life experience begin to teach this girl how Muslims control and mistreat their women. The danger of fanatic Shiite religious practices and exciting road travel are all balanced with her status as a blond American woman in a foreign land at the mercy of her Muslim husband. This true story unveils an informed observation of Muslim women’s status in Pakistani society. The Punjabi’s Wife is a book that asserts itself as a true American odyssey, a brave young woman’s adventure story and lessons for western women contemplating relationships with any Muslim man.

FROM THE eBOOK GURU

E-Publishing Tips – Submitting Your Manuscript the Right Way

With the last feature I wrote on e-Publishing a couple of questions came up a number of times. These questions came up both in the comments of the last article, and in my inbox. As always we’re here to help, and today we are answering your questions. The questions were:

Do you know of an e-Publisher that will publish poetry anthologies?

What should I do to get my manuscript ready to submit?

David Barber referred me to All Things that Matter Press as one e-Publisher that puts out great poetry eBooks (they do a lot more than that, but we’ll get to that). Phil, the editor from All Things that Matter, was kind enough to answer my questions so that I could share his insight and answer the other question for you.

My original intention when I interviewed Phil was to use the information he provided me to create an article on the topic. In this case though, his answers are very well written, and I don’t think I could possibly say it any better than he did himself. With that said here are the results of my query with All Things that Matter Press.

The email Interview with Phil from All Things that Matter Press:

What is All Things That Matters Press, and what types of work do you publish?

ALL THINGS THAT MATTER PRESS is a new, small press. Our goal is to help authors, new and established, get their books published and into the marketplace. There are no fees or costs to the author. We look primarily for authors with a ‘message’ who have something they would like to say to the reading public. We are pretty much open on genre, and we have published poetry, science fiction, young adult, non-fiction, and even a romance. We do not want to see ‘formula’ type books or those that are just for mindless mass appeal. If the author has something really important to say about the world we all inhabit, we will take a look. We do not do children’s books, books with a strong religious bias (Christian lit), chick lit, or any books that promote violence, hatred or pornography. We really like spiritual self-growth/transformation titles and those stories (including poetry) that reach out to the soul and touch the heart.

What do you look for the most when a new author submits a manuscript to you for publishing?

What impresses us the most is if the author seems really excited about their book. Even if the manuscript is submitted elsewhere, they have taken the time to gear their letter to us. It is not that we want the author to tell us how great their book may be, but rather they present a tone that says “I have something really important to say to the world and I have done my best to put it into words.” It is also crucial that the author follows the submission guidelines and appears to have read our web site. A turn off is when someone asks questions that are ‘clearly’ posted on our web page. We also have received emails that start out saying something like, “Before I send my manuscript you need to answer these questions.” Well, while we do not at all mind answering questions, an attitude that our press may not be worthy of their submission is not the best way to start. So if an author sends a submission that shows excitement and clearly demonstrates they are attuned to who we are as a publisher, the door opens a bit wider.

What are your suggestions to those new authors when preparing their manuscript for submission?

You would be amazed at how many authors have not even done a simple spelling and grammar check. I saw a post on a web site where they were all upset that we wanted the manuscript to be edited prior to submission. Go to any publisher’s site and count the times you see the word “edit.” Go to any book marketing site or read any article on how to submit a manuscript; lack of ‘editing’ is top on the list of major mistakes that an author makes. We even get queries with typos. If an author does not take the time to do editing of their own work then any publisher will question that author’s commitment to their project. Does this mean that the ms must be perfect? No. We edit all books that we publish for both mechanics and content (consistency, time lines, etc.). No editing is perfect as there are many way to say the same thing, and even grammar is not really an exact science. We always send a ‘redlined’ edit to the author for review and approval. Finally, it is important that a submission be sent in the format required by the publisher. Each publisher is different so if the author has not made the effort to follow simple submission formats they are not starting off on the right foot.

FOR THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW GO TO:

http://www.ebookguru.org/index.php/2009/01/e-publishing-tips-%E2%80%93-submitting-your-manuscript-the-right-way/

BOOKS UNBOUND

The following excerpts are from an article in Time Magazine dated 1/21/09. The url for the article is at the end of this post. It is a must read! This is one of the growing reasons why ALL THINGS THAT MATTER PRESS is focusing its efforts on internet marketing and not 'brick and mortar" stores.

"Fast-forward to the early 21st century: the publishing industry is in distress. Publishing houses--among them Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Doubleday and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt--are laying off staff left and right. Random House is in the midst of a drastic reorganization. Salaries are frozen across the industry. Whispers of bankruptcy are fluttering around Borders; Barnes & Noble just cut 100 jobs at its headquarters, a measure unprecedented in the company's history. Publishers Weekly (PW) predicts that 2009 will be "the worst year for publishing in decades." A lot of headlines and blogs to the contrary, publishing isn't dying. But it is evolving, and so radically that we may hardly recognize it when it's done. Literature interprets the world, but it's also shaped by that world, and we're living through one of the greatest economic and technological transformations since--well, since the early 18th century... If you think about it, shipping physical books back and forth across the country is starting to seem pretty 20th century. Novels are getting restless, shrugging off their expensive papery husks and transmigrating digitally into other forms. Devices like the Sony Reader and Amazon's Kindle have gained devoted followings. Google has scanned more than 7 million books into its online database; the plan is to scan them all, every single one, within 10 years.

And what will that fiction look like? Like fan fiction, it will be ravenously referential and intertextual in ways that will strain copyright law to the breaking point. Novels will get longer--electronic books aren't bound by physical constraints--and they'll be patchable and updatable, like software. We'll see more novels doled out episodically, on the model of TV series or, for that matter, the serial novels of the 19th century. We can expect a literary culture of pleasure and immediate gratification. Reading on a screen speeds you up: you don't linger on the language; you just click through. We'll see less modernist-style difficulty and more romance-novel-style sentiment and high-speed-narrative throughput. Novels will compete to hook you in the first paragraph and then hang on for dear life.

None of this is good or bad; it just is."
For the complete article go to: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1873122-2,00.html

USING "I," GUEST BLOG

Using "I" As a Conceit

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success

I don't know when I learned the word "conceited." I was raised in Utah where most of us didn't use "conceit" in the sense of an elaborate or strained metaphor but rather to mean that someone thought they were extra-super special. The little girl across the street who snubbed me because I didn't wear long stockings with garters (which was an immediate tipoff that I was not her kind) was "conceited" rather than prejudiced. The kid who was quick to make a point of how bright he was when I made a mistake was "conceited" rather than arrogant (or insecure). Gawd! I loved the word "conceited." I could apply it to so many situations and avoid learning new vocabulary words.

Of course, in a culture where being extra-super humble was valued, I soon noticed that our English language is, indeed, "conceited."

I'm speaking of the way we capitalize the pronoun "I." None of the other pronouns are capped. So what about this "I," standing tall no matter where you find it in a sentence?

Recently as I tutored students in accent reduction and American culture I noticed that some languages (like Japanese) seem to do quite well without pronouns of any sort. I did a little research. Some languages like Hebrew and Arabic, don't capitalize any of their letters and some, like German, capitalize every darn noun. So, English—a Germanic language at its roots—just carried on the German proclivity for caps.

But the question remained. Why only the "I?" Why not "them" and "you" and all the others. Caroline Winter, a 2008 Fulbright scholar, says "England was where the capital "I" first reared its dotless head . . . .Apparently someone back then decided that just "i" after it had been diminished from the original Germanic 'ich' was not substantial enough to stand alone." It had to do with an artistic approach to fonts. The story goes that long ago in the days of handset type or even teletype machines little sticks and dots standing all alone looked like broken bits of lead or scrappy orphan letters.

Then there is the idea that religion played a part in capitalizing the "I." Rastafarians (and some others, too) think in terms of humankind as being one with God and therefore—one has to presume—it would be rather blasphemous not to capitalize "I" just as one does "God." Capitals, after all, are a way to honor a word or concept.

Which, of course, brings us back to the idea that we speakers of English are just plain "conceited."

------

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is an instructor for UCLA Extension's world-renown Writers' Program, and author of the HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers including The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. It is a USA Book News award-winner as well as the winner of the Reader View's Literary Award and a finalist in the New Generation Book Awards. She is the recipient of both the California Legislature's Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award and is a popular speaker and actor. Her website is www.HowToDoItFrugally.com.

CONVERSATIONS WITH EDITORS

This notice is re-printed with permission from a post on WelcometoReadersStation@yahoogroups.com

A great group for authors to join!

Below is the link to a pre-recorded "Conversation with Editors"
Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Yvonne Perry, which covers some of the
common mistakes writers make and how to correct them. We have also
provided helpful tips for impressing a publisher with your query
letter.

Carolyn is an editor and author of The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best
Book Forward To Avoid Humiliation And Ensure Success (How to Do It
Frugally). Yvonne is a full-time freelance ghostwriter and editor,
and the owner of Writers in the Sky Creative Writing Services.

Here are some of the things we have addressed in the podcast:

Writing title and header case
Is a book titled or entitled?
When to use all caps
How many spaces between sentences?
Serial Commas
Writing for Decades
Hyphenating
Internet and Web site
Using Em and En Dashes
Overuse of That
Writing Dialog
Writing Numbers

Listen to the audio here…

http://yvonneperry. blogspot. com/2008/ 12/do-you- have-questions- about-
editing.html

NEWS FROM PUBLISHERS LUNCH

Another Indie Icon Lost: Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops to Close

The Milwaukee-based group of four independent bookstores will close at the end of March after 82 years in business, president Carol Grossmeyer announced on Sunday. General manager Daniel Goldin is buying the store on Downer Avenue, which will be named Boswell Book Company. And Lanora Hurley, manager of the store in Mequon, "is in discussions" to acquire that location, which she would rename Next Chapter Bookshop, the Milwaukee Sentinel reports.

Grossmeyer told the newspaper, "This has been the most emotional six months of my life, and now it's culminating in a decision that was coming for a while. You want to hold onto the bookshops. It feels so much like the fabric of the community. . . . But we really believe that the multiple-store model that we had become, and that had worked so well for us in the 1980s and 1990s, is not feasible anymore." She indicated that sales at the company fell 17 percent in 2008 "on top of a substantial decline the year before."

Goldin says, "I am very excited, though a little sad, too, that Schwartz is closing. This is a very interesting time to be a book retailer. We know there's a lot of change coming, and I feel that you sort of need to start from scratch to do all the things you need to do to make a retailer work.

"I want to be a community destination. I want to work with local groups and I want to keep our reputation for good author events. I'm going to try to be as clever as possible to get the authors to come. . . . And I plan to work with a lot of Shorewood folk, too. I love the Shorewood customers. I've worked there a lot."
Sentinel

Comment: This scenario is being played out across the country. Independent book stores have been a major market for emerging authors but that well is drying up. But as one door closes, another opens. The internet is the future of books. Regardless of the weather or time of day, you can go on-line and order the latest release and have it in a few days. If you like to read on a screen, you can get your book instantly. Okay, it is not like spending a lazy afternoon browsing book shelves, but it is the direction the industry is taking.