Roy Miller's Blog, page 287
January 30, 2017
Google Needs To Toughen Up Its Stance on Copyright Protection
I recently received an email from Google asking my company to take part in Google Play. I’m sure I wasn’t the only publishing house to receive such an invitation. However, it led me to send a response about our relationship with Google in several different areas.
While discretion may be the better part of business sense, sometimes it’s hard to stand by and watch a big, powerful business take advantage of the industry you love. And Google has been damaging our industry by listing sites that offer pirated e-books in its search results. My email to Google follows:
“Hi, my name is Rudy Shur, and I am the publisher of Square One. A number of years ago, we did sign an agreement with [the Google Books Partner Program]. Oddly enough, we really never benefitted from this relationship—at least in the same way we benefitted from our relationships with our other e-book partners. While we never quite understood the problem, we saw no real advantage to working with Google.
What we did discover, however, was that Google has no problem allowing other e-book websites to illegally offer a number of our e-book titles, either free or at reduced rates, to anyone on the Internet. When we alerted Google, all we got back was an email telling us that Google has no responsibility and that it is up to us to contact these sites to tell them to stop giving away or selling our titles. Of course we did, but to no avail; somehow I believe that, to begin with, Google logically figured that would be their response.
It seems unconscionable to me that Google would allow the hijacking of copyrighted titles by these sites and actually feel no responsibility for this action, with the reasoning that this type of action on Google’s part would be tantamount to censorship.
Let me ask you something. If a store sells knockoff designer handbags, why is it okay for police to come in, confiscate the illegal merchandise, and arrest and fine the store owners? It’s because the store is profiting from the sales of these illegal goods, in the same way Google can increase its advertising rates because these illegal sites increase the number of users it attracts.
As a long-time publisher, I’ve been reasonably successful in this business; I also have always attempted to do everything right. That approach has allowed me to work with such companies and groups as Macy’s, the National Science Foundation, Corning Inc., and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, to mention just a few. If Google wants to really work with Square One, I would first ask Google to do the right thing as well. But based on the fact that it would rather hide behind the doctrine of noncensorship, Google doing the right thing doesn’t seem likely.
Because you are an employee of Google, I know this is not your doing; but as a publisher, I have to try to protect the work of my authors, and Google’s behavior does not make it easy.
Regards,
Rudy Shur
Square One
Having dealt with a number of representatives of very large companies who have no real voice in their business’s policies, I certainly understand if the recipient of my email chose to press the Delete key rather than pass it on to a supervisor. But I question why the largest e-book retailers, giant publishers, government officials, and courts essentially do the same thing by discounting the idea that copyrighted works need to be protected.
Now, don’t get me wrong. On many levels, I am a fan of Google’s breakthroughs and achievements, and, along with others, I greatly admire the many free services that Google provides. But I wonder how the good people at Google would feel if one of their patented parts or products were to be knocked off and either given away free or incorporated into a cheaper copycat item. Judging from the Wikipedia entry “Google Litigation,” it seems that the company has no problem going after those it has judged as infringing its patents. I wonder if any of the companies it has sued thought of initially responding to Google by sending the following email:
Since we have nothing to do with the actual infringement of your product, we share no responsibility in making it available to the public. Rather, we advise you to take the matter up with the engineering firm that makes the offending part. In the meantime, we will continue to sell the product until the firm stops offering it to us.
Unfortunately for the publishing industry, under Google’s sense of fairness, copyright protection is not equal to patent protection. It is highly doubtful that the email response I sent to the Google representative is going to make Google rethink its policies, but if enough of us raise our voices loud enough, maybe someone at Google will sit up and take notice.
Rudy Shur heads the editorial program of Square One Publishers in Garden City Park, N.Y.
A version of this article appeared in the 12/14/2015 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Is Google The Devil?
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Indie Booksellers Talk Shop, Discussion of Diversity Dominates
“There should be a 60 Minutes story about the surprising success of independent booksellers,” said author Ann Patchett, dropping a not-so-subtle hint to television journalist Lesley Stahl as part of the keynote presentation on the second day of the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute in Minneapolis this past weekend.
Patchett and Stahl, who bantered about their respective recent books Commonwealth and Becoming Grandma, surely could see from their dais the standing-room only crowd that packed the Hyatt hotel ballroom for their early morning talk. This year’s Winter Institute drew the largest crowed yet: 654 booksellers, of which 350 were first timers. In addition, 87 publishers signed on as sponsors.
The overall message coming out of the event is that independent bookselling is thriving, particularly in light of the decline in e-book sales, Barnes & Noble’s continuing stumbles and growing opportunities for community engagement.
Oren Teicher, CEO of ABA, addressing a constituency of booksellers from abroad — including Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, and elsewhere — noted that independent bookselling in the U.S. now accounts for approximately $500 million in sales annually. Individually, bookstores typically need to generate about $750,000 in annual sales before they become profitable,” he said, adding the “the sweet spot is at $1.2 to $1.5 million."
The ABA as a whole continues to focus its activities on streamlining operations at stores, and numerous panels and events throughout the weekend offered discussions of best practices, from how to brand your bookstore to setting up a children’s writing festival to fighting off Amazon. One panel, entitled The Life Cycle of a Book, brought together the author Elizabeth Strout, her agent Molly Friedrich, editor Susan Kamil and marketing executive Ruth Liebmann, both from Random House, as well as Pete Mulvihill of Green Apple Books in San Francisco, Ca, and Betsy Burton of The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, UT to talk about the production and promotion of Strout’s bestseller My Name is Lucy Barton. Perhaps the biggest revelation of the panel was the importance of the brief copy that will appear when a book buyer searches on a smart phone: “I spend hours working on that copy,” said Kamil, “the first 25 words of the online description of our books is what we pour over.”
Despite its focus on pragmatic matters, WI12 also served as a forum for discussing cultural politics. High on the agenda was the role of bookstores to serve as inclusive safe spaces in Trump’s America. This, acknowledged many, could only truly happen if the bookstores themselves became more inclusive of and reflective of the communities to which they might serves as havens: African-Americans, Asians, Muslims and other minority or marginalized groups.
Writer and activist Roxane Gay kicked off the discussion during WI12’s opening keynote speech by pointing out that most of the people in the room were white, as were many of the people she’d encountered on her book tours: “white women and the men who love them,” said Gay. Underscoring that “bookselling has a diversity problem,” and that it “is a problem seemingly without solution."
The speech served as a catalyst for several booksellers to take stands throughout the weekend, in panels and at the ABA’s Town Hall where booksellers made impassioned pleas for the ABA board to prioritize diversity as a topic. In response, ABA board president Betsy Burton announced on Monday morning that the ABA is forming a task force to address diversity. "We are an inclusive organization and we want to be diverse," she emphasized.
Among the 41 prospective booksellers in attendance at WI12, were a handful of booksellers from minority groups, including Noelle Santos, who is running a crowdfunding campaign to open The Lit. Bar, a new bookstore / wine bar in the Bronx, New York and spoke at the Town Hall. Another hopeful bookseller was Trenessa Williams, a college professor who is currently looking for a space to open an bookstore in Orlando, Fla. “It will be a general interest bookstore that will offer literature, history, travel books for the African-American community,” Williams told PW.
Asked about the conference’s reoccurring theme of diversity, Laura Taylor, owner of the Oxford Exchange bookstore in Tampa, Fla., told PW that it is an important conversation to have. “Hiring good booksellers — ones who know and can talk about books — is difficult.” She added that it's increasingly important to the success of any store to have a diverse staff. "Each year brings more and more great books, from Between the World and Me and The Association of Small Bombs, to Underground Railroad and Homegoing. In fact, I don’t have enough room to stock all of the books I want to. It’s a good problem to have.”
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WD Poetic Form Challenge: Clogyrnach
As of today, there’s still time to submit an entry for the diminishing verse challenge, but the window’s closing tomorrow night. So it’s time to get another challenge started up; this time for the clogyrnach.
Find the rules for writing clogyrnachs here. This Welsh form is fun to say, sure, but it’s also fun to write.
So start writing them and sharing here on the blog (this specific post) for a chance to be published in Writer’s Digest magazine–as part of the Poetic Asides column. (Note: You have to log in to the site to post comments/poems; creating an account is free.)
Here’s how the challenge works:
Challenge is free. No entry fee.
The winner (and sometimes a runner-up or two) will be featured in a future edition of Writer’s Digest magazine as part of the Poetic Asides column.
Deadline 11:59 p.m. (Atlanta, GA time) on March 15, 2017.
Poets can enter as many clogyrnachs as they wish. The more “work” you make for me the better, but remember: I’m judging on quality, not quantity.
All poems should be previously unpublished. If you have a specific question about your specific situation, just send me an e-mail at robert.brewer@fwmedia.com. Or just write new clogyrnach. They’re fun to write; I promise.
I will only consider clogyrnachs shared in the comments below. It gets too confusing for me to check other posts, go to other blogs, etc.
Speaking of posting, if this is your first time, your comment may not appear immediately. However, it should appear within a day (or 3–if shared on the weekend). So just hang tight, and it should appear eventually. If not, send me an e-mail at the address above.
Please include your name as you would like it to appear in print. If you don’t, I’ll be forced to use your user/screen name, which might be something like HaikuPrincess007 or MrLineBreaker. WD has a healthy circulation, so make it easy for me to get your byline correct.
Finally–and most importantly–be sure to have fun!
*****
The 2017 Poet’s Market, edited by Robert Lee Brewer, includes hundreds of poetry markets, including listings for poetry publications, publishers, contests, and more! With names, contact information, and submission tips, poets can find the right markets for their poetry and achieve more publication success than ever before.
In addition to the listings, there are articles on the craft, business, and promotion of poetry–so that poets can learn the ins and outs of writing poetry and seeking publication. Plus, it includes a one-year subscription to the poetry-related information on WritersMarket.com. All in all, it’s the best resource for poets looking to secure publication.
*****
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community, which means he maintains this blog, edits a couple Market Books (Poet’s Market and Writer’s Market), writes a poetry column for Writer’s Digest magazine, leads online education, speaks around the country on publishing and poetry, and a lot of other fun writing-related stuff. He’s also the author of the poetry collection Solving the World’s Problems.
Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.
*****
Find more poetic posts here:
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LitHub Daily: January 30, 2017
The Best of the Literary Internet, Every Day
More Story
Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan
Ruth was the first to open her eyes.
The throb of her hand had woken her, pulsing its way through her sleep. She breathed…
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Exaltation of Self
A new short story has been posted in my stories section. You can check it out here.
http://stories.wintercearig.com/2017/...
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How I Became A Romance Cover Model
It was 2007, and I had been a clothing and ad model for 10 years. The thrill was gone, for these sorts of shoots anyway, so one Friday night I went into a Barnes & Noble hoping to find a good self-help book to inspire me. I was looking for new and exciting things to do.
As I walked in, from the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a romance novel, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning—I was completely dialed in on this book. I looked it over in great detail. I especially noticed the look of the guy on the cover: he had a body that had obviously been through many rigorous workouts. He oozed confidence, yet the cover seemed almost angelic. I knew this was for me.
I decided right then that I would be a romance novel cover model—someone who would not just get on one or two covers but a lot of covers. I had it all pictured in my head: exactly the way it would all pan out. It was in my eyes, in my heart, and soon, it would become a part of my every workout. From this moment on, I wanted nothing more then to be a successful romance cover model.
The first thing I did was renew my gym membership. I knew I had work to do: good-bye waistline, hello abs! And forget Supercuts. I needed a great haircut, so I went on Yelp and found the hairstylist with the best reviews. Next I got a membership at a tanning salon, and, finally, I signed up for a monthly facial at a local spa. Hey, what’s the point of a hot body if there’s not a face to go with it?
After a few months, I was ready to begin my quest to locate the right people—the ones who could get me on these covers. I started with the authors of the books. I’d spend an hour or so every day in a bookstore writing down as many authors’ names as I could, then I’d go home and look the authors up online hoping to find an email address for them. If I found one, I’d ask if they knew whom I should contact about getting on their covers. I sent 100 emails; I got one back.
But one was all it took. The author’s name was Lisa Renee Jones. She asked me to send my photos over to the publisher and graphic artist. The shots of me, she said, resembled the hero of her next book. I sent them, and before long, I received an email from a cover artist named Aleta Rafton who lived near me. She asked me to let my facial hair grow out and to be at her studio in a few days for the shoot.
The shoot went amazingly well. Fast-forward several months later: I walk into a Barnes & Noble, and there I am on the cover of a novel—and the book is located in the exact same spot as that book I first saw! I bought the book, took it home, and must have stared at it for hours. It was really me on the cover. I wanted that thrill to continue.
After the high I got from landing my first cover, I was hooked—fixated, possessed almost—into landing more covers. And here I am today, 439 covers later, still enjoying being a romance novel cover model, just as much as I did the very first time. I feel fortunate to have a job that is so much fun.
Not that modeling for romance book covers doesn’t have its roadblocks. There were times when a shoot would take place but another model would get the cover instead. In the beginning, I didn’t understand this. I thought once you were booked, that was it, but in reality, you can’t celebrate until the book actually comes out. That took some getting used to for me. Another disappointment is when family and friends don’t share your enthusiasm for what you’re doing. But you have to accept that if they don’t appreciate your unconventional work, then so be it.
I had a set goal in mind when I began all of this: to match the record of the gold standard for cover models, Fabio, who’s been on 460 covers. I’m up to 439, and while ultimately I want to reach 500, getting to 461 would be a major step. And when that happens, I imagine Fabio patting me on the back and my having a feeling of real satisfaction with my work in the business.
And when my mission is accomplished, I plan to tear open bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Cups and eat a few hundred of them in a row, washed down with a cold Coors. Oh, what a feeling!
Jason Aaron Baca has appeared on more than 400 romance novel covers, including those of bestselling authors Lisa Renee Jones, Carly Phillips, and Karen Robards.
A version of this article appeared in the 12/21/2015 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Move Over, Fabio
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For Librarians, 2017 Is Off to a Rough Start
The 2017 ALA Midwinter Meeting, held Jan. 20-24 in Atlanta, had the lowest attendance of any Midwinter Meeting in 25 years. ALA officials reported that total attendance (including exhibitors, excluding comps) was 8,326—down substantially from the 11,716 who came to the 2016 event in Boston. The lackluster turnout follows on the heels of last June’s ALA Annual Conference in Orlando, which had the lowest attendance in 22 years.
The disappointing 2017 Midwinter Meeting numbers end a five-year trend of rising attendance at ALA Midwinter—although, in fairness, this year’s show faced considerable competition from the Women’s Marches held throughout the country on Saturday, January 21, including a march in Atlanta that many librarians participated in.
ALA hopes to rebound this summer, when the annual conference returns to ALA’s hometown of Chicago, which typically means a well-attended show. The 2018 ALA Midwinter Meeting is set for Denver, and there will also be a Public Library Association Meeting next year, set for March 20-24, 2018, in Philadelphia.
In addition to lagging attendance, uncertainty regarding the future of libraries under a Trump administration also hung over the show. A day before the conference opened, The Hill reported that Trump will seek to eliminate the National Endowments for the Humanities and the Arts. The NEH, which celebrated its 50th anniversary with a session at last year’s ALA Annual Conference, has awarded nearly 3,400 grants to libraries over the years, totaling $515 million, plus another 80 grants to the ALA, beginning in 1971.
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“Everything that’s happening right now in America, you’re on the front lines of that..."
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Most recently, the NEH funded the ALA’s Great Stories Club, a program that provides books to at-risk and underserved youth. Questions also loom regarding the future of other federal programs that support libraries, including the Institution of Museum and Library Services, which funds millions in grants to libraries nationwide, and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), an education bill that includes critical support for school libraries. Signed by Obama in December of 2015, ESSA is set to be implemented this fall, but the new administration could change that plan.
But librarians’ concerns about the new Trump administration run deeper than funding questions. Immediately following the 2016 election many librarians expressed concern that Trump’s campaign rhetoric breached some of the library community’s most fundamental values, including intellectual freedom, diversity, and social responsibility. In response, on Sunday, Jan. 22, ALA hosted a lively town hall meeting in Atlanta (a replay of which is available for viewing on the American Libraries Facebook page) in which more than 30 librarians shared their thoughts on the need for ALA leadership to strongly defend and advocate for the library’s core values, knowing that some of ALA's public positions will be seen as political and could, in the words of one librarian, “materially harm libraries,” especially those in the country’s more conservative regions.
Values were also the subject of the show’s opening keynote speech by W. Kamau Bell, whose memoir The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6’4”, African-American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Black, Proud, and Asthmatic Blerd, Mama’s Boy, B-Student, and Stand-Up Comedian, will be published in May by Dutton.
In his address, Bell, the popular podcaster and host of the CNN show United Shades of America, urged librarians to resist the “normalization” of Trump’s vision of America. “Everything that’s happening right now in America, you’re on the front lines of that,” Bell said. “You put books in people’s hands, and you have to make sure that the books you put in people’s hands reflect a wide array of ideas, and a wide array of authors, of diversity, of color, of sexuality, of gender orientation.”
Political uncertainty aside, books and authors were of course a major focus of the show, with a full slate of author talks, as well as signings on the show floor.
Among the highlights were the coveted Youth Media Awards, where Kelly Barnhill won the 2017 John Newbery Medal for The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Algonquin Young Readers) and Javaka Steptoe won the 2017 Randolph Caldecott Medal for Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (Little, Brown). Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis was in attendance in his home district, with co-authors Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell, to accept the 2017 Michael L. Printz Award for March: Book Three (Top Shelf).
On the adult side, the 2017 Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction were also announced. Colson Whitehead won fiction honors for The Underground Railroad, and Matthew Desmond won the nonfiction award for Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. The authors will accept the awards in June during an official ceremony at the ALA annual conference, in Chicago.
A version of this article appeared in the 01/30/2017 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline:
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Quressa Robinson of D4EO Literary
Reminder: New literary agents (with this spotlight featuring Quressa Robinson of D4EO Literary) are golden opportunities for new writers because each one is a literary agent who is likely building his or her client list.
About Quressa: Quressa Robinson joined the D4EO Literary Agency in 2016 and is actively building her client list. Quressa was an acquiring editor at St. Martin’s Press, where she edited both fiction and nonfiction. Her acquisitions include Certain Dark Things (a Publishers Weekly Fall Announcement Top 10 Pick and October B&N Staff Pick) and The Beautiful Ones—both by Locus, World Fantasy, Sunburst, and Aurora Award-nominated author Silvia Moreno-Garcia; Spells of Blood and Kin (which received a starred PW review) by Claire Humphrey; and The Atlas of Forgotten Places by Jenny D. Williams, among others.
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She is seeking: Science fiction/fantasy (including speculative/magical realism), nonfiction (celebrity, pop culture, pop science), upmarket and commercial women’s fiction, historical fiction, family sagas, contemporary young adult, and science fiction/fantasy young adult crossover. “I am particularly interested in OwnVoices and inclusive narratives. Genre bending is also great, i.e. epic fantasy romance or upmarket fantasy.”
How to submit: Send all queries to quressa@d4eo.com. Include the first fifty pages of your novel or full proposal and sample chapters as a Word attachment. If the submission is a simultaneous submission, please indicate that in your query. E-mail queries only.
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January 29, 2017
Porochista Khakpour: Portrait of the Artist as a Debut Novelist
The novel made it, but I didn’t.
Back at home, my parents’ home, which was to be my summer editing and writing retreat, I look at the box of pills. is isn’t me—Ambien, Ativan, Klonopin, Celexa, Trazodone. They are like names for weapons, an army of futuristic knives, jagged and unforgiving. They will get me a few hours of sleep that will keep me alive. I am terrified. My whole life is doctors and ERs and shrinks, and they all shake their heads when they hear the answer to their question, “Has anything traumatic happened in the last few months?”
Yes, I tell them.
“Traumatic means bad,” one doctor informs me.
They seem skeptical when I say I have a novel on the way, like
A washboard-stomached woman complaining about third trimester pains—just another part of the crazy talk, they must think. All they can recommend is shrinks, and I have four. I pay for the visits without insurance, in cash or with plastic gold. I collect cards, any card.
I have gone to post-book deal hell and all I got was this serious debt. But it’s an okay place to be. There are no surprises in debt.
The novel is out of my hands and in purgatory before entering the world. I love that phase: the middle of the road trip, someone else driving, seeing a world outside pass by, deftly escaping resignation to thoughts, assignment to words.
IV.
AN ACTUAL PORTRAIT OF THE YOUNG ARTIST
Spring 2007: I am in New York, taking my author photo. I have known the photographer for more than half my life. He asks to see what I’ve got. I open my bag and out comes dress after dress, silk organza, crêpe de chine, satin, Italian wool, all impeccably tailored black dresses, fit for a modern Contessa VP.
Dollar signs flap their wings through the photographer’s studio.
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We Regret to Inform You
Please send your submissions using this form. We read all submissions within 90 days and will contact you if we’re interested in publishing your material. There is no need to follow up via telephone or email if you’ve used our secure online form. You will receive a confirmation email that lets you know your submission has been received.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, you can assume we have declined, and you may submit your work elsewhere.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not call our offices. Please feel free to submit your material elsewhere.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not call our offices demanding an answer “right now.” The answer was the painful dead silence over the past 90 days. Sometimes silence speaks volumes, don’t you think?
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not email us and demand to know why your submission was not accepted. It is because your submission was bad. Just plain old bad. Bad, bad, bad. Please feel free to submit your material elsewhere, although we don’t really know who would accept it. It was terrible—truly, utterly awful. You should probably not even be a writer. You should probably rethink your life’s choices and goals.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not have your mother email us and tell us why we have made a huge mistake. There has been no mistake. We hated your submission.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not find the editor on Facebook and submit a friend request. Even if the editor does friend you, it does not mean that you are, in fact, really friends. (Don’t you know how Facebook works?)
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not find the editor on Twitter and retweet everything the editor has ever written. Please do not find the editor on Instagram and “like” everything the editor has ever posted. Please do not find the editor on Pinterest and repin all of his or her pins.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not come to our offices and wait in the lobby until the editor takes a break for lunch. The editor does not want to have lunch with you. Yes, we are sure you have lots more ideas, but, no, the editor does not want to hear about them.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not call the editor at home. The editor has a busy day of crushing people’s dreams during business hours and needs his or her downtime to relax.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not show up at the editor’s home and offer to cook dinner. Our editors do not want you to cook them dinner. I mean, yes, we do like chicken Parmesan, but, no, we do not want you to cook it for us in our kitchen. Yes, we are very sure your late grandmother’s recipe is delicious.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not rent the apartment next to the editor and try to be “neighborly.” The editors are New Yorkers and, accordingly, do not speak to their neighbors.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not get a job at the editor’s grandfather’s nursing home and just happen to bump into him on bingo night. This has happened before and almost never works.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not seek out the editor’s sister, date her, propose, and get married. This has happened before and almost never works.
If we do not get back to you within 90 days, please do not threaten to kidnap the editor’s parents. Like the United States, we do not negotiate with terrorists.
Brenda Janowitz is the author of The Dinner Party (St. Martin’s Griffin, April).
A version of this article appeared in the 01/04/2016 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: We Regret to Inform You
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