Philip Caputo's Blog, page 15
May 24, 2014
CAGE THE CHEETAH
In the past thirty-odd years, the American economy has been dominated by the red-in-tooth-and-claw brand of capitalism. One business that had — until now — escaped the worst effects of unmuzzled free enterprise was the publishing industry, even though media conglomerates swallowed independent publishers and chain booksellers did to independent bookstores what HomeDepot has done to the neighborhood hardware store.
But now Amazon (how appropriate its name!) has brought jungle economics to all of us involved in the writing, publishing, and selling of books. Also to those of you who buy and read them.
Amazon’s corporate culture, as formulated by its CEO, Jeff Bezos, seems to be that of the zero-sum game: For me to win, you must lose. As reported in the May 24 editions of the New York Times, Bezos and his pride of digital predators are “holding books and authors hostage on two continents by delaying shipments and raising prices.”
Bezos himself has said that Amazon should go after vulnerable publishers “the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle.”
The gazelles at the moment are Hachette and the Bonnier Media Group in Germany. Hachette, owned by the French conglomerate, Lagardere, is the fourth largest publisher in the U.S., and Bonnier is one of the biggest media companies in Europe. Despite their size (sickly wildebeests maybe?) they are prey, and the Amazon cheetah is going for their throats. It’s delaying shipment of books by Hachette and Bonnier authors by as much as four to five weeks. In some cases, it’s making it altogether impossible for consumers to buy their books. In other cases, like that of a best-selling Hachette novelist I know, Amazon is encouraging its customers to buy novels similar to his from other publishers.
What Amazon is trying to do with such tactics is to corner the e-book market by extorting ever higher payments from traditional publishing houses. Those that don’t fork over what amounts to protection money, like the two aforementioned, get punished. (Vito Corleone pioneered this business model). If that means driving the publishers into bankruptcy, well, that’s life in the Darwinian world.
A friend of mine in the industry told me that at Amazon’s Seattle offices, “champagne parties are held whenever they hear that a competitor has gone out of business.”
If you want more details, here’s the link to the full Times story: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/amazon-escalates-its-battle-against-hachette/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=O.
“American literature will suffer if Amazon is allowed to get away with this,” said my industry friend. “Writers need traditional publishers to edit and market their books.”
In other words, without traditional publishers, in an environment monopolized by Amazon, writers will become mere “content providers,” their books just more stuff to peddle alongside T-shirts, CDs, kitchen gadgets, and whatever else is for sale in the online bazaar. And the book consumer will be at mercy of a monopoly power.
Tea Partiers keep whining and windging that too much government is intruding into our lives. How about too much corporate influence? I for one am sick of our lives being ruled by corporate mandarins who buy our politicians, break laws, and get off scot free. What concerns me is the possibility, maybe the likelihood, that after Amazon digests Hachette and Bonnier, it will run down my publishers (Henry Holt, a division of MacMillan) should they balk at Amazon’s demands. Then it might be my books suffering from delayed shipments, or worse. In fact, not long ago, Amazon briefly made trouble for MacMillan in a confrontation: the online retailer stripped the “buy” buttons from MacMillan books.
I don’t see a whole lot of difference between what Bezo’s Amazon is doing now and what John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil did a hundred years ago. A good case can be made that its actions violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. I urge the Author’s Guild, PEN, the American Society of Journalists, and other writers’ organizations to file an antitrust suit against Amazon.
Publishers, beginning with Hachette and Bonnier, should join the legal action. Meanwhile, they ought to form a united front and simply stop shipping titles to Amazon. Send them to independent bookstores, or to the two big remaining chains, Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million. They’d be delighted with the added business.
And I urge editors, book lovers, and my fellow writers everywhere to boycott Amazon. Don’t order books from the cheetah. Get off your duffs and away from your laptops and devices and go to your local bookstore. You might find it a pleasant experience to browse among physical books and talk to real human beings without having to give your user name and password. And if you want an E-reader, buy a Nook or Sony.
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May 13, 2014
THE LONGEST ROAD IN PAPERBACK
I’ve been thinking a lot about two questions I put to the eighty-odd people I interviewed on the trip: “What holds a country as vast and diverse as the United States together? What puts the unum in the pluribus?” And, “Do you think it’s holding together as well as it used to? Will it continue to?”
The answers were as many and varied as the people I asked. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts, if you care to give them.
Recently, I came across what purports to be an ancient Chinese proverb: A kingdom divided must unite; a kingdom united must divide.
There are powerful centrifugal forces at work in the world, ripping nations and societies apart. Syria and the Ukraine are two extreme examples. Could this contagion spread to the United States? I wonder if the stand off Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters staged with federal agents executing a legitimate order was a freak occurrence or a preview of coming attractions.
THE LONGEST ROAD OUT IN PAPERBACK.
With the paperback of The Longest Road launched today (May 13), it seems a good time for a little reflection.
I’ve been thinking a lot about two questions I put to the eighty-odd people I interviewed on the trip: “What holds a country as vast and diverse as the United States together? What puts the unum in the pluribus?” And, “Do you think it’s holding together as well as it used to? Will it continue to?”
The answers were as many and varied as the people I asked. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts, if you care to give them.
Recently, I came across what purports to be an ancient Chinese proverb: A kingdom divided must unite; a kingdom united must divide.
There are powerful centrifugal forces at work in the world, ripping nations and societies apart. Syria and the Ukraine are two extreme examples. Could this contagion spread to the United States? I wonder if the stand off Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters staged with federal agents executing a legitimate order was a freak occurrence or a preview of coming attractions.
The post THE LONGEST ROAD OUT IN PAPERBACK. appeared first on Philip Caputo.
January 29, 2014
REVIVALS
In the same vein, Lyons Press, a division of Globe-Pequot Publishers, will be reprinting In the Shadows of the Morning, my collection of essays and articles, later this year. This will be a deluxe, limited, autographed edition. To bring this off, I've had to sign my name to the endpapers, all 3,000 of them. With one exception, this is the most tedious task I've ever had to perform. The exception was my summer job in 1960, when I operated a drill press for the Electromotive division of General Motors. Eight hours a day for three months, I drilled holes in the pistons for diesel locomotives.
Further news: I was in Los Angeles from Jan.23-25 for two reasons. I was interviewed for a 10-part documentary on the Sixties that's being produced for CNN by Tom Hanks's company. I met Mr. Hanks for about 15 minutes before the interview, and found his off-screen self to be much the same as his on-screen self: he's thoughtful and immediately likeable. Second reason: I had meetings with executives from American Entertainment Investors, which has held the film option to my 2009 novel, Crossers, for the last four years. AEI is renewing the option for another year, and has brought in a top producer (whose name I'm not at liberty to disclose) who will be hiring a writer to do a screenplay, either for a feature film or a cable TV series. Many steps remain before this story is brought to the big screen or the small screen, so I'm not looking for ball gown for my wife to wear on awards night.
Speaking of awards, I wish to share with visitors to this site an L.A. moment. On Friday night, before a dinner meeting with one of the aforementioned executives, I was standing on the balcony of my room at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Century City. On the street below, a lone evangelical Christian marched up holding a sign that read "Repent or Perish!" while vans and limos by the dozen pulled up to the entrance. The Christian raised a bullhorn and bellowed, "Shame on the Hyatt for hosting these awards! Read your Bible, folks! The Bible says that he who lusts after a woman has committed adultery in his heart, and his reward shall be the lake of fire!" I rode the elevator to the lobby to find out what had roused his hellfire-and-brimstone ire. It turned out that the Hyatt was hosting an awards ceremony for porno films, the XAdult Awards Night, or something like that. I was greeted by the sight of many fit, handsome young men accompanied by stunning young women wearing 5-inch heels and 3-inch mini-dresses, some with breast jobs that made their bosoms protrude like the decks of aircraft carriers. Or should I say, Golden Globes? The guys' inches were not on display, but we may assume they approached double digits. Meanwhile, the Christian continued to warn of the torments that awaited the nominees in the next life. They were, however, unaffected by his message, appearing to have chosen to perish rather than repent. I don't know who won what. A note on cognitive dissonance in L.A., a city that is very health conscious, with signs posted outside restaurants: "No smoking within five feet of this establishment." Had any one of those young men or young women, who do you-know-what on camera, lit a cigarette, he or she would have been immediately arrested.
REVIVALS
The reissue of my 1996 crime novel, Equation for Evil, by Bourbon Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, comes out Tuesday, Feb.4. Please see my post of September 16, 2013, for a few more details.
In the same vein, Lyons Press, a division of Globe-Pequot Publishers, will be reprinting In the Shadows of the Morning, my collection of essays and articles, later this year. This will be a deluxe, limited, autographed edition. To bring this off, I’ve had to sign my name to the endpapers, all 3,000 of them. With one exception, this is the most tedious task I’ve ever had to perform. The exception was my summer job in 1960, when I operated a drill press for the Electromotive division of General Motors. Eight hours a day for three months, I drilled holes in the pistons for diesel locomotives.
Further news: I was in Los Angeles from Jan.23-25 for two reasons. I was interviewed for a 10-part documentary on the Sixties that’s being produced for CNN by Tom Hanks’s company. I met Mr. Hanks for about 15 minutes before the interview, and found his off-screen self to be much the same as his on-screen self: he’s thoughtful and immediately likeable. Second reason: I had meetings with executives from American Entertainment Investors, which has held the film option to my 2009 novel, Crossers, for the last four years. AEI is renewing the option for another year, and has brought in a top producer (whose name I’m not at liberty to disclose) who will be hiring a writer to do a screenplay, either for a feature film or a cable TV series. Many steps remain before this story is brought to the big screen or the small screen, so I’m not looking for ball gown for my wife to wear on awards night.
Speaking of awards, I wish to share with visitors to this site an L.A. moment. On Friday night, before a dinner meeting with one of the aforementioned executives, I was standing on the balcony of my room at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Century City. On the street below, a lone evangelical Christian marched up holding a sign that read “Repent or Perish!” while vans and limos by the dozen pulled up to the entrance. The Christian raised a bullhorn and bellowed, “Shame on the Hyatt for hosting these awards! Read your Bible, folks! The Bible says that he who lusts after a woman has committed adultery in his heart, and his reward shall be the lake of fire!” I rode the elevator to the lobby to find out what had roused his hellfire-and-brimstone ire. It turned out that the Hyatt was hosting an awards ceremony for porno films, the XAdult Awards Night, or something like that. I was greeted by the sight of many fit, handsome young men accompanied by stunning young women wearing 5-inch heels and 3-inch mini-dresses, some with breast jobs that made their bosoms protrude like the decks of aircraft carriers. Or should I say, Golden Globes? The guys’ inches were not on display, but we may assume they approached double digits. Meanwhile, the Christian continued to warn of the torments that awaited the nominees in the next life. They were, however, unaffected by his message, appearing to have chosen to perish rather than repent. I don’t know who won what. A note on cognitive dissonance in L.A., a city that is very health conscious, with signs posted outside restaurants: “No smoking within five feet of this establishment.” Had any one of those young men or young women, who do you-know-what on camera, lit a cigarette, he or she would have been immediately arrested.
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December 12, 2013
DON’T NEED A WEATHERMAN
I recently received this e-mail from a limo service I use for business travel. Another wave goodbye in the long goodbye to print journalism. So long to ink on your fingers, the crinkle and crackle and smell of newsprint paper, the thud of the Sunday edition hitting your front porch, he heft and tactile reality of a NEWSPAPER. Oh, this old school member of the hackpack will miss newspapers, as I still miss the clatter of city room typewriters, the urgent rattle of telexes sending dispatches from afar, editor’s cries of “Boy! Copy down!” Newsrooms today have all the romance of insurance offices. And the rumble of the presses as they ran the first edition! Back in the day, the 25-story Chicago Tribune Tower trembled like a mighty ship getting underway when those big presses cranked up to full speed.
Aside from the fact that we won’t be able to wrap fish in a tablet, we have to consider if, say, the Watergate scandal would have had the impact it did if it appeared on a small touch screen and could be deleted with the tap of a finger. Out of sight, out of mind. I’m sure books are next on the digital geeks’ hit list. So, goodbye to anything resembling permanence in written expression, hello to the transitory, the evanescent: the tweet, the instagram. Here is the e-mail (itself becoming as obsolete a means of communication as smoke signals):
Dear Valued Clients:
Effective January 1 we will no longer have newspapers in our vehicles unless otherwise requested. We have come to this decision for two reasons: first, we are unable to get newspapers until 5:30am and secondly, the majority of our customers view newspapers online and on tablets. Due to changing times, it seems newspapers are becoming obsolete.
If you wish to have newspapers for trips after 5:30am, please advise us and we will post to your profile.
Thank you for your understanding.
Very Truly,
Roy Spezzano
CEO
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November 25, 2013
TUCSON EVENT
This event took place on the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, almost exactly to the hour when Lee Harvey Oswald fired his mail-order rifle in Dallas, changing the course of history. That moment was in the back of my mind as I spoke and signed and answered questions from the audience. Like most Americans my age, I'd been swept up by the glamor of the Kennedy era -- the so-called Camelot -- and Kennedy's challenge to ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, was among the reasons I joined the U.S. Marine Corps. Unlike most Americans my age, I cannot remember what I was doing or where I was when I heard of his assassination. I know that I was living in a student apartment on Farwell Avenue on Chicago at the time, and that I was attending Loyola University, but that's all I can say. I may have been in class, walking across campus, or in my apartment. This lapse of memory embarrasses me, it seems almost shameful when the subject comes up in conversation and I hear someone recall in the minutest detail the moment when he or she heard the news.
TUSCON EVENT
It’s always gratifying for an author on a speaking tour to fill a ballroom. More than 300 people attended the Friends of Saddlebrooke Libraries luncheon in Tuscon, Arizona, where I spoke about The Longest Road and read excerpts from the book on Friday, Nov. 22d. Afterward, I signed about 100 copies of TLR, along with my novels, Acts of Faith and Crossers, and my Vietnam memoir, A Rumor of War. All very soothing to the writerly ego — one writes to be read, after all — but what was most gratifying was to see so many people turn out in support of libraries and the written word. Maybe the printed book and those who create them are not yet extinct species. I was introduced by Karen Shickendanz (maiden name Karen Daigle), who was a cub reporter with me on the Chicago Tribune in 1968. I credit Karen with launching my career. On my first day on the job, I was assigned to write an obituary, and froze at my typewriter (you of a certain age may remember that instrument) because, having had no formal journalism training, I had no idea how to write one. Karen, a graduate of the University of Missouri journalism school, walked me through it. I’ll always feel indebted to her. I might have been fired before I even got started.
This event took place on the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, almost exactly to the hour when Lee Harvey Oswald fired his mail-order rifle in Dallas, changing the course of history. That moment was in the back of my mind as I spoke and signed and answered questions from the audience. Like most Americans my age, I’d been swept up by the glamor of the Kennedy era — the so-called Camelot — and Kennedy’s challenge to ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, was among the reasons I joined the U.S. Marine Corps. Unlike most Americans my age, I cannot remember what I was doing or where I was when I heard of his assassination. I know that I was living in a student apartment on Farwell Avenue on Chicago at the time, and that I was attending Loyola University, but that’s all I can say. I may have been in class, walking across campus, or in my apartment. This lapse of memory embarrasses me, it seems almost shameful when the subject comes up in conversation and I hear someone recall in the minutest detail the moment when he or she heard the news.
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November 10, 2013
MY PERSONAL WALL, VETERANS DAY, 2013
Herewith, in memoriam, the names of comrades and the dates of their deaths. They are among the 14,844 Marines killed in Vietnam: LCPL. CARROLL FANKHAUSER 7/30/1965; PFC ROBERT FERNANDEZ, 5/20/1965; CPL. BRIAN GAUTHIER, 7/11/1965; LCPL. REYNALDO GUZMAN, 1/25/1966; 2dLT. WALTER LEVY, 9/18/1965; PFC CURTIS LOCKHART, 7/30/65; PFC PATRICK MANNING, 7/30/1965; LTCOL JOSEPH MUIR, 9/11/1965; PFC STEVEN PAGE, 1/25/1966; 2dLT. JAMES PARMALEE,7/14/1965; LCPL. KENNETH SEISSER, 7/11/1965; 1stLT. ADAM SIMPSON, 1/25/1966; PFC LONNIE SNOW, 7/30/1965; SGT. HUGH SULLIVAN, 6/15/1965; 1stLT BRUCE WARNER, 2/3/1966; SGT. WILLIAM WEST, 3/28/1966.
Heart, you were never hot/Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot/And though your hand be pale/Paler are all which trail/Your cross through flame and hail/Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.\
—Wilfred Owen, Killed in Action on the Western Front, Nov. 4, 1918.
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VIETNAM MARINES
And to fellow marines who fought in Vietnam: Let us remember that our war was the costliest, in terms of overall combat casualties, in our 238-year history: 101, 689 killed and wounded in battle, as compared with 87,940 in WWII.
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