Lorina Stephens's Blog, page 64

On the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month

Why would Indigo sell Kobo?

News today that Indigo
has sold off its rising star and dark horse, Kobo, to the Japanese e-commerce
company Rakuten, came as a bit of a surprise to the publishing industry. During
the past year-long restructuring at Indigo we've seen:




the reduction of floor
space for books;


the decision to carry a
title only for 45 days before returning to the publisher (meaning the customer
only gets to see best-sellers and new releases);


the increase of
giftware;


the complete revamping
of its corporate image from the red, white and blue Chapters/Indigo to the blue
Indigo;
the shutting out of
small publishers.

One has to wonder if
Heather Reisman's vision isn't more about an upscale dollar store than about
books.





And given the
consistent reports of losses from Indigo (allegedly because of development
expenses related to Kobo), one has to wonder why Indigo would sell off what
appears to be a division poised for the greatest potential gain and growth, and
why they would do so for only US$315 million.



To my mind there is
only one likely answer: Indigo's cash-strapped.





I very much suspect in
the coming two years we're going to see Indigo closing the doors of their
smaller stores, particularly those under the Smith Books and Coles divisions,
which are primarily mall outlets. And I also suspect we're going to see stores under
the Indigo banner, with lower sales volume, such as those in smaller urban
centres and more northerly regions, quietly close.





What that's going to do
to the Canadian book buyer's world is create a vacuum, because back in the day
Heather Reisman went on her store buying spree, scores, perhaps even hundreds,
of independent booksellers locked and permanently left their doors.





So, now with
communities not serviced by a bookstore, more and more Canadian book lovers
will turn either to online purchasing (and you can bet more Canadians will turn
to the evil Amazon out of pique), or turn to eBooks.





For the indie
bookseller this is an enormous opportunity. But, as usually happens, the indie
bookseller, for the most part, is going to ignore that opportunity. Instead
they'll continue to grasp that long tail of publishing, waving the flag that
reads 'We've always done it this way!' On their way down to where the light don't
shine they'll continue to ignore the rise of small, indie publishers.



And with Indigo
declining, and indie bookstores declining, statistics about Canadian readers
are going to skew. We are, in fact, a very literate country. Just look at the
writers we produce.



Unfortunately, no one's going to realize there is a healthy
environment of book lovers in Canada.



But we will, quietly
and with determination, purchase those books in whatever form we can find them.





And small indie
publishers like Five Rivers will continue to find creative ways to bring our
books to market.

Barb Geiger joins Five Rivers

Barb Geiger

From our humble beginnings in 2006, we've now expanded to 11 authors, with 11 books presently published, 12 books in various stages of editing and revision, and another five in negotiation. You might say we've been a bit busy.



Robert Runte joined us as Editor in Chief three years ago. Earlier this year Amy Bright joined we happy few as an Editorial Intern.



We're now pleased to have Barb Geiger join us here at Five Rivers as another much-needed, and very welcome, Editorial Intern.



Barb, who is huge on enthusiasm and long on editorial acumen, has been critiquing and editing books for colleagues for over 15 years.



She enjoys any genre of literature, as long as it tells a tight story from beginning to end, and believes that while first drafts are perfect just for being complete, the editing process exposes the genius of the work.



Several of her short stories have been published, one winning an honourable mention in the Years Best Fantasy and Horror in 2006. She has several romance novels published under a pseudonym, but will take that name to her grave.



In 2010, she returned to writing fantasy, her first love.



Barb lives in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Bookseller Become Publisher

A colleague of mine commented on the recent announcements from both Kobo and Amazon morphing into publishers, 'What if Amazon gives preference to its own titles over
other publishers' titles in its distribution arm.'




In my opinion, given Amazon's enormous marketing capability, and
corporate culture of obfuscating facts, the potential to monopolize the entire
beast of publishing, not just the long tail, is something to monitor.




Kobo, it should
be noted, is the silent but powerful dark horse in all this. Amazon's reach is
limited to Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the UK.
Eight countries. Kobo is available in 26 countries, and their eReaders are
gaining distribution, which are now available in three countries. The beauty of
Kobo is that it's not a platform. Kobo is an eBook marketplace that happens to
develop several eReaders of its own. And now Kobo is also a publisher.




There are other
concerns for the small publisher in all of this as well. Amazon owns
CreateSpace, a POD facility Amazon snatched up several years ago. Earlier this
year many small publishers using Lightning Source (and thereby Ingram for
wholesale distribution), and the short discount system, found their titles
appearing on Amazon as Not In Stock (available in X days/weeks). This
precipitated several effects, of which the two most important were:



Many
small publishers dumped LSI and moved to CreateSpace so that their books would
be listed as available for immediate shipping, although they had to abandon the
short discount of 20%.

Those
who remained with LSI had to bump their short discount to the regular discount
of 55% in order for their titles to appear as being available for immediate
shipment, although availability seems to vary.




Bully tactics,
plain and simple. Use our POD services or we'll make it unattractive for
customers to purchase your book from us.



There's an old
saying: don't put your eggs in one basket. I think it very much applies to this
swiftly changing publishing industry.

Michael R. Fletcher signs debut novel with Five Rivers

In an agreement reached late last week, Toronto-based author, Michael R. Fletcher signed his first novel, entitled 88, with Five Rivers.



The novel deals with humanity's ever-growing need for intelligent machines. Though the dream of artificial intelligence lies dead, biological intelligence, once migrated to a more useful platform, has supplied the answer. Black-market crèches, struggling to meet increasing demand, deal in the harvested brains of stolen children. But there is a digital snake in that fractally modeled garden. Some brains make better computers than others.





88, a brilliant autistic boy, has been genetically engineered and raised from birth to serve one purpose: become a human computer. Unfortunately no one told him that. Plagued by distant memories of a mother he never knew and a desire for freedom he barely understands, he sets himself against those who would be his masters. 88's struggle for independence has caught the attention of the powers that be.





Griffin Dickinson, a Special Investigator for the North American Trade Union, is pulled from his cosy desk job and sent into the field to shut-down a black-market crèche. Teamed with a state-sanctioned reporter and a combat chassis inhabited by the depressed ghost of a dead marine, Griffin digs further into the shadowy world of brain harvesting. Every lead brings him one step closer to an age-old truth: corruption runs
deep.




[image error]
Michael R. Fletcher

Michael R. Fletcher lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter. He spends his days entertaining a one year-old and his nights in dingy rock-clubs making loud things louder. Occasionally he records bands in dark, spider-infested basements. Somewhere between playing peekaboo and going deaf he finds time to write. His short fiction can be found in Interzone, On Spec, Daily Science Fiction, and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. He is currently working on his second book, a dark fantasy novel of manifest delusion, and thinking about a sequel to 88.



88 is scheduled for release late in 2013 in both print and digital formats.

[image error]

Five Rivers to launch E-scapes

We're launching a new eBook only imprint, which will

feature short, entertaining
works both fiction and non-fiction, from 20,000 to 80,000 words.



And we're calling the imprint:









The concept is to capture the
commuter and mobile market with quick, easy to read stories, from purely
commercial fiction (romance, SF&F, thriller, horror, historical, suspense,
but most definitely not porn), to self-help, biographies and the eccentric
overview of an arcane subject.






We'll be paying a royalty of
50% on net, to equalize the profit share a little better, paid in our usual
quarterly statements by the 30th of the month following the close of
the calendar quarter.





It goes without saying all
manuscripts will have the scrutiny of one of our brilliant editors.





So, if you have that
manuscript languishing in the bottom drawer because it's too short and
publishers are generally not interested, pitch us a pitch. If you have a
colleague or friend who has that manuscript languishing in the bottom drawer
because it's too short and publishers are generally not interested, have them
pitch us a pitch. Just be sure to put in the subject header of the email,
E-SCAPES.





Format should be:





·        
DOC or RTF format,





·        
Times New Roman 12 pt typeface, double-spaced, 1"
margins. Do not under any circumstances use any of Word's built-in formatting
for chapters, headers, etc. We will only strip it out, and having to do so will
make us cranky. And please set your spelling preference for English Canadian if
at all possible.





·        
Be sure to include your full (real) name, mailing
address, email address, date of birth and SIN in your query letter. Doing so
will make it easier when we offer you a contract and pay you royalties.





Look forward to hearing from
you!

[image error]

Common Errors in Fiction Manuscripts, Part 9

Formatting the manuscript



So now you've edited and honed your
manuscript into the best possible work you can. And you're ready to submit.





Here at Five Rivers we're big on less is
more. So, pay attention to our submission requirements, which are:






email only, no hard copy submissions


DOC or RTF format


Times New Roman 12 point typeface


double-spaced


1" margins



Do not under any circumstances use any
of Word's built-in formatting for chapters, headers, etc. We will only strip it
out, and having to do so will make us cranky. It's not nice to make us cranky.





Now go forth, write a glorious work!





Comments? Questions? We'd love to hear
from you.

[image error]

Common Errors in Fiction Manuscripts, Part 8

Punctuation Issues: use of single quotes, double quotes and italics, 5R house style, dialogue, proper suffix for adverbs



Quotation marks and italics





I'm going to delve into purely Five
Rivers house style. We have an aversion here to the overuse of quotation marks
and italics to create emphasis on a word. If you've written your sentence or
scene well, emphasis will be implied without any additional gimmick by way of
quotation marks or italics. Again the rule, less is more, should apply.





If, however, it is necessary to set a
word off in quotes, as in a nickname (Leo 'The Hammer' Porter), the nickname
should be set off in single quotes, not double. Double quotes, at least in
Canada and most especially in Five Rivers' world, are reserved for dialogue,
i.e. "Where are you going?" asked Diane 'Dix' Peters.





As to punctuation, some of the common
errors we see are:





Over use and misuse of ellipsis.
Ellipsis should only be used for a trailing thought or incomplete sentence;
three in the middle of a sentence, four at the end where the fourth indicates a
period. If in dialogue you mean to indicate an interruption, an em dash is
appropriate:





"Where are you—"





"Don't even ask!"





Dialogue





Too often we see stilted, unnatural
dialogue that is poorly punctuated. For example:





He thought about asking her where she
was going. "Where are you going Diedre?" he whined, gritting his teeth.





She leered, "Peter don't even ask!" She
tossed her head. "It's none of your business anyway."





Revised to eliminate all the silliness
and bad writing:





"Where are you going, Diedre? he asked,
wincing at the whine in his voice.





"Don't even ask, Peter. It's none of
your business."





You will notice we've indicated Peter's
discomfort through the fact he's uncomfortable with the sound of his own voice,
as well as saved him a fortune in dental bills. And Diedre's anger is fully
implied, without the need of her attempting to leer something (you can't leer
dialogue), and without the need of the removal of her head so she can toss it.





Proper suffix for adverbs





Call us old fashioned, but we like our
adverbs to end in 'ly'. Why? Because that's how you know it's an adverb. It's
like being able to tell the difference between a boy child and a girl child.
You know it's an adverb, not a verb, because of that tail, that 'ly'.





So, you don't go down the street slow.
You go down the street slowly.





You don't tell someone to go safe. You
tell them to go safely.





You don't go up the stairs quiet. You go
up the stairs quietly, hoping the treads don't creak and alert the maniac with
the knife at the top of the stairs, who will quickly kill you.





Make a song out of the adverb suffix:
ly, ly, ly, ly-oah-le-ly, I will sing this song so sweetly.





Comments? Questions? We'd love to hear
from you.

Common Errors in Fiction Manuscripts, Part 7

Overdone Dystopia





While we're dealing with speculative and
science fiction, I'm going to deal with overdone dystopia in SF literature.
Just as the evening news focuses on catastrophe, so does SF literature focus on
a future that's gone to fiery regions in a wicker contraption. In fact dystopia
has become so common in SF that it's simply an accepted scenario. We're all
going to wear gas masks. It's always going to rain. Crime rules. Conscience
fled on the arm of Hope and humanity is more cyborg than biological.





Although there is still an audience for
this type of literature (and as long as male adolescent geeks exist, so will
this literature), it would be refreshing to find a writer who dares to push the
boundaries of SF and go where the greats of the Golden Age dared venture – into
new territory.





So, global warming is a fact. Instead of
writing about a devolved world, however, why not write about an adapted world?
What if coastal cities became canal cities and transportation was via overhead
rapid transit rail and canal boats powered by wind and solar? What if high-density
housing developed into a version of the hanging gardens of Babylon?





Now that could be fascinating reading.





Comments? Questions? We'd love to hear
from you.

Common Errors in Fiction Manuscripts, Part 6

Less is More



Sex/love scenes





We either see sex scenes that belong in
an issue of Hustler, explicit in detail and street language, or love scenes
reminiscent of saccharine romances. It's rare to find a debut manuscript that
handles erotica of any kind with a deft hand and subtle impact. Here, at Five
Rivers, we usually opt for the mantra: less is more, and that applies as much or
more to scenes of sexuality. Every action requires justification: does this
advance the plot? Does this develop character? Does this sustain tension?





Kitsch techie phrases and neologisms in
SF





One of my dislikes in SF is the
perceived requirement to invent catchy phrases to describe new technologies, countries,
and environments. Doing so is fine to a point, but when neologisms become a
flood, all the author has succeeded in doing is alienating the reader. It's not
clever. It's not cutting edge. It's just bad writing.





For example, our hero John is running
through a space station and holds up his wrist to shout into his percom. I stop
and reread that word. Percom. All action halts because I have to process that
word, extrapolate meaning. Per/com. Per = personal? Com = communicator?
Personal communicator? I then scan a few other phrases around the neologism to
see if that translation fits in context. Yes. But what's wrong with that is my
attention's arrested. The tension you as the author created has broken. Lost
opportunity = ineffectual writing.





If you're creating a new concept or
technology, work from the known to the unknown. We already have cell phones,
blue tooth headsets. Do a little research (ah yes, that research thing again)
and see where the innovative developers are going with personal communication
devices, and then allow your imagination free rein within the parameters of
logical science and effect a likely evolution both of technology and name.





I recently read one example of a
neologism gone awry in Peter Watts' Maelstrom. Now, agreed, I'm venturing into
hallowed territory here, let alone the area where angels occupy the heads of
pins. Having said that, Watts creates a spy drone called a botfly.





Now, in the real world, my knowledge of
a botfly is a parasitic fly whose larvae burrow under the skin to complete
their pupating. So, when I read about Watts' botfly, it took a moment for me to
dismiss the parasitic creature, and extrapolate meaning through the syllables
of the neologism. i.e. bot and fly. Bot = robot or drone. Fly = literal action,
i.e. the drone can fly.





So, one has to ask, why not simply use
the term drone? It is an already established piece of military hardware, often
used for surveillance. And by doing so you quickly establish meaning and
maintain the rapid-fire tension of the plot.





Comments? Questions? We'd love to hear
from you.

[image error]