Richard Harris's Blog, page 57

Why Do You Buy the Books You Do?

So Tara Sparling has a cool little blog on WordPress and she recently posted on an interesting subject for all self-published authors: What factors influenced readers most when buying a book, especially a self-published one?

Traditionally, big publishers (who were all in big bookstores before the advent of the Internet) would have tended to say cover design and title.

Today, it would seem, things have changed a little. A sample of the book (maybe a few pages), its cover and a short blurb (perhaps a few sentences) tend to lure the majority of her sample pool. And while reviews still have an important influence on buying patterns, the rise of social media has allowed Facebook, Twitter and blogs to also play a role in shaping purchasing habits.

For the full post, complete with impressive charts and graphs, click here.

Reading from a Book vs. Reading off a Screen

 

Does it make a difference whether you’re reading something in a physical book or from a computer screen? Will it affect your ability to retain information if you scroll down your smartphone/tablet/computer screen or flip a page made of a substance made from wood pulp, rags, straw, or other fibrous material, usually in thin sheets, and used to bear writing or printing (otherwise known as paper)?

The answer in both cases, according to an article published online in The New Yorker on July 16, is both yes and no.

Traditionalists like me swear by the almighty book, especially for pleasure reading. Although some evidence points to people being able to retain information more effectively from a book, recent studies have shown that with the proper training, people can recall important facts from a screen just as well.

Click here to read the full article in The New Yorker.

The Secret to a Successful Day, Ben Franklin Style

 

Who would have thought me and good ol’ Benny F. had anything in common. Not I, says I.

When I first read this piece on The Good Men Project site, I couldn’t help but chuckle and chortle. More often than not, when people ask about my “writing,” they don’t ask about the content as much as they do about the routine. People are fascinated that I wake up at 5 a.m. (sometimes earlier) and head straight to a coffee shop (sadly, not on the Left Bank, though within spitting distance of the world-famous TTC!). I tend to write creatively until around lunchtime, unless I have an emergency problem to deal with concerning a corporate client. Which tends to happen frequently. Like, once a day. Maybe more. You know, because what would happen if a sentence weren’t translated or edited in the next five minutes? The world would obviously self-immolate.

Before the “Hundred-Dollar Man” and the rest of the world had heard of terms like “circadian rhythm,” which was only coined in the late 1950s, he knew the score when it came to peak cognitive abilities, something outlined in this WSJ article. As for writing, I can back up what other, more famous, more prolific authors such as Stephen King and Murakami Haruki have said countless times: wake up at an ungodly hour and get cracking.

It’s true. If you want to achieve your best creative work, get out of bed super-duper early and bear witness to how much more productive (and awesomely awesomer) you are. You might be hurts for the first week or so as your body adjusts to this new sleep schedule, but I can assure you that at the end of the day you’ll be grateful for the lifestyle change and pat yourself on the back.

Read the full article here at TGMP.

 

Books Are Sexy (conversation starters)!

Congratulations to Terry Fallis, whose most recent novel, No Relation, made the Huff Po’s “9 Books That Will Start Conversations With Strangers” list. Not only is Terry a genuinely great guy, but he has quickly become to fiction what Rick Mercer is to TV. His keen, unwavering eye for satire and the ironic has vaulted him into unique company. Terry, good on ya, eh!

In the spirit of this same theme, I have decided to put together my own list of 9 books which could potentially be great conversation starters with people you don’t know while travelling or just hanging out in a public place. Should you wish to read the real Huffington Post article and its 9 selections, click here.

RICHARD’S LIST

(NOTE: All of these books are real and have been published.)

1. The Best Laid Plans (Terry Fallis)

M1: Hey, does that book really teach you how to get laid?

M2: …

M1: You think you could borrow it to me, dude?

M2: Sure…you are literate, though…aren’t you?

2. Quilt in a Day: Still Stripping after 25 Years (Eleanor Burns)

M: How’s the book?

W: So enlightening! I can’t believe the author’s been doing this for 25 years and her hands are still so nimble.

M: Well, you know what they say: you can quilt for a day or strip for a lifetime.

3. Why Cats Paint: A Theory of Feline Aesthetics (Heather Busch & Burton Silver)

M: Wow, looks like a really interesting book. Do you have any cats?

W: Does the Pope shit in the woods?

M: I think it’s a bear that–

W: I actually run a cat farm and séance service up at my abandoned farm. You should drop by. It’s only a short flight north of Timmins.

4.War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)

M: God, I hate how the Russians are so indecisive.

W: What do you mean?

M: Well, is it war or peace? Only Messrs Tolstoy and Putin could fool themselves into thinking the two can coexist simultaneously.

5. are women human? And Other International Dialogues (Catharine A. MacKinnon)

W: What the f*&@ are you reading?

M: Me? Well, I’ve been curious about this question for years.

W: Seriously? Seriously! Were you raised in a f&*#@$% cave with wolves and other assorted brain-dead animals?

M: No, no. Think about it. The word “human” doesn’t contain the word “women” in it, right? Right?

6. The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice (Christopher Hitchens)

M1: How’s the book?

M2: Pretty sweetass. Mama T really knew how to throw out a Hail Mary.

M1: Nice. What exactly was her missionary position?

M2: I think it was a little left of centre, but don’t quote me on that.

7. Castration: The Advantages and the Disadvantages (Victor T. Cheney)

W: I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help noticing your book title. Are there really advantages to…you know…

M: (laughing confidently) Wow. You’re stupid!

W: Excuse me?

M: (shakes head) You’re excused. But let me tell you, get yourself a healthy eunuch and you’ll never go back to the other team.

8. What’s Your Poo Telling You? (Josh Richman and Anish Sheth, M.D.)

M: I don’t mean to be too forward, but may I ask what your poo is telling you?

W: Funny you should ask. Just last night it told me to quit my job, move to the country and open up a cat farm.

M: And…how exactly did it tell you that?

W: Through ESP, silly. It sent me an encrypted message which I easily deciphered.

9. Eating People Is Wrong (Malcolm Bradbury)

W1: Why is it wrong to eat people?

W2: Because they don’t taste good. The meat is too tough, like a moose or a crocodile.

W1: That’s a sound, cogent argument. So why is the book 300 pages long?

W2: Oh, ’cause the author included a lot of illustrations. They’re kind of thought-provoking, actually.

Newsflash #2: Reading Makes You a Better Person!

“Books are much more. They are a way of being fully human.” — Susan Sontag

This marks the second highly investigative news report that will shock readers. Yesterday we learned that authors are poor as sin. Today, I will shock the world by declaring that reading makes you a better person.

I know, I know, I know.

THE OUTRAGE! THE AUDACITY! THE IDIOCY!

Please forgiving me. I am hurtful and apology. But, reading makes me right good. Also, it makes my brains sort of mushy, but electric. Calm, but fiercely. Can you understand? Maybe not. Why? Because you are not read enough books.

Seriously, Emerson University carried out a brain study and discovered some very interesting things. As the lead researcher on the project said, “The neural changes that we found associated with physical sensation and movement systems suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist. We already knew that good stories can put you in someone else’s shoes in a figurative sense. Now we’re seeing that something may also be happening biologically.”

To end this post, I will conclude with something that the great French writer Gustave Flaubert once said: “Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”

Check out the full article here.

Amazon: Consumers’ BFF, Publishers’ SPITA*

*SPITA: Severe Pain In The Ass

Amazon says it slashes prices and offers free shipping on big orders to offer consumers the best deal possible AND to increase profits for authors by driving up sales. Publishing houses say they’re having their operations hijacked. A couple of months ago, Hachette, #4 of the Big Five publishing houses, drew a line in the sand when Amazon demanded a higher cut of the company’s e-book sales. The behind-closed-walls disagreement has turned into an international media spectacle and, quite possibly, a defining moment for the coming years of publishing.

While the other four major publishing houses are not getting involved, not to mention the thousands of smaller presses that are just happy to be here for the ride (Thank you, Amazon, for a significant portion of our sales!), everyone in the industry is watching this cat-and-mouse game unfold and wondering where it will lead.

Should Amazon get to dictate how much publishing companies charge for physical copies and e-books? Should Amazon have the right to publish a book on its own when the publisher has failed to supply enough copies to the literary leviathan’s warehouse? Should Amazon be able to pull books at their own discretion, delay delivery to punish “bad publishers,” and remove certain books from promotions for the sake of retribution?

Interestingly, the French Senate recently passed a law (the anti-Amazon law) forbidding the American company from offering free shipping in an effort to get more people to buy their literature from local bookstores.

Read the entire New York Times article here.

Newsflash: Authors Are Poor!

Or as The Guardian puts it: “Authors’ incomes collapse to ‘abject’ levels.”

When I started writing in 2000, I was warned there’s little to no money in the craft. When I stopped lecturing at my university of seven years in 2004 to pursue writing as a full-time gig, many around me thought I had consumed significant amounts of turpentine before reaching this decision. Why, after all, would you give up a decent job at a respectable university to do something that will most likely mean financial ruin? Don’t think I haven’t thought about that question a few bazillion times over the last decade.

According to the U.K.’s Authors’ Licencing and Collecting Society (ALCS), median annual earnings for professional writers have fallen to £11,000 (about CDN $20,000), a drop of 29% since 2005. I can’t even write down what my royalties were last year for fear of breaking down into an apoplectic shitstorm of tears.

As one writer who’s published five books through HarperCollins said, “Being a writer can’t be treated like it’s a job. It maybe was once, but no writer can treat it as such nowadays. There’s no ground beneath your feet in terms of income, and you can’t rely on money to come when you need it.”

They say you need another job to pay the bills if you’re going to be a writer. However, as I am learning, some of us actually need two jobs on top of the writing to make ends meet and live above the poverty line. The moral of the story here is very clear: unless you’re Count Wilhelm von Moneybags IV, keep your day job for the rest of your life if you want to become a writer. Otherwise, you risk having to give up everything material in your life. And if you think that’s even mildly romantic a la 1920s Parisian cafes, hanging with Hemingway and Stein on your way to becoming a starving artist, I’ve got news  for you – it ain’t no fun.

Read the full article in The Guardian here.

Lanuch of Facebook Fan Page

So, it’s official: I’m amping up my tech game. I’ve just launched my official Facebook fan page, which I invite all visitors to this website to Like at:

www.facebook.com/harrisrichard88  (just click on the web address to go directly there)

Please and thank you to everyone who takes a moment to visit the site. I’ll try and keep it more book-related as it pertains to my career, while keeping this site more open-ended with all things book, writing and publishing-oriented.

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

It’s official: I’m on Twitter as of today. You can find me and my technicolor dreamcoat at:

@harrisrh88

My last novel was 165,000 words, or approximately 4,291,650 characters. I now have 140 characters to make use of per tweet. Put another way, I have roughly 1/30,000 the space to express my thoughts compared to The Immortal Flower.

This could be trouble.

Prepare Yourself for a Symphony of Deliciousness

When you publish a book, it’s a pretty special feeling. But when you see a friend you really care about publish their very first book, it’s an even more special feeling. Just before moving to Mexico a couple of months ago, my near and dear friend of many years, Maria Amore, published a vegan cookbook that is nothing short of amazing. So says the carnivore who had never made a vegan dish before reading through every single recipe in this book.

You can read my review online at Goodreads or buy the book through Amazon. It’s also available on Kindle.

Congratulations to Maria and all the best with her future culinary endeavours. The world’s kitchens are better places because of your vision and passion.