Nicola Griffith's Blog, page 115

Penguin, self-publishing, and analytics

Yesterday news hit of Pearson (parent company of Penguin) acquiring the self-publishing vendor Author Solutions. From Publishers Weekly:

In a move that can be traced to last year’s launch of Book Country, Penguin’s writer community and self-publishing venture, Pearson has acquired Author Solutions Inc.,one of the largest self-publishing ventures in the world, for $116 million from Bertram Capital. In a conference call from ASI’s headquarters in Bloomington, Ind., Penguin CEO John Makinson and ASI CEO Kevin Weiss, said the deal marks the “mainstreaming” of self-publishing, will provide Penguin with “scalable” data and expertise on self-publishing and offers opportunities for global growth and wider distribution to selected ASI authors through Penguin’s channels.

More than likely, Pearson are paying to acquire the expertise of ASI's database analysts. All trade publishers really, really need more information on who buys their books and how and why. There again, I'd thought that was the role Penguin had assigned to Book Country: to provide a window into the book-buying habits of their customers--or those who they probably should begin to see as their customers. That is, you, dear readers: individual buyers of books. (Traditional publishers' customers historically have been wholesalers and distributors, to a lesser degree retailers, and only very rarely individual customers.)

Makinson cited ASI’s expertise in "managing data analysis, online marketing and user-generated content," while Weiss said, "Penguin does distribution and curation." Makinson said that , "at first we didn’t understand rich consumer data, but we’re in the data analysis business now and ASI will give us a big lift with data analysis and online marketing. We’re gaining access to real scale, hundreds of thousands of customers and authors and ability to analyse across a large database."

Perhaps Book Country wasn't living up to Penguin's hopes. As a community for emerging writers, I think it's probably not too bad (though still young). As a publishing solution, a source of revenue or the right data to analyse, I'm guessing it's a failure. ASI's annual revenues, on the other hand, exceed $100m and, as noted, its staff are expert analysts. It wouldn't shock me if Book Country quietly folded its tent and was absorbed by the ASI encampment...

Long, lazy, and leisurely

Today has dawned light and bright, so I'm going to take the day off. A massage, a long, leisurely lunch, with wine, and a lazy afternoon with my sweetie.

I wish you much delight today. That is certainly my goal.

Britain goes for gold

I enjoyed an article this morning in the Wall Street Journal, "The Return of the British Empire."

Great Britain came home from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics with just one gold medal—two fewer than Kazakhstan—and a wounded national psyche. Sixteen years later, Team GB has been overhauled and rebuilt thanks to a machine-like agency flush with cash from the U.K. lottery that grooms British athletes. The result could be a record-setting performance here for the home squad.

An organisation called Sport UK has set its sights on mowing down the opposition.

"This is not about taking part. It's about winning," said Liz Nicholl, chief executive of U.K. Sport, the agency tasked with winning Olympic medals for Britain.

This is pretty different to the usual British attitude of hapless enthusiasm for the underdog and the jolly good try, all packaged in well-mannered sportsmanship. There again, this time Brits are on their home field. Goldman Sachs & Co. calculates that this advantage could net 54% more medals as a result, and that Britain could win more gold medals than Russia this summer--putting it third on the medal league table overall.

I admit, I would enjoy that.

I was born in the second half of the twentieth-century, long after the British Empire's sun had set. As an adult, I understand that this is a Good Thing. Colonialism bad, equality good, etc. But as a kid, I grew up among people who openly mourned British greatness, who pointed to world maps and said, That used to be ours. Or They speak English there--a funny kind of English, but at least they understand about the rule of law. Or Oh, that country will turn out alright; after all, we founded it.

Somewhere in my DNA I think it's cool that the Queen is the head of state rather than some grubby little elected person. Yet I'm simultaneously smug that we have those elected people. (Yes, the formed-in-childhood-by-Rudyard-Kipling-Winston-Churchill-and-TV-histories-full-of-Pathé-newsreels interior voice sometimes talks like that. Don't worry, I'm aware of its attitudes and don't act from them. Mostly.)

Liz Nicholl sounds...straightforward. "Our no-compromise approach says we're not going to compromise."

Fair enough. I don't have a quarrel with that. Not exactly. But it's not very, well, British. It's much closer to the American approach: play within the letter of the law, not its spirit, and throw a lot of money at it. It's not that I have a quarrel with that, exactly, either. Nor am I about to maunder on about returning to the original spirit of the Olympics. If my understanding of history is correct, I wouldn't have enjoyed that much at all: the only women allowed near the Games were oracles and prostitutes. Besides, even back then, athletes were pampered specialists.
No, my hope is that ten days from now, the athletes in the spotlight, honed and fined-down and trained to within an inch of their lives, who have sacrificed a decade or more of a rich, rounded life to be on that field or track or mat, get some joy from the moment. I hope it's worth it. And I hope the crowds cheer them all on generously.
And in nine days I'll be watching events, cheering at home in Seattle for Team GB. Because, yeah, despite occasional evidence to the contrary, I still believe my small country is mighty. Great, in fact.

The indefatigable weirdness of '50s American science fiction

"These novels testify to the extraordinary range, profound intelligence, and indefatigable weirdness of ’50s American science fiction. A must-have for anyone interested in one of the most vital periods of our literature and for anyone who wants a wild wild tumble down the rabbit hole."—Junot Díaz
Diaz is talking about the two-volume collection, American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, edited by Gary Wolfe, coming in September from the Library of America. The novels are:

Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, The Space Merchants

Theodore Sturgeon, More Than Human

Leigh Brackett, The Long Tomorrow

Richard Matheson, The Shrinking Man

Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star

Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination

James Blish, A Case of Conscience

Algis Budrys, Who?

Fritz Leiber, The Big Time

Although you have to wait for the books, you don't have to wait for LOA's online companion to same. Gary Wolfe has curated a wonderful set of bonus materials, including audio and video snippters (interviews of the authors, broadcasts) for each novel--including short appreciations by living writers: William Gibson, Kit Reed, Tim Powers, Michael Dirda, Connie Willis, Peter Straub, James Morrow, Neil Gaiman, and me.

My piece is about Leigh Brackett. Those who have been reading this blog for a while know I also wrote the introduction to her Sword of Rhiannon. The more I learn about her and her work, the more I wish I could have met her. (As soon as I post this I'll be listening to her hour-long interview, recorded in 1975.) So I was delighted to have the excuse to reread, and then reread again more thoroughly, The Long Tomorrow. As a result, it wouldn't shock me to discover that this novel was a formative influence on the young Carl Sagan. Go read the piece to find out why.

I might have to buy this set. It's a hell of a collection--and I'm not sure I've ever read the Heinlein...

Recreating the past, steering the future

When I was writing about the Polari prize the other day, I was reminded of a question that came up here both in context of that prize and as a comment on an earlier post about lesbian fiction:

I've been meaning to ask you in relation to your own work about a few others. I enjoyed earlier work by Emma Donoghue, Manda Scott and Stella Duffy. All fit into the category of authors who have written great books where the characters 'just happen' to be gay. In common with yourself, all have moved onto 'historical' fiction. Is this coincidence or do you think there is a specific reason/s?

I don't think its a coincidence.

Last month I talked about how I thought writing Hild was a huge risk but that I began anyway because I needed to tell her story. Adrienne Rich said, "We must use what we have to invent what we desire." (What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics) 

That's what I'm doing when I write: I'm inventing what I desire. I desire a vision of the world in which the woman I had imagined (after years of research) might have existed, in which she might have been able to live her life as a human being: as subject not object. I wanted to believe that the Hild I imagined was possible. To look at where we come from--the past--and believe we could have survived there as ourselves. By making Hild possible, I wanted to recast what people today think might be possible and so make it possible.

In other words, I'm recolonising the past. Recreating it. Retelling it. And by so doing, I'm recreating the present and so steering the future.

This is what history is: our interpretation of what happened. Our shared understanding of events in light of what we think/know/feel today. Our cultural attitudes inform our understanding of the past.

Our cultural attitude to gender has changed a great deal since Bede wrote his History of the English Church and People, the only extent source for the life of Hild that's even remotely contemporary. (Hild died four years after Bede was born.) I think she deserves a new story. It wouldn't shock me to discover that Manda Scott was similarly motivated on behalf of Boudica, and Stella Duffy for Theodora.

Me and my father

He's 86. He used to be half an inch taller than me. Now I'm a couple of inches taller than him. He used to be stronger than me. Then, while I was studying martial arts, I was stronger than him. (He didn't like that; in this way, we're similar.) Now, eh, given age and the vagaries of MS we're probably about the same.

This photo was taken in the Canal Gardens at Roundhay Park a couple of weeks ago. I'm horribly jet-lagged but very pleased to be with my father again so soon after my February visit.

As Kelley said when she looked at the photo she'd taken, "Whoa, look at that genetic stamp!" I think we get more alike every year. I haven't yet worked out how much I owe to my father, probably more than I realise. But I'll be thinking about that now.

Polari First Book prize longlist and what it means

Via Diva, the longlist of the UK's Polari First Book prize:

Rory's Boys  by Alan Clark (Bliss/Arcadia Books)
Pennance by Claire Ashton (self published on Kindle)
The Frost Fairs by John McCullogh (Salt)
Becoming Nancy by Terry Ronald (Transworld)
Exit Through The Wound by North Morgan (Limehouse Books)
Body of Water by Stuart Wakefield (self published)
Modern Love by Max Wallis (Flap)
Ey Up and Away by Vicky Ryder (Wandering Star Press)
Grrl Alex by Alex Drummond, (self published)
Perking The Pansies by Jack Scott (Summertime Publishing)

Perhaps you remember that one of the judges, Suzi Feay, was worried recently about the lack of lesbian fiction submitted to the prize. Perhaps this is because it's almost always referred to as a gay fiction prize; most of the women I know don't think of themselves as gay but as queer or lesbians or dykes. Perhaps it's that, despite the notion that women writers in the UK have it far better than women in the US, lesbian writers in the UK are selecting themselves right out of the race. Perhaps many women these days, particularly newer, younger writers, prefer writing for performance: plays, slam poetry, songs, and so on. We are a social species; women, particularly, like to create, produce and perform in a groups.

From the names on the list, I'd guess that three of the ten finalists identify as women. That's a proportion that is far from satisfactory. It's not the judges' fault, they can't select what isn't submitted. So, once again, let me ask women writers to be brave, to begin. We need your voices.

If you're thinking about beginning, next year consider signing up for the Clarion West Write-a-thon (Wat). This year over 220 writers are taking part. Think about that: 220 people you can turn to for support. Clarion West encourages Wat writers to rely on the support of sponsors, it runs weekly Tweet chats, and updates a group Facebook page. Participants are encouraged to blog and tweet their progress. It turns out to be very useful for both established and emerging writers.

For more on how it works for one writer, see Kelley's marvellous blog posts about her experience last year and this.

Lesbian Super PAC

A couple of days ago I read this in the Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON -- Women including sports icon Billie Jean King and actress Jane Lynch are starting a super PAC on Wednesday that they hope will increase the political power of the lesbian community.

The organization, called LPAC, will provide financial backing to pro-lesbian candidates, whether Democrats or Republicans, male or female, gay or straight. The group intends to back federal and state candidates, as well as some ballot measures. All targets of the group's support must back an end to discrimination for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals; reproductive rights and access to quality health care; and social, racial and economic justice. [Thanks to Janet for the heads-up.]

The Guardian also has a good piece (with one caveat, keep reading).

I hope LPAC raises millions and millions of dollars. I hope they go out there and kick political arse. I hope they aren't shy about using their money to build alliances--or destroy enemies--and bring about change.

I love the notion of women flexing their political and financial muscle. I'm so very tired of women smiling bravely and loyally, and playing Nice.
Perhaps this is because playing nicely has never been one of my skills. I tend to play to win. Lately, of course, with Kelley's influence, I play for everyone to win--I love to build coalitions--but winning, of some variety, has always been part of my game. When I'm fighting my corner I don't have much need to be loved, or even liked. I already have plenty of friends; I have a partner; I have a big family. I've learnt that the best way to get what I want is to build mutual respect. Key word: mutual. So for those women reading this who haven't yet figured it out: don't be afraid of being disliked; you won't melt. It's better to be respected and admired. If that involves a little fear sometimes then, hey, that works, too. Get out there and take up space.
I am pleased, therefore, that these rich and powerful women are feeling their strength. And, no, I don't mean 'gay women'. I dislike that term. (I don't know when the Guardian started using it; I hope they get over it soon.) I am so very tired of always being the qualified noun, not the noun itself. (And, no, like 'man', let's not kid ourselves that 'gay' really includes women. I'll save you a rant on the subject; go read "Alien in Our Own Tongue.") The boys can have gay. We are dykes, or lesbians, or queer. And we have money, and power, and influence. Be afraid, be very afraid...

Go read some SF by women

Over at io9.com, Charlie Jane Anders has rounded up some opinions on the 10 SF novels people pretend to have read--and why you should actually read them:

Science fiction and fantasy offer a rich legacy of great books — from Asimov to Pynchon, there are some fantastic, ambitious works of genre fiction out there. But they're also daunting. So a lot of us just muddle through and pretend to have read these classics — which isn't that hard, because they're everywhere, and we've heard people talk about them so many times. We SF fans are good at pretending. But these books are classics for a reason — and they're worth reading.

We asked some of our favorite writers, and they told us the 10 science fiction and fantasy books that everybody pretends to have read — and the reasons why you should read them for real.Here they are, in no particular order.

I talk about Leigh Brackett's The Long Tomorrow, partly because I think it's an amazing book--though definitely flawed--partly because the info was to hand as I've just written a short essay on the book for the Library of America. More on that next week. For now, go add to your reading lists. Just remember, in the real world more than twenty percent of the books you should read are by women. For example, you couldn't go wrong by looking up the work of the other two women who comment in the piece, Pat Murphy and Pat Cadigan.

I admit I've only read half of these books. I have started two of the others and found them, for whatever reason, not to my taste; two I haven't even bothered with because I know, from the authors' other works, I wouldn't care for them. One I keep meaning to try and forgetting. Perhaps I'll move it up the list: it's by a woman.

Update on same-sex marriage in Washington State

As I've said previously, Referendum 74 made the ballot. But Initiative 1192--which could have proved confusing to those voting on same-sex marriage--has failed.

Currently, the local organisation supporting SSM (Washington United for Marriage) has so far raised about fifteen times the amount raised by the local opposition (Preserve Marriage Washington):

OLYMPIA — Supporters of gay marriage in Washington said Monday they raised more than $952,000 last month for the campaign to uphold the state's new law, which is on hold pending the outcome of a November ballot measure.

I'm not sure how useful this ratio is, as I'd be shocked if national groups (such as the anti-equality National Organization for Marriage, and the pro-equality Freedom to Marry) didn't step in closer to the time. I'm looking forward (not) to the vile political ads likely to run throughout October. Luckily we don't watch much local programming, and there's always TiVo's wonderful fast-forward button.

In terms of polling, I haven't seen as much as I'd like--but this far away from the vote they'd be meaningless anyway. According to Wikipedia, polls on the issue show that voters in Washington are currently in favour of marriage equality: 51% to 44% with 7% undecided and a margin of error of +/- 3%. In other words: too close to call right now, but hopeful.

More as things progress. For now, please remember to tell Washington family and friends in November to vote to Approve R-74. (Yes, it's counter-intuitive, given that it was an anti-SSM group that got it on the ballot in the first place but, trust me, for marriage equality, we vote to Approve. If you're interested in the exact wording, see my previous post on the matter.)