Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
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What else are you reading? (June 2010 - May 2013) *closed*
Johanna wrote: "So maybe it all comes down to personality?"Somehow, it must. And this of course leads to questions about how individual personalities are formed. That's a really complex issue.
Funniest book I've ever read, so bad it had me literally snorting uncontrollably with hysterical laughter in public, was E: A Novel by Matt Beaumont. It's a novel told entirely through emails and is set in a London advertising agency. I can't recommend it highly enough!
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OH WOW.
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Love the new cover! It's hasn't made it to GR yet, but it looks great. Hot Guy-LA palms/w ocean in background... {sigh}
Looking forward to..."
Isn't that cover wonderful? Have I mentioned enough times that our own Lou Harper did it?
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LOVE this one:
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That's neat too, but I love the first one -- the one in Holland.
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Yes! I like to think I have a solid sense of humor, but so often people recommend something as side-splittingly funny and I can barely manage a polite smile.
And then in another instance I'll be chuckling over something and getting puzzled side glances from friends.
Josh wrote: "Kari wrote: "Cleon wrote: "Not a book, but for all you bibliophiles here, have you ever visited these amazing bookstores? "LOVE this one:
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That's neat too, but I love the first one -- the one..."
Good news is, some of them (2, I think?) are located in California! Take a pic for us if you visit them, Josh. lol.
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..."
Author's Guild blog on that very topic: http://tinyurl.com/759tfls]
Do we have any legal experts here? I confess I'm confused as to why what the publishers and Apple are doing is collusion but Amazon is not guilty of same? Is it because Amazon is acting alone?
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That too.
And humor can have an expiration date. I don't know anyone who finds Amos and Andy funny these days. But there was a time when they were popular with white and African-American audiences alike. That seems hard to believe now, but so it was.
In fact a lot of the humor from the 30s and 40s (and earlier) was what we could now deem politically and socially insensitive. As dearly as I love those films, many of them make us wince today.
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Yes. Black humor. Gallows humor. All of that relies heavily on...having been there and done that.
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..."
Now for some reason, that made me laugh.
That's what's so weird about humor. Why was that statement of fact funny to me?
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It's a novel told entirely through emails and..."
I have to read that.
Well, and why do we refer to "English" humor as though it were some special, rare flower? It's not all dry wit because look at Benny Hill.
Josh wrote: " have to read that. Well, and why do we refer to "English" humor as though it were some special, rare flower? It's not all dry wit because look at Benny Hill. "
Please don't tell me you're still getting that in the US?
Although having said that I'm sure at least one UK TV channel is currently broadcasting Cagney and Lacey...or CHiPS. Actually I've always quite liked CHiPS...it's those amazing tight pants.
Anyway, back to cross-cultural humour. I'd say there are broad, although overlapping, differences in comedy taste. The UK tends to go more for farce, clever wordplay, and deadpan satire. The US tends to favour intensely well written character driven sitcoms.
Josh wrote: " Author's Guild blog on that very topic: http://tinyurl.com/759tfls]
Do we have any legal experts here? I confess I'm confused as to why what the publishers and Apple are doing is collusion but Amazon is not guilty of same? Is it because Amazon is acting alone? "
I'm a lawyer, however I have to confess that the details of US anti-trust legislation and case law was lacking in my legal education. I'd guess you're right though. In general terms, price fixing between companies acting as an oligarchy to distort the market is heavily regulated in most jurisdictions and most regulators are set up to deal with precisely the issues that arise from it.
However, whilst there is also legislation that covers a single company in a dominant position, it is much more difficult to implement and much rarer for the situation to arise. AT&T in the 60s or Microsoft in the 90s.
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We forgive you because you also gave us Monty Python and the Beatles.
Josh wrote: "Christopher wrote: "Please don't tell me you're still getting that in the US?..."
We forgive you because you also gave us Monty Python and the Beatles."
I wonder...does The Simpsons cancel out...oh...Laverne and Shirley?
Does How I Met Your Mother make up for Married with Children?
Does Friends render Everybody Loves Raymond forgivable?
Yes...we got those too!
Josh wrote: "Do we have any legal experts here? I confess I'm confused as to why what the publishers and Apple are doing is collusion..."Josh, no legal expert here, but my understanding when I saw the article yesterday in the NY Times was this: the difference between these guys and Amazon is that Amazon wants to continue with the old policy of wholesale pricing, whereby publishers sell books to retailers for a set cost, often about half the cover price. Then booksellers can turn around and charge customers whatever they want, even less than the bookseller had paid. This is the model Amazon used when they originally set their $9.99 price for ebooks.
On the other hand, these named publishers, supposedly in agreement with Apple, want to tell retailers at what price they can sell their ebooks, or they will pull all their product from the retailer.
Susan wrote: "Josh wrote: "Do we have any legal experts here? I confess I'm confused as to why what the publishers and Apple are doing is collusion..."Josh, no legal expert here, but my understanding when I ..."
I think the main problem with what the publishers are doing is that they all agree to a fixed price on their books, thus it becomes an illegal cooperation or price trust, whereas Amazon does something different which is selling at a loss to undermine the market. Which could be illegal too in some situations, and here is where my level of expertise fades out ...
Anne wrote: "Susan wrote: "Josh wrote: "Do we have any legal experts here? I confess I'm confused as to why what the publishers and Apple are doing is collusion..."Josh, no legal expert here, but my understan..."
I agree, Anne. My understanding is that the issue is collusion - Amazon, as a single entity can demand whatever price they want, it's up to the marketplace and their own business model to determine whether it will work or not. It's fair as long as Amazon doesn't hold a monopology. But if a group of companies get together and fix the price - that's illegal, it violates the very idea of competition.
My most embarrassing weird humor moment was at the end of the movie Angle Hearts (some of you may remember, it was a thriller released in the late 80's). The final scene has Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro (view spoiler). It's a powerfully acted scene and no one was breathing in the whole theater. Then the image of an elevator (!?!) hit me and I burst out laughing. Which, of course, made me sound demonic. The realization of which in turn, made me laugh more hysterically. For some reason everyone avoided me as we left the theater - especially my date.
My brother and I share share the same sense of humor, we always have to avoid to look at each other at critical moments if we don't want to laugh. It makes for interesting family reunions :)I finished the Charioteer. I didn't realize until the end that I wasn't keeping my alleged emotional distance from Laurie by the end of the book. (view spoiler) I spoke about the writing in previous comments, I thought it was amazing. It's almost a simple book in its plot, but it's what's behind the facade that's incredible. I can't comment on its importance because I'm a bit too ignorant to do that, but when I think about someone reading it almost 60 years ago, it makes an even bigger impression.
I have been reading Tinseltown this weekend after it getting such good recommendations by Josh. It is really very good, a unique style, funny and serious, and an extra bonus: I never thought I would find a reference to Norwegian singer/songwriter Sondre Lerche in an American story. It made my day :)
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I wasn't into M/M/M when I read it either. But I told Jordan to go for it in my comments. I really liked it. But I can't wait to get the ebook and read it in full rather than a few chapters a month. I bet it'll be a very different reading experience.
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LOVE this one:
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That pic is awesome! I'm not usually a fan of all white settings, but the colorful books contrast nicely. I'd like to work/live there!
Josh wrote: "This weekend I read
"What'd you think? Got it a couple wks ago and still haven't moved it to the bottomless pit of my TBR. Yet, I still haven't cracked it open, either.
Josh wrote: "Anne wrote: "I am a great fan of my Kindle but I do hope bookstores will survive too! ..."
Author's Guild blog on that very topic: http://tinyurl.com/759tfls]
Do we have any legal experts here? ..."
I am far from an expert, but I do brush up against this stuff in my field, so I will tell you what I have gathered. The U.S. favors competition and free markets. Various activities have been deemed anti-competitive and made illegal. How much this is enforced is political - Democrats tend to enforce more strictly (taking a pro-consumer viewpoint) while Republicans tend to be less strict (taking a pro-business viewpoint).
Price fixing is when a group of competitors get together and agree to charge a specific amount. Picture all the gas stations in town agreeing to charge 50¢ more than the going rate for gas. I believe this is what the publishers and Apple are accused of doing. Scott Turow's defense seems to be that Apple offered a deal and the publishers took it - no collusion involved.
There are also regulations on monopolies. A company can become a near monopoly as long as they don't use anti-competitive means to get there, or leverage the monopoly improperly once they have it. Microsoft was allowed to have 90% of the operating system market. They won it fair and square according to the law. But when they used their monopoly to force computer manufacturers to buy other Microsoft products, favor Internet Explorer over other browsers, etc., the government stepped in (this was under Clinton, by the way).
So Amazon has so far been considered to have achieved their near-monopoly legitimately. If they started using it anti-competitively - say forcing authors not to use other publishers - they would get into trouble.
I believe Turow's has two arguments as to why Amazon is actually the bad guy (he doesn't say any of this - this is my interpretation). The first argument is that using mobi rather than epub or another open format is anti-competitive, but I don't think he has a basis for that. Others can publish in mobi or prc for side-loading onto Kindles, and do. Amazon has DRM on their own files, but that is too common to be likely to get them into trouble.
Second, it is anti-competitive to lower your prices so much that you drive all of your competitors out of business and then jack up the prices. Again, I don't think he has a case. Loss leaders are legal, and there plainly is competition. Also, the barriers to entry in online books is so low that if Amazon ever attempted to jack up prices there would be lower priced options overnight.
OK; that got long. Did I answer your questions?
Charming wrote: "OK; that got long. Did I answer your questions? "
Wow! What a great summary of what's going on. I had a general idea of the issues, but you really clarified a lot of the points that were still fuzzy. Thank you!
Wow! What a great summary of what's going on. I had a general idea of the issues, but you really clarified a lot of the points that were still fuzzy. Thank you!
Charming wrote: "Josh wrote: "Anne wrote: "I am a great fan of my Kindle but I do hope bookstores will survive too! ..."
Author's Guild blog on that very topic: http://tinyurl.com/759tfls]
Do we have any legal e..."
THANK YOU! I actually understood that, with no urges to seek liquor whatsoever. Win! ;-)
Charming wrote: "Josh wrote: "Anne wrote: "I am a great fan of my Kindle but I do hope bookstores will survive too! ..."
Do we have any legal (...)
Second, it is anti-competitive to lower your prices so much that you drive all of your competitors out of business and then jack up the prices. Again, I don't think he has a case. Loss leaders are legal, and there plainly is competition. Also, the barriers to entry in online books is so low that if Amazon ever attempted to jack up prices there would be lower priced options overnight.
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Thanks, Charming, for the explanation! That's very similar to how the competition law works where I live, too.
From following links and reading around on the internet I gathered that Amazon had been accused of selling books for less than the acquisition price. Is this illegal in the US, too?
Do you know, if they were really selling for under acquisition prices or just for very low prices, so they could out distance the competitors?
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You did! Between you and Christopher I think I've got it.
I can't deny that Amazon's provided amazing opportunity to authors like myself. At the same time, I keep hoping for more healthy opposition because that much power in any single entity is worrisome.
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"What'd you think? Got it a couple wks ago and still haven't moved it to the bottomless pit of my TBR. Yet, I still haven't cracked..."
I thought it was touching. But though Reed sets up a fascinating dynamic, he doesn't really explore it instead opting to conveniently eliminate the central (and most interesting character). I'm not sure what he was trying to say -- and I'm not sure he was either.
Calathea wrote: "From following links and reading around on the internet I gathered that Amazon had been accused of selling books for less than the acquisition price. Is this illegal in the US, too?"Loss leaders are a really common marketing strategy here in the US. For example, with Easter coming up soon, grocery stores will all be dropping the price of eggs. Maybe even giving them away with purchase of a certain list of items or with $X purchase. And then, while you're in there, they hope that you buy other stuff that you need, but is not on sale, like apples and chicken and ice cream. The eggs got you in the door, and they make their money on everything else.
It would only be a problem if one store priced their eggs so low that they drove every other egg seller out of business, and then started charging $5 a dozen.
Back in the prehistoric days of 2000/2001 I did a Masters in Publishing up in Edinburgh. My thesis was on the collapse of the Net Book Agreement and it was surprisingly interesting.In fact I was writing it in August/September 2001 and didn't find out about 9/11 until my dad came home and excavated me from a pile of papers in the study to tell me what was going on.
Anyway, the Net Book Agreement was a long standing industry wide agreement between publishers and booksellers allowing price fixing between them. The publishers would set the minimum price of their books and the retailers were prohibited from discounting the books below that price.
It made for a very stable, but also very constrained, market. Competition was still present, but it was hobbled, and inevitably innovation in publishing was lessened as well. This meant a much more conservative approach to the types of book published, the way the publishing process functioned, the distribution network, the way retailers promoted titles etc.
In 1994 (I think it was 1994...I did write 50,000 words on this but it was ten years ago during the middle of the 9/11 aftermath and when I was contemplating joining the Navy...anyway...where was I?) the Net Book Agreement ended as the Tory government of the time continued their supply-side policies designed to promote free-market capitalism wherever and whenever they could.
It was predicted that the consequence of this would be that Supermarkets and the big national bookstore chains would start selling bestsellers as loss leaders and that this in turn would trigger the insolvency of a large number of small, independent book shops.
This is basically what happened. Independent book shops began going out of business at an accelerating rate throughout the 1990s and the major bookstore high street chains also started to suffer and ended up consolidating. Whereas most towns and cities in the UK use to have a Waterstones, Blackwells and Dillons, most are now lucky to have the one Waterstones. Although I admit the rise of Amazon was also a factor in this.
I'm conflicted about the whole thing to be honest. On the one hand I love bookshops. I have an abiding sentimental attachment to them and there's nothing better than an afternoon spent browsing a well stocked store. On the other, since Amazon has risen to prominence and especially since eBooks finally came into their own, I find that not only do I enjoy buying them electronically, I actually buy far more books than I used to and often buy things I wouldn't have stumbled over in a book shop.
Emanuela ~plastic duck~ wrote: "My brother and I share share the same sense of humor, we always have to avoid to look at each other at critical moments if we don't want to laugh. It makes for interesting family reunions :)I fi..."
What is it that's so satisfying and pleasing--why that fat-and-happy vicarious kick you get when someone else loves a book you've loved? I'm glad you got around to Charioteer. I wd read it again--and maybe I will--but I've already read it probably three times. It's just that it's been some 30 years or so.
Josh wrote: "This weekend I read
"What about Everytime I think of you and Split? The synopses are intriguing but I'd like to know how they hit you. Thanks.
Christopher wrote: "Back in the prehistoric days of 2000/2001 I did a Masters in Publishing up in Edinburgh. My thesis was on the collapse of the Net Book Agreement and it was surprisingly interesting.In fact I was ..."
This is interesting. In Norway there are still agreements and legislation in place to protect the smaller bookstores and the rare and specialised books. A lot of books are being published every year in Norwegian (relatively speaking of course, it is a small language) and most of them hardly sell anything, but there is where you can find those rare and precious jewels. Currently new legislation is in progress and the whole arrangement is under pressure with on one side there is the ones who want to protect the Norwegian language and the more obscure writers at all cost (and who of course say "look to UK and what happened there") as opposed to those that mean competition is Alpha and Omega in all industries, including the book industry. The problem as I can see it with the new legislation is that they still haven't managed to understand how everything is being changed by e-books and e-publishing and the fact that many Norwegians read English very well and have purchased e-readers and live happily in Kindle and Amazon land.
Norwegian books are relatively expensive and trying to keep e-books at the same pricing level as paper books is not the right direction to go in my opinion.
Things are still fluctuating and nothing is decided yet so it is interesting times. In the meantime I continue to read on my Kindle and only rarely venture out in bookstores to buy Norwegian titles, feeling like a traitor but having fun :)(I go there to browse of course, that is also fun, but don't often buy anything)
Christopher wrote: "The publishers would set the minimum price of their books and the retailers were prohibited from discounting the books below that price."Italy passed that legislation last year. Books cannot be discounted more than 15%. I don't know if it's helping bookshops, but e-reading is just starting so I don't think that effect has impacted on them yet.
It's a hard thing, because publishing is a business, and books are the commodity. But books can also be art. And at least in the US, we don't expect museums or the opera or ballet to be moneymaking ventures. They make ends meet with grants and endowments. Books, even though they are just as culturally significant, are still expected to turn a profit.
In Italy VAT on books is low (4% instead of 21%) and that's how the government is encouraging culture - in their prospective. I am a bit conflicted because I am a consumer, on one hand, but on the other hand when I buy a book I like I also feel like a patron, if you get what I mean :) so I would just love to know that the price is right and no one comes out short changed. That's also why I try to buy directly from the publisher as often as I can, but sometimes it's just not possible due to regional restrictions, for example, and Amazon becomes the only way, and I guess in the end I have to thank them for this.
Imported books here are very expensive. It's considered luxury goods. It's better now for bestseller paperbacks, but for others, the price is outrageous! That's why I'm so happy I can buy ebooks, (esp with FW discounts. lol). Nowadays, even local & translated books are expensive & the translation usually ruins the book.
Cleon wrote: "Imported books here are very expensive. It's considered luxury goods. It's better now for bestseller paperbacks, but for others, the price is outrageous! That's why I'm so happy I can buy ebooks, (..."We have a few very good translators that can turn a good foreign book into a good Norwegian one, but the bulk of translations of crime and fantasy best sellers etc are probably done very quickly and often so bad it can make you squirm to read them, better to read the original if you can (cheaper too).
Anne wrote: "We have a few very good translators that can turn a good foreign book into a good Norwegian one, but the bulk of translations of crime and fantasy best sellers etc are probably done very quickly and often so bad it can make you squirm to read them, better to read the original if you can (cheaper too)."When I can go back to the original lines without having read them, it's usually very bad, lol
Emanuela ~plastic duck~ wrote: "When I can go back to the original lines without having read them, it's usually very bad, lol Yes, sometimes I can "hear" how it probably is in the English version and then it reads like a terrible, clumsy Norwegian sentence. :)
Anne wrote: "Yes, sometimes I can "hear" how it probably is in the English version and then it reads like a terrible, clumsy Norwegian sentence. :)"I don't know which kind of language Norwegian is - is it more like German? Italian and English don't mesh very well, because there's no neuter gender, for example, so there are tricks you can't play unless you work around it. Also the verbs are completely different, we have no duration, for example. If translators don't have the time to make the book rest for a while, they can't shed the other language and it becomes clumsy.
Just finished Goodbye My Love by Victor J. Banis. Got it from my library LINK program!I have The Heart in Exile by Rodney Garland waiting patiently on my side table. I'll start that one next.
Emanuela ~plastic duck~ wrote: "Anne wrote: "Yes, sometimes I can "hear" how it probably is in the English version and then it reads like a terrible, clumsy Norwegian sentence. :)"I don't know which kind of language Norwegian..."
Norwegian belongs to the Germanic language "family" although it is not so alike that Norwegians and Germans understand each other, unlike with Danish and Swedish. I am no linguist so I can't exactly say how it differs from the English, but there are so many differences that the translations aren't necessarily straight forward. For the translated work to be pleasantly readable, the translator will have to work around the sentences and paragraphs a lot and restructure the sentences, much as you describe with the Italian.
In Germany book prices are fixed. Even Amazon kann only sell German books at the price the publisher sets, the only thing left for them is not to charge postage.The idea of fixed prices is that bestsellers make the money that allows publishers/booksellers to also produce/sell niche books. The result, from what I can see (I'm not in the business) is that there are still small bookshops in every German town, and I also think (from my own experience) books stay in print much longer than in the USA. But all bookshops, whether big or small, are suffering from the fact that it's so easy to order online.
Ebooks: nobody quite know what that will mean for the German publishing industry as they have only just and with the greatest reluctance started to produce ebooks. And with DRM and (fixed) prices in the paperback region it will probably be some time if at all before German readers catch the e-bug.
Ah, translation, my pet subject. I am a qualified translator myself (though not practising at the moment) and therefore I find it particularly difficult to read books translated from English to German. I find myself constantly trying to guess what the original words may have been. And it's even worse if it is totally obvious what the original words were, i.e. if the text was translated literally word for word.And if there are actual mistakes... oh dear. My favourite example is the first Harry Potter book where "custard tart" was translated as "Senftorte", i.e. "mustard tart" (it was corrected in the second edition).
And yes, German is constructed quite differently from English and it takes a good translator to translate English texts into idiomatic German. So it's a great shame that translators are paid a LOT less for literary translations than for technical ones.
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? I'm trying to buy it, but the only ones I'm able to find are paperbacks...
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Q&A with Josh Lanyon
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There are some authors widely considered "funny" whose work I just find annoying. (Nonstop snarky comments and snappy repartee get on my nerves -- fast.) Yet other books seem effortlessly hilarious, like I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir. Can't figure it out.