Crafty author

I was twitting Patricia Wood over on her blog a while back, informing her that she was not allowed to die because she had not yet signed my copy of Lottery. No, I cannot remember the context for that particular piece of idiocy and I can't find it either. And yes, you should go buy her book, not just because she's a webfriend of mine, but because it's a fine piece of writing. Don't take my word for it; it was short-listed for the Orange Prize.

Anyway, back to the point. She immediately rectified that terrible oversight by offering to send me a bookplate. (For the uninitiated, a bookplate is basically an autographed sticker you can put in your book to instantly turn it into an autographed copy.) Through a series of confusions on my end, it took me a while to get it, but I finally got my hands on it yesterday. Except it was a them. She sent me one personalized bookplate and several others with generic greetings.

What is a girl supposed to do with extra bookplates? As it happened, I was in a bookstore that afternoon, and what should I spy but a stack of her books on a table of bestsellers near the door? (See, I told you it was good.) My natural brilliance asserted itself, and I said to myself, "There's a good place for those extra bookplates." The manager was equally struck by my brilliance. Okay, I'm assuming. He said that the bookplates would be welcome, or words to that effect.

Very pleased with myself, I emailed Pat to tell her of my brilliance. She was very impressed. Okay, so she told me that's why she sent them along. So she was brilliant before me. I am still brilliant, right? (Somehow this story isn't going quite the way I meant it to.)

Anyway, I am impressed with her brilliance too. She didn't ask me to do anything, but let me think of it on my own. Now those books will sell more quickly because most people are very pleased to get a signed copy of a book. And I have stowed away another gentle marketing technique for the future. And I have an autographed copy of Lottery. Thanks, Pat.

By the way, there is still no Wikipedia entry for Patricia. Any Wikipedians around who can do something about that?

And now for something totally cool

I don't know if I can quite rise to the idealism of the Playing for Change people, but this is still a very cool project and some very, very cool music. I present "One Love", Song Around the World.

More thoughts on the Espresso Book Machine

The more I think about this machine, the more I feel it will ultimately be good news for the publishing industry and especially for authors.

With print-on-demand arriving in retail outlets, we could soon see a seismic shift in the publishing industry. The whole notion of print runs could become obsolete, and the publisher's role become one of gatekeeper, designer, and promoter, with production and distribution concerns falling away altogether. I actually think that this could mean that the publishing house name could become more important, not less. It would become a guarantee of excellence, or of catering to a specific niche, much like Tor Books now.

A bookstore could be a simple home for the machines, or a larger retail outlet, with local favourites already pre-printed for the convenience of customers, looking much like present bookstores. The choices would certainly be fewer, but that wouldn't matter, because they would be backed up by the almost infinite choice of the book machine. I am assuming here that there would be a unique digital distribution channel, with all retailers having equal access. That is a huge assumption. Publishing houses could try to restrict distribution to their own retailers, which would create a very different dynamic.

In either event, I think it is good news for authors. There would be less need to sell immediately, with the current paleolithic returns system no longer distorting sales pressures. An author's reputation could be built slowly, gradually picking up speed, without a publisher feeling obliged to abandon debut authors who don't burst out of the gate quickly enough.

With this greater freedom to take a long-term view, publishers' promotion efforts could be both more focused and more spread out. More focused, because it would be easier to track where and when a book is selling (with up-to-the-minute statistics) and adjust promotion accordingly. More spread out, because we would no longer be dealing with a narrow window of opportunity and a publisher could continue marketing efforts for years, tailoring promotions to specific groups. We get a glimpse of what this could look like in the newsletters put out by AbeBooks, the online "clearing house" for thousands of used book sellers. AbeBooks will respond to current news and interests, featuring books - many decades old - that speak to the same issues. Because they are not restricted to recent releases, they can do thematic promotions much better than retail outlets.

For more information on the Espresso Book Machine, check out OnDemandBooks. I notice that the 2.0 version is already much prettier than the machine seen in the video, although I think they should have chosen coffee colours, myself. The word Espresso and the colour blue just don't go together.

How do you think book machine would change your reading and buying habits if it becames the industry norm, or at least a common utility? And if you are involved in the publishing industry, what changes do you think it will bring to what you are doing? Do the possibilites excite you or frighten you?

Poll results on book trailers

There were 20 votes and this is the breakdown:

<0 They made me decide not to buy. 9 (45%)
1 and I regret it. 1 (5%)
1 and it was great. 4 (20%)
2 or more. I look for them. 1 (5%)
2 or more. It just happens. 0 (0%)
It's complicated. 5 (25%)

Now, this isn't a large enough sample to be scientific in any way at all, BUT did you notice that almost half the voters said that book trailers had prevented them from buying? This seems to tally pretty well with informal discussions I've seen elsewhere.

Elsewhere like on Alexander Field's blog (nice redesign, by the way), or on Jessica Faust's blog, and a couple of other places I don't remember.

What I am taking away from all this is that book trailers are risky, like book covers. They can alienate readers more easily than they can draw them in. Unlike book covers, trailers are not an essential part of the process. I personally am not going to attempt one unless I've got a killer idea that could go viral.

I do thing that a book trailer is probably wise to use a lot of words. After all, anyone allergic to reading text is not going to buy the book anyway. And many readers resent having a visual interpretation imposed on them. One of the reasons they enjoy reading is the freedom to imagine characters and settings on their own. How often have you been disappointed by the casting in the movie version of a favourite book? You see the danger.

However, if you hit the sweet spot, and manage to produce a really catchy trailer that people are scrambling to link to, you've got a winner.

As for me, I read one book because of a trailer. The trailer was better.

Anybody have trailer stories to share? Ones you loved? Ones you hated? The one you keep running in your head for the book you're writing?

It takes skill

... to mess up this well. But I am up to the challenge.

Tonight I was supposed to go to Robert J. Sawyer's book launch and birthday party. Pretty cool. One of Canada's most successful writers, and a science fiction writer at that. A potent combination. (OK, so I was a preteen science fiction geek. And a teen SF geek. And... well, you get the idea. Sometimes I go into remission, but the symptoms will reappear with only the slightest provocation.)

I checked out the bus schedules, and decided to take the route that would get me out and walking a bit. I transferred all my things into a purse big enough to hold the autographed book I would be coming home with and headed out the door just a couple of minutes late, meaning that with my short legs I would have to make the 15-minute walk to the bus stop at something just short of a jog. That's fine, the weather was lovely and I always need the exercise. Besides, I hadn't memorized the itinerary for the closer bus and there was no time to check.

About a block shy of the bus stop, I saw a bus coming off the exit ramp. I panicked and broke into a sprint. If the light changed at the wrong time... The light changed at the wrong time. Despair. But wait, it wasn't the one I needed. Relief. A brisk trot brought me to the bus stop just seconds before the bus I really wanted. That sprint turned out to have been a very necessary thing. Happy at how everything had worked out so well, I reached for the outer pocket of my purse where I keep my bus tickets.

You see where this is going, don't you?

There was no pocket on the outside of this purse. And I had, of course, being a certified member of the so-absent-minded-we-wonder-how-she's-still-alive club, forgotten to transfer the bus tickets to one of the inner pockets of the new purse. I could pay cash, but my smallest bill was a twenty, and bus drivers don't make change. Um, no.

I walked back home. It was a lovely evening for a walk.

The Espresso Book Machine has arrived

And the gadget geek in me is in awe. The machine is still hideously ugly and looks like a prototype, but if it catches on, I'm sure that will change. If it does become popular, it will change the way the whole book industry works, but I can't even begin to imagine how. If I were a bookstore owner, I would go have a quiet nervous breakdown in the corner, and then order me a couple.



Hat tip to the Harper Studio blog via Twitter and @MariaSchneider.

Aggressive ignorance is hurting the American image and a lot more than just image

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Unless it’s aggressive stupidity coupled with power. For this reason, aggressive stupidity exercised by Americans in positions of power is arguably the most dangerous in the world. Obama’s much-vaunted promises of change have unfortunately not taken effect. We still are faced with high-ranking American officials whose ignorance of the outside world and their own portfolios is absolutely devastating.

Take Janet Napolitano, Secretary for Homeland Security, for example. (You may have guessed that’s who I wanted to talk about all along.) She has gone on record equating the Mexican and Canadian borders, for starters. That’s not even comparing apples and oranges. That’s comparing Blackberries and oranges. The problems to the North and to the South are vastly different. To the South you have illegal immigrants flowing in; to the North you have congestion slowing down the world’s most vigorous trading partnership. Canadians are not crossing the border in isolated places hoping to find a better life in the US, at least not in numbers significant enough to matter. And those are probably neatly counter-balanced by illegal American immigrants in Canada.

On Monday, Ms. Napolitano took her foot and stuffed it into her mouth all the way up to her hip.

In an interview broadcast Monday on the CBC, Ms. Napolitano attempted to justify her call for stricter border security on the premise that "suspected or known terrorists" have entered the U. S. across the Canadian border, including the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack.

All the 9/11 terrorists, of course, entered the United States directly from overseas. The notion that some arrived via Canada is a myth that briefly popped up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and was then quickly debunked.

Informed of her error, Ms. Napolitano blustered: "I can't talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here's the future. The future is we have borders."

Just what does that mean, exactly?

Even Rush Limbaugh knows better. For the record, the 9/11 terrorists all had papers in order, issued to them by the American government, and not one of them entered the US through Canada.

She has since retracted the statement, claiming she was misunderstood. Judge for yourselves.

The furor began when Napolitano was asked to clarify statements she had made about equal treatment for the Mexican and Canadian borders, despite the fact that a flood of illegal immigrants and a massive drug war are two serious issues on the southern border.

"Yes, Canada is not Mexico, it doesn't have a drug war going on, it didn't have 6,000 homicides that were drug-related last year," she said.

"Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there."

When asked if she was referring to the 9-11 terrorists, Napolitano added: "Not just those but others as well."

Misunderstood, eh? How many ways are there to understand "just" and "as well"?

Is it any surprise that Canadians are upset?

In February, the former Arizona governor--criticized as weak on security along her state's Mexican border during her term--ordered a review of 49th parallel security, saying the terrorist threat was greater there than on the Mexican border. Last month, she said Canada should be treated the same as Mexico--as if there were any real similarities.

As long as she repeats this rubbish, the corrections that follow are unpersuasive.

Canadian Ambassador to the U. S. Michael Wilson does his best to sow truth in hard soil, but this needs to be dealt with at the top. It is now for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to deal directly with Obama, to ensure the border remains open to visitors and convenient to trade.

Unchecked by higher authority, Napolitano's vaulting ignorance is capable of serious harm to Canada.

American friends have sometimes asked me where Canadian anti-Americanism comes from. There are a lot of answers to that question, some of them not too flattering to Canadians, but Napolitano’s shenanigans are an example of the kind of thing that creates a lot of ill will.

Will somebody please send the woman home to Arizona and find somebody competent to replace her? (So much for the stereotype of Republicans being rubes, and Democrats being urbane and sophisticated.) Anybody who believes for ten seconds that the Mexican and Canadian borders are in any way equivalent has no credibility. And she’s had considerably longer than ten seconds to catch on to that fact. If it hasn’t dawned on her in the months she’s held her position, there’s no hope of her ever understanding. This is a fundamental reality that she should have grasped at her very first briefing. It is one thing to be ignorant; it is another altogether to cling to that ignorance in the face of massive evidence to the contrary. And it is sheer insanity to give this kind of person the authority to act on their ignorance. The damage she can do to the American-Canadian trading relationship - and thus to the American economy - is unthinkable. We are, after all, the USA’s biggest trading partner, far eclipsing Japan, the European Union, and even China.

Yeah, I'm steamed. Sorry. And when you find somebody else, make sure it's somebody who has actually crossed the border at least once? Napolitano has flown over it, but has never set foot, or even car tire, in a Canadian border crossing. For crying out loud...

Music for Good Friday

Personal update

I have had all kinds of wonderful ideas for blog posts this week, but my head has been elsewhere, I'm afraid. I know that it severely disrupted your lives. I'm sorry.

After a lot of thinking and mulling and praying, I've decided to accept an offer of representation from Jan Dennis of Dennis Literary. Jan is the man who, as an editor, first published Frank Peretti and Stephen Lawhead, and who, as an agent, first represented Ted Dekker and Donita K. Paul. In other words, he is a huge figure in the world of Christian speculative fiction. I am deeply honoured that he has been willing to place his confidence in me and my writing. And still having a little trouble believing that he did.

OK, next major hurdle to overcome is to win the heart of an editor. But before I get there, I'll probably have some more revising and polishing to do. Jan will be bringing the first set of professional eyes to this manuscript and I imagine he'll have a good number of things to say.

In the meanwhile, I am going to celebrate Easter and the supreme mystery of the Incarnation.

Fun mob in Antwerp

I had a very odd emotional reaction to this video that I really didn't expect. Tell me how it affects you.