Monday Whip Round: Litblogs, Morality, Aggregators

This is an excellent article from The Australian newspaper in guess where. The author Genevieve Tucker takes a long look at the development of lit blogs and reflects - just a little - on activity in Australia. She sees the development of lit blogs as reflecting the desire of readers and book lovers generally to converse about their reading experiences and notes that declines in traditional media attention (newspapers) has sped the growth of these blog sites. In conclusion she says the following:

Above all, readers of books who also enjoy reading blogs are conscious that they are drawn to the most highly powered technology in their homes and offices to talk about the simplest cultural technology there is, one that can be picked up, kept for many years on a shelf, borrowed and lent and returned to at will without needing to be refreshed or substantially remodeled. It is this poignant attachment to old technology, together with a well-balanced sense of the rich possibilities offered by new media, that is probably closest to the heart of blogging about books and writing.

In this article about moving the traditional publishing model into the 21st century we hear of a new approach from a company named thefrontlist.com.

The process is straightforward: After posting an extract from a completed work on The Front List, a writer is allocated five works to critique while his or her extract is, in turn, read and annotated by five other authors. Marks are given out of 50 - based on five set criteria, which vary according to genre.

The purpose is to provide real feedback to authors wishing to have their books published by a traditional publishing house. thefrontlist.com is attempting to bridge a gap between publishers who do not accept unsolicited manuscripts and agents that are inundated with so many submissions there is little chance they can offer constructive feedback. As most realistic and unemotional publishing practitioners know, the odds are heavily stacked against a first time author. In my view this experiment with not work mainly because I think they will find that the 'population' that may make use of this type of site can't edit. (I also found Mrs Dalloway dull).

Speaking of Virginia Woolf; Book World is reading her dairies and she can't put them down!


Here is a magazine you don't skim every day; American Thinker (no comments!). This article reflects on the morality of current publishing given the O.J. Simpson, James Frey and Kaavya Viswanathan issues of the past 12 months. The author leaves us with this rather damning comment:

And therein lies the dilemma faced by the contemporary book publishing industry: where a Maxwell Perkins could nurture, cajole, develop, and protect his stable of writers, and do so with the intention of adding valuable intellectual products to the culture, publishers today have been forced - both by the interest and tastes of the marketplace of readers and the uncertainties of publishing economics - to go in directions earlier editors and publishers might have thought untenable and inappropriate. They have been forced to transform the profession of publishing from one in which ideas were generated and preserved for society's good into a process where the pursuit of profits overshadows this primary, seemingly nobler purpose. That tension shows no sign of subsiding, which means that the hard choice between "culture and mammon" will no doubt continue to have repercussions on the business of bringing books to life.

I guess we have a lot of work to do - or perhaps we continue to cater to what the audience want or expects....


Since I read this article by Scott Karp I have been thinking about it a lot. I don't agree with all of it but it a very interested view point on data/content aggregators and content creators. There is a under current of negativity associated with the 'aggregator' business model which I don't agree with. Here is his opening paragraph:

Can anyone think of a content business meaning a company that produces original content that has scaled dramatically in recent years? I can't. Look at the businesses that have scaled Google, MySpace, YouTube all platforms for content, but not producers of content. Compare those to original content businesses like Weblogs, Inc., Gawker, TechCrunch, Paid Content they are successful at their scale, but that scale is still tiny compared to the scale of the aggregation businesses. Even portals like AOL and Yahoo are much more aggregators of content than original producers of content.

It is worth a read and I might attempt my own view at some point.


Lastly I hesitate to comment on the Ashes test other than to link to thiarticleaticle about a job offer for a "waitress" to help fetch and carry for a bunch of English blokes at the Melbourne test in a few weeks. It will all be over by then and this waitress is going to be a very tired girl.

USS Intrepid

Despite the tow line, the USS Intrepid looked pretty magnificent floating down the Hudson this morning. For those who don't know, the ship has functioned as a private Museum for twenty four years on the West side of Manhattan. It is going south to New Jersey for a refurbishment and will make the return journey in two years. The ship saw action in WWII, survived kamakazi attacks and served in Korea and Vietnam but it was the river mud that almost had it beat. The first attempt to move the ship last month failed but they got it right this time. Nice day today; just a bit cold.

Monday Round-up

I liked this blog post by Tomassina at Book Info.net. I mentioned sports books in my last post and here she looks at the big advances paid to some celebrity 'authors' for their life stories. (I like the sound of 'comeuppance'). Notably they include books by sports stars. On top of this, she also reflects on the comprehension level of some of today's popular titles. Apparently, Mitch Ablom's book could be read with ease by a 9 year old. Humm...is that why is does so well at Starbucks.

Martha Stewart has too large a role in our house for my comfort but she does seem to have done well on the web. The company announced that over 30% of company revenues are internet related.

Over at Eoin Purcell's blog he notes that Penguin are allowing punters to design their own covers for some Penguin classics titles. Interesting and innovative.

Debate continues over the accuracy of Wikipedia and comparative studies on this subject are occasional. In this blog article from The Future of the Book, I think the authors strike the right note. The 'accuracy' debate is not a simple one and many other factors are at play. Not least the fact that most wikipedia entries are collective and as such may not compare well with a single perhaps better organized and edited view point. As the article points out in the soft sciences where opinion and interpretation play a significant role the collective can provide a challenge to (perhaps) the more dogmatic or prevailing view. Does this make the wikipedia entry wrong...the debate continues.

England: Rugby and The Ashes

With the week spent in England, I was able to witness first hand the first Ashes test and the England South Africa game at Twicks. The Ashes has been highly anticipated; the Assies are full of bravardo and brio as is typical and every English fan knows we are going to get our ass kicked. As the game went on we all knew when Petersen was out in the second innings what little hope we collectively held was vaporized. .....but wait, I go to bed last night with England at 330/3 and this morning they have declared at 550 and got on Assie wicket. Dare we believe?

I have sat in the stands at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) many times which is were my father is going to be on December 26th. Back in 1975, I sat with my cousin with a Denis Amiss sign drapped over the rail in front of us. I have no idea why we picked Denis but he was a fine English batsman. We had painted the sign in big black letters on a sheet which when we lifted it off the patio had left an imprint of AMISS in the stone. Certain adults were not amused and it was a bugger to get out.

England's world cup victory ranks as one of the best sporting events I have ever witnessed. (MU over Beyern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final is number one). I have never been a rugby fan and I only remember playing it once when I got whacked in the teeth and immediately thought this is not for me. Watching this team in the last two years had been painful and the South Africa match was a good example. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory late in the first half when they were in control a few minutes from the half and a fumbled catch gave the initiative to SA and they never scored another point. South Africa are not a particularly strong team. The coach had to go and he is now out. (BTW, I can't beleive he is two years younger than me. See, that's what Rugby does to you).

Along the sporting line, I heard of a book award program I had not been familar with. William Hill sponsors this award program and this year it was won by Gary Imlach for 'My Father And Other Working Class Football Heroes'.

The book features the story of Imlach's attempts to secure for his late father,
Stewart - who played in the 1958 World Cup finals and was an FA Cup winner with
Nottingham Forest in 1959 - the official cap from the Scottish FA to which
Imlach believes he is entitled but which he never received and is still being
refused.

Other nominated titles included books about Marco Pantini, Abebe Bikila, The Berlin Olympics and Chelsea FC.

Not unsurprizingly, there are no sports 'biographies' nominated.

Weekly Update

Never has the phrase You can't make this stuff up been more appropriate. As we arrived in the UK last week there was heavy news reporting about the last days on Litvinenco. (At this point barely a ripple on the US networks). Unless the authorities were keeping it quiet, the whole radiation thing only started to come out after the poor bloke was dead. My thoughts firstly were how did the stuff get here? Well, now BA are finding the stuff in multiple planes and this is weird not because it may have been transported via plane but why as many as three planes? I can see two planes - outbound and in-bound but what's with the third? Perhaps more than one carrier just to double the chances that some would reach the intended target? If so, where's the extra? My second subsequent thought was that this guy lay in hospital for three weeks before he died and we then found out he had radiation poisoning. What does this say about London's readiness to identify a more serious outbreak of anything? On this kind of schedule we will all be dead.

Back to publishing...

Deals:
The Houghton Mifflin deal was agreed this week with executive positions announced. As the news reports pointed out the equity firms which purchased the company a few years have made a very nice return on thier investment. More from The Australian on the riches brought forth.

Proquest have completed the divesture of their electronic parts catalog business to Snap-On tools. I suspect Snap On sees a huge opportunity in building a e-commerce business based on this data. Coupled with the large community represented by the Proquest sales channel of over 33,000 dealers. Proquest recieves mostly cash for the deal. Earlier this year Proquest announced some accounting irregularities but stressed they did not impede the business.

Wolters Kluwer announced better than expected results this week and this article from Forbes on publishing deals notes that the WK educational unit may be put up for sale. Apparently they have had some expressions of interest. I have heard this unit has been a little problematic for them; generally legal, tax, regulatory, medical and nursing titles.

Other News:
Indigo books announced a program with iUniverse which is similar to the program iUniverse has with Barnes & Noble. The program enables iUniverse authors to have a presence on front of store displays. The titles have to meet certain commercial criteria.

For the aging generation - thankfully not me yet - Harpercollins has launched a 'luxe' large print program. Named HarperLuxe, they aim to raise the standard of typical large print titles. Look for others to follow-on. I always liked the large print publisher market which used to be 'dominated' by GK Hall and Thorndyke. When Macmillan was collapsing I had a thought of acquiring G.K. Hall. A little issue of money reduced this to little more than a thought.

I had a hand in this implementation at Bowker - made the go ahead decision and signed the contract. On occaision I demo the interface; however, it sits behind a subscription wall so it is not easy to get to. To get an idea what this interface looks like go here and type 'suspense' in the search box. By the way, Queens Public is one of the more innovative library systems in the nation and also has one of the most diverse population served.

If you were doubting your sartorial sensibility then this article from The Age (my one-time home newspaper) on a flood of new titles for those needing a refresher on 'manners' and 'dress code'. That would be me. I am closer to the loin cloth type - see the article.

There were a few best of lists this week but here is a different take from Forbes magazine which asked a list of reputable media types what books mean to them and the title of the last significant book they read. I liked the gorgeous Suzanne Somers the best.

New York Times best of 2006. and the Kirkus' reviews of said titles.
Publisher's Weekly (Glad to see George Pelecanos and Cormac McCarthy on their list)
Amazon.co.uk (Interesting selection - click on fiction for more)
Amazon.com (I just started The Emperors Children which is on this list)
The Observer - The Great and the Good note their best 2006 picks.

Dead Barbie On A Beach in Costa Rica

This is the last of three travel articles on a trip Mrs PND and I took to Costa Rica. Links to the others are at the bottom.



There is a rage mixed with disbelief as the view along the crescent of sand is dotted with colorful plastic jewelry. Every conceivable color is represented and in all forms of mass production from buckets to sandals to nylon rope. Netted collections of twigs, branches and leaves hold this detritus from our civilized world until it runs ashore. And make no mistake - this excrement has no business being here in this spit of wilderness pointing out into the Pacific Ocean.

And, yes, tossed up on the beach was dead Barbie. Entirely pink but not anatomically correct it may nevertheless be the subject of an intense manhunt in some bedroom in Santa Monica. The sheer amount of plastic material, both whole and ground into small pieces, is hard to describe and the hotel workers labored for three days to collect the material and truck it off. Mini color-dotted pyres sprang up along the beach as they struggled to catch up with the constant influx of new material from the sea. It was likely to go on for a week pushed ahead by some massive storm out to sea: This didn’t matter to hotel management - they had to get the beach back in pristine shape. At least until the next tide. I did notice that of the 20 or so workers, there didn’t appear to be any managers.


My fascination with this mess took me along the beach. We are infrequently confronted by our impact on our environment and this was a first for me. We had just spent the past three days in a protected ecological reserve and that experience made the contrast with what we saw on the beach all the more marked. As I walked the length of the beach I was mindful of my step. Thoughts of medical waste washed up on New Jersey beaches caught in my mind and wouldn’t you know it? There was a syringe still connected to its needle sitting happily just above the waterline. Thankfully lonely amongst the plastic bottles, buckets and foam bottle holders, I carefully picked it up and placed it in one of the garbage bags the workers were filling.


Needless to say, few people were venturing into the sea that week although the beach on the bay side of the hotel was protected from the scrum of scum. Care had been taken in the construction of the hotel so as to destroy as little of the jungle as possible but while this is a beautiful location, an eco-lodge it is not. Designed for rich, pampered phobia-ridden tourists, there is just enough ‘nature’ to enable them to return to Upper Saddle River where they can tell their friends about the monkeys they saw from their bedroom lanai. How about a hike up the volcano or a visit to the small local town? Nope, that would be too much trouble and we only came for the sun.


Make no mistake - I recognize Mr. and Mrs. PND are similar (although we are often horrified at the closed mindedness of some of our fellow pool dwellers) in nature to all the other attendees at this ecological Disney experience. On the other hand, the hotel has enabled some lucky Costa Ricans to crawl into a sort of lower middle class. Engaging in a conversation with the hotel staff produces startling support for the hotel and the opportunity it affords. All enjoy the opportunity to practice their English and in a country where over 95% of the population is literate (can we say the same?), your average Costa Rican is going to come across as being quite “with it”. The hotel is hard to get to and I think management discourages personal transport, so staff catch regularly scheduled coaches to the hotel. One worker told us she is up at four every morning to catch the bus and not home until past six at night. She just loves her job, though.


We can escape all we want to places like this, but it doesn’t take long to realize how interconnected we all are. It was bad enough that we were quietly sitting reading at the pool when two couples sidled up near us and started to discuss shopping at the Short Hills Mall. The ecological disaster that greeted us on the beach got me wondering what it must be like to live downstream from a very large waste pipe. Sadly the producers of the waste in the pipe (me included) rarely, if ever, see the results of their activities. I wonder, had the weather been a little nicer, would I have been more upset that I couldn’t tan on the beach or horrified about the scum? I guess if I didn’t think the experience disturbing, I wouldn’t still be thinking about it.


Hiking in the Clouds
Zipping Through Costa Rica

Customer Service

I admit to a degree of impatience with shoddy service. At the same time I do fight the English tendancy to put up. Often I have an internal conversation with myself that generally ends in '...you'll be disgusted with yourself tomorrow if you don't do something about this..' Generally by then I am pissed which doesn't help. Anyway over the past two weeks, I have felt a little awash in the Bermuda Triangle of customer service.

I checked into a Holiday Inn recently and on leaving the desk I asked if my room had a connecting door. I hate them. Happily the receptionist said "When you get up there if your room has one just come back and I'll put you in another room." Sure enough I was back at the desk five minutes later. By then she had seemed to have found the floor map.

Mrs PND and I travelled to the UK last week. British Airways used to have one of the best in-flight services going. Coming and going we noted the total mediocrity of the service. Periodically the flight attendants seemed to forget we existed. I never got offered breakfast and for some reason the crew moved four from economy into business class - a significant bonus for them no doubt - and in the process spent more time addressing their needs than the rest of the paying travellers. Return wasn't much better but it was prefaced by a standing room only arrival in the executive club lounge. Staff couldn't give a rats arse.

While in the UK, I walked into a Starbucks near home at 5:45pm to access my email only to realize the place was closing. This was apparent because rather than waiting to clean up after they were closed (at 6pm) all the chairs were on the tables and they were mopping up. No staff were available to serve. The next day I went down to get a coffee at 8:20am, paid for my grande and then realized (together with the clerk) that they had forgotten to put the coffee on! This is Starbucks - that's what they do!

In Hatchards on Monday I was picking up books I had paid for over the phone and rather than have someone bring them to the front desk they had me up and down the stairs doing my own research on where someone may have put the three books in question. I ended up in the mail room on the top floor. As I left someone asked if I had found everything I needed. Christ.

I might be a whiner but over the same period, I can't think of any occasion where I have witnessed good or exceptional customer service. No one cares anymore.