Amazon + Goodreads, The New Literary Lovechild
Oh, Amazon. At it again. As many of you know, the corporation bought Goodreads last week, creating a new literary lovechild. A good ol’ literary scandal.
With Amazon purchasing many of the big websites today, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they’ve recently merged with Goodreads, a book recommendation community for readers. As a platform to recommend books, Goodreads is an ideal place for book sales (i.e. perfect for Amazon).
This new merger will still keep much of the layout of the website the same and preserve the Goodreads community. The only major changes to the site will be in customizations for Kindle users and their new ability to preview books and purchase directly from the website. For users reading on all other kinds of e-readers and in print, the rest of the site’s navigation and the social aspect of sharing books will stay.
There will still be links to other retailers besides Amazon because of the variety of users, and according to both Amazon and Goodreads, the site will still remain a place to share books, but now with the ability to start reading them directly on the site without going to a third party.
So, the site will remain the same for the most part. The only major difference will be behind the scenes—Amazon will have access to all the books you’ve read, are reading, or want to read. Perfect for a website that’s trying to sell you books, no?
Are some users going to leave the site in an active boycott of Amazon? Definitely. Has Amazon gone a little “Big Brother” in the literary world? Yup. But the more important question is will Goodreads remain the same online literary community it has been? Looks like it.
Literary Spotlight: Boston Review
Pubslush had the chance to speak with Junot Diaz, fiction editor of the Boston Review and author of Drown, This Is How You Lose Her, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Diaz shares his insights as an author and editor below!
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What is the mission of Boston Review?
Trying to publish the kind of work that might be useful to the future. The kind of work that helps to make clear our present. These are the days where spaces of deliberation are few and far between. Boston Review seeks to be one.
Boston review is “a magazine of political, cultural, and literary ideas.” How does that translate into what you are looking for in fiction submissions?
Fiction is composed of politics, culture and literary ideas so our section is perhaps the truest daughter of the Review and its most representative tribune.
But to be less pompous: in our section we’re trying to publish fiction people can’t put down, that starts conversations; also we’re trying to publish as many first-timers as possible. Keeping an eye always for that flash of wildness that someone else might miss but that makes reading such a joy.
What, in your opinion, makes for a powerful piece of writing?
News of the world. Formalistic experimentation and an ineluctable sense of the human. I love to be brought to wonder when I read, to be shaken, to be reminded of what it means to be a person. But most of all I want to leave my skull and be in communion, intimately, briefly with another living mind. Something we don’t often do outside of art and love.
As an author that has bounced back and forth between the short story form and novel form, do you think there are stories that should be told in only one form or the other? And how does an author know which form is best for a particular story?
In this case it really is all about length. There are some stories where the length IS your canvas and other stories where the short connection, severed ruthlessly at the end, best communicate your project. A lot of times you have no idea which will suit your story best. This is something that sucks about the art—sometimes you don’t know until you first make a run at it. The journey teaches you what’s possible. And plenty of stories grow into novels so it’s a dynamic process of learning and feeling out how much life your narrative has in it.
Language. Just talk to us about language.
What a question! So straightforward and yet so impossible to answer well. Don’t know what to say except that I love wrestling with all my languages, trying to make an ark for them all. And for me there is no greater enjoyment than when I read someone who uses their languages well, who describes something so perfectly that I will always refer to their vision of the thing in my mind.
How do you think a person makes the transformation from “aspiring author” to “writer”?
There are ten billion ways. Reading helps most of them.
Literary Spotlight: Better magazine
Stuff We Love: Where Writers Win
Pubslush had the opportunity to chat with Shari Stauch from Where Writer’s Win, an invaluable resource that provides marketing services for authors. Learn more about Where Writers Win below!
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Why did you develop Where Writers Win?
I’d worked with a number of authors, agents and editors while helping produce writers conferences in Myrtle Beach, SC and New Orleans, LA and kept hearing the same story over and over again: Editors and agents would tell authors, “We love your work, but you need to go build a website first, make some connections, and bring it back when you’ve built a platform or we’ll never be able to make the sale.”
Worse, authors who were trying to follow this advice were being quoted outrageous prices, and then didn’t even have control over their own sites, were given no training, or weren’t guided at all in the nuances of the social media they were being told to participate in. Or, we’d go to book signings and meet authors who hadn’t been able to update their sites and were being charged money just to list an event.
And, at those signings, readings and panels, we’d see authors with no training trying to engage their audiences, and losing sales when they couldn’t. It would be great if publishers trained authors in these presentation skills before they turned them loose, but like websites and social media training, they just don’t have the resources to do it.
So, with four books, a magazine, and a lot of PR and marketing under my belt through working with other clients, including the Women’s Pro Billiard Tour, I knew I could take those success models and develop something particular to authors. Frankly there are a lot of similarities between pro athletes and pro authors; they both need a team of experts in their corner to coach them through being public figures and cultivating new fans! But authors have the edge in websites and social media because they’re already accomplished at communicating with written words.
What services does Where Writers Win offer?
The Where Writers Win team really is a one-stop-shop for gearing up as an author, including everything from coaching writers on their books and or submissions; writer websites and training to manage their own websites; social media training and how to find and engage their unique readers; media training for authors going out on media interviews or book tours, video book trailers and more.
We’re very careful to keep up with industry trends and share that with our authors, and connect authors to each other, too, so they can exchange ideas and cross promote. Our authors are a generous group of professionals, all eager to help each other succeed, which also helps make us unique. Folks can learn more at http://writerswin.com/services/ where we provide extensive info about each service as well as pricing.
Who comprises the Where Writers Win team?
We’re a collaborative team of experts in social media, website development, video and media training who met in the publishing arena. We began brainstorming how to bring each of our services together in an economical way that would best serve a new brand of entrepreneurial author. Our cumulative experience with a variety of publishing platforms and the wide range of skills we provide allows us to deliver solutions to clients in a very personal way.
The current group includes myself (social media and writer coaching), Kendra Haskins (website and graphic design), Bren McClain and Joanne Cleaver (fiction and non-fiction media trainers), and PJ Woodside (video book trailers).
What’s fabulous about the team is that they’re each TOPS in their field, but all have a special love for reading, books and authors, so the prices for WWW clients are a fraction of the fees they each command for typical corporate clients. It’s a win-win; economical for the authors, and fun for each of us to work with authors with a passion for their words. Bios and credentials of each of the team can be found at http://writerswin.com/the-team/.
We’re also working on a new component that will bring in more team members and allow for some select content and resources for authors, a sort of “Members Only” club. That launches in May…
Why is it important for authors to market themselves and their book(s)?
An author has to recognize that with all today’s new self-publishing and hybrid models comes a VERY crowded marketplace – millions of books being published vs. the 280,000 or so of just a few years ago. I offer up some sobering statistics in my talks at writer’s conferences. For instance, 80% of U.S. families didn’t buy or read a book last year (ouch), but 81% of Americans say they dream of writing a book. That always gets a laugh, but it’s true!
So, with millions of books now being published and only 20% of Americans reading books - how is an author going to stand out if they’re not Stephen King or James Patterson or JK Rowling? Well, the beauty of all this website and social media stuff in our brave new world is that it’s chock full of the written word, and again, that’s where authors excel, right?
And for an emerging author with a limited budget and low margins, marketing themselves and their book is very much about smart marketing. And not marketing their book will most surely limit its distribution to family and friends. Hey, if you toiled away to write something that needs to be shared, don’t you owe it to the book to help it get seen?
At what point in the book writing process should authors begin to develop their marketing strategy?
As soon as possible! Seriously, whether being traditionally published or going the self-publishing route, you’ll begin to think about marketing from the time you conceive of your book, even without realizing it. We work with authors to help them identify who they envision reading their eventual book, then go to work showing them how to find and cultivate connections with their niche market, creating a ready-made audience from the day that book releases.
What would you recommend as the first step to marketing for emerging authors?
Learn as much as you can, and that’s the first place where we can help. We blog every other day on topics of marketing concern to authors and writers can subscribe for free. We also offer free consultation calls to help point folks in the right direction (email shari@writerswin.com to set one up!). And yes, some of those callers will end up becoming our clients if the fit is right. But either way we’re happy to help and offer up advice or answer questions.
A lot of new authors are intimidated by all this social stuff and afraid it’s going to be a full-time job. We help them learn which sites require what amount of input and ultimately want an author to be able, after training, to manage their marketing and social media in an hour or less a day (so they can keep writing!)
And whether an author works with our team or anyone else, the first and foremost goal should be to grab that domain name and launch a website. It’s today’s calling card no matter the business you’re in, and the whole point of social media, while grand, is to drive folks to your site, where they’ll be able to interact with you, and of course buy your book!
Pubslush Marketplace Seeks Freelance Writing Professionals
So, you’re an author and you’ve just successfully completed your Pubslush campaign. Congratulations! You’ve raised the money you will need to publish your book. Now what…?
Thanks to our partnership with MaestroMarket, Pubslush has developed a one-stop marketplace for our authors. Once an author has completed their Pubslush campaign, they will need the resources and a team of publishing professionals to successfully publish their book. Sounds like a lot more work, right?
Not anymore! Our marketplace will be a place for authors and editors, proofreaders, literary agents, book designers, illustrators, and other industry professionals to connect. We will be accepting bids from freelancers with all different backgrounds and levels of experience so that our marketplace will be diverse and offer something for every budget.
So, whether you’re just starting out or you’re a veteran to the industry, the Pubslush marketplace will help you land jobs, expand your clientele and build your resume. We are currently seeking freelancers interested in promoting themselves on our platform. If you’re interested, please email us at hello@pubslush.com and we’ll be happy to answer any questions and get you started.
Source: maestromarket.com
Bookstores Galore: Kramerbooks & Afterwords
Source: kramers.com
Stuff We Love: The Uprise Book Project
What is The Uprise Book Project?
The Uprise Books Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to ending the cycle of poverty through literacy, encouraging underprivileged teens to read by providing them with new banned and challenged books. I know rattling off the mission statement isn’t exactly the most exciting answer to that question, but I think it makes a reasonably good elevator pitch.
Why is part of your mission to provide teens with banned or challenged books?
We know there are a couple of big hurdles when it comes to getting teens to read. Simply getting kids access to books is the first step… kids in poorer neighborhoods tend to have fewer books in the home (one study showed that the ratio of books-to-kids in middle class neighborhoods is 13:1, while in poorer neighborhoods it’s a horrifying 1:300… as in 1 book for every 300 kids), they tend to live further from public libraries, and they tend to attend poorly-funded schools.
But just getting teens books isn’t quite enough. There are so many things working against them… family obligations, poor reading skills, various entertainment options, and, unfortunately, negative peer pressure around any sort of “intellectual” activity, just to name a few. They need more than “eat your veggies because they’re good for you.” We believe that the “forbidden fruit” angle can help.
We’re also very much against the idea of institutionally-endorsed censorship, especially when so many of the books that are banned and challenged are being kept from the kids who need them the most. Imagine a teenager discovering her own sexuality in a district where books are challenged for “homosexual content,” or the sons and daughters of immigrants in Arizona seeing their school district pulling books about Mexican-American history. Those actions send a clear message to teens: “there’s something wrong with you being who you are.” We simply think that’s wrong. We take the American Library Association’s stance that the only people who should control a minor’s access to books are his parents, and they should only be controlling their own child’s access.
Finally, it’s also turned out to be an effective fundraising tool. During our Kickstarter campaign, for example, we learned that the anti-censorship message really resounded with some of our supporters, sometimes even more than the anti-poverty one. People seemed more likely to act when they were angry because someone challenged one of their favorite books.
Can you tell us how a book gets banned or challenged?
It varies, depending on the location. Most of the time, the challenges are issued from parents, though they certainly aren’t the only ones. The ALA site has some great stats on their site about the who/where/why’s:
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/stats
Typically, in the case of schools and public libraries, they have formal procedures for handling complaints received from concerned citizens. The public librarians we’ve met tend to be staunch First Amendment supporters and fight vigilantly to preserve the rights of all patrons (regardless of age) to access books, but they are also obligated to at least investigate formally issued complaints.
Not all challenges lead to bans, of course, and data about challenges isn’t always officially recorded (though the ALA and various state branches of the ACLU do their best). There are times when the complaints might result in some action short of banning. For example, imagine an adult-oriented graphic novel shelved in the kid section with the Batman and Archie books. Few would argue that it might be more appropriate to move that title to a place a little less likely for an elementary-aged child to accidentally pull it off the rack.
How does literacy help to end poverty?
We see a very strong correlation between literacy and income. Adults who can’t read well are much more likely to have lower-paying jobs, if they can find employment at all. The problem is exacerbated in the U.S. by the continuing shift from a manufacturing to an information/knowledge-based economy, one that requires more educated, highly-trained workers. If, like roughly 25% of the American public, you can’t read well enough to interpret the instructions on a medicine bottle, you’re not very likely to find a job that will lift your family out of poverty.
The children of impoverished families find themselves perpetuating a vicious cycle. Parents in low-income families are less likely to promote literacy in the household than their middle/upper-class counterparts, so their children are less likely to pick up the reading skills correlated with future success. Those children grow up to find themselves in the same situation as their parents: poor, unable to read, and raising children who’ll likely continue the cycle.
A recent study commissioned by RIF supports our hypothesis, concluding that “children from less affluent families do not perform as well on achievement tests compared with children of more affluent families” and “one possible remedy to the socioeconomic gaps in academic achievement is to make sure that children of low-income families have access to high-quality, age-appropriate books.”
Geographically speaking, where are your efforts focused?
We’re still in the process of building the website we partially funded through our initial Kickstarter campaign in 2011. That site will allow qualifying teens (those who attend poorer schools or who qualify for free/reduced lunches) to request books regardless of their location within the US.
In the meantime, we’ve been working with a couple of individual teachers who contacted us after reading about our organization online. While our original intent was to work with individual students rather than entire classrooms or schools, we didn’t think we could ignore these kids simply because their requests didn’t exactly fit our intended plan. A few weeks ago, we were able to send 170 copies of “The Catcher in the Rye” to students at the Carrollton/Farmers Branch Dallas Can Academy, and we’re currently working to raise money for kids at Philadelphia’s Creative Learning Academy. You can read a bit about that here.
What is your favorite banned/challenged book?
It really depends on my mood, but usually it’s either “Lolita” or “Slaughterhouse-Five.” I love so many of them, though… For instance, Shel Silverstein’s “A Light in the Attic” is still a favorite in our house, and our son was a huge Captain Underpants fan in elementary school.
How can people get involved?
Giant bags of cash are always appreciated (again, we’re a 501c3, so donations are usually tax deductible). As I type this, we’re pushing to raise $1,500 to help the aforementioned kids in Philadelphia, and we’d love to send them a nice little package before they break for the holidays.
Aside from that, the best way is to spread the word. Follow @UpriseBooks on Twitter, Like us on Facebook (http://facebooks.com/UpriseBooks), subscribe to our newsletter (http://eepurl.com/fv_zw). Tell your friends and family. Send us good karma.
Bookstores Glaore: Antigone Books
Since 1990, these two hard working women have established a bookstore that their customers can call home. Voted best Independent Bookstore in the Tucson Weekly, Antigone Books offers an abundance of literature for all ages as well as cards and gifts. It is also 100% solar powered! The location of the bookstore has changed three different times since its grand opening in 1973, but each time relocated to a different spot on 4th street. Antigone Books carries books about current events, fair trade and green living, to souvenirs like handbags so their customers can have a piece of Antigone Books to carry with them every day. Today, Antigone books is said to maintain its feminist slant while still widening the store in all directions. Antigone Books is opened Monday to Thursday 10:00am-7:00pm; Friday & Saturday 10:00am-9:00pm and Sunday 11:00am-5:00pm.
Source: antigonebooks.com
Good Reads from the New Yorker
You know when you open up the latest New Yorker and there’s nothing you want to read? You’re sure the lead feature on the last artisanal beekeeper in Westchester (I do not know if this is an actual thing, I kind of just threw together buzzwords that sounded good together) is well-written but you just can’t muster the enthusiasm needed to read the entire ten page article. Happily I’ve found some good reads in the two most recent issues of the New Yorker and I’d be remiss if I didn’t give you rundown of some highlights.
“God and his Girlfriend” by Simon Rich, January 9th, 2012 issue
Do you guys know/like Simon Rich? He writes for SNL, he’s a former editor of Harvard’s National Lampoon and an author of books, so he’s a somebody and a funny somebody at that. This New Yorker piece is a good little introduction to Rich’s writing, which is often a contemporary reimagining of some older thing that renders the aforementioned older thing into something sort of absurd. If that makes no sense to you, refer to the link above.
“Stumptown Girl” by Margaret Talbot, January 2nd, 2012 issue
Profile on Carrie Brownstein, ex-guitarist and singer in Sleater-Kinney, current guitarist for Wild Flag, co-creator of IFC’s Portlandia. Portlandia begins its new season on January 6th so that is probably the promotional driving force behind this article. Whether you think Portlandia is funny or not is for you to decide, but I think it would be hard to argue that the sketch show doesn’t successfully skewer the white, urbane and decidedly hipsterish culture that exists in Portland, Oregon and other major U.S. metropolises (including New York and not JUST in Williamsburg). The best thing about this piece is the very sincere camaraderie and even love between Brownstein and Fred Armisen, her comedy partner/co-creator of Portlandia (he’s also in the current cast of SNL).
I’m keeping this to three because New Yorker articles are long and the average New Yorker’s free time is sparse. Here’s my last pick:
“The Future” by Pop Notes, January 9th, 2012 issue
You’re going need the iPad app to read this, be a New Yorker subscriber, or be willing to shell out 6 bucks for the issue and for this I apologize. I’m not condoning shoplifting but I am condoning maybe stealthily slipping your friend’s copy into your bag and reading it at home. The short piece lists new music and I KNOW, just know, that one of your New Year’s resolutions was to “get more into” new music. This is your chance.
The Publishing Revolution
The publishing industry is archaic and institutionalized; there’s no doubt about that. We have the Big 6 and their even bigger slush piles of unread and unwanted manuscripts. It has been this way for ages. However, although traditional publishers still operate in the same fashion they always have, the industry is being revolutionized. Digital markets such as Amazon allow for authors to easily self-publish their work and social media has created a direct link from authors to audience. Through devices such as Kindles and Nooks, the digital market is bridging the gap between “writer” and “published author.” There is so much potential in this rapidly progressing industry that it’s only a matter of time before that next “big thing” is revealed.
Actually, that next big thing is here.
At Pubslush we saw this rapidly changing industry and the technology emerging from it as an opportunity to bridge the ever-widening gap between self-publishing and traditional publishing, further advancing and redefining the publishing revolution. We’ve utilized emerging technology to create a platform in which we can gauge the market and determine the success of a book pre-publication. Essentially, we are the platform for aspiring authors who believe they have a great book idea and can garner the support needed for publication.
That next big thing is Pubslush Press. We are the publishing revolution. Want to join?
Social Media Anxiety
I can’t help but wonder if the rise of social media has been greatly influenced by the increased social anxiety that seems to have seeped into the general population along with recent technological advances. People would rather text than call, a tweet is a sufficient conversation, e-mails are the best way to communicate in offices, and GOD FORBID you don’t give your bff a happy birthday shout out on Facebook! You just simply wouldn’t be friends anymore. Face to face contact and genuine interpersonal connections are simply undervalued nowadays and I believe it’s a safe leap of logic to say all these growing outlets for communication only exacerbate the social anxiety epidemic.
However, with the rise of all the different social media platforms, I find a new kind of anxiety arising: social media anxiety. Daily, we have to check our Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram…and these are only the most popular ones! If you aren’t active on these sites, most people will think of you as a nobody. Zilch, zero, nada. You could be the most charismatic, charming person, but if you don’t tweet your butt off, no one will give you a second look. Wouldn’t it be easier sometimes to just connect and interact in an organic, natural way? The way people have been interacting for, uh, ever?
So is there a solution to all this social media mayhem? Unfortunately not. It’s the 21st century and we’re stuck with it. But I would say to learn the most effective uses of each platform (Facebook is for connecting with people you know, Twitter sets a more conversational tone, Tumblr can help to drive traffic to other platforms, etc.) and utilize the ones that will best fit your needs. Know your audience and know how to reach them. And try your best to block out the other 3.2 million (approximately) social media sites you aren’t actively using.
Interview with Time Anderson, Author of Tune In Tokyo
PUBSLUSH interviews Tim Anderson about his debut novel, Tune In Tokyo, his trials and triumphs being a self-published author, and what it means to be “published” in the 21st century.
PUBSLUSH: Tell us a bit about yourself. What is your background?
TIM: I was born and raised in Raleigh, NC, went to school at UNC-Chapel Hill. Before I went to Japan I’d lived in England a couple times, once in Manchester and once in London. After Japan I was back in Raleigh for a few years before migrating up to NYC, because I apparently love living in impossibly expensive cities.
PS: Tell us about your efforts to get published. What was this process like for you?
TIM: It was a loooooooooooong road I traveled! Of course, in order to be published you first have to have a solid manuscript, which took me a while to whip into shape. (My first draft was waaay too long!) I jumped through all the traditional hoops—got an agent, wrote a book proposal, revised bunches. But ultimately, though we got very complimentary responses, no interested editors were able to get it past the veto of their marketing departments. So ultimately my agent gave up, understandably, and I started working on something new.
PS: What made you decide to self-publish?
TIM: After writing a few chapters of a new book, I realized that I really needed closure on the previous one. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that, contrary to marketing department declarations, there IS an audience for Tune in Tokyo. I basically decided to not take no for an answer on this, especially since it’s so easy to just put something out there yourself these days. So I self-published in June 2010 and sent it out into the world.
PS: Do you feel you benefited from self-publishing? How did you promote and market your book?
TIM: Absolutely! Of course, the hard part about doing it yourself—with no publicity budget, no presence on book shelves, no nuthin’—is getting folks to pay attention to you—i.e., getting reviewed, talked up on blogs, etc. I got very little of that because I’m kind of a hapless self-promoter. I did have a really fun book launch party here in NYC and managed to get the event listed in Time Out New York, the Village Voice, Downtown Express, and The Villager. But with no local bookstore support—the local stores I tried to woo in Brooklyn showed no interest—I couldn’t get any momentum or word-of-mouth. I did do a bit of guerilla marketing—going around and putting copies of the book on bookstore shelves—it’s the opposite of shoplifting! And it was certainly gratifying to place my book on top of the new one by Tucker Max on the New Paperbacks table. (That was a public service.) I also had some bookmarks made that I would then go stick inside best-sellers at shops around town. But it was a one-man operation that amounted to me trying to foist myself on an indifferent universe, and the universe seemed to be busy with other things, like the latest Sarah Palin book or whatever.
Then in September of 2010 Publisher’s Weekly announced that they were going to start doing a quarterly review of self-published titles, so I threw my hat into the ring and managed to get Tune in Tokyo reviewed in the inaugural self-publishing supplement. A few months later I was contacted by an editor at Amazon Publishing, who had read the review, then read the book and loved it, and wanted to bring it to a larger audience. And nine months later I’ve got a new edition of the book available as both a trade paperback and in a Kindle edition, hooray.
PS: What does it mean to you to “be published” in the 21st century?
TIM: That’s a great question, because the whole notion of being “published” has completely changed, since any Tom, Dick, or Harriet can very easily publish themselves (as they should, go for it!) and, therefore, be “published.” I guess now the sweet spot is no longer the sight of your own book bound and with your name on it, but actually the establishment and growth of an audience for your writing, which is the whole point of publishing anyway. I feel like I’m starting to do that now, though obviously there’s still a lot of attention-whoring I need to do. (Hi Facebook! Hi Twitter!)
PS: What is your take on PUBSLUSH’s less bureaucratic approach to publishing?
TIM: It’s really compelling, actually. Because it bestows the traditional gatekeeper function on readers. If there’s interest and support from readers, you’ve got yourself a book, as well as an already-committed audience. It’s a really interesting model and I’ll be curious to see how things progress with it.
