I want to post a very short note today for both readers and authors, alerting you (should you not already know about it) to the online presence of Book Tour, where, as the tagline would have it, “authors and audiences meet.”
Book Tour is a free online clearinghouse for information about authors who are touring. It was started by Chris Anderson, the author of NYT bestseller The Long Tail, who knows a thing or two about marketing.
If you’re a reader, you can sign up to be alerted when authors visit your local booksellers. If you’re an author, you can list all of your appearances, show a picture of your latest book cover, and other nice perks.
From the Book Tour website:
As the world’s largest, 100% free directory of author events, BookTour.com makes book tours better.In just a few minutes any author can create a page showcasing their biography, books, and upcoming engagements. Listing new events is as easy as answering a few questions. Publishers, booksellers, and events managers can upload tour dates en masse using a simple Excel spreadsheet.
Most importantly, readers can peruse our database of author events for the best of what’s nearby, or they can track their favorite authors on tour.
Readers can invite faraway authors to their town, or get in touch with authors already scheduled to appear locally to address additional groups, from company speaker series to book group meetings.
For authors, BookTour.com serves as a one-stop tool for book promotion, allowing authors at all levels of their careers to locate receptive live audiences.
For readers and audiences, BookTour.com makes finding when a favorite author is coming to your town as easy as checking the weather.
BookTour is based in San Francisco, the city that buys more books (and wine) per capita than any in America.
Check out Book Tour, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Tools, The Writing Life, Reading on May 22nd, 2008
The appearance of Amazon’s new ebook reader, Kindle, has rekindled online debates about The End of Literature As We Know It and the probability that piracy will shortly reduce all writers to starving in garrets (if they’re not already doing so). One particularly strident member of one of my Internet discussion groups is predicting that all content will now be up for grabs to whomever wants it and that online content is merely another way to spell “screw the writer.”
And while some of these concerns are real and justified, the reality is that technology is at the helm these days. If it can be done, it will be done, and instead of complaining we’d all perhaps do best to adapt. The Navajo talk about being in harmony with one’s environment, including change in that environment; and the Darwininan notion of adaptation or extinction is very much relevant here. Reading is no longer confined to peering at words written on dead trees, and the faster we incorporate that notion into our thinking, the better we’ll all be able to weather some of the storms ahead.
For there will be storms. No birth occurs without pain, and in many ways we’re still enduring the pangs of the naiscent Technology Age. Computer use and the Internet have changed nearly everything about everything we do, and so it’s no small surprise that reading and writing are affected as well.
Many people still prefer to hold physical books in their hands. Many others happily read from laptop or ebook reader screens or even mobile devices. There’s no question of which is better, either from a quality or a moral standpoint; there’s simply a question of how we’re going to adapt.
In a recent New York Times articles entitled “Crossover Dreams,” Motoko Rich notes the number of books that appeared first online (either as blogs or in fact as serialized or full ebook offerings, all of them free) and that were later sold as print books, in some cases for very impressive advances. While they are not necessarily the norm, they do exist, one of many ways that new technologies and subsequent reader habits are changing the way books are published.
Will there be theft? Of course there will be: it’s apparently part of human nature to want something for nothing. Will those thefts overwhelm the system and destroy content creators? Of course they won’t: the majority of people do still pay for what they receive and will continue to do so, whether the format is traditional or electronic.
The sky isn’t falling yet. But it will for those who believe that they can control the way the world is moving. For the rest of us, keeping up is keeping us … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Books, Tools, Doing the Right Thing, About Writing, The Cutting Edge, Creativity, Technology, Reading on December 16th, 2007
Well, if I can’t do it in my own blog, where can I do it?
I’m very *very* excited about my new book, Open Your Heart with Reading. I’m excited because I think that it really is a decent book, possibly even a great book; but also because I think that it might help people get back in touch with the magic of storytelling, the sense of excitement and anticipation that grips one at the beginning of what one just knows is going to be an excellent book.
If you want just a quick glimpse, check out the Open Your Heart with Reading introduction on Squidoo. But essentially what it’s about is that very magic … that, and the fact that 90 million Americans have no access to it because they are functionally illiterate. 90 million! In a developed country like ours, that’s shameful.
What can you do? Well, read the book; there’s a whole section written by literacy expert Sharon Darling. And if you want something simple and immediate, then go over to the the literacy site, where you can give free books to children who need them.
Mixing magic with desperate need isn’t easy, and I hope that the book has accomplished that. Last night I did an interview with the inimitable Lady Di on her Friday night radio show, Leggs Up And Dancin, and we were joined by Karen MacDonald, librarian here in Provincetown, Massachusetts, talking both about the need for reading and the magic that it weaves into people’s lives. Karen pointed out the many “new” authors one can meet when reading a book such as this one, and I hope that’s true; true, also, is my sincere thanks to the Library of America for introducing me to many voices I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to hear and echo.
Buy a copy and let me know what you think!
And then we’ll all be .. beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Words, Reading on November 3rd, 2007
Just a quick note today to remind everyone that in the United States, today is National Literacy Day, so it’s a great time to do something simple: give a child a book by visiting the Literacy Site today.
With the holidays coming, you might also want to consider patronizing some of the advertisers on the site, too, and shop for some of your holiday gifts there.
One-third of all Americans, 90 million people, are functionally illiterate. We should be ashamed. On this day of all days, let’s do something about it!
And then we’ll all be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Books, Doing the Right Thing, Reading on November 1st, 2007
I have to admit: it’s my favorite genre. In fact, I’d rather be curled up with a good mystery — preferably an English country-house murder, a la Dorothy Sayers — than do just about anything else.
And at a time when publishers are constantly shrinking their lists and new books remain on bookshop shelves for a mere 15 days before being returned, it’s heartening for me to know that I belong to a tribe whose appetite for mysteries is as insatiable as my own. There’s a thriving market for mystery and detective novels, which hopefully means that they will always be around for people like me to read.
According to Bowker’s Books In Print database, 5,580 new mystery and detective titles and editions were published in the U.S. in 2006. That’s a nine percent increase over 2005 and a 33% increase over 2002. The peak year for the category was 2004, when 5,715 new titles and editions were published.
How does that divide out amongst the various sub-genres that exist within the categry? Of 2006’s 5,580 new mystery and detective titles published …
- … 22% were mass market editions
- … 23% were hardcovers
- … 44% were trade paper editions
- … 13% were published for children and young adults
- … 37% were reviewed in at least one source monitored by Bowker
- … 7% appeared on at least one bestseller list monitored by Bowker
We have to see that as good news, both as readers and as writers. And it’s certainly a bunch of statistics … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Books, Publishing, Publishers, Fiction, Reading on October 27th, 2007
I’ve been concerned for some time about the statistics: one-third of all Americans — that’s 90 million people, folks — are functionally illiterate. Horrifying.
And those of us who write for a living have to be aware of that, have to know that many of the people who read our words are among that 90 million. That doesn’t mean that we should, necessarily, dumb down what we write; but we do need to be, more than ever, aware of who our audience is, and address that audience in language that will reach them. Long words don’t count for much if they’re not being read.
One tool that I only recently stumbled across is the Gunning fog index. It’s a test that measures the readability of a passage of writing. It reduces all the fine words in that passage to a number, which is singularly unfortunate but possibly inevitable; the number stands for the number of years of education required to easily understand the next on the first reading.
Comic books generally come in at #6, for example, while Newsweek rates a 10 and the Atlantic Monthly a 12.
Am I saying that every writer should use it? Not at all; the algorithm is complex and would take me longer to figure out than it took to write the passage. But it’s something to be aware of … especially in view of the discouraging statistics about literacy and illiteracy.
A little shameless self-promotion: my new book, Open Your Heart with Reading, strongly advocates that everyone who enjoys reading should do some literacy work, of some kind — volunteer, donate, whatever works for you. Because reading is a gift we take for granted … until we’re faced with the Gunning fog index. And who wants to write to an algorithm?
Read every day. And do something to help others read, too. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Books, Doing the Right Thing, Words, Reading on October 21st, 2007
