CLOUD UNBOUND

I love the aggressively red cover! This is Klausner’s...

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:43:16 -0400

I love the aggressively red cover! This is Klausner’s debut YA novel, which just came out from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and takes place at an upscale (yes) performing arts summer camp. Author is a bud of Amy Poehler’s, which means she must be funny.

Anyone reading it?

diversityinya: 10 YA Novels with Asian American Main...

Thu, 23 May 2013 14:08:00 -0400

diversityinya:

10 YA Novels with Asian American Main Characters

Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies) by Justina Chen (Little, Brown, 2007)

Bitter Melon by Cara Chow (Egmont, 2010)

Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier (Scholastic, 2002)

My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger (Dial, 2008)

Beacon Hill Boys by Ken Mochizuki (Scholastic, 2004)

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013)

Orchards by Holly Thompson (Delacorte, 2011)

Name Me Nobody by Lois-Ann Yamanaka (Hyperion, 1999)

Level Up by Gene Luen Yang, art by Thiem Pham (First Second, 2011)

Girls for Breakfast by David Yoo (Delacorte, 2005)

Yes! But are they all are digitized? This can be an issue with children’s and YA novels featuring non-white characters.

My current read, now that I finally finished Zadie Smith’s...

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:58:00 -0400

My current read, now that I finally finished Zadie Smith’s NW, comes from Cloud partner HarperCollins (ISBN 9780062190857), and my Twitter pal Bryan Waterman, a literature professor at New York University, just reviewed it for The Rumpus.

My favorite bit:

It’s inevitable that readers will compare Hell’s Tramp to Patti Smith’s Just Kids, given that both traverse the same CBGB-era New York downtown scene and that they’ve even been delivered by the same publisher within a few short years of one another…. Smith’s anecdotes never shy away from the Romanticism that has always characterized her writing, and in Just Kids she tends to overlay the past with a gauzy purple prose that borders on the euphemistic. Hell, by contrast, feels like a Romantic but writes like a hard-edged realist.

As my friends will tell you, I will at least power skim everything written about New York punk rock, and Hell credits himself with inventing the visual style that’s being feted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

I’m on Chapter 8, and it’s growing on me like a subway tunnel fungus.

If you’re going to BookExpo America next week, and you are...

Thu, 23 May 2013 09:13:37 -0400

If you’re going to BookExpo America next week, and you are desperately seeking author face time, you can get some at the Librarians’ Lounge sponsored by my former employers, Library Journal, School Library Journal, and The Horn Book.

I should say you have to be a librarian to get past the velvet rope, and try you should because the likes of Jami Attenberg (The Middlesteins), Dagmara Dominczyk (The Lullaby of Polish Girls), and Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children) will be there signing.

Full schedule here.

Will your library collect fan fiction published by Kindle Worlds?

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:59:36 -0400

I think I know the answer, but let’s get a show of Tumblarian hands, please.

"Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment..."

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:56:00 -0400

“

Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment division for its New York Times best-selling book series Gossip Girl, by Cecily von Ziegesar; Pretty Little Liars, by Sara Shepard; and Vampire Diaries, by L.J. Smith; and plans to announce more licenses soon.

Through these licenses, Kindle Worlds will allow any writer to publish authorized stories inspired by these popular Worlds and make them available for readers to purchase in the Kindle Store.

”

- Suw Charman-Anderson in Forbes, in the best piece I’ve read thus far on the launch of fan fiction platform Kindle Worlds, Amazon’s latest power play, or, per the author’s point, such an obvious strategy that it hurts.

Key graph:

The question that the publishing industry has to ask itself, though, is why did they not think of this themselves? Why have publishers not engaged more fully with fanfic writers to provide them with an arena to legally produce works based on someone else’s characters? It’s not like fanfiction is new — its modern incarnation started in the 1960s with Star Trek fiction.

In case you were wondering, your library already collects fan fiction (see 50 Shades of Grey).

Yes, There Is, Victor LaValle

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:48:27 -0400

When trying to decide between 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person for your novel first ask yourself this: isn’t there a better way to make a living?
— Victor LaValle (@victorlavalle) May 19, 2013

"There’s nothing easy about writing. It’s always difficult. It’s always a struggle. Every word on the..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:45:00 -0400

“

There’s nothing easy about writing. It’s always difficult. It’s always a struggle. Every word on the pages of the book that you’re reading now was a struggle for me. Maybe it’s not the case for other writers, but it is for me.

I’ve learned things about the craft of writing and about structuring a book and about character development and so on that I’ve just learned on the fly. But that hasn’t made the process of actually creating a character and creating the book any easier.

”

- Khaled Hosseini on his new novel, And the Mountains Echoed, in Entertainment Weekly. How I appreciate a writer who acknowledges The Truth of His Calling.

I saw two teenage girls carrying new copies on the L train and grinning like fiends.

rachelfershleiser: Next Thursday, Tumblr will be celebrating...

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:01:17 -0400

rachelfershleiser:

Next Thursday, Tumblr will be celebrating Book Expo America at our favorite bookstore with three of our favorite authors! This is a meet up for readers and writers of all ages, with drinks for the adults and swag and short, funny readings for everyone! Here for BEA? Work at a publisher? Love Tumblr? Love books? Love people? Any of the above — this party is for you!

I espy librarian favorite Rainbow Rowell.

Conversation Starters: Tumblarian 101: Tumblr for Libraries and Librarians | 2013 ALA Annual Meeting

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:38:00 -0400

Conversation Starters: Tumblarian 101: Tumblr for Libraries and Librarians | 2013 ALA Annual Meeting:

Skipping ahead to ALA Annual in Chicago next month, here’s something you might want to add to your schedule if you’ve been intimidated by Tumblr. Library Journal book review editor Molly McArdle, Tumblr keeper Rachel Fershleiser, and librarians Erin Shea and Kate Tkacik will walk you confidently through the hows and whys. I will be there, as I am still learning Tumblarian-ese.

Giving Barbara Hoffert’s 2013 BEA Galley & Signing...

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:27:00 -0400

Giving Barbara Hoffert’s 2013 BEA Galley & Signing Guide a second plug because it’s really the librarian’s best friend at BookExpo America. Looking to glean the most promising gratis (and not) galleys at the show? This is it. Sign up here to receive it imminently.

Via the always-living-and-breathing-ebooks Jane Litte of Dear...

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:07:00 -0400

Via the always-living-and-breathing-ebooks Jane Litte of Dear Author (a fantastic resource for reviews and news related to romance ebooks), I learned last week that Amazon has started using New Adult as a category. Their application of it may be too limited for some librarians’ tastes, but there it is: marketing! You will get more requests from patrons about New Adult as the year goes on.

In CAT, you will find a great starter list of New Adult novels under Power Niche Backlist. Market to adults and teens.

@huiscebeatha @catagator @dearauthor based strictly on cover choice it’s all new and the “ya with sex” definition.
— Liz Burns (@LizB) May 16, 2013

"The Califa Library Group and Contra Costa County Library (CCCL) today officially announced the beta..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:41:04 -0400

“

The Califa Library Group and Contra Costa County Library (CCCL) today officially announced the beta launch of Enki Library, a new ebook platform designed to host and lend library-managed ebooks using the Douglas County model.

Named after the Sumerian god of mischief, creativity, and intelligence, Enki went live at CCCL and the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) on May 6, and will soon serve multiple libraries in California, beginning with members of the Bay Area Library and Information System (BALIS) consortium.

”

- Matt Enis’s Library Journal report.

Note that Enki is the second library-run ebook server, after the one started by Douglas County Libraries in Colorado. Counting among the participating publishers in Enki are Workman, Dzanc, Smashwords, Akashic, Crossroads Press, National Highlights, and Infobase.

I am watching with much enthusiasm and interest. Of course, I am curious if and to what extent, working in tandem with a traditional vendor platform like the Cloud, a system like Enki boosts a library’s overall circulation. That also has to be part of the appeal of implementation.

Context graph:

DCL pioneered the use of in-house Adobe Content Servers to manage ebooks purchased directly from authors, small publishers, and indie distributors such as Smashwords, and they were eager to help launch similar projects elsewhere.

Calling All Ladies Who Wanna Code

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:02:46 -0400

Lady coders: registration for Write/Speak/Code (6/20–22) is open. It’s cheap. Let’s do this. writespeakcode.com
— India (@indiamos) May 15, 2013

This weekend in New York City what’s being billed at...

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:47:00 -0400

This weekend in New York City what’s being billed at “the first-ever book publishing hackathon” is going down. Sponsored by the Perseus Books Group, Librify, BookExpo America, Alley NYC, and WME, it aims to bring together developers, designers, coders, catalogers, dreamers, and schemers to develop technologies that will further (wait for it!) book discovery.

Crucial graph:

Book discovery needs innovation. It’s never been easier to get a book into a reader’s hands—just one click. But, with over 10,000 books published each year on every topic imaginable, how do people find out about them? There are fewer bookstores to help readers discover exciting new authors and ideas. There’s currently no digital experience that replicates the serendipity of browsing bookshelves. Recommendation engines are fairly primitive – they know what you bought, but they don’t know why. It’s a disruptive opportunity that hasn’t been explored.

Some have understandably taken issue with the statement above, what with the existence of Goodreads, Google Books, LibraryThing, ReadMill, etc. Eric Hellman, CEO of Unglue It, offered his take here, notably writing “I’m hoping that some people will be interested in rethinking ebook front matter. Unglue.it needs books to work better all by themselves. The best discovery instrument for a book is the GDMF book, to my mind.”

Librarian and School Library Journal blogger Elizabeth Burns is afraid that librarians will not be well represented, and she made an excellent point over at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy: “I feel strongly that any type of innovation like this needs people with readers advisory skills. These ‘soft’ skills should not be added after the tech stuff has been created, but should be organic to the entire process.”

Via Entertainment Weekly’s Shelf Life blog, I give you the...

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:20:28 -0400

Via Entertainment Weekly’s Shelf Life blog, I give you the cover of Veronica Roth’s Allegiant (coming October 22), the third and final book in the best-selling YA Divergent series from Cloud partner HarperCollins.

Q&A: Dan Brown Talks Dante, Florence, Langdon, And, Yes, Inferno

Wed, 15 May 2013 15:39:50 -0400

Q: Inferno refers to Dante Alighieri´s The Divine Comedy. What is Dante’s significance? What features of his work or life inspired you?

A: The Divine Comedy—like The Mona Lisa—is one of those rare artistic achievements that transcends its moment in history and becomes an enduring cultural touchstone. Like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, The Divine Comedy speaks to us centuries after its creation and is considered an example of one of the finest works ever produced in its artistic field. For me, the most captivating quality of Dante Alighieri is his staggering influence on culture, religion, history, and the arts. In addition to codifying the early Christian vision of Hell, Dante’s work has inspired some of history’s greatest luminaries—Longfellow, Chaucer, Borges, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Monteverdi, Michelangelo, Blake, Dalí—and even a few modern video game designers. Despite Dante’s enduring influence on the arts, however, most of us today have only a vague notion of what his work actually says—both literally and symbolically (which, of course, is of great interest to Robert Langdon). A few years ago, I became very excited about the prospect of writing a contemporary thriller that incorporated the philosophy, history, and text of Dante’s timeless descent into The Inferno.

Q: When you start on a new book, do you begin with the writing or the research? Do you enjoy doing one more than the other?

A: Research definitely drives everything I do. Before beginning the writing process, I spend a lot of time exploring worlds in which I intend to set the book. In Angels & Demons, those worlds included Vatican City, particle physics, and the ongoing battle between science and religion. In Inferno, the worlds include Florence, Venice, the writings of Dante Alighieri, as well as a frightening new science that I believe has the potential either to save humankind or to destroy it.

Q: Where did do your research for Inferno? How long did you spend on it?

A: Researching Inferno began with six months of reading, including several translations of The Divine Comedy, various annotations by Dante scholars, historical texts about Dante’s life and philosophies, as well as a lot of background reading on Florence itself. At the same time, I was poring over all the new scientific information that I could find on a cutting edge technology that I had decided to incorporate into the novel. Once I had enough understanding of these topics to proceed, I traveled to Florence and Venice, where I was fortunate to meet with some wonderful art historians, librarians, and other scholars who helped me enormously.

Once this initial phase of research was complete, I began outlining and writing the novel. As is always the case, when a book begins to take shape, I am drawn in unexpected directions that require additional research. This was also the case with Inferno, which took about 3 years from conception to publication.

With respect to the process, the success of these novels has been a bit of a Catch-22. On one hand, I now have wonderful access to specialists, authorities, and even secret archives from which to draw information and inspiration. On the other hand, because there is increased speculation about my works in progress, I need to be increasingly discreet about the places I go and the specialists with whom I speak. Even so, there is one aspect of my research that will never change—making personal visits to the locations about which I’m writing. When it comes to capturing the feel of a novel’s setting, I find there is no substitute for being there in the flesh…even if sometimes I need to do it incognito.

Q: What kind of adventure will Robert Langdon face this time? Can you give us any sneak peak at the new novel?

A: Inferno is very much a Robert Langdon thriller. It’s filled with codes, symbols, art, and the exotic locations that my readers love to explore. In this novel, Dante Alighieri’s ancient literary masterpiece—The Divine Comedy—becomes a catalyst that inspires a macabre genius to unleash a scientific creation of enormous destructive potential. Robert Langdon must battle this dark adversary by deciphering a Dante-related riddle, which leads him to Florence, where he finds himself in a desperate race through a landscape of classical art, secret passageways, and futuristic technology.

Q: What was the most exciting idea or story that you found in your research?

A: For me, one of the most exciting themes of Dante’s Inferno is the portrayal of pride as the most serious of the seven deadly sins—a transgression punished in the deepest ring of hell. The notion of pride as the ultimate sin dovetails perfectly with Greek mythology, in which hubris is responsible for the downfall of the archetypal hero. In mythology, no man was more prideful than the man who considers himself above the problems of the world…for example, he who ignores injustice because it does not affect him directly. This notion is reflected in a famous paraphrasing of Dante’s text: The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. This is a recurring theme of the novel.

Q: What made Florence the ideal location for Inferno?

A: No city on earth is more closely tied to Dante Alighieri. Dante grew up in Florence, fell in love in Florence, and began writing in Florence. Later in life, when he was exiled for political reasons, the longing he felt for his beloved Florence became a catalyst for The Divine Comedy. Through his enduring poem, Dante enjoyed the “last word” over his political enemies, banishing them to various rings of Inferno where they suffered terrible tortures.

Q: Do you have a favorite place to visit in Florence, like a library or a museum?

A: Every visit to Florence should include a trip to the popular highlights—The David, The Uffizi Gallery, The Boboli Gardens, and Il Duomo. In addition, there are a number of other locations that I find particularly inspiring. The Laurentian Library contains a breathtaking staircase by Michelangelo as well as archives of ancient manuscripts that are literally chained to their shelves. Palazzo Vecchio’s spectacular Salone dei Cinquecento is home to one of the great unsolved mysteries in art history, which remains an enigma to this day. And the Battistero di San Giovanni boasts a dazzling mosaic cieling that is said to have terrified the young Dante Alighieri and later inspired his enduring vision of hell. All of these locations make an appearence in the new novel.

Q: The great detective in your novels, Robert Langdon, shares your birth date as well as your place of birth. What else do the two of you have in common?

A: Langdon and I both share a fascination with history, symbols, and codes, but this is where the similarities end. Langdon is far more daring and exciting than I am. He is, in many ways, the hero I wish I could be.

E-Book Sales a Boon to Publishers in 2012

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:36:54 -0400

E-Book Sales a Boon to Publishers in 2012:

In a year that was monopolized by the “Fifty Shades” erotic novels and knockoffs, e-book sales in fiction rose 42 percent over the year before, to $1.8 billion.

None of this, I say, none of this is surprising. Note as well the 117 percent increase in sales of ebooks for children and YAs. Oh, yes, and downloadable audio.

Crucial graph:

The survey revealed that e-books now account for 20 percent of publishers’ revenues, up from 15 percent in 2011. Publishers’ net revenues in 2012 were $15 billion, up from $14 billion in 2011, while unit sales of trade books increased 8 percent, to $2.3 billion.

"Now, there are two batches of common wisdom…. If you’re a publisher, copy protection is all..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:39:47 -0400

“

Now, there are two batches of common wisdom…. If you’re a publisher, copy protection is all that stops the pirates from freely circulating your goods. Your revenue will crash. Maybe you’ll go out of business.

But there’s another school of thought, which says that nobody pirates software except cash-poor kids who wouldn’t have bought it anyway. This school maintains that if your books are fairly priced and conveniently sold, people will happily pay for them.

”

- New York Times technology blogger David Pogue in “The E-Book Piracy Debate, Revisited,” which has stirred up more strong feelings than any other recent posting on a publishing listserv I follow.

The trouble with the camps that Pogue describes is that they don’t have anything to do with the real reason why publishers use DRM. Pirates will be pirates and steal, because DRM is not that complex. So for whom is it intended?

I love this quote by Ursula Mackenzie, CEO of Little, Brown (Hachette UK) via Porter Anderson’s report on the responses to Pogue:

We are fully aware that DRM does not inhibit determined pirates or even those who are sufficiently sophisticated to download DRM removal software. The central point is that we are in favour of DRM because it inhibits file-sharing between the mainstream readers who are so valuable to us and our authors.

Just as there’s no data to measure erosion caused by library ebook lending, there is no measure of the cost of “casual sharing.” Publishing, we need data. Desperately.

For more DRM food for thought, see Brian O’Leary’s “Mere Mortals.”

The Essential Galley Guide to BookExpo America, IMHO

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:34:00 -0400

Sign Up for Your 2013 BEA Galley & Signing Guide j.mp/126Be0d Curated by PrePub Alert editor @barbarahoffert.

— Wilda Williams (@willywaldo)

May 13, 2013