When murder messes up your book launch

Sometimes writing the book, getting it agented, getting it published and getting to press isn't the problem. No, sometimes your co-author get accused of attempted murder just as the book comes out, and that really tanks the whole thing.

Glenn Beck novel trailer!

Oh oh oh oh oh this is so exciting. By which I mean, what the fuck is going on in that video??

Self-pubbing apps

Would you like to self publish, but skip that messy "book" stage? Well, you're in luck, friend. Now you can self publishing to an iPhone app! This will work because:

An iPhone might not be the ideal format for reading, but it gets points just for turning up. As Andrews puts it: “People carry their phones constantly, so you’re never stuck without something to read.”

I love getting points for just showing up.

Twitter and grammar, things that make me vomit edition

I have a personal policy, that involves eschewing e-contact with all people who use text speak, can't spell, and abuse emoticons (you get one per conversation. This is a strict rule that is enforced with real-life slaps once we finally meet up). That said, I choose to avoid the bad spellers (Firefox has built in spell check. Use it, please), the terrible grammarians, and emoticon abusers. I don't seek them out or, God forbid, try to fix their mistakes, like these Twitter grammar jerks.

And yes, I realize that someone who has a blog dedicated to commenting and occasionally judging stuff (who, me?) is throwing rocks from a glass house, but seriously, this is like going to visit the monkeys at the zoo and complaining when they throw shit. It's what monkeys do. Sure, there are some non-shit flinging monkeys, and some grammatically correct Twitter-ers, but not many.

Plus, seriously, it's like bailing out the Titanic with a thimble. Smoochy was wrong: you can't change the world, and you also can't make a dent.

No one buys book apps, we are all screwed

In a majestically depressing graph, which you can check out here, we find that, while book related apps account for 18% of the apps in the iPhone app store, they only account for 3% of downloads. And, as we learned from the whole "Kindle bestsellers" thing, downloads do not mean purchases.

The caveats here are, of course, 1) that these stats were mostly collected prior to the launch of the iPad and thus Apple's bookstore, 2) that the Amazon app is a single app that you can use to download many books, and 3) these stats are crowdsourced, not official from Apple, so the potential for discrepancies are huge.

That said, I think the only right thing to do is panic about the demise of the industry. Woe to all of us, the book is dead.

The queasiness of the MFA

Lionel Shriver did an interview with Big Think in which she slams the "indulgent middle class gestalt" of getting an MFA. While she herself has one, she says:

I sometimes feel, in retrospect, I should have gotten a proper education in something like history....If I'm going to be honest, what I really needed in my early twenties was an audience.

She finds "something unwholesome" in awarding a degree that, for most students, has a best case scenario that allows you to teach classes for others to get that same degree--an issue prevalent in most higher education humanities and art degrees.

That's what she said: Literary haterade

Writers are notoriously cranky, reader types, not only in regard to their own work, but also in regard to the work of others. And sometimes, they just want to throw down. Like Faulkner on Mark Twain:

A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven sure fire literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.

That is what the kids would call "a burn," I believe. And there are 49 more! Click click, sirs and madams.

Also, thank you michael for sending this along!

The art of the anonymous review (hint: only do it if you're nice)

People really love to leave mean comments on blog and nasty reviews on Amazon. But guess what--you may be unmasked! This happened to Dr. Stephanie Palmer, the wife of a British academic, who flamed other academic texts on Amazon.

Well, that blew up in her face.

Classics be damned, one star!

Over at Salon, Jeanette Demain writes about the rash of one star reviews for classics on Amazon. Just because something is called a classic doesn't mean it's any good, sirs. My favorite review she cites is about Charlotte's Web:

I really didn't care that Wilbur won first prize. And how in the world does a pig and a spider become friends? It's beyond me....Even as a child I found the plot very far-fetched. It is because of this horrid book that I eat sausage every morning and tell my dad to kill every spider I see.

And my day has been made. Go to the link to check out all of the poorly spelled and completely ungrammatical rants. You will not be sorry.

And the bans played on

Sometimes society feels a need to band together and say, "Heck no, our chittlins should not be reading!" And when that happens, Mommy kisses Daddy, and the angel tells the stork, and the stork flies down from heaven, and leaves a diamond under a leaf in the cabbage patch, and the diamond turns into a banned book.* Yes, the explanation doesn't make much sense, but the books that get banned also don't make much sense. Little Women? The dictionary? Nice work, America.

*Five imaginary dollars if you can tell me a) what movie that's from and b) why it is the greatest movie of all time.

I fought St. Patty's Day, and St. Patty's Day won

Thus, no posts today, while I drink Gatorade and try not to puke in my Chicago Manual purse.

Reasons to be depressed

1. Karl Rove is writing a memoir.
2. Lindsay Lohan is writing a memoir.
3. Sarah Palin is writing a second memoir.

...Happy Friday?

Avast, book piracy!

An Attributor study has found that, in the past year, publishing has probably list $3 million to book piracy. PW says:

From the four sites that make digital download data available--4shared.com, scribd.com, wattpad.com, and docstoc.com--Attributor found 3 million illegal downloads in the final quarter of 2009 of the 913 books followed. The company estimates those four sites represent about one-third of all book piracy. (Attributor calculated the share of piracy based on 53,000 book takedown notices sent out to various Web sites in the second half of 2009).

While most of these titles were in the business and investing area (very ethical, investors), there was still a considerable fiction contingent. Read the full PDF of the study here, and start to panic: the end is nigh!

If only our lives were more Twilight

The Onion brings to our attention a very serious problem: your vampire husband will never live up to Edward Cullen. They report:

Sara's dream husband began spending more and more time secluded in darkened alcoves with his cape drawn over his face. Before long, Andrei—once a stealthy hunter who easily stalked young and healthy prey—started feeding excessively on any slow-moving person who happened to wander by the house, and soon ballooned to almost twice his normal weight.

"When we were first married, Andrei was so dark and mysterious," Pastor said wistfully. "These days, pretty much all he does is sit around swilling blood and watching ESPN."

If only all of our lives were more Twilight.

"Dead babies are my thing," say two French novelists

Let me summarize a hairy, angry plagiarism situation for you, friends. In 1995, Camille Laurens published a book that dealt with the death of her baby. In 2007, Marie Darrieussecq published a novel on the same topic, which Laurens termed "psychological plagiarism." This was awkward, because both shared an editor, who ended up siding with Darrieussecq. Last week they both put out books about the feud, of which "[o]ne was a studious analysis of literary theft; the other was a thinly veiled fictional account of a novelist who is dropped by her publisher after accusing a young rival of plagiarism."

Listen, France. I know you're in a rumormill drought, since Sarkozy's multiple divorces and marriage to a model are old news. But literary feuds as tabloid fodder? Really? England is a smaller country and they have, off the top of my head, Amy Winehouse, Jordan Price, and Lily Allen (and that's after losing the Beckhams to LA!).

I think all of us thoughtful Americans should ship some of our more salacious celebrities, who grace our tabloid covers weekly, to France, to educate the French about what belongs in the tabloids. The transplants can do homestays and pretend to go to classes. You're welcome, France.

Creatures from the deep, beware

Authors, we all know, are temperamental creatures. They can't help it, and we appreciate a little crazy from our creative types. There comes a point, however, when the crazy needs to be countermanded by a few deep breaths and sleeping on a bad review, which author Candace Sams learned the hard way.

When a negative Amazon review popped up, Sams started to respond anonymously, but was quickly outed. Her comments have since been removed (sadly), but there's a round-up of shenanigans here that's worth a look.

But, in case you wanted the short version: it's kind of a train wreck.

No, I do not want a "reader's guide"

Imogen at the Guardian book blog has hit upon one of my biggest pet peeves in literature: the stupid shit that publishers put in at the end of a book.

"Was there any symbolism in the symbolic symbol in chapter 4?"
"Does it change your reading experience to know that The Wizard of Oz was a thinly veiled response to William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech?"
"Does Ishmael really want to be called Ishmael, or is that just shenanigans?"

She writes:

No back matter should contain essay topics or anything resembling them. I don't think even school texts should come with the literary equivalent of an answers page, posing patronising questions with embedded solutions – "Do you notice anything about the treatment of love/weather/eating in this chapter?" (rib-nudge). Any English teacher worth their salt should be able to come up with their own spider-diagram stimuli without having recourse to these dull and generic lists.

Amen sister.

Post-post Q&A:
How do you think Laura feels about this topic?

Pimping to the center

Pre-comment-disclaimer: I recognize that there is a lot of America between California and New York. I recognize your existence, non-coasties. You are the delicious inner brownie to the crispy brownie edges (do you prefer "innies"? The coast types can be "outies"). I think you are super great.

Anywho, Nick Reding said his publishers discouraged him from doing book promotion in flyover states, because they don't believe that innies buy books. Boo to that. Also, if you read the longer interview, I don't think that calling your publishers "dumb fuckers" helps your future with said publishers.

Innies, I know you're out there reading (I have Google Analytics on this sucker, and it comes with a sweet map overlay). What say you? Do you feel the disdain of outie publishers?

What killed Jane Austen? Cows.

I'm sure some of you thought that viruses jumping from animals to people was relatively new, a la bird flu or swine flu or AIDs (all: very bad). Well guess what? It's just drug-resistant forms of these diseases from the overuse of antibiotics in our food and lifestyles that's new!

There's a new theory that Jane Austen died from cow TB. And you know what? That is super lame. But, on the plus side, if you become a really famous author, dear reader, in 200 years people will come up with all sorts of theories about what killed you (hopefully not something terribly ironic, like a huge paper cut at a book signing).

Twilight is probably bad for the ladies

I know we all like to hate on Twilight. ...And here's some more of that. But in a serious vein!

A LiveJournal user posted about how Edward from Twilight shows sign of being stalkery and abusive (something I've mentioned previously, and that Jezebel discusses. Please marry me, Jezebel). And, in this article discussing racism in the series, Jacob shows similar signs.

People. Please. Respect the ladies. Or you will also be invited to Slap Town USA (oh yea, I will abusive you right back).