A Writer's Treasure

The time of runaway author advances has ended.  In theory, an "advance" is exactly what it sounds like, an amount of money given ahead in anticipation of sales.  In reality, it would be really hard to take back money if a book does not sell or does not sell enough copies to cover the amount the publisher has paid out.  At some point, the publisher reduces its net dollar sales and gives the author a 1099.  However, there is actually a large group of published authors who do not even get an advance and have to promote the published title by themselves, driving around the country on their own dime for readings and signings, hoping to sell enough to pay for the gasoline and living expenses.  There's even another group of authors who are self-published and not only have to promote the book on their own with no advances, but may even have to pay for the printing costs.  Wait, wait, there's another group of authors!  There are those who want to give the book away online, because they simply want people reading their work.  This last group are happy to continue to be executive assistants or actors or limousine drivers or waiters or work at other non-writing jobs, because they are writing not to make a living, but for the joy of it, similar to walking in the woods, having and raising children, volunteering at food pantries and decorating the house for Halloween.  Besides, it is the interaction with other people in non-literary situations which spawn the plots, characters and real-life stories crying out for a talent to write down, right?

I write this in response to Wall Street Journal's latest enlightenment (in print) and discussed on the hammer of electronic books pounding a bleak future for writers, publishers, bricks & mortar booksellers and anyone else connected to a printed bound book.  Again, it's the "bing" factor.  Electronic books are highly accessible for those who know or believe they know what they want.  They want it, they find it, they buy it, anytime, anywhere.  Printed bound books displayed and sold in a bricks & mortar store are also for those who know what they want.  There is the problem of stores not being open 24/7 and there is the issue of  not being exactly where one wants them to be at any given time, such as in one's living room.  Printed bound books displayed and sold in a bricks & mortar store are especially accessible for browsing, for discovering, for sharing, for giving.

Back to authors' advances:  in the age where one must think about medical insurance and retirement funds, I guess we can no longer idealize the bohemian life of an artist or writer.  Much inspiration, though, especially for stories, comes from working outside the home/studio and interacting with others.  There was always the mantra, "Write what you know," which has morphed into people only writing what they believe they know which is themselves, and perhaps not even researching that, resulting in memoirs chronicling misplaced memories and imprecise writings.  I had recently pointed out a written detail of "mature honey locusts" lining an actual Chicago street as good research and writing, because the easier route would have been to say "mature trees."  But I digress.  Back to the point, readers have always delighted in reading both non-fiction and fiction work by writers as lobstermen or bartenders or mail carriers or nannies, precisely because the stories depicted real life experience in real time, not a memoir and not fantasy.  Scott Turow had the great story of writing as he commuted to work on the train and having to propose a less than full-time position (read, less than 50-60 hours of lawyering) -- similar to a mother wanting to work shorter hours or a truncated week in order to stay home with the children -- before he made enough to write full-time.  I believe he still has some clients, again, probably to stay in touch with the reality of law.

So, How Does It Feel?

When I came across the title of this item in Crain's New York: Barnes & Noble closing UWS store, my first reaction was, BN is closing a university branch? New Yorkers, gotta luv 'em. "UWS" = Upper West Side.  This bricks-and-mortar branch is one of Barnes & Noble's largest in NYC.

Walt Mossberg of Wall Street Journal has been testing ebook reading apps available on Apple's iPad.  I was struck by the dovetailing of pros & cons on a technology basis as well as how the experience relates to reading printed, bound books.

The "printed" version of the column (which may not be available to non-subscribers after a very short time) has much more than the video.  A line jumped right out at me regarding the availability of books through Barnes & Noble's Nook:

The Nook catalog of a million books is larger overall, but about half consists of out-of-print books.

This could be a major reason to access Nook products. Of course, all is not perfect in Nookland, as Mossberg goes on about the really annoying glitches:

But I found more limitations and flaws in the Nook app's basic book functions. For many words, the app lacked dictionary entries the others had, and books loaded more slowly. Also, one book I downloaded on the Nook app had the first few pages missing and another turned out to be a different book from its title. Also, its horizontal view didn't work for all the titles I tested.

I feel very conflicted about Barnes & Noble. As I was growing up in New York, Barnes & Noble was a... well, a very noble bookstore. The store (there weren't that many and they did not have nearly as large a real estate footprint as people know them to be today) near Fifth Avenue's big New York Public Library building was stuffed full of books. People were standing around browsing or outright engrossed in reading a book or climbing around each other. There were stacks of books everywhere on the floors and display tables (not tower displays, just stacks of books as if a customer had abandoned $700 of books he eagerly picked but realized he couldn't afford and a storeworker had not gotten around to re-shelving) and lines at the check-out counter. They had local television ads of people bemoaning the hardship of not being able to find a certain book and after their long-suffering listener states the obvious, they say, "Barnes and Noble, of course, of course."

Then, BN grew and evolved and partnered with Starbucks.  Then, it followed me to the Midwest.  I mean, when I first talked with my potential mate-for-life about opening a bookstore/coffeehouse, my model was not Barnes & Noble with a Starbucks inside, but Harvard Bookstore/Cafe in Boston (without the sandwiches).  It wasn't until we visited the Barnes & Noble with a Starbucks inside near Clark on Diversey in Chicago that Larry "got it."  And, when we pitched to bankers and potential customers in Dixon, Larry described our venture as "like a miniature Barnes & Noble."  Right at that time, Harvard Bookstore/Cafe announced that it was closing after 17 venerable years.  Saying "like a miniature Barnes & Noble," helped keep us going in light of seeing so many struggling independents falling as we were starting out.

And, I might remind you, BN had one of, if not the, first e-books, but that was way before readers' time of acceptance.  It knew what to do, but not how to do it.  And, that has continued to be the problem.  It's a major problem and with BN's struggles right now, all of us booksellers have a breathless, anticipatory monitoring of its travails to see if they mirror our own.  Books on First also would like to figure out an e-book solution, but American Booksellers Assn has yet to offer one.  Nor has Ingram Book Company, the major book distributor in the USA, and BoF's biggest supplier.  Ingram is the "warehouse" we tout, when we say, "It's in our warehouse; we can have it for you on Tuesday."  Ingram is struggling, also, but Lightning Print may be its (and our) deliverance.  (See my blog post of 6 Aug 2010, among others.)

So, how does it feel, BN, not to be atop the book world anymore? To me, it feels kind of sad, but hopeful.  C'mon, BN, let's be nimble.  Let's be a BoF, only bigger (and more profitable).  Books on First, of course, of course!

West Wing News-- the Children's Learning Space and Last Sighting of Flying Fish

We want to thank Bob & Paula Morrow who had come by a couple of months ago to visit Books on First and wrote a piece for The Prairie Wind, online newsletter for the Illinois Chapter of the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators).  They took some great photos and had kind words!   Of course, the big attraction is our West Wing, or the "Children's New Learning Space" as the description on Larry's 2008 business card says.  We like to emphasize to visitors that it's not simply the "Children's Section."  However, I have begun to re-think things and want to say that the space is for children of all ages.

As mentioned in the online piece, we have live music nearly every Saturday night and the performers hold court in the West Wing.  A steady returner is Flying Fish, the duo of Todd Lorenc and Jeff Kagay.  After finding a drummer for its most recent gig at our place and briefly becoming a trio, Flying Fish has now decided to disband.  (I am not saying nor implying that those two occurrences have any relationship to each other.).  Its last gig as Flying Fish will be on Saturday, 25 September, at Books on First.  Jeff and Todd promise us this is the last time you will hear their wacky British accents while passionately singing songs by The Beatles, The Monkees and Herman's Hermits.  Additionally, you probably won't hear this much Billy Joel music sung on land, off a cruise ship.  Mark the Date! Some of us will miss it (wedding of James Dunphy and Elena Accolti -- CONGRATULATIONS!), but you don't have to!  Again, Saturday, 25 Sep 2010, it's curtains for Flying Fish!  Come say good-bye and hear some great music from a fun duo for one last time.

Check out all of our live music dates online (where you can see that Todd will be playing this coming Saturday evening with The Swing Quartet, featuring Jim Ferolo, Jan Varner, Don Karol and Todd -- this is part of his new direction).

Also next Saturday, 18 September, is Nature Conservancy's Nachusa Grasslands 21st Annual Autumn on the Prairie,  Larry is currently ordering lots of interesting books for sale especially at this event.  Come enjoy a day of rides, demonstrations and pure prairie pleasure.

Outrunning Earl (or, Here & There Part I)

Greetings from the good ship Celebrity Summit!

Actually, I am home safe in landlocked State of Illinois, or at least I am told.  I am still pitching and swaying to the rhythm of 30' swells and 75mph winds.

Chin -- Party of Fourteen -- went for a slightly-longer-than-three-hour-tour and came away with a good tale, of sweltering heat in northern seaside environs which set the stage for a once-in-a-generation event, a hurricane that touches land in CANADA!  Hurricane Earl was a rumor when we boarded the cruise ship just over a week ago.  It takes water temperature of 80○F to sustain hurricane level force storm conditions.  Yet, while Earl went from a Level 4 to a Level 2 as it moved swiftly up the northeastern seaboard of the United States, it stayed strong enough to reach Nova Scotia (touching land in Shelburne) two days after we were physically there (in Halifax, 131 miles to the north, which reportedly bore the brunt of 81mph winds).
Enough about Earl!  Let's go cruising!

Never have I seen so many people in one place reading books.  Sorry to say, I did not see anyone reading an electronic book -- probably because owners of those gadgets didn't want to get them wet with seaspray or misplaced as they put them down to go for a quick swim or to participate in the scavenger hunt, so they stayed in their staterooms to read. They would have had to have some forethought in downloading all those thick volumes before leaving shore, because a) the internet package aboard is frightfully expensive (65 cents/minute without a package) and b) with the storms -- besides Earl, we had Tropical Storm Fiona flirting with the ship, also -- on-board connectivity wasn't all the hot, slow at best.  I did see some people take advantage of the free wi-fi near the pier in Halifax at the Garrison Brewing Company , which was our last stop before going back to the ship (and where Larry found the best-tasting beer in the city).

We spied several copies of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as well as newer and older books.  The ship's library, called "Words," is somewhat skimpy, but we saw that several people did find something to read among the stacks.  I saw quite a few titles mislabeled as fiction, but hey, we make that mistake at Books on First, too, sometimes. 

The book influence, of course, extended to the films featured onboard (a different one each night), such as:

Actually, we didn't have any time to attend the cinema, with so much other entertainment and so many activities: having our photos taken; listening to a young string quartet from the Ukraine playing, with amazing richness, the greatest hits from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries plus a few 20th century favorites; watching a stand-up comic and dancing & singing by the Celebrity Showcase performers as well as truly bad adult karaoke by fellow passengers (although one man's rendition of "Reminiscing" to his wife of 37 years stands out as well done and very touching) with over-the-top Pink Brit Jamesy (I can imagine that at his job interview for assistant to Cruise Director, Celebrity said, "If you can turn up the volume, you're hired," and he does it very well).  We have not yet mentioned the shore trips.  Stay tuned for Part II.

"Ten Years Feel Like 100"

8 September 2010 marks the decennial point of "Larry's Favorite Employee" Brenda Spratt time with Books on First and we will celebrate with chocolate-frosted marble sheetcake from Snow White Bakery, beginning at 7am on Friday, 9 Sep.  Come one, come all to assist in the celebrations. 

Brenda and Kevin Spratt have come to be an important part of the Books on First family.  Each brings an invaluable facet to the character of our place and Larry could never do without either of them.  We so much appreciate both of them (and no doubt about it, they are a package deal, Thank the Lord) and hope for many more years together in our endeavor as a great place to visit in Dixon, IL.