Browsing and the BBC World Service

When I am home on the weekends, "home" being Lee County, Illinois, I am able to fall asleep and wake up several times during the night to the BBC World Service offered on WNIJ, our local NPR station out of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. This begins at midnight, or "Six o'clock, GMT." That's actually how I knew that it was 2010, Auld Lang Syne time, by the BBC already telling me it was 6am.

I had wanted to share a story about "middle age writers," those writing and being published at an older age, which was defined as age 50, but I am unable to find that radio item, the BBC websites being handled differently from www.npr.org. I recall a bit of "cheating," since they spoke quite a bit with someone who is only 49, having published a book at age 48 (sorry, I was not fully awake to figure out which author was speaking). It was an interesting discussion on whether being published is as important as being read, and with electronic books, self-publishing services and the internet, perhaps writers over the age of 50 should look beyond the traditional publishing paths. I don't quite know why the piece was produced, focusing on "older beginner" writers.

Browsing the BBC website, I did find something rather interesting about Vietnamese coffee, which I share with you now. Warning: it appears that programmes become "available for listening" and then, that availability expires. There is nothing wrong with that if they are indeed selling content (I have yet to write that promised post on "content") as that's the producer's prerogative. I am simply saying that if you are reading this a year or even a few months from now, you may be out of luck.

"Browsing" is generally not in the province of the world wide web, despite that word being used for what we all do on the internet. "Browsing" involves serendipity, curiosity and satisfaction of that curiosity, handling in order to consider whether this item is the right fit for the browsing person's life. However, I will admit this once, that I really had a browsing experience online.

Giants Battle, David Might Get Crushed Underfoot While Looking for a Stone to Sling

I share with you a Wall Street Journal item from today (Warning: as [blogger] is not among the choices for sharing, this link is not a permalink and thus, may disappear on us at WSJ.com's convenience).
The article is about walmart.com figuratively rolling up its sleeves and taking on amazon.com. There must have been taunts exchanged and tongues stuck out at some point, as walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez is quoted: "If there is going to be a 'Wal-Mart of the Web,' it is going to be Walmart.com.... Our goal is to be the biggest and most visited retail Web site."
Walmart.com wants to be the biggest and most visited retail Web site?? Classic business school strategy studies says, first pick off the competitor's fringe markets and then, when it doesn't have additional legs to stand on, attack at its (seemingly) strongest point. Gee, had walmart.com been attacking amazon.com's toaster oven and disposable diaper sales online as well as its brick-and-mortar big box bookstores cum acre parking lots which also ban non-family-oriented music CDs and sell five kinds of lettuce all this time and we weren't paying attention?

So, while these two duke it out, the publishing industry is supplying its fingers for ammunition and big-name authors are weighing in.

WSJ probably could not get Stephen King to comment, so Dean Koontz and James Patterson (sometime co-author with Maxine Paetro, Michael Ledwidge, Gabrielle Charbonnet, Martin Dugard,... sorry if I missed anyone else) did the honors:

James Patterson, whose coming novel, "I, Alex Cross," is being discounted from $27.99 to $10, said he was happy to be in Wal-Mart's top 10. However, he warned any industry that sets low price points may later have a difficult time re-establishing those prices. "Obviously e-books have gotten this thing going," said Mr. Patterson. "E-books are terrific and here to stay. But I think that people need to think through the repercussions....But I'm not taking sides....I'm not the endangered species here."

"I'm not the endangered species here." What does that mean? No matter what happens to books -- any kind published by anyone bought from anywhere, he'll still get his advances and royalties? Who then is the endangered species, Mr Patterson? Is his quote just like a character's non-sequitor thoughts or is this poor reporting/editing?

(By the way, steet date for his new book is November 1, 2009. Books on First offers 20% all adult hardcover fiction. Reserve your copy now!)

Dean Koontz expresses conflicting emotions of the writer's need for recognition and readership (see blog post on "aspiring" writers) and his acknowledgement that it's actually a good thing to have small, independent bricks-and-mortar bookstores where a writer and his work can be discovered by a new reader a rainy day browse or through trusted bookseller's personal recommendation.

"Any time people are fighting over your work it's a good thing, especially when you've worked all those years hoping it would be fought over," he said.

Mr. Koontz said he's more worried about the independent bookstores. Although most limit their stock of best-sellers, a price war on the most popular books may hurt.

Thank you, Mr Koontz. Keep on feeling conflicted; that means you're thinking ahead of tomorrow to day after tomorrow. (By the way, just in time for holiday giving -- street date is November 24, 2009, is Dean Koontz's latest book, Breathless.)

Stephen King too looks kindly on us indies although his sales are nothing to sneeze at. He has a book, Under the Dome, also out November 1, 2009, and also, discounted by Books on First at 20% off list (no cover art yet available for posting).

All in all, we independent booksellers cannot sit on our hands (or wring them) while bigger, better-funded retailers trample all over the published book landscape.

I am especially interested in the comments that WSJ.com articles sometimes generate. This one has inspired over 30 of them at last look, and it 's a (generally) good discussion about capitalism, civil society, culture, elitism (whoa, Sherman Alexie!), technology, socialism, ...

Capitalism and writers: So, these price reductions supposedly would result in reductions in an author's royalties. One comment was about how no one is forcing someone to be an author. If it doesn't pay, then, don't be a professional writer. There's still distribution, recognition and readership to consider. I am trying to imagine Mr Patterson with a website offering a couple of free chapters and a BUY NOW TO CONTINUE READING as well as DONATE button, because yes, that's what might result, when there are no publishers to nurture, edit, be passionate about, promote and publicize, print, ... [repeat] writers new to a genre, less known authors (critically acclaimed or otherwise good or bad), and eventually, well-known and bestselling authors like Koontz and Patterson. And, that's just the publishers. I haven't begun to talk about independent booksellers and the costs they incur to offer the value they add. Why stop at watching walmart.com succeed at selling hardcover copies of titles listing at $25-$30 for only $9 but fail to become "the biggest and most visited retail Web site," or amazon.com survive but struggle to maintain its community of reader-contributed reviews and its mighty search engine and network of small used & rare book vendors in the effort to serve two groups: the "I know what I want and I want it now buyer" and the "let's see what might be interesting to read today reader"? Just cut out the middleman entirely.

Another wisdom I learned at graduate management school -- price competition is bad for everyone. It's a downward spiral and lots of stakeholders lose, including readers.

Think about the day after tomorrow, when we must all find a reason for existence that goes beyond the numbers.

I just found Graham Beattie's Book Blog in which you may be interested, also. (This does not happen everyday, as "browsing" on the internet is a lot less fun than browsing in a bookstore -- my opinion.) He has a great quote from the author of The Art of Racing in the Rain Garth Stein (speaking at a gathering that Larry and I did not attend) about selling books. Check it out!

Who Aspires to Be a Writer?

My quote: "The only aspiring writer is one who has yet to put pen to paper."

This of course is dated, now, since most writers, even the youngest of us, go straight to keyboard and electronic screen.

I used to hear and see this a lot: "I am/he or she or it is an aspiring writer." or "I want/he or she or it wants to be a writer." So, write. What's stopping you?
(Apologies to those like Helen Keller who needed more than pen & paper, but even she would probably be on my side today, what with not only keyboards but voice-recognition software and artificial intelligence available)

What Julie Powell was before her blog was an aspiring published writer, or a writer aspiring to be published. And, since there's an electronic button on the bottom of a blog post screen that says "PUBLISH," her status as a(n adult, post-college, unpublished) writer changed right away.

The distinction of becoming even a published writer blurred when self-publishing mechanisms became less arduous and costly (than say, in the centuries previous to this one) and anyone with some own money or backing can get his (or her or its -- This is the last time I am making this concession. I am old-fashioned and will now revert to using the male as universal pronoun. Do I ask forgiveness? No.) book "published," meaning printed and bound. With the internet, one does not even need that much money to become a published writer. Any blogger, commentator or contributor to a open website seeking to showcase writers who hits "PUBLISH" or "SEND" or "SUBMIT" or "POST" or "UPLOAD" or "SHARE NOW" (any other synonyms for online publishing out there?) can get his writing published. I think most people understand this today. They also place a lesser value for being a writer now.

Then, the issue becomes recognition or being read.

In the printed world, that meant being accepted for publication by a known and established publisher who will print (and bind, if it were a book versus a magazine or newspaper article) what you wrote. That, of course, was the first step. Then, critical acclaim was the next step. Popularity in the form of sales -- both in volume and in duration -- was great (and even surpassed a good review -- "It got good reviews" became the high-brow response or consolation prize to relative obscurity).

Atop all this, being published has become a competitive sport. Not only should he get published, recognized and read, and we need to know not only how long his writing has been on the bestsellers' list, but also what rank on that list. Bloggers need to be able to point to how many followers they have, just like newspapers have circulation numbers and syndicated columnists have number of newspapers which carry their writing. And, I just thought of academia -- publish or perish! Gee, it's not a sport; it's a reality show!

Getting it made into a movie, I believe, still ranks fairly high on the recognition scale. This also can translate into more book sales. Silly Carolyn didn't believe that we could possibly sell more copies of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone when the film was released. Larry, for one, did believe as we had ordered a pile of them just before the movie came out. And, we did sell more.
Who would have imagined that some reluctant readers would have to wait for a movie industry's endorsement before reading a book that had already been purchased by millions around the world, enchanted several more millions of readers (who shared the book, had it read to them or borrowed it from the library -- all good), excited some unenchanted to scorn, censor, condemn and ban it, and encouraged other writers and publishers to offer readers similar fare or drag out all the classics (remember the "While Waiting for Harry IV" lists of books to read?).

I am also gratified to know that Ken Burns's Civil War series on PBS with commentary by the authoritative-sounding and personable-looking Shelby Foote also encouraged people to try reading at least one of his three-volume set on the subject.



We wish this were true of more of Ken Burns's work. Perhaps readers are exhausted after the first volume. (I have always heard that the third volume is the most exciting read. Perhaps the reason is that the events between Red River and Appomattox were more "exciting.") We promise, the companion book to the U.S. National Parks has a lot less words and more photographs!

Oh, yes, Oprah's recommendation is usually also the recognition-craving author's dream come true.

On a website, it probably means tracking number of viewers (which we don't). For those with e-books available for free or a small compensation, it means downloads.

Julie Powell, not content to write and be published online, needed to know someone was reading her writing. For a blogger, that means she needed comments and followers. She did eventually get those plus news coverage, the book deal, the movie deal, the next book deal... She can now call herself a writer (after her husband Eric had been reassuring her that she had been a writer for years, according to the movie.)

In short, a writer needs to know someone is reading his work, doesn't he?

Eventually, yes, a writer needs readers, affirmation, recognition, critical acclaim, maybe even a movie (especially a movie if he's writing for that genre, as a lot of writers, aspiring or otherwise, are now doing). I guess it depends on to what he aspires.

With that springboard sentence, let us return to the main discussion here, which is aspiration. What is the definition of "to aspire?" Does one aspire to become popular/famous/known? To sway others to his point of view? To be respected by those he respects? To tell the "truth" as he sees it? To inform? To entertain? To exorcise something within himself? To record events? To boast? To show tangible output/results of work or creative mind? To share a dream? To wrought a means to an end?

Why do I write?

I began my involvement in Toastmasters when Deb Andrews started the group in our first year in graduate management school at Boston College (now called Carroll School of Management), and recall my first speech ("The Icebreaker," because it would be on the easiest subject -- yourself) was called "Confessions of a Third-Rate Hack" to tell the side of myself that my classmates did not know -- I am a writer.

Do you notice by the title of my speech, I didn't aspire to write, not even aspire to publish? I believe I was aspiring to be a better writer than I was. I believe I'm still aspiring to be better. I believe that's why I have now taken more than 6 hours over 9 days to write this entry, which will be published in a self-edited form and maybe be read by someone other than myself (by a surfer or by my 2 followers, one who is my brother John Chin -- long-suffering webmaster and User Experience Professional who encourages me in starting my online vices and then, tangles with us when we don't take the user into account). I think I've actually spent over 9 hours on this draft, but I won't count the time I worked to get the images of Shelby Foote's book covers uploaded correctly (they're still not, right? they look like so many colourful boxes of cereal ready for a taste test with Mikey).

So, Carolyn, stop dilly-dallying -- why do you write? First and foremost, I write to "memorialize" thoughts. I aspire to write better so that I can be proud of my writing, to know that my articulation is as good as it can be given the form and time (akin to buying something based on the best value for the money afforded, I am writing the best quality in the current circumstances).

The goal -- the ultimate aspiration -- is to write what I would most want to read -- well-researched, well-imagined, well-plotted use of resources, including time, energy and thought to create a tangible, legible result bigger than simply groups of words that fit together, an experience to be harnessed, cherished, and referenced again and again. Eventually, I might aspire to obtaining readers, affirmation, recognition, critical acclaim, and maybe even a movie, but not right now. I'll need to increase my value, first.

Wow! Too many "I's" makes the blog narcissistic! Better stop before I have to change the number of hours I have spent on this draft post. PUBLISH!