The Publishing Contrarian

“Scan this Book!” was the title of Kevin Kelly’s feature article and “manifesto” in the The New York Times Magazine on May 14th. The article was about Google’s hell-bent-for-leather scan-athon of the books from five major research libraries and what this massive effort portends for the world (a digital universal library), for publishers (business model implosion) and for authors (books as loss leaders).

• For the world at large, the digital Universal Library will rescue long-neglected, long-lost, and long-forgotten books: that’s good. I’m all for the UL or DUL. The scope dazzles me. Even though I am one of the “well-booked” per Bill McCoy, GM of Adobe’s e-publishing business, I want the info of the world a click away and I want to be able to drill down until the bit snaps. Beyond my own egocentricity, I empathize with the “billions of people world-wide who are underserved” by having limited or no access to books, but can boot up a computer. Here, let me contribute my old books, those written by me and those on my shelf. Let me read the “marginalia” (is that a word you can say in mixed company?) that Kelly predicts will make my books even more valuable to the world. Let me click away madly and locate 32 million books, 750 million articles and essays that humans have published, as the article says, “since the days of Sumerian clay tablets.”
• As a result of the impending business-model implosion, the inflexible, traditional publishing industry will be sidelined: that’s their personal problem. Free online books on Web sites, in publishing blogs and in The Universal Library will require that the industry trash its stone-age business model and stop throwing good money after bad to shore up the crumbling status quo. All the free books online right now — not to mention the prospect of 32 million free books online — should have Peter W. Olson, Jane Friedman, Jack Romanos and David Young, Presidents and CEOs of Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette, respectively, marshalling the troops, not circling the wagons. “Publishers, be very, very afraid,” the editor of The New York Times Magazine warns on the front cover.
• Authors will now have the opportunity to capitalize on having written a book, rather than being forced to rely exclusively on paltry royalties: that will be reward enough, and those rewards can be enormous. “Digital technology has now disrupted all business models based on mass-produced copies, including individual livelihoods of [authors].” The publish or perish crowd in science, medicine and academe write books for credibility building and ivory tower scaling. Business people who write books about their industry want a published “leave behind” to get a leg-up on the competition. Sure, they’d like to make money off the sale of individual copies of their book, but that is a secondary goal. As free online publishing spreads and The Universal Library grows, the author who writes a book with the primary goal of selling tens of thousands of copies is going to find a smaller and smaller paying audience. But writing books has its rewards, even if not one copy of the book is sold. For some authors like Val Landi, selling the movie rights to his book A Woman from Cairo may be the biggest and best payoff. Cathy West, a Bermudian author who writes for the Christian market and has bimonthly chapters of Just a Little Walk on her Web site, may or may not make money directly from sales of her book, but she may be rewarded in some other way, tangibly or intangibly, in some manner or another, as she casts her bread upon the water. Steve Clackson, although he was absolutely pilloried by a few writers critiquing his novel, Sand Storm, two weeks ago after he posted a few chapters of his book online, may not ever find a traditional publisher, but writing a book and self-publishing online may get his book picked up by the Universal Library, eventually, and who knows, maybe his fortune lies in some anti-terrorism-related venture or screen writing assignment in Hollywood. The Wicked Witch of Publishing is happy to have written three nonfiction books ages ago and to have been “well-published” by HarperCollins, St. Martin’s Press, Pocketbooks, Berkley Books and a variety of foreign publishers, because it helps her land big contracts for big bucks in the corporate world, and it makes her, shallow creature that she is, so bewitching at cocktail parties.

Perhaps it is time to demand a reversal of rights right now for midlist, backlist and deadlist books that publishing companies have dismissed, neglected, forgotten and allowed to go out of print. These old books and still new books languishing in the bowels of some distribution center, could be freely and generously given to the Universal Library for scanning (copyright waived!) and be one-click-available to all potential readers, literally forever.

Perhaps ignoring the traditional publishing companies as they skip merrily along their own well-trod path to who knows where is the best approach.

Perhaps all those writers who faced the patient blank page everyday and nevertheless created a living, breathing book, but couldn’t find a traditional publisher, should self-publish right now online, and reap some of those rewards that are just out there ready to be discovered. 

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Leave your email address if I don’t already have it! I try to send a quick email out when I put up a new posting. Also, the Wicked Witch of Publishing is up to no good! Again! If you are a first-time author with a manuscript languishing in the slush pile, definitely leave your email address so the Wicked Witch can get in touch with you to help you with a new service she is offering in a week or two. (Click on “Email” under “Pages” on the sidebar).

Something memorable happened to me years ago in a bookstore in the ocean resort of East Hampton, NY. No, it wasn’t meeting Peter Mathiessen (a founder of ”The Paris Review” and recipient of the National Book Award for The Snow Leopard) rearranging the display of his amazing trilogy Killing Mr. Watson, Lost Man’s River and Bone by Bone. Nor was it bumping into Billy Joel in the addictions section. I encountered what I think is that rare bird, a “handseller.” Why so memorable? Because if that’s what it was, I haven’t seen one since.

It was summer and I decided to read as many books as I could about the Vietnam War while rotating in the sun at Georgica Beach. I’d pushed through Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump and Better Times Than These, John Del Vecchio’s The 13th Valley, Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War, Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato, Michael Herr’s Dispatches, and was searching the local bookstore for Francis Fitzgerald’s Fire in the Lake. At some point a young woman, who had been sorting and shelving books when I walked in, turned to me and offered to help. When I mentioned Fire in the Lake, she knew immediately that the bookstore didn’t have a copy. After we chatted briefly about the books in which I was interested, she offered to order Fire in the Lake or any other book I thought I might like to read on the subject of Vietnam, and she made some recommendations about additional titles. I told her not to bother to order Fire in the Lake. I thought I’d just pick up a copy at the B&N on Fifth Avenue and 17th Street in New York City. 

About three weeks later, I walked back into BookHampton. This same woman was sitting at the cash register. When she saw me, she lit up, reached under the counter, pulled out a book and waved it at me. You guessed it: Fire in the Lake! She hadn’t known my name. She hadn’t known if I’d ever be back in the store, but she had special ordered this book and reserved it for me: “Save for tall woman with great tan.” I bought the book. Handseller? 

Before I switched over to the business side of publishing, I’d just finished my third nonfiction book and completed a 16-city tour organized by St. Martin’s Press. No matter how tired and disoriented I was on this tour—running from TV show to radio station to local newspaper to airport—I managed to locate the local bookstores and do what every other author does: sneak around, look for my titles, and turn them cover face out. (Guilty, as charged!) Not once during that entire process did anyone ever walk up to me and offer to help me find a book.

Lo, these many years later, I can honestly say my experience in quaint BookHampton remains unique, unless you want to count the time I stumbled across a shelf filled with employee recommended books in Barnes & Noble on Sixth Avenue in New York City. Each book had a brief, handwritten synopsis and a few personal comments about why this book was so liked by the employee. I bought Mikal Gilmore’s Shot in the Heart through the recommendation of what I’ll describe as a variation of handseller. Shot in the Heart was a gripping book and a real page turner. It was written by Gary Gilmore’s younger brother. You remember Gary Gilmore? He requested a firing squad for his execution…and he got just what he asked for. Last time I looked, that shelf was gone.

Wandering a bookstore, clearly looking like I am browsing for something appealing, should bring a handseller trotting over. (I’d even welcome a recommendation for another book at point-of-sale.) I’m just not sure what one looks like because sightings are as rare as those of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Arkansas. I’ve heard they exist, but the sightings are suspect. I don’t come across them in the independent bookstores and I certainly never see them in the bookstores like Barnes & Noble or Borders. In fact, I have to track those guys down and wrestle them to the floor if I want help, then it’s: ”Let me check the computer to see if we have it…. Next customer.” 

Actually, come to think of it, I was a handseller once! I was nosing through the display of new fiction titles at B&N alongside two women about my age who were trying to figure out what to buy for one of their mothers. I reached for Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune and said, “My mother just loved this book.” Sold!

Frazer Dobson of Park Road Books in Charlotte, North Carolina, may disagree with me, as might Robert Gray, formerly of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont. I don’t doubt that these extraordinary book buyers epitomize the definition of handseller, but my personal experience leads me to believe that handsellers are on the endangered species list, and very close to extinction.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Leave your email address if I don’t already have it! I try to send a quick email out when I put up a new posting. Also, the Wicked Witch of Publishing is up to no good! Again! If you are a first-time author with a manuscript languishing in the slush pile, definitely leave your email address so the Wicked Witch can get in touch with you to help you with a new service she is offering in a week or two. (Click on “Email” under “Pages” on the sidebar).