Tag Archives: publishing

The History of Books: Part 3-ish (or 2.5, whatever)

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Part1 / Part 2

CHAPTER 2.5 – More Backstory But This Time It’s The Story Of Congo, Orange, Shed & Highborn, and Some Other Random Bullshit That Probably Has Nothing To Do With The Rest of This Chapter

Update / Newsflash

Right. So this isn’t really an update, as for you, it is three seconds after reading the last sentence. For me, it is the next day, and at some point during the time I finished the paragraph above, and right at this moment, I realized there is more to this story. It isn’t really important, but I’ll tell it to you anyway. You’ve read this much. The poison is already going to kill you, might as well try and hope that reading more of this crap will speed the death process up so you don’t suffer too much more.

One day, back in the ancient lands of a place called Silicon Valley, was an enclave of wizards and magicians and sorcerers. This enclave, it was full of some of the most powerful mages in the entire realm, and even realms that had never been discovered yet. That sounds about right. I’m kind of making this one up as I go along too, so… you know, put your bullshit filters back on. Which you should have never taken off.

These mages at the Enclave, they heard the far-reaching stories of a great sorcerer, one unfamiliar to them as this sorcerer, Congo The Wise, had come from a land called Seattle, far to the northwest. The Enclave became curious as to how this unknown sorcerer had become so powerful that his name traveled the winds all the way to the Valley. The enclave was well known for the way its various sects had begun to shape the land and the lives of the humans that lived within its sphere of influence, which was quite far and wide.

When the Enclave learned of what the sorcerer had been doing to garner such praise and rumor, the members openly scoffed, brushing off this ‘wise’ sorcerer as nothing more than an illusionist, a trickster, not a real wielder of the great arcane power known as Technology. Privately, the Enclave’s wizards and mages and warlocks and sorcerers and even those granola-eating bastards called druids who rode their stupid bikes to work all began to worry.

And so the High Council of the Enclave of the Unmatched Power of the Arcane Technology, and this is why I just call them ‘The Enclave, because that shit gets old after about the nineteenth time, these elders began to send their best and brightest to this place called ‘Seattle’ to find out exactly how the sorcerer was doing his magic, and to craft their own magic to capture the interest of the citizens (mostly peasants still) of the realm and get some of that internet money. I mean gold. They were after the gold. Continue reading →

The History of Books: Part 2-ish

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Anyway, out in fiefdoms, the peasants… er readers were growing restless. This new sorcerer named Congo came along one day and started messing with people.

“Hey,” he’d say, like every conversation ever in the history of humanity began, “would you like to see a neat trick?”

And the peasants would say, “Hell yes, entertain us, but be careful, if you use your wizardly sorcerer powers, we’ll call you a witch-demon and put you on the rack until you confess.”

To which the sorcerer replied, “What? I thought this story had moved into like the 20th or 21st century by now. I have to go change costumes into 15th century period fashion.”

But then Congo, the great sorcerer, showed them the trick. He let them choose an item they wanted to buy, and then he would teleport it right to their front door. Or barn door. Or hovel door. Congo didn’t care, he could make items appear right at anyone’s door that had a legal address in a proper zip code.

This caused another revolution of sorts, but it really had nothing to do with The Publishers. Yet. Soon though, the tides of war arrived on the publishing shores, and they had no choice but to take up arms and do battle against the evil sorcerer. For the evil sorcerer Congo was now teleporting books to the doors of peasants everywhere, but this particular spell, according to The Publishers, not only teleported the book to the front door of a peasant… er customer, but a side-effect of the spell is that it also nicked a few cents worth of profit out of The Publishers’ coffers.

The battles raged for a while, but eventually the sorcerer won the ability to demand the terms of a treaty. He didn’t outright destroy The Publishers. He wasn’t really an evil sorcerer. He was pretty damn intelligent, as he knew that his own trick depended on The Publishers doing their job to work. How could the sorcerer teleport books to a peasant’s house if there were no books to teleport because the great sorcerer had destroyed The Publishers who produced the books?

(side note: This wouldn’t be the last time The Publishers clashed with Congo. There’s some more conflict in Chapter 2.5 somewhere. I’m too lazy to look it up, but trust me, Congo The Wise is a very tricky trickster, and The Publishers, by Chapter 2.5, are these old dudes like from The Dark Crystal, which is a kick-ass movie if you’ve never seen it… you really should check it out. Jim Henson and stuff. It’s going to be cheese, but it’s a totally awesome badass cheese. Like Pepper Jack cheese or something.)

And during a night of drunken debauchery with an entire ballroom full of virgins or rappers or something, after almost setting the King’s couch on fire with a slurred Power Word, it came to him. The sorcerer’s epiphany was that he could craft a new spell, one more powerful than any he’d ever crafted, that would teleport the books directly from the author to the peasants. Customers. Sheesh.
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Hugh Howey: The Conundrum That Baffles The Publishing World

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If you’ve never read Wool, then I urge you to get it from Amazon or your favorite e-book store. It is free for the first hit. The rest will cost you, but my oh my, they will addict you like textual smack. Black Tar textual smack.

Now that you’ve read that, or if you’re already a fan, you really need to understand why Hugh Howey is the hero to many self-published authors, including me, and somewhat of an anti-hero to the traditional publishing world, or at best, a conundrum that constantly evolves and cannot be predicted.

What is the beauty of having a physical book? Is it because it is made of paper? Is it the size? The smell of the pages and cover? The way the pages feel under your fingers? The memories of growing up with physical books? I still love physical books, but I’m also a huge Kindle fan (a fan of all e-readers to be honest, since that is the direction the literary world is evolving in).

The one thing e-books don’t have that physical books have, well, one of the things, but sometimes the most important thing, is a physical presence. So in a sense, without a physical presence, it can have no smell, no paper pages, and since it is so new, no real fond memories of sitting under a tree in the summer reading an epic story. Maybe some of you have had this memory with the e-readers, but I’m still working towards that goal.

But what if you could have an e-book AND a physical presence to remind you of it? Friends, this is why Hugh Howey is someone authors like me respect and publishers cannot predict:

What will the man think of next?

James Patterson Is A Prolific Author, But Kind Of Dumb

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Read the entire post at JA Konrath’s blog. Trust me on this one.

Perhaps you’ve seen the ad James Patterson recently ran in the NYT.

The Ad Should Be Called "Hyperbole" or "Special Interest Marketing"

If you don’t want to squint at the jpg, here’s what Patterson wrote:

 

“If there are no bookstores, no libraries, no serious publishers with passionate, dedicated, idealistic editors, what will happen to our literature? Who will discover and mentor new writers? Who will publish our important books? What will happen if there are no more books like these?”

 

Then there’s a list of 38 books, including All the President’s Men, Catcher in the Rye, The Color Purple, Fahrenheit 451, Catch 22, etc. I agree that many of them are great.
Then he ends with:

 

“The Federal Government has stepped in to save banks, and the automobile industry, but where are they on the important subject of books? Or if the answer is state and local government, where are they? Is any state doing anything? Why are there no impassioned editorials in influential newspapers or magazines? Who will save our books? Our libraries? Our bookstores?”

 

I respect Patterson for his marketing genius. I also like many of his books. He makes 94 million dollars a year, so he’s obviously doing quite a bit right.

But I’m not finding much to agree with here.

Another voice chimes in here, and is definitely worth the read!