Harry Problems

Open letter to Sara Nelson on her July 9 Column: Hallowed Harry:

I am torn about your column this week, not the least becuase I just received my July 9th issue yesterday and haven't received my July 16th issue yet. Either you guys are sending out my issue late or my postman is reading up on the publishing news. Maybe he's a writer too.

Who would have thought that the publication of a Harry Potter book could have a down side? I guess I knew that Rowling's success would start to rankle people eventually. So how am I torn? I both agree and disagree with your insightful column.

I agree that there are writer's who are being published this summer and who are looking to gain media time who will probably be pissed off at the Potter blitz and their inability to access the marketplace. I agree that there are beach reads and sensitive first novels that will be pushed aside by the juggernaut of Harry. But couldn't these same books also benefit from the additional number of readers searching for books this summer who might, by chance, see their book and buy it too? Might their face-out on aisle four get more foot traffic at Barnes & Noble and subsequently more impulse purchases? Won't their home-page listing at Powells.com get more visibility simply because more people will actually see their book on their way to finding Harry? More hits equals higher visibility. Better line-of-sight and higher visibility have got to count for something.

Your statement that retailers, big and small, have made the dubious choice to discount Harry and subsequently that the price slashing will hurt their profit margin I'm sure is spot on correct. This is what kills the small retailers more than anything, but I understand they have to compete or lose customers. How else do you compete with Amazon, Costco, Target and Wallmart and all the other booksellers who will be selling Harry at such low prices you would have to be crazy to go to Books of Wonder (like I will) to pick up your copy. I guess you can't ask consumers to buy at higher priced outlets just because of store loyalty... can you?

Here's what I know. I'll buy and read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, most likely on the subway on my way to work with a dozen other straphanger adults of all ages. And my bet is that for a number of those readers Harry has been a gateway book to the land of reading - which means more sales for more books in the long run, books that will not be discounted but sold at full profit margin. So in my book, there are good problems and there are bad problems. Harry problems are the good ones.

Pride of Show PW 6/4/07

Ms. Nelson,
I haven't received my first issue yet - but I just found the electronic version of PW so I decided to start our correspondance a few issues early. Note: I'm not sure why the magazine is available electronically for free - but I'm pleased. Unless of course I didn't need to buy a subscription, in which case I'm down $165. But that's a story for another entry. On to my response to your Pride of Show.

I need to get this on the table first. I've never been to BEA - not because I haven't dreamed of it or desired to attend - more because I haven't sold a book yet. But hear me, authors such as myself read about BEA and Frankfort and salivate at the possibilities.

So, with that in mind my first comment has to be about the venue - not the Javitts Center, but the Brooklyn Marriott. My day job is in public health and I was at a conference there two years ago so I know some of it's ins and outs. It's a nice choice, easily accessible from Manhattan, and classy in a downtown Brooklyn kind of way. Also, any attempt at getting out of Manhattan and into the "outter borroughs" has to be applauded. And, yes, in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I live in Queens.

What I find fascinating in your column is the line, "... who were celebrating: the idea that despite all the downturns, and the store closings, and the fact that there are now fewer than one-third the number of independent stores there were a decade ago, bookselling is still a viable and enviable profession for some." What follows is a display of contrasting statements and reflections on speaches that were bittersweet and fortunate and, for me, disturbing in their attempts to, as Monty Python's Life of Brian cast would say, "always look on the bright side of life."

The number of independent book stores have been reduced to one-third what they were ten years ago. I've watched bookstores go out of business in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, like the smaller stores that did not have a niche all to themselves. Or the niche stores who couldn't compete with price-points. But one-third? In the mean time Books-a-Million, Barnes and Noble, and Borders are up 2.4% in sales in the first quarter of 2007. I'm always torn between jumping up and down for joy for any increase in the sales of books, and despair because it's the big three that have the increases. And what does it mean for US booksellers - their future - when so many unfortunate salesmen/women are no longer working in independents because their stores are no longer open for business? I wish I could say that the big three are producing the best booksellers in their stores, developing them to a new degree of excellence but my experience doesn't play that out. When I want to find out about a children's book I go to Books of Wonder in NYC, because nobody knows children's books like the staff there does. If I want sci-fi, fantasy, or a graphic novel I go to Forbidden Planet. Hey, I've worked at Walden Books during Christmas time. I know what it's like.

The idea that people at BEA this year represented a can do, flag-waving, yankee doodle, spirit, in the face of this, just doesn't work for me. What I see and hear in your column is mourning for another era that has passed and a book business that is struggling for its future. As a writer who hopes to one day be struggling for face-outs in Borders, it's hard for me to get past this.

The Plan

So here's the plan. Sara Nelson of PW writes the foreword to PW - her weekly column on what's new in the publishing industry - and at the end of the column she always asks, "Agree? Disagree? Tell us at www.publishersweekly.com/saranelson." I wonder if she usually gets any response? I bet since they gave her the newer, kinder, gentler, more accessible (read - PR agent told her to change her look) picture in her column they got some response.

Well, Ms. Nelson, I will be responding. I'll be answering your columns each week - picking up your gauntlet and drawing my pen in response - as soon as my new PWs start rolling in, that is. I sent in the check two days ago. I know, I know. Having the first issue arrive this week would be a little too much to ask for. But hey, you never know. I will officially notify you about my blog as soon as I have my first issue in hand. Just as an aside - and for the record, I liked the older, arms crossed, business suit look you had during your first year at PW. It smacked of cigarette smoke, broken fingernails, and ink on the palms. Call me a romantic.

For all the rest of you out there, feel free to comment on my comments, dialogue on my dialogue. And if you want Sara Nelson's old picture back, let her know. Then perhaps I won't be the only one.

Who writes all those books?

Is it possible for Nora Roberts/JD Robb to have written over 150 books? Is that physically possible? The pulp writers of the thirties and fourties wrote several novels a year, sometimes a dozen to keep up with the monthly publishing schedule so I know it's possible. My father in-law asked me this question yesterday (we talk about publishing sometimes since I'm a writer and he loves to read) and I said, "Sure, it's possible."

He looked at me disbelievingly. "Nahhh," he said.

"It's possible," I repeated. "I know Lawrence Block writes a book in a month." (though truthfully I think he has the book in his mind and is plotting it out way before then, so his process may not be able to be restricted to that one month).

Vince shook his head again.

"I was at a writer's retreat with him and I saw the manuscript pages. He told me himself. He writes the whole thing in one month."

"Yeah but 150 books by this Roberts?"

I shrugged. "It's not what I'm capable of, but I know it's possible." We went on like this for a while and then moved on to other topics. But today, after a day out on the beach with my family I'm still thinking about it. So I checked her website to see what her pattern is. Here's the list:

1981 - 1 book published
1982 - 5 books published
1983 - 8 books published
1984 - 10 books published

... and so it goes until Montana Sky (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) in 1996 when she hits her 100th novel. She regularly published 8-12 books a year since then. As I said, this isn't my process - I wrote a novel in a year a ways back, but that was writing 20 minutes a day every morning before I went to work. I worked at Gay Men's Health Crisis that year doing AIDS work and was so stressed/exhausted by the time I finished work I couldn't write at night so that 20 minutes was all that I had to keep the writing pistons firing. That was a good pace for me then and still is now. I'm on my fourth year of working on my latest book. BEcoming a father five years ago is my excuse for being slow with this one. Slow but steady. That's my motto.

Do I believe Nora Roberts could write all those books at that pace, all by herself? I'd have to read one of her books to really have a valid opinion if I was going to say no. But my father-in-law says she's pretty good - especially her time travel series under the JD Robb moniker - even if he wonders whether she actually wrote them herself.

I'm probably better off talking about someone like James Patterson, whose book, The Jester I did read and enjoyed for it's storytelling but not for it's depth or stylistic nuance (there was little). But then he's only published some 40 books since 1976. He doesn't seem quite as prolific - even if these days he's a two to three book a year guy. Still, many of his newer books are co-authored with others. Did he co-author before and just never tell anyone about it? It doesn't really matter to me one way or the other. William Shatner on the other hand and the books he's written, well... don't get me started on him. I don't care if he is Captain Kirk.

Lapse or Relapse?

February to May - over fifteen months without an entry. Talk about a dry patch. Have I been writing at all during this crossing of the desert? Yes. Keep it simple. A revision of my novel, Remise, blog entries in Trainjotting under the moniker of Straphanger Joe, a children's book, and four poems. The novel was the hardest to finish, followed by the poems. Poems are hard - at lesat for me they are. And of course, one of the reasons for crossing the desert, a third agent has come and gone, before the ink was even dry on the contract. But that's a story that will have to wait before it's uncovered. That's called self preservation in the face of typical publishing wacky-ness.

But here's the really interesting part. I've gone seven months without Publishers Weekly. I went through withdrawal for a while - three days of headaches and dry mouth, a runny nose that lasted for a week, followed by craving for short book reviews that made my thumbs twitch wnenever I passed a bookstore.

Why did I quit reading PW? I went to yoga school. Don't laugh. Writer's do all kinds of things to earn money while they are dreaming of hitting it big. In my case yoga school helped me to cope while family members dealt with cancer. It also took my PW fund, and we all know the PW fund is by necessity, large. Funny thing, though - my subscription ran out in July and the weekly issues kept coming through the end of October. Every issue asked me to "come back to the fold" with slightly reduced prices each week. About a month ago I got another letter from them and the yearly price had been reduced to $170. I took it as a sign.

Not long after the arrival of the newest discount, I went to Disneyworld with my son and wife and I brought along the whole month of October with me (not the days, the four issues - stay with me). I hadn't read them. They'd been sitting on a pile of PWs next to my desk collecting dust. I read them quickly on the plane while clouds passed below us, and late at night with my aching feet elevated from walking all over the Magic Kingdom/Epcot/Animal Kingdom, while the giraffes and gazelles and bongos on the savanah outside the window of our balcony at the Animal Kingdom Lodge slept. I'd relapsed smoothly and efficiently. But was it a lapse or a full-blown relapse? I asked my wife on the plane ride home if I could spring for the subscription price one more once. She nodded with a smile. Sometimes you gotta get it out of your system before you can let it back in.

By the way, I'm teaching yoga now also, and making some money at it too - not a lot of course, that wouldn't fit my profile. But as every writer knows, it gives me plenty more things to write about. And the characters I've met in the world of yoga - spiritual ministers of the cosmic soul speak to me - are worthy of some attention. Just wait a minute while I write that last slogan down...