Over the weekend Chicago’s annual Printers Row Lit Fest happened, and this time I was free to make the most of it.
I was allegedly there to sign books, browse books, and read books, but that was not my goal. Rather, the goal was to bump into and schmooze with all the most interesting readers, writers, and publishers in the Midwest and suck the latest trends and information out of their brains before strolling on to the next encounter.
Although I enjoyed talking to writers about the books they were selling, the most spirited conversations I had were with people trying to figure out how to work the endless permutations of publishing options these days.
For instance, a successful local independent publisher told me that his next experiment is to sell long essays, nonfiction articles, and novelettes in digital form for a dollar or two. His gimmick? He’s going to call them . . . books. “They are books,” he said. “Short books.” He thinks readers are smart enough to look at the price and the word count and judge the value for themselves.
Self-publishers are honing game plans as well. One, a writer of middle-grade humor for boys, assured me that “most stuff” is self-published now. I suppose he’s right—if he’s talking about “stuff” that appears on the Internet and doesn’t sell to anyone but friends and relatives. Next to one of his books a sign read “Amazon Top Ten Best Seller.” I was momentarily impressed—until I realized that he was taking advantage of the attenuated category rankings that allow Amazon to give almost any book some kind of standing: in this case something like #10 Amazon Best Seller in Books > Children’s Books > Middle-Grade > People & Places > Boys & Men > Humor > Body > Farts > Mildly Funnier Than #11.
Another entrepreneur was seeking publication the old-fashioned way, strolling from booth to booth with his fliers and chatting up anyone trapped behind a stack of books to sell. That I wasn’t a publisher did not deter him from pitching his “Calendar of the Strange: Featuring 12 Months of True Life Weirdness.” It didn’t deter him when he approached me in booth C at 11:30 a.m., and it didn’t deter him when he approached me in booth DD at 12:30.
In different ways, all three of these conversations inspired me: to be open to new media and not overly influenced by buzzwords and labels; to write what I love, try new forms of publishing, and not worry how it will be pigeonholed at Amazon; and, well, to accept that some forms of promotion are not for me.
Although I did sell a few advance copies of my new book,* the most fun part was giving one away to a ten-year-old girl who drew a winning ticket from the hat and got her choice of the donated books on display. To my astonishment she chose mine. I said, “Wow—did you know that that’s my book?” and her mom said, “This lady wrote that book!” and the little girl’s face lit up with surprise and happiness. I wrote in her book, “To Marie, with thanks for being the first child in the world to choose my book,” and I asked if she would e-mail me after she finished reading it, and she promised she would. I can’t stop thinking about how happy it made us all. I really hope she likes it.
I hope you get to a book fair this summer, too, but if you don’t, I hope you at least read a good book.
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*For children, and technically not out yet, but I’ll let you know the minute it is.
The idea that the "successful local independent publisher" gave you for short books is actually quite similar to Amazon's Kindle Singles. I don't know if they have been successful, but they sure were well advertised. That's probably one of the paths publishing will follow in the future: app-style short books. Vook seems to be on the right track, but the actual vooks I've seen are not living up to the potential (yet).
Posted by: Federico Escobar | 06/12/2011 at 11:57 AM