How to get people to read classic literature

How? Update classics with plotlines about zombies, of course.

The new book by Seth Grahame-Smith, published by Chronicle Books, combines the original text by Jane Austen with new, expanded accounts of flesh-eating zombiism. Furthermore, it comes with “20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice)”.

(Possible correction: it's actually Quirk Books, which I suppose is a Chronicle Books imprint.) The publisher's website describes the book as follows:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton-and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers-and [sic] even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.*

Austen's got her own loyal following, of course. Further, the copyright has long expired on Pride and Prejudice, and I suppose this is a form of fan fiction. I'd love for students to comment on this kind of book in terms of the issues we're discussing: building readership, maintaining literary quality, and so forth.

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*Note, by the way, how the publisher's description incorrectly uses a hyphen (-) instead of an em dash (—).

Cristina's post -- via email.

(Note from David: A technical issue with Cristina's Blogger prevented this post from going through. She sent it to me via email and I'm putting it up here in a post from her that was initially blank.)

After working with a travel company’s Creative Team, I believed that Publishing was my true calling. Finally, with regards to my career path, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And this light involved editing, proofreading and creating. I loved the fast paced enviroment of deadlines, drafts and final proofs. I was sure that Publishing was the industry in which I belonged, and questioned why for so many years I believed Law to be my career route. I have been writing books since before I could spell. Seriously. I dictated the first book I ever “wrote” to my kindergarten teacher. I spoke, she typed, and wa-la, The Best Christmas Ever was accomplished.

Jason Epstein’s Book Business introduced me to more than just his impressive list of acquaintances. After reading about the direction of the Publishing industry and the new introductions of technology, it seems the soon the industry will “go digital”. Epstein explained the different digital paths certain publishing companies are pursing in order to build a “new technology driven” relationship with readers. Additionally, certain bookstore conglomerates, such as Barnes & Noble, have taken to selling electronic titles directly to the consumers. This action cuts out the middle-man, the middle man being the Publisher. I am already nostalgic for an industry that I never truly experienced. Perhaps I am a few decades too late to get involved with the Publishing industry. Nevertheless, it appears that now, more than ever, the Publishing world needs a few passionate minds to throw it a life jacket, before it goes

I leave each class discussion thinking of new ways aspiring writers and publishers can use the advancing technologies to their benefit. Although I change my career goals as often as the season, I am very interested in the business and marketing aspect of the publishing industry. I find the “Bit-of-Lit” to be a brilliant marketing tactic, both for the aspiring author and publisher. I wonder if the same idea was brought to grade schools and distributed each month to students, perhaps the same success could occur with the children book industry. If students were given a pamphlet with the first chapters and summaries of the latest books, I believe parents would purchase the items. The socio-economics of each school district would have to be accounted for when predicting sales. Nevertheless, I feel it would a positive move for the children book industry.

Devotion to the Craft

On her website, author of "Eat, Pray, Love", Elizabeth Gilbert, gives her advice on writing. She acknowledges the fact that this is all very ephemeral and personal, making sure that the reader knows this is just her vision of the craft. Eat, Pray, Love is the book that I would take with me on a deserted island, so maybe I'm a bit biased, but she definitely offers some interesting thoughts on what it takes to develop as a writer.

Gilbert writes, "I created my own post-graduate writing program, which entailed several years spent traveling around the country and world, taking jobs at bars and restaurants and ranches, listening to how people spoke, collecting experiences and writing constantly. My life probably looked disordered to observers (not that anyone was observing it that closely) but my travels were a deliberate effort to learn as much as I could about life, expressly so that I could write about it".
This is so important because Gilbert made a vow to writing and took action in a way that made sense to her. Nothing could stop her from writing and, as she goes on to point out, receiving letters of rejection one after the other did not diminish her sense of hope. As she carved her own path, she also came to the realization that discipline is largely overrated and that self-forgiveness is much more important. As a writer, do NOT pre-reject yourself. Gilbert points out that, "Magazines, editors, agents -- they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren't good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Your only job is to write your heart out.

Later on, Gilbert says, "Becoming a published writer is sort of like trying to find a cheap apartment in New York City: it's impossible. And yet... every single day, somebody manages to find a cheap apartment in New York City. I can't tell you how to do it. I can only tell you -- through my own example -- that it can be done. I once found a cheap apartment in Manhattan. And I also became a writer".
Her primary message is to write as much as you can and don't worry about the rest. Too often, aspiring writers worry about things beyond their control. Concentrate on what is in front of you, the piece you are working on, and the rest will be taken care of.

If you decide to become a writer, then do it, "like a miner buried under a fallen roof".

Self-Publishing = Ralph Nader

I'm going to put it bluntly: I think self-publishing is a bad thing, at least in its current incarnation. There's a reason (or there used to be) that editors and publishers exist - to save the rest of us the trouble of finding out what's good and what's not. Things might have changed once the book industry became more about profit than quality, but the notion of publishing a good book, and not a book that will necessarily sell well, must remain with some publishers.

Yet self-publishing, by skipping the traditional selection and editing process of publishing, has the potentiality of over-saturating an already bloated marketplace with...well, crap. I'm not talking about people who make books for family or as business cards, but writers who want to get their stuff out there to the public. I don't share Epstein's optimism when it comes to the public's ability to separate the good from the bad - no sir, not when novels as poorly written as The DaVinci Code and The Fountainhead exist. Editors help maintain the literary standard, and in many cases, help make better writers. Rejection, I think, is a key part of honing one's skill. A writer needs someone to tell him what his weaknesses are, or at least point him in the right direction. Why can't this be friends or family? Because, unless they are professional editors, friends and family have neither the same discerning eye nor the same knowledge of current literary/publication trends that editors do. The DaVinci Code and The Fountainhead were published after having suffered the editorial process, yes, but The Fountainhead was rejected 12 times before publication and The DaVinci Code was...well I can't explain that one, other than mentioning that Brown had previously published 3 novels - none of which sold well.

I don't mean to generalize all self-published books as crap, but I think that there are many, many more bad writers out there than there are even modestly good ones. If self-publishing gains popularity and we start seeing more successes from unscreened writers, then there shall exist a dangerous message to bad writers: you can get published and be successful, too! For example: I used to write for the website Lit.org - which published essentially anything that you submitted. It was all divided into categories from fiction to nonfiction, and for a long time there was a small stream of really good writing. I noticed, though, that as the word spread about the website and submissions gained in volume, the quality declined. Being in 7th grade when I started writing there, I can say for sure that I played a part in that decline, but I can also say that I remember reading several pieces that stuck with me, even effected my writing. Now, Lit.org is a repository of poems written in all capital letters and short stories about angsty vampire high schoolers. I can only see Authonomy, and self-publishing, suffering the same fate. While self-publishing may filter out the true hacks due to the costs, someone who is truly dedicated to their crap writing will shell out whatever they can. Ed Wood's career is a great example of this in the film industry. It will only be a matter of time before the good self-published books are lost in a sea of "Spammer"-quality garbage.

That's not to say that self-publishing doesn't at least raise some critical issues about the nature of the publishing industry. Epstein makes it clear in his book that things have gone awry; the series of depressing articles we have all been privy to on this blog all but confirm that the industry is suffering for more reasons than just the recession. Things have to change, but self-publishing is not the answer. Look at it this way: self-publishing is like Ralph Nader (or Ross Perot, if you prefer. Or the Bull-Moose Party if you want to go really old school). Third party candidates have the right idea in providing an alternative to and pointing out the faults of our two-party system, but their platforms are often the source of a different kind of problem. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the publishing industry just needs its own Barack Obama.

"Why is this correct?" "...It just is."

Noah Lukeman's "The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile" is a straightforward guide to avoiding bad writing. The book is slightly bland, yet it is essential reading material for anyone who aspires to write and write well. Each chapter deals with a particular element of writing, and most of these elements are technical (i.e. Adjectives and Adverbs, Style, Sound, and Comparison).
While reading the second chapter, Adjectives and Adverbs, it hit me: if I were given a formal test on the rules of writing, I would probably do poorly. Grammar rules exist, or seem to exist in my mind as something seemingly innate. When a sentence or paragraph is grammatically sound I do not know this because of a definition, I know because it looks or sounds incorrect. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that I am not an English major; maybe only those who are instructed in the lingo of writing actually understand why the elements of a sentence perform specific functions.
My reaction to reading the definition of the semicolon is a glaring example of my inability to describe the technicalities of sentence construction. This particular definition is a couple of lines long. I can understand it, but could never have come up with it myself. If, prior to reading this passage, someone had asked me how a semicolon is used, I would have been at a loss for words. However, if that same person had given me a paragraph with missing semicolons and had asked me to insert them where appropriate, I would have had no problem.
I am curious to see whether or not anyone else perceives language and its rules in a similar way.

Self Publishing

Browsing through the New York Times, I read an article called “Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab” by Motoko Rich. Rich points that self-publishing companies are growing rapidly whereas many mainstream publishers are losing ground. Author Solutions, based in Bloomington, Indiana, is known to be the largest self publishing company that operates self publishers like Author House, iUniverse, and more. According to the article, Author Solutions represented 19,000 titles in 2008, nearly six times more than Random House. The income, however, is still a fraction of the wider publishing industry; Brown sold more copies of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight than the total copies Author Solutions sold in the year 2008, which is 2.5 million.

As Rich states, self publishing seems to flourish for a variety of reasons: “The trend is also driven by professionals who want to use a book as an enhanced business card as well as by people who are creating books as gifts for family and friends.” The fact that I can publish a book just to give to a friend as a present atonishes me. For as little as $3, the article suggests, I can upload a manuscript to be ordered for a printed book within an hour. For beginning authors in particular, self publishing is a faster method to put their books in the market. Although the chances of being discovered by a mainstream publishing house are rare, it is a much faster way to get into the market than through traditional publishers. Well, at least one can avoid being rejected by a number of agents. The negative aspects of self publishing are that there are no advance payments and they have “diminished access to the vast bookstore distribution pipeline that big publishers can provide.” There are fortunate authors like Lisa Genova who self published Still Alice through the iUniverse, which eventually sold copies to numerous bookstores.

There are opposing views on self publishing. Louise Burke, publisher of Pocket Books, said that “publishers now trawl for new material by looking at reader comments about self-published books sold online.” On the other hand, Cathy Langer, lead buyer for the Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver, gave a more pessimistic impression by saying, “People think that just because they’ve written something, there’s a market for it. It’s not true.”

If I were to publish a book, I’m not quite sure whether to go through the traditional publishers or to get into the market fast by self publishing. There are pros and cons in self publishing but what appears to be evident is that the self publishing companies are flourishing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28selfpub.html?_r=2&partner=rss

More bad news for the publishing industry

Magazines are another aspect of the publishing industry hit hard by the economic downturn. Domino, a decorating magazine, announced this week that it's folding. Though the magazine has a large number of readers, they weren't getting enough ad sales to finance the publication. Domino's parent company Conde Nast is experiencing fianancial problems that extend beyond the failure of one house furnishings magazine. If a large media conglomerate like Conde Nast is floundering, how will smaller companies be affected?

To me this says it's a perfect time for magazine companies to launch something completely different. Consumers are looking for distractions from depressing economic news. While everyone else is playing it safe, sticking to a formula, Conde Nast and others should be looking to launch something completely different from what they've done before. Lately all the magazines look frighteningly similar. Sure, there are different ones targeting a variety of audiences--cooking magazines targeting amateur chefs, fashion magazines targeting mall rat preteens, car magazines showcasing shiny sportscars--but they still all look similar. Headlines jostle for space on the front, overpromising what's inside. If I were the publisher, now is when I'd be looking to try something unexpected to revive people's spirits.

Another option for Conde Nast is to tighten their budget, focusing on revamping existing periodicals. On Sunday, when tvs across America were tuned to the Superbowl, I was slumped on the couch watching the chick flick "13 going on 30." In a flash-forward hypothetical scenario, Jennifer Garner's character is a magazine executive, whose publication flounders because a rival keeps scooping their covers and stories. During a boardroom meeting, the staff calls "redesigning" the beginning of the end for a publication. Is that true? Does redesigning media always lead to readers losing confidence in the product?

Epstein - post for 1/26-2/1

Post for Week of Jan 26-Feb1
I found Epstein’s “The Book Business” an interesting read, but also found myself more excited to reach the end of the book than to keep reading. The combination of his writing style and technique, which was filled with typos in almost every chapter, did not impress me nearly as much as did King’s book on writing and publishing. His constant staggering from one subject to another made his book sometimes confusing and annoying. For example, at one moment he talks about the state of the publishing industry, which I found interesting, and the next moment he talks about the inner décor of his office and his views on the Vietnam War. The content, however, was informative and is useful to any new writer, editor or publishing hopeful.

I found the most important point of Epstein’s book to be the death of the publishing industry. Abby’s post focused on this issue, and I found her points to be quiet interesting. Is there any way to save the publishing industry? Currently, it seems to be dying, like almost every other industry in the current economy. However, whose responsibility really is it to make America want to read? Certainly, the idea of using celebrities to promote books is one that could be a great success. Sadly, that idea seems to be far-fetched, unless readers want to have advertisements for Qdoba and Burger King in the middle of each chapter in new novels, which is something that is not unrealistic. This way, they could afford to pay celebrities to strut down Fifth Avenue with their creepy miniature pets in one hand and a copy of a new novel in the other. Yes. This seems like a sad sell out, but let’s be realistic. The age of wit is gone.

So what can America do to save it’s book industry? The art of reading is a lost sport. Perhaps the only way to save the reading industry is to focus on schools and early education. Reading should be taught to be ‘fun’ as opposed to boring. While books on middle school and high school reading lists are certainly classics, anything that creates any kind of controversy is quickly blacklisted from schools, unlike television. This is why cable is just far more interesting to students than reading. It’s not nearly as censored at an early age, and young minds always follow excitement.

Writing "style" and "sound"

So far, I’m enjoying Lukeman’s The First Five Pages. It almost makes me feel like I’m in the process of becoming an editor because the more I get into the book the more I am able to identity errors in writing. The notions of sound in chapter 3 and style in chapter 5 caught my attention particularly. As Lukeman points out, I agree that “stylistic errors are among the easiest to recognize and the hardest to fix”(66). Being an English major, I am used to professors writing on the margins of my papers saying something like “this paragraph is awkward,” “tighten your prose,” or “your argument isn’t strong enough.” They are all pointing to the problems in my writing style.

In page 67, Lukeman asks, “what’s more important: your writing or the story?” This reminded me of my college application essay. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to write about but most importantly, I wanted the essay to be written extremely well: to sound intelligent. When my friend read my essay, she said that the writing was good but it could be more personal and to the point. This was a rude awakening for me. The essay was about my experiences but when I read it, it almost sounded like I was talking about someone else. Thanks to my friend, I rewrote the whole thing with intentions not to sound intelligent but to get my point across. I tried to express my ideas more directly, putting importance in the story.

I think writing style goes hand in hand with sound. In chapter 3, Lukeman advices writers that “even if your sentence sounds great, always ask yourself if its meaning is clear for the reader”(47). Taking my college essay again as an example, my initial draft sounded smart but clearly its meaning wasn’t clear for my friend. I think that a prose “sounds” right when one employs the most effective way of getting a point across to the readers.