OPINION: Read more local literature?

As reported by Lester Kong in The Star: "Malaysian youths must be exposed to more local literature that highlight noble values like respect and responsibility", said Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, in his opening speech during the 18th HSPM (Malaysia Premier Literary Award) prize-giving ceremony on the 18th of January 2010.

“Reading high-quality literature needs to be encouraged because it is the best way to inculcate the culture of knowledge and instil positive values in our youths,” the Minister of Education is reported to have said, which makes one wonder who wrote that speech? Interesting sound bites, but the cynic in one does not expect anyone to hold his (or her) breath. Haven't we heard all this before?

It was another one of those 'don't know whether to laugh or cry' moments Malaysians are becoming increasingly familiar with. Get this: this was an awards ceremony for books in Bahasa Malaysia that were published in the 2004/2005 and the 2006/2007 period! Now, how sad is that! They were giving out prizes for five-year-old publications, many of which are probably out of print by now. Was someone sleeping on the job or was it not considered important enough?

According to kawat.blogspot.com, out of the 40 awards for the 2006/2007 period, there were no recipients for seven categories, the most glaring of which was 'Drama'. Was there not even one drama written or produced in Bahasa at all in 2007/2008? Or was there no 'acceptable' drama? (If Singaporeans can stage good dramas in Bahasa, why not Malaysians?) Also in this 'no show' category were short stories and poems for youths and children. Looks like nobody writes these, either. One question comes to mind though: were these awards only given to books published by DBP? How about all books published by all publishers in Bahasa (including those from the fringe)? And if we truly want to give out Malaysian Literary Awards, how about including all books published in all languages in Malaysia, some of which have received international acclaim (not to mention awards)?

The Minister also called on creative workers to take advantage of loans under the RM200mil Creative Industry Fund announced in the 2010 Budget, challenging local writers and publishers to enter the global literature market.

This is an extract from the 2010 budget speech by the Prime Minister under

PROMOTING CREATIVE INDUSTRY:

57. The creative industry has the potential to be further developed and contribute to economic growth. This industry encompasses performing arts and music, design animation, advertisement and content development. To coordinate the development of the various segments of the industry, the Government will

First Formulate a comprehensive Creative Industry policy for the development of the creative industry;

Second Establish a RM200 million Creative Industry Fund to finance activities such as film and drama productions, music, animation, advertisement and local content development. The fund managed by Bank Simpanan National will provide soft loans. The loan application procedure will also be simplified; and

Third Establish Tabung Kebajikan Penggiat Seni to ensure the welfare of artistes. For this, a launching grant of RM3 million will be provided.

Has anyone seen any rules for this? In our minds, jaded by decades of conditioning, one would automatically assume that those who create in English, Chinese and Tamil need not apply. Would that be a wrong assumption?

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It sometimes feels like all news coming out of the book industry these days is bad.

Publisher's Weekly reports on a pre-Christmas Bowker PubTrack Consumer service survey in the US: "... 34% of Americans have reduced the number of books they are buying, while 19% of consumers are either buying more used books or swapping books with others. Other ways consumers are looking to save money when buying books include buying fewer hardcovers and more paperbacks, and only buying books that are being sold at steep discounts or that are on sale. And in a direct contrast to the hope that consumers might buy books as an inexpensive form of entertainment, only 2% of consumers said they are buying more books as an alternative to more expensive kinds of entertainment."

News reports also suggest that the tiny e-book market is booming, but it is difficult to say how much of it is hype. Besides, we have to approach the numbers with caution. If a company sold 1 e-book last year and sells 2 this year, it reflects a growth of 100%, but not quite enough to set the world aflame. To make things worse, a recent PC World report says that we should brace ourselves for e-book piracy. "We are now seeing large volumes of e-books being pirated on everything from file-sharing networks to Websites," says Ed McCoyd of the Association of American Publishers, and the Hachette Book Group says that e-book piracy has grown "exponentially" over the past year. PC World has found virtual bookshelves full of with pirated e-book titles ranging from popular fiction and nonfiction, to college textbooks and how-to e-books for the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, or Barnes & Noble Nook.

But there are those who have found opportunities.

Although massive advances that used to be the norm have dried up, publishers are looking desperately for the next 'insanely great' first novel, says Alan Rinzler in his blog post. He has been speaking to Jay Schaefer, a publishing veteran, who says: "Everybody's looking for the next big thing -- a work of great literary fiction from an unknown writer who's never been published ... No question, good debut novels are getting snapped up and published." Well, writers, what are you waiting for? But he also says. "We've declined a lot of well crafted but empty stuff. You know, I think too many writers have been influenced by American Idol. They want to leap out of the chute, and win the literary lottery without working that hard."

He also has some useful tips: "Don't be in a rush to publish. Make sure it's as good as you can make it. Get some reliable feedback before you show it to an agent or publisher. Consult with a professional, a literary coach, take an advanced class in writing, or hire an independent editor."

And another story in the Daily Finace says Vanity Publishing Is Booming, and the Big Houses Want In (at a Price). Apparently, there is a lot of money in POD, although this is not necessarily from book sales. One report says that on an average around 41 copies of a POD book are sold in total, mostly by the authors themselves. So, there is real money to be made from writers who are willing to pay to be published (and to buy their own books). On-demand and short-run services are making a lot of money, with an approximately 132% sales jump in 2008 while the rest of the industry is in doldrums. Recently, romance publisher Harlequin announced it was getting into the pay-to-publish game with a new imprint, DellArte Press. (Some writers' and readers' groups have down-graded Harlequin as a result, but hey, go where the money is.)

Finally, Chinese writer Mian Mian, author of Panda Sex about China's underworld of sex, drugs and nightlife, (most of her work is banned in China) is suing Google for digitising her book without her approval. She wants 61,000 yuan (US$8,950) and a public apology. Yet, another good way to make money.

With that, we wish all reader a Happy and (in true Asian fashion) a Prosperous New Year. 2010 should be a good year. After all, it is the year of the Tiger.

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I do like to see what Dato' Johan Jaafar has to say every Saturday in the NST, especially about literature, though I do not necessarily agree with everything he says. In a recent column entitled Literature may be missing ingredient in our lives, he suggests that, perhaps, this is the fundamental difference between Malaysia and Indonesia: that they take their culture seriously, while we don't. He was referring to the brouhaha about the use of ketoprak and tarian pendet to promote local tourism, and the furore over our alleged propensity to menklaim Rasa Sayang and Suliram as our own. (He was writing in reference to the Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah's suggestion that 'science stream and engineering students' should be offered literature as part of their curriculum).

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The one important lesson history teaches us is that 'history teaches us nothing'. (I guess the big guy also needs to laugh and entertainment himself now and then. Look at those fools ... look at 'em shooting themselves... look at 'em.)

Wal-Mart started by offering upcoming hardcover releases of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue and John Grisham's Ford County, amongst others at US$10 with shipping.

Amazon.com matched it. Wal-Mart took its offer to US$9. Next morning, Amazon.com also had US$9 books.

Richard Nash, Indie publisher and literary tweeter, says "Since Amazon/Walmart/Target prices lower than wholesale @kashbk suggests indie cancel orders from pblshers & order them from giants!"

Absolutely!

In the Klang Valley in November alone, some half a million books will be available at warehouse and remaindered prices with (rumour has it) a third from local publishers and distributors including a substantial quantity from Singapore. Yes, its called dumping. It is probably illegal. As far as we know there are strict laws governing 'sales', although anything can be 'arranged'. This is kow thim country. But, what's really going on? Is someone big going down? Sure sounds like a closing down sale to me, even if it is done by proxy.

Meanwhile, if you are a book retailer, you should know where you need to be.

Most people think that the current form of the book industry has been around forever. Actually no. The Net Book Agreement in the UK was ruled illegal only in March 1997 and, and by 2009, 500 independents closed down as a result. (Dillons and Waterstones actually started offering books on discount in 1991 -- still, not all that long ago).

The book, then, officially became a shoe in the UK, and thus entered the McBook.

Book retailing once used to be seen as an interaction of a consumer with a specialist shop. That model is, largely, not applicable anymore. By the late 1990s only 45% of sales were by specialists whose core business was bookselling.

I looked at history and dug up some interesting facts, that it always takes a crisis to inject some sense into the industry. The current pattern of the book trade was, more or less, defined in England at the start of the nineteenth century -- publishers injected the risk capital, wholesalers distributed and retailers sold the books to the public. (The practice of remaindering also began around then, in 1790, to clear old stock to make way for the new.) But the industry was bedevilled by cash flow and undercutting, particularly, at the booksellers end. In 1829, in the aftermath of the banking crisis of 1826, a group of major publishers and booksellers tried to impose some sort of stability into the system with the Bookselling Regulations, which fixed trade and retail prices. Unfortunately, the committee that formulated the Regulations did not fully represent the industry. Then in the expanding economies of the 1830s, these Regulations were deemed no longer necessary. (Talk of short memories.)

There was another attempt at reviving the Regulations in some form in 1848, but the protesters (who included Charles Dickens and Alfred Tennyson) won the day. The times were too good. Free trade and laissez-faire were the buzzwords of the period. Unfortunately, but predictably, this defeat was extremely bad for the industry. By 1880, it became a major crisis for booksellers, with publishers threatened with the prospect of being cut off from the market due to a shortage of retail outlets.

Then in 1890 Frederick Macmillan, who inherited his well-established family business, proposed that books should be published with 'net' retail prices with a discount to the bookseller to ensure a reasonable margin. Retailers who broke the rules were cut off. Despite initial protests, this 'net agreement' spread through the industry ensuring stability and growth. The industry could not ignore the enthusiasm for Macmillan's initiative. A London Bookseller's society was formed around then and, in 1895, the society became the Associated Booksellers of Great Britain and Ireland (which later became the Booksellers Association).

The Net Book Agreement survived up to 1997.

Biblio: A History of British Publishing by John Feather.

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In her weekly video podcast, German Chancellor Merkel appeals for more international co-operation on copyright protection and says that her government opposes Google's drive to create online libraries full of scanned books.

Last month French publishing house La Martinière, the French Publishers' Association and an authors' group asked a Paris court to fine Google €15m (£14m) and €100,000 for each day it continued "to violate copyright" by digitising their books.

In the US, the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers have asked for the Fairness Hearing into the Google Settlement to be postponed as they seek to address concerns raised by the US Justice Department last week.

So is Google the new evil empire?

The more I read about the reactions to the 'Google Deal' the more it sounds like it. I am confused. But when Microsoft and Amazon complain about it, I cannot help but get a little suspicious. What the hell is going on?

Depending on which report you read, Google has so far digitised 7 to10 million books from major libraries, with many of the out-of-copyright (OOC) books made available for free limited browsing, with links to libraries that have them and bookstores where one could buy a copy. That's one heck of a lot of work with little monetary benefit to Google as far as I can see. (It's a pretty good service, and I use it often for research). Altruism? Or is there another motive?

Then after years of negotiations (in an effort to resolve a 2005 lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and others) a deal was announced according to which Google would pay US$125m to create a Book Rights Registry with which authors and publishers could register works and be paid for books and other publications that are put online.

Microsoft, together with Yahoo, Amazon, some professors and state attorneys (calling themselves the Open Book Alliance), warn that Google and America's publishers are "misusing the judicial system" to create a "monopoly in digital books." And the whole project is now in jeopardy.

The Open Book Alliance -- or “Sour Grapes Alliance,” as Google calls it -- says: “The mass digitization of books promises to bring tremendous value to consumers, libraries, scholars, and students ... The Open Book Alliance will work to advance and protect this promise. And, by protecting it, we will assert that any mass book digitization and publishing effort be open and competitive.”

The Alliance claims: "Many startling challenges to copyright and competition policy lie buried in the settlement’s 300+ pages ..." It spells out how the settlement is not good for consumers and book-lovers, libraries and schools, authors and small publishers (especially Google's opt-out deadline), and that it sets a dangerous precedent.

I am all for open competition, serving schools and libraries, and hate that Google deadline thing. But why are Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo involved? As Marcellus says to Horatio: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

As far as consumer interests are concerned, I cannot disagree with Tim Wu of Slate. A project such as this can only be a boon to academics, researchers of all kinds and even the curious lay-reader. It would allow one to venture far off the beaten track, to dig up obscure, but extremely, useful material that would otherwise disappear from our culture for good.

But is the deal exclusive to Google? Can Microsoft and others not establish their own digital libraries of scanned material -- if they are willing to spend their time and money?

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Now you have written this masterpiece, and it has been published. But it is not selling the way you think it should. What do you do? A writer was in the shop just the other day asking us about how to promote his book. I told him to write another one.

Well, as most writers know, the most difficult part is not writing the book, but selling it. If you have a publisher, you could well blame them and their distributor, call them names, tell everybody what a useless bunch of wankers they are, that you have been to this great bookshop in the city and they don't even have it on their shelves, that you have 'had it' with them, and how your friend in Timbuktu, Ulu Kelantan wants a copy but can't find it in his local bookshops, etc, etc. (But while you are at it, don't tell your friends that the same publisher has another book by another writer that is selling by truckloads. It will not be good for your ego.)

If you are self-published, another set of problems emerges. After walking up and down several flights of steps, you will find out very quickly how difficult it is to even get your books on the shelves of the major stores, and how almost impossible it is to get a review, or even a mention, in the newspapers. (Having said that, I was indeed pleasantly surprised to see 4 -- yes, four -- Malaysian books reviewed last Sunday in StarMag, the Sunday Star pullout. Let us hope it is a sign of things to come.)

So why don't some bookstores stock your book? There are a few reasons, and all of them have to do with economics. The first reason is shelf space: they would rather stock a book that moves, and in large quantities too, than one that does not. They will stock a limited quantity of your books for a short while to see how it does, before they decide if the space could be made more useful, or return your book to the publisher. The second is demography: that is, the manager of the store does not think your book will do well at certain locations, whatever you might think. Thirdly, the book you are still flogging was first published twenty years ago (or thereabouts). (At this point, I am often indignantly confronted with the assertion that Harper Lee wrote only one book and it is still being sold, to which my reply would normally be in the form of a question: are you Harper Lee? That works wonders as a reality-check, try it.)

As for why newspapers and magazines don't review local books, there could be several reasons. For one, the editors could decide that readers would prefer the 29th centre-spread feature of Harry Potter's latest, than one about your book. Two, they cannot find anyone willing to, actually, read and review your book. (This may be due to many reasons: you are not glamorous enough, the pay-per-review is too little,or there are too few reviewers and they prefer to read a 'more interesting' imported book rather than yours.) Thirdly, given our small market size, local publishers generally cannot afford to buy 'adverts' in the periodicals, so any concession given is considered charity, unless it helps circulation. (Many may well argue that the potential of the latter has been grossly under-sold.)

Coming back to my advice to the writer to come out with his second book, the reasons are simple. First, it is for name recognition: when you have a new book out, bookshops and readers will also look at your past work. Secondly, you write because you have to write, and if it turns out to be successful, be surprised, genuinely surprised. (No one was more surprised about being short-listed for the Frank O'Connor Award than Shih-Li herself.)

And finally, I remember reading an interview with KS Maniam in a newspaper several years ago: talking about writing is not writing, thinking about writing is not writing, writing is writing.

So, there.

(BTW, Shih-Li will be in Cork by now. Her reading is on the 17th. I am going to miss it though, because I will be travelling on that day. The awards event will be on Sunday, 20th of Sept. I will be taking my camera along. Hope I remember to take pictures.)

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The launch of Silverfish Books' Books Malaysian, all Malaysian, only Malaysian online bookstore a fortnight ago appears to have attracted quite a bit of attention, but that is not what this article is about. What the over 750 books featured (it is a very small portion of all the Malaysian books in print -- but a start) indicates is that Malaysian publishing is not only alive and well, but thriving. Currently, three of the major bookstore chains are either holding or planning to hold Malaysian 'promotions', underscoring the importance of local books to their bottom-line. That is the upside.

But now comes the downside -- protecting authors' copyright. Now -- we at Silverfish feel this quite passionately -- no author, or creator of any intellectual property deserves to be deprived of his or her copyright. Unfortunately, please be warned, there is a lot of this going on, and writers are being deprived not just of their royalty. A lot of it has to do with ignorance (since we are not all lawyers) and quite a bit to do with corporate greed and bullying.

Some years ago the spouse of a leading Malaysian author came to see me with a draft agreement (on behalf of the author, because he himself was incapacitated at that time) to ask me about a couple of clauses. She had been told by the publisher's representative that these were 'standard', but she was not satisfied. One clause required the author to surrender his copyright to the company. And another clause said that the company had the right to change the manuscript in any way it wanted without consulting the author! Jahat-nya!

I told the lady that these were definitely not 'standard' clauses. In fact, there is no such thing as a standard agreement. After that incident, I looked at the copyright pages of several books by that publisher and realised that it was standard practice for them! So, Rule number 1: read your contract thoroughly. Don't let them bully you. What you should offer is only publishing rights, and that to only in the agreed form. Copyright should remain with you, which means you should be free to sell your work for movies, plays, comics, serialisation, video games, or any other. But the problem is most authors are so eager to get published that they would be willing to sell their soul. DON'T!

Now, the problem gets more complicated. It has come to our notice that books by several leading authors is currently being 'remaindered' by a publisher. (The practice not very long ago was to pulp unsold books so as not to 'spoil' the market.) Here are three cases:

Author number one. We received a phone call from the publisher asking if we would like to buy several hundred copies of a book by this author for RM5.00 each. We declined the offer. Later when we met the author we asked him if he knew of this, he said that he was totally in the dark and even claimed that he had never received any royalty from them. So, who got the royalty?

Author number two: We wanted to order several copies of the book because it was being used by students at a university. We were quoted the usual price by the publisher and we were about to place the order when we heard from other sources that the same book was being offered to a 'remainder' bookstore in Klang Valley, possibly to be sold at RM5.00! It would been really grand if we had sold the books to the students for RM32.90 while it was being remaindered elsewhere for RM5.00. We intend to tell the student where they can buy the book cheap. At least let them benefit. Again, the author was not told.

Author number three. He discovered that his plays were being remaindered only after a friend told him about seeing a whole stack of his work at a 'remainder' store. He called up the company to ask about it, and was told that he could buy up the remaining stock at SGD0.50 each. He agreed to take all six hundred but received only 100.

In all three cases, several issues stand out. One, authors do not receive any royalty on the remaindered books. (I have heard it said by many that that they didn't mind buying books from remaindered stores because it was cheaper. Yes, anonymity is a wonderful balm for the conscience. Okay, but what if you see a book by a dear friend of yours at a 'remainder' bookshop? Would you buy yourself a copy knowing she is being completely stitched by the publisher? Deprived of her main income as a writer?)

Secondly, what happens to the publishing rights? (Or, in the case of those who have inadvertently signed unfair agreements, their copyright?) Can the author republish his own book? No? So is the book completely dead?

Thirdly, why is this remaindering being done without notifying the authors, without giving them the first right of refusal? If their books are to be remaindered should they not benefit from it? Or, do they simply deserve to be swept up and trashed with the rest of the garbage?

Of course, there are cases when someone other than the author owns the copyright.

1. If an employee creates a work in the course of his or her employment, the employer owns the copyright.

2. If you are employed as an independent consultant (or contractor) to create a work and the former meets all expenses, the employer owns the copyright.

3. You have sold your entire copyright to another person or business, that buyer becomes the copyright owner.

All of the above also applies to those who publish in periodicals. Do not sign anything that surrenders your copyright to that periodical. You only give them 'one-time' publishing rights. Clarify the copyright issue from the start. Don't be seduced by niceties (aiyah, don't you trust me? bullshit) or succumb to bullying. There is no such thing as an industry standard or a moral right. If you sign your copyright over, you are dead. End of story.

(I wrote this article after talking to a couple of lawyers. Maybe some of my arguments are flawed because I am not a lawyer myself. Please post your comments or pass this story around. But niggly bits aside, what is important is that Malaysian writers must be protected from predators. Perhaps the Director of Majlis Buku Kebangsaan Malaysia -- the Malaysian Book Association-- has a view.)

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I had just left the office when Patrick Cotter, Director of The Munster Literature Centre, called on Monday. Phek Chin took the call and politely told the gentleman that I could not be contacted because I had already gone home. Gone home? It is only eleven o'clock here, he said. Whereupon, Phek Chin inquired where he was calling from. Ireland! And ... He was just calling to tell Mr Raman Krishnan that his writer, Shih-Li Kow, has been short-listed for the Frank O'Connor award!

The silence that followed must have been deafening. Phek Chin was petrified. She was speechless. She was afraid to say anything lest she sounded like a blithering idiot.(Oi!!! she protests to me, loudly.) But he assured her that it was a perfectly normal reaction and that he had been confronted by it several times before. He made her promise to tell me about it, as soon as possible, and gave her his email.

She says she was still frozen in shock for a while after she put down the phone, not knowing what do or think. Finally, after recovering some of her senses, she called my house (I was not there yet as I had some errands to run), then my wife's mobile and my house again, and managed to leave a message for me. Then, when I called her it was my turn to be gob-smacked.

Apparently, Shih-Li came in a while later that evening and Phek Chin made her sit down before telling her. Are you sure? It can't be, lah. Maybe it is a hoax, Aiyoh, I am going to pengsan ... and so on and so forth. Anyway, Phek Chin and I walked around the whole day, the next day, grinning from ear to ear, as if we had been smoking something. I cannot begin to imagine what Shih-Li must feel, but we are so incredibly happy for her.

I first met Shih-Li almost three years ago at the third Silverfish Writing Programme. News from Home was published about one year after she finished the Programme, and Ripples, another year later. She is unpretentious, she is level-headed, and she is prolific -- such a wonderful writer to work with. As I worked on Ripples, I felt that her work was very good -- a sort of prize-winning good, if you know what I mean -- and I was determined to nominate her for an award, any award. But still, when I received the news that she was short-listed for the Frank O'Connor (I mean the Frank O'Conner), it left me in a state of shock, in a daze -- though in a nice way.

Well, now she has to be in Cork, Ireland on the 20th of September for the awards presentation at the end of the Frank O'Connor Short Story Festival, which starts on the 16th of that month. Win or lose, it does not matter any more. She has already won. Malaysian writing has already won. Malaysian readers have won.

Let us bask in the warmth for a while more, then we shall resume prowling the streets for more hidden gems that we can polish. Congratulations again, Shih-Li Kow. You have blazed the trail.

Labels: Publishing

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Shelf-Awareness.com touts it as a publishing model for the 21st Century. "The [publishing] industry seems to want a return on investment, quickly and guaranteed," Stephen Roxburgh says. "The difficulty is that the people at the end of that chain, paradoxically enough, are artists and authors who need time to develop a project."
 
Roxburgh is the pioneer of namelos (nameless), a "consortium of independent publishing professionals." Kara LaReau has launched Bluebird Works, which offers creative services that include editing and manuscript evaluation. Both companies strive to help creators of children's books develop projects at their own pace and until they're ready to be submitted to an agent or editor. Agents or editors (instead of authors) may hire these companies for their projects.

So what's new about this publishing mode? This used to be the traditional role of publishing houses before big business took over. Silverfish books has been doing this for over two years now. The Silverfish New Writing series was going nowhere. It was started as a platform for discovering new Malaysian writing talent, but after seven years and no sign of any sustained talent emerging (except for Mathew Thomas) we decided to stop.

We have argued before that in Malaysia we cannot expect authors to come out with their own manuscripts without some assistance -- both editorial and creative -- particularly considering that English is often the second or third language. So we started the Silverfish Writing Programme. The focus is on story telling, and writing what publishers look for. We have currently published four writers and working with one more. It is a slow process and the current crop still have some way to go, but four writers in two years is still way better than one in seven. We continue to dream of a time in the future (not so far away we hope) when a couple of dozen Malaysian writers start producing good quality books on a regular basis, creating a supply and a demand, and perhaps even attracting a glance from publishers overseas. (We have been approached for local manuscripts by more than one international literary agent.)

We hosted a literary event last week with readings from Dua Lauk and Perempuan Simpanan. About 50 people turned up for the reading despite the rain. They appeared a little intimidated in the beginning (our reputation has probably travelled far), but they soon settled down. They were well organised, they had an enthusiastic leader who preferred to remain in the background, they were all very supportive of one another, and there was not one pretentious arty-farty literatti 'air head' in sight. Of course, they still have a long way to go, literary wise. But, I do wish them well and I sincerely hope they succeed for we do need a strong Malay literary scene. Syabas to this wonderful group. And, thank you Irman for introducing them to us and bringing them to Silverfish Books. They are welcome anytime at all. Drinks and bites on us. (A slide show has been posted for those who could not make it.)

The Shelf-Awareness article continues, saying: 'Their companies' model shifts the financial responsibility to the authors up front rather than the traditional model under which, after paying an advance, the publisher works with them to develop the project. "That will happen with increasingly fewer people," said Roxburgh. "The industry's capacity to serve and cultivate and develop the talent is much diminished in the face of the contraction and consolidation it confronts now. The model [namelos is] proposing is to acknowledge the hard truth, but I think it also happens to reflect the evolution of the industry."'
 
In the case of Silverfish Books, we currently do not charge authors anything to work with them, although many are willing to pay. (But, we do have a nominal charge for the Silverfish Writing Programme.) All we ask is they be willing to work hard. We look at their sample work, talk to them and then decide if there is a book.

Karen LaReau, hopes to have two books out in 2011. (It is a slow process.) She is not sure where the industry is going, but she says: "People are always going to want good stories ... all I can do, is to continue to provide that."

Shelf-Awareness

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The news from the book industry appears to get worse with every passing week. Let's leave that aside for a moment, if we can, and see how some are coping and read some of the good news for a change, without talking about shopping malls across the US that have become community centres and libraries. Three trends appear to be emerging. They are: innovate, innovate and innovate.

A Publisher's Weekly story recently was about David L. Ulin, book editor of the Los Angeles Times who joined the Los Angeles Times in October 2005. Unfortunately,  the stand-alone book review section, The Sunday Book Review, died six months ago due to the shrinking newspaper business and falling ad revenues. But Ulin took the challenge upon himself and created the Times' online book presence.

"When I came on board, all we did was to load whatever was in the paper about books to the Web site. No one was tending it," Ulin says. "When the stand-alone was threatened, our online presence became a priority." He then decided to feature Web-only material, beginning with a blog. "We had no idea what we were doing, but tried to figure it out as we went along." A year ago, Ulin brought in Carolyn Kellogg as the dedicated blogger; she has helped him understand what he refers to as "the emerging style of blogging about books," a more immediate, conversational approach.

In addition to the Jacket Copy blog, David Ulin also has five online columnists writing about paperbacks, mysteries, sci-fi, children's and mythology. In March, Ulin will debut an online-only weekly essay by writers on writing. Contributors will include both new and established authors covering a wide range of voices and aesthetics. "While the book industry seems to be focused on contracting, we're expanding online. We think of book coverage in the paper in a complex mix of ways," says Ulin.

"I'm committed to both print and Web. There are two readerships, and I'm not sure they're the same. My main interest is, how do we get the most book coverage to the most people?" Ideally, Ulin would welcome a return to the stand-alone book review. "But we don't have one now, and we're not going to have one," he says. "One of the things that worries me about the book culture is the notion that all change is bad."

In another posting, Hugh Mcquire of The Huffington Post asks: "How can publishing maintain its financial viability when fewer people are reading books? Especially when everyone wants everything for free?" He says, "I recently attended O'Reilly's Tools for Change in Publishing conference, a yearly gathering of publishers, technology providers, developers, thinkers, visionaries. The TOC conference is built around technology, with an objective to help 'decipher the tools of change in this industry and help cut through the hype for a more profitable future in publishing.' In 2009 the focus was decidedly philosophical, not technological: what is the future of the book, and how might publishers build successful business models around the coming changes?"

And then he notes: "Still, one thing that worried and puzzled me was how rarely the reader was mentioned at TOC. There was talk of the future of the book, the network, Google, and self-publishing models. And of course DRM. But the reader was largely absent."

"One of the problems for publishers is that they have never had much to do with their readers. Their clients, traditionally, have been book stores, who in turn managed the relationships with readers."

"The question every publisher should be asking themselves every day is: how can we provide more value to our readers? I suspect the ones that start each day with that question will find the right answers. At least, I think they'll be asking the right questions."

Another story in Publisher's Weekly is about Thomas Nelson who has announced the launch of NelsonFree, a program that allows readers to receive content in multiple formats -- physical book, audiobook and e-book -- without making multiple purchases. With NelsonFree, the price of the hardcover book includes both the audio download and the e-book. The first two NelsonFree titles, including Michael Franzese’s I’ll Make You An Offer You Can’t Refuse, will go on sale later this month. Another 10 Nelson titles will be available in the format before the end of the year.

Joel Miller, vp and publisher, said Nelson currently has plans to release a dozen format-free books in this and related categories, and will monitor consumer response to determine whether or not it adds more titles. He also said Nelson will not raise the price of hardcovers in the NelsonFree program.

Nelson president and CEO Michael S. Hyatt said, "I believe that the industry is shifting and we, as publishers, need to explore new methods of getting our content into the hands of customers," said. "NelsonFree will give readers a new level of value and flexibility. It will enhance their literary experience and allow greater employment of the content without breaking the bank."

And then finally, Amazon unveils a Kindle app for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch that displays books in color. So, one does not have to spend US$359 on a Kindle electronic book reader from Amazon.com if one owns an iPhone or iPod touch (as a new application will let you access the same content on your Apple device).

"The program, which can be downloaded from Apple's online application store, lets iPhone and iPod touch users read the same electronic books, magazines and newspapers that Kindle owners can buy on Amazon.com. As with the Kindle, the iPhone app lets users change the text size on the screen, and add bookmarks, notes and highlights ... The application does not connect to the Kindle store, however, so users must access the Web browser on their iPhone, iPod or computer to buy the content."

So, has Amazon.com finally seen the light? (With an iPhone installed base of well over 10 million the light couldn't get more glaring.)

The central premise of all business is: stick to what you know, and what you are good at. Leave the manufacturing of pencils to those who do that well.

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(A version of this story appeared in the Malay mail on the 26th February 2009.)

Some years ago I was invited to talk about publishing at a Rotary Club event at a downtown hotel. During the Q&A it was inevitable that the question of e-books should arise. My comments at that time were that it was still several years off.

First there was this question of technology, I said. Current screen resolutions were not good enough for reading many hours at a stretch, and internet access had to be much faster. Secondly there was the question of copyright -- authors and publishers would want to know how they'd get paid and how their rights would be protected before they allowed their books to be digitised. No one wanted a repeat of the music industry fiasco.

Now with the Kindle and its electronic paper making screen reading easier, and more companies offering broadband speed of 10mps at very affordable prices (except in Malaysia where one wonders if there is some sort of hidden policy to keep broadband speeds and internet penetration low, despite all the lip service), that day appears to be here.

But the Kindle costs USD 359.00 (appr RM 1300.00) with book downloads costing another USD 10.00 (appr RM 37.00) a pop. So is the Kindle likely to take off and replace the book? Probably not. It is a product looking for a market. Amazon thinks it has found one. But I don't think so. The Economist quotes Steve Kessel, a member of Amazon's Kindle team, "It's the convenience -- they think of a book and can be reading it within 60 seconds."

I can only say that Mr Kessel is not a serious reader. Only those hooked on bestsellers know exactly what they want to read next. Serious book buyers have little idea what they want to read until they see it while browsing the shelves. Most book buying is done on impulse. And seriously, I cannot imagine people who live from one bestseller to the next actually forking out RM1300.00 for an e-book reader. (I came across a 1932 Matsushita mission statement many years ago. It included this line: to make all products as inexhaustible and as cheap as tap water. When that happens to Kindle, it will be another story.)

When the iPod first came out, it filled a need that many had. Like me, there were many people out there with large CD collections. But they could play them only one at a time sequentially, and could only take a few with them when they travelled. The iPod changed everything by making it possible to bring along your entire CD collection in your pocket wherever you went, and play the songs in whatever order you wanted. The online buying thing came about much later. Even today, 90% of all iPod capacity is filled from own CD collections.

While the Kindle may not be the answer yet, I think digital media would still be the way to go for reading the news. I still read the daily papers, mostly out of a 50-year habit than anything else. I will miss the funnies otherwise, and some of my favourite columnists. (Talking of which, I was quite pleased at the news of Dato' Johan Jaafar being appointed a director of the NSTP and the chairman of Media Prima Bhd. Congratulations, Dato' and all the best. I don't necessarily agree with all his views but I know he reads and thinks before he writes. That article he wrote after March 8 was priceless. I saw him on that general elections show, and I thought he looked frightfully uncomfortable. When I turned on my laptop I realised why.) But my news comes mostly through the internet every morning.

With more and more news being consumed via smart phones and other mobile devices, newswires are now increasingly going to the consumer directly. Bloomberg has had over one million downloads for its iPhone version. Reuters too is offerings its stories directly to the consumer on advertisement-financed websites. In 2008, only 25% of AP's revenue came from newspapers compared to 55% in 1985. Traditionally, newswires have been wholesalers and the newspapers their retailers who repackaged the news before they sold it.

So will newspaper survive? That is a big if, after print media consuming dinosaurs like me pass on. Circulations are tumbling all over the world. Many are closing down. It costs less to advertise in the e-media than in print. Most newspapers have internet editions that they give away for free. (Sorry, the subscription model does not work.) In the same issue of The Economist, Norman Pearlstine of Bloomberg says mobile users are willing to pay for ring tones, so why not for news? Here's why: ring tones are extensions of the ego. One uses them repeatedly for a long time until one gets tired of it. News remains news for a very short time. And there is no associated ego trip.

I think newspapers will be around for a while yet. I hope so. (I sure will miss Blondie, otherwise.) But they do need to take a new look at the entire model, for fear of becoming irrelevant. Maybe the print and digital media can co-exist.
 
Maybe the word is not 'can', it is 'should'.

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In Alison Flood's story in The Guardian, Peter Carey talks of it as if it is an 'end of the world as we know it' scenario. He says it is a 'battle for the sake of our readers and writers' and a "cultural 'self-suicide'". (Is there another form of suicide?)

Another writer, Kate Grenville, says that it is 'A tragedy which would force many Australian authors to stop writing,' while Thomas Keneally is convinced it would cause "irreparable harm". It appears that the entire Australian book industry, from major authors to publishers, booksellers and agents, is up in arms about a proposed review of Australia's copyright laws.

Currently, the report says, Australian publishers are given 30 days to bring out an Australian edition of a book after its release anywhere in the world. If an Australian edition is released, Australian bookshops are required to sell the Australian version, and they can't import the book from overseas. As a result, books are more expensive in Australia than elsewhere. This has, apparently, allowed the country's local publishing to flourish, at the expense of cheaper overseas editions.

Carey's fear is that if the current copyright laws are taken away "global companies will decide that their Australian offices will be much more profitable as distributors of product than publishers of books. If this sounds creepily colonial, it is because it is." He (and the others) argue further that if not for the present government support, Australian authors (like themselves) would never have become internationally renowned. Grenville also says that her "experience shows how uninterested publisher are in our work", particularly if they are of literary nature.

But a government spokesman says, "Any policy reforms in this area will be aimed at enhancing Australia's longer term growth prospects."

An Australian publisher visited me some time ago. She was, of course, trying to persuade me to buy some Australian titles. I balked. And then I asked why books from Australia were so expensive? Her excuse was the small market size and logistics.

A typical Australian book would cost about RM60.00 as opposed to RM35.00 for one of similar quality from Britain or the US. When a customer walks into a bookshop, all books are equal. They do not necessarily have more loyalty to books from any specific country (unless they are particularly chauvinistic). Price is important, and with Australian titles costing almost twice more, it is not surprising that they are rarely found on the shelves of Malaysian bookstores. Granted, the Malaysian market is small, but how many Australian books get into Britain or the US?

(I had a minor misunderstanding -- or that's what I learned later -- with a Malaysian author who had her book published in Australia some years ago. Understanably, no distributor from Malaysia or Singapore would import it, and she could not understand why I was reluctant to bring in a book that would have cost at least twice as much on the shelf as another equivalent title -- notwithstanding the fact that she was an 'unknown'.)

The truth is Australian books are available in this country -- in stores that deal with remaindered books. Yes, that is right. There is a huge trade in Australian remaindered books, a trade from which the Australian author does not get one cent. (In fact, Australian barn sales are almost legendary.) And these remaindered books are extremely popular, particularly children's books. I (and several people I know) have for years acknowledged that Australia produces some of the best children's books in the world -- far better produced and more wonderfully inventive than similar stuff from Britain and the US. Seriously. I know of adults who collect and read them voraciously. But they are not found in regular bookshops because they simply cost too much. (Now, India is getting into that market with surprisingly creative and well-produced children's books at a fraction of the price, so watch out.)

For example, it is almost impossible to get Penguin Malaysia to import books from Australia and New Zealand. They either flatly refuse, or else give you such a ridiculously long delivery time that you'd think you'd grow old and die first. When Elizabeth Smithers was a guest in Kuala Lumpur in 2007 we had to use quite a lot of (governmental) muscle before they finally agreed to import some copies with great reluctance. To us, it was like extracting the books from them with forceps; to them it must have been like we were doing it without anaesthetics. (By the way, they still remind us of that.)

But it is not just in children's titles that they are outstanding. I have browsed the shelves of several 'remaindered' stores in KL and I have been impressed with many of their titles. 

It is fine for Carey, Grenville and Keneally; they have arrived. And, that point about problems faced by 'literary' authors is taken. Literary writers all over the world face similar problems. Still, they have been recognised, as more Australian writers will be in future, because they are good. As for publishers and booksellers, what is there not to like about high prices and a 'closed shop' policy?

It is quite apparent that Australia has more to look at than its copyright laws as it increasingly prices itself out of the market. The world will not stand still. There is a potential new 800-pound publishing gorilla in the room. It is called India. And, many smaller ones snapping at the heels too.

The Guardian

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A story in the Publishers Weekly says that Borders has agreed to buy titles from HarperStudio on a non-returnable basis. The average book buyer will ask, "So what's the big deal?" But to people in the industry it is a radical shift, perhaps the sort of change that is required for the industry to survive and bring back some sense into it.

I will start with a primer on how the book industry currently operates. (Okay, this is how it operates in the US, the UK, Australia and Malaysia -- we think it's cool to ape everything they do in the US and UK without understanding why.)

In a simple world, publishers publish. Then the distributor's undertake to distribute the book for a fee of, say, between 50-60% of the RRP. They then sells the books to the bookseller for a discount of, say 30-40%, usually depending on volume. (The actual discounts vary, but this is an example.) The publisher meets the printing cost, royalty payments and overheads from his portion. The distributor costs are warehousing, transportation and administration. The bookstore has to pay his rental and his overheads. Not much meat in there, really.

Then comes the first distortion. The distributor sells the books to the book retailer on an SOR basis, that is, on sale-or-return terms. So books that are not sold will be returned to the distributor who will then issue a credit note. And the distributor likewise will return the books he cannot sell (including the returns he gets from the book retailer) to the publisher. The publisher then pays the author a royalty on what has been sold and then pulps or remainders the rest. (It costs more to pulp it than give it away or sell it cheap.)

There is a huge trade in remaindered books with many book retailers practically specialising in it. The general rule in this business is that the less you are allowed to choose the cheaper the books cost. Of course, the author earns no royalty from this type of sale (and this trade might even be in violation of the fine print on the copyright page that says 'no reselling'.) One problem with the SOR model is that bookstores can order 100 copies of a title even when they know they can only sell 25 because they can return the rest. (The rest are used to decorate the shop to make it look good.) Returns in this country are normally allowed within a period of one year, but it is usually done within six months. Some do it in three, just when the payments are due. After this most books are considered dead because few are reordered, except by independents and chains specialising in back lists. (The real bookstores.)

The next distortion came with the advent of mega-bookstore and supermarket chains. These stores started ordering books in thousands (and in the case of Harry Potter, hundreds of thousands) demanding huge discounts of between 75-85%, and bought their books directly from the publisher. This put a lot of pressure on the latter because of the high printing costs and, God forbid, probable massive returns within three months. The only way a publisher could handle this was by raising the marked price on the book. (Now you know why books are so expensive.) Books became commodities like rice, sugar, or shoes. People who sold books this way knew as much about them as hamburger-flippers.

In Malaysia right now, book distributors are holding their breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop -- with the holiday season over, the returns are going to start soon. If the returns are as big as many people think they will be the repercussions to the industry could be serious. If it is larger, the effect could be catastrophic, and some people could go under.

Multiply the above a hundred fold and you get and idea of what they are facing in the UK and US. Add to that the past leveraging power of the mega-store chains that took out huge loans to expand ruthlessly, to stock up with huge inventories that they knew they could return, and sell them at massive discounts to kill the competition (and, to a certain extent, themselves).

Sensible people have been warning about this for two decades (just as they have been warning about the hubris on Wall Street). But reason has no answer for unmitigated greed, until the latter blows up in the face, that is.

Some publishers are not going to survive to see this, but firm sales could be a game changer. Some sanity could return to the industry, at last. Book retailers will only buy what they think they can sell if distributors will not take returns. Ditto with publishers. With no requirement to wallpaper the mega-chain stores premises with their books, publishers will not have to publish 1,000,000 copies to sell 100,000, and the subsequent lower overheads could mean lower prices for the consumer. It could also mean less carpet-bombing by publishers – less titles, but more carefully selected ones.

Of course, there will be fewer JK Rowlings. But that might not be such a bad thing.

Labels: Bookshops, Publishing

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(A version of this story appeared in the Malay Mail on the 15th of January 2009)

I don't normally open email attachments -- what with viruses, worms and trojans running wild -- but this time I did because it came from a close friend and it was about publishing. It was an English translation of Publication Guidelines from the Ministry of Internal Security, and the date at the bottom of the document was December 2007. (The Ministry of Internal Security, KKDN, was merged with the Ministry of Home Affairs, KHEDN, in March 2008 and is now known as the Ministry of Home Affairs, KDN.)

Though this document does sound like something bureaucrats would write, I am not sure of its authenticity. The translation might be wrong, too.

Section 1 says, "This guideline is to provide information and clarification in respect of undesirable publications highlighted under section 7(1) of the Printing Presses and publications Act 1984." Basically, it lists what the Act covers: publications prejudicial to public order, public interest, national interest, security, morality, likely to alarm public opinion, contravene any law and morality. (But, not in that order.)

Section 2 of the document is on definitions.

Section 3 explains what is considered undesirable in a publication. 'Publications Prejudicial to Public Order' is the first point. The next point is on morality and speaks generally about material that is obscene, sexually arousing, against public decency, proper values, public morality and religion. The remaining five points basically repeat Section 1.

It is in Section 4 that the guidelines go into some specifics. The first sub-section is on writings and articles. Prohibited items include racial and religious prejudice. Okay. Sedition includes all of the former as well as (commentary on) politics and the economy that are contrary to "national principles". So, if the economy is bad you can't say it. Then comes the use of vulgar language. Okay, all you writers out there, if you are writing a story about construction workers, vegetable sellers or politicians in the Parliament, make sure they use proper language and anatomically correct descriptions. We're Malaysians, we don't swear. And, no sexual acts, please.  By the way, mystery and mystical stories that conflict with Islamic principles are also not allowed.

The next sub-section is about publication of pictures. Nudes and nudes with 'private parts' covered by 'something, for example hands, leaves, blacked out/blurred (mosaic) etc,' are prohibited. (Do you feel there is something wrong here? Anyway, watch out, all you photographers and artists.) Next, males and females are prohibited from sexy or indecent poses. Okay females, no bending over or lying face down showing 'a large portion (50%) of breasts', males and females don't sit with legs spread wide showing 'upper thighs'. There are several more mentions of 'private parts'. By the way, both sexes are not allowed 'smooching' and kissing poses, and to embrace. And if you are going to be photographed in a bikini, make sure there is a beach or a pool nearby. But if the pictures are of religious significance then it is okay. (Does that include the Kama Sutra? After all, Kama is the god of love in Hinduism, and the son of Lakshmi.)

The next sub-section is on advertisement. It pretty much covers all of the above, with more references to breasts, private parts and sexual organs. After that come song lyrics and audio recordings. Same same. (Okay, and no suggestive 'moaning' noises on the soundtrack either.)

The final sub-section is on 'Other Publication Material'. (I wonder why this is here; it is mostly about sex toys). Again the primary concern here again are breasts, private parts and sexual organs. Interestingly, also included are 'toys, souvenirs,  clothes and figurines producing vulgar or obscene sounds'. (My curiosity is piqued. Has anyone seen or heard one of those?)

We can conclude from the guidelines (since it is produced by the ministry in charge) that breasts, private parts and sexual organs are the most serious internal security threats facing the country.

Meanwhile, in the UK, John Ozimek writes in The Register that a 35-year-old civil servant Darryn Walker will be prosecuted for the online publication of material that Police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) believe to be obscene. The story says that this is the first such prosecution for written material in nearly two decades and it is thought that a guilty verdict could have a serious and significant impact on the future regulation of the internet in the UK.

"The case originated in summer 2007, when Mr Walker allegedly posted a work of fantasy --titled Girls (Scream) Aloud -- about pop group Girls Aloud ... The story describes in detail the kidnap, rape, mutilation and murder of band members Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh, and ends with the sale of various body parts on eBay."

Lady Chatterley's Lover took the 'obscenity test' in 1960 and passed.

The 1959 Obscenity Act of UK says in the section on The Test of Obscenity: "(1) For the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it."

But under defence of public good it says:

4 (l) A person shall not be convicted of an offence against public good and an order for forfeiture shall not be made under the foregoing section, if it is proved that publication of the article in question is justified as being for the public good on the ground that it is in the interests of science, literature, art or learning, or of other objects of general concern.

(2) It is hereby declared that the opinion of experts as to the literary, artistic, scientific or other merits of an article may be admitted in any proceedings under this Act either to establish or to negative the said ground."

No one has been convicted in a long time.

I guess Malaysian bureaucrats are cleverer lah. They ban first. No need to go to court.

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No, I am not going to write about what an absolute annus horribilis the year two-thousand and eight was, enough people are doing that. I am going to confine myself to book matters, though some of the former could creep in.

2008 was a year with no Harry Potter circus; that has run its course. So, there was really no big book to carry the year and give the book industry an artificial high. In fact there were hardly any big books at all, except for Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence, which I thought was one of the best books he has written in a long time, surely one of his most readable. Yes, some will quibble that it does not have the stature of his Midnight's Children (that was more than a quarter of a century ago, please move on). Some will complain about the way he is liberal with historical truths. So was Homer. It is a good story, a fun read.

As for Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, my current plans are to give it a miss -- "the story of two Indias" is such a cliche. Why are Indian writers (apart from Naipaul and Rushdie) not allowed to simply tell a story? But, Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies is still on my list. I am not interested in the rest. It was a pretty slow year for fiction. I am waiting for some translated works of Le Clezio to come out. Meanwhile, I will catch up on the classics.

In other international news, we all know about Borders selling off their stores in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. In UK we have just heard that Euler Hermes has withdrawn credit insurance to their suppliers, which could mean that they will have to pay cash upfront for their merchandise. It appears they are a bit shaky in the US too.

In another story, Bertrams, one of the bigger book wholesalers in the UK, is up for sale after the demise of their parent company, Woolworth. Expect a major shake-up in the book industry next year. But Amazon.com did well over Christmas.

An industry shake-up is surely on the cards now. The book had been commoditised to absurdity, mass market merchants only understands what turns over or, in the bookseller language, "sells through". Books could be beans for all they cared. Perhaps now the real bookshops (indies or otherwise) will return to the fore, and publishers will focus on real books. 

Shelf Awarness puts it succinctly: "Now may be a good time to get back to basics and do business together again if we all want to survive. Mass merchants will likely cut back on book sections at the first signs of under performance ... (but) Bookstores will stay the course. As the restructuring goes forward, we can only hope that publishers will return to their roots and work with booksellers to enhance backlist opportunities and develop new authors."

Which is what we at Silverfish Books have been doing most of 2008: developing new authors. There was no Silverfish New Writing 8. That felt kind of strange, but also a relief. It was fun while it lasted. We decided to stop it when it became a chore. So in 2008 we published three books by individual authors: Tales from the Court by Matthew Thomas (who, ironically, is the only Malaysian writer to 'graduate' from the New Writing series to produce a whole book of un-recycled material), Poems Sacred and Profane by Salleh ben Joned (a reprint of a collectible classic) and Ripples and other stories by Shih-Li Kow, who simply keeps going from strength to strength. We were putting the final touches to her work end of last month when we received an invitation to submit an entry for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for the South East Asia and South Pacific region. We thought, if any current Malaysian writer deserves the nomination it is Shih-Li Kow. We have sent off her entry but we hope they will receive it on time considering the year-end holiday season. We are keeping our fingers crossed for her.

It has been a very memorable year.

Happy New Year, 2009.

Labels: Bookshops, Publishing, Writing

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(A censored version of this story appeared in the Malay Mail on Thursday, 27th of  November. Don't ask.)

Macintosh users have always lamented the fact that many software developers routinely release Windows versions of their programmes before they write one for  their systems. Case in point, they are still waiting for a Mac version of Chrome, Google's latest browser. This is, naturally, understandable from the point of view of market forces. Latest survey suggest that the Mac has crept up to a 9.5% market share in the US, but much lower worldwide.

But now www.webmonkey.com, a web developer's resource owned by Wired Digital, laments that no one even wants to write a decent virus for the Mac platform on par with the millions that threaten Windows users daily. According to the blogspot, the latest attempt at creating a virus for the Mac, a trojan, is so lame that the user had to be incredibly stupid for it to work at all. Basically, the computer user will have to visit, what else, a porn site, download a video codec, open it, mount the disk image, and launch the application, which will then proceed to create a 'backdoor' for other malicious ware.

There was a story making the rounds on the internet a few years ago. (This story has been ascribed to several major computer companies, but I am sure they are apocryphal. But it is a good story).

A man contacted customer support saying that he was having trouble with his new computer. So they both went through an 'idiot's' check-list to eliminate the most commonly occurring problems – have you connected this cable to that, have you installed all the components and so on. After a long and arduous process, the customer insisted that there was still no sign of 'life' on the monitor. Finally there was only one thing left: the support guy asked the customer to check if the computer had been plugged in and switched on. The customer said that he was leaning over to see but was having difficulty spotting it because it was quite dark and there was light coming in from only one window in the room. The rest of the conversation apparently went like this:

"Well, turn on the office light then."

"I can't."

"No? Why not?"

"Because there's a power failure."

"A power... A power failure? Aha, Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"

"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."

"Good. Go get them, unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."

"Really? Is it that bad?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it is."

"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"

"Tell them you're too f***** stupid to own a computer." (Type this last sentence onto your browser and you can read the whole story online.)

The computer model is not mentioned, but when it comes to stupidity it does not matter which. The Mac versus PC argument is almost a matter of religion. You have to listen to these guys go at one another. Neither side will concede an inch when debating the superiority of their favourite machines, and operating systems.

I am often caught in the middle for I have used both machines, on a daily basis, for over twenty years. I use Macs at home and PCs in the office, and I don't feel I have betrayed any religious ideal. It's like owning a relatively expensive, moderately luxurious sedan for home and leisure use, and a cheaper, hardy pick-up or four-wheel-drive at work. What's wrong with that? My religious beliefs lean, decidedly, towards the Mac, I will admit, but that does not mean I should not acknowledge the superiority of PC for certain tasks, just like that of a utility vehicle over dirt tracks or on construction sites. Yes, PCs have viruses (millions of them), they leak memory, their hard disks get fragmented and they can be a pain, but they cost less and some programmes will not run on Macs.

So what can I say to those whose Mac religion forbids them from using PCs or vice versa? Sorry, that's your loss.

Labels: Publishing

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This article, written by Shiv Das, appeared in The Malay Mail on the 23 of September, 2008. It is reproduced here for those who missed it for some reason or other.

This lawyer-cum-writer took his first short story to Silverfish Books two years ago and it worked. Encouraged, he said he had more but it was only two years later that he submitted them.

And even then, they were presented in hand-written form, much to the amusement (or dismay?) of the publisher.

They were fine, said publisher Raman Krishnan, but handwritten? Enter Thomas' wife who came to the rescue and had them typed properly, an act that was duly and gratefully acknowledged at the launch of the book, Tales from the Court and other stories earlier this month.

So point one. If you have something to publish, your best bet may be Silverfish. You could be glad just like Thomas.

Point two: The launch does not have to be fancy. The publisher's store in Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, will do nicely. And if you are one who likes to keep things low key, you can get your best friend to do the launch, as Thomas did.

That friend was Mohamed M Keshavjee, himself a lawyer, working for the Aga Khan, the Ismaili spiritual leader who has dedicated himself to humanitarian health and education programmes and preservation of heritage and environmentally friendly architecture.

Keshavjee flew in from Paris to do the needful. Time and space hadn't prevented him and Thomas from maintaining their abiding friendship of more than 40 years.

Keshavjee has an Afterword rather than Foreword in the book. The two had fashioned their friendship while in London studying law, one at Grey's Inn and the other at Middle Temple.

The book, a compilation of short stories, is set mostly in the Kuala Lumpur of the 50s and brings out the essence of the characters "playing the little games in life, made up of illusions, craftiness, ego, hope and aspirations."

There are also accounts of the author in London in the 60s, all written in an easy yet compelling style.

Point three. If in writing the book, you have a son or daughter who has artistic talent, get him or her to design the cover and other illustrations, like Thomas' son Aaron did.

Point four. If you have a relative, a prodigy of sorts, it is possible to entertain the gathering at the launch. That will be another big plus appreciated by all present. Andrew Sanjay, 11, a grand nephew of Thomas, gave an impromptu rendition of Leonard Bernstein's Tonight, the theme song of the musical, West Side Story.

Already an accomplished singer, he is a member of the KL Children's Choir.

The bottom line. If you have the yen to write and have stories to tell, just do it because chronicling life’s journey and experiences helps preserve our rich Malaysian heritage.

For more information on the book, which sells for RM30, log on to www.silverfishbooks.com

The Malay Mail

Labels: Publishing

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Edward Russell-Walling writes in Publishers Weekly, in a story called Every book counts that while '... the giants slug it out, huge tracts of territory are won or lost ... nipping between the tanks and the shell-bursts are nimble squads of guerrillas, partisans and secessionists -- the independents.' He is, of course, writing about the publishing industry, not the retail end. The latter is another story. (There too, the independents who after being clobbered for decades by the 800-pound gorillas are now resurgent in a small way. The fact is, the 'war of the worlds' scenario between the King Kongs is also taking its toll: Borders might be looking for a buyer and Barnes and Noble has been mentioned as the possible one -- though it lost money last quarter. Be ready on Ebay when the bidding starts. In the same breath, Waterstone's continues to reduce in size. What's going to happen to book retail in Malaysia? You guess.)

There are reports of bloodshed on the publishing front as well -- the 5.6% drop in sales and earnings of Random House last year -- but the story is not about that.

The story says that in UK the independents are those not one of the 'Big Four (Hachette, Random House, HarperCollins and Penguin) or the Not-Quite-So-Big Three (Pan Macmillan, Bloomsbury and Simon & Schuster).' The Independent Publishers' Guild in the UK is said to have 460 members and a GBP 500 million turnover with the numbers increasing, with the cost of entry getting lower and lower. (Theoretically, anyone with a computer can become an independent publisher.)

The wonderful thing about being independent is that you can choose to publish anything you want -- they can be as exclusive and precious to the max, or as leze faire as they want and publish anything that will sell.

"The bigger you are, the more you're affected by the market. If you're small, you make your own success," Tim Hely Hutchinson, CEO of UK Hachette Livre UK is quoted as saying.

Big publishers have to spread there risks across the whole spectrum of the market. Ironically, in that process they avoid risks and stick to safe territory, publishing books on tried and tested subjects and authors. While independents can almost live, if not on fresh air and sunshine, on very low profits while they wait for one big-one to lift them out, large players need to be constantly on their toes, seeking to maximise profits not only for shareholders' returns but also to pay massive staff costs and other overheads. Not surprisingly, independents also have more fun.

Atlantic Books managing director Toby Mundy says: "It irritates (the big publishers) that most of the best publishing people are outside the conglomerate sector ..."

So are the more interesting books published by independents? Every year during the Booker silly season, commentators will take pains to point out the number of independents on the shortlist. Perhaps, there will come a time when we will be more surprised when major publishers get on the list.

Does it make a difference to the book buyer? The answer to this type of questions is always an irritating 'yes and no'. If, as a normal book buyer, I am looking for a particular author, or title, the answer is no. I would not care who the publisher is -- though the quality of production, cover design and price could decide which imprint I choose. Most book buyers will fall into this category. This is the 'sugared water' end of the industry which the big boys operate in. (And many independents, too.)

However, if as a book lover, I want to try something new, I would allow an imprint to influence me somewhat (unless something comes highly recommended.) These are some of my personal prejudices and knee-jerk reactions (possibly misinformed): Faber: hmmm ... I wonder what this is like ... sounds interesting. I will risk it. Ditto Cannongate, Harvill, Serpent’s Tail, Saki Books, and several others. Vintage and Picador ... mmm ... maybe. Harper Collins: rice and sugar merchants, not worth the bother unless it is for a specific author I am looking for. Penguin: good for classics, otherwise 'boring'. And so on. So, as a book lover, imprints do make a difference, though quite small.

How about as a bookstore owner? As a book buyer for Silverfish Books, all the prejudices above do apply. My buying is about 70% based on imprints and 30% on authors and titles. (For those who are not familiar with us, we don't stock best-sellers, self-help and management. So there.)

I have often wondered how much an author thinks of which imprint he (or she) would like to be published by. But I suspect that these are merely short-lived fantasies. I mean you might think how wonderful it would be to be published by Faber (for example). But reality has a way of putting an end to those type of dreams pretty quickly for most new writers. (The established authors, naturally, will have more choices.) You grab the one that makes you the best (or any) offer although, logically, an independent publisher specialising in a specific genre would be your best bet, for not only will they know how to present and develop you, they will give you a longer shelf life. The big boys will give you three months, if that, and if you don't make it in that period, you die. You're remaindered.

(I do not mention any of the Malaysian imprints for obvious reasons: self-preservation.)

Publisher's Weekly

Labels: Publishing

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This has taken quite a while and we apologise for that. Anyway the editors, Dr Asraf Jamal and Dr Shanti Moorthy have battled it out and produced the final list for inclusion into Silverfish New Writing 7 out of 165 stories we sent them. (We have notified all the successful writers by email, but if perchance you have not received them please check the list below.)

The final list:

1. Departing Ways - Yvonne Tham
2. A Geography Lesson - Chang Shih Yen
3. The Vortex - Helen Yeo
4. Sitting on the Fence - Nurul Ikhlas Abdul Hadi
5. That Smile - Jane Downing
6. The Morning After - Jocelyn Chua Lay Hong
7. The Good Lieutenant - Yusuf Martin Bradley
8. A writers monologue - Parveen Sikkandar
9. The Last Deejay - Peter G. Brown
10. Transactions in Thai - Robert Raymer
11. Only in Malaysia - Robert Raymer
12. Invisible - Saraswathy Manickam
13. The Briefcase - Shalini Akhil
14. TheFirstTime - Kow Shih-Li
15. Check-in - Surya Ramkumar
16. Dog Hot Pot - Wena Poon
17. The Beggar - Viren Swami
18. Beer in Fukuoka - Yeo Wei Wei
19. Layang Layang - Yew Kwang Min

By the way, this will be the last in the Silverfish New Writing series. We have decided to stop here. There will be no Silverfish New Writing 8, nor anymore after that in the foreseeable future. To all those who have contributed in the past, thank you for making the series an unqualified success.

Labels: Publishing

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