The Barnes & Noble vs. Amazon Battle Heats Up

In terms of capitalization value, it's almost this bad for B&N.

The Barnes & Noble announcement today that Amazon-published books will not be sold in Barnes & Noble bookstores is not much of a surprise to anyone who has kept up with the fight for survival that the chain is facing.  Spokesman Jamie Carey said today that the decision not to sell the books was made in protest of the exclusive agreements that Amazon is trying to negotiate with publishers, writers, and literary agents.

The Christian Science Monitor has all the details on its website:

“These exclusives have prohibited us from offering certain eBooks to our customers. Their actions have undermined the industry as a whole and have prevented millions of customers from having access to content,” Carey continued.

“It’s clear to us that Amazon has proven they would not be a good publishing partner to Barnes & Noble as they continue to pull content off the market for their own self interest.” 

[...]

Barnes & Noble said it will continue to make Amazon titles available on its website. But thanks to the traditional book retailer’s latest move, Amazon may struggle to get its books into anything but a virtual marketplace.

Read the article.  You might be surprised by which company is publishing the Amazon print books and which authors have already signed exclusive agreements with the company.

And the beat goes on...

The Mirage

I don’t care what you say.  This one will, at least at first, make you feel a bit uncomfortable.  In the tradition of the best alternate history fiction, Matt Ruff uses The Mirage to turn history on its head in a way that makes one think.  American readers, in particular, will be forced to do some soul searching as they make their way through the mad journey that Ruff has prepared for them.

The Mirage, you see, begins on 11/9/2001 just as a group of Christian fundamentalists highjack four Iraqi airliners.  Two of the jets crash into the World Trade Towers in Baghdad, one into the Arab Defense Ministry in Riyadh, and one heads for Mecca but, before it can reach its target there, passengers manage to crash it into the ground.  Soon, the United Arab States (UAS) are waging a payback war on terror and have invaded the East Coast.  Washington D.C. is turned into a Green Zone safe haven for the invaders who are ruthlessly attacked almost every time they venture outside its protected perimeter.  Eight years later, the invaders are still there, hoping to leave a stable government behind before they call the war done.

Ruff softens the shock of this jarring setup by creating several sympathetic Iraqi characters tasked with the mission of stopping further Christian terrorist attacks on Iraq and the rest of the UAS.  Mustafa al Baghdadi and his cohorts spend their days tracking threats and terrorist cells, hoping to stay one step ahead of the fundamentalists who want to bring more mayhem to the country.  So far, with a lot of luck, they have been successful.  But when Mustafa, during one of his arrests, finds an old newspaper that a suspect has hidden away, his world is shaken. 

This is not just any old newspaper.  It is a back issue of The New York Times dated 9/12/2001, and it tells a surreal story that Mustafa cannot comprehend.  Surely, it is a hoax; it has to be.  Then other captured terrorists begin to tell stories similar to what is in the newspaper, and Mustafa starts to doubt the world he lives in.  Is it all a mirage?  If it is, who is responsible and how did they do it?

Matt Ruff

Readers will enjoy the way that Ruff uses the main players from the 9/11 murders in The Mirage.  Most of them are there, but in entirely new roles – some of which are guaranteed to offend as many readers as they will please.  More intriguingly, others who had no actual connection with events following 9/11 participate here in key roles: David Koresh, Lee Atwater, Timothy McVeigh, and Terry Nichols, among them.  Although some will skip them, Ruff uses clever Wikipedia-like entries as chapter-breaks that should not be ignored because they fill in the narrative blanks, making it easier to understand this strange new world.

The ending Ruff chose for The Mirage, however, is weak.  His story, and his readers, deserve better.  Based upon the rest of the story, it is difficult to argue that the ending is too fantastic to be taken seriously (and the argument cannot be attempted without straying into “spoiler” territory).  But it is, and it lessens the impact that I belief Ruff was going for in The Mirage.  That said, do not miss this one because it is still one of the more intriguing novels you will encounter in 2012.

Rated at: 4.0

A Novel Bookstore

Seldom have I had mixed emotions about a book to the degree that I have them about Laurence Cossé’s A Novel Bookstore.  I was initially drawn to the novel because it seemed to be a mixture of two of my favorite genres: books about books, and crime fiction.  And that is exactly what A Novel Bookstore is but, in this case, the two genres do not work particularly well together.  Perhaps that is because the dialogue is generally too stilted and otherwise unrealistic to give the crimes in question much teeth.  To my ear, these characters are more akin to something from a 1930s romantic farce than they are to 21^st century France.  They just do not seem real – making me wonder whether the author intended A Novel Bookstore to be more fable than novel.

There is, however, much to like here.  Anyone who has ever spent much time in a bookstore will be drawn to the concept of a bookstore that only stocks the good stuff.  No James Patterson, Dan Brown, or Danielle Steele will be found in a bookstore like the one being designed by Ivan and Francesca.  The pair have come together to create a truly novel enterprise, one that sells only the finest world literature ever written.  They are so unconcerned about popular demand that it will take at least a year for a new book to hit their shelves – and not many of them will actually ever make it there.

The bookstore’s initial offering will be chosen by a committee of eight specially chosen people, each of whom will be asked to list their favorite 600 books.  Even with the overlap in choices, this means that more than three thousand books will be offered for sale on the bookstore’s opening day.  The store, despite generating little in the way of profit, soon attracts a loyal group of customers, some of whom browse daily and have to be reminded to leave when it is time for the store to close.  Ivan and Francesca are thrilled with what is happening, but the backlash soon begins.

Laurence Cosse

Authors and publishers that cannot find their way to A Novel Bookstore’s shelves are not at all happy about being frozen out by such a prestigious bookseller.  Attacks, both personal and otherwise, that try to make the owners look like literary snobs, begin to appear in newspapers and magazines.  That is bad enough, but the agitation is followed by threats and physical attacks against several of the committee members – a group of eight who were never identified by name even to each other.  Obviously, there is a leak somewhere.

That is the crux of the story, but what I enjoyed most were the pages devoted to designing the new bookstore and readying it for its opening.  Although many of the literary references (especially the French ones) were new to me, the whole process of choosing the best 4,000 books for the store intrigued me all the way through.  That is what kept me turning pages, and I am happy that I did.  A Novel Bookstore is any book-lover’s fantasy and, to be fair to Ms. Cossé, that might be why her characters, including the criminals, do not seem more real than they do.  It could never happen…or, could it?

Rated at: 3.5 

As Barnes & Noble Goes, So Goes the Future of Publishing

A New York Barnes and Noble Location

Not all that long ago, I was able to choose between buying a a recently published book from Barnes and Noble, B. Dalton, Borders, Book Stop, Crown Books, and even a handful of really good, but much smaller, booksellers.  Now there are just Barnes and Noble and the Books-A-Million chains, the latter of which has never had much of a presence in Houston.  When they first appeared, all of the national chains were harshly accused of running out of business all the little guys that had been selling books locally for decades.  The chains were most definitely cast as the bad guys, and they probably were.  Now, however, I would kill to have them back because even the last standing giant, Barnes and Noble, may not be long for this world and the little guys are not likely to return even if that happens.

The CNBC website has posted a heartbreaking, and terrifying, New York Times article clearly presenting the predicament that traditional publishers are in today.  The publishers recognize that the survival of Barnes and Noble is now closely tied to their own future survival.  This is true, despite the fact, that the bookseller is walking a very fine line itself as it tries to compete with Amazon in the e-book market while not, as a result, entirely killing off so much of the demand for printed books that it has to close its brick and mortar bookstores. Without Barnes and Noble's bookstores, the future of printed books will be much different than today - and many experts are already predicting that Barnes and Noble has started down the path of a long, slow death spiral of its own.

Without Barnes & Noble, the publishers’ marketing proposition crumbles. The idea that publishers can spot, mold and publicize new talent, then get someone to buy books at prices that actually makes economic sense, suddenly seems a reach. Marketing books via Twitter, and relying on reviews, advertising and perhaps an appearance on the “Today” show doesn’t sound like a winning plan.

 What publishers count on from bookstores is the browsing effect. Surveys indicate that only a third of the people who step into a bookstore and walk out with a book actually arrived with the specific desire to buy one.

[...] 

While publishers’ fates are closely tied to Barnes & Noble, said John Sargent, the C.E.O. of Macmillan, it’s not all about them.

“Anybody who is an author, a publisher, or makes their living from distributing intellectual property in book form is badly hurt,” he said, “if Barnes & Noble does not prosper.” 

If, as a true book-lover, any of this scares you or makes you nervous, you should read the entire article. It will terrify you and make you wonder if Jeff Bevos, head of Amazon, is on the verge of killing off the industry dearest to our hearts...and yet, few of us can resist the lure of Amazon's cheap prices and quick delivery.  Are we nuts?

Male Writer vs. Female Writer - Which Has It Tougher

The Guardian pointed me in the direction today of an interesting "conversation" about male vs. female authors that has been going on for a while.

Jennifer Weiner

It seems that nine-time novelist Jennifer Weiner, whose most recent book is 2011's Then Came You, does not believe that the New York Times Book Review treats women writers fairly when it comes to reviews and feature articles.  The folks over at Slate.com took a look at the situation and it does appear that the raw numbers back up Weiner's assertion since somewhere between sixty and seventy percent of reviews and features have generally been allocated to male authors.

Teddy Wayne

But first-time novelist Teddy Wayne (Kapitoil) disagrees that female writers are finding it nearly as hard as male writers to earn a living from their work.  Wayne points out that it is women readers who buy two-thirds of books sold and, more importantly, that equates to 80% of the fiction being sold.  He further contends that book club membership is dominated by women - and that they all tend to read other women, not male writers.  Wayne goes on to argue that mid-list writers, like him, do not get covered by the Times, either, and that they do not have the women's magazines to fall back on for the kind of publicity that sells large numbers of books.

So what do you think?  Myself, I think both are correct in what they are arguing.  It seems to be only a matter of degree on the "Miserableness Index" that we are talking about here.

Follow this link to The Guardian for the article because there is a good bit more to it than I mention here.

Full Dark, No Stars

I have never been bashful about expressing my disdain for about 80% of the authors who dominate the big bestseller lists, having at times been particularly hard on the James Patterson factory and the novels of one Mr. Dan Brown.  That has led several people to question my general fondness for the books of Stephen King, a writer whose work they characterize as a guilty pleasure of my own.  Well, I have been a fan of King’s work ever since the Fourth of July holiday of 1980 that I spent reading the first book of his I had ever heard of: The Shining.  I went on to spend much of the rest of that month catching up on his earlier books.

Over the years, my opinion of Stephen King’s writing has changed somewhat.  Where once I was most eager to get my hands on his latest novel, these days it is his new short stories and novellas that I most look forward to reading.  I have come to believe that the novella is really King’s forte and not, despite the fact that he has written some very successful ones, the novel.  Full Dark, No Stars makes me even more certain of that.

Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of over five hundred pages encompassing three novellas and one short story.  One or two of the stories being told remind me, for the first time in a while, of two of King’s best (and best known) novellas: Shawshank Redemption and The Body.  No so coincidentally, this pair also led to two of the best received movies ever produced from King’s work (The Body was re-titled Stand by Me for its movie version). 

“1922,” a grim confession by Wilf James to the bloody murder of his wife that he convinced his teenage son to help him accomplish and cover-up, opens the book.  The youngster, deeply in love with the girl from the next farm, is terrified that he might be uprooted and moved to the city as his mother is insisting upon.  Wilf plays on his son’s emotions to gain his trust but starts a chain of events that will ultimately leave him regretting much more than his wife’s murder.  The outstanding character development and feel for the period King invokes in this one make it, I think, the overall strongest story in the collection. 

“Big Driver” is a revenge story that will keep you on the edge of your seat.  When Tess, author of a successful series of bloodless, cozy mysteries is brutally raped, beaten, and left for dead by what she discovers is a serial killer, she must decide what to do next.  Using her mystery writing skills (bloodless as they have been up to now), Tess comes up with a plan she hopes will cover all the bases – and then, things get complicated.

Next up, is the book’s lone short story (about 45 pages), “Fair Extension.”  Perhaps the darkest story of the lot, this one will make most readers wonder what they would do given the same circumstances and choices.  Mr. Elvid offers Dave, a terminal cancer sufferer who is fast running out of time, the chance to rid himself of his cancer and live a healthy life for another 20 years.  The catch?  Dave must choose someone to take on the burden of his ill health and other bad luck – can he do it?  Will he?

The last story, “A Good Marriage,” visits what might happen if a woman happily married for almost 30 years were to discover that her husband has been hiding a horrible secret from her the entire time.  By the end of the story, Darcy Anderson, facing just such a predicament, learns as much about herself as she learns about her husband – and the last few pages of this one are the best section of the whole book.

Whether you call them long stories or novellas, you will not easily forget the four tales in Full Dark, No Stars.

Visit this Scribner link for a whole lot more about Full Dark, No Stars.

Rated at: 4.0