Thursday September 02, 2010
In the Papers
Alexandra and I figure into an article in today’s New York Times about the e-book/print book divide. For the record, in the Times’ picture (above) she was reading George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, while I was reading Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney by Marion Meade.
Posted by jim at 06:42 AM || Comments
Friday August 27, 2010
Upcoming Events
As the Summer of (Free) E-Book Love cools and turns to the Fall of (Paid) E-Book Promotion, here are two upcoming events I have planned to promote the imminent of release Why They Cried.
If you are interested in this release, please consider joining my mailing list. You’ll receive updates when the collection appears in the various e-bookstores and news of upcoming events. And if you’re thinking, “Jim will e-mail me anyway,” don’t think this. I started the mailing list to avoid spamming people, so I won’t be sending out any other e-mail announcements. You can also express your interest in receiving updates in comments and I’ll sign you up.
Here are the events.
September 14
Joyland New York Reading at McNally Jackson
Celebrating the US release of Emily Schultz’s Trillium short-listed Heaven Is Small and Zoe Whittall’s Holding Still For As Long As Possible, the two Toronto authors are teaming up with Joyland New York authors Amanda Stern and Jim Hanas for a night of readings.
October 5
Adult Education Presents: The Future of the Book
This installment of the lecture series I help curate will do double-duty as the release party for Why They Cried. (The very next installment will address the topic of “War” on September 7, and you should go to that, too.) On October 5, WORD’s Stephanie Anderson will talk about literary basketball, Anna Jane Grossman will discuss obsolete writing technologies, and I will selfishly talk about “The Future of My Book,” sharing what I’ve learned (by then) about how book publishing works these days. I’m still seeking one more killer talk on this topic, so pitch me if you have one.
More to come. I also have some excerpts from the collection appearing in the coming weeks, but I’ll save those for later.
Posted by jim at 07:34 AM || Comments
Wednesday August 18, 2010
Christan Slater turns 41 today, and so do I. Time to review the record.
Christian and Me from Jim Hanas on Vimeo.
Posted by jim at 08:11 AM || Comments
Friday August 13, 2010
Coverage: An Interview with Book Cover Designer David Gee
Most publishing contracts—including mine—stipulate that the author might have input into the design of their book’s cover, but the final decision lies with the publisher. I think this is typical, and I know plenty of writers who are unhappy with how their books end up being packaged. That makes me particularly glad that I like the cover for Why They Cried, which was designed by David Gee. There were some temp covers—“The Bear Cover” and “The Badger Cover”—which my publisher, Brian Joseph Davis, cooked up. And as Brian explains, “In publishing, because of its long lead time, temp covers made for zero bucks, with help from public domain images, is a common stage. Then real designers are brought in.”
In my case, this designer was David, a part-time designer and copywriter by day, whose first ever design was the cover for Showbiz, above. I’ve been chatting with David for the last week via the doomed communication tool Google Wave about book covers, e-books, technology, and handicraft. The full interview follows.
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Posted by jim at 06:12 AM || Comments
Sunday August 08, 2010
E-reading comes to Goodreads. Summer of (Free) E-book Love Follows.
Guy over at Digital Book World alerts us all to the fact that Goodreads has quietly rolled out native e-reading support for its 3.6M members on both its website and via its iPhone app. I vaguely remembered that they had started offering classics—via Feedbooks—this way, but had totally missed that they had rolled out this self-serve functionality to authors.
As a man who is attempting to give away as many e-books as I can before Labor Day—see Summer of (Free) E-book Love—I promptly uploaded complete, DRM-free copies of both my e-books, Single and Cassingle. Help yourself.
I have to say that this is a potentially exciting move on Goodreads’ part—the ability to read books instantly where they are being recommended—and it seems inevitable that e-book sites are going to have to get social or (as in this case) the other way around. That said, Goodreads’ implementation could use a tweak or two. In the iPhone app, the path to the Goodreads Reader is made pretty conspicuous with a “Read Now” button in the top right. (See above.) The reader itself, on the other hand, is a little rough. On the website, however, can you even find the button that will open my—or any other—e-books from a book’s info page? I’ll give you a minute.
It’s over in the right rail, below the ad unit and the proverbial fold. So while I would like to give each and every one of Goodreads’ 3.6M users a free e-book this month, I’m not too optimistic that they’ll be able to find it. That said, I have added Goodreads to the list of places where Single can be downloaded ahead of the release of my complete collection this fall.
Posted by jim at 08:20 PM || Comments
Wednesday August 04, 2010
The Way I Read Now
Back when I used to consort with junior literary agents—they would come sniffing around occasionally to discuss not representing my work—one of them told me a story that baffled me. (I have no idea if it was true, but let’s assume it was.) A certain debut writer (never identified to me) had picked between two more or less equal offers on the basis of the fact that one of the publishers agreed to print a hardcover, rather than a paperback original. Don’t get me wrong. I understand this is the choice you’re supposed to make. Hardcovers are better. They are more expensive, more prestigious, and they leave the paperback yet to be released. But even then—this was five or six years ago—it sounded to me like a bad decision. The idea of hitting the road as a debut author, asking readers to buy a hardcover, seemed crazy. Part of this came from examining my own behavior. In the last decade, I’ve only acquired hardcovers when I’ve bought them at signings or received them for free from junior agents who had not yet decided to not represent my work. This did not seem like a good basis for a business model or a career.
While it’s not a requirement to consume the product one produces—look at crack dealers—it seems like enlightened self-interest when it comes to fiction writing. (If we don’t read what we write, who will?) So the fact that my collection is coming out as an e-book original seems only right, since that it is how I actually read now.
Last week, I traced my personal e-reader history. About five months ago, I started using Goodreads to track what I was reading, in what format, and where I was getting it. As you can see from the above, e-books are outpacing print books in my life by better than three-to-one. And what’s more, I’ve basically stopped paying for print books.
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Posted by jim at 07:13 AM || Comments
Wednesday July 28, 2010
E-Reading: A Personal Gadget History
I’ve been using a cell phone for almost ten years. I know this because I didn’t buy one until I moved to New York, and that was ten years ago this fall. I bought it because my only friend in New York told me all the pay phones in the city were broken and/or filthy. I had been entirely functional in Memphis—even as a weekly newspaper reporter—without one. So I bought a Nokia 8260 at an AT&T store near Madison Square Park and used it to find my first Manhattan apartment—a sublet above the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Chelsea. Here’s what the 8260 looks like, in all its monochrome glory.
I didn’t read books off the Nokia 8260, but since then I’ve had nine more mobile devices—about one a year, tame for a gadget nerd—and I’ve read e-books off six of them. When you look at them in order, it’s kind of mind-blowing how quickly we went from the Nokia 8260 to the iPad. Here’s a personal timeline.
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Posted by jim at 07:11 AM || Comments
Monday July 19, 2010
Nobody likes the slush pile. Let’s get rid of it.
Lately the poor slush pile has been getting lots of ink. Laura Miller worries the public can’t handle its horror. The Awl traces its history. Tin House tries to slow its relentless accretion and sparks a backlash in the process. I believe the heat the journal took for requiring submissions to be accompanied by a receipt from an independent bookstore was well-deserved, by the way. The shrill plea came off as tone deaf because it ignored a) that anyone who’s heard of Tin House is, by definition, a book nerd, and b) that Tin House readers and Tin House submitters are likely the same set, so alienating the latter also pisses off the former, which—well—hastens the inevitable demise of Tin House.
But I’m not defending the eternal openness of the slush pile. In fact, I think we should do away with the slush pile entirely. Some of you, particularly those of you who work for literary journals—or habitually submit to them (interesting verb, that)—are probably scrolling down to the comments now to register your complaints. The open slush pile, you might argue, is the foundation of democracy and freedom of speech. If everyone can’t submit to any publication at anytime, what will happen to America and, worse, to Literature? But you could also argue (and I might, although I’m not married to this point) that this cant is but the populist face of journals’—and indeed any curatorial endeavor’s—discernment and, yes, elitism. The slush pile is like the Republican canard that everyone should defend the rights of the ultra-rich, since you might one day become ultra-rich—although really, no, you probably will not.
I don’t think it’s necessary to go this far, however, to justify the end of the slush pile. The fact is, it isn’t working for anyone. Not for publishers, certainly, but not even for writers.
Here’s how it works, from a writer’s perspective. You go to a journal’s website, fill out that robo-form they all use and upload your doc. Then you wait. And wait … and wait. Months pass—during which time you receive at least one e-mail from the journal begging for money—and then you receive, in all likelihood, an automated response. Maybe not. Maybe you get a few lines of feedback. That’s the upside. The situation can be much worse, however, if the journal requires a receipt from a bookstore, a buck (which I can see as a reasonable speed bump a journal might place on submissions), or $20 (an unconscionable practice employed by at least one lit site that miraculously manages to retain a decent reputation).
What’s the best possible outcome? Your story is accepted, and maybe a year later it appears and is distributed to the journal’s meager readership, who probably won’t read it because they only bought the journal in the first place so they could submit their work to it. I’m not saying the journal contributes nothing. It provides a few reputation credits and exposure, perhaps, to editors and/or agents in a position to do something with your work. But it isn’t providing readers, per se, at least not efficiently. In the eighteen months it takes a story to go from submission to publication, most writers could accumulate as many readers as most journals deliver by posting it to their Tumblr. If the story has to be submitted to four of five places before it’s accepted, the value of the journal’s circulation declines accordingly. And, at the moment, these two routes—self-distribution and the submission path—are mutually exclusive. Put it out there and it’s out of the game. More on that in a minute.
How is the slush pile working for publications? Not so well, it seems. The cost of wading through it—even just the social costs of maintaining an army of volunteer readers with vague promises of CV lines—has to be enormous. And it’s wasteful, since—as any honest editor will tell you—most submissions fall into the category of “not even close.” The fact that journals feel honor-bound to keep the slush pile open in deference to some ideal of accessibility, yet know that most things in it will miss the point entirely, is—I would argue—at the root of a love-hate relationship editors have with their would-be contributors. This low-grade contempt then can be seen coming out, all sideways, in passive-aggressive gestures like Tin House’s receipt policy.
So let’s drop the pretense and kill the slush pile. Manuscripts considered by solicitation only. (As most of them are now anyway, let’s be honest.) How will writers and editors find each other then? Simple. Writers will put their work out—on blogs or in writing communities or wherever—and editors will find it. This addresses, I think, two new realities.
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Posted by jim at 06:48 AM || Comments
Friday July 09, 2010
Why I am exactly like Rocket from the Crypt—but with e-books
It’s becoming evident—now, even to me—that what I really wanted to be was a rock star. Preferably in the ’90s. I have these e-books that look like records and cassettes. A desire to write like the Pixies rock. The fear of being Eddie Vedder. All the symptoms are there. So, rather than fight it, here is how my Summer of (Free) E-Book Love—which I just announced yesterday—was inspired by Rocket From the Crypt.
If you’re not familiar with RFTC, they’re what you’d expect to get if you crossed Danzig with Bruce Springsteen. But that’s not important to this story. What is important is that leading up to their major-label debut—1995’s Scream, Dracula, Scream!—they went on a six-week-long free tour in support of their self-released LP Hot Charity. Admission was free for the entire tour. How awesome is that?
I’m not going to tour this summer—I don’t have Interscope to foot the bill—but I am going to try to give away as many free e-books as I can between now and Labor Day, in anticipation of the fall release of Why They Cried. In particular, I’ll be recommending Single, my first e-book. It contains two stories that first appeared in One Story and the Land-Grant College Review, both of which will appear in Why They Cried. It’s a great advance sample of the collection.
So how am I going to give more of these away? I’m open to ideas, help, and suggestions, but I’ve started by posting instructions for downloading Single on every platform, from the Kindle to plain old paper. It’s easy to forget that most people have still never read an e-book. I’m instructing friends all the time how to get at my books, so it made sense to post these instructions all in one place. I’m also happy to help anyone who’s having trouble accessing my books. Think of it as e-book tech support. I’ve even set up a phone number for such requests at 347-WHY-THEY. You can also e-mail me or reach me on Twitter. And I really am open to ideas. It’s the Summer of (Free) E-book Love, for chrissakes. Anything goes. Spread the word, give me one of those Facebook thumbs-up on this page—I understand this is how publishers will now determine author advances—and shoot me your ideas via e-mail or in comments. And thanks for reading.
By the way, Scream, Dracula, Scream! totally rocks and I completely recommend it if you’re exactly like me, only younger.
Posted by jim at 07:36 AM || Comments
Tuesday June 29, 2010
Why They Cried: A word about the title, the Pixies, DFW, and the fear of mawkishness
Now that Why They Cried is more or less in the can, I have pent up thoughts about writing and publishing—not only of this book, but in general—that I hope to get out, starting with the title. Why They Cried. I’m self-conscious about it. I think it perfectly describes the contents of the collection, don’t get me wrong, but I worry it makes those contents seem more maudlin than they actually are. (Although, yes, they are somewhat maudlin.) I thought Rob Walker got it just right—and was gratified that he did—when the title story ran as part of the Significant Objects project and he wrote, “… while the series title sounds like a downer, the truth is these character vignettes have been clever and amusing.” This is what I was hoping for.
How did the title come about? I didn’t move to New York until I was 31, ten years ago. I realize now that the city was overwhelming on a basic, metabolic level. The first time I visited my parents after living in New York, my suburban hometown felt depopulated, like an atom bomb had fallen on it. It was as though my nervous system had adjusted to being around more people than I’d ever been around before, and previously normal levels of human congestion seemed eerily spare.
With the density of New York came other revelations. I saw more people cry in public in New York during my first month in the city than I had seen in my entire life. (I also saw more arguing, kissing, and sleeping, but it’s the crying that stuck with me.) I started writing a series of vignettes I collectively called “Why They Cried.” Each one featured someone crying, usually for non-emotional reasons. I abandoned the project when one of the vignettes—about an actor who specializes in crying in made-for-TV movies—took over and became “The Cryerer,” which appeared in One Story and is now available in my free e-book Single. (It will also be in Why They Cried.)
Years passed, and I didn’t think about the other vignettes until Rob agreed to let me write a story for Significant Objects. I brushed them off, turned them into a series for S.O., and along the way realized that the title perfectly captured the spirit of the stories I’d written in the the last ten years, not to mention the stories I’m drawn to as a reader. It was one of those “strongest reactions” Fitzgerald advises us to roll with. It suggests sadness at a distance, I think, and the cover David Gee did for the collection tips the scale safely away from mawkishness. Because, I admit it, I am terrified of seeming mawkish. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps I haven’t entirely outgrown the mid-’90s irony cocoon I came of age with—the one that made me worship Guided By Voices but feel slightly embarrassed for Superchunk. Or maybe writing is just frightening. (Gen X didn’t invent the irony cocoon, of course. Walker Percy uses variants of “ironic” to describe a sort of existential attunement a half dozen times in 1961’s The Moviegoer. Thanks, Google Book Search.)
