Book real estate: Publisher’s cost for bookstore placement

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Adam Penenberg wrote an eye-opening article about how much it costs publishers to place their books on a bookstore table:

“The closer a table is to the front of the bookstore, the more expensive the real estate–and each book on each table costs publishers anywhere from $3,000 to $30,000, and even up to $50,000 depending on placement.”

“Have you ever wondered who decides which of the 55,000 books published each year end up on which tables and why? It’s not serendipity, not by chance, not because some Barnes & Noble tastemaker is trying to lure us with the most scintillating reads of the year. It’s marketing, pure and simple, all of it bought and paid for by publishers.”

* Read more of this article here *

“If a book lists for $30, the publisher gets between $15 and $18, but it has to pay a wholesaler 15% ($4.50) and a distributor another 15%. Take the higher number and Hyperion, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and the rest end up with $9. Pre-publication (cover design, text design, copyediting, etc.) run about a buck. Printing: $3.25. Author royalties, maybe $3 a book. Don’t forget salaries, rent and the like, which may cost a buck or two on each title. Then there are returns, with booksellers returning unsold merchandise to the publishers, who either remainder it for pennies on the dollar, or simply pulp it. In the end a publisher is fortunate to wring a few cents on a book. No wonder it’s a hits business, with John Grisham, Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer, and J.K. Rowling carrying the rest of us. If a publisher gets one or two big books a year, it might report margins of 10%–if it’s lucky.” [from The Profitable Publisher]

Perspectives Magazine – update

The January 2010 issue will be ready to view tomorrow, New Year’s Day, by 12 noon.  Visit the website at http://1perspectives.webs.com and see the world through the eyes of a:

• Army uniform
• Candle
• Courtroom
• Credit card
• Eye glasses
• Hairbrush
• Knick-knacks
• Park bench
• Pumpkin
• Tattoo
• Umbrella
• Wishing well
• Womb

This is the best issue yet!!!

Techniques for developing character names

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CHOOSING A CHARACTER NAME

Here’s one way to figure out a character name.

1. Take the name of the first pet you ever owned, or your parents, or your friend…
2. Get the name of the first street you ever lived on.  If the street is a number like 157th Avenue, go with any street name you ever lived on.

Now you have your name.  My character’s name is “Ringo Darling”!  LOL.

OR

For the first name:

1. Take the first three letters of your last name.
2. Add to that, the first two letters of your first name.

For the last name:

1. Take the first two letters of your mother’s maiden name.
2. Add to that, the first three letters of the name of the city you were born in OR the street you live on now, whichever sounds better.

Mine turns out to be: Bermo Tamel

My recent blog/del.icio.us wordles

I like updating my Wordles from time to time.

Here’s the latest for my blog:

And here’s my del.icio.us wordle:

Create your Wordle here.

Original ‘Christmas Carol’ shows Dickens’ revisions

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With respect to Dickens classic “Christmas Carol,” I didn’t know that:

• He wrote it to raise much-needed cash.
• 6,000 copies were printed in time for Christmas but it was financially unsuccessful because he had “splurged on hand-colored drawings in red and green ink by John Leech, one of England’s leading illustrators.”

The original manuscript is housed at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan, where it bears all of Dickens’ additions and subtractions in his own hand.

On page 3, he inserts “his eyes sparkled” to amplify the portrait of Scrooge’s nephew, whose beneficence is crucial to the plot.

On page 12, where Scrooge takes Marley’s ghost to be evidence not of the supernatural, but of his own indigestion, (“more of gravy than of grave,”) he converts the offending bit of food from being a “spot of mustard” to a less digestible “blot of mustard.”

——————————–

Read the fascinating details here.

View four original pages of Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” here.

Greased Lightbox

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[video] Storytelling with sand and light–the art that brought me to tears [video]

Being a writer, I’m always interested in learning new ways to tell a story.  Well, I found one called Sand Painting.  I’ve never seen anything expressed so beautifully.  Watch this woman from a show called “Ukraine has the Talent” tell an emotional story with sand and light in 10 minutes.  Even if you can’t watch the whole thing, I guarantee you’ll be awe-struck within the first mintue…

RELATED

Just had to add these two…

“You’ve got a friend”

Sand Painter – Mark Demel

I love the last image in this video…

Calling for submissions and advertisers

Reality with a twist.

It’s unique.  It’s unexpected.  It’s Perspectives.

See the new Christian Perspectives magazine on the site.

Calling for submissions to the new Christian Perspectives magazine

Hi everyone

c2009 - All rights reserved

If you are a creative writer, a Christian writer, a teacher, pastor, etc and would like to be involved in my new magazine, please visit this link.

Macbeth Rap [video]

Hilarious!

This link was provided in a reply to my twitter question: Would Shakespeare have been a better writer if he’d had a computer?  The answer: [Maybe, but I think he would've done hip-hop or rap.]

Vanity Fair’s editors redline Palin’s resignation speech

This is an interesting angle regarding Sarah Palin’s resignation speech:

“If you watched Sarah Palin’s resignation speech, you know one thing: her high-priced speechwriters moved back to the Beltway long ago.  Just how poorly constructed was the governor’s holiday-weekend address?  We asked V.F.’s red-pencil-wielding executive literary editor, Wayne Lawson, together with representatives from the research and copy departments, to whip it into publishable shape. Here is the colorful result.”

Source

An unusual approach to writers block [video]

Watch this video and listen to an unusual–but helpful–approach to the phenomenon of writers block and how to overcome it.

Link

Perspectives Magazine is looking for “escape artists”

As the founder and publisher of Perspectives Magazine, I am looking for talented escape artists: word painters who can transport people into a magical world–like that scene in Mary Poppins when she jumps into the chalk painting with Bert and the children.  I’m looking for writers who can help the reader “escape” their pressured, stressed out world for a brief period.

Check out the home page and the two contests:

• Perspectives Magazine
• The Treasures of Spring contest and
• In 7 Days contest.

Visit my Facebook groups

I have two Facebook groups, if anyone is interested in joining.  One is for my magazine and one if for my writers group.

Breakthrough Writers Group:

Even if you dont live in the area, I’ll be uploading the exercises at a later date.

Perspectives Magazine:

Get all the latest information about the magazine and the contests.

14 Amazing anagrams

When you rearrange the letters…

1. DORMITORY = DIRTY ROOM
2. PRESBYTERIAN = BEST IN PRAYER
3. ASTRONOMER = MOON STARER
4. DESPERATION = A ROPE ENDS IT
5. THE EYES = THEY SEE
6. GEORGE BUSH = HE BUGS GORE
7. THE MORSE CODE = HERE COME DOTS
8. SLOT MACHINES = CASH LOST IN ME
9. ANIMOSITY = IS NO AMITY
10. ELECTION RESULTS = LIES – LET’S RECOUNT
11. SNOOZE ALARMS = ALAS! NO MORE Z ‘S
12. A DECIMAL POINT = I’M A DOT IN PLACE
13. THE EARTHQUAKES = THAT QUEER SHAKE
14. ELEVEN PLUS TWO = TWELVE PLUS ONE

Do you have any to add?

Pop N. Fresh obituary [humor]

Pillsbury spokesman Pop N. Fresh died yesterday, at 71. In attendance at the funeral were Mrs. Butterworth, the California Raisins, Hungry Jack, Betty Crocker, and the Hostess Twinkies. Fresh rose quickly in show business, but his career was filled with many turnovers. He was not considered a smart cookie, having wasted much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Still, even as a crusty old man, he was a roll model for millions. Fresh is survived by his second wife. They have two children and one in the oven. The funeral was held at 3:50 for 18 to 20 minutes.

Source: Reader’s Digest, Auguest 2007, Laughter, The Best Medicine, p42 (submitted by Charles Sullivan)

Touched by a Snowflake [writers contest]

Perspectives Magazine is running a challenging two-part contest for writers: Touched by a Snowflake.

A snowflake has been seeing Dr. Jack Frost.  After listening to its story for several months, the doctor decides that the best treatment for the snowflake is to send it to the earth one last time and touch a couple who have lost their appreciative perspective. “I am sending you,” said Dr. Frost, “because you’re the only one who has enough wisdom amongst all the snowflakes to ignite the needed spark.”

Everyone who enters the contest wins a prize!

Check it out here.

Fascinating facts about books, authors, editors and book selling

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EDITOR AND PUBLISHER LORE AND LEGENDS

Senior editor’s view of his job

At a cocktail party celebrating the launch of a new book, a young woman waving a highball approached the publisher’s senior editor and asked, “Are you a writer?”

“No,” replied the editor.

“Then just what do you do,” she asked.

“I’m in the cleaning and repairing business.”

Editorial director looking to get lucky

One day, the editorial director at a small technical publishing establishment was observed hanging a horseshoe over the door to his office. His colleagues, in surprise, asked the director whether he believed it would bring luck to his acquisitions efforts.

“No,” the editorial director replied. “I don’t believe in superstitions. But I’ve been told that it works even if you don’t believe in it.”

Most honest book jacket blurb ever written

Perhaps the most honest wording ever to appear on a book jacket was the blurb signed by Random House publisher Bennett Cerf on a 1936 Gertrude Stein book titled, The Geographical History of America on the Relation of Human Nature to the Human Mind. Here’s what Cerf wrote:

This space is usually reserved for a brief description of a book’s contents. In this case, however, I must admit frankly that I do not know what Miss Stein is talking about. I do not even understand the title.

EVOLUTION Of BOOK MAKING

Thumb index

The thumb index, those rounded notched indentations cut into the edges of pages to facilitate quick reference, have been around for over a century. The process was invented in 1884 by Alfred A. Butler of Bay City, Michigan.

Origin of plastic book jacket cover

The plastic book jacket cover had its origin in Newark, New Jersey. In 1939, Arthur Brody, son of neighborhood pharmacist and a former stock clerk in Bamberger’s downtown Newark department store invented the plastic book jacket cover.

Since his father ran a profitable book lending library out of his drugstore on Bergen Street, young Brody looked for ways to protect the thin paper book jackets, which frayed and tore easily, so that the books would have a longer lending life. He experimented with rigid sheets of clear plastic which he cut to book jacket size, folded between the rubber wring rollers of his grandmother’s washing machine, and wrapped around the lending library book jackets. Thus was born the plastic book jacket industry.

Early book publishing

By the end of the 15^th century, printing had taken place in over two hundred European communities. As a result, more than 30,000 different editions of printed books were produced.

More than half of these books were church or religion-related, consisting of sermons, commentaries, polemics, lives of the saints, church histories, brevaries, Psalters, and Bibles. Of the remainder, publishing was done on such subjects as astrology, alchemy, chemistry, and the art and practice of healing. There were also an abundance of textbooks of grammatical and philological content made necessary by the rapid spread of the printed word.

BOOK TITLING TIDBITS AND TRIVIA

Book for amnesiacs

A European publisher issued a book titled The Memoirs of an Amnesiac that contained only blank pages.

Recurring themes in 20th century book titles

One of the most interesting phenomena in publishing in the 20^th century was the evolution of book titling themes often patterned after a single successful book or series of books. Some of the more popular book titling themes dealt with numbers, minutes, days, nights, seasons, colors, landscapes, and even the earth, sun and moon.

INNOVATIVE BOOK PROMOTION

Strange new market for books: Losing lottery ticket buyers

Here’s a book promotion aimed only at lottery ticket buyers but only those who lost.  The sponsor was the government of Ontario, which runs a weekly lottery for $1 a ticket. What the Ontario government did, during several periods in the late 1970s and 1980s, was to establish a time interval during which losing lottery tickets could be used as cash toward a purchase of a book by a Canadian author.

When first tried for three months in 1978, losing Wintario lottery tickets could be used as 50c cash up to four tickets per purchase to buy any Canadian-authored book, hardcover or paper. In subsequent promotions in the early 1980s, losing lottery tickets could be used to buy only Canadian-authored paperbacks, with a limit of $1 per book.  Over 95% of Ontario’s booksellers honored the losing lottery tickets as cash, for which they were reimbursed from lottery proceeds by the Ontario government.

PUBLISHING MISCELLANY

How publishers said “NO” when rejecting famous books

The following rejections have been adapted from Rotten Rejections with the permission of the publisher, Pushcart Press.

Catch-22, Joseph Heller (1961) “A continual and unmitigated bore.”

Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe (1929) “Marred by stylistic cliches!  Has all the faults of youth and inexperience.”

Lord of the Flies, William Golding (1954) “You have (not) been wholly successful in working out an admittedly promising idea.”

Lust for Life, Irving Stone (1934) “A long, dull novel.”

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (1856) “A heap of details which are well done but utterly superfluous.”

Poems, William Butler Yeats (1895) “Absolutely empty and void; does not please the ear, nor kindle the imagination.”

The Good Earth, Pearl Buck (1931) “Regret the American public is not interested in anything on China.”

The Ipcress File, Len Deighton (1963) “Author tends to stay too long on non-essentials, is enchanted with his words, his tough style, and that puts me off badly.”

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair (1906) “it is fit only for the wastebasket.”

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, John le Carre (1963) “le Carre – he hasn’t got any future.”

The Razor’s Edge, W. Somerset Maugham (1944) “I do not find the thing good of its kind. ¦ I think it is distasteful.”

The Time Machine, H. G. Wells (1895) “Not interesting enough for the general reader; not thorough enough for the scientific reader.”

Why authors once sold dedications in their books

In ancient Rome books were individually produced by hand and, thus, had very limited circulation. Consequently, this meant little income for their authors. Probably as a result, it was common practice for authors to dedicate their written works to friends or patrons who were expected to reciprocate with payment in coin or kind.

The ancient custom of selling book dedications by authors survived at least into the 18^th century. This is evidenced in the work of the British religious leader and novelist, Laurence Sterne [1713-1768] who, in one of his published volumes, in the space usually used ft dedication, published this message: “To be let or sold for fifty guineas.”

Unschooled youth who learned from books

He was born in a log cabin in the Midwest and grew up without schooling. As a youth, he clerked at a country store and found friendship in books that helped him envision a world outside that he had never seen or known about. He told his neighbors, “The things I want to know are in books. My best friend is the man who’ll git me a book I ain’t read.”

He widened his circle of book friends and educated himself. Eventually, his friends helped him acquire the knowledge that elevated him to the highest office in the land. His name was Abraham Lincoln.

How you as a reader should evaluate an author

“You must of necessity enter his thoughts before you can rightly evaluate them.” –From John D. Snider’s I Love Books.

Bookseller permanently on the shelf

James Edwards (1757-1816) was an English bookseller who achieved both fame and riches traveling throughout Europe buying and selling books. At his death in 1816, in accordance with his wishes, he was buried in a coffin of wood made from his own bookshelves.

His burial was at St. Mary’s Harrow-on-the-Hill, a little parish church on a prominent hill in Middlesex, England. “He lies here to this day,” wrote Michael Olmert in Smithsonian Book of Books, “permanently on the shelf, but definitely out of circulation.”

~~~~~

Source: The Joy of Publishing by Nat Bodian.

A CSI investigation into the soul of Saul

I read this unique article a while ago and thought I’d share it with you.

The author was watching a CSI episode and thought, “What if you could do a forensic investigation on a soul?”  Hence, this article.  It is unique, entertaining, and incubates self-reflection.  Here’s an excerpt:

“Let’s be the CSI team assigned to the disaster that is the life of Saul. Let’s do the forensic investigation. If we were to zoom in to the soul of King Saul, we would find it underdeveloped, emaciated, and diseased. Now a first-year forensic investigator of the soul might conclude that this resulted from all of the rebellious sins Saul had committed. The older, wiser, and more seasoned investigator would know from experience that though sin can cause this kind of damage, in the case of King Saul, total spiritual negligence warped his soul into this pathetic condition…”

[Full article]

What would a forensic investigator find if he/she were to examine your soul?

Find names associated with ‘the ocean’ and more

Very interesting!

[Link]

Related post: Website lets you find names by personality traits

Related post: Sites to help find celebrity, dog, biblical, bands, astronomy, boat names…

My favorite poem

Flickr source

PSALM TO MY BELOVED

Lo, I have opened unto you the wide gates of my being

and like a tide, you have flowed into me.

The innermost recesses of my spirit are full of you,

and all the channels of my soul are grown sweet with your presence.

For you have brought me peace–

the peace of great tranquil waters, and the quiet of the summer sea.

Your hands are filled with peace as the noontide is filled with light;

about your head is bound the eternal quiet of the stars,

and in your heart dwells the calm miracle of twilight.

I am utterly content.

In all my spirit is no ripple of unrest,

for I have opened unto you the wide gates of my being

and like a tide you have flowed into me.

Eunice Tietjens (1919). Body and rainment. Michigan: A. A. Knopf, p22

Click on the link to find the entire archived book in txt format.  Link 

Best selling novel is an editor’s nightmare

Image by jellywatson via Flickr

I went to  the library yesterday to pick up the novel “Blindness” by Jose Saramago so I could read it before I saw the movie.  The concept was intriguing.  It’s about a city that’s hit with an epidemic of “white blindness” that spares no one.  What I didn’t know was that it has no chapter numbers, no dialogue punctuation, run-on sentences, and in some places the paragraphs are two pages long.  If you haven’t read it yet, here’s a sample from page 3 (a driver has just become blind at a stop light and strangers are trying to convince him to get help at a hospital):

…but the blind man refused to hear of it, quite unnecessary, all he wanted was that someone might accompany him to the entrance of the building where he lived.  It’s close by and you could me no greater favour.  And what about the car, asked someone.  Another voice replied, The key is in the ignition, drive the car on to the pavement.  No need, intervened a third voice, I’ll take charge of the car and accompany this man home.  There were murmurs of approval.

Personally, it’s hard reading–there are four speakers in some paragraphs without any dialogue marks.  I’ve read that this author has written all his books this way.  Would I read another book from this author?  Probably not.  Despite the grammatical confusion, I’ll continue to read because I want to see what happens next.

Have you read this book?  What are your thoughts?

Five cool websites – part 1

Just sharing some neat websites I came across today…

1. Are you someone who likes to give advice regarding relationships?  Create a Side Taker account.
2. Find out how many places your username is found at Usercheck.
3. Here is a word checklist derived from reports used in autopsies.
4. Watch time-elapsed videos of a variety of subjects at PlayingWithTime.  Click on “To See and Do” and then “Gallery” at the top of the page.  My favorite is watching a race through a network of nerve cells – carrying information to different parts of the body.
5. Would you like to find out what kind of blogger author you are?  This site analyzes words, images, and shows what part of the brain was dominate during writing.  Here are my results according to Typealyzer:

ISTP – The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often l

ike seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Analysis

This show what parts of the brain that were dominant during writing.

All-weather writing paper [product]

Image via Wikipedia

“”Rite in the Rain” is a recyclable all-weather writing paper made specifically to shed water in any weather condition.  From the sweat and grit of the Sahara, to wet Alaskan winters, to your own backyard, “Rite in the Rain” ensures your memories will survive.”

It has themed paper for geologists, military, public safety, firefighters, and more.  Check it out here.

Written by a homeless woman after being denied help [poetry]

Image by Vlastula via Flickr

A POEM TO SHARE

I was hungry and you formed a discussion group to discuss my hunger.

I was imprisoned and you quietly crept off to your chapel and prayed for my release.

I was naked, and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.

I was sick, and you knelt and thanked God for your health.

I was homeless, and you preached to me of the spiritual shelter of the love of God.

I was lonely, and you left me alone to pray for myself.

You seem so holy, so close to God.

BUT I AM STILL VERY HUNGRY…VERY LONELY…AND VERY COLD!

A celebrity baby name generator

This is hilarious!  Fit your baby with a first and middle celebrity name.

Link

I love generators.  If you have a favorite generator site, please post it!

An intriguing suggestion for journalers

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

If you have journal-keeping rituals like including your emotions or the weather or the location, go one step further. Record your paper’s headlines and comment on the stories that catch your attention–headlines that stir up your morals, problems, and solutions.  What are you emotionally charged about?  Start with something like, “This headline stirs up my sense of…”

Suppose my grandfather took my suggestion.  I would have understood his reactions to the headlines about the 1929 stock market crash.  I would have understood how he coped with the emtional struggles of knowing that it would drastically affect his family’s lives.  Maybe it would have helped me understand generational thought patterns.

Record the daily headlines as part of your journal-keeping practice, and comment on newsworthy events that have personal significance.  Who knows?  The reader of your journal just might put your solution to use and change society for the better!

Question: What are your journal-keeping habits or techniques?

New magazine for imaginative writers

CALLING FOR SUBMISSIONS

Perspectives Magazine is accepting submissions for the July 2009 issue. Who writes for Perspectives? Anyone looking to stretch their imaginative ability by giving inanimate objects human qualities. Describe the world through its eyes. Response time: 1-2 weeks.  See details at the Perspectives Magazine website.  And, be a contestant in this year’s contest starting February 1 where everyone who enters wins a gift.

Written umbilical cord

Image via Wikipedia

One year before my mother’s death, I encouraged her to start journaling her childhood memories. I never knew if she accepted my suggestion until I found her journal after the funeral. I was overwhelmed to find personal statements like, “Monique, I wanted you to know…” in her journal. I want to give that same gift to my children someday.

What an unspeakable privilege it was, and is, to read my mother’s journal: her honesty, her thoughts, her dreams, her struggles, and her unshakable faith in God. Holding her thoughts in my hand is like a life source between us–a connection, a written umbilical cord. The best thing about having her journal is that I can go over her writings, again and again, without forgetting what she said.

When I visit her grave site, I look down and think–truly–here lies buried treasure.