On Kindness

I stayed up past my bedtime last night, something I tend to do on Friday because I know that I can sleep late on Saturday. When I tumbled into bed around 1:30, I set my alarm for 8:30.

Apparently Bob the cat thought I'd forgotten to set the alarm because at precisely 6:15, the time my alarm usually goes off, he howled--one single, short howl. Not loud enough to scare me, just enough to wake me. He waited a few seconds and then leaned over and licked my nose.

The boy has learned from ugly experience that going straight to licking my nose creates a geyser of woman, sheets and noise, something to do with that caress of sandpaper between my eyes. So now he gives me a warning howl.

As I dragged myself out of bed, I thanked him for his kindness, which brings me to this post.

It's been fifteen years since the book Random Kindness & Senseless Acts of Beauty was published.


I think kindness is highly underrated.

The first act of kindness (outside of my own family) I can remember recognizing as such happened when I was about seven years old. Money was an issue in my household, and when my mother went grocery shopping, it was always with an eye to the amount of cash in her wallet. One of my early jobs was returning grocery items to the shelves when she started adding up the tab in her head as she put everything on the conveyor belt. I HATED the job and obeyed with a sullen attitude. (On the plus side--to save myself mortification--by the time I was nine, I could estimate the cost of a grocery cart full of items BEFORE we got to the checkout line. To this day, I can come within $.25 of the total when guesstimating the price of my groceries).

This particular day, I was already holding two other items to be returned when Mom handed me a bag of Oreos to take back.

I was old enough to understand the necessity, but my four-year-old brother wasn't having any. He pitched a fit as only he could do, screaming and banging his fists on the nearest surfaces. All three of us were redheads, and the sight of his angry red face under his orange hair and a bazillion freckles was pretty impressive.

Mom--who never appeared embarrassed by asking me to return items--WAS embarrassed by my brother's behavior. She leaned over and hissed, "If you want to cry, I'll give you something to really cry about."

All of a sudden, the elderly man behind us laid a $5 bill in front of my mother and said, "Allow me."

He refused to listen to her protestations and shook his head when she tried to hand it back.

Of course, that $5 was probably the equivalent of handing a $20 bill to someone today.

Mom finally accepted the money--the cashier was glaring at her to hurry up--and thanked the man for his kindness.

That act still resonates with me today.

I try very hard to be kind in my daily life and like to think I succeed more often than not--although occasionally my temper flares, putting kindness on the back burner. I blame my genes: Italian father and red-headed mother.

I also try to surround myself with kind people. I truly believe mean-spirited folk take years off your life.

I find kind men very, very sexy.

Be kind today.

Microsoft's Announcement

At 7:45 this morning, Microsoft posted an announcement on its blog that:

Today we informed our partners that we are ending the Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects and that both sites will be taken down next week. Books and scholarly publications will continue to be integrated into our Search results, but not through separate indexes.

This also means that we are winding down our digitization initiatives, including our library scanning and our in-copyright book programs. We recognize that this decision comes as disappointing news to our partners, the publishing and academic communities, and Live Search users.

They explain:

With Live Search Books and Live Search Academic, we digitized 750,000 books and indexed 80 million journal articles. Based on our experience, we foresee that the best way for a search engine to make book content available will be by crawling content repositories created by book publishers and libraries.

This is a significant change in strategy for Microsoft, which has been attempting to catch up with Google in the search engine stakes.

In one of the earliest posts on this blog in November, 2005 here, I talked about Microsoft joining the Open Content Alliance whose goal, according to Internetnews.com, is: "to digitize hundreds of thousands of books and technical papers and make them available on the Web for almost universal access."

I suspect the key to this new move is here:

We have learned a tremendous amount from our experience and believe this decision, while a hard one, can serve as a catalyst for more sustainable strategies. To that end, we intend to provide publishers with digital copies of their scanned books. We are also removing our contractual restrictions placed on the digitized library content and making the scanning equipment available to our digitization partners and libraries to continue digitization programs. We hope that our investments will help increase the discoverability of all the valuable content that resides in the world of books and scholarly publications.

Today's Wall Street Journal had an article about Microsoft's continuing "dance" with Yahoo over full or part acquisition:

For now, discussions remain focused on Yahoo's search business without any new negotiations on a full acquisition, people close to the matter say. Yahoo separately is close to a deal to carry search ads from Google Inc., say people familiar with the matter -- a pact that could further stir the waters.

Google is far and away the #1 search engine in use today. According to comScore, Inc. these were the March, 2008 statistics for percentage of the search engine market each holds:

1) Google 59.8% (up from 59.2% in February)
2) Yahoo! 21.3%
3) Microsoft 9.4%
4) AOL LLC 4.8%
5) Ask Network 4.7%

Combining #2 and #3 isn't going to be enough. Even if Microsoft buys Yahoo, that only gives them 30.7% of the search engine market with Google still nearly 30 percentage points ahead of them.

My guess is that cooler heads at Microsoft are taking a good, hard look at the chances of Microsoft's beating Google out as the top search engine. Digitizing the world's books is a very BIG, very expensive project.

Read the announcement here.

New Concepts, B&N, Time Warner

More On New Concepts Publishing
My good friend Cat Brown aka Samantha Storm is the owner and operator of the Romance Junkies website.

Check out a post she did on the RJ blog on Tuesday here about online publisher New Concepts.

Barnes & Noble Eyes Borders
The Wall Street Journal had an article about Barnes & Noble studying the possibility of acquiring Borders:

Barnes & Noble Inc., the nation's largest book chain by sales, has assembled a team of executives and advisers to study the possibility of acquiring No. 2 chain Borders Group Inc., according to a person familiar with the situation.

Whether such a deal would pass antitrust hurdles is unclear. Barnes & Noble has about 20% to 22% of the retail book market, while Borders controls 10% to 12%, estimates Albert Greco, a professor at the Fordham Graduate School of Business.

Time Warner Spins Off Cable Division
Two years ago, in February 2006, corporate raider Carl Icahn proposed breaking up the Time Warner Company into four separate companies: AOL, television and film, publishing and cable.

In an effort to appease Icahn, Time Warner agreed to a deal that included reducing costs by a $1 billion. A month later in March 2006, Time Warner sold the Time Warner Book Group to French publisher Hachette Livre, of the Lagardere Group. A year later, the new owners changed the name of the Time Warner Book Group to Grand Central Books.

The Associated Press reported yesterday:

Media conglomerate Time Warner and Time Warner Cable say their boards have approved the companies' legal separation, with Time Warner Cable expected to pay a hefty $10.9 billion one-time dividend to shareholders. New York-based parent Time Warner Inc. will receive $9.25 billion of the dividend payout.

"Separating the two companies will help their management teams focus on realizing the full potential of the respective businesses and will provide investors with greater choice in how they own this portfolio of assets," said Time Warner President and Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes.

The new deal leaves Time Warner with two of the four divisions: AOL and the television and film unit.

Random House Is Forward-Thinking

The publishing world was agog yesterday at the news that Markus Dohle has been crowned the new Random House king (and chief executive). The CEO of Bertelsmann, Random House's parent company, issued a statement.

According to Yahoo:

Dohle, head of a printing unit at Bertelsmann's Arvato division, replaces Peter W. Olson, who has had the job since 1998, but was hampered by losses at the unit amid a wider slowdown in sales of books . . .

"Random House plays an important role in Bertelsmann's growth strategy," Bertelsmann CEO Hartmut Ostrowski said in a statement. "Markus Dohle will continue to advance the development of (the) world's market-leading trade book publishing group through new ideas and by opening up new lines of business" . . .

"With his proven talent for innovation he [Dohle] will enhance Random House's long-term value and keep it strong even in a mature book marketplace," Ostrowski said.

The company said Olson, 58, was leaving at his own wish. He had been grappling with declining profits at the publishing house.

The thing that stirred the most comment was the fact that Dohle comes to his new job from the printing side of the business, not the publishing side.

Publishers Weekly had this to say:

The choice of Dohle to lead Random, rather than a publishing veteran, is meant to inject a new entrepreneurial spirit at the company. Ostrowski praised Dohle for his work at Bertelsmann’s Arvato printing group and was confident he could turn another mature business into a growth business . . . Dohle "will bring his innovative energy to tapping new lines of business for the company, such as the digital realm, and to lengthening its value chain.” Asked what lengthening the value chain means, Ostrowski said that publishing needs to take advantage of new marketing channels and get books to customers in new ways. One way to do that, Ostrowski said, is to create brands around popular books, much the way Random’s children’s group has done with Eragon.

According to Ostrowski, he "is not expecting a quick change in direction at Random, saying that Dohle 'should take his time to come up with a program,' adding that the new chairman has no mandate to downsize the company. The financial target for RH, as it is for all Bertelsmann companies, is an average of 4% annual internal growth . . ."

"Olson will move to Cambridge where he is close to landing a senior faculty position at a nearby university.”

I'm reminded of a post I did way back in November, 2005 here. At that time, I said this:

"Unwilling to let a Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft dictate terms in cyberspace, Random House, Inc., the world's largest trade publisher, is taking the industry lead. In early November it outlined ways it would begin to offer its books directly to consumers on a page-per-view basis. Random House will get at least 4 cents a page and split that roughly in half with authors for fiction and narrative non-fiction titles."

Richard Sarnoff, president of Random House's corporate development unit, was remarkably frank in his interview with BusinessWeek. "'We acknowledge that a generation is growing up that may not have the same visceral connection with the book format,'" he said. "'They have read as much on screens as they have on paper. We need vehicles to translate our books in different ways.'"

Finally, Publishers Marketplace had a link to an interview with Ostrowski. It wasn't hard to read between the lines:

Markus Dohle is the right executive at the right time in the right company. He is one of the outstanding young [39 to Olson's 58] entrepreneurs who will shape the future of Bertelsmann. Frankly, he’s been helping shape it for some time. Ever since he was appointed to head Mohn Media Group six years ago, he has demonstrated repeatedly his innovative power to bring businesses in mature markets to new heights. He is very capable of mastering turnarounds large and small and motivating and working collaboratively with the management and staff. Markus gets his colleagues excited about their shared goals and stimulated by fresh ideas for their company. I’m sure he’ll be inspiring the Random House staff with his entrepreneurial spirit before too long. Because as successful as Random House already is, the book business urgently needs new impetus for the future, to be able to grow again in view of challenges such as technological advances . . .

[H]e contributes his outstanding entrepreneurial skills, his love of innovation, and his purposeful, problem-solving approach to entrepreneurial challenges. These are precisely the traits needed at this time to make Random House – and Bertelsmann – ready for the publishing business of the near- and more distant future. Or put differently, to turn stability into growth.

Nathan Bransford Has A New Contest

Run, don't walk, to Nathan Bransford's blog.

He of the indomitable spirit (and some would say, the poor memory, having forgotten the pain of his previous contests), has announced a NEW CONTEST here.

The new contest--appropriately named The Preposterously Magnificent Dialogue Contest--seeks to identify 250 words of superb dialogue (and supporting description).

You only have until 5:00 PM Pacific time today (7:00 PM CST) to enter the contest.

So, what are you waiting for??? Get moving.

It's Here! Touch of Fire is Here!

I'm so fortunate in my critique partners . . . who are also my friends. They are an enormously talented and creative group of people. I'd like to introduce you to one of them today: Maria Zannini.



Maria and I met on a writers' loop a couple of years ago. We then discovered we both live in the greater Dallas area. For the past two years, we've met for lunch or dinner a couple of times a month and also critique each other's work online.

In addition to being a writer, Maria is an enormously talented painter and graphic artist. And, today, her first novel--a futuristic fantasy titled Touch of Fire--is being published by Samhain. Here is the gorgeous cover:



I've asked her to come talk to us today about the new novel.

Maria, tell us about Touch of Fire.

1200 years from now, technology on Earth has been replaced by elemental magic. Society is divided between the plainfolk and the fae, mages who can wield one of the four great elements: air, water, earth, and fire.

An ancient alchemist's bible has surfaced, a book that threatens to bring back the technology of the last age. Leda, a fire mage, has been charged with locating the book. The trail leads her to Greyhawke Tams, an ex-soldier turned scavenger who'd rather rot in jail than help one of the Elementals.

But they need each other more than they know. A powerful warlord is hunting them both. Grey has been marked for death, but the warlord needs Leda as a breeder in his quest to create a fifth Elemental.

What made you write a futuristic fantasy?

I love all sorts of fantasy, but I have a soft spot for futuristics, especially if they're set on Earth. There's a little bit of the social scientist in me. I like speculating how society will evolve and grow. For me, the most enjoyable part of writing Touch of Fire was the world building.

I had a blast extrapolating the perception of everyday objects and beliefs and giving them logical extensions at how they would appear in a world that's been stripped of technology and 21st century mores.

Talk about how Touch of Fire came to be published.

It's all your fault, Maya! LOL! Last year, Samhain Publishing had a First Line Contest. At the time I didn't have a manuscript, but I had a vague concept for a fantasy. I remember you goading me. "Go on," you said. "All you need are five lines."

I entered the contest and was one of the winners. I was shocked—and then horrified because now I needed to turn in a full manuscript. It was a rocky few weeks but when I finished, I absolutely fell in love with the story, the characters, and the world. It was a place I wanted to revisit. Now I'm planning the sequel.

Any hints about the sequel?

Two words. Time travel. Our heroes will be wreaking havoc at an office building near you.

What's been the most surprising aspect about this journey to publication?

I think the thing that sticks out in my mind is that you're never quite ready for the curtain to rise. Suddenly, that simple little story you concocted in the recesses of your brain is part of a much larger domain. The journey takes an author's closeted idea and throws it out on an open field. What grows--or doesn't is up to the seed and the elements.

My deepest wish is that this will be a book that people will love as much as I do. I hope it touches them and strikes a sense of wonder and surprise. At its core, Touch of Fire is a story about marvel and magic, and discovering what you're made of when it counts.

It's about the future, but it's also about the present. It's about us, how we change, yet how we stay the same.

How can people find you and your book?

The link to read an excerpt and buy the e-book is here. You'll also be able to buy the print copy in a few months.

I hope people read the book and are excited enough by the story to drop me a line. I love meeting new people! I know a lot of folks say that writing is a lonely and solitary profession, but that hasn't been true for me. Quite the opposite. It's been a whirlwind of interaction and strong friendships. I hope it never stops.

Please visit me on my blog http://mariazannini.blogspot.com/ or my website: http://www.mariazannini.com/. And if you're the friending type, feel free to friend me over at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/mariazannini .

I'm looking forward to buying the e-book. Any last words?

Maya, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to have a contest on your blog. Let's call it, "The Day After Contest". One winner will be chosen from anyone who posts a comment here and makes a prediction about the future.

Here are the details:
On December 21, 2012, the Mayan calendar abruptly ends. Tell me what happens the day AFTER, on December 22, 2012. The best and/or funniest prediction (imho) will win a free download for Touch of Fire. Contest ends: 24 hours after the time/date of this post.

Thanks for having me over, Maya! If people are judged by the friends they keep, I am in wonderful company.

Thanks for visiting, Maria. I'm really excited about Touch of Fire. Congratulations, again.

Remembering Miss Snark

American Heritage Dictionary - Anniversary (ān'ə-vûr'sə-rē) n. pl. an·ni·ver·sa·ries

The annually recurring date of a past event, especially one of historical, national, or personal importance . . . A celebration commemorating such a date.

Today is an anniversary. The first annually recurring date of an event of personal importance to me.

A year ago today Miss Snark retired.

I wasn't the first Snarkling or even the twenty-first Snarkling, although I'd hazard a guess that I was among the first hundred Snarklings.

It was the summer of 2005, and I'd decided it was time to establish a web presence. I'd selected three different blog hosts and was posting anonymously on them while I decided which to use and how to approach this thing called blogging.

I'd visited a lot of writer and publishing blogs when I first came across Miss Snark's. The link to the first of her posts that I can recall reading is here. I remember this post because I was a huge fan of Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar mysteries, and she mentioned Coben.

For a couple of months, I stopped by her site several times a week
--just to see what she was up to. It was the fifth post on this page here titled "Who's on First? No, That's on Second? What? no..That's at 1745 Broadway" that converted me into a diehard Snarkling. Her description of Random House "and all its villages" just did me in.

I began this blog at this location on September 14, 2005, and my third post here directed readers to Miss Snark's blog.

Imagine my surprise when--within hours--she had posted a comment to my post. It had never occurred to me to Google my name to see who was linking to my blog. She taught me to do that.

Over the next eighteen months, Miss Snark taught me lots of things: to overcome my natural tendency to offer up backstory, to do my research on agents, and that everything is negotiable. When I got my first contract and panicked because of language I'd never heard of before, I emailed her offline and she responded with great kindness and patience.

Although I've moved other agents and bloggers from the current list to the "Gone, But Not Forgotten" section of this blog, I could not bring myself to do the same thing to Miss Snark when she retired. Although she and her snarky voice have moved on to greener pastures, I still regularly refer newbie writers to the Miss Snark archives.

Celebrating Miss Snark and all her great advice today. Go here to post a comment to her.

Yahoo/Microsoft Update

Early this morning, Microsoft announced they are back in talks with Yahoo.

Go here to read the story.

Teens Read?, Yahoo Beware!, User-Created Mag

Teens Reading More
Newsweek had an interesting article about the resurgence of reading in teens. The article cites a couple of reasons for this "perfect storm for teen lit":

the most obvious two being the increasing sophistication and emotional maturity of teenagers and the accompanying new freedom for writers in the genre to explore virtually any subject. Another is that bookstores and libraries are finally recognizing this niche and separating teen books from children's books.

Read the article here.

Icahn Issues Ultimatum to Yahoo
Regular readers of this blog will remember that I wrote extensively about billionaire investor Carl Icahn and the pressure he brought to bear on Time Warner a a few years ago after buying a 3.3% stake in the company. He demanded that the board of directors break up Time Warner into four pieces. He and the company finally reached a settlement in February, 2006. The New York Times reported:

. . . a deal was struck: two independent directors would be added to Time Warner's roster . . . Time Warner also agreed to increase its planned buyback of shares to $20 billion, from $12.5 billion, and to commit to reduce costs by $1 billion.

Icahn has now turned his gaze upon Yahoo. He has purchased 4.3% of the company's stock in shares and option. On Friday, the Associated Press reported:

Spurred on by outraged shareholders, Icahn notified Yahoo Thursday that he will lead a revolt to oust Yang and the rest of the Internet company's board unless they renew negotiations with Microsoft that fell apart May 3 when the two sides couldn't agree on a price.

Yahoo hasn't even had time to relax after fending off Microsoft's advances. Read the whole story here.

A User-Generated Magazine
In an interesting twist, the June issue of Budget Travel is being published with almost 100% reader-generated material:

. . . Budget Travel has allowed its readers to generate all of the text and photography—only the “40 Best Deals” section was written by staffers.

Read about it here.

No, I Don't Want To Touch Down, Thank You

This has been a pretty busy time for me. I may have mentioned once or twice [grin] that I'm on a deadline for my next book, I also had a workshop I'd signed up to do this month (before I knew the deadline, of course), and I've got another workshop in St. Louis next month. Things are hopping at the university; I'm trying to bring a Chinese neuroscientist over on an H-1B visa and dealing with our International Department is teaching me a whole new definition of the word "patience."

So I've been a bit more distracted than usual.

However, even I couldn't help but notice when Bob the cat decided to forego the floors of my house. He started working on his Tarzan impersonation: jumping from the backdoor to the recliner to the coffee table to the couch to the end table; then swinging to the breakfast room chair and to the kitchen counter and finally to his dishes.

I wouldn't have thought it was possible to navigate my house without setting foot on the floor, but he's been doing a hell of a job. The only thing that has defeated him are the two halls--one from the den to the front door and the other from the front hall to my study (the two halls form an "L" through the middle of my house). When he wants to make those trips, he sits on the couch and howls for a ride, much like a New Yorker waving down a cab.

Because I've been busy (see Paragraph #1), I haven't bothered to try and psychoanalyze his newest quirk. I've just offered ferry services when required. I pick him up and carry him to wherever he wants to go; if I make a wrong turn, he hisses, and I make the appropriate course correction.

Bob's favorite stop on the Maya Transit System is the empty place next to my laptop created by my calico Manx Tribble's death seven months ago. Both Bob and I take comfort from his lying in the same spot where Tribble used to lay. Of course, being Bob, he's a lot more demanding than Tribble ever thought to be. He flings a paw across my wrist when he feels neglected, or stands up to bump my face with his head as a reminder he needs some lovin'. But there's no question; my writing goes better when he's beside me.

I will admit to a bit of anxiety about Bob's avoidance of the floor. I live in a pier-and-beam house. I wondered whether a possum or raccoon was beneath the floorboards. I started having nightmares during which a rabid raccoon burst through the floor, foaming at the mouth. (No, my deadline isn't creating any anxiety, but thank you very much for asking). Despite my listening carefully, I heard nothing coming from below the house. I'm taking the last week of May off (to finish the book) and was planning to call an exterminator at that time.

The mystery of Bob's floor phobia was solved ahead of schedule when I started scratching my ankles: WE HAD FLEAS.

Back when I had more than one animal, I was religious about flea control. Every April, I purchased Frontline topical treatment for the animals and continued the monthly applications until November.

This year with only one cat in the house, I just forgot. And Bob showed no signs of scratching--of course, he was practicing his own version of self-help for fleas by staying off the carpet.

Just one more thing to worry about this month. Did I mention my sleep cycle is off, too?

After I'd treated Bob and the house and ascertained the flea problem was a thing of the past, I declared the Maya Transit System was shutting down service. Of course, Bob did not agree with this abrupt labor strike. He continued to wait at the usual stops along the Maya line, howling for service. I ignored him.

The situation between transport and client came to a head the other night as I whizzed past a regular stop. Like a true commuter, Bob launched himself into the air, intending to jump aboard the passing trolley.

He hit my back roughly below my shoulder blades, hooking his claws into a gorgeous purple knit blouse. The weight of his body tore the lightweight fabric all the way to my waist.

Hell hath no fury like a woman whose favorite blouse has just been shredded off her body. Fortunately for Bob, he hadn't even scratched me once in the process. I swung around and captured the one paw still hooked in my blouse. I lifted him by the leg, unhooked him and dumped him back on the couch.

Recognizing this was a good time to make himself scarce, Bob hit the floor in a blur of motion. He didn't even re-surface at bedtime--a wise decision I might add.

There have been no more requests for mass transit from the feline front.