Barnes & Noble's Second Quarter Call

Last Thursday morning, the executives of Barnes & Noble met on a conference call with the security analysts who follow their stock to discuss the 2nd Quarter results for 2008. I listened to the call from my desk at the university. I was particularly interested in hearing about the resignation of the CEO of B&N.com, who had quit a few days earlier.

According to last Tuesday's Publishers Weekly:

Marie Toulantis, who has been associated with Barnes & Noble.com since 1999 and has led the company for more than six years, has resigned as CEO. Barnes & Noble is not directly replacing Toulantis and her duties will be divided up between Tom Burke, who is executive v-p of e-commerce for B&N.com, and Kevin Frain, B&N.com CFO who has added the title of executive v-p of e-commerce operations.

Because of Toulantis' resignation, I listened to the entire call.

And no one mentioned her resignation once. Not Steve Riggio, the B&N CEO; not Joseph Lombardi, the CFO; and not any of the analysts asking questions.

To say I was torqued is an understatement.

There were some interesting points made. Publishers Lunch taught me last year that I could find the transcripts of these conference calls on Seeking Alpha here.

I've pulled some excerpts from the call that I found noteworthy. The speaker is Steve Riggio, the B&N CEO. In the first excerpt, he is talking about the growth of the B&N Internet business:

Our Internet sales were clearly a bright spot in the quarter with a 13.9% growth excluding the effect of Harry Potter. I will note that this is the seventh straight quarter of growth for our Internet business with double digit growth in 2007 and for the first half of 2008. Traffic to the site is up, conversions are up and we continue to enhance the site from usability as well as a content perspective.

[Note from Maya: But not a word about the resignation of the CEO of that business line. Grrrr]

We've also begun to expand our content offerings to include products offered only online enabling us to leverage the eCommerce infrastructure we have built.

If you look at all of the business that we transact in our stores and online, and you exclude the effect of Harry Potter, and the music business, our comp sales are actually up a freckle about .6% overall. So, all in all we're very pleased with the results of the quarter . . .

Riggio went on to talk about their membership program and the discounts associated with it:

Our member program is seven years old and we continue to experiment with a variety of different offers of different discounts at every level. So, is it typical of what we've been testing? Yes and we will continue to test. But, the message is that overall the amount of discounts that we give over and above the everyday discounts has been declining because we feel that we don't need to do that. Customers are coming back by the virtue of the fact that they're members . . .

Finally, Riggio talked about B&N's digital productions:

We began selling digital magazines earlier this year on the website. We're very encouraged by what we're seeing there and like with all new strategic developments of any type, we will announce it on the day that we launch but we can't really make any further comments on anything that we will be doing or might be doing, it's just so highly strategic . . .

There's the indication that we began selling digital magazines and the fact that we're very pleased with what we're seeing there points to a small slice of the arena. We do not believe that eBooks is the total universe of digital products that will be sold in the marketplace. It is a subset of a much larger arena of digital content in many ways. So, we're looking at the entire arena.

Seeking Alpha permits visitors to their site to quote up to 400 words as long as they give attribution and the link here. I've quoted 378 words.

My Definition Of Hope

This is a photo of my four-month-old nephew, Trevor. I've made it my screensaver both at home and at the university because I smile every time I see it.

The Snowball Is Preparing To Roll

Saturday's Wall Street Journal had an article by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg on the forthcoming book about Warren Buffet titled The Snowball.

According to the author, the title is based on a comment by Buffet: "Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill."

The WSJ says Bantam "paid $7.2 million for the North American rights and expects to sell more than 1 million hardcover copies of The Snowball, which is due out September 29."

Alice Schroeder, author of the biography, met Buffett about ten years ago when she was an analyst at Paine Webber reporting on Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett's company. He reportedly gave her access to his personal files and correspondence and a letter of introduction to his friends.

However, it appears that Buffett will not be publicizing the book. According to The Journal:

A person familiar with the situation says Mr. Buffett was initially upset about some of the content. The issue has to do with his first marriage. Mr. Buffett's first wife, Susan, left him and moved to San Francisco in 1977. The two, however, never divorced, and with his wife's encouragement, Astrid Menks, a waitress at the French Cafe in Omaha, eventually moved in with Mr. Buffett. She later married him following Susan's death in 2004.

Buffett and Menks, who was born in Latvia, married on his 76th birthday in 2006. This coming Saturday when he celebrates his 78th birthday, they will have been together for 30 years. She is 62.

A spokesman for Buffett said it wasn't true that he isn't going to do a junket tour for the book because he was upset about material included. The WSJ article says:

Ms. Schroeder acknowledges that Mr. Buffett disagreed with some of what he read in the manuscript but says he didn't ask her to delete anything. She adds that she has 'multiple sources for everything of any significance in my book'.

Ms. Schroeder says her goal was to show the entire man, not merely one aspect of him.

Bantam is going to have to sell an awful lot of books to make a profit on this book. I have always admired Mr. Buffett and will probably buy a copy.

Gone Fishin'

I'll be away for a week.

Look for me again on Monday, August 25.

Take care.

Crossing the Divide Between Genres

I've mentioned fantasy writer Patricia Briggs multiple times on this blog. Briggs writes the Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series published by Ace about a coyote shapeshifter who lives in a small Pacific Northwest community populated by werewolves and vampires.

I resisted reading the first book in the series, Moon Called, which was released in January, 2006 because I was soooo burned out on werewolf stories. By the time I read it, Blood Bound, the second in the series was already out.

I read the first two novels very quickly and was enormously impressed by Briggs' skillful characterizations and terrific world-building. In my review of the first two books in the series almost exactly a year ago here, I said the following:

My only quibble is that Briggs seems a little too leery of romance--or maybe it's sex. She skirts around the subject with all the main male characters in love with Mercy, but with her running from them all. This will get tiresome really fast if Briggs doesn't commit soon. Mercy's over thirty, for heaven's sake. By now, she's living with one werewolf on a platonic basis (despite the fact that they were lovers when she was sixteen. And I am so not buying into their being "platonic" now). . .

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD REGARDING ON THE PROWL AND IRON KISSED.

About ten days before I posted that review, Berkley, sister imprint to Briggs' own publisher, Ace, released an anthology titled On the Prowl. The anthology contained a novella by Briggs titled "Alpha and Omega" (A&O) featuring characters from the Mercy Thompson series, but not Mercy herself.

I was intrigued by the fact that Briggs was crossing imprints. Additionally, there were other differences between A&O and the Mercy Thompson series.

First, the story is written in third person, rather than the more intimate first person style of the Mercy series. Third person permits the sharing of the hero's POV (point of view).

Second, A&O was not an urban fantasy as much as it was a paranormal romance.

Third, although the novella included characters from the Mercy Thompson series, it is set in Chicago, not in the Pacific Northwest.

"Alpha and Omega" tells the the story of Anna, a werewolf belonging to the Chicago pack. The alpha of her pack is out of control, allowing abuse of the more submissive wolves by the dominant. With her alpha's permission, Anna has been repeatedly raped by the pack. While she is unwilling to act on her own behalf, when she discovers another young werewolf has died, Anna phones Bran Cornick, the Marrok of all the North American werewolves, to report the abuse.

The Marrok sends his son Charles, his enforcer, to set things to rights. Anna meets Charles at the airport, and he immediately recognizes that she is not the submissive she thinks. Instead she is a rare Omega werewolf.

A&O is the story of Charles and Anna's romance. Or, more properly, the romance between Charles' wolf and Anna's wolf.

In Briggs' world, the human side of the werewolves generally selects a mate. The wolves go along for the ride. However, in Charles and Anna's case, the wolves immediately recognize each other as lifemates, and the humans are forced to cope with the aftermath of that decision.

I enjoyed the novella, which reminded me a lot of the Christine Feehan romances. Alpha male tamed by spunky woman. The main difference between the two was that Feehan writes vampire romances and Briggs is writing about werewolves. However, as I said earlier, A&O was NOT an urban fantasy. I figured Briggs was trying to tap into the enormous paranormal romance market.

That suspicion proved correct since Briggs has now announced that novella was the introduction to a new series called "Alpha and Omega." The first book in that series was released almost three weeks ago and titled Cry Wolf.

The new novel continues the romance of Charles and Anna as their human halves attempt to find their way as a couple. It picks up immediately after A&O. You have the feeling that A&O was actually the first few chapters of Cry Wolf.

I've read the comment stream on Amazon relating to Cry Wolf. Of the 45 reviews currently posted there, 20 or 44% are five-star. Fourteen or 31% are four-star. About a quarter of the reviews (24%) are three-star or lower. All of the three-star or lower reviews focussed on one of three themes as follows:

Liander gave it three stars saying:

It's basically a fun romance, nothing unique.

Kathleen complained about not knowing Cry Wolf was a continuation of a novella she had not yet read:

Since the book is billed as the first volume in its series, this was more than a little unfair to this reader who had yet to read what should be the first few chapters of this book.

Minsma summed it up this way:

I really loved the story from the On the Prowl anthology which was the basis of this novel, so I was eager to read this one. It's good, I liked it, but it didn't strike me as being as well-paced as most of Ms. Briggs' books--perhaps because the entire opening of the novel was sliced off and turned into a story for the anthology.

Meanwhile, Iron Kissed, the third book in the Mercy Thompson series, was released in January of this year. I gave it a rave review here. I think it is the best of the three Mercy Thompson novels.

Interestingly enough, the community of romance readers was hugely divided on Iron Kissed . Dear Author, one of the most well-known of the romance reader blogs, did two separate posts with Jane giving Iron Kissed an A- here and Jia giving it a C+ here (although Jia had so much distaste for the book I'm surprised she rated it that high). The comment stream of both reviews is well worth reading.

What I found so interesting was that, in both "Alpha and Omega" and in Iron Kissed, the heroine is raped. But the reactions of the mostly female readership were so different to the two rapes.

I suspect this is because in A&O and Cry Wolf the rape is referred to in the past tense as a part of the heroine's backstory while in Iron Kissed, the reader "sees" the rape in actual progress.

It probably says something about me that I preferred Iron Kissed. While I enjoyed "Alpha and Omega," I found reading about Anna in the full-length Cry Wolf annoying. She was a little too much of a victim for my taste. I still haven't finished Cry Wolf. Actually I began reading the new Kat Richardson instead of finishing it.

The whole thing makes me curious to see how the next Mercy Thompson book, Bone Crossed, will do when it comes out next February. I'm looking forward to it. By the way, the first chapter of Bone Crossed is at the back of Cry Wolf, and it makes clear that Mercy is no one's victim.

I'm also looking forward to seeing two series--one an urban fantasy and the other a paranormal romance--written by the same author using the same world and the same characters and published by the same imprint, Ace Fantasy.

By the way, I need to be gone for a week. Look for me to come back on Monday, August 25th.

Misha Redux

Back in the spring, I wrote two posts on the 1997 book, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years, which was uncovered as a hoax at the end of February.

In her "memoir," Misha Defonseca claimed that, when she was six, she'd run into a forest to avoid the Nazis who had seized her Jewish parents. She described living with wolves over the next four years. The book became a best-seller in Europe and was turned into a French film, Survivre avec les loups (Surviving With Wolves) .

Read my earlier posts here and here.

Since the time of my posts, a woman who took Misha Defonseca and her husband Maurice in, thinking they were destitute, has created a blog to tell her story here.

And Jane Daniel, who published Misha's "memoir" in this country has continued writing a blog here while awaiting the outcome of her suit against Defonseca in which she seeks to overturn
the 2001 judgment against her of $33 million. Daniel and Defonseca will face off in a courtroom later this month.

Daniel has returned to the publishing business. She is releasing a trade paperback of her experiences with Defonseca. The book is titled Bestseller! Although her blog indicates it was released yesterday and that it would be available on Amazon.com and B&N's website, I could not find it in either place.

A Thursday Publishers Weekly story indicated the book would be released next week. Since most books are released on Tuesday, I'm guessing the new release date is August 19th.

Stay tuned for the results of the lawsuit . . .

B&N Says Not Interested in Borders

Thursday's Wall Street Journal had an article co-written by my favorite WSJ reporter Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg:

Barnes & Noble Inc., the nation's largest bookstore chain, isn't expected to make a bid for No. 2 Borders Group Inc., according to those familiar with the situation.

The decision will disappoint investors who have acquired Borders stock in recent months in hopes that Barnes & Noble would move in and buy its most significant bricks-and-mortar rival. Borders put itself up for sale in March after disclosing potential liquidity problems.

Marketwatch.com chimed in:

Barnes & Noble could still change its mind and make an offer, but Borders is hoping to complete the auction by the end of September, the Journal's latest report said. However, if Barnes & Noble does end up bidding for Borders, it's not clear whether antitrust authorities would clear the deal.

Both Barnes & Noble and Borders have faced increased competition from online retailers like Amazon.com while overall book sales haven't shown much growth, analysts have said. A combination between the two book giants could yield cost savings and bolster sales and profit, though the close physical proximity of some of the competing stores may pose a challenge.

An Important Copyright Case Is Decided

Yesterday, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided a case that may have consequences for the heirs of other authors.

The case was Penguin Group, Inc. v. Steinbeck, and it pitted two sides of the Nobel Prize winner's family against each other.

On one side was the offspring of Steinbeck's second marriage to Gwyndolyn Conger. He and Gwyn were married for only five years from 1943 to 1948, but their union produced his only children, Thom and John IV. Thom and his brother's daughter, Blake Smyle, joined together in the lawsuit. Blake's father, John, died in 1991.

On the other side was the estate of Steinbeck's third wife (and widow) Elaine whom he married in 1950. Their marriage lasted until his death in 1968. She died thirty-five years later in 2003.

When he died, Steinbeck left his two sons $50,000 each. He left his widow Elaine his interest in the copyrights to his early works. This case concerned ten of those early works, including The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men and Tortilla Flat.

Back in 1938-1939, Steinbeck had signed publishing contracts with The Viking Press covering those early works. According to Viking's website, the imprint (and its contracts) was purchased by Penguin books in 1975.

In exchange for giving Penguin rights to additional works, Elaine negotiated a better deal with Penguin in 1994. According to Law.com, she got "a larger annual guaranteed advance and royalties of between 10 percent and 15 percent of retail sales."

When she died in 2003, Elaine bequeathed her copyright interests to her own children and grandchildren by a previous marriage. She did not leave anything to her husband's sons.

Many authors are familiar with a law that passed in 1998--The Copyright Term Extension Act, sometimes called the Sonny Bono Act--which extended copyright terms in the U.S. by twenty years. Less well known is a provision of that law that allows authors and heirs to terminate contracts and "recapture some of the additional value produced by the lengthened copyright term . . ." (Law.com)

A year after Elaine's death, Steinbeck's son and granddaughter contacted Penguin, announcing their plan to terminate the 1994 agreement.

Both Penguin and Elaine's heirs sued.

In 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Owen ruled in favor of Steinbeck's blood relatives over his widow's heirs. According to the London Times:

Judge Owen wrote that copyright law reflected that “a number of such young composers, artists and authors . . . such as John Steinbeck writing his first book in 1929, cannot predict the high stature they would attain, and the popular prominence of their works in musical and literary conciousness — not to mention the eventual high financial rewards to them and their families their work can command.”

Law.com also quoted Judge Owen:

. . . any interpretation of the 1994 agreement "having the effect of disinheriting the statutory heirs to the termination interest [the Steinbeck Descendants] in favor of Elaine's heirs must be set aside as contrary to the very purpose of the termination statute."

Penguin appealed. And yesterday the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Owen's decision.

Elaine's attorney, Susan J. Kohlmann, was quoted by Law.com:

"There aren't a lot of decisions interpreting termination rights under the copyright law," Kohlmann said. "By the court's decision, the wishes of John Steinbeck related to the ownership of his literary works has been validated."

Judge Robert Sack, writing for the appeals court wrote that, once Elaine negotiated that better deal, there was no case under the Sonny Bono Act for the Steinbeck blood heirs to terminate the contract.

Law.com closed its article with a quote from the Steinbeck descendents' attorney:

He said the case will now be returned to Owen for further proceedings on claims the descendents have against the estate of Elaine Steinbeck, including their monetary damages claim that she conspired to deprive them of their statutory termination rights when she negotiated the 1994 Penguin deal.

The Tale of The Jewel of Medina

A week ago yesterday, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an op/ed article titled "You Still Can't Write About Muhammad" here. In it, an ex-WSJ reporter named Asra Nomani told the story of a first-time author named Sherry Jones.

In 2002 Ms. Jones, a correspondent for the Bureau of National Affairs, a news agency, decided she wanted to write an historical novel about the Aisha, the youngest wife of the Prophet Muhammad and Aisha's influence on the founding of Islam. Jones did a lot of research (you can see her bibliographic list here) and over half a dozen years she wrote her novel, which she titled The Jewel of Medina, found an agent (Natasha Kern) and sought publication.

According to Ms. Nomani's Journal article, Ballantine, a division of Random House (RH), bought the novel in 2007 in a $100,000, two-book deal. The book was scheduled to be released yesterday . . . until Random House pulled the plug on May 21. A month later, on June 21, Ms. Jones signed a termination agreement with RH so that she and Ms. Kern could try to market the novel elsewhere.

Why?

Because, in April, Ballantine asked Ms. Jones to compile a list of academics who *might* be willing to endorse The Jewel of Medina. Ms. Jones added the name of an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin whose book she had read during her research. Denise Spellberg's book was also about Aisha and was titled Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha Bint Abi Bakr. Ballantine sent Ms. Spellberg and other scholars a copy of the galley of Ms. Jones' novel.

Ms. Nomani's article reports:

But Ms. Spellberg wasn't a fan of Ms. Jones's book. On April 30, Shahed Amanullah, a guest lecturer in Ms. Spellberg's classes and the editor of a popular Muslim Web site, got a frantic call from her. "She was upset," Mr. Amanullah recalls. He says Ms. Spellberg told him the novel "made fun of Muslims and their history," and asked him to warn Muslims.

Mr. Amanullah sent an email out to Middle Eastern and Islamic studies graduate students warning them of the call he'd received and including report of the sale from the May 7, 2007 issue of Publishers Marketplace:

Journalist Sherry Jones's debut historical novel A'ISHA, BELOVED OF MUHAMMAD, set in seventh-century Arabia, the story of the favorite wife of the Prophet Muhammad, recreating her marriage at the age of nine, her struggle for personal freedom in a society where women had few rights, and her dedication to The Prophet's vision of a true faith . . . "

Ms. Spellberg's work wasn't done, however. According to Ms. Nomani, she also contacted her own editor at Knopf, another division of Random House. That editor, Jane Garrett, sent an email to her bosses that read in part:

"She [Ms. Spellberg] thinks there is a very real possibility of major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence," . . . "Denise says it is 'a declaration of war . . . explosive stuff . . . a national security issue' . . . thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP."

Following publication of Ms. Nomani's article, Ms. Jones began her own blog here. In her entry for August 6th, she says:

Denise Spellberg, the UT professor who started all this, called it [her novel] "soft porn" -- which makes me feel like a literary master, able to write a pornographic novel without sex scenes!

Bloggers are going wild, reading all kinds of things into Ms. Nomani's excellent opinion piece. Some believe the Random House assertion that several people warned of potential terrorist attack. If so, that's news to me. The only one I was told about was Ms. Spellberg.

Ms. Spellberg apparently demanded equal time from the Wall Street Journal because on Saturday, the WSJ ran a second piece on the subject by Ms. Spellberg titled "I Didn't Kill the Jewel of Medina." You can read it here.

In her rebuttal, Ms. Spellberg accuses Ms. Nomani of false assertions and says she did not stop the book's publication. Of course, she is right. That was Random House's decision.

She also speaks of her "scholarly expertise" and "professional capacity" in making an assessment of the novel and its potential to provoke anger among Muslims. She does not make any reference to her own attempts to provoke Muslims.

She complains of Ms. Jones' "fallacious representation" of the facts of Aisha's life. With what seems to me to be a remarkably ironic self-righteous tone, she says:

I do not espouse censorship of any kind, but I do value my right to critique those who abuse the past without regard for its richness or resonance in the present.

The purpose of this post is to exercise MY right to critique those who abuse the present by shouting "Fire" AND THEN proceeding to ignite the spark that creates the very conflagration of which she warns.

This behavior on the part of a so-called academic is reprehensible in my view. Ms. Spellman speaks of exploitation, but I find her not-so-subtle threats to the Random House staff worse than any pandering to those who espouse "sex and violence." She practically invited reprisals to the publisher by her irresponsible and hysterical behavior.

Without regard for whether The Jewel of Medina is well-written or well-researched, I hope it soon finds a publisher.

A Question of Moral Justice

I've already extolled the virtues of NPR's program, Radio Lab, on this blog. Every week, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich select a subject--usually something from the world of science or philosophy--to discuss.

On Sunday night, I listened to a show on moral justice. Essentially it explored the question of whether morality is innate or learned. What do you think?

The show started with a very famous thought experiment. I've heard it posed and discussed multiple times in the past. Here it is:

You are standing beside a trolley track. Ahead of you on the track are five men working. Their backs are toward you. Behind you, a trolley is coming toward toward the men. You've screamed, but the men can't hear you.

You realize there's a lever nearby that will divert the trolley onto another track. The only problem is that there's a man working on that track. By pushing on the lever, you'll save the five men, BUT . . . the single man will likely be killed.

Do you push the lever to save the five, knowing it will kill the one?

I'm not going to tell you how most people--across cultures, genders, and educational levels--respond. I will tell you that their responses are almost universally identical. Instead I'm going to pose a second thought experiment here:

This time you are standing on a foot bridge above that same trolley track. The same five men are working on the track below you. The same trolley is barreling toward the five workmen.

This time, there's no lever nearby. However, a very large man is standing beside you. You realize you could push him over, and he would land on the tracks and essentially stop the trolley . . . with his body.

Would you push him over, sacrificing the one to save the five?

Again, the vast majority of people responded the same way to this question.

To hear the show and compare your answer to theirs, go here.

Maybe A Netbook

When we were growing up, the worst thing my brothers could say to me was, "Quit being such a girl!" It usually meant, "Shape up and start pulling your weight, or go home."

As a result, I don't generally bat my green eyes and look pitiful, waiting for a male to rescue me. I drill my own deadbolt holes and install my own locks, I replace my own electrical switches when they die, and I dig and plant my own trees.

There are exceptions to my self-sufficiency, however.

One was during high school when I learned we would be dissecting frogs. Live frogs.

I found the two biggest guys from the football team (so they could block my view of the poor amphibian) and offered to write up the experiment if they would carry it out. The three of us were a very successful team during our junior year. We all got As. And I suspect at least one of them went on to become a serial killer. The other is probably coaching Little League.

Another time I deliberately go "girly" is when it comes to the initial installation and operation of any new technology. When pointed in the right direction, I do a fair-to-middling job of comparison shopping and selecting the right item in question for my needs; I just don't want to have to deal with setting it up.

When I received a digital camera as a gift a couple of years ago, it sat in its little box until one of the men in my life came over to get me started. And right now, there's a brand new flat-screen television sitting in a box in my entry hall where it's been for the last month waiting for someone to get fed up with the fact that I've made no move to de-box it. You see, I don't actually watch television; I mostly listen to it while I'm doing something else. Therefore, the quality of the picture is a non-issue for me--unless it's Viggo Mortensen on screen.

Anyway, the point of this post is that Peter Winkler pointed me in the direction of the new "netbooks" last week. I'd never even heard the term until Peter mentioned it. My plan had been to buy an e-reader and something like an Alpha Smart to do word processing. Until Peter suggested a netbook, it had never occurred to me that I could purchase one device for both functions.

As is my wont, I Googled the word "netbook." According to Wikipedia, Intel introduced the term on February 21 of this year when it announced it would begin selling processors for portable computers costing as little as $250.

Over on the Technology@Intel Website here, Paul Bergevin describes a netbook this way:

They are small laptops that are designed for wireless communication and access to the Internet. And they cost about $250, making Netbooks a potentially disruptive and high volume market segment.

Go here to see a comparison chart of netbooks on Wikipedia and a second chart listing the upcoming releases.

I'm interested in the Asus PC. If the HP Mini-Note comes with Vista instead of XP, I'm not interested in it. I made our IR Department remove Vista from my desktop at work. It was like Windows with training wheels.

Reports are that the Dell E may be released as soon as this coming week.

Interesting times.

How To Get Boys To Read

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on Friday titled "Problem: Boys Don't Like to Read; Solution: Books That Are Really Gross."

The story reiterated what we've all heard before about how girls like to read and boys don't:

Jeffrey Wilhelm, an education professor at Boise State University . . . tracked boys' reading habits for five years ending in 2005 and found that schools failed to meet their "motivational needs." Teachers assigned novels about relationships, such as marriage, that appealed to girls but bored boys. His survey of academic research found boys more likely to read nonfiction, especially about sports and other activities they enjoy, as well as funny, edgy fiction.

So now publishers, booksellers and schools are addressing the problem head-on.

Last year, U.S. publishers released 261 new works of juvenile fiction aimed at boys, more than twice the number put out in 2003, according to Bowker's Books in Print database. There were 20 nonfiction entries for boys, compared with just four in 2003.

Read about the solution here.

A New Blog

I regularly check out The Daily Coyote blog here in order to keep up with the adventures of Shreve, her coyote Charlie, her cat Eli and newcomer Chloe.

Last month Shreve's grandmother Svensto, who is almost ninety, began blogging about her life as a Swedish immigrant who came to New York just before World War II. Today I have added her blog here to my "Fun Links."

Svensto offers a glimpse of life in the United States seventy years ago as the world was poised on the brink of war.

Check her blog out.

Should You Self-Publish?

Because this issue keeps coming up again and again on writers' loops and in emails, I've decided to provide my own version of a decision tree. Below are the questions I believe someone should ask a writer who is considering self-publishing:

1) “Are you a newbie or an established name with an audience?”

There is an urban legend out there that Robert James Waller self-published The Bridges of Madison County. He didn’t. However, almost a decade later, he DID make a deal with a small Texas publisher (John M. Hardy) to essentially self-publish the sequel,
A Thousand Country Roads. Waller was able to do this because of the phenomenal success of “Bridges,” which had created a built-in audience for a sequel.

Even so, I find it telling that Waller has returned to traditional publishing for subsequent releases.

2) “If you are a newbie, are you writing fiction or non-fiction?”

It is much easier to sell a non-fiction book than it is a fiction, especially if you have a legitimate platform.

When a reader goes looking for a non-fiction book, she usually has a very narrow frame of reference, which makes it easier to direct her (and other traffic) to your book. If someone can find your book by Googling the subject, you have a huge advantage.

As an example Dr. Ken Blanchard had a training and consulting firm out in California in the late seventies. In the early eighties, he co-wrote and self-published a small non-fiction book titled The One Minute Manager. The book immediately found a home with corporate America because it taught beginning managers three simple lessons.

When a New York publisher came calling, Blanchard opted to go traditional because the publishing house could market the book while he turned his attention to writing additional books in the series. However, he could as easily have continued self-publishing the book because he'd connected with his niche market.

3) “If you are writing fiction, do you have a niche market ready and willing to buy the book?”

This is where a lot of fiction writers get tripped up. When I ask, “Do you have a niche market?” I am not talking about genre readers—-i.e. “I write sci-fi and there is a huge market for sci-fi; therefore, I’ll self-publish.”

A genre market is a huge territory. It has lots of members, lots of well-known names and lots of websites. In order to harness the power of a genre, you must have an established name (see question #1 above).

A niche market, IMHO, is a much smaller venue where you will be readily recognized, welcomed and accepted without judgment. In other words, where you have credibility—either earned on your own or borrowed from someone who HAS earned credibility.

A perfect example of what I’m talking about is the recently published best-seller The Shack. Author William P. Young wrote the small book as evidence of his Christian faith and to inspire his family and friends. He showed it to a well-known Christian writer who introduced him to a well-known pastor. The three decided to self-publish the thin volume after Young could not interest a major publishing house.

While Young had no credibility in the Christian market himself, his two partners did. They sent copies of The Shack to influential Christian friends, tapping into the niche market to which they were already connected. Word-of-mouth spread and book sales grew. People bought copies for their friends who, in turn, referred the book to their own friends. The book has been a phenomenal success, and the Hachette Book Group has now secured the rights.

4) If you do not have a niche audience ready for your fiction, do you have specialized marketing or publishing industry skills (and the money to invest heavily in your book)?

There are a number of examples that come to mind, but the most recent is The Lace Reader. Brunonia Barry’s husband owned a software publishing company. He was willing to invest $50,000 in publishing/marketing her book. They started locally and built from there.

5) If you don’t have a niche audience, don’t have specialized marketing skills and don’t have publishing skill, what are your personal expectations? Do you want to just hold a book of yours in your hands, or do you want to see it on the shelves of libraries and bookstores?

If all you want is to have a book of yours to hold in your hands and to give to your family and friends, by all means self-publish. If you want to just break even or make a modest profit, by all means self-publish. However, if you want a commercially successful book, understand the odds are heavily against a self-published writer—-especially in a world of many more releases every year. Even if you write a great book, the odds will be against you, simply because there are so many books competing for attention.

Add to that the terrible reputation that self-publishing now has, and it is 95% certain you will not be able to place your books in bookstores or libraries. A few self-publishing operations now have deals with certain bookchains in which you, the author, pay for placement in bookstores for a short period of time. But that's not the same thing.

The self-publishing industry is a slick one. They offer you the names of successful writers who self-published, although they rarely offer the specifics of the stories to explain why writers like Waller, Blanchard, Young and Barry above did succeed.

I hope this post will help writers decide whether to self-publish or not. Or at least to slow down before jumping into the deep end of the pool.

Aw, Gee, Thanks

Thanks to agent Nathan Bransford for a shout-out here linking to my post from Saturday. [waving to Nathan]

A Review of A Review

Among the blogs I visit regularly is Dear Author (DA), a romance review site.

On Thursday, Jane of DA posted an interesting review of another blogger's review of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series.

Did you get all that? If not, let's go over it again slowly.

Stephenie Meyer is the author of the best-selling YA vampire series: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and the last book, Breaking Dawn, recently released on August 2.

Meyer, a 34-year-old wife and mother, made her publishing debut with the novel Twilight in October, 2005. In a month, the book was on the New York Times best-seller list.

The author has made no secret of her Mormon background or its influence on her writing. Adults have lauded the YA series for being "squeaky clean."

I have to confess I have not read any of Meyer's books. I picked up Twilight, which was prominently displayed in my local B&N, but decided against buying it for a purely personal reason--my reaction to what I saw as the misspelling of Meyer's first name {grin}.

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is a Hispanic writer with a Master's degree in journalism from Columbia. The bio on her blog includes the fact that her father is a sociology professor originally from Cuba. She also says this:

One of the 25 "most influential Hispanics" in America, according to Time magazine. Still, the New York Times ignored every letter and op-ed I ever sent them. Still, I could not get calls returned, or emails, from most people I wanted to reach. In truth, I wielded all the influence of a lab rat. If I were more influential than the other 35 million Latinos in the land, then God help us all. Complexity denied. Lack of nuance celebrated . . . Polite applause from the elites. But never an open door to their club.

A thoughtful woman. And one who has devoted thought to her origins, her race and her place in today's society.

On Tuesday of this week, Valdes-Rodriguez posted a review of the Twilight series. The title of her review was "Is Stephenie Meyer Racist?" You can read it here.

Talk about getting in your face.

Valdes-Rodriguez posits that Meyer's books ARE racist. She points to the emphasis on the vampire hero Edward's pale white skin.

Edward's rival for heroine Bella is Jacob Black, a Native American werewolf. Can you see where this is going?

Valdes-Rodriguez believes that Meyer's Mormon faith is the source of all her (unconscious) racism.

Having not yet read the books, I don't feel qualified to comment on Valdes-Rodriguez's theory. However, Jane from Dear Author has read the books, and she fires back with her review on Thursday here.

Valdes-Rodriguez had a follow-up post on Thursday here.

I do feel qualified to make a couple of comments. First, I am not as sensitive to issues of race as are my black and brown friends. But, as an Anglo, let's face it. I don't have reason to be as sensitive. I do know that my male friends and relatives complain that I am hyper-sensitive to the discrimination of females.

Gosh, is there a parallel here?

Second, I applaud all three women. Meyer for writing her novels and seeing them through to publication. Alisa for asking questions she felt needed to be asked. And Jane for responding with her own thoughtful comments.

This is what books are for. And exactly the reason why I don't believe in banning any book.

Opposable thumbs set primates apart from other animals. And critical thought sets humans apart from other primates.

I believe it's far better to expose theories to the light where they can be considered, challenged and either proved or disproved. It's when we hide our actions or thoughts behind closed doors, apart from scrutiny, that the problems arise.

Read and decide for yourself.

I'm Gonna Organize A "Rescue Chuck" Team

I haven't had a lot of time for discretionary reading lately, but tonight I did a quick run through my favorite blogs to see what's been going on.

I've mentioned the Dooce blog before. Heather Armstrong is a writer who supports her family (husband Jon, four-year-old daughter Leta and two dogs) through her writing and blog.

I'll admit it. My favorite character in the family is the long-suffering dog Chuck whom I once called the only adult in the household. Heather lost him, not once, but twice in a year. But through it all, he goes along gamely with whatever she cooks up for him. Go here to see what I mean.

This is my all-time favorite set of photos of poor Chuck--Halloween, 2006--here as he imitates three characters from Star Wars.

Not satisfied with torturing poor Chuck, Heather has adopted a second dog, which she's named Coco. Heather and Jon just did not realize what a special dog Chuck was. They are now struggling with a crazy puppy.

Read the latest Coco post here. Be forewarned. If you are easily offended, this is not the post for you.

And, I swear I'm gonna begin organizing a "Rescue Chuck" team any day now.

The Pursuit of Happiness

It was 105 degrees yesterday in Dallas. When it's that hot outside, the weather is invariably the chief topic of conversation. People vie for the "hottest" story. "My car was so hot today that . . ." "It was so hot outside today that . . . "

Halfway home last night, it suddenly dawned on me. I'm feeling happy.

And not just happy around the edges, that limp sort of almost-happy. I mean real honest to goodness, straight up, laugh out loud happy.

I think my joy is enhanced by the fact that the last three months have been tough ones. I quit my job because I was miserable and almost immediately had a serious health scare.

There's nothing like having an unresolved health issue when you're staring down the calendar at unemployment.

I'm not through with all the scary issues yet. I've still got some health stuff to deal with down the road. And I'm still not in a "permanent for keeps" job.

But I am in a job that suits me for right now. I've accepted a position doing "special projects" for my department at the university.

The first project is a lulu. I'm developing the business continuity plan for my department. For business continuity, read "disaster plan." Today will be my third day on the job.

It's the perfect job for me. I get to go around talking to people all day, asking them to explain how their divisions operate. My department has over twenty divisions and more than five hundred employees--not to mention students, post-docs, fellows, visiting scholars and clients.

Right now, I'm sorting out the functional roles of each unit. Every one has multiple functions, but they don't all have the same functions: educational, clinical, research, billing, administrative, publications . . . the list goes on and on.

Today I obtained floor plans of the three main buildings. Among the tasks I've set myself is to identify any potentially hazardous substances: chemicals, gases, compressed air, CO2.

My boss trusts me to do the job and has given me autonomy. I've been setting up appointments all over the campus. I need to talk to the Information Resources staff to find out how our data is stored off site. I need to talk to the Physical Plant people to determine how the backup generators and Sensaphone systems operate (Sensaphone is an alarm that automatically begins telephoning a list of numbers when certain conditions are met; for instance, if a sub-80 freezer's temp suddenly rises to sub-50). I also need to think about a plan for moving the campus functions off site if it suddenly becomes impossible to continue operating on campus.

Not to mention a plan for evacuating all our sites and checking to make sure everyone has made it out. AND a plan for confirming the location (and safety) of all our faculty, classified staff and visitors to our campus during an incident.

I've always loved those material conditional statements: If so-and-so, then such-and-such. This project will ultimately become an exercise in building a series of material conditional statements.

So . . . maybe the secret to joy is to have work you enjoy, that you're qualified to do, and which you find meaningful.

At any rate, I'm not about to complain. I'm just going to keep on doing my interviews, feeling blessed and . . . happy.

Update on the Kindle

Amazon has repeatedly refused to reveal how many Kindles it has sold since the e-reader launched in November. Estimates by industry experts have been all over the map.

On Friday, Techcrunch reported the following here:

. . . 240,000 Kindles have been shipped since November, according to a source close to Amazon with direct knowledge of the numbers.

Techcrunch went on to estimate that the combination of Kindle devices and $25 per device reading material would mean the business is bringing in well over $100 million.

I'm about ready to invest in an e-reader, but I'm still waiting to see the Astak Mentor which is due out in October. It has three sizes ranging from $200 to $350. See it here. I'm hopeful it will be The One.

Foxy Brown's Long Sad Story

On July 25, I reported here that Simon & Schuster had sued the rappers Foxy Brown and Lil' Kim for failing to deliver on the advances they'd been paid.

Four days later 101.1 The Beat printed Foxy's side of the story.

No one disputes these facts: S&S paid Foxy $75,000 as part of an agreement dated October 18, 2005 to produce a memoir to be titled Broken Silence with a deadline of February 1, 2006. She did not meet that deadline.

The stories diverge at this point. Reports say that about five months before signing the contract with S&S, Foxy began experiencing a hearing loss while working on her Black Roses video. Foxy's attorney indicates she was later diagnosed with severe deafness in both ears:

. . . attorney Laura Dilimetin tells AllHipHop.com, "With Simon & Schuster's blessings, Foxy Brown underwent extensive surgical procedures [in January, 2006] and a lengthy recovery time, fighting to restore her hearing."

Dilimetin claims that, following the surgery, the singer approached S&S, but that the publishing house had changed its mind about the project.

It's possible that Brown's claim that S&S changed its mind is true. Dilimetin mentioned Foxy's loss of hearing, but neglected to mention a few other details that might have led to the publisher's change of heart. I did a Google search on Foxy Brown, whose history is as colorful as her name.

Foxy has had a long record of behaving badly. Back in 1997, when she was seventeen, she was arrested in Raleigh, North Carolina on assault charges for spitting on two hotel workers when they told her they didn't have an iron available to give her.

In 2002, she was arrested at the airport in Kingston, Jamaica for an altercation with a police officer. She skipped out on her hearing, and Jamaica has made it plain they will arrest her if she ever returns to their island.

In August, 2004, Foxy got into an altercation with two manicurists in a Bloomie Nails salon when they charged her for both a manicure and a pedicure and she refused to pay for the manicure. She kicked one worker and hit the second one in the face.

On December 23, 2005--during the same month her attorney says that Foxy was diagnosed with severe sudden sensorineural hearing loss--she appeared in a Manhattan court to finalize her plea deal for the Bloomie Nails incident. Here is how CBS TV described the incident:

Judge Melissa Jackson thought Brown was chewing gum and asked her to get rid of it. Brown responded by opening her mouth and sticking her tongue out.

Judge Jackson ordered Brown cuffed to a bench for 15 minutes, but when a female court officer attempted to handcuff her they got into a heated exchange over a bracelet the rapper was wearing.

Judge Jackson alleged that Brown also struck the officer. When Brown refused to apologize, she was threatened with 30 days in jail. She gave in and apologized to the court. The confusion was that she stuck out her tongue to show that she had no gum, not to disrespect the judge.

In June of 2006, Simon & Schuster editor Tricia Boczkowski said in an interview that she was about to start work on Foxy's memoir so we have a clue that the publisher and rapper had not yet torn the sheets.

However, according to the documents here recently filed with the court on July 24, 2008, S&S sent a demand letter to Brown on July 20, 2006, terminating their agreement and asking for the $75,000 back.

Three days before S&S sent Brown the letter, the New York Post had run an article on Brown in their famous Page Six column. The story reported that Brown had fired her personal assistant, Rasheeda Ellis, who filed a claim in Jersey City Municipal Court, claiming Brown shorted her pay and then made terrorist threats when she tried to collect her back salary. Brown said she fired Ellis when she caught the girl leaking her emails to reporters. Both women failed to show up for a July 11 court date which was rescheduled for August 23.

August was a bad month for the hip hop diva. On August 23, Foxy missed a second court date in Jersey City.

On August 26, 2006, the New York Post reported that Brown had walked out of L'impasse, a Greenwich Village boutique, after pocketing two belts costing $400 each.

The incident happened on August 24th at 9:45 PM, after the store had already closed. Brown showed up at the door demanding back the lingerie she had dropped off the previous day to be altered. The owner of the store had given her a free leather dress when she dropped off the lingerie. After being told the lingerie was not yet ready, Brown began haggling over the price of a gold rhinestone belt for the leather dress. When she and the clerk could not come to terms, Brown stuffed the belt and another one into her purse and walked out. The store owner filed a complaint with the police.

On August 28, 2006, Foxy pled guilty to misdemeanor assault charges on that nail salon incident, but then tried to withdraw the plea. According to FoxNews, she tried to withdraw the plea when "she realized her sentence would include regular drug testing and anger management classes." In October, 2006, Judge Jackson refused to allow Foxy to withdraw the plea and placed the rapper on three years probation.

According to USA Today, on September 26, 2006, both Foxy and her former personal assistant, Rasheeda Ellis, "dropped the complaints in return for both sides agreeing not to have contact with each other and not to discuss the case in the media."

According to Vibe.com, Foxy was hauled back into court in mid-December, and "accused of failing to keep appointments with probation officers, appear for anger management classes and submit to drug tests." The judge let her go with a warning.

Her bad behavior didn't stop. According to Eonline.com, in January, 2007, "Brown was bounced from a Big Apple anger-management program for allegedly threatening a staffer."

Brown was next arrested on February 15, 2007 for an altercation in the washroom of Queen Beauty Supply Shop in Miami, Florida. The store's owner claimed he asked her to leave at closing time and said she refused, spitting on him and squirting him with a bottle of spray hair glue. The police were called and Brown fought with an officer.

According to Ill-Nana.net, "She was booked on battery and obstruction of justice charges and spent the night in jail before posting a $1,500 bond the following day."

That incident caused her problems in two states. New York ordered her back into court for violating her probation agreement by traveling out-of-state without permission. On March 1, she pleaded guilty of probation violation and the judge told her another violation would buy her a year in jail.

On March 22, 2007, a Broward County, Florida judge issued a warrant for Foxy's arrest for failure to appear in their court. On March 29, she appeared and pleaded not guilty. In May, she rejected a plea deal, and the judge ordered her to give a DNA sample so that the shirt the shop owner had turned over to the court could be tested to confirm the owner's contention that she had spit at him.

In May, a young mother called the police to report that Foxy had almost run her and her baby in a stroller down while driving her silver Range Rover through a New York intersection.

In June, Manhattan Judge Jackson praised Brown for keeping to the terms of her probation. But later that month she was in trouble again--for missing a probation appointment and turning up four hours late for a second one.

Weeks later, Foxy was in hot water yet again after a neighbor in Brooklyn accused her of assault. According to FoxNews:

Brown was arrested Tuesday [July 31] for allegedly assaulting Arlene Raymond, 25, who lives near the rapper in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn, on July 30. Police said the two women got into a fight over Brown blasting her car stereo.

Raymond alleged that a few days later, they passed each other on the street and Brown hurled her BlackBerry at her, cutting her lip and knocking a tooth loose.

Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, was released on $50,000 bail after her arraignment Tuesday on charges of felony assault, misdemeanor assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

Does it come as any shock to you that Brown and model Naomi Campbell are friends? According to Jossip.com: "When asked for a comment, Naomi Campbell replied 'Ha! That bitch is even crazier than me'!”

But wait! There's more. Like the old Popeil Pocket Fisherman ads, I'm not finished yet.

The same day of her arrest, Foxy was stopped by the police for running a stopsign in New Jersey while talking on her cell phone. The New York Times describes the traffic stop this way:

Russel J. Read, a police officer in Mahwah, N.J., testified that he had stopped Ms. Brown driving a gray Land Rover on Aug. 15 while talking on her cellphone . . . she made an illegal U-turn trying to evade him. She was driving with a suspended license and registration, he said.

The officer testified that Ms. Brown boasted that her father was the chief of an all-black law enforcement agency, that she was related to the hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons, and that “she was going to have my job.” She also accused him of stopping her for D.W.B., or “driving while black,” he said.

Judge Jackson ordered Foxy into jail until her next hearing.

Brown's attorney told the New York Post: "She's getting married, she's three months pregnant, she signed a record deal two weeks ago, and she is in contract for a reality TV show."

Despite Foxy's claims that she was suffering in Riker's Island, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Laura Ward denied her application for release.

Judge Jackson had run out of patience. On August 8, 2007, she told Brown she had acted as if her celebrity status placed her above the law.

Her attorney made no mention of any pregnancy at that hearing. Jossip.com reported: "Turns out it really wasn’t a baby so much as an unabashed plea for leniency. Thankfully neither the pregnancy nor the reduced punishment really panned out."

On September 7, Judge Jackson sentenced Brown to one year in jail to be served starting immediately.

On October 4, Brown announced a new website, FreeFoxyBrown.com, and that a new album Brooklyn's Don Diva would be released on November 20th, while she was still in jail. The album's release was twice delayed while she remained in jail, first to February and then to May.

The website Ill-Nana.netreported Brown was placed in solitary confinement on October 16:

Brown "was sentenced to 76 days of "punitive segregation" after committing three violations at Rikers Island this month. According to reports, the first incident occurred on Oct. 3, when Brown and another inmate allegedly engaged in a shoving match on their way to the dining hall. The next day, Brown was verbally abusive to a correction officer and refused to take a drug test.

The Department of Corrections at the Rose M. Singer facility, where Brown has been jailed since Aug. 22, reviewed the cases and sentenced her to solitary confinement. Brown spends 23 hours alone in her cell, and is allowed one hour each day to see visitors, meet with attorneys and engage in recreational activities."

Her manager claimed the entire solitary confinement ordeal was a mistake that resulted from her hearing impairment.

After forty days in solitary, Foxy was released back into the general population for "good behavior" according to Billboard.com.

On January 16, 2008, Foxy applied to the court for early release, claiming her hearing was deteriorating further while she was incarcerated and she risked going deaf. On January 24, the judge denied early release, saying Brown had not provided any proof of her claim that her hearing was at risk.

On April 18th, she was released from Riker's. All her previous remarks to the court about having learned her lesson were forgotten as she told supporters, "I did almost a year in prison, a year in prison, just because my name is Foxy Brown."

Apparently her eight months in the slammer left Foxy with little taste for another incarceration. On April 24, 2008, she accepted a plea deal to avoid jail time in the Florida assault incident. Instead of two years in jail she got six months probation, fifteen hours of community service and an order to write letters of apology to the store owner and employee.

On May 8, 2008, Brown pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of "menacing" in the incident where she hit her neighbor in the face with her Blackberry. According to MTV.com, "the plea deal allows the rapper . . . to avoid a felony assault charge."

The long-awaited album Brooklyn's Don Diva was released on
May 13, 2008. Rolling Stone gave it 2 1/2 stars out of five. The Village Voice said that Foxy " is proving to be her own worst enemy." RapSearch was probably the most blunt: ". . . for fans of Foxy, you could find some enjoyment, even if no one else would."

Given the history I've described here, Foxy's response was predictable. Blame someone else: "Unfortunately, during my incarceration, this CD was compiled without my approval. I heard this CD in its entirety, for the first time, just days ago and was devastated."

{sigh}

Re-reading this post, I'm mostly sad. This is an example of what happens when impulsive, ignorant children are given too much adulation and too much money at a young age. Brown was only sixteen when her debut album Ill Na Na went platinum and only nineteen when she became the first female rap artist to enter the Billboard 200 at #1 with her second album Chyna Doll in 1999.

I would have hoped that eight months away from her frenetic lifestyle would have given the Don Diva a chance for introspection, a chance to think about where's she's been and where she's going. In about a month she'll be 30. Like it or not, she's already likely lived a third of her life.

Wouldn't it be great if she could be known for something else during the middle phase of her life other than violence, narcissism and materialism?

Maybe then there'd be something fit for Simon & Schuster to print.