Update 2 on The Jewel of Medina

On Tuesday night, MSNBC had an update on The Jewel of Medina. They directed readers to the Wednesday morning edition of The Bookseller.

The Bookseller reported that the UK's Gibson Square publishing house has put the October 15th release of the controversial book on hold. Alan Jessop of Compass, Gibson's Squares sales agent was quoted by The Bookseller, speaking about Martin Rynja, the managing director of Gibson Square, whose home and office were the target of an Islamic terrorist attack this weekend:

"He is in good spirits, but has put publication in suspended animation while he reflects and takes advice on what the best foot forward is."

You can read about the thwarted firebombing here.

Publishers Weekly (PW) interviewed Eric Kampmann, president of Beaufort Books, The Jewel of Medina’s U.S. publisher. Kampmann has already begun shipping the first run of 50,000 books. PW reported:

. . . given the events in the U.K., [Kampmann] said he is now being “super cautious.” He has been in touch with the FBI and New York City police and is considering hiring a security firm to protect Beaufort and Midpoint’s New York offices. Through early Monday, Kampmann said he has received no threats over the book. The New York office was closed Monday, Kampamm said, since his executive staff was already at an offsite meeting. “We are being vigilant,” . . .

Kampmann expects the books to be in stores by the end of the week.

The Bookseller reported on UK bookstores:

But booksellers spoken to by The Bookseller said their were unbowed by the letter-bomb and the threats from some extremists of further violence. Michael Jones, books category manager at Borders UK, said: "We haven't changed anything about what we're doing. We will be going ahead and selling it." Amazon.co.uk also said it would be selling the title, while Blackwell's maintained its stance that it would let individual bookshop managers decide.

Writing Can't Be Taught

Last Wednesday's Washington Post had an article titled "A Guide to Prose, Fully Punctuated." It's an interview with Francine Prose, novelist and former teacher of creative writing.

She argues that writing can't be taught (despite the fact that she spent twenty years trying to do so).

The article is sprinkled with advice to writers. My favorite was: "You don't need to know much when you begin."

In context, the comment refers to the fact that you don't need to know everything about your characters or your plot when you start a novel--not that you don't need to know the basics of writing.

I liked this, of course, because it mirrors my approach to writing [grin].

You can read the entire article here.

I Need a Favor, Please

My niece has entered her six-month-old in a contest to be the face of Learning Curve Toys.

Do me a favor and vote for Trevor here.

All votes appreciated.

Thanks!!!

Maya

A Second SNL Skit Looking At Sarah Palin

For my friends overseas like Stephen and Mike, I'm offering a link here to the second SNL opening skit featuring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as Sarah Palin and Katie Couric.

Enjoy, guys!!!

Terrorism Follows The Jewel of Medina

The Sunday Times of London reported today that Scotland Yard interrupted a plot by Islamic terrorists to firebomb the north London offices (and home) of the Dutch publisher who agreed to release The Jewel of Medina after Random House backed out of its contract.

If you are not familiar with the controversy surrounding The Jewel of Medina, read my previous posts of August 13th and September 7th.

On September 24th, I did a post saying that Martin Rynja the managing director of Gibson Square, the publisher that had secured the UK rights to The Jewel of Medina, had announced he was doubling his initial print run from 10,000 because of the enormous interest in the book.

Today's Sunday Times reported:

. . . the Met [London's Metropolitan Police] appears to have received a tip-off that the British publisher . . . could be the target of an attack.

A Met spokesman said three men had been arrested in “a preplanned intelligence-led operation” at about 2.25am on Saturday.

Two of the suspects were arrested in the street outside Rynja’s four-storey townhouse in Lonsdale Square, Islington, while the third was stopped by officers in an armed vehicle near Angel Tube station.

The British newspaper The Guardian reported, ". . . police told Rynja late on Friday night to leave his property."

Apparently undercover police followed the gang and observed them pushing a firebomb through the mail slot of Rynja's "£2.5m town house in Islington's Lonsdale Square" (The Guardian). Police and firefighters broke down the front door and put out the small fire.

Rynja is reportedly under police guard.

At the time I read the story in the Sunday Times, there were only three comments below it. A British Muslim had commented:

. . . I will be offended if something controversial is written about Mohammed PBUH, as much as I would be about Jesus or Moses (May peace be upon them). This is not just about free speech, it is about respecting other religions.

I refrained from adding my own comment, deciding that this blog was a better place for my opinion:

There have been numerous fictional and artistic treatments of Jesus and Moses and leaders of other religions such as the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Not all of these portraits have been flattering.

To my knowledge, no terrorist attacks resulted from any of them.

I respect all of the religions of the world, and Muslims of good faith have my sympathy and support during this difficult time in the world we share. I have nothing but disdain for those who twist and pervert the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. I hope the authorities will capture and prosecute Islamic terrorists in exactly the same way they prosecute any other terrorist.

Tolkien Estate Versus New Line Cinema

On Friday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge barred the family of J.R.R. Tolkien from punitive damages in their lawsuit against New Line Cinema for failure to pay royalties on the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. However, Judge Ann I. Jones did clear the way for the heirs to continue their $150 million fraud suit against the studio.

Almost everyone has heard the term "Hollywood accounting," which refers to the creative accounting film studios use to turn a box office blockbuster into a financial disaster on paper.

When this happens, those writers or actors who accepted a deal for net profit percentage points are left out in the cold because--on paper--the film lost money so there was no net profit. The January 22, 1990 edition of Time magazine had this to say about net percentage points:

Hollywood's megastars demand a slice of the gross because they know that most films will never pay any earnings to holders of net-profit percentages, which [actor Eddie] Murphy has derided as "monkey points."

Probably the most well-known case of a writer suing a studio that used creative accounting was the Buchwald v. Paramount case in 1990.

Writer and satirist Art Buchwald wrote a screen treatment for a story about an African king who was overthrown while visiting the U.S. His 1983 contract stated that, if a film was made "based upon" his treatment, he would receive $265,000 and 19% of the net profit. When Paramount released Coming to America in 1988 and claimed the story of an African king who comes to the U.S. was written by its star, Eddie Murphy, Buchwald and his partner Alain Bernheim sued.

Buchwald's lawsuit was in two parts. First he had to sue for breach of contract, claiming the studio had used his treatment. In January, 1990, a Los Angeles judge ruled that Paramount had indeed used Buchwald's treatment and awarded him $250,000.

In the second phase of the trial, Paramount claimed that, although they'd had $350 million in box office receipts, the film lost money. The court found that the studio's accounting practices were "unconscionable." Paramount offered a settlement for $900,000. Buchwald accepted the deal despite the fact that he'd spent more than $2 million litigating the case.

So how does Hollywood pull off a stunt like turning a box office success into a losing proposition?

Generally a studio spins off subsidiaries to handle production, marketing and distribution. Those entities charge the parent company huge fees for their services, eating up more than 50% of the gross profits of a film as overhead charges. In the case of the Coming to America film, Time magazine said:

. . . half was kept by theaters showing the film. The rest went for shooting the picture (one cost estimate: $40 million), distribution fees charged by Paramount ($50 million), studio overhead ($5 million), film prints and promotion ($15 million), Murphy's salary ($8 million) and other expenses.

Writers would be well-advised to demand gross percentage points (before expenses are subtracted) rather than net percentage points (after expenses are taken out). Remember what Eddie Murphy implied: You're a monkey if you accept net percentage points.

Back to the Tolkien lawsuit. In February, Tolkien's son and daughter, Christopher Tolkien and Priscilla Tolkien, who had created a charity titled The Tolkien Trust after their father's death, sued New Line Cinema.

The Tolkien heirs, together with Tolkien's publisher HarperCollins, sued New Line for failing to pay royalties on the Lord of the Ring trilogy and to obtain a court order to prevent New Line from its plan to produce two movies based on The Hobbit.

In May, the London Times interviewed Christopher Tolkien, now 83 years old:

The Trustees claim that they and HarperCollins, the publishers, are owed $150m by New Line Cinema under a deal for a 7.5% share of profits that was signed in 1969, when his father reluctantly sold film rights to pay a tax bill.

The Associated Press reported:

. . . the lawsuit claims New Line sent millions of dollars to Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, improperly claiming they were for advertising expenses. The lawsuit also claims the studio built production offices and facilities in New Zealand and listed them as expenses for the "Lord of the Rings" films, although the heirs claim they are now being used for other New Line projects.

The AP also stated:

New Line's attorneys successfully argued that Tolkien's heirs had to demonstrate a "public wrong" under New York law — which governs the contracts — to claim punitive damages if they win at trial. [Judge] Jones ruled that the heirs' grievance "is clearly seeking to vindicate private wrongs."

So, while the heirs cannot sue for punitive damages, they can still sue for their actual losses incurred by the failure of New Line to pay them as stipulated in their contract.

The trial is scheduled to begin next October.

Booksigning Advice

My good friend and critique partner, Maria Zannini, has a terrific post today about booksignings with lots of good advice. She has links from four great writers on the subject. Of course, because she's my friend, she included links to my posts, too.

Go here to read everything you ever wanted to know about booksignings.

Whither Goes Borders?

Back on April 10, here, I summarized the actions Borders was taking to stay alive.

Included among those steps, Pershing Square Capital Management had offered a $42.5 million senior secured loan with a 9.8% interest rate. As a part of that deal, Publishers Weekly (PW) reported Pershing also "agreed to acquire Borders's Australian, New Zealand, Singapore and Paperchase subsidiaries for $125 million if Borders cannot find another buyer at a better price."

That help didn't come for free. Borders granted Pershing Square 9.55 million warrants to purchase company stock for $7 a share for up to six and a half years. If you don't understand how warrants work, go to my post of March 20 here.

However, if (1) Borders did take advantage of the backup purchase offer or if (2) a "definitive agreement relating to a change-of-control of the company is not signed by October 1, 2008," (according to Publishers Weekly) or if (3) the company terminates the strategic alternatives process, Borders must issue another 5.15 million warrants to Pershing Square.

That October 1 deadline is only five days away.

Friday's Wall Street Journal reports:

Borders had hoped to have a deal in place by the end of the month, but the market turmoil and growing uncertainty about the retail sector have all but dashed those hopes, according to one person close to the company.

Shelf Awareness says: "Pershing Square is likely to obtain the warrants, which price the company's shares at $7 each, roughly its current price."

This puts Pershing Square and its founder William Ackman in a powerful position vis-a-vis Borders.

Last year, Seeking Alpha had this to say about Ackman:

William Ackman is an aggressive activist value investor who heads Pershing Square Capital Management, a $1.6+ billion hedge fund. Ackman takes large long positions in a concentrated portfolio of companies, then often pressures management to extract value for shareholders.

In effect, Borders is standing on the edge of a chasm staring across at Ackman who may force them to take action they have not yet been ready to face.

Update on The Jewel of Medina

On September 7, I reported that independent publisher Gibson Square had secured the UK rights for Sherry Jones' controversial novel The Jewel of Medina.

If you're not familiar with The Jewel of Medina, go here to read my first post on the novel.

Today's The Bookseller reports that, with almost month to go before the October 15th release, Gibson Square is doubling its initial print run. The publisher had originally planned for a print run of 10,000, but has already taken more than 8,000 pre-orders for the novel:

It decided to review the number in light of pre-orders both here and in the US. Martin Rynja, m.d of Gibson Square, said he was keen to push the print run further if possible. “We are trying to keep up with the Americans,” he said. "The first step was 10,000 and we were comfortable with that. We have been gathering orders from Europe and places as far away as India, and as a result we have doubled the print run. It’s very exciting."

New Business Models From iRex

On Saturday a week ago, I posted here about iRex, the Dutch company that produces the iLiad e-reader.

Yesterday Engadget reported that iRex has unveiled its Digital Reader 1000 with a 10.2 inch screen. The 1000 brings back the higher iRex prices, too. A reader will set you back $649; a reader/writer is $749. And "the big daddy 1000SW -- with WiFi, Bluetooth and that 3G data connectivity" is priced at $849.

iRex is hoping to capture the business market. At those prices, it's not likely to grab the casual reader.

A Modern Day Faerie Tale

I haven't forgotten that I promised a follow-up to my post of Friday. I need a couple of more days until things settle a bit around here. I'm doing a presentation at work tomorrow for about thirty-five people, and I'm not quite prepared for it yet.

I spent a lot of time in waiting rooms over the last few days. I used the time to read an urban fantasy by Melissa Marr titled Wicked Lovely. Melissa is represented by agent Rachel Vater who mentioned the book on her blog, which is how I came to pick up a Young Adult novel.

Wicked Lovely is a creative take on the fairy kingdom. I'm always interested in world building. Two other urban fantasy writers who have built intricate Faerie worlds are Laurell K. Hamilton and Jim Butcher.

Although I gave up on Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake vampire series about six books ago, I still eagerly await her Merry Gentry series. The seventh book in Merry's series, Swallowing Darkness, is due out in early November.

LKH divides the fairy kingdoms into the Seelie and Unseelie courts, and Merry Gentry is the child born of both courts--her mother was High Seelie while her father was the brother of the Queen of the Unseelie Court.

Jim Butcher talks about the Summer and Winter Courts of the Sidhe. If I remember correctly, the two books of his that focus on Faerie are Summer Knight and Small Favor.

My understanding of Melissa Marr's world building from reading the first in the series is that she divides her faerie kingdom into three parts: the Summer Court, the Winter Court and the Dark Court. Faeries share the mortal world, unseen, playful--and often wicked.

Wicked Lovely is Aislinn Foy's story. Aislinn, called Ash, is a high school student who has always been able to see faeries although they don't know it. From an early age, Ash's grandmother taught her that her safety depended upon the faeries never realizing she can both see and hear them.

Keenan is the King of the Summer Court and son of Beira, Queen of the Winter Court. Centuries ago, the King of the Dark Court helped Beira bind Keenan's powers. He will only be free when he finds his Summer Queen. For nine centuries, he has been asking mortal girls to risk their lives in a test to see if they are the Summer Queen. None has succeeded. Each loser is condemned to become the Winter Girl, isolated and cold, until she can hand off her title to the next loser. As Beira's cold overtakes the earth, Keenan is becoming increasingly desperate to find his queen.

Early in the novel, Keenan focuses his hopes on Ash, who is both terrified and determined not to give up her mortal life--or her mortal friend, Seth. The unknown factor in the unusual triangle of Keenan-Ash-Seth is Donia, the current Winter Girl.

Wicked Lovely was released by HarperTeen, an imprint of HarperCollins. Wicked Lovely was the RWA 2008 RITA winner for Young Adult Romance.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, which is a very quick read. The two female leads, Ash and Donia, are engaging, independent and quick-thinking. Of the two male leads, Keenan's character is the better drawn. Impulsive, a bit arrogant and desperate, he feels guilt over Donia's fate, but is himself trapped in a world not of his making.

Seth is a cipher, noble and devoted to Ash. I would have liked to understand him better. He felt like a place holder to me rather than a fully-drawn character.

Beira, the Winter Queen, is a one-note character, much like the Wicked Witch of the East in the Wizard of Oz. Her role is menacing and her purposes, evil.

The King of the Dark Court is only hinted at, but I believe he plays the major role in Marr's second novel, Ink Exchange. I'll be picking that one up soon.

More on the Espresso Book Machine

The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor issued a press release on Wednesday. Here are selected passages:

U-M is the first university library to install the book-printing machine. The Espresso Book Machine, from On Demand Books of New York, produces perfect-bound, high-quality paperback books on demand . . .

The book machine, located in the Shapiro Library lobby on U-M's Central Campus, prints out-of-copyright books from the University's digitized collections. At a cost of about $10 per book, the service is available to researchers, students and the public.

The printing process begins with a reader selecting a digitized book from U-M's pre-1923 collection or from another online source, such as the Open Content Alliance. Most books printed prior to the early 1920s can be reprinted without seeking the permission from whomever holds the copyright. Then the file is downloaded to the Espresso Book Machine, where it is formatted, printed and perfect bound with a four-color cover.

A finished printed book takes 5-7 minutes, depending on the number of pages . . .

In the next several years, On Demand Books expects to install Espresso Book Machines in libraries and bookshops around the world. All the machines will be connected by a network, allowing libraries to share and reprint volumes from their collections.

A Place Marker

Sorry to be AWOL. One of my best friend's father died.

While I'm off, read Maureen Dowd's op/ed in the New York Times for Sunday. She and Aaron Sorkin (creator of "The West Wing") said what I've been thinking much better than I could.

Go here to read it.

I'll be back soon.

The End of Book Publishing As We Know It

Today was my last day in a week-long training class at work.

My normal commute is only 22 minutes. This week, because the flipping class started at 8:00 AM, I had to leave at 6:55 every day and spend an hour in early morning traffic.

I tell you this because, having lost my usual two hours every morning to read blogs and Internet news, I am now a week behind. I've just seen this article on "The End" of the book business in New York Magazine, courtesy of Nathan Bransford here. Forgive me for coming late to the party.

The first half of the article rehashes territory we’ve been over many times before here. Let me summarize. The links in parentheses are to posts on this blog that addressed points made in the article:

Forty years ago, the “gentleman” ownership of publishing gave way to corporate ownership. Dozens of independent houses were replaced by a handful of media conglomerates that now own multiple imprints (March 7, 2007).

Corporate ownership means corporate oversight and a focus on the bottom line, which in turn led to a preference for “known” best-selling authors rather than risky unknown authors
(October 22, 2006). And those best-selling authors sometimes have an inflated sense of their worth (January 5, 2008).

It wasn't until Page Five of the nine-page article that I found anything worth quoting:

One key advantage of corporate publishing was supposed to be its marketing muscle: You may not publish exactly the books you’d like to, but the ones you publish will get the attention they deserve. Yet in recent years, more accurate internal sales numbers have confirmed what publishers long suspected: Traditional marketing is useless.

"Media doesn't matter, reviews don't matter, blurbs don't matter," says one powerful agent. Nobody knows where the readers are, or how to connect with them . . . Focused consumer research is almost nonexistent in publishing. What readers want—and whether it’s better to cater to their desires or try harder to shape them—remains a hotly contested issue.

Pages Six and Seven contain a laundry list of the nightmares keeping publishers awake at the wee hours of the morning:

• Oprah will be going off the air in a few years, taking with her those lovely book club picks.
• Borders bookstores are on death watch. If and when the chain expires, publishers will lose their negotiating muscle with B&N.
• Amazon had 31% sales growth in the second quarter and seems intent on building a vertical publishing business.

The last two pages of the article focus on previous publishing disasters and potential upcoming disasters (disasters being defined as books on which publishers made big-advance gambles that didn't pay off).

I've been thinking a lot lately about the new ventures intended to revitalize the publishing industry. The two mentioned most often are Bob Miller's HarperStudio and Jonathan Karp's Twelve. Both men are featured speakers at this year's 35th annual New England Independent Booksellers Association Trade Show (NEIBA), which opened Thursday morning in Boston.

I'll talk more about this tomorrow.

Libel Lawsuit Against John Grisham Dismissed

Today's Associated Press reported that U.S. District Judge Ronald White of the Eastern District of Oklahoma dismissed a libel lawsuit against writer John Grisham.

Pontotoc County District Attorney Bill Peterson, a former agent of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation named Gary Rogers and an Oklahoma state criminalist named Melvin Hett filed the lawsuit against Grisham and two other authors, claiming the three authors defamed them in books.

Grisham's 2006 book--his first non-fiction--titled The Innocent Man recounted the details of the murder, and the ensuing investigation, of a cocktail waitress named Debbie Sue Carter in December, 1982. Carter had been beaten, raped and suffocated in her bedroom.

Six years later, Ronald Keith Williamson, a minor league baseball player, and his friend Dennis Fritz were convicted in 1988 for the murder. According to the New York Times, "The evidence . . . consisted of 17 hairs that matched those of Mr. Williamson and Mr. Fritz, and the account provided by [a] woman who said she had heard Mr. Williamson confess." Both the woman and a second jailhouse informant were considered unreliable witnesses.

Fritz was sentenced to life imprisonment while Williamson received the death penalty. Williamson came within five days of being executed in September, 1994.

During the automatic appeals process, Mark Barrett, Williamson's attorney, and Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project pointed out the shoddy police work of the Ada authorities and the poor evidence employed in the prosecution's case. Both Barrett and Scheck were also named as defendants in the libel suit.

A retrial was ordered and, after eleven years on Death Row, DNA evidence resulted in Williamson and Fritz being released in 1999. William died five years later of cirrhosis of the liver in December, 2004.

Eighteen months before his death, Williamson saw Glen Gore, who had testified against him during his trial, convicted of Carter's murder based on DNA evidence. Gore was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

Grisham was inspired to write about the case after reading Williamson's obituary in the New York Times here.

In dismissing the libel charges against Grisham, ". . . the judge wrote that it was important to be able to analyze and criticize the judicial system 'so that past mistakes do not become future ones'." (Associated Press)

In a statement, Barry Scheck said:

This is a victory for free speech and for holding officials publicly accountable for their role in wrongful convictions.

Audiotapes of Agatha Christie Discovered

On Monday, the London Times reported that the grandson of Agatha Christie has discovered audiotapes made by the novelist in the mid-1960s.

It was probably no accident that the existence of the secret tapes was revealed on Monday, the 118th anniversary of Christie's birth.

The 27 half-hour tapes were apparently recorded by Dame Christie to help with the writing of her autobiography published in 1977 after her death.

Chorion, the company that manages Christie's estate, was already planning to re-release the autobiography. It is unknown whether the discovery of the tapes will play a part in that re-release. Publishers Weekly said:

Tamsen Harward, literary estates business manager at Chorion, said whether the new edition of Christie's autobiography, called An Autobiography, includes material from the tapes "remains to be seen. We would very much like to do something with them," Harward said, adding that Christie's family is also now discussing how, and if, to publish the tapes.

Christie was notoriously reclusive, and the Times indicates that--prior to the new tapes being discovered--there were only two known recordings of her voice. She died in 1976.

When I was about ten, my mother became concerned when she found me reading my grandfather's Perry Mason paperbacks. She told me those books were not appropriate for my age. I told her that I wasn't going to read those lame Nancy Drew books she kept giving me any longer.

Mom thought about it for a couple of days and then brought me to the library. She handed me a list of three authors: Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart and Dorothy Sayers. She told me I could read as many of those authors' books as I chose.

My love of Agatha Christie dates back to that day. Dame Christie wrote some 80 detective stories. I read every one of them during the summer between the time I was ten and eleven. My favorites remain The Man in the Brown Suit, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Death Comes As The End, and The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side.

It was another three or four years before I became old enough to appreciate Dorothy Sayers.

I have a copy of Christie's 1977 Autobiography, but would probably purchase another copy if it came with a copy of the audiotapes.

July Bookstore Sales Down 7.4%

Monday's Publishers Weekly reported that bookstore sales took a tumble in July, falling 7.4% compared to the same month last year.

The drop was expected since the seventh and final Harry Potter book--Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--was released on July 21st last year, giving that month an enormous boost.

For the seven-month period ending in July, bookstore sales were up 1.7% compared to the same seven months in 2007.

Compare bookstore results to the entire retail segment where July sales rose 2.9% and where the seven-months through July sales were up 3.2%.

Palin & Clinton (AKA Tina Fey & Amy Poehler)

If you missed Saturday Night Live's season opener on Saturday, you missed a terrific send-up on Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.

Enjoy!!!

David Foster Wallace Dies

I mourned when I learned of David Foster Wallace's death yesterday.

I was not a fan of his best known work, Infinite Jest, which seemed too obsessive and self-indulgent for plebian, pedestrian little me. However, I did appreciate a number of his essays. I still have a copy of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, which collected seven of those essays.

I dug it out this morning and re-read the 1993 essay called "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction." It was originally published in "The Review of Contemporary Fiction."

The Latin title, of course, is an ironic twist on the U.S. motto: "Out of many, one."

Here are some of my favorite quotes from that essay. They were easy to find; I'd highlighted them with a yellow marker:

Fiction writers as a species tend to be oglers. They tend to lurk and to stare. They are born watchers.

. . . the television screen affords access only one-way . . . We can relax, unobserved, as we ogle. I happen to believe this is why television also appeals so much to lonely people . . . The lonely, like the fictive, love one-way watching . . . Lonely people tend, rather, to be lonely because they decline to bear the psychic costs of being around other humans. They are allergic to people. People affect them too strongly.

. . . the most dangerous thing about television for U.S. fiction writers is that we yield to the temptation not to take television seriously as both a disseminator and a definer of the cultural atmosphere we breathe and process . . .

I'm going to argue that irony and ridicule are entertaining and effective, and that at the same time they are agents of a great despair and stasis in U.S. culture, and that for aspiring fiction writers they pose especially terrible problems.

. . . irony, entertaining as it is, serves an exclusively negative function. It's critical and destructive . . . one ends up feeling not only empty but somehow...oppressed.

That's less than 200 words from a 60-page essay. But you can feel the power and the intellect of the man.

Wallace was only 46 years old. The news says he hanged himself on Friday. I hate that he should have felt so much anger or . . . despair.

Another Look at the iLiad

On Wednesday, I talked about a hopeful sign for the ailing newspaper industry. This post is about another. But, first, I need to bring us all up-to-date on the Dutch company, iRex.

In January, 2006, I first mentioned iRex, which was scheduled to release an e-reader called the iLiad in April of that year. That release was later pushed back to July.

My interest in the iLiad took a huge dive when I learned its price was $811.

Two years later, on May 8, 2008, I reported that the price of the iLiad had come down to $699, and I also quoted from The Bookseller:

Borders is to become the first seller of e-book readers in the United Kingdom with seven stores stocking the iLiad reader . . .

Also in May, iRex introduced its new iLiad Book Edition and differentiated it in price from its iLiad Second Edition.

The iLiad Book Edition sells for $599 and comes pre-loaded with 50 "classic titles":

In a completely new sleek silver colour, with 50 pre-loaded eBooks, including some of the best books ever written, this is a bestseller for every book lover.

The press release that announced the Book Edition had this to say about the pre-loaded books:

Titles range from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll to Pride and Prejudice from Jane Austen, from Dracula from Bram Stokers to Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte.

The iLiad Second Edition retails for $699. The only difference between it and the Book Edition is that the Second Edition includes "Built-in Wi-Fi® 802.11B/G wireless networking" capability.

In October, 2007, the Dutch bookstore chain Selexyz began to carry the iLiad. In July, 2008, the W.H. Smith chain of booksellers in the UK began offering the Book Edition in their stores. Last month, the iLiad became available at the German bookchain, Mayersche.

On September 3, iRex distributed a press release that said:

Gill & Macmillan, the leading Irish book publisher, today launched a pilot scheme that will take some weight off the shoulders of the first-year pupils of Caritas College, Ballyfermot . . . St. Brendan’s class, a group of 18 first year students at the all-girl school . . . will become the first class of students worldwide to replace their academic load with the iLiad, an electronic book device.

And now we come to the main reason I'm taking another look at the iLiad today.

On Thursday BusinessWeek reported on an experiment that took place this summer in France with a prototype digital device from iRex called the Read & Go:

The trial of the prototype will wrap up this month, and by 2009, France Telecom (FTE) aims to start distributing the Read & Go in conjunction with a subscription-based news service of the same name. For a monthly charge similar to a mobile service plan, customers will receive an over-the-air stream of aggregated content from a wide assortment of information sources. Alongside the articles will be ads that help defray the cost of the service.

The story says that France Telecom is "partnering" with the newspaper industry to offer the major French newspapers, such as Le Monde and Le Figaro, through its cellular network. Ads will run alongside the articles, providing revenue to offset the cost of the service. The newspapers will receive a cut from the subscription fees for Read & Go.

France Telecom has not yet provided any numbers for the cost of the service or the cost of the Read & Go device yet.

The newspaper industry has not figured out a way to capitalize on the digital age. Partnerships of this kind may yet provide a lifeline for the beleaguered industry.