Category: News: Arts & Entertainment (Page 7 of 25)

Listen to me reading an excerpt from The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.

During the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted 3 years, a shell struck a group of 22 people who were waiting in line for bread. For the next 22 days, Vedran Smailovic, a renowned local cellist, played Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor at the site in honour of the dead. His actions inspired Steven Galloway to write this novel.

The part I read is from page 75..

The woman is Arrow, a sniper. Nermin is her boss. He has brought her to this spot to hear the cellist for her first time. She is to ensure that the cellist is not killed by enemy snipers.

From Peter Morgan * Morgan:News:

Did you ever wonder how a political party can get 40% of the vote but receive 60% of the seats, and get 100% of the power? It happens in every single election, provincial and federal.

Every election people are telling me to “vote strategically” so I won’t be “wasting my vote.” Sound familiar?

The voting system we use in B.C. only elects whoever gets the most votes in a riding, a system with the nickname of “First past the post.” Most democratic countries use systems that count every vote and give voters more choice.

Remember STV? In 2005, the B.C. Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform recommended that British Columbians adopt a fairer election system known as the Single Transferable Vote (BC-STV).

One of the main benefits of BC-STV is that politicians are able to work together to help their own communities. The political parties don’t get to play war in the legislature. By playing war, they get media attention, which they need if they’re going to continue running elections their way.

Four years ago, 58% of B.C. voters said ‘yes’ to a referendum asking for a change to STV, two points short of the required 60% for approval.

On May 12, when the next BC provincial election is scheduled, voters will a second chance to choose BC-STV in a referendum. You haven’t heard much about it yet, but once the election gets underway, there’ll be some information about it.

If you want to refresh your memory, there is a four-minute video that shows you how the system works, and the implications of it, as well as an 11-minute video about who the Citizen’s Assembly was, and why they made their recommendations. You can also keep informed about the debate, see a schedule of up-coming events, you can sign up for updates, to volunteer or even make a small donation, all at the web site of the proposed system:

At the very least, please forward this e-mail on to your contacts who live in BC, and remind them of the referendum question that’ll be on the May 12th ballot.

Top 10 Business Ideas for 2009 by Springwise included the following list for Media & Publishing

1. MagCloud — Magazine publishing for everyone & every niche
2. Faber & Faber — Out-of-print books, printed on demand
3. Flat World Knowledge — Open source approach to textbook publishing
4. Blurb — Marketplace for book makers
5. Kidmondo & BabyChapters — From online baby blogs to printed baby books
6. HarperCollins — Publisher hopes crowds will spot next bestseller
7. Relay & WWF — All-you-can-read digital magazines
8. Random House — Selling books by the chapter
9. Kluster — Crowdsourcing platform
10. Offbeat Guides, Tripwolf, HSBC & Dorling Kindersley , Personalized travel guides

Alexis and Melanie have started Roughing It In The Books. I love the tagline, “someone always dies in the end.”

Roughing It In The Books is what I love best about the internet. Here are two women who love books, reading, writing, publishing and are having an online conversation about it that we can all follow and/or join.

The site focus is on Canadian Literature.

Quote: I don’t know anyone who reads the classics anymore, not the Canadian Lit. classics anyway. Ask Canadians about them and they roll their eyes and mutter something about Roughing it in the Bush, which, unless you have actually taken a University level Canadian Lit. course you probably haven’t read. Susanna Moodie’s whiney tale of life in the New Country is the quintessential Canadian novel people love to hate. Ask a non-Canadian and their reaction would probably be, “Canadian what?”

So true!

When you talk to people who haven’t studied Canadian Literature, they really have no idea that we live in a land full of amazing writers. And the reference to Roughing It In The Bush by Susanna Moodie is another clever inside joke. Even those of us to studied Canadian Lit. were steered to Sinclair Ross (1908-1996), Ernest Buckler (1908, 1984) and Susanna Moodie (1803-1884). All great authors for many reasons, but they just don’t stir up the same connotations as their English or American counterparts. There’s even something sexy and unknown about Australian Lit. or Caribbean Lit.

I’m enjoying the current updates on the Canada Reads Challenge.

CTV on Boyden’s Giller win …

Yay! Congratulations to Joseph Boyden, author of Three Day Road, who is a fantastic writer and a swell guy. His latest Through Black Spruce won the Giller Prize.

Listen to Seen Reading and read the entry inspired by Boyden’s Giller winner Through Black Spruce

Published by Penguin

Latest News

April 29, 2009: Justice Dept. Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Google Books Deal

Quote: The inquiry does not necessarily mean that the department will oppose the settlement, which is subject to a court review. But it suggests that some of the concerns raised by critics, who say the settlement would unfairly give Google an exclusive license to profit from millions of books, have resonated with the Justice Department.

October 29, 2008: Google Settles Suit Over Book-Scanning by MIGUEL HELFT, New York Times

Quote: Google said Tuesday that it had agreed to pay $125 million to settle two copyright lawsuits brought by book authors and publishers over the company’s plan to digitize and show snippets of in-copyright books and to share digital copies with libraries without the explicit permission.

Well that has taken a long time! The lawsuits were originally launched in September and October 2005.

According to the NYT article, the money will be used for a book registry and to resolve existing claims. The settlement still has to be approved but if it goes ahead then, I think, it means all those books will be available online and the money just goes to settling claims.

The lawsuits were brought about because Google worked with libraries to scan millions of copyright and non-copyright books. The scanning became an issue for the copyright-protected material, in particular material that the publishers or authors did not want digitized and made available.

Background as per the NYT article:
The settlement agreement resolves a class-action suit filed on Sept. 20, 2005, by the Authors Guild and certain authors, and a suit filed on Oct. 19, 2005, by five major publisher-members of the Association of American Publishers: the McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, Penguin Group, John Wiley & Sons and Simon & Schuster. It is subject to approval by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In the long run $125 million is probably worth it. Steep and dear now, but to have digitized and to have available for in perpetuity all that content … woah!

While I was away, award season started.

The BC Achievement Foundation’s 2008 Award for Early Literacy went to author Bill Richardson and illustrator Cynthia Nugent for The Aunts Come Marching (Raincoast Books), a singalong story about a procession of musical aunts who drop in on a family for an unexpected visit. This is a very fun book and I even had the pleasure of listening to Bill read/sing it.

The Time to Read Award is a national book award honouring the author and the illustrator of a children’s book suitable for kindergarten students. The winning book is distributed to all kindergarten children in British Columbia by the Ministry of Education.

Way to go Aunts!

The Outlander by Gil Adamson has won this year’s Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award.

At some point in my trip, I read, and loved this book, wrote a lovely review, then carried on with my day. I cannot for the life of me find that review so let me tell you, there is no doubt in my mind that this book deserves the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. The writing is brilliant and very smart. I love books that craft images so clearly that it’s as if you are there. Gil’s writing is really tight and smart. It’s rare that I get the sense that the author is smart, clever maybe, entertaining always, but smart, wow. Gil is smart, her choice of words is wonderful.

The Outlander is the story of a young widow desperate to flee her brother-in-laws, who are out to revenge the death of their brother–the death of their brother by her hand.

It’s 1903 and not easy for a woman to travel alone. She is definitely saved by the generosity of others, but her fate is always in question. Gil Adamson’s novel is heart-pounding, gripping, and full of grief, love and wild characters.

Perhaps my favourite book this year.

Kitty Lewis is one of the publishing folks that I love talking with and following online. She is the phenom behind the Brick Books Facebook page and a tireless promoter of the press’ titles.

And, now they have a new website:

Home

Good work Kitty!

Defining Success: Accountable Online Marketing for Book Publishing was a full-day session run by BookNet Canada and the ABPBC on Thursday, September 18, 2008 at the SFU Downtown Campus, Vancouver BC.

10:00, 10:45 am: Event Marketing: Taking the Faces Out of Facebook from Evan Munday of Coach House Books
The Coach House Books Facebook Group has more than 1000 members (and continues to grow). Coach House publicist Evan Munday discussed how to channel online passion to drive turn out at offline events. Evan Munday is the publicist for Coach House Books, a Toronto-based literary press, where has worked for the past 2 1/2 years. He is also a sometime artist who has done illustrations for various magazines. He collaborated on a novel with author Jon Paul Fiorentino, Stripmalling, out in Spring 2009, and is semi-hard at work on a YA novel. He is also very funny.

Here’s what Evan had to say:

• Over 1000 facebook users. Word of mouth is what drives more members.
• Event marketing on facebook: If you have over 1000 members in your group, you can’t invite them to an event. Instead you have to send a message and ask people to rsvp.
• With Facebook, we use the event as the publicity hook.
• We [publishers] are all fishing in the same pond when we use our regular tactics. With Facebook Coach House is seeing new people at their events, people they’ve never met before.

Facebook Promotion of the Open House:

• Coach House Books’ annual Open House: 132 confirmed guests on Facebook (doesn’t mean people will show up)
• The Open House is for friends, readers, neighbours. No readings. Instead it’s a tour of offices and book table. Publicize on Facebook. Usually about 300 people come to the event.
• This year we set up a ballot box. How do you know about Coach House: Author, friend, facebook, avid reader.
• Only 30 respondents. 1/6th said the Facebook group, no other relationship to the press.
• The Idea is to convert these unrelated strangers to Coach House book buyers. Get them talking about Coach House.

Evan’s Take-Away Lessons:

1. Be selective about event marketing on Facebook
2. Coach House has 60 events: Only invite people to bigger events, not all events.
3. Be careful about location. 60% in TO, don’t waste their time with Calgary events.
4. If members are outside TO, Coach House will create the event pages but maybe send only an email with links to all events across the country.
5. Don’t harass people. Be judicious in messaging.
6. Inject your personality. Make it seem like it’s not a marketing message.

Other Interesting Points:

• Facebook referrals visit at least 5 pages and have a 43% bounce rate.
• Nomediakings: Jim Munro, a self-publisher, drives a lot of traffic. We are unsure why. No link on the site.
• Make Facebook the rec room of your publishing company. Post videos and links from the event.
• All my friends are superheros: published in German by Random House, who created a very strange music video. (I’ll have to check it out.)

Things we don’t do:

1. No Facebook ads becasue it costs money and sometimes there are minimum buys of $1000. They are also not effective.
2. No Facebook Fan pages. Like Anansi. Instead of we have group, they have “Anansi”. You become a fan instead of joining group.
3. In a Group: no applications, no analytics, little info on members, no ability to send targeted ads. Fan page might be better for your press. Know the options.
4. Facebook pages: unlimited apps, extensive analysis, more info on members, ability to send targeted ads.
5. No Free copies: HarperCollins. First 10 to send message get X. Idea is to get people excited and posting. Thinks it’s great but Coach House print runs are so low, we can’t do it. Eg. Quest for the Ice Fox: contest to win a $200 travel voucher, users had to find the fox.

Our Facebook Plan:

1. start group
2. invite friends
3. make events and invite people
4. see strangers at your event
5. report on events (send photos to quill, blog, facebook group, encourages fun. “I’m sorry I missed that”. Come next time.

Q: How much time?
A: Very little time: 1 event week or every 2 weeks (15 min); post info. Ehren: online is his fulltime job is online, but blogging has moved to a publicist role now.

Q: Do you have a blog?
A: Coach House coffee room serves as a blog. (But really, the whole site is run on a content management system, which is what blog software is. The Coach House site, the whole site, is a blog, the coffee room is the bit that looks like what we think is a blog.)