Check out Flickr for photos on what I’ve been up to lately.
I still owe John Maxwell a response about The Long Tail. It’s coming.
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I finished reading Robert J. Wiersema’s novel this week, Before I Wake.
It’s the type of book that I really like. There’s a good story, it’s well-written, there’s something smart, clever or quirky going on. It definitely fits the bill.
I know Rob as a bookseller, but I’m very glad that he’s written such a fine novel. It gives me another good reason to buy him a drink.
Before I Wake is a very fine book indeed. It is the type of book I’d like to write. It has magic in all the right places.
Sherry is 3, she gets hit by a truck. It’s devasting to her parents, whose marriage is already on the rocks. When it come time to take Sherry off life support … nothing happens. She stays perfectly healthy. Like a sleeping child, she stays, unchanged, in the family living room. Until one day her nurse notices that her arthritis has disappeared. Her doctor is stunned. Sherry lies there like an angel. Is she an angel, a healer? The nurse brings over her sister, who is clearly on her last legs. Another miracle. The sister’s cancer goes into remission. These events set the stage for the rest of the novel. Long lines form of believers who want to be healed. Crowds of Christian protestors appear, determined to proclaim that Sherry is the devil’s work. There’s a long-standing battle of good and evil that’s also taking place in the heart of the driver of the truck.
Before I Wake is good for a read, but if there are any academically minded folks out there looking for a new novel to add to the CanLit curriculm, Before I Wake offers a lot to think about.
Here are some photos of the book launch from last week:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/somisguided/
I saw my first Vancouver Fringe play ever. Bolloxed.
Bolloxed is written by my friend Darren Barefoot. It’s about a Canadian programmer working for an American anti-spam company in Ireland. He simultaneously meets the girl of his dreams and gets incredible pain in his balls.
I thought the play was hilarious. There’s a cast of two and they play several different secondary characters as well the main love interests.
I don’t want to spoil the plot twists so I’ll just tell you it ended with an excellent piece of ass. It’s your job to go watch the play, I’m not going to tell you anything else.
I should mention it’s not X-rate, it’s not potty humour; it’s good adult fun: lots of puns, quirkiness and double meanings. My only criticism was it ended too early. I wanted more.
BOLLOXED: A new comedy by Darren Barefoot
CBC Radio Stage 6: Playwrights Theatre Centre
Sat, Sept 9 at 9:00 pm
Sun, Sept 10 at 1:30 pm
Tues, Sept 12 at 5:30 pm
Sat, Sept 16 at 11:00 pm
Sun, Sept 17 at 7:30 pm
My friend Darren Barefoot has a play at The Fringe Festival in Vancouver. He wrote it, which means I now know a playwright. Could come in handy some day.
The play opens tomorrow.
BOLLOXED: A new comedy by Darren Barefoot
CBC Radio Stage 6: Playwrights Theatre Centre
Thurs, Sept 7 at 5:30 pm
Sat, Sept 9 at 9:00 pm
Sun, Sept 10 at 1:30 pm
Tues, Sept 12 at 5:30 pm
Sat, Sept 16 at 11:00 pm
Sun, Sept 17 at 7:30 pm
An intrepid Canuck meets the girl of his dreams in Dublin, but will the clash of cultures kill the romance? This off-the-wall love story chronicles the misadventures of a man on a mission in a country that doesn’t understand him. He’s bolloxed.
A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. I spent time mulling over some of these ideas and trying to look specifically at the book industry. Here’s my summarized account of what I think Chris is saying.
Online channels allow customers to pick from a full range of products and services. More choice means the hits sell less because a percentage of the people who would have bought the hit (if it was the only option available) have moved down the tail, discovering products more closely tailored to their needs, personal style, taste, budget, etc.
In order to increase revenues and optimize profits, companies can no long rely on the hits. They need to find ways to engage with customers on their own terms (online, anonymous, search-driven) and expose them to the tail (full range) of products.
How do I think publishers going to do that? By …
– Studying their customers’ behaviour.
– Looking at trends in online purchasing.
– Paying attention to their web stats to understand what their customers are doing online.
– Placing importance (and budget) on online sites that are searchable, filter-friendly, and include recommendations and ranking systems or any tool that allows for further customization or tailoring by the user.
I think The Long Tail is screaming out for all companies to rethink their physical assets and determine what digital components already exist or can be created. If you get past step one, then you can figure out the business model.
In book publishing, we’ve been aware of the long tail for years. We call it backlist. Publishers have historically looked at ways to balance the ratio of sales of frontlist titles (new titles) to backlist titles (titles published 6 months ago or beyond). Even if that split is 40-60, publishers mostly put time and money into selling and promoting the frontlist. I assume the theory is that if you can get the new books going, then they happily carry on without a lot of effort. But what Chris is saying is you could sell a lot more with a little effort.
I suspect that publishers will continue to obsess over the hits, but Chris is pointing out that sales are no longer coming from one channel–independent stores, chain stores, wholesalers, discount stores, online retailers–customers are no longer gathering in one place, “they are scattered to the winds as markets fragment into countless niches.” But the one big growth area is the web.
Why? Because customer behaviour is changing. Internet connectivity in Canada is widespread. People have access to cultural content across a broad spectrum. Their attention is sought after by content creators from the mainstream to the fringe to the underground. But what still drives purchases are recommendations from trusted sources, recommendations tailored specifically to one’s needs and interests. The web is perfectly positioned to aid in that search for book recommendations. We can search online for extra information, we can read about the author, maybe hear a podcast, we can send our friends links to books we like, we can write reviews on book sites. We Google, we Yahoo, we MSN, we blog, we email, we browse. It’s a time of infinite choice, and the web is the land of infinite discovery.
The Long Tail is about how technology is turning mass markets into millions of niches, what people do at a niche level, and how to filter and reference and measure success within a niche.
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On a related note, I noticed that Amazon has recently changed the way they generate URLs. Instead of seemingly random numbers, the title and author name are included. One small step towards search engine domination. Put your cursor here and look at the status bar to see “www.amazon.ca/Long-Tail-Chris-Anderson/…”
BOOL. THE END.
To enter to win the package of Stephen King books, tell me in the comments field something interesting you know about Stephen King. Does he staple the sheets of his bed to prevent monster attacks, did you read a great King book and have a favourite quote … anything you find interesting and would like to share. Use a valid email address and live in Canada. Those are the only rules.
You have until Saturday, Oct 21 to enter. I’ll do a random draw on Sunday, contact the winner for his/her mailing address and then mail the prize.
I’ve just returned from the book launch for Robert J. Wiersema’s first published novel, Before I Wake. It was a bit of a private party at Railspur Alley Cafe and Bistro on Granville Island, which is a great local touristy sort of place but also an awesome Vancouver locale–public market, cool bistros and coffee shops. They have a rule on the island that there shall be no chain stores. It is a Starbucks-free zone.
The launch was good. Robert’s editor Kendall spoke about Rob and the recent reviews and the praise the book has received (recently reviewed in the Globe and Mail quite positively). Then Rob got up and talk a bit about being part of the Random House family and that that wasn’t a bad thing. (He mentioned to me later that the world rights have been sold to St. Martin’s Press, which should mean excellent things for this novel internationally.) Then he read the first couple of pages of the novel. Pages that are heart-wrenching. The story opens with Karen and Sherry crossing a busy road. Sherry is 3. There is an on-coming truck and Sherry runs into the same lane as the truck. Those opening pages are all about the guilt of looking away for a second, of how things could have been if …
I’m working my way through the first section of the book now but my first impression is this is the type of book I like. The writing is strong. There’s something quirky going on (in this case, a little bit of mystery and magical powers), and I’m not sure how it’s going to end.
I took some photos at the launch, none are spectacular but feel free to have a look.
I wasn’t really sitting is a good spot for photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/somisguided/
In the beginning Google said that they would not allow the download and printing of books that are no longer protected by copyright [is this true? I need to confirm that], but that changed today. Google is now allowing people to download books whose copyright has expired: Here’s the story on Techcrunch.com.
When the copyright on a book expires, the work enters the public domain, which means that anyone can then take the opportunity to re-publish it, bind it, do whatever. So what’s the big fuss about Google offering up these works for download and print? Nothing. I think it’s great. If the work is in public domain, then they have the opportunity to digitize the works and mine them for revenue. It’s a commercial interest. The more digitized content they have available, the more pages they have to put advertising on, the more ways they have to make money.
The only concern I have is how are they determining when a book’s copyright has expired? What happens if they release it and the copyright hasn’t expired? The owner of the copyright has the right to gain financially from that work. It’s not Google’s turn. And once you’ve released the files online, there really isn’t a way to pull them back.
I suppose copyright law could change, there are certainly those advocating for that. But at the moment it is what it is, so I wonder what the plan is. Likely it will cost Google less to apologize and pay out if they do accidently release a copyrighted work vs. implementing a system to ensure accuracy.
How do you feel about Google?
Jon McGregor is the author of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, which is one of my all-time favourite books. His second novel, So Many Ways to Begin, is out this fall from Bloomsbury UK.
What I loved about If Nobody Speaks was the narrative style. It was different and complex and lyrical. I wouldn’t call it experimental, but it certainly was no run of the mill novel. I resisted reading So Many Ways to Begin because one of the first comments I heard was that it was more of “a novel.” Not really what I was hoping for.
So Many Ways to Begin made the Booker longlist, which was announced a couple of weeks ago, and I know that he is coming to Vancouver to the writer’s festival. Two reasons to crack the spine so I dove into the book this weekend.
Overall I liked the novel. The narrative structure wasn’t as compelling as If Nobody Speaks, but it wasn’t entirely conventional either. There are nice looping storylines and you get the sense of spiraling in on the plot rather than following along in a linear fashion.
Without telling too much, the story is about David Carter, who grows up wanting to be a curator in a museum. He’s encouraged by his Aunt Julia, who later in the novel mistakenly mentions that David is adopted. Much of the novel is the circular way he tries to deal with wanting to meet his birth mother. The problem is that he was born during the Second World War, at a time when good English, Scottish and Irish girls were filling London to work, but also getting into a bit of pregnancy trouble. They didn’t exactly leave a lot of personal, identifying details behind.
The Garneau Block and its story of a “Let’s Fix It” campaign to save the neighbourhood is one of the funniest pieces of Canadiana I’ve read in a long time. The residents of this Edmonton neighbourhood are memorable for their quirkiness but are also reminiscent of the residents of Winnipeg and Vancouver–two places I’ve lived. If you’re looking for satire, local politics and humour, you’ll enjoy the book.
Babiak initially serialized the work in the Edmonton Journal, but the novel doesn’t read in a choppy way at all. There are no cliff hangers that ring false in the full, novel version. It’s just very funny–ridiculous at times but definitely believable.
I received an early copy as part of the M&S 100 Readers Club. Thank you M&S.
What’s the book about?
It’s a satirical look at life in a Canadian neighbourhood, in this case a fictional cul-de-sac in Edmonton’s Garneau neighbourhood. The neighbourhood has been rocked by the sudden death of one of its neighbours, and then mysterious signs appear on their trees. The signs read “Let’s Fix It.”
The neighbours are pretty funny. In some cases they are stock characters, the local wanna-be politician, the university professor, the shop owner, the single, pregnant woman, the leftist, the foreigner and the gay guy. But they’re never presented as 2-dimensional characters, each is quirky and crazy in a way that takes you deeper into the characters and closer to the realization that “hey, I know this person.”
I keep saying it’s funny. It is. Not slapstick but like parody or satire or Miss Marpole. Funny like that. I really enjoyed the read.