I've never read a book says Posh

Former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham has admitted she has never read a book in her life - despite having apparently written her own 528-page autobiography.

The 31-year-old wife of England captain David Beckham told a Spanish magazine she does not have time to read.

The singer, who has three sons, also revealed to Chic magazine she was keen to have a daughter.

And she said she did not get jealous when other women paid attention to her famous husband.

She told the magazine: "I know what other women think and I say to myself 'He is very good looking, he dresses very well, he is great with children and he has an enormous heart'.

"I am not jealous and when people look at him, I think it's because he's great."

In the article, she said she would rather listen to music than read - although she admitted to "loving" fashion magazines.

Mrs Beckham, who is already mother to three sons - Brooklyn, 6, Romeo, 2, and six-month-old Cruz - said she wanted a daughter.

She said she could imagine "painting her nails, putting on make-up and choosing clothes" with her.

The interview will appear in next month's edition of Chic magazine but has been leaked to Spanish newspapers.

Mrs Beckham's autobiography, Learning to Fly, was published in 2001.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/4155082.stm


BBC NEWS | UK | I've never read a book says Posh

Authors Let Bidders Name Characters

By GARANCE BURKE
The Associated Press
Monday, August 15, 2005; 2:59 PM

SAN FRANCISCO -- It can take years of late-night navel gazing for a novelist to name a character _ or it could come as quickly as an Internet auction on eBay.

Next month, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Lemony Snicket, Nora Roberts, Michael Chabon and 11 other best-selling writers will auction the right to name characters in their new novels. The profits will go to the First Amendment Project, whose lawyers have repeatedly gone to court to protect the free speech rights of activists, writers and artists.

"It feels a little scary for most writers because when you're writing, you're completely in charge _ you can say this book is all mine, it's my world," said Chabon. "Whether giving over some of that has any monetary value or not, we'll see."

But bidders beware _ most of the authors are clearly retaining creative control to use the names as they see fit.

King says the highest bidder will get to name a character in a new zombie novel he describes as being "like cheap whisky ... very nasty and extremely satisfying." Cult comic author Neil Gaiman will let his top buyer select the name for a gravestone. Andrew Sean Greer promises the winner may choose the name of a "coffee shop, bar, corset company or other business in another scene," but only "should it suit the author."

John Grisham is one of only a handful promising to portray the top bidder's chosen name "in a good light."

On Sept. 1, eBay Giving Works, the site's dedicated program for charity listings, will go live with the electronic auction. For the next 25 days, anyone with an Internet connection can bid 24 hours a day to insert names into their favorite writers' heads. The event's organizers say they believe it will fetch well over the nonprofit First Amendment Project's goal of $50,000.

The benefit was the brainchild of Gaiman, who approached Chabon with the idea when he heard the group was running out of money. It will now constitute the single-largest fund-raising event for the First Amendment Project, whose legal staff will gratefully leverage the goodwill of authors willing to help keep its doors open. Other writers include Dave Eggers, Dorothy Allison, Peter Straub, ZZ Packer, Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, Ayelet Waldman, Andrew Sean Greer and Karen Joy Fowler.

"It's nice when people say they want to raise money for you," said David Greene, executive director of the First Amendment Project, which was founded in 1994. "Because it was brought to us by the writers, it was even more special."

Greene said that money raised by the auction will go to support the organization's pro bono work representing clients being sued over free speech, free press and freedom of expression. One such case, over whether a high school student's angry poetry constituted a "criminal threat," recently went before the California Supreme Court.

Board member Chabon, who won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," said his own work would be meaningless without the freedoms afforded under the First Amendment.

"I don't think anything else can be hopeful or accomplished if you have the fear that you will get arrested or prosecuted or censored," he said. "I saw a cry for help. So it was my goal to try to get writers whose work and whose name would be meaningful to the greatest number of people."

Snicket, who will let the top bidder determine an utterance by Sunny Baudelaire in his upcoming 13th installment of his "Series of Unfortunate Events," said he holds the First Amendment dear because "the only trouble I should get in for my writing is the trouble I make myself."

His only caveat: The meaning of the utterance may be slightly "mutilated."

Authors Let Bidders Name Characters

Getting new books to buzz

BY BECKY AIKMAN
STAFF WRITER

August 15, 2005

On a bright Saturday afternoon, a youthful team that often hands out nightclub leaflets fanned out across Central Park, Hamptons beaches and sites in five other cities with an unusual assignment: Give away the first two chapters of a novel.

The team scored right away with Monika Krejeirova, a 31-year-old hedge-fund worker who was sunning herself on Central Park's Great Lawn. "It's just enough to get me excited," she said as she finished the excerpt of "The Black Silent," by David Dun. "I want to know what happens next." She planned to stop by a Barnes & Noble store to ask when the science-fiction thriller would go on sale.

A few blankets away, though, Jackie Spitz, a 26-year-old teacher, tossed the booklet aside. "I only took it," she said, "because I felt sorry for the people handing it out."

Pity the book industry. Of all forms of media, it may face the greatest challenge enticing people to sample its products.

That's why a few publishers are trying guerrilla marketing to build all-important buzz for their books. Some are employing teams to give out samples at concerts, parks and movie theaters to people they hope are trendsetters. Others are using stealth Internet campaigns, the way movie companies do, creating mysterious Web sites to intrigue potential readers. Both techniques helped promote a summer science fiction bestseller, "The Traveler," by an anonymous author with the pseudonym John Twelve Hawks.

In perhaps the most unusual move, some publishers have recruited thousands of ordinary people to act as so-called buzz agents to talk up books to their friends. Books ranging from the bestselling "Freakonomics" to literary novels have recently gotten the buzz treatment.

Reading in decline

These days, it's especially important to find better ways of pushing books, publishers say, as reading continues to decline, especially among young adults. And for books that do catch on, publishing has become a winner-take-all business. One or two runaway bestsellers become the books that seemingly everyone is reading and talking about while the rest of the 195,000 titles published in a year languish.

"This is a business where people know one very difficult fact: Americans want to read hits. They don't want to read flops," said Albert Greco, a professor of marketing and book-industry researcher at Fordham University. "What works? It's hard to say. Most people think that it's word of mouth, called 'buzz' in the business."

Buzz is what propels a book such as "The DaVinci Code" to 124 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. The same goes for "The Kite Runner," a first novel set in Afghanistan, now at 47 weeks. Traditional methods like media appearances, ads and author readings help, especially for famous authors, but it's everyday chatter at dinner parties and offices that puts a breakout book over the top.

"Word of mouth is very important," said Laurie Parkin, vice president and publisher of Kensington Publishing, publisher of "The Black Silent." "It's what gives a book what we call 'legs.' Media attention is great, and it's instant and it's immediate. But if people like the book, they talk about it, and that's when you see books hit the bestseller list for 50 weeks, 100 weeks. It's what we all aspire to."

Getting people talking

That's why the new techniques aim at getting people talking. And talking is the essence of BzzAgent, a 3-year-old Boston company. It has 90,000 recruits who've agreed to talk up products ranging from shoes to sausages to books -- for no pay, just for access to some free stuff and the feeling of being in the know about the latest things.

"It definitely sounded kind of kooky," said Rick Pascocello, vice president of advertising and promotions for the Penguin Group of publishers. BzzAgent approached him back in 2002 to do a campaign for free if Penguin would be its first client. So he took a why-not plunge with "The Frog King," by a first-time novelist, Adam Davies.

The book is a somewhat humorous take on a young man coming of age in the work world. But despite its possible appeal to 20-something readers, Penguin had low expectations: no money for advertising, virtually no reviews. Yet, crowds of more than 100 showed up at readings, and the book went on to sell a healthy 50,000 copies.

Pascocello credits 1,000 BzzAgents, who read the book on subways, asked for it at bookstores, reviewed it on Amazon.com and buzzed their friends about it. He's since used BzzAgents for 30 more books, including an Iraqi war memoir, "Generation Kills," by Evan Wright. After selling 40,000 copies in hardcover, it would have been expected to pull in similar numbers in paperback, but it more than doubled that after a buzz campaign.

For the middle-tier book

"This isn't for the big commercial books that are on the bestseller list," Pascocello said. "This is for the next layer of books that everybody here in the industry knows and loves but struggles with how to get people to find them." Other publishers have tried BzzAgents, too, including HarperCollins and Rodale. Doubleday is considering it.

In practice, BzzAgent campaigns lead to encounters like this one in an apartment-complex laundry room, reported on the company Web site: "A woman walked in with her wash. I looked up and smiled, as did she. After a few minutes she asked what book I was reading, and I told her about the 'Young, Fabulous & Broke' book [by Suze Orman]. Her eyebrows raised and said, 'Wow . . . that's me!'"

After comparing stories about debts and child-rearing, the agent gave the woman postcards about the book and reported: "She was completely exstatic !" Authentic or not, that sort of personal connection is hard to duplicate in traditional promotions.

Michele Hanson, in charge of book campaigns at BzzAgent, said agents are encouraged to be honest and buzz books only if they like them. Still, there's been some backlash. Someone posted a reader's review on Amazon.com warning that other positive reviews of "The Frog King" might be the untrustworthy result of buzz marketing.

Stealth is inexpensive

One reason publishers like stealth promotions is they aren't expensive. Pascocello said he spends in the low six figures to buzz 10 books a year.

Low marketing budgets are a leading obstacle to unknown books, according to Greco of Fordham University. Unlike movie companies, which might spend $50 million to market a $100 million film, book publishers rarely allocate more than 10 percent to 20 percent of what they've spent on a book to go out and sell it, he said.

However, publishers have borrowed one page, if an inexpensive one, from movie marketing by trying some stealth Internet campaigns. Faced this summer with promoting "The Traveler," Doubleday set up a series of Web sites.

Posted months before the book was published in July, the sites weren't identified as having any connection with "The Traveler," the idea being to create some mystery and capture the attention of alternative-reality fans, a target readership. Gradually, they discovered the sites and began to chatter about them, including a site that allows people to break into the files of the book's sinister Evergreen Foundation, and a blog for a major character.

Handouts on the street

At the same time, Doubleday hired Sniper Marketing, a Brooklyn street-team company that hands out promotional items for nightclubs, record companies and other youth-oriented products. "They're very good at reaching a younger male market, and that's part of who we were looking for here," said John Pitts, marketing director of Doubleday. It was the first book assignment for Sniper.

The teams targeted campuses, comic book shops and lines for the latest "Star Wars" movie with a promotional DVD. "On the first day of 'Star Wars,' we got the fanatics," said Ozzie Salcedo, the founder of Sniper Marketing. "It was awesome. People were eating it up."

That, along with some good reviews, pushed the book onto The New York Times best-seller list for two weeks when it came out last month. Now 200,000 copies are in print. Not bad, said Pitts, "considering it's a first-time novelist that nobody's ever met."

For its second book project, Dun's "The Black Silent," Sniper hit a glitch: A Central Park employee asked the teams to stop -- he claimed the sample chapters were litter. Still, Sniper gave out 150,000 samples over the July 4 weekend. Kensington Publishing also took out some newspaper ads.

The result? So far, the publisher is shipping 20 percent more copies than it had for Dun's previous books. Absent detailed market research, unheard-of in publishing, it's hard to measure the impact of the new efforts to promote outside the bookstores, said Parkin, the publisher of "The Black Silent." But it's worth trying, she added: "You've got a very limited time to market a book. This gives it a little added dimension."

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

Newsday.com: Getting new books to buzz

Books, Not Tales, Get Taller Before Baby Boomers' Eyes
By EDWARD WYATT

They carried dog-eared copies of "On the Road" in their back pockets during college and devoured Tom Clancy paperbacks on airplanes as young executives. But as baby boomers near retirement, they are finding it harder and harder to read the small type of mass-market paperbacks, the pocket-size books that are the most popular segment of the publishing business.

Faced with declining sales, two of the biggest publishers of mass-market titles, the Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster, have begun issuing new paperbacks by some of their most popular authors in a bigger size that allows larger type and more space between lines.

"We've been losing the foundation of our customer base because their eyesight is getting worse, and the books are getting harder and harder to read," said Jack Romanos, the chief executive of Simon & Schuster, whose Pocket Books division introduced the mass-market paperback format in the United States in 1939.

More mass-market paperbacks are still sold each day than any other type of book; last year consumers bought 535 million of them. But that number has steadily declined for a decade and is down 11 percent in the last five years, while the overall number of books sold has fallen just 7 percent, according to the Book Industry Study Group, a publishing trade group.

For publishers, the main advantage of the new book is that it is the same width as a traditional mass-market paperback, which allows it to fit in the wire racks at airports, grocery stores and drugstores. Those outlets are among the biggest sellers of the romances, westerns, mysteries and thrillers that make up the bulk of paperbacks sold. Publishers have also raised the cover price of the new books to $9.99, $2 to $3 more than the traditional paperback but still less than the $14 cover price of the digest-size books, known as trade paperbacks, that are now the primary format for nonfiction books and literary novels.

Readers appear to be responding well. Larger-edition paperbacks of six authors have made it onto the New York Times paperback best-seller list since last month, when they started appearing regularly in stores. The Pocket Books edition of "White Hot," the latest suspense novel by Sandra Brown, is in the new format and will top The Times's list on Aug. 21, the first time one of the new, bigger editions will reach No. 1. (That list reflects sales in the week ended Aug. 6.)

"We've gotten so many letters and e-mails from readers saying, 'Thank you for making the type larger,' " said Leslie Gelbman, the president of mass-market paperbacks at Penguin, which test-marketed the first larger paperback in December. Good response to that offering led Penguin, a division of Pearson, to expand its program this year to seven of its best-selling authors, including the romance novelist Nora Roberts and the thriller writers Clive Cussler and Robin Cook.

Harlequin Enterprises, the biggest seller of romance novels, has also joined the movement. Last month it began issuing larger-format paperbacks of its new line of romances for older women, called Next.

Not all of the responses have been positive, however. Publishing industry executives said that some big discount retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores, objected to the higher price of the new paperbacks and ordered smaller-than-normal volumes of the books because of doubts whether their customers would buy as many.

And at least some readers have complained about the new format. On the electronic message board on the Internet site of Vince Flynn, whose latest thriller, "Memorial Day," was published in the new format last month by Pocket's Star imprint, some fans have said that the new books feel clunky and are difficult to hold. Others say they like the changes, however, and over all the new book is selling better than Mr. Flynn's last novel, according to Simon & Schuster, a unit of Viacom.

The large bookstore chains, including Borders Group and Barnes & Noble, are taking a wait-and-see attitude. "We need more time to be able to judge," said Allison Elsby, the manager for genre fiction at Borders and its Waldenbooks division. "There are just a handful of titles out in this format, and while the initial reaction looks relatively positive, it has only been a few weeks."

Publishers have tinkered with the size of mass-market paperbacks over the decades, mostly to meet the demands of printing presses. But at a time when sales of ready-made reading glasses are up - they grew 11 percent last year alone, to $439 million, according to VisionWatch, an eyeglass industry research group - this change is meant to meet the needs of those who buy and read paperbacks.

To make the new books easier to read, publishers increased their height by three-quarters of an inch, to 7½ inches, while keeping the same width, 4¼ inches. The longer page allows publishers to increase the type size by up to a half-point, to 10½ points, and to increase the leading - the space between lines - to 14½ points from about 12. As a result, a page of the new books has about 32 lines, compared with as many as 38 lines in their predecessors.

Sales of mass-market paperbacks have also been declining for reasons other than America's worsening eyesight. Book superstores and warehouse clubs routinely discount the price of hardcovers by as much as 50 percent, giving readers less reason to wait - customarily, a year - after a new book is published to buy the cheaper paperback version.

In addition, the decline of the mall bookstores led to fewer impulse purchases of the lower-priced books, and the popularity of trade paperbacks grew significantly when Oprah Winfrey began recommending those books exclusively for her book club.

Because price-conscious discount merchants like Wal-Mart and Target also grew in importance as booksellers, publishers of mass-market paperbacks have been unable to raise prices, which have been essentially flat for a decade. To maintain their profit margins, publishers have resorted to lower-quality paper and other methods of lowering production cost.

But the smaller pocket-size paperback is still used for the authors whose books sell the most copies, like John Grisham, whose novels reside for eternity on the backlist, the most profitable part of a publisher's inventory. And it is those continuing sales - which sometimes total five or more times the number of hardcovers sold - that allow publishers to pay the large advances that those most popular authors demand.

Some publishers remain skeptical about the changes. Irwyn Applebaum, president and publisher of the Bantam Dell Publishing Group at Random House, said that Bantam Books had tried a similar experiment in the late 1980's but abandoned it after issuing about three books.

"We think the current mass-market format is best," he said.

But Mr. Romanos of Simon & Schuster said that without the change, the mass-market segment was in danger of withering. "If you go back 20 years, the mass-market paperback was really driving the business," he said. But more recently, "it hasn't been carrying its weight."

"As long as we have to continue to pay what we do for brand-name authors, we need a healthier paperback format to make it work."



Books, Not Tales, Get Taller Before Baby Boomers' Eyes - New York Times

INTERVIEW WITH DALE BROWN

My first interview! Dale Brown is the author of more than 15 New York Times bestsellers, including Plan of Attack (January 2005), his last novel starring his intrepid hero, Patrick McLanahan. His newest book, Act of War, launches an unforgettable new series lead by a young new hero named Jason Richter. This surefire thriller combines geopolitics, terrorism, and plenty of action as it takes readers deep into the new world of intelligence-focused warfare like never before. A former U. S. Air Force captain, Brown can often be found flying his own plane over the skies of Nevada. He lives near Lake Tahoe.

BookBitch: Why did you go into the military? How old were you? How did your family feel about it? Do you come from a military family?

Dale Brown: I entered the military because I wanted to fly; my family couldn't afford to send me to college (I am the oldest boy of 6 kids); my grades were good but not good enough for an academic scholarship; and I was active in sports (soccer, hockey, tennis) but not good enough for an athletic scholarship.

My Dad was and is very anti-military, but with two of his sons in the military he's softened up over the years. The rest of my family thought it was a regular job--I don't think they realized that I trained to drop nuclear bombs for a living, just like they don't know what my youngest brother Jim does in the Army.

BookBitch: Tell me about your military career. Specifically, your progression through the ranks, friends you made that you kept, and your best and worst memories.

Dale Brown: I never saw the military as a career. I'm like my Dad in a lot of ways--I'm always looking for the next great thing, the next challenge, the next opportunity. I met lots of military officers but never wanted to be like any of them. I resigned my commission because I wasn't being challenged any more, I realized I probably wasn't going to get promoted very high, and I had something else that I was more interested in--writing.

BookBitch: In what direction do you see the military moving today? Do you think a draft will become inevitable? Talk to me in technobabble, baby! Then translate please.

Dale Brown: The military desperately needs to change, but is being prevented from doing so by the old heads, the Vietnam- and Cold War-era generals, politicians, and bureaucrats who see transformation, downsizing, and technology as eroding the military they know and are too comfortable with.

Operation Iraqi Freedom is the perfect example of the "graybeards" in control. Instead of using our technological advantages to fight the Iraqis, we tried to fight a World War Two-style war against a Vietnam-style guerrilla opponent--we used a sledgehammer to knock down the beehive and were surprised when we started getting stung.

If another Iraq-like confrontation breaks out, a draft will happen (the draft actually never went away--it's just dormant). But it doesn't have to happen. We brought down the Taliban in Afghanistan with less than ten percent of the troops we're using in Iraq--we can do the same to Iran, Syria, or North Korea, if the old guys in the Pentagon would simply stop thinking of war in twentieth-century terms.

BookBitch: What words of advice do you have for the soldiers in the military today? Especially those in Iraq and other combat zones, and their families.

Dale Brown: To the soldiers, I would say: learn your craft, pay attention, stay alert, don't get complacent, and don't give up. You chose to be a soldier--get out there and be the best damned soldier you can.

To the families, I would say: be strong, stay strong, be supportive, and keep the faith. The military is not some stranger that stole your son, daughter, husband, or wife in the middle of the night--the military is the life they chose. Support and love them, or keep your mouth shut.

BookBitch: Tell me about your educational background and any other jobs/careers you had besides the military & writing. Why did you leave the military? Why did you start writing? How did you get your first agent? Your first book contract? What advice would you give struggling authors?

Dale Brown: I was always a good student but college was very difficult for me, primarily because I chose a difficult major (pre-med) and partied too much as a freshman. After I changed my major (to West European History) and stopped screwing around, I did better.

Other than that, I have no other marketable skills. I never finished even the basic professional military education courses like Squadron Officers School or Air Command and Staff College; I never finished a master's degree. But I knew I could write.

I had been writing freelance magazine articles for years; I had a column in the Penn State University newspaper; and I wrote for the base newspapers. I had not been doing much fiction. But writing about a fictitious B-52 bombing mission against the Soviet Union while still flying B-52s really got me going. I worked on that manuscript for 3 years.

I had already decided to get out of the Air Force, but shortly thereafter I had my first meeting with a literary agency (George and Olga Wieser, now the Wieser & Elwell Agency). I didn't sign any deals at that meeting, but it pulled me out of my little funk about worrying what to do after I got out of the Air Force.

A couple months after I got out I received a telegram (the one and only telegram I ever received or even remember seeing) from the Wiesers telling me they had made a deal for "Flight of the Old Dog" and two other novels. I still have no idea how they found me, because since meeting with them in April of 1986 I had left the Air Force, moved from New Hampshire back to California, and had moved twice after that.

BookBitch: I'm curious about how you work. Tell me what a typical writing day is like for you. How long do you work? When do you write? How does your family affect that process? How long does it take you to complete a novel? Do they vary? Do you use researchers or do your own or just use yourself as your chief resource? Do you have groupies?

Dale Brown: My schedule revolves around my family--I tried it the other way, having my family adapt to my schedule, but with an 8 year-old that doesn't work.

A typical day starts around 8:30 a.m., after I drop my son off at school. I usually read and answer e-mail, look over whatever I'm working on, make a few changes here and there until noon...then go to the driving range and hit some golf balls, read a book, surf the Internet, or just stare out the window and think about the story.

Around one p.m. I go back to work and go until 2:30 until it's time to pick up my son from school. I get him started on his homework, then go back to work until around six p.m. I hang with the family until my son goes to bed around 9 p.m., then go back to work. I read what I've done, make a few changes or additions, then quit around 11:30 pm.

I fly my Cessna P210 at least once a week year-round to stay proficient. I play golf in the late spring, summer, and early fall, and I referee soccer for the local youth soccer group in the summer and fall. My wintertime sport is snowblowing, which is good exercise but is starting to feel like work now, so I'm ready to move someplace warm that has good flying weather, an airport nearby, and a good golf course.

I do quite a few speaking engagements, mostly for service clubs, colleges, libraries, and literacy groups.

I used to have an assistant but my office is my space and I didn't like anyone invading it, even if it was something worthwhile or necessary. I do all my own research.

A book takes 6-8 months to finish, plus a month or so for editing. I try to roll right into the next one as soon as I finish.

Groupies? Yeah, right!

BookBitch: What are you currently reading? Can you read other action adventure type books while you're working on writing one? What sort of books do you read for pleasure? Who are some of your favorite authors? What are some of your favorite books and why?

Dale Brown: Most of the stuff I read is research oriented, mostly background or "behind-the-scenes" books, a little politics, a lot of geopolitical or military non-fiction. I read very few other techno-thriller writers, and rarely while I'm working on a manuscript.

BookBitch: Your new book, ACT OF WAR, is also a video game. How did that happen? Are you a video game enthusiast?

Dale Brown: My Hollywood agent, Alan Nevins of The Firm Entertainment, brought me the offer from Attari to write a story for a real-time military strategy game they were producing. I had already done a computer game years ago("Megafortress") and I jumped at the opportunity. I wasn't paid much money, but I did get the book rights and a portion of the movie and TV rights.

Before "Act of War," the only computer games I played were "Solitaire" and flight simulators like "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004," and even then I only flew planes that I fly in real life. My son is into PC computer games so I've gotten more into them recently, games like "Command and Conquer: Generals" and of course "Act of War."

BookBitch: Do people confuse you with Dan Brown? Can you cash his checks? Do you wish you could? Did you read The Da Vinci Code and would you care to express an opinion?

Dale Brown: Many folks have said that our writing styles are similar. I haven't read any of Dan Brown's books. I'm secretly hoping he's a long-lost son that has been searching for me for years. Fat chance.

BookBitch: Please share anything else you'd like that I haven't asked about.

Dale Brown: I believe we live in a world of our own creation. We are all God. We are immortal. We had no beginning and have no end, and life is an endless journey of pleasure and discovery. Life is managed, enlightened risk, or it's wasted.

Please visit Dale Brown's website at http://www.megafortress.com

interesting post from Sarah Weinman's blog:

There is no better tonic than hard numbers.
And because writers are an obsessive lot -- phoning Ingram, checking Amazon, comparing their recent advances to others, wondering what the hell royalty statements really mean -- I thought that publicizing some actual figures might do the trick. Or at least stir up discussion.

Over a three week period this summer, the following sales numbers were recorded for a NYT bestselling thriller writer's most recent book:

B&N: 4,140
Waldenbooks: 4,888
Borders: 3,993
Anderson Merchandisers/Walmart: 47,671
Target: 16,341
Price/Costco: 17,291
Sam's: 14,108
Amazon: 320

I'm not sure what shocked me more: the unbelievably low number for Amazon, or just how powerful Walmart and Costco really are in the publishing business.

The author further adds:

For all their hype, the truth (and I've seen this with actual sales figures going back to 2000) is that Amazon numbers are tiny compared to virtually every other retail outlet.

Amazon makes their profit selling used books, not new ones. Maybe their low sales numbers was one of the determining factors to shift their focus toward used sales -- I don't know. But I do know that their numbers are insignificant to the pub in determining the success/failure of a book.

Surprised that some of the figures are so "low?" Bear in mind that a huge percentage of actual retail sales are from independents, grocery stores, pharmacies, outlets like that -- which don't report weekly numbers.

But the Walmart number is rather staggering, isn't it? It's one reason I put what little local/regional promotional efforts I do into cultivating Anderson reps and going on day-long road trips to sign and sticker stock for Walmarts. They get a hell of a lot of foot traffic, and sell a hell of a lot of books.

If there's a moral to the story (so to speak) it's that to get on the bestseller lists, it probably behooves the writer to get very friendly with the folks at Walmart." 7/26/2005


Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

Poll names 'top book group novel'

British book groups have voted Barbara Kingsolver's 1998 novel The Poisonwood Bible, about a US missionary in 1950s Africa, their favourite read. Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time came second in the survey of groups entering the Penguin/Orange Reading Group Prize. Works by Khaled Hosseini, Andrea Levy and Tracy Chevalier were also in the top five books for reading groups.

The Poisonwood Bible was nominated for the Pulitzer and PEN/Faulkner awards.

More than 160 reading groups, with about 2,500 members, offered their all-time favourite books for the poll.

Modern classics

The top of the list is dominated by books published in the last decade.

Mark Haddon's work and The Kite Runner by Afghan-born author Khaled Hosseini, at number three, were both published in 2003.

Andrea Levy's Small Island, in fourth place, won the Orange and Whitbread prizes after being released last year while Tracy Chevalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring came out in 2000. Classics on the list include To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee at six, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath at 12 and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre at 16.

Guy Pringle, one of the Reading Group Prize judges, said all the novels "struck a lasting chord with passionate readers".

"Reading groups have once again made up their own minds about what they want to read - in spite of publishers' marketing campaigns," he said.

"Word-of-mouth recommendation is clearly crucial, pushing new titles like The Kite Runner instantly on to the Reading Group bestseller list alongside old favourites."





BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Poll names 'top book group novel'

The Invisible Library

Want to read Jo March's "The Curse of the Coventrys" or Eccentrica Gallumbits' "The Big Bang Theory, A Personal View"? Sorry, you can't. They're fictional. Not books of fiction, but fictional books. These and all the other books listed in The Invisible Library are imaginary titles dreamed up by authors and referenced in actual works of fiction. Librarian Brian Quinette, with help from friends also obsessed with fictional fiction, has carefully cataloged hundreds of non-existent titles. Browse the names of real authors and titles to find the pseudo versions. From the "books" written by Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's novels, to the "Misery" series created by the fictional hero of Stephen King's "Misery," to the mysterious "Necronomicon" by H.P. Lovecraft's Abdul Alhazred, this library boasts lists of potentially rich reading material -- if only they existed.


Invisible Library

Literary bonbons

LAURIE MUCHNICK

June 26, 2005

Do you read chick lit? It's become such a bookstore staple that it's hard to believe it didn't even exist a decade ago. British journalist Helen Fielding is widely credited with having invented the genre with "Bridget Jones' Diary," which was published in 1996. That book was such a sensation that women writers stopped trying to emulate Jackie Collins' and Judith Krantz's over-the-top romantic confections and started writing stories about neurotic single women trying to have a cool career, lose a few pounds and find a man.

(By the way, what's Judith Krantz up to? She hasn't made an appearance on bookstore shelves since her memoir, "Sex and Shopping: The Confessions of a Nice Jewish Girl," came out in 2000, and her most recent novel, "The Jewels of Tessa Kent," was published in 1998. I think it's time for a comeback - especially since she's being used as a role model again. One of the most hotly anticipated books of this summer is an ultra-glamorous Hollywood novel called "Adored," by Tilly Bagshawe, who says she was trying to recapture the dishy, escapist fun of a Krantz novel. When "Adored" is published in July, we'll see if that's what people want to read these days; if it sells, I sure hope Judith Krantz has her computer warmed up.)

Getting back to the history of chick lit: After "Bridget Jones" hit it big, American publishers began looking for their own version of the "neurotic single woman looking for love" novel. Candace Bushnell's "Sex and the City" came out in 1996, about the same time as "Bridget Jones," but it didn't become a cultural phenomenon until the TV series started two years later. Since it takes a long time to write and publish a book, trends can take a while to blossom, and it wasn't until 1998 that American chick-lit novels began to appear. There was "Animal Husbandry" by Laura Zigman, and then, in 1999, there was "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing," by Melissa Bank. I can't remember if the term "chick lit" was in use by then, but I do remember Bank being promoted as the more literary version of Helen Fielding.

Why worry about all this now? Because Melissa Bank has just published her second book, "The Wonder Spot," and it's kicking up a storm of name-calling among women writers who do and do not embrace the chick-lit label. Curtis Sittenfeld, author of "Prep," wrote a scathing review in The New York Times Book Review which started off: "To suggest that another woman's ostensibly literary novel is chick lit feels catty, not unlike calling another woman a slut - doesn't the term basically bring down all of us?" But she doesn't let that stop her, going on to say that "The Wonder Spot" is, indeed, chick lit, because "its appeal relies so much on how closely readers relate to its protagonist," Sophie Applebaum, an upper-middle-class Everywoman who spends her time looking for love or even a job that she likes (and is good at).

I didn't disagree with Sittenfeld's negative assessment of "The Wonder Spot" - I didn't like it either, and even though I could certainly identify with Sophie I found the book incredibly boring - but I was troubled by her harping on the chick-lit theme. Novelist Jennifer Weiner, author of fun, unabashedly commercial novels including "Good in Bed" and "In Her Shoes" (soon to be a movie starring Cameron Diaz), brilliantly analyzed Sittenfeld's entire review on her blog, Snarkspot (jenniferweiner .blogspot.com). Weiner thinks (and I agree) that book reviews are at least as much about the reviewer as about the book being reviewed, and in this case, she thinks Sittenfeld is worried about her own place in the literary pantheon. Her book bears blurbs from Dave Eggers, Thisbe Nissen, Matthew Klam and other well-respected young writers, but as Weiner points out, if you look at her entry on Amazon.com, you'll see that one of the other books bought by the same people who bought "Prep" was "Bergdorf Blondes" - not exactly high culture.

So what's the moral of the story? There's good chick lit and bad chick lit, just as there's good literary fiction and bad literary fiction - and maybe these labels are useless, anyway. I can hardly count the number of times I've read reviews that say, basically, "This book is chick lit, but never mind, read it anyway, it's great!" I wrote something like that myself, last summer, when I raved about Sarah Dunn's first novel, "The Big Love," which has just come out in paperback and which I would recommend in a heartbeat. The plot is nothing unusual - girl loses boy, girl has fling with cute boss, girl gets boy back and has to decide what to do with him - but the narrator's voice is so engaging that it lifts the book right out of the run-of-the-mill and into the perfect-reads category.

I think there's been a brilliant by-product of the chick-lit tidal wave, and it's that smart, well-educated young writers who probably read Jonathan Franzen and Alice Munro in their spare time have embraced the idea that books can be enjoyable and intelligent at the same time. (Not that Franzen and Munro aren't enjoyable, but you know what I mean. They're not exactly light reading.) And this realization hasn't been limited to women writers, either. Think of Nick Hornby or Tom Perrotta, who write books that might have been called "lad lit" if that spinoff label hadn't been such a dud with the reading public. Other chick-lit spin-offs now include "mommy lit," including "I Don't Know How She Does It" by Allison Pearson and "Little Earthquakes" by Jennifer Weiner; and "worker lit," which began with "The Nanny Diaries" and continues with this summer's sharp "Twins of Tribeca," by former Miramax publicist Rachel Pine. There are even chick-lit mysteries; I've devoured the Bailey Weggins books by Cosmopolitan editor in chief Kate White, and am currently enjoying "Fashion Victim," by Sam Baker, the editor of Cosmo's U.K. edition. (Though it seems kind of weird to have the top editors of sister magazines writing such similar books, I say the more the merrier.)

Of course there are bad chick-lit novels, just as there are bad literary novels - I won't mention names. But as far as I'm concerned, every balanced reading diet requires a few bonbons, and I'm glad there are plenty of literary chocolates on the shelves to choose from.

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.


Newsday.com: Literary bonbons

Book and Reading Statistics

This showed up in my email box from Alan Nichter, Adult Materials Selection, Hillsborough County Public Library System and I thought it interesting enough to share.

Some startling statistics
by Robyn Jackson

So you want to write a book. Well, why not? So does about 80 percent of the United States population according to a survey by the Jenkins Group.

Anyone who has ever tried to find an agent or get a manuscript accepted by a publisher knows what a tough business writing is. Even if you do get your book published, there's no guarantee anyone will buy it.

The following statistics about book publishing and reading were found on www.parapub.com, the Web site of self-publishing guru Dan Poynter. They'll give you an idea of what you're up against if you want to write books for a living.

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroup.com)


53 percent read fiction, 43 percent read nonfiction.
The favorite fiction category is mystery and suspence, at 19 percent.
55 percent of fiction is bought by women, 45 percent by men. (Source: Publishers Weekly)
About 120,000 books are published each year in the U.S. (Source: www.bookwire.com)


A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.
A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.
(Source: Authors Guild, www.authorsguild.org)


On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book's front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover. (Source: Para Publishing, www.parapub.com)

Each day in the U.S., people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines. (Source: Veronis, Suhler & Associates investment banker)

WHY I HATE CINGULAR WIRELESS

One of the best things about having a website is the soapbox it gives me to stand on. I had a wireless cell phone plan with ATT, and never really had a problem. Until Cingular bought them out or took over or whatever these cannibal companies do to each other. I have had problems with my bills every month since, including a new wrinkle that started about three months ago.

Every month I get a small charge on my bill, usually less than a dollar so I probably shouldn't even notice it, but it's for AOL Instant Messaging. I don't have an account with AOL and I don't use Instant Messager or Messenger or whatever it is. So I called Cingular and got a very bored woman who insisted I must have lent my phone to someone who then used AOL. As if. What am I, twelve years old? Everyone I know has their own damn phone and doesn't need to use mine. I was also told there were no supervisors available - how convenient - but that she would give me a once-in-a-year goodwill credit for the eighty cents. I explained I wasn't so concerned about the eighty cents, but I was concerned with the fact that it appeared someone was using AOL and I was being billed for it. She finally agreed to put something in the notes of our conversation, promising that someone would read it.

The next month it happened again, another small charge for AOL. I didn't bother to call. Then it happened again. This time only thirty cents but still, it's the principle of the thing. So I called customer service, went through fifteen minutes of voice mail, punching in numbers and horrible muzak before finally reaching Jason, who from the moment he said hellohowcanIhelpyou, had disdain dripping from every syllable and I knew it wasn't going to be good. I was dealing with a supercilious young man with a superiority complex. I tried to explain the problem to him and he gave me the same "you must have lent your phone to someone" spiel. I asked for a supervisor and was told none was available. I really tried to make him understand that I wasn't concerned with the thirty cent charge but with the fact that I hadn't lent my phone to anyone yet somehow AOL charges were appearing on my bill. He finally said he would talk to someone else and put me on hold. Eventually he informed me that he could shut off my Internet access which meant I couldn't use some of the features of the phone I paid for. I asked about any other options and was told take or leave it, he didn't really care what I did. I finally said go ahead and do it, my contract will be up shortly and I'll take care of it then. His reply was "piss off" and then he hung up on me.

I am forwarding a copy of this to Cingular and I trust that his name is on my records since supposedly he had the Internet service taken off my phone. I have only dealt with one competent person at Cingular, and she was with the corporate services department. Everyone else there has been ignorant, impatient, uncaring, unsympathetic and downright rude. I've been given completely erroneous information time and time again. No one has any idea of what is going on, what is the right thing to do, or how to make a customer happy. Or at least not aggravate them further. If I was Jason's boss, I'd fire him. Immediately. And then I'd sit down and read THE NORDSTROM WAY or another good management book and make all my employees read it too. And practice it. Good customer service doesn't cost any more than bad and can make a company a lot of money in the long run.

My contract ended and I am shopping around for new cellular service. If anyone is happy with their carrier and is in the south Florida region, I'd love to hear about it.

With Covers, Publishers Take More Than Page From Rivals
By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

When a book hits stores with a cover nearly identical to another's, it's the publishing equivalent of arriving at a party wearing the same dress as the hostess. But while book jacket look-alikes may chafe publishers, it happens more often than you might think.

The image on the cover of Todd Hasak-Lowy's short-story collection, "The Task of This Translator" (Harvest Books, an imprint of Harcourt), released in June, shows a hat floating over a necktie-wearing headless man - nearly identical to the one on a 1999 story collection, Barry Yourgrau's "Wearing Dad's Head" (Arcade Publishing).

The hall of mirrors continues: both books appear to riff on Fred Marcellino's celebrated floating-bowler-hat illustration for Milan Kundera's novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," which itself appeared to be a homage to the Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte, who frequently depicted men with bowlers.

Sometimes the photographs on book covers are not just similar, but exact duplicates. Rather than pay photographers' day rates, most book designers turn to stock-photography agencies. Top agencies charge $1,200 to $1,500 a photograph, and twice that for exclusive rights, a premium publishers are loath to pay.

That's where the trouble starts.

Seven years ago, an edition of Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's "Raising Your Spirited Child" featured on its cover a stock photograph, from the Photonica agency, of a girl running with outstretched arms. Five years later, another parenting book, "Children at Promise," by Timothy S. Stuart and Cheryl G. Bostrom, featured the identical photograph, as does a recently released paperback version of the book.

Mary Schuck, senior art director at Harper Perennial, which published the first title, learned of the latter only recently, when directed to it on the Internet. "Oh, wow," Ms. Schuck said. "They used the same photo. It's just a huge mistake for this publisher to have done this."

At that other publisher, Jossey-Bass, an imprint of Wiley, the look-alike cover also came as news.

"It's in all our best interests to make sure that image isn't already being used in the same medium," Jean Morley, Wiley's vice president of creative services, said in an e-mail message. "When our designers use stock art, they routinely ask if the image is being used for other purposes, and most stock houses will volunteer that information."

She added, "I suspect the reason this happened was probably because that information wasn't shared or possibly because we thought that first book was outdated or not directly competing in the marketplace."

"Raising Your Spirited Child" hardly appears outdated: the book was recently No. 38 on Amazon's parenting and families top-seller list; Wiley's "Children at Promise" didn't make that Top 100 list. (The older book's overall sales rank was 645; the newer was 314,488.) It's unclear how many bookstores stack them near each other; both address parenting, but only "Children at Promise" is Christian-themed.

David Neilson, the chief executive of Photonica, said in an e-mail message that "it's likely" Wiley was warned of the previous book cover: when a "client calls in to request a photo, we will check the image's history automatically."

In any case, neither publisher has any recourse against the agency, as neither paid for exclusivity. Ditto for Bloomsbury and Doubleday, which paid Photonica for nonexclusive use of the same photograph of a knee-socked woman, though used upside down in one case. The books - Melissa Pritchard's "Disappearing Ingénue" (Doubleday) and a British edition of Jeffrey Eugenides's "Virgin Suicides" (Bloomsbury) - were both published in 2002, in May and October, respectively. Mr. Neilson said "crossover is likely to have been minimal," as "The Virgin Suicides" cover in the United States differs from the one in Britain. In British bookstores, however, the covers are likely to be the same: Amazon's British Web site shows the Pritchard and Eugenides books with the identical images.

As the covers of "The Task of This Translator" and "Wearing Dad's Head" suggest, photo agency rates do not explain all such cases. Book designers can wade into familiar waters even when they choose different photos. The cover of "The Task of This Translator" is "similar enough to other projects that someone should have a red face about it," said Giles Hoover, a book designer who with his wife, Amanda Smith, runs the book-design blog Foreword (www.ospreydesign.com/foreword).

"If I had done that, I would be super-embarrassed," Mr. Hoover said.

Jennifer Gilmore, director of publicity at Harcourt, publisher of "The Task of This Translator," said she had not been aware of the cover of Mr. Yourgrau's book. She said the similarities were "strictly coincidental."



With Covers, Publishers Take More Than Page From Rivals - New York Times

I read Julie & Julia and absolutely loved it - can't wait for the September pub date!

Anatomy of a Buzz: Julie & Julia
June 29, 2005
By Anna Weinberg

Julie Powell’s cooking memoir, Julie & Julia, could easily have gone the way of so many other blogger memoirs. (Anyone remember Save Karyn?)

Instead, Powell’s account of her year-long cooking project, in which she prepared every recipe in Julia Childs’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking while blogging about it, is one of the most highly buzzed books of the fall season. For those unfamiliar with the story, in 2003, Powell was a secretary living in Queens. Nearing 30 and hating her job, with little (she thought) to show for her life, she embarked on her epic cooking project in order to, as she wrote, “save myself from giving up entirely to dreariness and mediocrity.” With her profanity-laced blog detailing the daily struggles of cooking like Julia, Powell soon won the hearts of thousands of readers, and, by the end of the project, was fielding interview requests from NPR, CNN, the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. With that kind of built-in media attention, a book deal was inevitable.

Little, Brown and Co. acquired the memoir in September 2003, just after the completion of Powell’s project on Aug. 26, 2003. “Everything kind of came together at the same time,” recalls senior editor Judy Clain. “I’d been reading Julie’s blog, then I read the Amanda Hesser piece in the New York Times on Julie’s project, and then I found out she had signed with Sarah Chalfant at the Wiley Agency—twelve hours later we were making an offer on the proposal.”

Following a bidding war involving several publishers, on Sept. 22, Powell announced triumphantly on her blog, “I have landed a book deal. A really obscene book deal. I am, in fact, officially What's Wrong With Publishing Today.” And they were ready to go. The only problem: How could they keep Powell’s story from spoiling during the two years from project end to book publication?

One way was to keep Powell blogging, albeit less frequently than she had been at the height of the Julie/Julia project. On her website, Powell continued to post for her loyal “bleaders” (blog readers) right up until Aug. 13, 2004, when she posted a moving tribute to Julia Child, who had died the day before. That post alone drew 113 comments from readers—nine months after Powell had announced she would be posting no longer.

The next step was to “put the galley in as many people’s hands as possible,” says the imprint’s associate publisher, Sophie Cottrell. “At BookExpo in early June, we gave out 3,000 galleys to booksellers and publishing industry folks, and the response was phenomenal.” (A Little, Brown luncheon in Powell’s honor was one of the higher-profile midday dining events of the convention.) Originally slated for February 2005, Julie and Julia was positioned instead as a Big Fall Book “because of all of the amazing in-house reaction and reaction from our sales force,” says Clain. “We decided to push it to September and have it open the catalog with a double-page spread.”

A Nexis search shows that Julie & Julia has been featured in the media at least eight times since May 9 (five months before its publication date), and the Internet is atwitter with talk of Powell (who—by the way—finally quit her secretary job) and her book. As Cottrell says, Julie & Julia has “such wide appeal that we’re expecting it to cross all types of reader demographics, but we have been getting a lot of early interest from women’s magazines, the hipper/edgier media outlets, and, of course, food-related media.”

Powell, who’s re-launching the blog this summer to reconnect with her readers, will also be going on a “sizeable” author tour in early October. Though Little, Brown hasn’t confirmed cities or stores yet, “response from booksellers has been extraordinary,” says Cottrell. “In as many places as possible, we plan on having bookstores collaborate with a local restaurant. The restaurant may even serve a Julia Child meal featured in Julie & Julia. Booksellers are embracing the idea of very special, unique events for Julie, which we love to hear.”

Even with ample and fulsome early praise, Cottrell and the publicity team at Little, Brown continue to hustle for the book. “The fact that Julie’s book had a platform and an awareness that most first time authors don’t have is extremely helpful,” says Cottrell. “We’re expecting to get major media coverage for the book, but we take nothing for granted—it still involves a lot of hard work.”

Anatomy of a Buzz: Julie & Julia

Major publisher makes ancient forest vow
Wednesday 06 July 2005

Publisher Random House UK has announced that it is to become ‘ancient forest friendly’ in its book production, in a move that has been widely welcomed by authors and green campaigners.

As one of the largest publishing houses in the UK, Random House’s pledge represents a significant victory for Greenpeace’s Book Campaign, which was instrumental in the company’s decision. To meet the requirements of the move, Random House will work with suppliers to use Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) accredited paper in its books.

Over 70 publishing houses around the world have now made the commitment to stop using ancient forest sourced materials in their books.

"The selection of the right paper is of vital importance from an environmental as well as a commercial perspective and I look forward to working with our suppliers to increase the availability of FSC certified paper,” explained Stephen Esson, Group Production Director at Random House. “Of course, any development of recycled grades more appropriate to the practical and commercial requirements of the book market would also be welcomed."

Greenpeace’s Belinda Fletcher praised the voluntary decision, and hoped that it would encourage other companies in the industry to adopt similar policies. "This commitment is the most comprehensive commitment developed by a UK publisher to date and sets a good example for other publishing houses to follow," she commented.


Major publisher makes ancient forest vow

Dear Blog: Today I Worked on My Book
By TANIA RALLI

When he has writer's block, John Battelle, author of the forthcoming book "The Search: The Inside Story of How Google and Its Rivals Changed Everything," keeps on writing. But not his book manuscript. Instead, he goes straight to his blog (battellemedia.com).

Mr. Battelle, a founder of Wired and The Industry Standard magazines, sometimes makes quick notes on the blog about a topic related to his book, and other times posts longer essays. "Writing for the blog is more like having a conversation," Mr. Battelle said.

For years, book authors have used the Internet to publicize their work and to keep in touch with readers. Several, like Mr. Battelle, are now experimenting with maintaining blogs while still in the act of writing their books.

"It is very satisfying to write something and get an immediate response to it," said Mr. Battelle, who calculated that last year he wrote 74,000 words for his book, and 125,000 words on his blog. "It is less satisfying to write a chapter and let it sit on the shelf for six months."

Instead of simply being a relief from writerly solitude, these blogs have turned into part of the process. Mr. Battelle said that he was surprised by the number of people who read his journal and offered feedback, correcting mistakes, making suggestions of people to interview or articles to read and contributing ideas that are finding their way into his finished manuscript.

"It has provided such a wealth of sources," he said. "The readers pointed me to things I might not have paid much attention to."

Authors' blogs also change the solitary mission of writing into something more closely resembling open-source software. Mistakes are corrected before they are eternalized in printed pages, and readers can take satisfaction that they contributed to a book's creation. The blogs can also confer some authority: Aside from drawing on the collective intelligence of its readers, Mr. Battelle's site has become a compendium of Google- and search-related issues.

Authors who have experimented with blogging in this way - and there are still only a handful - say they hope to create a sense of community around their work and to keep fans informed when a new book is percolating. The novelist Aaron Hamburger used his blog to write about research techniques he employed to set his coming book in Berlin (www.aaronhamburger.com). Poppy Z. Brite, another novelist, has written about her characters on her blog as though they have a life of their own, not just the one springing from her imagination (www.livejournal.com/users/docbrite).

Despite the encouragement some authors receive from their online readers, the steady stream of feedback can be paralyzing. For some, the open process invites criticism and self-doubt when there is research to be done.

David Weinberger, the author of "Small Pieces Loosely Joined," a nonfiction book about the Internet, posted his daily progress online while writing that book. But as he frequently rewrote each section, Mr. Weinberger found it was not the best way to capture readers' advice. For his new book - "Everything Is Miscellaneous," about how information is organized in daily life - he is posting chapters only when they are complete, rather than in fragments (www.hyperorg.com). "And then I will beg for comments," he said.

Chris Anderson, who is writing "The Long Tail," a nonfiction book to be published next year by Hyperion, freely posts his ideas on his blog to solicit responses (longtail.typepad.com). His book grew out of an influential article he wrote - by the same title - last year for Wired magazine, where he is editor in chief.

"The Long Tail" examines the shift from mass markets to niche markets. Taking a cue from Mr. Battelle, Mr. Anderson has made his blog a source for anything related to the topic, whether written by him or someone else. The blog charts new applications for Mr. Anderson's theory since the publication of his article, and helps him collect ideas for the book.

"The conversation is happening whether you like it or not," he said. "To hope that it will pause for 18 months is unrealistic."

By introducing new ideas through his blog and inviting responses, Mr. Anderson is operating on the notion that if you give something away, you will get more in return. "I very much want people to take the ideas and improve on them," he said.

The question for these authors is this: By feeding and engaging their readers' curiosity, are they destroying the market for the books that they, after all, are paid to write?

"Blogs are a way to listen in and find out what people find funny and respond to," said Marion Maneker, editorial director at HarperCollins's HarperBusiness unit, who said it was too early to determine whether blogs would affect sales.

Michael Cader, who is the editor of two industry publications, Publishers Marketplace and Publishers Lunch, said he believed that, based on the limited examples, authors could build a much bigger audience for their work through blogging. While there is no evidence yet that blogs affect books sales, Mr. Cader said, anything an author could do to create a readership was beneficial.

Since the publication of their book "Freakonomics," an economic lens onto human behavior, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have fielded questions about the book with their blog (www.freakonomics.com/blog.php), debated topics with readers (anything baseball-related strikes a nerve), and contemplated readers' suggestions (one reader suggested that fluoride in the water may be the root of all evil).

While saying that he was impressed by the depth and complexity of readers' responses, Mr. Levitt added that it was unlikely he would float his book ideas for mass consideration on the blog.

"The concern we have is about having our stuff sound fresh," he said. In addition to the conversation it engenders, the blog is mostly a receptacle for the ideas not spun into magazine articles.

Steven Johnson has used his blog (www.stevenberlinjohnson.com) to keep readers informed of his appearances and readings of "Everything Bad Is Good for You," his thesis on how pop culture strengthens, not erodes, intellect nonfiction. He has also rebutted his critics, chronicled his book tour, and responded to reader feedback. Mr. Johnson decided not to blog about the book while writing it, however,

Mr. Johnson said that many people who seek out the blog have read his earlier books and are interested in reading about, or commenting on, how his work has evolved. The readers get a behind-the-scenes look at the author's thoughts on the book's reception and other topics.

"There is only so much you can get out of a book signing," he said. "I feel like people don't really go to promotional book sites. They want the live feeling of the author who's out there fending off the critics and confessing his sins."



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