Book Whore

[ursus arctos]

Book Whore

Velo was the US standard for legal transactional documents, in part because it is easy to identify what the volume relates to by writing on the spine.

[WOM]

Book Whore

Reed John wrote: Coil-binding is ideal for instruction manuals that need to lay flat while one's hands are doing something else.

Heavy Petting for Dummies ^TM...

[imp]

Book Whore

WOM wrote: If I ever thought I could make a living as a book writer, working here has disabused me of that idea.

If you publish a book in this country - and probably in the US as well - we are probably #1 or #2 on your list of places to send a copy and hope for a review. We're a no-brainer. We get a copy of every book published by a major house, a minor house or by a schmuck with $5000.

Those books pile up in a room the size of two high school classrooms, and three times a year we have a sale and give all the money to the United Way. Three times a year. The books are piled on tables, and in bins under the tables.

Every one had an author, an editor, a publisher and a dream. Many are good. Many are shit. Many are dull. Many have practically no potential audience.

And then there are the odds. If you walk in to a bookstore and think "Man, there's lots of books published" you're only half-right. Those books are only the ones that found a wholesale buyer. They made it to the shelf. Think of how many got passed over at the wholesale level, or didn't get published at all. Holy crap.

All this to reach fewer readers than ever before, who read fewer books than ever before.

But you, sir. You've done it more than once and can say you're a published author with people who actually read you and rate you. I wish it were more lucrative, but fuck me...the odds are stacked against you from every angle.

This post is right on the money, and I do often think about what you say in your final paragraph, and will continue to think that as I wonder around the streets whistling and delivering letters (insert half-joking emoji). And yes, so many books, couple with a diminishing number of readers - it's hard to think about bothering to write another book when the educated people you know don't bother to read any more, or only get through two or three titles a year.

I was in Atlanta last week giving a paper about the NASL at a sports history conference. I met a number of young academics working on various interesting aspects of sports history, and they all want to do one thing above all else - publish. They were genuinely in admiration of a book put out by St. Martin's Press, and I didn't want to be the buzz-kill, mid-aged asshole telling them what an over-rated process publishing is. So I didn't.

What I did do when I was back in DC was to fill my suitcase with about 20 books, and if I'd had space I'd have bought a hundred more. Despite all my whining about 'the industry', there are still numerous great writers and editors out there, and decent publishers too. I can't do much to stop the rest of the world losing interest, but I'm smitten anew every time I look at a crammed book shelf - whether it's my own, at someone else's house, or it's in the book shop or the library. A room without books makes no sense to me.

[WOM]

Book Whore

I'm a book person and that's the circle I travel in. People at work and at home circulate books like currency. One of the sales women reads voraciously, and will pop into my office almost weekly to see what's stacked in the pile. They come...they go...my wife passes them to her mother who passes them to her dad. Then my sister and one or two teachers...

I can't imagine not reading continuously. I have a book on the go at all times, and often three or four.

So...you know...keep doing what you're doing. As long as you enjoy it, like.

[Reed John]

Book Whore

I got out of the habit when I smacked my head because reading made me feel sick, but I'm getting back into it. My backlog is about 50-60 books, unfortunately.

Plus, I'm getting into audiobooks. It's a much more fruitful and enjoyable way to spend time in the car. This isn't very ecofriendly, but I often drive places I could walk or drive to the grocery across town instead of the closer one because I feel like listening to more of what I'm listening to. Right now I'm the second book in the James SA Corey Expanse series. The tv show got me interested, but the books are better.

The best are the books read by their authors. I listened to all of Sarah Vowell's books (except one that doesn't seem to have an audio). Steve Martin's Standing Up is excellent. As is Tina Fey's Bossypants and Amy Poehler's book.

Maybe you should read your book and get it on Audible. I bet you could do all the accents of the people interviewed.

[Reed John]

Book Whore

If you were at the sports history convention in Atlanta, you probably saw some of my neighbors. I'm told PSU had the leading sports history and philosophy program - maybe the only one.

[danielmak]

Book Whore

The need to sell one's own stuff is just part of the deal these days. As WOM highlights, there are so many books published each month that it's hard to rise above. But the same is true for music, films, web series, podcasts. I guess the hope for those of us who aren't expecting to become the next millionaire writer is just to find some people who like the books and that's good enough. I acknowledge that I can say this because anything I write is viewed as circumstantial income: the real job is being a professor and writing is part of the deal (one of the parts I enjoy). But I think anyone who writes a book these days has to know that some level of self-promotion is necessary. I never feel bad about these things when other people tell me what they've written or music they've made if it's in my area of interest. And if it's outside my area of interest then I'll forget about it 2 minutes later so I'm not bothered by that either.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Book Whore

Like most of the arts writing remains a high status/low money endeavour. Which is why people will continue to publish in some form for the foreseeable future. Like the exhibition that sells no pictures — of which there are many — it's the public proof of your skill. On some primal level that's important for its own sake.

[WOM]

Book Whore

What exactly is it about 'published author' that give it its status? Rarity? Perception of intellectual superiority?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Book Whore

No none of that, and not the term itself certainly. But I think the evidence of 'doing' counts a lot.

It has status only in the sense that most of us feel that the activity itself matters, irrespective of any reward. That we'd all be poorer if people didn't write books, paint pictures, work in a garden, build furniture and so on.

I dunno. I've mulled this over a fair bit lately. I've got a blog I put photos on. It has about five regular followers, who never comment on any of the pictures. So why do I bother?

The answer I think is that on some infinitesimal level they have agency in the world, they're my marks on the cave wall. They also — and this is hard to explain — look different to me once they're "published." They're more external, worldly, not just an extension of my own eye.

Sounds like bollocks eh? But it's the best answer I've been able to come up with so far.

[WOM]

Book Whore

Nah...not bollocks at all. I mean, I know how I feel when I hear someone's a published author. And then if I hear they're self-published, the perception changes. So, for me, I think part of it falls under approval/achievement. To write well enough to get published shows a level of skill or accomplishment. Whereas self-publishing can be done for, quite literally, nothing. There's no 'bar' that's been cleared.

Going back father, it's more the action of creation that I value. And, of course, there are hierarchies within that. Someone who paints an original landscape well rates higher than someone who photographs a landscape well. Someone who builds furniture from scratch rates higher than a furniture refinisher. It's stupid, but there you have it.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Book Whore

To write well enough to get published shows a level of skill or accomplishment. Whereas self-publishing can be done for, quite literally, nothing. There's no 'bar' that's been cleared.

Yes, but the the bar is arbitrary and has only existed, in a modern sense, for a couple of hundred years. Getting published is a bit like passing an exam isn't it? An achievement in its own right perhaps, but one that takes a very particular narrow view of what success/failure means.

Going back father, it's more the action of creation that I value.

You had me there.

And, of course, there are hierarchies within that. Someone who paints an original landscape well rates higher than someone who photographs a landscape well. Someone who builds furniture from scratch rates higher than a furniture refinisher. It's stupid, but there you have it

And lost me here.

Fundamentally because comparing one creative form with another is like chasing your tail. But such criteria are inherently individual, and flavour the collective cultural pot, which is just fine.

[Borracho]

Book Whore

Getting published is a bit like passing an exam isn't it? An achievement in its own right perhaps, but one that takes a very particular narrow view of what success/failure means.

This is true. And for proof, all you have to do is look at the staggering number of demonstrably inept/tedious writers who do get published. Dan Brown can't write to save his fucking life and he's a multi-millionaire. Will Hutton, surely the most boring prose stylist of all time, has had god knows how many books published.

[Reed John]

Book Whore

Being published by somebody other than oneself is "impressive" because it means somebody with some discernment is willing to bet a bunch of money on your book, believing either that it could sell well or that it is so good that the reputation of the publishing house will be enhanced by it. In some cases, maybe the publisher loves it so much they're willing to lose money on it just to put it out into the world. Either way, that's nothing to sneeze at. But then you look at the horrible schlock that makes millions and the great stuff that never sees daylight and you have to doubt whether publication is much of a metric of anything.