What a week

In my last post I claimed that small publishers are the best equipped to embrace change in technology because they are more “nimble.” I still hold to that point of view but this post has given me more to think about. 

I think Tom has a good point. Small presses don’t have the funds to do the kind of innovative and imaginative kinds of things that larger publishers do, but I also think that they are quicker to assimilate that technology into their company. The quicker they can assimilate a successful piece of technology, the sooner they can make it turn into revenue. Also, the large companies do have mounds of paperwork and red tape to wade through in order to make any sort of change to their public front. Small presses, while they might not be able to do it perfectly the first time. At least they can get it out there without having to take it to five different meetings and presenting it to the board of directors.

I also think that small publishers, once they get the technology from the larger publishers, will take more time personalizing it and making it valuable to their customers. This personal twist may never make it through the second meeting at the big house. 

I am sure I could come up with many more arguments defending the small press’s “nimbleness,” but that is not really what I wanted to talk about today. This last week has been a challenge to say the least. I still haven’t fully grasped what the effects of last week are going to be. Ooligan has been a very stable, if deeply in the red, company since I joined the staff. It has really shown me what I want to do in life. Last week put Ooligan in jeopardy, as well my own experience. Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company has been the distributor for Ooligan Press for about a year and a half. It has been a difficult but mutually beneficial relationship. Very soon that relationship will end. Who is going to distribute Ooligan’s books? Ingram? Do we really want that behemoth company totally in charge of our books? True it has sort of been that way since GACPC is affiliated with Ingram, but GACPC was always very generous in how much time they spent discussing our press with Ingram’s representatives. Is there some other company who would be willing to take us on? Because of the University’s strict rules (you thought big publishers had a lot of red tape. That is nothing compared to a public university) it will be hard to find a distributor who is willing to jump through all of the necessary hoops and in time for all of the launches we have coming up. 

Of course this has to coincide with one of the most exciting seasons Ooligan has had since I have been with the press. We are releasing two extremely promising books in April, but who knows if anyone will be able to buy them. 

I am a little melodramatic, but Ooligan is coming up on rough times. Another piece of news handed to us by GACPC recently was that they are shutting down their warehouse, and we have to remove all of our books by April 1. Does anyone know how to drive a forklift?

A positive outlook

What will the publishing industry look like ten years from now? I can hardly bare to think about what the face of the industry will look like in a year, let alone ten. For the past week or so I have been avoiding any kind of news. If I read it, or listen to it, or watch it, I get visions of my future crumbling. At least the future I had originally planned for myself.

The plan was to finish my Master’s, move to New York City, get a decent paying job at one of the big houses, climb the corporate ladder, make a nice little nest egg, then move back to Portland and start my own publishing company. The current status of things, puts this all at risk. Now, it seems like it would take a miracle to get a job at one of the big houses, let alone one that pays enough to actually survive in the most expensive city in the country. 

If only I had a whole bunch of money to put into opening my publishing company now. I firmly believe that this is going to be the golden era for small presses. There are still hundreds of thousands of people out there, looking for a publisher. Some of them don’t have anything worth publishing, but for those few that do, the small publisher is going to be the place to go. Many of the big and even medium-sized houses have stopped acquiring books until the dust settles and they can figure out where they are financially. But the small publishers won’t wait that long. They don’t need to. Because of print on demand (POD) small publishers can go ahead with whichever books they want. 

POD allows for much shorter print runs, leaving no warehouse fees, and an extremely fast turnaround. Small publishers are willing to take more risks now. They can acquire a book by a no-name author, because it doesn’t have to be a best seller. Since there is less money up front, there is more money to spend in the company getting the next book ready. 

E-books are also the friend of the small publisher. Because they are very cheap to “print” and distribute, all that is needed is the right format.

Personally, I am not a fan of e-books. I am a big fan of the tactile relationship you have with a book as you read. Plus, they smell so wonderful. I know it is just glue, but it still makes me smile every time I get a whiff of it. But, for those readers that are a little more open to change, e-books are the next frontier. Once e-book readers become affordable, they could be used in classrooms to save money. Teachers would no longer be subject to buying new books every two years because the classroom set they bought is already falling apart. Not to mention that generations of children would grow up with healthier backs than their parents because they would not have had their spines compacted by the 50 pound backpacks that are common today. Travelers wouldn’t have to be stuck with the terrible book they picked up at the airport store just before getting on the plane. Much to my chagrin, e-books will probably make the world a happier (and taller) place. 

Now is the time for the small presses to take advantage of their nimbleness. It will take years for the massive boats that are the New York houses to turn around and see the changes in the book industry. It will take them even longer to incorporate those changes into their company. 

I am trying to think positive. I like to think that no matter what the economy is, people want to read. And because people will keep reading, people will keep publishing. I just need to get those publishing people to take a look at my resume.

Hulu vs YouTube

I am not an avid YouTube fan, visiting the site every day to see which movies are being watched the most. I am not a big fan of “Hamster on a Piano” eating popcorn or otherwise. I have never really enjoyed stuff like that. It just doesn’t make sense to me. But, strangely enough, I do enjoy a good sitcom. While YouTube is the place for random homemade videos, you can only get extremely pixilated bits and pieces of your favorite shows. 

That is where Hulu enters the race. They don’t have the diversity of viewing experiences that YouTube does, but the quality just might outshine the quantity. 

I am sure many of you have seen the Hulu spot that first appeared during the Superbowl ( I tried to imbed the video, but apparently Hulu and WordPress aren’t friends yet).

I didn’t pay much attention to it, pretty much because it sounded too good to be true. Then today I stumbled on an article in Newsweek that made me think twice. Apparently Hulu is what it advertises to be. It is a brainchild of NBC Universal and News Corporation – two companies that I am not very familiar with but sound very powerful. Between the two of them they have the rights to a bunch of different TV shows and movies, old and new. By imbedding short commercials in the shows (30 seconds max) they have figured out how to turn a profit, where YouTube still struggles. As the article says, there are very few companies who want their name associated with a homemade movie about a poor abused hamster. But, those same companies would be happy to put up good money for an ad attached to the newest episode of the Emmy winning “30 Rock.”

Hulu also has a feature where you can say that you like or dislike an ad so that they can cater their offerings to you, the viewer. Also, you can choose to watch all the commercials at once before you watch your show, or they can be interspersed like normal TV commercials. It is pretty wild.

What does this have to do with book marketing? I am not sure. We could create an ebook version, where you could read a whole book for free with ads interspersed. I know no one wants to read a book on their computer, but “free” can be extremely enticing. 

It was impossible for me to resist. I just spent the larger part of my day watching old episodes of “Doogie Howser, M.D.” Neil Patrick Harris has come a long way.

Surprise, surprise

Whenever I read a book, I get very involved with the characters and their world. I create the scenes in my head, and, on occasion, I visit those places when I am not reading the book. When I am done, I feel a sense of loss, because that world is no longer changing and growing, and I can’t spend time with the characters any more. That sadness lasts for a day or two, however long it takes me to get into my next book. Then I all but forget about the previous experience. In other words, I don’t usually let books effect my way of life or the way I think. That may be short sighted, but if I let them keep having a hold over me, I would be something like a schizophrenic. 

The one book that has broken that barrier is…wait for it…

Harry Potter!

I know, I am so predictable, but it really did change how I look at books. I have always loved books, but it always made me feel like a geek. I was one of those that got really excited when the Read-A-Thon started, and let me tell you, I almost always got the best prizes. As a matter of fact, I got to visit KATU because of my reading. Anyway, the point is, reading wasn’t cool. 

Then Harry Potter came. It started very slowly at first. I will admit, I was one of the non-believers early on. I had heard about them but the plot sounded very strange. I am not a fantasy person, so I stayed away. But just until the 3rd book. At that point in time I couldn’t resist, so I picked up the first book. From there, I was lost. I devoured the second and third, and began the patient wait for the fourth. 

The fourth I bought at Fred Meyer late in the day the day it was released. The fourth book remains my favorite, and with the way it ends (I won’t give it away if you haven’t read it, and you should) I couldn’t wait for the fifth. When the fifth finally came out, I couldn’t wait until the day it came out. I was one of those crazy people in line at midnight. That was when Harry Potter really started to change the way I looked at children’s books. 

The line I stood in was inspiring. There were hundreds of kids in line dressed as witches and wizards. They waited impatiently for the doors to open so they could get the newest installment of the Potter saga. Once the doors were opened, and kids got their copies, they walked down the street holding their copies up like trophies. I couldn’t believe it. Reading was cool. Almost every kid in the world was reading this book. 

This began the shift toward YA for writing in general and for me. I saw how much kids really did enjoy Harry Potter, and how it could help them find joy in reading. It sounds so cheesy, but it gave me hope that the YA genre wouldn’t suffer from predictable, bad writing any more. So far, it has proven true, and I hope to contribute to the many books that will find a home on the shelves of kids. Kids who have always loved to read, and those that have discovered a love of reading through Harry Potter. My dream is to make books for all of them, and to help them find a world outside their own (I am being a cheeseball today). Kids inspire me, and I hope to inspire them

Why Ooligan should be excited about this economy

Ooligan has been getting some really impressive submissions lately. I can’t be 100% positive, but I would like to think that it is due to our more focused backlist. We have worked very hard this last year to try to brand ourselves. The work will never be totally done, but we are starting to see the fruits of our labor. Pretty soon we will have to be more discerning when deciding which books to acquire.

The other thing that has contributed to our increase in quality submissions is the deterioration of the large and even medium-sized publishers. Many of them are suffering because of the economy pushing them to slow acquisitions, or even stop them completely. Lucky for us small publishers, there are still authors out there writing books and looking for a publisher. Now our lack of an author advance and small sales figures look much more appealing to a potential author. Some is better than none in the end.

In my internship with Michelle McCann we have been talking about the state of Ooligan and how we are really establishing ourselves as a quality publisher. She recommended that we start to act like a grown up publishing house and have an acquisitions meeting where we assess the market, look for holes, and socilit manuscripts for those holes. I never would have thought this possible previously – we have trouble just getting submissions that aren’t sci-fi or picture books – but, considering the circumstances, I think this would be a really exciting meeting to have. Then maybe we could actually get our books to sell more than their first print run.

I love the delete button

I have never purchased something online as a direct result of an email promotion. Probably because whenever I put my email in for something where they might try to get me to buy something later I put in my junk email. If I ever checked that, I would have a hard time resisting. Thank goodness for the mass delete ability. 

There are a few places that I have given my real email, like Borders. Just today I received a 40% off coupon for them which I promptly printed off and used at the local store. I know that their tactic is to get me in there, sacrifice the 40% off one book and then keep all the profits on the other books that I pick up along the way. Sadly, for them I bought only one book. I save my impulse buying for A Children’s Place Bookstore. Lucky for Borders there are a lot of people who don’t have my self-control. But maybe there are because Borders continues to teeter on the edge of the bankruptcy abyss. 

Most of the time I delete without even looking at the emails trying to get me to buy something. I am a student who wants to move to New York. I need all the money I can get.

Let’s get graphic…

One realm of YA literature that I am not very versed in is graphic novels. It is the fastest growing genre of books these days. I suppose it might be part of the whole lack of a decent attention span, but I am not so sure. Some of them are extremely colorful, exciting, and a quick read, like American Born Chinese. Others are very poignant and so far from what you would expect in a graphic novel, like Blankets (which is almost 600 pages). Authors are really pushing the boundaries of the genre. It isn’t just Manga any more. There is still a great deal of debate about what, exactly, is the difference between a graphic novel and a novel with a lot of pictures like The Invention of Hugo Cabret (great website). I am still not sure, but I love them both. 

At the New York Comic-Con, children’s and YA graphic novels stood out as the lone hope in the bad economy. Hyperion (even though I still don’t like their website) has done something genius, and other publishers need to jump on the bandwagon quick before its gone. They are taking one of their most popular series for 8-12 year-old boys and putting it into graphic novel form. Artemis Fowl while not as popular as Harry Potter (what is really?) is doing very well as a novel. Now that they have taken it into the graphic novel realm, kids will not only buy it more, but they will buy both versions. They are also talking about turning The Lightning Thief, and The Amulet of Samarkand, both extremely popular boy series into graphic novels. There is a lot of money to made for one who is willing to think inside the little comic boxes.

This is also  something that could be used in the classroom to great success.

It is universally acknowledged that people learn differently. Can you imagine a teacher being able to give a kid who is struggling in reading the exact same book as the rest of the class, but in graphic form. Maybe, it would help introduce non-readers to their first enjoyable in-school reading experience. Some teachers might want to punch me right now for even suggesting this, but think about it. A kid who won’t read anything vs. a kid that will read graphic novels. The same subjects would be there, just presented in a different way. Of course, this wouldn’t work in the higher level literature classes when language becomes a topic of discussion, but for middle school and early high school, it could be invaluable. 

I just want you all to take a moment and think about the possibility of all seven Harry Potter books as graphic novels…I just wish I could draw something better than a stick figure on a broom. 

Email addresses everywhere!

I think I have five email addresses. I think. I have the tendency to create new email addresses and then forget about them. 

The breakdown:

I have two Gmail addresses. One is my main email address that I give out to friends, family, other professionals, daily news updates, and Borders which I check every day. Things get a little crowded, but I really like to have everything in one. The other gmail address is the one I created for this class, which is quickly becoming the email I use to sign up for things that I care about, but not enough to have to know about them immediately (so far, just my misguided attempt to register for Stock Exchange to get a photo for Design class, only to discover that you have to pay for them. That ain’t happening). 

I also have my trusty Odin account. I check this one every day just in case something happens at Ooligan that I should know about. This is the email that all Ooligan stuff goes to. Also, for some reason, it is the account that I used to sign up for Good Reads, so I get those update emails there. 

Then I have a dusty AOL account that I have had since I was in middle school. Back then that was pretty much the only option. All of my friends had AOL accounts because you had to have one in order to Instant Message people. And if you couldn’t IM your friends, you were way out of the gossip loop. This is the email I put down when I just want to buy something or get some information and never ever want to hear from those people again. It is my graveyard. I don’t think I have checked it in a couple of years…

Lastly, I think I have a Yahoo account. I had to sign up for it when Ooligan was using Yahoo groups to get updates about workgroups.

They all have their uses. Before long, I will probably have six or seven more. Since they are free and easy to create I find myself thinking: Why not?

Further clarification on why I read YA

I kept thinking about the question that Marty put to me about my opinions on good writing. While I did not intend my previous post to be a judgement on all writing in general, I am glad it brought it up. I had to do some soul searching (maybe not soul, but somewhere deep down) to figure out what I really thought. 

I do think that brevity is one of the marks of a good writer. Not essential to great writing, but, at least for me, it helps. One of my favorite adult authors, Jhumpa Lahiri is most well known for her short stories. She has a remarkable ability to convey all sorts of subtleties in very few words. In four or five pages she can tell you about the character’s past, their problems, and what they are going through at that moment. It is almost astonishing. 

The other thing I wanted to say about YA writing is that I do think that some of the best writers of today are YA writers, some of whom are not being acknowledged because of the genre that they write. Also, because teens are not as attached to reality as adults are, YA authors can explore other realities without having to convince their readers why they should believe. But, they have to be ridiculously consistent, because if they misstep, they loose their readers. Characters, plots, details, absolutely everything has to be exciting, different, and fabulous. I am definitely not saying that this can’t happen in adult books, it is just more likely to happen in YA. 

This is all my opinion, feel free to disagree. I would really love to have a conversation about it.

A Heart for Any Fate

A Heart for Any Fate by Linda Crew is Ooligan’s newest Young Adult novel. It is the story of Lovisa King, and 17-year-old pioneer girl who travels with her family down the Oregon Trail. They deal with drought, peaceable Native Americans, dysentery, and death. The only thing that keeps them going is their belief that at the end of the Oreogn Trail, there is a place that could rival paradise.

A Heart for Any Fate was originally published by the Oregon Historical Society Press, but when they went out of business, Ooligan was luck enough to pick up this gem. The foreword was written by Jennifer Armstrong, a well known historical fiction writer. The King family’s historian wrote an in depth history of the family for the back of the book, and Gail Vander Heide is writing supplemental material, or teacher guides/lesson plans for the book.

Linda Crew has written several other very successful books including, Children of the River, Brides of Eden: A True Story Imagined, and Fire on the Wind. She attended Lewis and Clark College and now lives in Corvallis, Oregon. Now, most days, you will find her out on her farm with a pruning saw in her hands.

For the launch of this exciting new title Ooligan Press will be hosting a launch at 2 pm on April 19, 2009 at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. And Breve Espresso has very generously offered to provide the refreshments. At the launch, Linda Crew will be signing copies of the book as well as giving a slide show presentation on her journey down the Oregon Trial to do research for the novel. It should be a really great afternoon.