The book industry tsunami

When I decided to retire from engineering twelve years ago to open a bookshop, the thought of a world of gentlemen and gentlewomen engaged in intellectual discussions, in soft dulcet tones, about good books, current affairs and ideas over coffee or glasses of red wine was immensely pleasurable compared to all the argy-bargy, the barely legal (and often downright illegal) activities and the thuggery of the construction world I was leaving (despite some severe financial adjustment I had to make). About a year after I opened the doors of Silverfish Books, the invasion of the mega-bookstore in Kuala Lumpur started. With their infinitely deeper pockets, they could order every book in the list, whether they knew anything about it or not.

The first half of the last decade saw the establishment of so many of these giant bookstores in the Klang Valley, that at one point we had more than twice as much book retail space here than in Singapore, an island with twice the population. Every new shopping mall insisted on a mega bookstore of its own. The most coveted name on the list was Borders, the store that had made reading sexy in Singapore where it was established in 1997. Borders was, probably, single-handedly responsible for making books hip-and-happening all over the world.

But that didn't last long. The second half of the decade saw a gradual downsizing (euphemistically called consolidation) of several chain outlets. The romance was over. Borders is gone. Barnes and Noble could be next. And Waterstone’s might be sold. So what happened? It is common to hear people blame the demise of these chain stores on the Kindle and e-books, etc, etc. Really?

Unfortunately, the truth is simpler. The book industry shot itself in its foot, and has no one to blame for it, but itself.

Book buyer fatigue

First, there was this humungous oversupply of books. Anglophone countries were churning out more than 300,000 new titles a year in UK, USA, Australia and India. A report in The Telegraph in August 2007, announcing the Booker shortlist for the year gave figures of copies sold: On Chesil Beach (Ian McEwen), over 100,000; The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Mohsin Ahmad), 1519; Mister Pip (Lloyd Jones), 880; Animal’s People (Indra Sinha), 231; The Gathering (Anne Enright), 834. (These figures were for sales just after the shortlist was announced.) It was a clear sign that book buyers were getting tired, but the industry was not listening and continued to produce books that nobody wanted.

Second, chains and supermarkets started selling books as loss leaders. Everyone knows how small the margins on books are. Supermarkets can afford loss leaders because they sell all sorts of other merchandise with high margins. When bookstores start giving away their profits on their bestsellers, however, one senses something amiss. Bestsellers are where bookstores make the profit to stock up on other titles. Most customers who go into a bookshop to buy a bestseller buy nothing else, unlike people who go to a supermarket. Amazon is able to get away with it because apart from books, it sells music CDs, videotapes and DVDs, software, consumer electronics, kitchen items, tools, lawn and garden items, toys & games, baby products, apparel, sporting goods, gourmet food, jewellery, watches, health and personal-care items, beauty products, musical instruments, industrial & scientific supplies, and groceries. (Instead of recognising this, the industry was more concerned about Amazon calling itself the 'world's largest bookshop'. Amazon is a mega hypermart, get it? The game has changed. Amazon and hypermarts reduced books to the level of soda water, and the industry went along foolishly.)

Third, the book is a monopoly. A book retailer, in most cases, is able to obtain a particular title from only one supplier, the publisher, and on the latter's terms. Period. The bookseller has no option of buying his merchandise at a lower cost from China, Vietnam, Cambodia, or manufacture it himself in one of those places, unlike hypermarts that are able to buy a garment for 15 cents and sell it for 15 dollars.

Million dollar advances

Fourth, poor management. (The internet has many examples of bad management at Borders but I shall stick to my experience.) When Borders opened its first store at the Berjaya Times Square in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, I went to over to see if they had copies of the hardback edition of Freakonomics. Their system showed three copies. I kept myself occupied with their CD collection while the sales staff went about looking for it. After forty-five minutes, they told me they couldn’t find even one copy. (Honestly, I don't know why I waited that long.) Another case:  Border's Singapore used to buy Silverfish publications through my distributor there, but they used to take forever to confirm -- apparently, they had to get the approval of their office in Australia before they could buy a local book. That would take months. Meanwhile other bookstores would have the title on their shelves the same week of publishing!

Fifth, the industry believed its own spin. The last decade was the era of the million-dollar advances and billionaire writers, if you believed the hype (and many did). All one had to do was to pick up a pen (or sit in front of a word processor) to get rich. It was bizarre. I remember headlines in local dailies calling Tash Aw the 'RM3.5 million dollar man'. When I asked him about it, he was totally embarrassed. (Tash said he has never mentioned a figure, so how reporters came up with that number is anyone's guess.) The industry lived on the hyperbole. Big numbers were good. It made good stories, good copies and helped sell books. Publisher, wholesalers and distributors, retailers, the media and the consumers, all loved big numbers (even if they were blatant lies). Reports started coming out that many titles were unable even to recover advances given; still, the numbers kept going up. It was the perfect bubble.

Sixth, over-printing to wallpaper chain shops. There was a report that the first print run of a particular popular book was 35 million. Sales figures released some time later showed 10 to 12 million. What happened? Was the original figure not true? Did the publisher pulp the remainder? Or did the publisher print the additional copies for reasons other than sales? If so, who paid for it? Did they print that number of copies to meet wallpaper demands of the chain bookstores?

Selling potatoes

Seventh, books retailers had no idea what they were selling. One of the reasons given for the demise of Borders in Australia was the way they sold books like potatoes. Taking it from the top, one has to wonder how some books even get published. (The head of Random House said in an interview with Spiegel Online that he had no time to read.) So who makes publishing decisions? Agents?  Then, there is the layer of wholesalers and distributors for whom potatoes, or books, makes no difference. After that, come the retailers. The book is probably the only commodity sold by people with zero product knowledge. (Independents not included.)

Eighth, everyone is now blaming the e-book. The e-book is still new. The Kindle is only three years old, and there are dozens of competitors in the market. The iPad is only a year old. Although many early adopters have downloaded ebooks, there are no real numbers to work on. How many of these books were downloaded for free? How many were paid for? At what price? The favourite number thrown about by device manufacturers is 'millions' (with no substantiation) and the media is lapping it all up and regurgitating it without question. (I have downloaded about a dozen free e-books books so far, mostly classics. Ironically, I find it more comfortable to read them on my little iPod Touch screen than on my iPad. I haven't tried a Kindle, yet.) Right now we don't even know what an e-book is. The Kindle defined one. Then the iPad turned it upside down in just a short while. Things are changing rapidly. Expect many more permutations before something firms up, still a long way to go before forms take shape and a market is established. Until then, many devices already purchased have a good chance of ending up on shelves.

Ninth, lesson not learnt from the music industry. A recent story in The Brave New World says: "... global recorded music sales fell by some USD1.5bn (GBP 930m) last year."

Will anyone learn from the music industry

"The UK music business physical sales dropped by almost 20% with the overall performance down some 11% and although digital sales continued to rise by some 20% it did not offset the equivalent loss in physical sales ..." it continues, and that US economist Joel Waldfogel does not agree with the music industry bodies and major labels that creation of new music has been hurt by piracy, and that with "... new and cheaper recording technologies, digital music outlets and social networks, many of the tasks that were previously fulfilled by the big labels could easily be taken over by independent labels, or even the artists themselves."

Why we publish

We have heard it said many times before, that publishing in this country, especially in English, is crazy. Very often, it appears that way. It does sometimes feel like such a monumental waste of time. We have heard this many times before: no one reads in this country. But, having been publishers for ten years now, the converse argument often appears equally valid: no one writes.

Certainly, I am putting myself on the line for some verbal bashing with that . So, let me clarify. One only has to walk into any of the dozen mega bookstores (or any of the frequent warehouse sales) in the country to witness the feeding frenzy. So, Malaysians do buy books, whether they them read or not. But, the fact remains that the vast majority of the books bought are American, British or Australian, that is foreign. Many Malaysians would go as far as to say that they only read imported books because local books are not good,though it is unclear what exactly they mean by it: the design, the paper quality, the cover, the writing, the plot, the way the characters are drawn ... what?

We have said this many many times: if one wants a customer to buy one’s book, one has to give him or her a very good reason to pick it up instead of any of the thousands of other titles in the store -- including all the foreign ones, dating back to Homer and before. As far as book selling goes, Malaysians are totally and completely globalised.

So, on a bookshop shelf, egalitarianism rules; Malaysian books stand at par with imported ones, and a customer has every right to demand to know why he/she should spend hard-earned money on your book and not another. Is it good enough? What do you have to say that is unique? How is the argument presented? Is the writing any good? Will I be embarrassed if I were to take your book out in public? Etc, etc, etc. Life is so-oo difficult.

(We have also had customers ask why local books are so expensive. This book is RM30.00, and it has only 180 pages. That is more than 16 sen a page. How can? How much does it weight? What, 275 gms? That is almost 11sen a gramme, RM110.00 a kilo! That's too much. What is it about? Is there anything about May 13 in it? No? Why not? So what if it is a book on flower arrangement? It is Malaysian, isn’t it? Surely all Malaysian books must have something about the May 13th incident ... it can’t be much good then, can it? We do have all sorts of customers.)

For Malaysian publishing to survive, there has to be a credible book industry. Expect no help from the Government and, certainly, no handouts. Even a level playing field seems too much to ask. A media, less interested in glamour and more in news could be helpful, but don’t hold your breath.

Still, we persist. Why? Firstly, we don’t think Malaysians don’t read. Secondly, we believe Malaysian writers (living in Malaysia) can compete with international writers -- Shih-Li Kow did beat Booker winner Kazuo Ishiguro and Whitbread winner Ali Smith to the shortlist of the Frank O'Connor Award -- and Malaysians living abroad, and that too without ‘pandering’ to the Western reader (or the kukumars* amongst us) with the stereotype and the dubiously exotic. (When the Slumdog Millionaire circus came to town, we heard these comments. The first was from a Malaysian who said, "(Sitting in the cinema) I could imagine those mat-sallehs around me going, 'Oh it's so wo-onderful. Isn't is so-oo Indian,' every time AR Rahman's music score came on with another 'wretched-Indian' scene." The next one was from a white expatriate lady from South Africa who found the whole spectacle quite insulting. "This is exactly what they do to Africa all the time," she said.)

Thirdly, we know of many Malaysian readers (unlike those mentioned above) who are quite willing to pay for Malaysian writing, for its unique content, voice and experience. And finally, when we discover (or develop) a writer who is as good as any internationally, who sets a standard for writing and story-telling in the country, we get a major buzz. (That does not mean we don't know how much work the author has put into it.)

But  independent publishing can be a minefield, (unlike large publishing houses which are protected by several layers of anonymity).

Here is an example. One author (self published) who met a Silverfish staff on the street, wanted to know why we published so-and-so. She added that she didn't think Silverfish published 'that sort of thing'. What sort of thing? The answer should have been pretty straight forward: he is a good storyteller, he is entertaining, he is authentic and he is honest. Of course, we could not tell her that because her real question was, "Why are you publishing him, and not me?" Yes, life is so-oo difficult.

Note:
kukumars* -- a derogatory  term used in some parts of India to describe those who used to work as cooks in British households, who learned to wear dresses,  eat with tools, and (generally) refuse to speak any language other than English.

Ether Books: the iTunes of short stories?

iTunes was introduced by Apple Inc on January 9, 2001, at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. In 2003, Apple opened the iTunes Music Store and started a revolution in the music industry, one song at a time. At the time, the music industry was in turmoil over illegal downloads, and they were suing everyone in sight. (Does anyone remember Napster?) Enter Apple. In order to make it (legal downloads) to work, though, they had to convince the music industry to unbundled their albums and sell songs one at a time. That was not easy, but with a sufficiently strong reality distortion field they managed to convince the naysayers. The iTunes store started with 200,000 songs on its list (with DRM protection and all that to satisfy the industry). To date, some 10 billion songs have been downloaded.

Sophia Bartleet is now trying to do the same with Ether Books by launching an iPhone application that will allow readers to download short stories from the likes of Hilary Mantel, Alexander McCall Smith and (maybe) Shih-Li Kow, starting at GBP0.50. Sophia Bartleet thinks this will be “the renaissance of the short story."

Ether Books was launched at the London Book Fair recently. Currently, Ether Books bypasses publishers to sign up authors directly, and the application will initially be available only on the iPhone and iPod Touch. (It could be available for other devices in the future.) At the time of the launch Ether Books had 200 pieces from authors ranging from Hanif Kureshi to Paul McCartney.

It is a pretty modest start and there is no mention about how profits will be shared. That a service such as this will be a boon to short story writing is not a doubt. But will it be commercially viable? While I am totally supportive of the underdog, I believe that in a that runs on the hyperbole world, if you want to be noticed, you have to be big. Ether Books needs a lot more than 200 stories. Obviously, I have no way of knowing if she is a Steve Jobs, but I think she needs at least 20,000 stories up there to start with.

Will readers pay 50p for a story? It is nice to think that they would. In fact, I hope they do. But comparisons with the music industry are a little off, to say the least. When iTunes music store was introduced for legal downloads, music piracy was rampant. Apple bet that at least some of those involved in the illegal activity were (or had parents who were) honest  or sufficiently risk averse not to want to (or want their children to) end up on the ‘other side of the law’ with all its, real or imagined, dire consequences. It was, potentially, a huge market.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the short story. There is no rampant piracy going on worldwide. One even wonders if there is a demand. In an era where bragging rights are the most sought after of currencies -- money is no good if you can’t buy something with it that you can show off -- downloaded short stories in a mobile device are not terribly sexy. Cool is, queuing up in the freezing cold overnight for a Harry Potter or Dan Brown book, no matter how daft that is.

Still, I am optimistic. There will be the big names, of course, with their fan boys. But, strangely, I think that this market actually belongs to the small guys who live on the fringe -- literally. Imagine a one stop (online) shop with thousands of short stories from small publishers from over a hundred countries all over the world -- from Asia, Africa, Europe, Americas, everywhere. Who will be the buyers? The more serious minded, I should think; those who'd like to sample writings from around the globe; academics who might consider teaching some of the stuff they find, and students who will be required to study and write about them, at a cost that is a lot less than the price of a hardback or even a paper back. I think it would be a small market, but an extremely important one.

It could open up all sorts of opportunities. It could actually revive the short story form and put it back where it belongs. We have  customers who bemoan the ‘death’ of the short story, and we have those who say they ‘preferred’ to read novels, like as if they have moved on to the more ‘difficult’ stuff. (I use to think that when I was fifteen years old.) Then there are those who confess that they really cannot understand many of the short stories they read. Yes, liked in the case of all writing, there are many that require a PhD to understand.

The short story is a demanding form where every word, every sentence has to earn its right to live on the page(s). There is no room for laziness or obesity like in a novel. Hilary Mantel confesses in an interview with the BBC that it took her 12 years, on and off, to write her short story which is now available for download from Ether Books, and she certainly does not want it to be forgotten.

Here’s wishing Sophia Bartleet, and the Ether Books team, all the best in the venture, and thank you for trying to make a difference. Cheers.

Listen to the BBC World Service radio show with Sophia Bartleet, Hilary Mantel and others.

The end of an era

Personanondata writes in a story entitled The Physical Book Forever After: "Many believe the physical book will disappear within in the next ten years yet the example of the music CD suggests the future of the book may be more nuanced."

The ebook question crops up every time I give a public talk (or a lecture) on the subject of publishing and writing. The first time was at a Rotary meeting at a downtown hotel about six years ago. Do ebooks mean the end of "normal" books?

I remember saying at that time that the technology was not quite in place yet; the hardware, the software, and the internet were quite there yet, though they could catch up. But more importantly, they would have to sort out the financial model, which they will, too. But still it will not be the end for the physical book entirely; they will have to coexist for quite a while.

To quote another line from the blog by Personanondata: "... after more than ten years of both legitimate and illegitimate access to down loadable music, the humble CD together, with its environmentally challenged jewel case continues to represent over 75% of music sold." (This despite the music industry being in such shambles.)

Fast forward to 2010, and I am still asked the same question. The answers to some of the questions have changed but, for others, it remains the same. Do we have the technology now? Yes. Have they sorted out the financial model? More or less. Will the physical book die? Nope.

Yes, there was another round of the "death dance" by the media when the Kindle was released two years ago. No figures have been released by Amazon, but some analysts estimate about two or three million sold in that period, and the ebook market is currently thought to be about 5% of the total. There is no question that the publishing industry is in serious trouble, but it is mainly their fault, not that of the ebooks. (A Mail Online report on 30th Dec 2009 said: "Nielsen Bookscan has found that of 86,000 new titles published in the UK in 2009, 59,000 sold an average of 18 copies." Do we need to say more?)

I met Adrian the other day and he was saying how he met someone going on a holiday and had a Kindle with him with everything he wanted (or intended) to read. Cool, he thought. Yes, true. But with an iPad I’ll be able to take along a few books, DVDs, games, my entire music collection and a whole bunch of magazines too. The Kindle is already, so, last year. (Out of the estimated 2-3 million sold, I wonder how many have already become shelf ornaments?)

Then recently, I came across this story: Alice for the iPad in MacWorld. Then, I went into the iPad store for a peek: "Tilt your iPad to make Alice grow big as a house, or shrink to just six inches tall. Enjoy Alice in Wonderland digitally remastered for the iPad.Throw tarts at the Queen of Hearts - they realistically bounce off her. Witness the Cheshire Cat disappear, and help the Caterpillar smoke his hookah pipe. This wonderful book includes 52 pages and 20 amazing animated scenes.??Watch as full screen physics modeling brings illustrations to life." All this for
USD8.99.

I want it, I want it, I want it! I want it now!

Someone has finally figured out what an ebook is all about, all in true multimedia too. If this doesn't get kids reading, nothng will. It is not about boring black and white text, it is about multimedia. Imagine what this will do to magazines and newspapers, to books on cooking, travel, sports, celebrities, anything with graphics. Thank God for it. I will certainly buy an iPad, or a device like it. Now, I can buy it without any guilt, without having to feel I am betraying my entire over-40-year collection of books.

All my hardbacks that I have bought over the years to collect, to talk about and adorn my shelves, will continue to stand proud in their finest jackets, with nothing to fear. Nor will my first editions feel slighted. I can continue to display and brag about them. (Yes, I am sad that way.) Even my-well read, yellowed, tattered paperbacks, some from my student days but which I still dip into now and then, will know that their place is safe. (By the way, can any digital file last as long? All my hard disks crash in less than 5 years.)

The book is dead. The book is dead. Long live the book.

Read more local literature?

OPINION: Read more local literature?

As reported by Lester Kong in The Star: "Malaysian youths must be exposed to more local literature that highlight noble values like respect and responsibility", said Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, in his opening speech during the 18th HSPM (Malaysia Premier Literary Award) prize-giving ceremony on the 18th of January 2010.

“Reading high-quality literature needs to be encouraged because it is the best way to inculcate the culture of knowledge and instil positive values in our youths,” the Minister of Education is reported to have said, which makes one wonder who wrote that speech? Interesting sound bites, but the cynic in one does not expect anyone to hold his (or her) breath. Haven't we heard all this before?

It was another one of those 'don't know whether to laugh or cry' moments Malaysians are becoming increasingly familiar with. Get this: this was an awards ceremony for books in Bahasa Malaysia that were published in the 2004/2005 and the 2006/2007 period! Now, how sad is that! They were giving out prizes for five-year-old publications, many of which are probably out of print by now. Was someone sleeping on the job or was it not considered important enough?

According to kawat.blogspot.com, out of the 40 awards for the 2006/2007 period, there were no recipients for seven categories, the most glaring of which was 'Drama'. Was there not even one drama written or produced in Bahasa at all in 2007/2008? Or was there no 'acceptable' drama? (If Singaporeans can stage good dramas in Bahasa, why not Malaysians?) Also in this 'no show' category were short stories and poems for youths and children. Looks like nobody writes these, either. One question comes to mind though: were these awards only given to books published by DBP? How about all books published by all publishers in Bahasa (including those from the fringe)? And if we truly want to give out Malaysian Literary Awards, how about including all books published in all languages in Malaysia, some of which have received international acclaim (not to mention awards)?

The Minister also called on creative workers to take advantage of loans under the RM200mil Creative Industry Fund announced in the 2010 Budget, challenging local writers and publishers to enter the global literature market.

This is an extract from the 2010 budget speech by the Prime Minister under

PROMOTING CREATIVE INDUSTRY:

57. The creative industry has the potential to be further developed and contribute to economic growth. This industry encompasses performing arts and music, design animation, advertisement and content development. To coordinate the development of the various segments of the industry, the Government will

First Formulate a comprehensive Creative Industry policy for the development of the creative industry;

Second Establish a RM200 million Creative Industry Fund to finance activities such as film and drama productions, music, animation, advertisement and local content development. The fund managed by Bank Simpanan National will provide soft loans. The loan application procedure will also be simplified; and

Third Establish Tabung Kebajikan Penggiat Seni to ensure the welfare of artistes. For this, a launching grant of RM3 million will be provided.

Has anyone seen any rules for this? In our minds, jaded by decades of conditioning, one would automatically assume that those who create in English, Chinese and Tamil need not apply. Would that be a wrong assumption?

It has been a mad mad mad mad year

It sometimes feels like all news coming out of the book industry these days is bad.

Publisher's Weekly reports on a pre-Christmas Bowker PubTrack Consumer service survey in the US: "... 34% of Americans have reduced the number of books they are buying, while 19% of consumers are either buying more used books or swapping books with others. Other ways consumers are looking to save money when buying books include buying fewer hardcovers and more paperbacks, and only buying books that are being sold at steep discounts or that are on sale. And in a direct contrast to the hope that consumers might buy books as an inexpensive form of entertainment, only 2% of consumers said they are buying more books as an alternative to more expensive kinds of entertainment."

News reports also suggest that the tiny e-book market is booming, but it is difficult to say how much of it is hype. Besides, we have to approach the numbers with caution. If a company sold 1 e-book last year and sells 2 this year, it reflects a growth of 100%, but not quite enough to set the world aflame. To make things worse, a recent PC World report says that we should brace ourselves for e-book piracy. "We are now seeing large volumes of e-books being pirated on everything from file-sharing networks to Websites," says Ed McCoyd of the Association of American Publishers, and the Hachette Book Group says that e-book piracy has grown "exponentially" over the past year. PC World has found virtual bookshelves full of with pirated e-book titles ranging from popular fiction and nonfiction, to college textbooks and how-to e-books for the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, or Barnes & Noble Nook.

But there are those who have found opportunities.

Although massive advances that used to be the norm have dried up, publishers are looking desperately for the next 'insanely great' first novel, says Alan Rinzler in his blog post. He has been speaking to Jay Schaefer, a publishing veteran, who says: "Everybody's looking for the next big thing -- a work of great literary fiction from an unknown writer who's never been published ... No question, good debut novels are getting snapped up and published." Well, writers, what are you waiting for? But he also says. "We've declined a lot of well crafted but empty stuff. You know, I think too many writers have been influenced by American Idol. They want to leap out of the chute, and win the literary lottery without working that hard."

He also has some useful tips: "Don't be in a rush to publish. Make sure it's as good as you can make it. Get some reliable feedback before you show it to an agent or publisher. Consult with a professional, a literary coach, take an advanced class in writing, or hire an independent editor."

And another story in the Daily Finace says Vanity Publishing Is Booming, and the Big Houses Want In (at a Price). Apparently, there is a lot of money in POD, although this is not necessarily from book sales. One report says that on an average around 41 copies of a POD book are sold in total, mostly by the authors themselves. So, there is real money to be made from writers who are willing to pay to be published (and to buy their own books). On-demand and short-run services are making a lot of money, with an approximately 132% sales jump in 2008 while the rest of the industry is in doldrums. Recently, romance publisher Harlequin announced it was getting into the pay-to-publish game with a new imprint, DellArte Press. (Some writers' and readers' groups have down-graded Harlequin as a result, but hey, go where the money is.)

Finally, Chinese writer Mian Mian, author of Panda Sex about China's underworld of sex, drugs and nightlife, (most of her work is banned in China) is suing Google for digitising her book without her approval. She wants 61,000 yuan (US$8,950) and a public apology. Yet, another good way to make money.

With that, we wish all reader a Happy and (in true Asian fashion) a Prosperous New Year. 2010 should be a good year. After all, it is the year of the Tiger.

Missing ingredient in Malaysia: culture

I do like to see what Dato' Johan Jaafar has to say every Saturday in the NST, especially about literature, though I do not necessarily agree with everything he says. In a recent column entitled Literature may be missing ingredient in our lives, he suggests that, perhaps, this is the fundamental difference between Malaysia and Indonesia: that they take their culture seriously, while we don't. He was referring to the brouhaha about the use of ketoprak and tarian pendet to promote local tourism, and the furore over our alleged propensity to menklaim Rasa Sayang and Suliram as our own. (He was writing in reference to the Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah's suggestion that 'science stream and engineering students' should be offered literature as part of their curriculum).

So, are we finally ready for some sort of intellectual debate then?

Culture is sancrosanct

He says: "... to the Indonesians, culture is sacrosanct.

"We erroneously believe that the ones protesting are in the minority ... (but almost) every scholar, artist and journalist in Indonesia is adamant that Malaysia has no right ...

"... they (the scholars) all agree, carrying bamboo spears and 'hunting' for Malaysians in the markets ... and ... carrying banners to ganyang (crush) Malaysia do not represent the majority.

"But the argument that Malaysians menklaim their culture is more than just about national pride. It is about sending the message that they take their culture seriously."

Absoutely. We certainly do not take our culture seriously. How long will us take to understand that tourism promotion dances are tourism promotion dances, not culture? There are others who can make a much better case for makyong, menora, wayang kulit or even bangsawan, for that matter, than I can, so I shall confine my comments to literature.

Cultural identity

Dato' Johan continues: "We were 'brought up' in a different manner, if you like. The Indonesians developed a strong cultural identity ... They believe in 'oneness' ... and the articulation of a single bangsa -- Bangsa Indonesia.

"... Our priorities are different. We believe in diversity, in fact the mantra 'strength in diversity' has put us in positions of difficulty at times."

Really? Haven't we heard this enough times? Was it 'strength in diversity" that put us in difficulty, or was that due to something else altogether? Granted diversity is our strength, but what have we used that strength all these decades for, apart from making us an economic powerhouse, and a nation with an unhealthily high corruption index?


The baby is dead

For decades we were told that only one form of writing was acceptable, with war cries of nationhood built into it. Anything not written in bahasa could not be considered as our writing, we were told. But what has happened to literature in bahasa? I remember how it used to flourish in the seventies and the eighties. Congratulations to Dr Anwar Ridhwan for being made a National Laureate this year. The last person to receive the award before him was S Othman Kelantan in 2001. Is it fair to assume that no one else deserved it in the eight-year period in between? Surely, the good Dato' can see the sad state bahasa literature is currently in. Imagine this. A baby has been put in the charge of a minder. The baby dies (from neglect or abuse, no one knows). But, the minder not only continues to coo and dandle the swaddled bundle, but still celebrates birthdays and anniversaries with extravagant public displays, like everything is hunky dory. Is anyone fooled? Aren't there enough people saying that the emperor has no clothes?

Fortunately, there is still a lot of writing in bahasa out there, though much of it would not be classified as literature. Not yet, anyway. I have seen a lot of passion, wit and vitality in them, and the last thing they need is to be swaddled and smothered. They need to grow. They need to be allowed to grow. They are produced mainly by fringe groups now, and are a little uneven, works in progress, but they may be the only hope for the future of writing in bahasa in this country. Anyone who has read Kasut Biru Rubina will tell you that it is so. And, believe you me; they shun the institutions like poison.

Fostering book mindedness

India too has a national book institution: The National Book Trust of India (NBT) was set by their first prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1957. From the website:

"Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru believed that India could develop as a democratic self-reliant and forward-looking society only in an environment of intellectual stimulation. In this context, he felt that effective measures should be taken to foster book mindedness amongst people of different ages and walks of life.

"The National Book Trust was never visualised as just another publishing house, competing with other Indian publishers.... (but) as a catalyst to encourage publishers ... "

The NBT supported writing in all languages used in India. The rest, as they say, is history.

Singaporean envy

Ironically, after all these decades of what can only be described as suppression, Malaysia has become somewhat famous internationally for writing in English! (So much so that some Singaporeans are somewhat envious of us.) I receive queries from (sometimes I get badgered by) foreign publishers and literary agents all the time for manuscripts by Malaysian writers. They cannot understand that Malaysian writers who write in English are simply those who do so despite the system, those who have fallen through the cracks, so to speak, and that there are really not that many of them around.

Chinese and Tamil

Some years ago an academic from a local university said this: "Who says there is no Malaysian literature? Of course, there is. It is only that it's in Chinese."

Malaysian Chinese literature, I have been told, is of international standard, on par with works originating from Taiwan and Hong Kong, but better than that from Singapore. (Since I cannot read Mandarin, I have to take their word for it.) The biennial international competition run by Sin Chew has been called the Chinese Booker -- an exaggeration, perhaps. But never mind. I was once shown a literary pullout from a local Chinese daily. Like I said, I cannot read Mandarin. But two words in Roman alphabets, within brackets, stood out on the same page: [BORGES] and [BUKOWSKI]. I have yet to see any other local daily discuss anything remotely more intellectual than Harry Potter.

As for Tamil literature, I have been told it still exists, though barely. I understand that circulation is poor and authors attempt to recover costs by organising book launches and holding 'auctions'. There are, apparently, fewer and fewer Tamil readers nowadays. A ray of hope seems to be coming from a rather unlikely corner though: with the abolition of the teaching of science and maths in English, more Indian parents are beginning to send their children to Tamil schools!

Chili crab

So, is there such a thing as Malaysian literature? Yes there is, but it survives in many forms. What is vital is some acceptance and recognition. Perhaps then we can lay claim to our very own cultural cachet. In the meantime, I guess we will have to continue to live with Indonesian condescension.

And, while we are at it, let's drop the chili crab nonsense right now.

New Straits Times

The McBook wars

The one important lesson history teaches us is that 'history teaches us nothing'. (I guess the big guy also needs to laugh and entertainment himself now and then. Look at those fools ... look at 'em shooting themselves... look at 'em.)

Wal-Mart started by offering upcoming hardcover releases of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue and John Grisham's Ford County, amongst others at US$10 with shipping.

Amazon.com matched it. Wal-Mart took its offer to US$9. Next morning, Amazon.com also had US$9 books.

Richard Nash, Indie publisher and literary tweeter, says "Since Amazon/Walmart/Target prices lower than wholesale @kashbk suggests indie cancel orders from pblshers & order them from giants!"

Absolutely!

In the Klang Valley in November alone, some half a million books will be available at warehouse and remaindered prices with (rumour has it) a third from local publishers and distributors including a substantial quantity from Singapore. Yes, its called dumping. It is probably illegal. As far as we know there are strict laws governing 'sales', although anything can be 'arranged'. This is kow thim country. But, what's really going on? Is someone big going down? Sure sounds like a closing down sale to me, even if it is done by proxy.

Meanwhile, if you are a book retailer, you should know where you need to be.

Most people think that the current form of the book industry has been around forever. Actually no. The Net Book Agreement in the UK was ruled illegal only in March 1997 and, and by 2009, 500 independents closed down as a result. (Dillons and Waterstones actually started offering books on discount in 1991 -- still, not all that long ago).

The book, then, officially became a shoe in the UK, and thus entered the McBook.

Book retailing once used to be seen as an interaction of a consumer with a specialist shop. That model is, largely, not applicable anymore. By the late 1990s only 45% of sales were by specialists whose core business was bookselling.

I looked at history and dug up some interesting facts, that it always takes a crisis to inject some sense into the industry. The current pattern of the book trade was, more or less, defined in England at the start of the nineteenth century -- publishers injected the risk capital, wholesalers distributed and retailers sold the books to the public. (The practice of remaindering also began around then, in 1790, to clear old stock to make way for the new.) But the industry was bedevilled by cash flow and undercutting, particularly, at the booksellers end. In 1829, in the aftermath of the banking crisis of 1826, a group of major publishers and booksellers tried to impose some sort of stability into the system with the Bookselling Regulations, which fixed trade and retail prices. Unfortunately, the committee that formulated the Regulations did not fully represent the industry. Then in the expanding economies of the 1830s, these Regulations were deemed no longer necessary. (Talk of short memories.)

There was another attempt at reviving the Regulations in some form in 1848, but the protesters (who included Charles Dickens and Alfred Tennyson) won the day. The times were too good. Free trade and laissez-faire were the buzzwords of the period. Unfortunately, but predictably, this defeat was extremely bad for the industry. By 1880, it became a major crisis for booksellers, with publishers threatened with the prospect of being cut off from the market due to a shortage of retail outlets.

Then in 1890 Frederick Macmillan, who inherited his well-established family business, proposed that books should be published with 'net' retail prices with a discount to the bookseller to ensure a reasonable margin. Retailers who broke the rules were cut off. Despite initial protests, this 'net agreement' spread through the industry ensuring stability and growth. The industry could not ignore the enthusiasm for Macmillan's initiative. A London Bookseller's society was formed around then and, in 1895, the society became the Associated Booksellers of Great Britain and Ireland (which later became the Booksellers Association).

The Net Book Agreement survived up to 1997.

Biblio: A History of British Publishing by John Feather.

Understanding the Google deal

In her weekly video podcast, German Chancellor Merkel appeals for more international co-operation on copyright protection and says that her government opposes Google's drive to create online libraries full of scanned books.

Last month French publishing house La Martinière, the French Publishers' Association and an authors' group asked a Paris court to fine Google €15m (£14m) and €100,000 for each day it continued "to violate copyright" by digitising their books.

In the US, the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers have asked for the Fairness Hearing into the Google Settlement to be postponed as they seek to address concerns raised by the US Justice Department last week.

So is Google the new evil empire?

The more I read about the reactions to the 'Google Deal' the more it sounds like it. I am confused. But when Microsoft and Amazon complain about it, I cannot help but get a little suspicious. What the hell is going on?

Depending on which report you read, Google has so far digitised 7 to10 million books from major libraries, with many of the out-of-copyright (OOC) books made available for free limited browsing, with links to libraries that have them and bookstores where one could buy a copy. That's one heck of a lot of work with little monetary benefit to Google as far as I can see. (It's a pretty good service, and I use it often for research). Altruism? Or is there another motive?

Then after years of negotiations (in an effort to resolve a 2005 lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and others) a deal was announced according to which Google would pay US$125m to create a Book Rights Registry with which authors and publishers could register works and be paid for books and other publications that are put online.

Microsoft, together with Yahoo, Amazon, some professors and state attorneys (calling themselves the Open Book Alliance), warn that Google and America's publishers are "misusing the judicial system" to create a "monopoly in digital books." And the whole project is now in jeopardy.

The Open Book Alliance -- or “Sour Grapes Alliance,” as Google calls it -- says: “The mass digitization of books promises to bring tremendous value to consumers, libraries, scholars, and students ... The Open Book Alliance will work to advance and protect this promise. And, by protecting it, we will assert that any mass book digitization and publishing effort be open and competitive.”

The Alliance claims: "Many startling challenges to copyright and competition policy lie buried in the settlement’s 300+ pages ..." It spells out how the settlement is not good for consumers and book-lovers, libraries and schools, authors and small publishers (especially Google's opt-out deadline), and that it sets a dangerous precedent.

I am all for open competition, serving schools and libraries, and hate that Google deadline thing. But why are Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo involved? As Marcellus says to Horatio: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

As far as consumer interests are concerned, I cannot disagree with Tim Wu of Slate. A project such as this can only be a boon to academics, researchers of all kinds and even the curious lay-reader. It would allow one to venture far off the beaten track, to dig up obscure, but extremely, useful material that would otherwise disappear from our culture for good.

But is the deal exclusive to Google? Can Microsoft and others not establish their own digital libraries of scanned material -- if they are willing to spend their time and money?

How to promote your book

Now you have written this masterpiece, and it has been published. But it is not selling the way you think it should. What do you do? A writer was in the shop just the other day asking us about how to promote his book. I told him to write another one.

Well, as most writers know, the most difficult part is not writing the book, but selling it. If you have a publisher, you could well blame them and their distributor, call them names, tell everybody what a useless bunch of wankers they are, that you have been to this great bookshop in the city and they don't even have it on their shelves, that you have 'had it' with them, and how your friend in Timbuktu, Ulu Kelantan wants a copy but can't find it in his local bookshops, etc, etc. (But while you are at it, don't tell your friends that the same publisher has another book by another writer that is selling by truckloads. It will not be good for your ego.)

If you are self-published, another set of problems emerges. After walking up and down several flights of steps, you will find out very quickly how difficult it is to even get your books on the shelves of the major stores, and how almost impossible it is to get a review, or even a mention, in the newspapers. (Having said that, I was indeed pleasantly surprised to see 4 -- yes, four -- Malaysian books reviewed last Sunday in StarMag, the Sunday Star pullout. Let us hope it is a sign of things to come.)

So why don't some bookstores stock your book? There are a few reasons, and all of them have to do with economics. The first reason is shelf space: they would rather stock a book that moves, and in large quantities too, than one that does not. They will stock a limited quantity of your books for a short while to see how it does, before they decide if the space could be made more useful, or return your book to the publisher. The second is demography: that is, the manager of the store does not think your book will do well at certain locations, whatever you might think. Thirdly, the book you are still flogging was first published twenty years ago (or thereabouts). (At this point, I am often indignantly confronted with the assertion that Harper Lee wrote only one book and it is still being sold, to which my reply would normally be in the form of a question: are you Harper Lee? That works wonders as a reality-check, try it.)

As for why newspapers and magazines don't review local books, there could be several reasons. For one, the editors could decide that readers would prefer the 29th centre-spread feature of Harry Potter's latest, than one about your book. Two, they cannot find anyone willing to, actually, read and review your book. (This may be due to many reasons: you are not glamorous enough, the pay-per-review is too little,or there are too few reviewers and they prefer to read a 'more interesting' imported book rather than yours.) Thirdly, given our small market size, local publishers generally cannot afford to buy 'adverts' in the periodicals, so any concession given is considered charity, unless it helps circulation. (Many may well argue that the potential of the latter has been grossly under-sold.)

Coming back to my advice to the writer to come out with his second book, the reasons are simple. First, it is for name recognition: when you have a new book out, bookshops and readers will also look at your past work. Secondly, you write because you have to write, and if it turns out to be successful, be surprised, genuinely surprised. (No one was more surprised about being short-listed for the Frank O'Connor Award than Shih-Li herself.)

And finally, I remember reading an interview with KS Maniam in a newspaper several years ago: talking about writing is not writing, thinking about writing is not writing, writing is writing.

So, there.

(BTW, Shih-Li will be in Cork by now. Her reading is on the 17th. I am going to miss it though, because I will be travelling on that day. The awards event will be on Sunday, 20th of Sept. I will be taking my camera along. Hope I remember to take pictures.)

Watch out for your copyright

The launch of Silverfish Books' Books Malaysian, all Malaysian, only Malaysian online bookstore a fortnight ago appears to have attracted quite a bit of attention, but that is not what this article is about. What the over 750 books featured (it is a very small portion of all the Malaysian books in print -- but a start) indicates is that Malaysian publishing is not only alive and well, but thriving. Currently, three of the major bookstore chains are either holding or planning to hold Malaysian 'promotions', underscoring the importance of local books to their bottom-line. That is the upside.

But now comes the downside -- protecting authors' copyright. Now -- we at Silverfish feel this quite passionately -- no author, or creator of any intellectual property deserves to be deprived of his or her copyright. Unfortunately, please be warned, there is a lot of this going on, and writers are being deprived not just of their royalty. A lot of it has to do with ignorance (since we are not all lawyers) and quite a bit to do with corporate greed and bullying.

Some years ago the spouse of a leading Malaysian author came to see me with a draft agreement (on behalf of the author, because he himself was incapacitated at that time) to ask me about a couple of clauses. She had been told by the publisher's representative that these were 'standard', but she was not satisfied. One clause required the author to surrender his copyright to the company. And another clause said that the company had the right to change the manuscript in any way it wanted without consulting the author! Jahat-nya!

I told the lady that these were definitely not 'standard' clauses. In fact, there is no such thing as a standard agreement. After that incident, I looked at the copyright pages of several books by that publisher and realised that it was standard practice for them! So, Rule number 1: read your contract thoroughly. Don't let them bully you. What you should offer is only publishing rights, and that to only in the agreed form. Copyright should remain with you, which means you should be free to sell your work for movies, plays, comics, serialisation, video games, or any other. But the problem is most authors are so eager to get published that they would be willing to sell their soul. DON'T!

Now, the problem gets more complicated. It has come to our notice that books by several leading authors is currently being 'remaindered' by a publisher. (The practice not very long ago was to pulp unsold books so as not to 'spoil' the market.) Here are three cases:

Author number one. We received a phone call from the publisher asking if we would like to buy several hundred copies of a book by this author for RM5.00 each. We declined the offer. Later when we met the author we asked him if he knew of this, he said that he was totally in the dark and even claimed that he had never received any royalty from them. So, who got the royalty?

Author number two: We wanted to order several copies of the book because it was being used by students at a university. We were quoted the usual price by the publisher and we were about to place the order when we heard from other sources that the same book was being offered to a 'remainder' bookstore in Klang Valley, possibly to be sold at RM5.00! It would been really grand if we had sold the books to the students for RM32.90 while it was being remaindered elsewhere for RM5.00. We intend to tell the student where they can buy the book cheap. At least let them benefit. Again, the author was not told.

Author number three. He discovered that his plays were being remaindered only after a friend told him about seeing a whole stack of his work at a 'remainder' store. He called up the company to ask about it, and was told that he could buy up the remaining stock at SGD0.50 each. He agreed to take all six hundred but received only 100.

In all three cases, several issues stand out. One, authors do not receive any royalty on the remaindered books. (I have heard it said by many that that they didn't mind buying books from remaindered stores because it was cheaper. Yes, anonymity is a wonderful balm for the conscience. Okay, but what if you see a book by a dear friend of yours at a 'remainder' bookshop? Would you buy yourself a copy knowing she is being completely stitched by the publisher? Deprived of her main income as a writer?)

Secondly, what happens to the publishing rights? (Or, in the case of those who have inadvertently signed unfair agreements, their copyright?) Can the author republish his own book? No? So is the book completely dead?

Thirdly, why is this remaindering being done without notifying the authors, without giving them the first right of refusal? If their books are to be remaindered should they not benefit from it? Or, do they simply deserve to be swept up and trashed with the rest of the garbage?

Of course, there are cases when someone other than the author owns the copyright.

1. If an employee creates a work in the course of his or her employment, the employer owns the copyright.

2. If you are employed as an independent consultant (or contractor) to create a work and the former meets all expenses, the employer owns the copyright.

3. You have sold your entire copyright to another person or business, that buyer becomes the copyright owner.

All of the above also applies to those who publish in periodicals. Do not sign anything that surrenders your copyright to that periodical. You only give them 'one-time' publishing rights. Clarify the copyright issue from the start. Don't be seduced by niceties (aiyah, don't you trust me? bullshit) or succumb to bullying. There is no such thing as an industry standard or a moral right. If you sign your copyright over, you are dead. End of story.

(I wrote this article after talking to a couple of lawyers. Maybe some of my arguments are flawed because I am not a lawyer myself. Please post your comments or pass this story around. But niggly bits aside, what is important is that Malaysian writers must be protected from predators. Perhaps the Director of Majlis Buku Kebangsaan Malaysia -- the Malaysian Book Association-- has a view.)

Frank O'Connor short story award

I had just left the office when Patrick Cotter, Director of The Munster Literature Centre, called on Monday. Phek Chin took the call and politely told the gentleman that I could not be contacted because I had already gone home. Gone home? It is only eleven o'clock here, he said. Whereupon, Phek Chin inquired where he was calling from. Ireland! And ... He was just calling to tell Mr Raman Krishnan that his writer, Shih-Li Kow, has been short-listed for the Frank O'Connor award!

The silence that followed must have been deafening. Phek Chin was petrified. She was speechless. She was afraid to say anything lest she sounded like a blithering idiot.(Oi!!! she protests to me, loudly.) But he assured her that it was a perfectly normal reaction and that he had been confronted by it several times before. He made her promise to tell me about it, as soon as possible, and gave her his email.

She says she was still frozen in shock for a while after she put down the phone, not knowing what do or think. Finally, after recovering some of her senses, she called my house (I was not there yet as I had some errands to run), then my wife's mobile and my house again, and managed to leave a message for me. Then, when I called her it was my turn to be gob-smacked.

Apparently, Shih-Li came in a while later that evening and Phek Chin made her sit down before telling her. Are you sure? It can't be, lah. Maybe it is a hoax, Aiyoh, I am going to pengsan ... and so on and so forth. Anyway, Phek Chin and I walked around the whole day, the next day, grinning from ear to ear, as if we had been smoking something. I cannot begin to imagine what Shih-Li must feel, but we are so incredibly happy for her.

I first met Shih-Li almost three years ago at the third Silverfish Writing Programme. News from Home was published about one year after she finished the Programme, and Ripples, another year later. She is unpretentious, she is level-headed, and she is prolific -- such a wonderful writer to work with. As I worked on Ripples, I felt that her work was very good -- a sort of prize-winning good, if you know what I mean -- and I was determined to nominate her for an award, any award. But still, when I received the news that she was short-listed for the Frank O'Connor (I mean the Frank O'Conner), it left me in a state of shock, in a daze -- though in a nice way.

Well, now she has to be in Cork, Ireland on the 20th of September for the awards presentation at the end of the Frank O'Connor Short Story Festival, which starts on the 16th of that month. Win or lose, it does not matter any more. She has already won. Malaysian writing has already won. Malaysian readers have won.

Let us bask in the warmth for a while more, then we shall resume prowling the streets for more hidden gems that we can polish. Congratulations again, Shih-Li Kow. You have blazed the trail.

A new publishing model?

Shelf-Awareness.com touts it as a publishing model for the 21st Century. "The [publishing] industry seems to want a return on investment, quickly and guaranteed," Stephen Roxburgh says. "The difficulty is that the people at the end of that chain, paradoxically enough, are artists and authors who need time to develop a project."
 
Roxburgh is the pioneer of namelos (nameless), a "consortium of independent publishing professionals." Kara LaReau has launched Bluebird Works, which offers creative services that include editing and manuscript evaluation. Both companies strive to help creators of children's books develop projects at their own pace and until they're ready to be submitted to an agent or editor. Agents or editors (instead of authors) may hire these companies for their projects.

So what's new about this publishing mode? This used to be the traditional role of publishing houses before big business took over. Silverfish books has been doing this for over two years now. The Silverfish New Writing series was going nowhere. It was started as a platform for discovering new Malaysian writing talent, but after seven years and no sign of any sustained talent emerging (except for Mathew Thomas) we decided to stop.

We have argued before that in Malaysia we cannot expect authors to come out with their own manuscripts without some assistance -- both editorial and creative -- particularly considering that English is often the second or third language. So we started the Silverfish Writing Programme. The focus is on story telling, and writing what publishers look for. We have currently published four writers and working with one more. It is a slow process and the current crop still have some way to go, but four writers in two years is still way better than one in seven. We continue to dream of a time in the future (not so far away we hope) when a couple of dozen Malaysian writers start producing good quality books on a regular basis, creating a supply and a demand, and perhaps even attracting a glance from publishers overseas. (We have been approached for local manuscripts by more than one international literary agent.)

We hosted a literary event last week with readings from Dua Lauk and Perempuan Simpanan. About 50 people turned up for the reading despite the rain. They appeared a little intimidated in the beginning (our reputation has probably travelled far), but they soon settled down. They were well organised, they had an enthusiastic leader who preferred to remain in the background, they were all very supportive of one another, and there was not one pretentious arty-farty literatti 'air head' in sight. Of course, they still have a long way to go, literary wise. But, I do wish them well and I sincerely hope they succeed for we do need a strong Malay literary scene. Syabas to this wonderful group. And, thank you Irman for introducing them to us and bringing them to Silverfish Books. They are welcome anytime at all. Drinks and bites on us. (A slide show has been posted for those who could not make it.)

The Shelf-Awareness article continues, saying: 'Their companies' model shifts the financial responsibility to the authors up front rather than the traditional model under which, after paying an advance, the publisher works with them to develop the project. "That will happen with increasingly fewer people," said Roxburgh. "The industry's capacity to serve and cultivate and develop the talent is much diminished in the face of the contraction and consolidation it confronts now. The model [namelos is] proposing is to acknowledge the hard truth, but I think it also happens to reflect the evolution of the industry."'
 
In the case of Silverfish Books, we currently do not charge authors anything to work with them, although many are willing to pay. (But, we do have a nominal charge for the Silverfish Writing Programme.) All we ask is they be willing to work hard. We look at their sample work, talk to them and then decide if there is a book.

Karen LaReau, hopes to have two books out in 2011. (It is a slow process.) She is not sure where the industry is going, but she says: "People are always going to want good stories ... all I can do, is to continue to provide that."

Shelf-Awareness

Innovate, innovate, innovate

The news from the book industry appears to get worse with every passing week. Let's leave that aside for a moment, if we can, and see how some are coping and read some of the good news for a change, without talking about shopping malls across the US that have become community centres and libraries. Three trends appear to be emerging. They are: innovate, innovate and innovate.

A Publisher's Weekly story recently was about David L. Ulin, book editor of the Los Angeles Times who joined the Los Angeles Times in October 2005. Unfortunately,  the stand-alone book review section, The Sunday Book Review, died six months ago due to the shrinking newspaper business and falling ad revenues. But Ulin took the challenge upon himself and created the Times' online book presence.

"When I came on board, all we did was to load whatever was in the paper about books to the Web site. No one was tending it," Ulin says. "When the stand-alone was threatened, our online presence became a priority." He then decided to feature Web-only material, beginning with a blog. "We had no idea what we were doing, but tried to figure it out as we went along." A year ago, Ulin brought in Carolyn Kellogg as the dedicated blogger; she has helped him understand what he refers to as "the emerging style of blogging about books," a more immediate, conversational approach.

In addition to the Jacket Copy blog, David Ulin also has five online columnists writing about paperbacks, mysteries, sci-fi, children's and mythology. In March, Ulin will debut an online-only weekly essay by writers on writing. Contributors will include both new and established authors covering a wide range of voices and aesthetics. "While the book industry seems to be focused on contracting, we're expanding online. We think of book coverage in the paper in a complex mix of ways," says Ulin.

"I'm committed to both print and Web. There are two readerships, and I'm not sure they're the same. My main interest is, how do we get the most book coverage to the most people?" Ideally, Ulin would welcome a return to the stand-alone book review. "But we don't have one now, and we're not going to have one," he says. "One of the things that worries me about the book culture is the notion that all change is bad."

In another posting, Hugh Mcquire of The Huffington Post asks: "How can publishing maintain its financial viability when fewer people are reading books? Especially when everyone wants everything for free?" He says, "I recently attended O'Reilly's Tools for Change in Publishing conference, a yearly gathering of publishers, technology providers, developers, thinkers, visionaries. The TOC conference is built around technology, with an objective to help 'decipher the tools of change in this industry and help cut through the hype for a more profitable future in publishing.' In 2009 the focus was decidedly philosophical, not technological: what is the future of the book, and how might publishers build successful business models around the coming changes?"

And then he notes: "Still, one thing that worried and puzzled me was how rarely the reader was mentioned at TOC. There was talk of the future of the book, the network, Google, and self-publishing models. And of course DRM. But the reader was largely absent."

"One of the problems for publishers is that they have never had much to do with their readers. Their clients, traditionally, have been book stores, who in turn managed the relationships with readers."

"The question every publisher should be asking themselves every day is: how can we provide more value to our readers? I suspect the ones that start each day with that question will find the right answers. At least, I think they'll be asking the right questions."

Another story in Publisher's Weekly is about Thomas Nelson who has announced the launch of NelsonFree, a program that allows readers to receive content in multiple formats -- physical book, audiobook and e-book -- without making multiple purchases. With NelsonFree, the price of the hardcover book includes both the audio download and the e-book. The first two NelsonFree titles, including Michael Franzese’s I’ll Make You An Offer You Can’t Refuse, will go on sale later this month. Another 10 Nelson titles will be available in the format before the end of the year.

Joel Miller, vp and publisher, said Nelson currently has plans to release a dozen format-free books in this and related categories, and will monitor consumer response to determine whether or not it adds more titles. He also said Nelson will not raise the price of hardcovers in the NelsonFree program.

Nelson president and CEO Michael S. Hyatt said, "I believe that the industry is shifting and we, as publishers, need to explore new methods of getting our content into the hands of customers," said. "NelsonFree will give readers a new level of value and flexibility. It will enhance their literary experience and allow greater employment of the content without breaking the bank."

And then finally, Amazon unveils a Kindle app for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch that displays books in color. So, one does not have to spend US$359 on a Kindle electronic book reader from Amazon.com if one owns an iPhone or iPod touch (as a new application will let you access the same content on your Apple device).

"The program, which can be downloaded from Apple's online application store, lets iPhone and iPod touch users read the same electronic books, magazines and newspapers that Kindle owners can buy on Amazon.com. As with the Kindle, the iPhone app lets users change the text size on the screen, and add bookmarks, notes and highlights ... The application does not connect to the Kindle store, however, so users must access the Web browser on their iPhone, iPod or computer to buy the content."

So, has Amazon.com finally seen the light? (With an iPhone installed base of well over 10 million the light couldn't get more glaring.)

The central premise of all business is: stick to what you know, and what you are good at. Leave the manufacturing of pencils to those who do that well.

How will newspapers survive the digital revolution?

(A version of this story appeared in the Malay mail on the 26th February 2009.)

Some years ago I was invited to talk about publishing at a Rotary Club event at a downtown hotel. During the Q&A it was inevitable that the question of e-books should arise. My comments at that time were that it was still several years off.

First there was this question of technology, I said. Current screen resolutions were not good enough for reading many hours at a stretch, and internet access had to be much faster. Secondly there was the question of copyright -- authors and publishers would want to know how they'd get paid and how their rights would be protected before they allowed their books to be digitised. No one wanted a repeat of the music industry fiasco.

Now with the Kindle and its electronic paper making screen reading easier, and more companies offering broadband speed of 10mps at very affordable prices (except in Malaysia where one wonders if there is some sort of hidden policy to keep broadband speeds and internet penetration low, despite all the lip service), that day appears to be here.

But the Kindle costs USD 359.00 (appr RM 1300.00) with book downloads costing another USD 10.00 (appr RM 37.00) a pop. So is the Kindle likely to take off and replace the book? Probably not. It is a product looking for a market. Amazon thinks it has found one. But I don't think so. The Economist quotes Steve Kessel, a member of Amazon's Kindle team, "It's the convenience -- they think of a book and can be reading it within 60 seconds."

I can only say that Mr Kessel is not a serious reader. Only those hooked on bestsellers know exactly what they want to read next. Serious book buyers have little idea what they want to read until they see it while browsing the shelves. Most book buying is done on impulse. And seriously, I cannot imagine people who live from one bestseller to the next actually forking out RM1300.00 for an e-book reader. (I came across a 1932 Matsushita mission statement many years ago. It included this line: to make all products as inexhaustible and as cheap as tap water. When that happens to Kindle, it will be another story.)

When the iPod first came out, it filled a need that many had. Like me, there were many people out there with large CD collections. But they could play them only one at a time sequentially, and could only take a few with them when they travelled. The iPod changed everything by making it possible to bring along your entire CD collection in your pocket wherever you went, and play the songs in whatever order you wanted. The online buying thing came about much later. Even today, 90% of all iPod capacity is filled from own CD collections.

While the Kindle may not be the answer yet, I think digital media would still be the way to go for reading the news. I still read the daily papers, mostly out of a 50-year habit than anything else. I will miss the funnies otherwise, and some of my favourite columnists. (Talking of which, I was quite pleased at the news of Dato' Johan Jaafar being appointed a director of the NSTP and the chairman of Media Prima Bhd. Congratulations, Dato' and all the best. I don't necessarily agree with all his views but I know he reads and thinks before he writes. That article he wrote after March 8 was priceless. I saw him on that general elections show, and I thought he looked frightfully uncomfortable. When I turned on my laptop I realised why.) But my news comes mostly through the internet every morning.

With more and more news being consumed via smart phones and other mobile devices, newswires are now increasingly going to the consumer directly. Bloomberg has had over one million downloads for its iPhone version. Reuters too is offerings its stories directly to the consumer on advertisement-financed websites. In 2008, only 25% of AP's revenue came from newspapers compared to 55% in 1985. Traditionally, newswires have been wholesalers and the newspapers their retailers who repackaged the news before they sold it.

So will newspaper survive? That is a big if, after print media consuming dinosaurs like me pass on. Circulations are tumbling all over the world. Many are closing down. It costs less to advertise in the e-media than in print. Most newspapers have internet editions that they give away for free. (Sorry, the subscription model does not work.) In the same issue of The Economist, Norman Pearlstine of Bloomberg says mobile users are willing to pay for ring tones, so why not for news? Here's why: ring tones are extensions of the ego. One uses them repeatedly for a long time until one gets tired of it. News remains news for a very short time. And there is no associated ego trip.

I think newspapers will be around for a while yet. I hope so. (I sure will miss Blondie, otherwise.) But they do need to take a new look at the entire model, for fear of becoming irrelevant. Maybe the print and digital media can co-exist.
 
Maybe the word is not 'can', it is 'should'.

Peter Carey warns of threat to Australian publishing

In Alison Flood's story in The Guardian, Peter Carey talks of it as if it is an 'end of the world as we know it' scenario. He says it is a 'battle for the sake of our readers and writers' and a "cultural 'self-suicide'". (Is there another form of suicide?)

Another writer, Kate Grenville, says that it is 'A tragedy which would force many Australian authors to stop writing,' while Thomas Keneally is convinced it would cause "irreparable harm". It appears that the entire Australian book industry, from major authors to publishers, booksellers and agents, is up in arms about a proposed review of Australia's copyright laws.

Currently, the report says, Australian publishers are given 30 days to bring out an Australian edition of a book after its release anywhere in the world. If an Australian edition is released, Australian bookshops are required to sell the Australian version, and they can't import the book from overseas. As a result, books are more expensive in Australia than elsewhere. This has, apparently, allowed the country's local publishing to flourish, at the expense of cheaper overseas editions.

Carey's fear is that if the current copyright laws are taken away "global companies will decide that their Australian offices will be much more profitable as distributors of product than publishers of books. If this sounds creepily colonial, it is because it is." He (and the others) argue further that if not for the present government support, Australian authors (like themselves) would never have become internationally renowned. Grenville also says that her "experience shows how uninterested publisher are in our work", particularly if they are of literary nature.

But a government spokesman says, "Any policy reforms in this area will be aimed at enhancing Australia's longer term growth prospects."

An Australian publisher visited me some time ago. She was, of course, trying to persuade me to buy some Australian titles. I balked. And then I asked why books from Australia were so expensive? Her excuse was the small market size and logistics.

A typical Australian book would cost about RM60.00 as opposed to RM35.00 for one of similar quality from Britain or the US. When a customer walks into a bookshop, all books are equal. They do not necessarily have more loyalty to books from any specific country (unless they are particularly chauvinistic). Price is important, and with Australian titles costing almost twice more, it is not surprising that they are rarely found on the shelves of Malaysian bookstores. Granted, the Malaysian market is small, but how many Australian books get into Britain or the US?

(I had a minor misunderstanding -- or that's what I learned later -- with a Malaysian author who had her book published in Australia some years ago. Understanably, no distributor from Malaysia or Singapore would import it, and she could not understand why I was reluctant to bring in a book that would have cost at least twice as much on the shelf as another equivalent title -- notwithstanding the fact that she was an 'unknown'.)

The truth is Australian books are available in this country -- in stores that deal with remaindered books. Yes, that is right. There is a huge trade in Australian remaindered books, a trade from which the Australian author does not get one cent. (In fact, Australian barn sales are almost legendary.) And these remaindered books are extremely popular, particularly children's books. I (and several people I know) have for years acknowledged that Australia produces some of the best children's books in the world -- far better produced and more wonderfully inventive than similar stuff from Britain and the US. Seriously. I know of adults who collect and read them voraciously. But they are not found in regular bookshops because they simply cost too much. (Now, India is getting into that market with surprisingly creative and well-produced children's books at a fraction of the price, so watch out.)

For example, it is almost impossible to get Penguin Malaysia to import books from Australia and New Zealand. They either flatly refuse, or else give you such a ridiculously long delivery time that you'd think you'd grow old and die first. When Elizabeth Smithers was a guest in Kuala Lumpur in 2007 we had to use quite a lot of (governmental) muscle before they finally agreed to import some copies with great reluctance. To us, it was like extracting the books from them with forceps; to them it must have been like we were doing it without anaesthetics. (By the way, they still remind us of that.)

But it is not just in children's titles that they are outstanding. I have browsed the shelves of several 'remaindered' stores in KL and I have been impressed with many of their titles. 

It is fine for Carey, Grenville and Keneally; they have arrived. And, that point about problems faced by 'literary' authors is taken. Literary writers all over the world face similar problems. Still, they have been recognised, as more Australian writers will be in future, because they are good. As for publishers and booksellers, what is there not to like about high prices and a 'closed shop' policy?

It is quite apparent that Australia has more to look at than its copyright laws as it increasingly prices itself out of the market. The world will not stand still. There is a potential new 800-pound publishing gorilla in the room. It is called India. And, many smaller ones snapping at the heels too.

The Guardian

The book industry -- times are a changing

A story in the Publishers Weekly says that Borders has agreed to buy titles from HarperStudio on a non-returnable basis. The average book buyer will ask, "So what's the big deal?" But to people in the industry it is a radical shift, perhaps the sort of change that is required for the industry to survive and bring back some sense into it.

I will start with a primer on how the book industry currently operates. (Okay, this is how it operates in the US, the UK, Australia and Malaysia -- we think it's cool to ape everything they do in the US and UK without understanding why.)

In a simple world, publishers publish. Then the distributor's undertake to distribute the book for a fee of, say, between 50-60% of the RRP. They then sells the books to the bookseller for a discount of, say 30-40%, usually depending on volume. (The actual discounts vary, but this is an example.) The publisher meets the printing cost, royalty payments and overheads from his portion. The distributor costs are warehousing, transportation and administration. The bookstore has to pay his rental and his overheads. Not much meat in there, really.

Then comes the first distortion. The distributor sells the books to the book retailer on an SOR basis, that is, on sale-or-return terms. So books that are not sold will be returned to the distributor who will then issue a credit note. And the distributor likewise will return the books he cannot sell (including the returns he gets from the book retailer) to the publisher. The publisher then pays the author a royalty on what has been sold and then pulps or remainders the rest. (It costs more to pulp it than give it away or sell it cheap.)

There is a huge trade in remaindered books with many book retailers practically specialising in it. The general rule in this business is that the less you are allowed to choose the cheaper the books cost. Of course, the author earns no royalty from this type of sale (and this trade might even be in violation of the fine print on the copyright page that says 'no reselling'.) One problem with the SOR model is that bookstores can order 100 copies of a title even when they know they can only sell 25 because they can return the rest. (The rest are used to decorate the shop to make it look good.) Returns in this country are normally allowed within a period of one year, but it is usually done within six months. Some do it in three, just when the payments are due. After this most books are considered dead because few are reordered, except by independents and chains specialising in back lists. (The real bookstores.)

The next distortion came with the advent of mega-bookstore and supermarket chains. These stores started ordering books in thousands (and in the case of Harry Potter, hundreds of thousands) demanding huge discounts of between 75-85%, and bought their books directly from the publisher. This put a lot of pressure on the latter because of the high printing costs and, God forbid, probable massive returns within three months. The only way a publisher could handle this was by raising the marked price on the book. (Now you know why books are so expensive.) Books became commodities like rice, sugar, or shoes. People who sold books this way knew as much about them as hamburger-flippers.

In Malaysia right now, book distributors are holding their breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop -- with the holiday season over, the returns are going to start soon. If the returns are as big as many people think they will be the repercussions to the industry could be serious. If it is larger, the effect could be catastrophic, and some people could go under.

Multiply the above a hundred fold and you get and idea of what they are facing in the UK and US. Add to that the past leveraging power of the mega-store chains that took out huge loans to expand ruthlessly, to stock up with huge inventories that they knew they could return, and sell them at massive discounts to kill the competition (and, to a certain extent, themselves).

Sensible people have been warning about this for two decades (just as they have been warning about the hubris on Wall Street). But reason has no answer for unmitigated greed, until the latter blows up in the face, that is.

Some publishers are not going to survive to see this, but firm sales could be a game changer. Some sanity could return to the industry, at last. Book retailers will only buy what they think they can sell if distributors will not take returns. Ditto with publishers. With no requirement to wallpaper the mega-chain stores premises with their books, publishers will not have to publish 1,000,000 copies to sell 100,000, and the subsequent lower overheads could mean lower prices for the consumer. It could also mean less carpet-bombing by publishers – less titles, but more carefully selected ones.

Of course, there will be fewer JK Rowlings. But that might not be such a bad thing.

Please, we're Malaysians, we don't swear

(A version of this story appeared in the Malay Mail on the 15th of January 2009)

I don't normally open email attachments -- what with viruses, worms and trojans running wild -- but this time I did because it came from a close friend and it was about publishing. It was an English translation of Publication Guidelines from the Ministry of Internal Security, and the date at the bottom of the document was December 2007. (The Ministry of Internal Security, KKDN, was merged with the Ministry of Home Affairs, KHEDN, in March 2008 and is now known as the Ministry of Home Affairs, KDN.)

Though this document does sound like something bureaucrats would write, I am not sure of its authenticity. The translation might be wrong, too.

Section 1 says, "This guideline is to provide information and clarification in respect of undesirable publications highlighted under section 7(1) of the Printing Presses and publications Act 1984." Basically, it lists what the Act covers: publications prejudicial to public order, public interest, national interest, security, morality, likely to alarm public opinion, contravene any law and morality. (But, not in that order.)

Section 2 of the document is on definitions.

Section 3 explains what is considered undesirable in a publication. 'Publications Prejudicial to Public Order' is the first point. The next point is on morality and speaks generally about material that is obscene, sexually arousing, against public decency, proper values, public morality and religion. The remaining five points basically repeat Section 1.

It is in Section 4 that the guidelines go into some specifics. The first sub-section is on writings and articles. Prohibited items include racial and religious prejudice. Okay. Sedition includes all of the former as well as (commentary on) politics and the economy that are contrary to "national principles". So, if the economy is bad you can't say it. Then comes the use of vulgar language. Okay, all you writers out there, if you are writing a story about construction workers, vegetable sellers or politicians in the Parliament, make sure they use proper language and anatomically correct descriptions. We're Malaysians, we don't swear. And, no sexual acts, please.  By the way, mystery and mystical stories that conflict with Islamic principles are also not allowed.

The next sub-section is about publication of pictures. Nudes and nudes with 'private parts' covered by 'something, for example hands, leaves, blacked out/blurred (mosaic) etc,' are prohibited. (Do you feel there is something wrong here? Anyway, watch out, all you photographers and artists.) Next, males and females are prohibited from sexy or indecent poses. Okay females, no bending over or lying face down showing 'a large portion (50%) of breasts', males and females don't sit with legs spread wide showing 'upper thighs'. There are several more mentions of 'private parts'. By the way, both sexes are not allowed 'smooching' and kissing poses, and to embrace. And if you are going to be photographed in a bikini, make sure there is a beach or a pool nearby. But if the pictures are of religious significance then it is okay. (Does that include the Kama Sutra? After all, Kama is the god of love in Hinduism, and the son of Lakshmi.)

The next sub-section is on advertisement. It pretty much covers all of the above, with more references to breasts, private parts and sexual organs. After that come song lyrics and audio recordings. Same same. (Okay, and no suggestive 'moaning' noises on the soundtrack either.)

The final sub-section is on 'Other Publication Material'. (I wonder why this is here; it is mostly about sex toys). Again the primary concern here again are breasts, private parts and sexual organs. Interestingly, also included are 'toys, souvenirs,  clothes and figurines producing vulgar or obscene sounds'. (My curiosity is piqued. Has anyone seen or heard one of those?)

We can conclude from the guidelines (since it is produced by the ministry in charge) that breasts, private parts and sexual organs are the most serious internal security threats facing the country.

Meanwhile, in the UK, John Ozimek writes in The Register that a 35-year-old civil servant Darryn Walker will be prosecuted for the online publication of material that Police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) believe to be obscene. The story says that this is the first such prosecution for written material in nearly two decades and it is thought that a guilty verdict could have a serious and significant impact on the future regulation of the internet in the UK.

"The case originated in summer 2007, when Mr Walker allegedly posted a work of fantasy --titled Girls (Scream) Aloud -- about pop group Girls Aloud ... The story describes in detail the kidnap, rape, mutilation and murder of band members Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh, and ends with the sale of various body parts on eBay."

Lady Chatterley's Lover took the 'obscenity test' in 1960 and passed.

The 1959 Obscenity Act of UK says in the section on The Test of Obscenity: "(1) For the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it."

But under defence of public good it says:

4 (l) A person shall not be convicted of an offence against public good and an order for forfeiture shall not be made under the foregoing section, if it is proved that publication of the article in question is justified as being for the public good on the ground that it is in the interests of science, literature, art or learning, or of other objects of general concern.

(2) It is hereby declared that the opinion of experts as to the literary, artistic, scientific or other merits of an article may be admitted in any proceedings under this Act either to establish or to negative the said ground."

No one has been convicted in a long time.

I guess Malaysian bureaucrats are cleverer lah. They ban first. No need to go to court.