Who are these Xlibris people?

An author whose latest manuscript I'm working on asked me the question above. I said I had heard the name before, but I really didn't know. This was about a month ago. He said he got a call from someone claiming to be from Xlibris Australia (she talked funny, so he believed her) and started giving him some hard sell about why he should publish with them. It was the usual: worldwide reach, thousands of copies, etc, etc.

'How did they get my number? How do they even know me?" he asked.

The question is easy to answer in these days of Google. The first one stumped me. "Not from us, I said unnecessarily."

"I know that." I thought he sounded a little annoyed that we thought he would even think we'd give his contact to anyone without his permission.

A week ago when we met again, he said that they were hounding him again. "They have called me four times, including two calls to my wife at home." They were all again from Australia and the usual hard sell: why go to a small publisher, we are international; don't you want to sell 50,000 books? We do e-books, too."

I told my author that if they promise him 50,000 copies, ask them for an advance instead of paying for their services. MYR100,000 thousand will be nice, thank you! MYR200,000 thousand, would be better. But, that's not going to happen, is it?

I am surprised at two things. One, how did they get so much information on the author? Do they have commission agents or spies or scouts in Malaysia? In any case, phone calls to someone's house, to me, borders on intrusion and bad ethics. Two, why are they so desperate? Is the self-publishing market that cut-throat? Or are they merely playing the volume game: print thousands of books in the hope of finding the next Fifty Shades? And what better way to do that than getting the authors to absorb publishing costs themselves. As P T Barnum famously said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

I decided to google them. The first entry was their official website. I found a quote on the sponsored link that said, "As of 2000, The New York Times stated it to be the foremost on-demand publisher." Okay. The next link was to their on-line book-store. The third link, a Wikipedia entry, was probably written by them, too. The fourth was the first independent link. It was from GoodReads, from one Mrs D whose basic message was: beware, Xlibris is a POD publisher from hell with bad  editing and are unprofessional. The 'comments' section was revealing. I saw one from a Rueben (who appears to work for Xlibris), "I notice that your concern with the poor level of service, and professionalism didn't detrimental you from using them for your other books." Wow! Fantastic! Is he a recent English graduate from a Malaysian university?! Doesn't quite boost you confidence in their editing, does it."

Okay, that's not fair. Maybe, they are not always that bad. They are probably better, although it's scary to think that they could be worse. Whatever it is, beware. POD publishers are on the prowl promising you riches. This Forbes story (August 1, 2013) puts it in perceptive:

"Here’s the problem with self-publishing: no one cares about your book. That’s it in a nutshell. There are somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books published every year in the US alone, depending on which stats you believe. Many of those – perhaps as many as half or even more – are self-published. On average, they sell less than 250 copies each. Your book won’t stand out. Hilary Clinton’s will. Yours won’t.

So self-publishing is an exercise in futility and obscurity. Of course, there are the stories of the writers who self-publish and magic happens and they sell millions of books, but those are the rare exceptions. How rare? Well, on the order of 1 or 2 per million."

The good news is that the figure was 125 copies (according to the New York Times) in 2003, up 100% in ten years. (The latest figure probably takes Fifty Shades into account.)

Consider this: If an average POD customer pays USD2000.00 to publish a title, and 300,000 of these are published ever year (conservatively), that will make it a USD600,000,000 industry in the US. Is that all? I must have got my sums wrong. The total size of the book industry in the US in 2012 was USD 15 billion.

Oh, by the way, google 'Xlibris complaints' for lots and lots of dirt.

Why we publish

I had a meeting in Singapore recently with personnel of the National Arts Council over there. It appears that they liked some of the work Silverfish Books is doing and asked if we would collaborate on more projects in future. Of course, we'd like to collaborate, I said, but I'm very picky. I added that, to Silverfish Books, there was no such thing as 'good enough'. If a work was considered'good enough' than it was not 'good enough'. It is either good or bad. (My friend Joan told me that years ago.) There is simply no point in becoming champion of Subang Jaya.

Anyway, that, at least, is our ideal. When Silverfish Books started publishing, we set out to put Malaysian writing in English on the world literary map. (We hoped Malay and Chinese literature would be handled by others because that was not our core competence.) That we have done to a certain extent. (Apparently, the Silverfish Books' 'footprint' in several School of Oriental Studies in international universities is 'huge', according to some travelling academics. So, we have the 'fame', but I can't help thinking that a bit of 'fortune' would be good too!)

That was the other reason I was in Singapore. NAC has given us money to translate, edit and print a series of books. And they want to us to do more, their only condition being they have to be Singaporean authors. Is that selling my soul to the devil?

The kaya syndrome

I grew up in Johor Bahru and Singapore was my backyard (or the front-yard, depending on which direction you faced when you woke up). I have friends and relatives in Singapore. We share common experiences, at the non-political level at least (although some in Malaysia may regard that as almost blasphemy). But, most importantly, they are willing to give me money to help establish Singapore literature to the world, and they are serious. What are the chances of Silverfish Books (or any other independent publisher) getting assistance from any such institution in Malaysia? Are there any we can take seriously? (I can hear all sorts of sarcastic remarks coming up, but you get my point.)

To Malaysian government institutions, anyone in business is kaya, rich. And this kaya syndrome is killing the country. They have no idea about the sacrifices we make (not to mention our frequent 14-15 hour days). They think we exist to support them, when it should be the other way round. They cannot understand that without businesses, government servants won't get paid.

Why we write

So why do we persist? It's almost like the plot of a Bruce Willis Die Hard movie (but then he always win in the end). I recently read an article on Why we write? George Orwell listed the reasons as sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose. Others have suggested other reasons like: an access to her own mind (Joan Didion); for fun (David Foster Wallace); to find a gateway from the darkness to light (Joy Williams); springing from the soul like a rocket (Charles Bukowski); and for the comfort of belonging to a collective enterprise (Italo Calvino), amongst others.

Strange, how all this applies to publishing, and I guess to many other enterprises except maybe crass commerce where the only motivator is greed. Okay, here I go:

• Publish good Malaysian works that will last for years, no decades -- sheer egoism (Orwell)
• For the enormous buzz something good creates -- aesthetic enthusiasm (Orwell)
• Record snapshots of history before it's all lost -- historical impulse (Orwell)
• Says something important about us -- political purpose (Orwell)
• Says something new about ourselves that we didn't know (or shut out) for whatever reason -- access to our mind (Joan Didion)
• For entertainment -- for fun (David Foster Wallace)
• For empathy and acceptance -- darkness to light (Joy Williams)
• For the 'wow' factor -- like a rocket from the soul (Charles Bukowski)
• Stories about us -- for the comfort of belonging to a collective enterprise (Italo Calvino)

So, there. Like the good troubadour said: If my thought-dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine.

Whatever has happened to Malay literature?

I was in Frankfurt in 2009 attending an invitation programme where one of the conditions of attendance was the compulsory 2-week period of seminars and forums. Not all were bad. One of the speakers and attendee was a gentleman from Haiti, one Mr Willems Edouard of Presses Nationales d'Haiti; a personable man, I must say. He spoke about a programme in Haiti to make books available to the masses cheaply by having a government organisation publishing and selling them directly. Most attendees were horrified. What will happen to the private publishers?  How will booksellers survive? How will the industry continue to exist? I didn't say much at the forum, because even if I was there on my own, I did represent my country in a way, and it would have been hypocritical. But I talked to him afterwards. We do the same in Malaysia, I said, and it is a disaster.

Fast forward to 2013. Malaysian authors in English and (I have been told) Chinese have attained considerable international recognition. But whatever has happened to Malay literature? There is some interesting work going on in the fringes (which is very encouraging), but they thrive despite the system, not because of it. And, it even appears, Malay literature is alive and well in Singapore! I tried to come up with the names of a few current Malay literary figures off the top of my head and came up with Faisal Tehrani, and ... er ... and what's that?  Ombak rindu? Cintamu-cintaku novels? Sorry, no comment!

Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka

Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka was formed Johor Baru on June 22, 1956, as a department of the Education Ministry to promote Malay as the national and official language of the soon to be independent nation. I had just started school at that time and I remember the euphoria. We (the school children) were required to participate in all sorts of events and I remember one of my classmates collapsing dramatically on stage (due to nerves) just as he was about to start his rehearsed speech. It was fun.

Then in 1959, with the DBP ordinance, it be came a autonomous government statutory (what an oxymoron?!) body tasked with, one, determining and implementing its own policies, (two) implement programs to promote language and literature (in Malay), and, three, to get involved competitively in the book trade. There was much energy and enthusiasm in the early years. Malay literary luminaries who walked the corridors of DBP included Keris Mas, Baha Zain, Usman Awang, Kemala, Abdullah Hussein, Shamsuddin Jaafar, Anwar Rithwan, Syed Jaafar Husin, Suhaimi Haji Muhammad, Sutung Umar R.S. and Dinsman, amongst others and who were also writers in their own right. And as a schoolboy, I would hear many of those names and the likes of Arena Wati, S Othman Kelantan, Shannon Ahmad and A Samad Said, and recognise them as writers of awe and repute. That was the period before the nineties when Malay literature lived. The subject matter featured prominently in their work was mainly post-colonial angst and schmaltzy nationalism, which is understandable for the times.

"If we don´t succeed, we run the risk of failure"... George W. Bush

57 years later, in the new millennium, there are large numbers of Malaysians who still cannot (or will not) ask for the price of vegetables at the Bangsar night market in Malay. (Okay, maybe, Bangsar is different county. Still?)

Not long ago (I think it was about 2 years) Amir had this story to tell. He was on a television talk-show with some others, and the host asked a guest, a local university professor type, who his favourite author was. A Samad Said, came the reply. Amir said he almost fell off his chair. (The good author might have been flattered, but mortified too.) Hasn't he read anything else? He told the host that his was Sufian Abas of Kasut Biru Rubina fame. There would be many who'd object to that anecdote indignantly with a 'so what'. I have another story for that. A friend who claims that his favourite author is William Shakespeare, from whose work he'd spew quotes at the slightest provocation. He's weird, I used to think. Then, I learned that he had never read a play by the bard, not watched a performance. He, however, had memorised a book of quotes. Yes, you'd recognise him. He'd be the one trying to speak to the makcik selling pisang goreng at the night market in English or in really bad Malay!

So, whose fault is it? DBP? They have certainly failed in two out of their three objectives. Could it be they have they not been allowed to do their job? (That wouldn't be surprising.) Why do we have so many government and quasi-government bodies involved in the book trade, for such a small reading population, anyway? (DBP, MBKM, ITBM, Kota Buku ... But, the news coming out is not good: territoriality, empire building, back-biting, sabotage, you name it.)

If you have been given a job and have not succeeded after more than half a century, should that be considered failure? This is not about calling someone's baby ugly. This is about telling someone that the baby he or she is dandling is dead, and has been for a while, and no amount of stout denials is going to bring it back to life. Question is: should they even be allowed to look after babies anymore?

According to the Malaysian norm, for failed institutions in the country, DBP will be allowed another 50 years to do more of the same? Do they deserve the extension of time? Will they be allowed to change? To do the job they have been set up to do? To progress?

Why I hate some books

I was reading this story in Bookriot.com called What are your Book Dealbreakers when I wondered, "What is it about some books that I hate?" I am frequently ask, what I consider to be a good book, and find myself speechless for a while. Could it be something as simple as prejudice? In which case I would have wasted my entire life. There would be no difference between a child's scribblings and a Michaelangelo! No difference between an English 1119 standard essay masquerading as manuscript that I often receive and a Garcia Marquez! But that's another story.

When I was younger, I would read every book I started from cover to cover, but life it too short for that now. There are books I'd stop reading after the first page, after the first 10 pages, the first 50 pages or even after reading it half way through. I have even stopped reading after the first paragraph! (A bit drastic, you would think, but I prefer to trust my instincts.)

What would a book dealbreaker be for me? What would make me not buy a book, not continue reading it, or even toss it across the room part of the way through it. (I meant the last metaphorically, but I know of friends who have done that literally.)  Let me try to remember.

1. Train wrecks. Ah yes, A Fine Balance by Rohington Mistry was probably the first book I didn't bother to finish.  God, was it a train wreck?! One misery after another, it was relentless. I could here those mat sallehs going, "Oh, it's so-oo Indian." Yes, like a bad Indian movie! And I have seen enough of those as a kid. I gave up after the vasectomy turned castration scene (although I think I deserved a medal for even getting that far.)

2. Gratuitous rape scenes -- including boys. (No, rape is not entertainment). House of Blue Mangoes by David Davidar.  Imagine this: A group of girls are walking to the temple, and they come across a group of boys: result, rape. God!!! Another Indian movie plot. (Part 3 of Interlock was like that too.) Do western readers really like this shit?

3. Gratuitous incest and homosexuality. God of Small Things by Arundhathi Roy. What was that incest scene all about? I didn't toss this book, still I asked. (I asked a friend, a good reader, about it thinking it was perhaps only my hangup. She said she wondered about it, too. She is also the friend who told me that there are only good books and bad books.)

4. Bad research. Life of Pi by Yann Martel. First, there was a Tamil boy called Patel. What? Are all Indians Patels? Have you lived in London too long? Then, there was the corny dialogue between the imam, the pundit and the priest. I came this close to tossing the book.

5. Bad similes. Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. "... the weight of South African diamonds, so great, so heavy, that one day, from one ear, ear-ring ripped through, a meteor disappearing with a bloody clonk into her bowl of srikhand." Arghhh!!! Yes, I confess, I tossed that book.

6. Bad beginnings. This is really related to item 5 above -- bad similes. (No book title will be mentioned here though.) An island is like to a bubble escaping from a birds throat? I put this book quietly to one side. No, there was no need for drama. I simply decided not to read any further. Less said the better.

7. Bad genre labels. Chick Lit. How can I even get close to a book that describes itself as Chick Lit. (Like a restaurant that calls itself Papa Rich, which to me sounds way too close to Sugar Daddy!) I squirm just thinking about it. I'm going to need a bath after this! No genre has put me off like it has. How demeaning can you get? (Where are the women's libbers when you need them?!)

8. Exotic Asia. I avoid these like diseases after reading Joy Luck Club. "It is so-oo touching." Pul-lease.

Yes, most of them are books by Indian authors in who write in English, but this is just a list off the top of my head. I guess there are enough dumb mat sallehs who like this kind of exotic India to create an industry out of it. Now it's all about Fifty Shades of Grey and soft porn. I keeping away from them like I did with Chick Lit.

What? You still think the book industry is created for and by intelligent people? That only clever people read books? Think again. Just remember that the last best seller was a badly written soft porn. (The smart ones are those tip-toeing around the manure to pick the lovely flowers and fruits, trying not to step on the crap or get it onto their clothes.)

An Egyptian/Welsh author I met recently said, "I can't complain though; Fifty Shades is probably paying for my book."