Wednesday July 28, 2010
E-Reading: A Personal Gadget History
I’ve been using a cell phone for almost ten years. I know this because I didn’t buy one until I moved to New York, and that was ten years ago this fall. I bought it because my only friend in New York told me all the pay phones in the city were broken and/or filthy. I had been entirely functional in Memphis—even as a weekly newspaper reporter—without one. So I bought a Nokia 8260 at an AT&T store near Madison Square Park and used it to find my first Manhattan apartment—a sublet above the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Chelsea. Here’s what the 8260 looks like, in all its monochrome glory.
I didn’t read books off the Nokia 8260, but since then I’ve had nine more mobile devices—about one a year, tame for a gadget nerd—and I’ve read e-books off six of them. When you look at them in order, it’s kind of mind-blowing how quickly we went from the Nokia 8260 to the iPad. Here’s a personal timeline.
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Posted by jim at 07:11 AM || Comments
Monday July 19, 2010
Nobody likes the slush pile. Let’s get rid of it.
Lately the poor slush pile has been getting lots of ink. Laura Miller worries the public can’t handle its horror. The Awl traces its history. Tin House tries to slow its relentless accretion and sparks a backlash in the process. I believe the heat the journal took for requiring submissions to be accompanied by a receipt from an independent bookstore was well-deserved, by the way. The shrill plea came off as tone deaf because it ignored a) that anyone who’s heard of Tin House is, by definition, a book nerd, and b) that Tin House readers and Tin House submitters are likely the same set, so alienating the latter also pisses off the former, which—well—hastens the inevitable demise of Tin House.
But I’m not defending the eternal openness of the slush pile. In fact, I think we should do away with the slush pile entirely. Some of you, particularly those of you who work for literary journals—or habitually submit to them (interesting verb, that)—are probably scrolling down to the comments now to register your complaints. The open slush pile, you might argue, is the foundation of democracy and freedom of speech. If everyone can’t submit to any publication at anytime, what will happen to America and, worse, to Literature? But you could also argue (and I might, although I’m not married to this point) that this cant is but the populist face of journals’—and indeed any curatorial endeavor’s—discernment and, yes, elitism. The slush pile is like the Republican canard that everyone should defend the rights of the ultra-rich, since you might one day become ultra-rich—although really, no, you probably will not.
I don’t think it’s necessary to go this far, however, to justify the end of the slush pile. The fact is, it isn’t working for anyone. Not for publishers, certainly, but not even for writers.
Here’s how it works, from a writer’s perspective. You go to a journal’s website, fill out that robo-form they all use and upload your doc. Then you wait. And wait … and wait. Months pass—during which time you receive at least one e-mail from the journal begging for money—and then you receive, in all likelihood, an automated response. Maybe not. Maybe you get a few lines of feedback. That’s the upside. The situation can be much worse, however, if the journal requires a receipt from a bookstore, a buck (which I can see as a reasonable speed bump a journal might place on submissions), or $20 (an unconscionable practice employed by at least one lit site that miraculously manages to retain a decent reputation).
What’s the best possible outcome? Your story is accepted, and maybe a year later it appears and is distributed to the journal’s meager readership, who probably won’t read it because they only bought the journal in the first place so they could submit their work to it. I’m not saying the journal contributes nothing. It provides a few reputation credits and exposure, perhaps, to editors and/or agents in a position to do something with your work. But it isn’t providing readers, per se, at least not efficiently. In the eighteen months it takes a story to go from submission to publication, most writers could accumulate as many readers as most journals deliver by posting it to their Tumblr. If the story has to be submitted to four of five places before it’s accepted, the value of the journal’s circulation declines accordingly. And, at the moment, these two routes—self-distribution and the submission path—are mutually exclusive. Put it out there and it’s out of the game. More on that in a minute.
How is the slush pile working for publications? Not so well, it seems. The cost of wading through it—even just the social costs of maintaining an army of volunteer readers with vague promises of CV lines—has to be enormous. And it’s wasteful, since—as any honest editor will tell you—most submissions fall into the category of “not even close.” The fact that journals feel honor-bound to keep the slush pile open in deference to some ideal of accessibility, yet know that most things in it will miss the point entirely, is—I would argue—at the root of a love-hate relationship editors have with their would-be contributors. This low-grade contempt then can be seen coming out, all sideways, in passive-aggressive gestures like Tin House’s receipt policy.
So let’s drop the pretense and kill the slush pile. Manuscripts considered by solicitation only. (As most of them are now anyway, let’s be honest.) How will writers and editors find each other then? Simple. Writers will put their work out—on blogs or in writing communities or wherever—and editors will find it. This addresses, I think, two new realities.
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Posted by jim at 06:48 AM || Comments
Friday July 09, 2010
Why I am exactly like Rocket from the Crypt—but with e-books
It’s becoming evident—now, even to me—that what I really wanted to be was a rock star. Preferably in the ’90s. I have these e-books that look like records and cassettes. A desire to write like the Pixies rock. The fear of being Eddie Vedder. All the symptoms are there. So, rather than fight it, here is how my Summer of (Free) E-Book Love—which I just announced yesterday—was inspired by Rocket From the Crypt.
If you’re not familiar with RFTC, they’re what you’d expect to get if you crossed Danzig with Bruce Springsteen. But that’s not important to this story. What is important is that leading up to their major-label debut—1995’s Scream, Dracula, Scream!—they went on a six-week-long free tour in support of their self-released LP Hot Charity. Admission was free for the entire tour. How awesome is that?
I’m not going to tour this summer—I don’t have Interscope to foot the bill—but I am going to try to give away as many free e-books as I can between now and Labor Day, in anticipation of the fall release of Why They Cried. In particular, I’ll be recommending Single, my first e-book. It contains two stories that first appeared in One Story and the Land-Grant College Review, both of which will appear in Why They Cried. It’s a great advance sample of the collection.
So how am I going to give more of these away? I’m open to ideas, help, and suggestions, but I’ve started by posting instructions for downloading Single on every platform, from the Kindle to plain old paper. It’s easy to forget that most people have still never read an e-book. I’m instructing friends all the time how to get at my books, so it made sense to post these instructions all in one place. I’m also happy to help anyone who’s having trouble accessing my books. Think of it as e-book tech support. I’ve even set up a phone number for such requests at 347-WHY-THEY. You can also e-mail me or reach me on Twitter. And I really am open to ideas. It’s the Summer of (Free) E-book Love, for chrissakes. Anything goes. Spread the word, give me one of those Facebook thumbs-up on this page—I understand this is how publishers will now determine author advances—and shoot me your ideas via e-mail or in comments. And thanks for reading.
By the way, Scream, Dracula, Scream! totally rocks and I completely recommend it if you’re exactly like me, only younger.
Posted by jim at 07:36 AM || Comments
Tuesday June 29, 2010
Why They Cried: A word about the title, the Pixies, DFW, and the fear of mawkishness
Now that Why They Cried is more or less in the can, I have pent up thoughts about writing and publishing—not only of this book, but in general—that I hope to get out, starting with the title. Why They Cried. I’m self-conscious about it. I think it perfectly describes the contents of the collection, don’t get me wrong, but I worry it makes those contents seem more maudlin than they actually are. (Although, yes, they are somewhat maudlin.) I thought Rob Walker got it just right—and was gratified that he did—when the title story ran as part of the Significant Objects project and he wrote, “… while the series title sounds like a downer, the truth is these character vignettes have been clever and amusing.” This is what I was hoping for.
How did the title come about? I didn’t move to New York until I was 31, ten years ago. I realize now that the city was overwhelming on a basic, metabolic level. The first time I visited my parents after living in New York, my suburban hometown felt depopulated, like an atom bomb had fallen on it. It was as though my nervous system had adjusted to being around more people than I’d ever been around before, and previously normal levels of human congestion seemed eerily spare.
With the density of New York came other revelations. I saw more people cry in public in New York during my first month in the city than I had seen in my entire life. (I also saw more arguing, kissing, and sleeping, but it’s the crying that stuck with me.) I started writing a series of vignettes I collectively called “Why They Cried.” Each one featured someone crying, usually for non-emotional reasons. I abandoned the project when one of the vignettes—about an actor who specializes in crying in made-for-TV movies—took over and became “The Cryerer,” which appeared in One Story and is now available in my free e-book Single. (It will also be in Why They Cried.)
Years passed, and I didn’t think about the other vignettes until Rob agreed to let me write a story for Significant Objects. I brushed them off, turned them into a series for S.O., and along the way realized that the title perfectly captured the spirit of the stories I’d written in the the last ten years, not to mention the stories I’m drawn to as a reader. It was one of those “strongest reactions” Fitzgerald advises us to roll with. It suggests sadness at a distance, I think, and the cover David Gee did for the collection tips the scale safely away from mawkishness. Because, I admit it, I am terrified of seeming mawkish. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps I haven’t entirely outgrown the mid-’90s irony cocoon I came of age with—the one that made me worship Guided By Voices but feel slightly embarrassed for Superchunk. Or maybe writing is just frightening. (Gen X didn’t invent the irony cocoon, of course. Walker Percy uses variants of “ironic” to describe a sort of existential attunement a half dozen times in 1961’s The Moviegoer. Thanks, Google Book Search.)
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Posted by jim at 08:07 AM || Comments
Friday June 04, 2010
Thoughts on Transparency, Accessibility, and Publicity
This is cross-posted from the Publishr blog. As part of the Publishng project—a working group bringing an e-book by Brian Joseph Davis to market—we’re rotating blogging duties. This was my post from yesterday.
During the team’s last conference call, we were talking about transparency—about how much of the backstage business of our publishing venture should be carried out in public. Should the process of this book coming together be, in effect, a reality show? At some point I blurted out, “I mean, does anybody really give a shit about this stuff?”
This got a laugh, but I should confess I was expressing an anxiety, not a conviction. There’s a lot of evidence that people do give a shit about this stuff and that (from a business perspective) they appreciate and reward enterprises and individuals that make themselves—let’s not say transparent, it’s overused. Let’s say accessible.
Twenty years ago, box office returns weren’t news. Nobody cared. TV ratings? Same deal. People watched movies and TV shows, not the business of making movies and TV shows. Not so today. From DVD extras to The Apprentice, the cords and wires of entertainment (and marketing) are everywhere flying loose. Part of this has to do with new bandwidth media companies have to fill. They’ve got to put something there. Why not B-roll and byproduct?
It also has to do with the fact that we are all now, in some sense, producers. Everyone is in the media business, whether it’s via blogging, posting videos to YouTube, uploading pictures, or whatever. In what Henry Jenkins describes as “convergence culture,” the line between consumer and producer is eroding. It is very tempting—and exceedingly easy—to wring your hands about this. Everyone wants to be famous. No one wants to do anything useful. Oh my lord, all this content is of such terrible quality. Everyone wants to write a novel, but who wants to read one? I can go down this road and worry that media inequality is like financial inequality. The haves get the have-nots to support the rights of the haves by persuading them to believe that they will one day be haves too, even though the vast majority of them will not be. But I also have this populist bent that I can’t fully explain—life has not done me dirt—and I’m naturally suspicious of prior restraint, as it were, when it comes to access to the tools of creation. People have always created, long before the mass media, it’s just that until recently you had to “make it” to become visible. That whole layer of avocational creativity was out of sight and out of mind, and—most importantly—it did not compete with sanctioned cultural entertainments.
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Posted by jim at 08:16 AM || Comments
Tuesday June 01, 2010
Alakazam three, and poof!
When I was a kid, I was on a local kiddie show called The Uncle Al Show a few times. Everybody was. The show had a big studio audience of kids who were also on camera. It was like Regis & Kelly, but for kids in the '70s. In any case, before they went to commercial, they would do this thing where they would have all the kids chant in unison: "Alakazam one! Alakazam two! Alakazam three, and poof!" And then when they would cut to commercial. Watching at home, it was pretty neat.
When I went on the show, I was excited to be a part of the trick. The first commercial break arrived and we were led (by a producer, I'm sure) through the chant. "Alakazam one! Alakazam two," we screamed. "Alakazam three, and poof!" After that I looked around, saw us all still sitting there on the floor, and yelled out, "It didn't work!"
That's sort of how I felt this morning when I logged into Facebook and found us all still there.
Posted via email from The Hanex
Posted by jim at 07:22 AM || Comments
Thursday May 27, 2010
Paging Dr. Baudrillard …
This mind-bending subway signage reminds me of Baudrillard’s claim that a fake bank robbery would be punished more severely than a real one. The latter only threatens Capital, while the former threatens Reality.
Sent from my iPhone
Posted via email from The Hanex
Posted by jim at 06:05 PM || Comments
Free, at Last: “Single” Appears in the iBookstore with the Right Price
Good news. Five weeks after appearing in the iBookstore (via Smashwords) my 2006 e-book Single is finally available at the price I chose. Free. So if you’re still unsure how your iPad will render stories about dogs that can’t really talk, astronauts that may or may not exist, and people who cry for a living, your testing can now recommence.
The two stories in Single—“Miss Tennessee” and “The Cryerer”—serve as a nice preview of my forthcoming collection, Why They Cried. Both of them will be in there. And when the writing gets rough, I sometimes wonder if I have ever written (or will ever again write) two stories as good as this pair. Give them a try. Single is of course still available directly from Feedbooks and Smashwords.
Posted by jim at 07:10 AM || Comments
Wednesday May 19, 2010
Announcing “Why They Cried,” Coming this Fall from Joyland
I’m extremely excited to announce that I’ve entered into an agreement with a new e-book imprint run by Canadian lit site Joyland and backed by ECW Press; and that my new collection, Why They Cried, will be released by the imprint this fall.
There will be a lot more to say about this in the coming months, but the bullet points are as follows:
1. Why They Cried will contain some stories previously released digitally as the e-books Single and Cassingle, plus new stories.
2. The cover, designed by David Gee, is awesome. I can’t stop looking at it.
3. I feel lucky to have met Brian Joseph Davis (close readers will recognize him from a recent coincidence) and Emily Schultz, who run the imprint and are both accomplished writers themselves. I get them and I feel like they get me, which is a great feeling after years of working more or less alone.
4. Want to join me? Joyland is holding a contest to find the third title for their nascent imprint. Details are here. Brian and Emily talked to the National Post yesterday about the imprint and the contest.
5. If you want to keep up with this project as it develops—and to know the second Why They Cried is available—consider joining my mailing list at whytheycried.com.
Posted by jim at 07:40 AM || Comments
Friday May 14, 2010
The Arab Bank: Reloaded
The Cannes Film Festival has swung around again, so I thought I’d revive “The Arab Bank,” my Google Maps-based serial from last year. I’ve tweaked it a little bit, removing the Street View scenes from the story itself so the whole thing loads faster and more readily from the tokens on the map. People I know in advertising tell me that if you think of something, you’d better do it immediately, since somebody else is surely thinking of it. I’m certain mine is not the first story to use Google Maps in this way, but—sure enough—the most famous current example, Dinty W. Moore’s “Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge,” appeared last June, just a month after “The Arab Bank.” Zeitgeists, evidently, are real.
If you’re interested in how this story came about, I did an interview about it with Small Stories shortly after it appeared and later blogged about my trips to Cannes as a trade journalist that inspired the story. The story itself is also included in my 2009 e-book collection Cassingle.
