The weekly links, opinion and personal update post
1. Links of Interest
The New York Times on the The Afterlife of Steig Larsson.
A question that keeps coming up, though, is the role of [girlfriend] Gabrielsson, an architect who is said to be a good writer and who, to make extra money years ago, translated Philip K. Dick’s novel “The Man in the High Castle” into Swedish. Gabrielsson herself has been evasive, in at least one interview hinting at something like co-authorship and in another backing away from that position. She now says that she has been misquoted so often that she will no longer discuss the issue and that the whole story will come out in her own book, to be published in France this fall. Nevertheless, I tried to press her a little. Is it fair to say, I asked, that while Larsson may have shown the books to her or discussed them with her, he was the author?
“I’m not sure you could say that,” she said and paused. “He did certainly write them himself — I think that’s fair.”
“But if he wrote them, then isn’t he the author?” I asked, a little baffled. “Or is that too simplistic?”
She smiled and said, “Yes.”
Author Cheryl St. John has a list of Irritating Things — like heroines who giggle – in romance at Petticoats & Pistols. I recently enjoyed my first book by St. John, The Prairie Wife. It is one of my favorite kinds of romance (marriage in trouble) and it made me cry, a very rare thing. You can read a review of it by Wendy the Super Librarian at TRR here.
A great post on Betty Neels: Metafiction and Repetition by Laura Vivanco over at Teach Me Tonight.
I’d like to suggest that in the passage I quoted above, Neels seems to be trying to diffuse any reader dissatisfaction with her heroine by addressing the fact that the heroine is being ‘tiresome’. The metafictional moment takes the reader out of the story, and by emphasising the reader’s superior knowledge, it perhaps encourages identification with others who also have superior knowledge of the situation, namely Neels herself, and characters such as Serena’s mother and Gijs’ friend Sarah, all of whom are aware that Serena and Gijs love (or will love) each other. Instead of experiencing the heroine’s confusion and distress with her, it seems that the reader is positioned alongside the benevolent matchmakers.
Author Courtney Milan on Titles So Awesome, They Used ‘em Twice. This is actually a big pet peeve of mine in the romance genre. I can see reusing long forgotten titles, but when recent and popular titles are reused, it feels like a total lack of effort and concern (for example, Dark Lover, first used by JR Ward and then by Brenda Joyce 4 years later).
The Reading Experience has a response to the news that
The Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog recently announced it is abandoning the “discussion model” to provide instead “a daily news feed with links and excerpts from other outlets around the world.” This means that the site will no longer feature blog posts from a selected group of poets “discussing” poetry but will become like every other digest blog offering “news.” The PF is making this move because “The blog as a form has begun to be overtaken by social media like Twitter and Facebook.”
I once feared Twitter would have a negative impact on blogs, but I think the initial tidal wave of interest in Twitter has passed, and now it fits in with the other existent media. Or that might just be my own disenchantment with it.
Last week, we talked about whether age matters in reviewing. YA author (book deal at age 15), Steph Bower, wonders Whether age Matters in Publishing. (via Galley Cat)
Along the same lines, I am the last to know about Jezebel’s column, Fine Lines, by Lizzie A. Kurnick, which reviews all the old YA classics, from Judy Blume to V.C. Andrews to Lois Duncan. I have wasted untold hours reading through the great reviews of the books of my youth.
Kristie has recently reread Linda Howard’s After the Night … and she still loves it! I seem to recall a very steamy porch scene in that one.
At Ars Technica, an interview on Privacy, Security and Memory with Nick Carr (via @jafurtado). they cover a lot of ground, but I found this remark especially interesting:
When I wrote this new book, The Shallows, I definitely throttled back on my connectivity. I closed down my Facebook and Twitter accounts, and I tried to limit my checking of e-mail to a couple of times a day. And I did other things—I moved to a place where there was no cell phone connectivity or texting. And it definitely made a difference. You regain a certain calmness of mind that allows you to read a long book without hopping up every other page to check e-mail or do some Googling. I think it really underscored what I had begun to fear, which is that I and a lot of other people are really training our brains to skim and scan all the time, and along the way we’re forgetting how to slow down and read or think deeply and be contemplative.
Practical Tactics for Dealing with Haters by Tim Ferriss. A fun read, although I wonder where the line is between “fair critic” and “haters”. Reading Ferriss’s piece it looks like there’s no room for fairminded criticism. You either “get it” or you “just don’t get it.” I have no idea who he is, by the way, but his bio says he is the “Indiana Jones of the digital age”.
Just for fun: here is a video of an Argentinian artist who has converted a tank into a moving book rack. He travels the country giving out books for free.
Thriller writer Jon Konrath has a refreshingly pragmatic view of piracy (via @shannonstacey).
As you see by the recent picture, I’m being pirated. Google pointed to 8880 different sites where my work is being illegally shared. And these are just torrent sites. This doesn’t count file lockers, which I believe account for many more downloads than torrents.
And yet, I’m not worried. I’m currently selling 220 ebooks per day, and that rate shows no signs of slowing down.
So everyone needs to take a big, collective breath, let it out slow, and stop worrying about illegal file sharing. Here are some reasons why.
2. Authors vetting reviews
A few folks have been posting about authors contacting reviewers to ask that negative reviews not be posted. One blogger said she occasionally lets an author vet her review to just to make sure she hasn’t written anything the author would consider a spoiler. I was amazed at how many people in various comments threads indicated that they have contact with authors prior to posting reviews (ok, more than 1 would have amazed me. Call me naive.).
I find reader review blogs (including this one) very interesting, and I like to think about where they fall on the spectrum that has “fan club” at one end and the NYTRB at the other. Finding out that there is this kind of “behind the scenes” stuff prior to posting reviews reminds me forcefully that for plenty of bloggers, the idea is only to talk about books, and to enjoy more contact with authors of those books.
3. Cheating in Contests
The Book Smugglers have a great contest with loads of books on until May 29 in celebration of BEA, which they will both attend this week.
I noticed the rules explicitly bar people from entering more than once. I Tweeted about it, and sure enough, several folks, including The Book Smugglers, indicated that yes, multiple contest entries from a single individual are a problem. I am guessing the remedy is checking IP addresses, but the Smugglers’ current contest has 235 entries as I type this, and whoa, what a pain.
I tend to be very jaded about contests myself. Whenever I have one, I see names I have never seen here or anywhere in Romland showing up, and I wonder if these people just troll the internet for contests. If they win the books, will they even read them, or just sell them?
4. LOST
I had one eye on the finale last night. We abandoned Lost a couple of seasons back, and we still think it would have been a great show if it had ended after Season 3.
There are already some cute jokes:
And Season 1-6 of Lost reenatcted by cats in one minute.
4. Personal
Last week was incredibly busy, and I did not finish Jane Eyre. Not only was I working every day at both hospital and uni, but we had a tree cut down, which meant splitting and stacking a cord of wood, electricians in and out installing light fixtures in three rooms (which I had to go to Loews to buy *shudder*), moving furniture from one room to another (twice) and having new furniture delivered. Today the painters arrive, which means more moving of stuff.
I did not get a sense that many folks were into reading Jane Eyre, although author Victoria Janssen, who has a terrific blog in general, has posted three great posts on it (first one here), Nevertheless, I’d like to apologize to anyone who had planned on discussing it yesterday. I am loving the book and not wanting to rush through it. I’ll post my review and open discussion Wednesday. I think.
The blog is the one area of my life that is totally at my whim. I only write what I want to when I want to. Even when I say I am going to do something, I feel only a prima facie obligation to do it, which can easily be overridden.
Still, it would be better, I realize, if I never wrote things like “I am doing X on Y day” or even “I am doing Z soon.” My main line of defense is that those are honestly my plans at the time of writing. My other defense is that almost nobody cares what I do on this blog. Still, one ought to do what she says she is going to do. As a second best, I am working on never saying I am going to do anything.
HAPPY WEEK!
I think I need a book tank.
You are not the last innocent. I had no idea authors had any kind of right of first refusal over any reviews either.
Put me down for a book tank, too. I wonder what kind of mileage it gets.
As for contests – yes, there are (virtually) roving bands of people who spent huge amounts of time online entering contests and ordering “freebies”. Successful booty is often resold via Craigslist or Ebay or alternately used to decorate houses that will be featured in future episodes of Hoarders. For some, this is a hobby and for others an income supplementing mechanism.
I think there’s a bit of a misconception about what *I* posted regarding the issue of authors that try to approve reviews prior to their posting. But I haven’t seen any reactions except what I’m getting at my blog, and some have said they’re surprised authors have the right to do so re: review approval.
But that’s not what I meant at all or even what I wrote in my post. My point was the author in question thought it was their right to do so (why else would they do so if they didn’t believe it to be their right) – and that this idea is bunk. No, they do not have right of first refusal. Never meant that to be the case.
And just because a reviewer might send a review to an author, that doesn’t give the author the right to approve or not approve the review (nor does it even mean the reviewer is looking for approval on posting or not), and I’ve never personally encountered an author who felt that way. I’ve had some very well known authors politely, I stress that word, ask to see the review. That’s it. I’m usually thanked, no matter the level of criticism. If one were to ask me not to post a review, I’d politely refuse and post anyway.
But this is a practice I’ve heard about every so often, so some authors must feel it is their right to approve or not, and demand some reviews not be posted. I think that some is a small number, but I thought it might be a good idea to point out that it’s, again, total bunk.
But like I said, I haven’t seen any other blogs posting on this lately. I’m a bit head-in-the-sand with other issues these last few weeks.
No vetting of reviews here
In fact, if I even … no. Haha, none of my reviews would ever get posted! And… I think… well anyway. No more thoughts.
Want book tank!
And… contest cheating. Ugh. You know, I don’t even mind lurkers coming out of the woodwork to comment. I mean… it happens. What makes me mad is the socks. And IP addresses yes show something but they change. So unless you’re checking each one immediately as it comes in, you’re not doing any good. (Not that that stops me.) Not that a person can’t comment at home, then say, work, or the library… And if any cheaters are reading this and think this is a good idea I hope horrible things on you.
Anyway, I like having contests, but picking a winner is always a pain :X Agreed.
@KMont: Thanks for the clarification, Kmont.
I like metafictional moments. It’s like a wink at the reader, and I like being winked at. And I wink back.
Great round-up, as always! I do know who Tim Ferriss is … off to think of my movie equivalent moniker for this digital age.
I’m going to have to pace out clicking on all your fascinating links: you can be the cheese to my labyrinth routine of “must get dones” and “to-do-lists”.
Letting authors vet reviews before they’re posted? I have to admit that hadn’t even occured to me.
Re: Lizzie Skurnick’s columns – Aren’t those great? I love that feature on Jezebel. She has a book out, too. It’s called Shelf Discovery, and it’s pretty funny.
A few years ago one author said she’d like to read my review before I’d post it. I assumed she meant she just wanted a first look so I emailed a copy then posted the review. She went ballistic. “I haven’t given you my approval!” and demanded I take it down. I refused and pointed out a review isn’t an advertorial therefore she had no say in it.
She then said something about promising I’d never receive any ARCs from her publisher (HarperCollins) again. Heh. I was annoyed and immature enough to say, “That’s OK because I can always get an ARC through a friend who works at HC.” Yeah, we both behaved badly on this one.
Anyhow, this incident was a rarity, though. Authors didn’t ask, mostly because they didn’t know what or when will reviews would be written/posted.
I’d seen only one episode of Lost. I’m wondering if it’s worth watching it all.
Jane Eyre. Blegh.
I did send an author a review once just to make sure the facts were straight but that’s as far as it ever went in that regard. I do try to send reviews to authors or publicists who asked for the review but wow, to vet and give final approval? Don’t think so.
As for LOST, I am at a loss for words that this show lasted as long as it did. Never watched it and never got the appeal.
I don’t vet reviews, although on occasion I will send an e-mail to an author the same day it is posted. If it’s negative, I say I wish the author well and politely request they not read my review because it is negative.
I’ve been asked to change my reviews exactly once, and that was a polite request to take down a spoiler. I normally don’t give a crap about spoilers in my reviews, but taking down the spoiler didn’t harm my review and the author was very polite, so I did – but this was after I’d posted it.
I read the Larsson article a few days ago and the question over his literacy kills me, particularly because the man died long before these books became unexpected best-sellers. If they flopped in the US, no one would wonder whether or not he wrote them by himself. Even more curious is how his longtime lover responds to these questions–though, is her coyness the result of a cultural barrier (the questions being asked through a translator if she doesn’t speak English), or does she enjoy the notoriety?
My top reading pet peeve in romance is a patronizing hero. I’m struggling with a book right now whose “hero” is so…UGH…for me. I want to push him over a cliff and shake the heroine out of her attraction.
As for Twitter, it’s bad news for writers–or for me as a writer, personally.
It’s easy to spend hours each day on twitter in order to catch interesting conversations, and if you aren’t tweeting during peak hours, anything you say tends to get lost in the shuffle! Also, those 140 characters were a challenge when I began using Twitter, but now that I’ve mastered the art of twit-speak, it’s difficult for me to elaborate/expand on what I want to say–I’m more likely to write a short tweet about a fragment of an idea than to write a full blog post about it.
RE: age. I’m relatively young compared to the multitude of writers I interact with, and many times I’ve allowed my age to hold me back, fearing that I wouldn’t be taken seriously by my peers and/or that my success would incite resentment because I’m not that typical story of “Mother/Wife/Employee who wrote late at night, around kids and husband and work, for ten years before I got The Call”. I’ve actually felt guilty that the obstacles most of my peers face (at least the ones who speak about their writing career) are ones I don’t have to deal with. I don’t think age matters in publishing and in writing, but there’s an element of feeling “unseasoned” in my case.
And can I say that I HATE the word “hater”? It’s become ubiquitous on just about every blog, forum, group, et al I come across to refute real criticism. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve read an argument online where someone wasn’t accused of being a “hater.” Can we retire this word, because no one knows how to argue a point anymore, and criticism is now mixed up with personal feeling and opinion.
Thea and I had a brief but interesting discussion about the cultural perspectives of that word at her blog. She had an issue with a book title… let me find the review in question. Halloween Week Book Review: Hater by David Moody:
Until Thea’s explanation in comments, I had no idea that to some people, ‘hater’ doesn’t carry the kind of weight or violence I’m familiar with. I’d be deeply offended and shocked if someone accused me of being a ‘hater’. It’s akin to calling me racist or animal abuser.
My point is, I suppose, it seems ‘hater’ is the Nazi word of the 2000s internet (on the internet during 1990s, someone would call you a Nazi or compare you with one if they didn’t like your responses or handling, hence Godwin’s law).
@Maili:
That is interesting! It’s amazing how one word can have different connotations to different cultures. However, based on how virulent arguments can get online the word “hater” further inflames the conversation. Another reason why the growth in use of the word “hater” irritates me is that people use it to brush off constructive criticism about themselves. Not only can we not criticize someone’s opinion, but we cannot criticize them or something they’ve created.
In a way, I think this is the result of our increasingly narcissistic culture: the ease of capturing fifteen minutes of fame, regardless of talent or lack thereof, causes too many to feel that anything and everything they do, say, or feel has merit. And if fame or fortune comes their way, their arrogance is justified. Say something critical? You’re just a “hater” to brush off a shoulder.
It’s an incredibly frustrating development, and one that stifles growth, not only personally, but creatively.
I think I missed the Jane Eyre news, but I practically know it by heart anyway, so look forward to the discussion whenever it begins.
Book tank – awesome!
Call me naive too – I can`t imagine sending an author a review of a book before posting it. On a very rare occasion, when I read a particularly good book, I might send the author an email saying how much I loved their book and this is more detail on what I though of it and include a link – but that`s very rare. The last time I was going to do this, I discovered that the author found my review before I got around to sending her an email.
And *laughing* yes, there was a very steamy porch scene.
I must be naive too. I didn’t realise people entered contests more than once and for books they didn’t even want. I enter as many as I can but only when I’m interested in and intend to read the book.
I shall have to go and read the irritating things post – I don’t much care for giggling heroines either.
Does anyone know if the author has any say in the title of a book? I suppose if there had been a book ticking around in Ms. Joyce’s brain for ages (to use that as an example) that had always in her mind been called Dark Lover she might feel that she has as much right to the title as anyone. But, after the success of JR Ward’s Dark Lover, it does seem that Ward’s got the “unofficial trademark” on it now. Does it confuse readers? Is it publishers “cashing in”? Is the second book somehow diminished? Overall, I think a different title would be better. I’d imagine not liking the constant comparison identical titles would no doubt invite. (Probably they covered all this in the original post – which I will now go and read!).
@Victoria Janssen: The world would be a better place if there were book tanks in every town. I am sure of it.
@Sherry Thomas I turned my Kindle on this morning and what did I see? His At Night! Squee!!!!!
ps. Will get you the draft review by Friday.
@Moriah Jovan: LOL. Me too. Would I be wrong if I said it is a hallmark of genre fiction? Or, more minimally, there is a set of metafictional cues for the genre.
@Janet W: Thanks Janet.
@KMont: Thanks for chiming in. I was never confused about your position, but thanks for clarifying it here. I had definitely seen this discussion in three places, one of them being at your blog, but now I cannot recall where (maybe Katiebabs was one?). It just never occurred to me that authors ever ask or that bloggers ever comply.
@Lynn Spencer: I will check out Shelf Discovery. Thanks!
@limecello: I don’t mind lurkers coming out for contests. That’s one of the GOOD things about contests. It’s the people who don’t ever read the blog, and probably don’t even read the books, that bother me. But I had no idea IP addresses change. So it looks to be very hard to control.
@Keishon: I am pretty sure the cat video is better than the last 4 seasons of Lost put together.
@AnimeJune: Do you email authors when the book is not an ARC? When it is an older book? Just curious. (asking this of anyone, not just AJ).
I think you are the second person, if I am right, who has posted lately that she will suggest to authors not to read her review if it is negative. I can see the compassionate motivation behind that. I can see letting an author know that it is not positive somehow, like “I am sorry to say that the book didn’t work for me, but thank you for the ARC” but not suggest they don’t read it.
I never email authors to let them know a review is posted. Here’s why: if an author wants to read what is being written about, her she will set her Google alerts, follows book bloggers on Twitter etc., and find out that way. And if she doesn’t, then who am I to break her cone of silence?
@Evangeline:
I hadn’t thought about that, but if the medium is the message, I can see it happening.
Hmm. That’s interesting. you should write a post on publishing roulette survivor’s guilt (or link to it, if you have).
I don’t mind the word, but I agree with your point. That was how I was feeling about the Ferriss piece. I see it with the social media crowd, of which I guess he is a member.
@Maili: Maili, I had not seen that. Thank you for taking the time to link.
I don’t have a problem with the word hater, because there are haters. My problem is application — if you call anyone who disagrees with you a “hater”, you are shutting out potentially valuable feedback. at least that is how I feel about it.
I associate the word strongly with hip hop. For example, two of my favorite artists are Kanye West and Jay Z. They use it all the time — in their song, Haters, but also in West’s big hit Stronger, to name just two — to convey the attitude of bravado in the face of the tyranny of the majority and triumph against adversity unique to that musical subculture. In that context, I (mostly) love it [what I don't love? Is the misogyny and homophobia that often goes along with it].
@willaful: sorry! “See” you Wed (I think)!
@KristieJ: I think a fan letter, a wonderful thing, is totally different, because you aren’t offering to change what you’ve written to get the approval of the author.
I guess I just do not see a book review as a joint product between author and reviewer.
@Kaetrin: Sorry to make you eat from the tree of knowledge as well.
Whew! I just remembered that Sunday was supposed to be Jane Eyre, and I thought I had missed it. Good to know I have a day’s grace (or more, if you stay real busy); I need to at least skim it to refresh my memory. I had hoped to do a leisurely re-read, but I’m not sure I can bring myself to put aside all the other things I’m reading to make time for it. We shall see when reading time rolls around tonight.
Apropos of Jane Eyre, you need to see this video if you haven’t:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKXNThJ610 (thanks to Maili and The Bookpushers for bringing it to my attention).
I talk with some authors about their books, and I’m always honest. I have yet to have an author react badly to a reasoned “this is why it didn’t work for me.” OTOH, I usually only do that with authors I think are pretty cool people and whose work I generally enjoy; I’d never start such a discussion with an author I didn’t like or whose work I didn’t already appreciate. If an author sends me a book, or comments on Twitter if I say I’m reading or have read it, then I usually will send them a link to my reaction post if I write one (sometimes at my blog, more usually at Goodreads or Amazon). Again, that usually happens with books to which I’ve been looking forward, so I have a reasonable expectation of enjoying the book.
I don’t consider myself a reviewer; I’m a reader, and I have various ways of sharing my reaction to books I read. On my blog, I use the Win/Fail system; even having to pick the number of stars at Goodreads and Amazon is hard for me (too much like work, grading, grading, grading). I did have a publisher recently contact me and offer me review copies, asking me to send them a link to a review if I wrote one. I’ve gotten two books from them so far, and I haven’t read either one yet, just because they weren’t what I was in the mood to read. I refuse to feel obligated to read something just because it was sent to me. That’s different from when authors offer to send me a book or an ARC and I accept, in which case I do feel obligated to read and respond near the book’s release date. But I’d never feel that an author sending me a book included any obligation on my part to clear my reactions with them before posting.
@SonomaLass: thanks for that video. So funny! guess I have to read Wuthering heights next.
This is an interesting point. What makes the difference, in your view?
@Jessica:
Reviewer minions, I haz ‘em.
ETA: Hope you like.