Borders tries again

In Ann Arbor, where the national headquarters for Borders is, they're trying something new. According to USA Today:

"Borders, the nation's second-largest bookstore chain, hopes to reverse years of sluggish sales by reinventing itself as a hub for knowledge, entertainment and digital downloading. Exhibit A is the new store that will open to the public here Thursday — the first of 14 that Borders plans to unveil this year. Borders' plans underscore the anxiety in the bookstore industry, which has been hurt by the growing footprint of online-only sellers.

Can it work? CEO George Jones thinks so. 'We had to build something that would cause the consumer to drive five or 10 minutes past the competitor's store to come here,' says Jones, who joined the company 1½ years ago from Saks."

Faithful readers will remember that I scoffed eighteen months ago when the struggling book behemoth hired a CEO from the fashion world. Maybe I'll have to suck that back--ooh, nasty taste, retracted words--but I don't think so.

AOL quoted this article extensively, with the headline "No One Reads Anymore." And on NPR this morning I heard a study that estimates a growing percentage of the public who never--and they mean NEVER--reads a book, fiction or nonfiction. As I recall, the number has grown substantially in the past forty years, and was over twenty per cent in a study completed in 2002. If that's true, does selling people digital downloads make any difference?

I have said before, and I must say it again, I don't think Borders needs gimmicks. They need BOOKSELLERS. Barnes & Noble, big box behemoth that they are, too, has booksellers. And they have Community Relations Managers who actually talk to the community. Borders has clerks--and stationery, and candy, and a sort of lame coffee shop--but it can be damned hard to find a particular book at Borders.

Yes, there are exceptions. As my dad (a physician) used to say, everybody hates doctors except their own. And there's a really cool woman at my local Borders who cares about our genre, actually reads it, and is willing to stick her neck out to keep my books in stock. Bless her. But ol' George Jones should go out and hire more like her.

Pimping books

Okay, I'm not at all sure I'm using the verb "to pimp" correctly. David Shuster and I are a little confused on that point. But it's true that HarperCollins is offering free--as in absolutely, without reservation, free--books on its website, beginning Monday. They'll start with this Coelho book, and offer another one every month for the rest of the year.

The idea, evidently, is to entice readers by giving them a sample. “'It’s like taking the shrink wrap off a book,' said Jane Friedman, chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide. 'The best way to sell books is to have the consumer be able to read some of that content.'”

Well, yes. But my goodness, the whole book? I wonder how that will work out? And will the author get bupkus for downloaded copies?

In connection with this article, AOL did one of their unofficial surveys about reading habits, and of those responding, 95% said they still prefer to read paper books, page by page. So . . . maybe HarperCollins is right. If readers try Coelho's work and love it, maybe they'll hie themselves out and buy an actual copy. It will be interesting to watch.

The passing of Margaret Truman

Margaret Truman, the mystery writer, died recently at the age of 83. I wonder how many people recognize her name? She was born in 1924, long before the women's movement, and she said this: "I've had three or four different careers," she told an interviewer in 1989. "I consider being a wife and mother a career. I have great respect for women — both those who go out and do their thing and those who stay at home. I think those who stay at home have a lot more courage than those who go out and get a job."

Miss Truman has always interested me because so far as I know, she was the only working classical singer to transform into a fulltime novelist--and a genre novelist, at that!

I wasn't born when she was singing, and arguably my own musical career was more successful than hers, although less notorious (I'm not, for example, the daughter of a president). But I've always known about her. I can't remember why. And then she went on to write a number of reasonably successful mysteries. The last one, MURDER ON K STREET, was only published last year. Let's be fair and admit that she probably sold lots more copies of her books than I have yet. But I'm still working.

And wouldn't that be nice, to be working right till the end? Rest in peace, Margaret. And congratulations.

WICKED is wonderful

A colleague had warned me that the Broadway version of Gregory Maguire's terrific novel WICKED was nothing like the book itself, which I loved. I haven't had a chance to ask her why she felt that way, but my impression was quite different.

We all know the stories of movies eviscerating the books they sprang from, and even a few stories of movies improving upon flawed novels (BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY springs to mind, as does THE HORSE WHISPERER.) The musical WICKED, in my opinion, did something different. In a way, it opened up the ideas of the book, made them more accessible, made us in the audience think about how evil is, as both the book and the play assert, sometimes thrust upon us.

I'm not the greatest Broadway musical fan. Particularly in the last fifteen years or so, the music has a sameness that I find tedious. Such a dearth of melody! But the tunes in WICKED, while hardly memorable, weren't bad, and they did take a minor turn once in a while that reflected the sense of the story. And I appreciated not having to put my fingers in my ears, as I did all the way through RENT.

But it was the story I found remarkable. WICKED the musical works beautifully as a play, not so much referencing the original source material, of course--the L. Frank Baum material, that is--but the movie, which is quite a different story. The play has a quite satisfying dramatic arc, and something substantive to say. I found the ending a tad too convenient, but still, it's a delightful show. I'm not surprised Gregory Maguire is so happy with it (according to an essay in the program, written by him.) His novel personalizes a figure we've accepted for years as the embodiment of evil, without backstory or individuality, and the play goes even further to bring this figure to life, although of necessity without the depth of Maguire's characterization.

If you've never read the original WIZARD OF OZ, I recommend borrowing it from the library if you can get it. It's hard to believe that such a primitive work can take on a lasting life of its own, create its own cultural paradigm, grow into a variety of forms. Of course we've all seen the movie. And I hope you'll read Geoff Ryman's odd but fabulous novel WAS, for yet another approach.

And then, when you can, go see the musical. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. Wonderful!

The write priority

Sent by my buddy Sharon Shinn:

"When writing a novel that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: 'Houseburned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was apretty good day.'" -Neil Gaiman

And I remember William Gibson saying: "Writing a novel is mostly just walking around and worrying if it will work out."

Let's talk about plagiarism

Okay, there seems to be consensus that Cassie Edwards is too old to beat up on. She even puts her age on her MySpace page, 71--the page is all in pink, by the way. Naturally.

The issue stealing from other authors is being chatted up all over the internets now, with this poor senior lady at its center. So the question becomes, "What is plagiarism?" Crediting sources? Footnotes?

I'm working on a novel with lots of historical references now, and I'm certainly keeping a bibliography, in case I need to re-check something. Maybe--maybe that bibliography will go on the web page for the book, but it doesn't belong in the back of a piece of fiction.

Footnotes worked gloriously for Susannah Clarke's JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL, but they were part of the entertainment. They were funny and colorful and beautifully written. They had nothing to do with sources, and I don't think footnotes in fiction ever work unless they serve the purpose Ms. Clarke put them to.

It seems perfectly clear to me that plagiarism means lifting whole passages out of another author's work and putting them in your own. A little modification doesn't alter the fact that somebody else wrote the passage. And I don't think any writer--student, beginning author, or 71-year-old romance novelist--could mistake that for anything but what it is, stealing.

As has been pointed out on another forum, in science fiction we're all riffing off each other's ideas. Ideas are at the heart of what we do in sf, and there's no patent on them. Where we would get in trouble would be directly quoting another author without saying that we're doing so. Duh.B

ut gosh, I would hate, at the age of 71, and having published 100 novels, to have my career falling around my ears in such a fashion. I think I'm feeling more sorry for the lady in question than outraged. Her pride must be in tatters.

My pride, I feel sure, would have forestalled me doing any such thing in the first place.

Plagiarism, Romance, and Readers

Poor Cassie Edwards! Cassie is the author of more than 100 romance novels, delighting her readers with such titles as SAVAGE LONGINGS, SAVAGE MOON, and SAVAGE BELOVED (that one sounds fun, doesn't it?) Apparently she writes historical romance about Indians. Never mind all the issues I have with romantic views of Indians, since I are one, but imagine this: she's been cheating, and her READERS outed her!

In the New York Times, Felicia R. Lee (see, I'm being very careful to credit my sources) writes that Cassie's readers caught passages lifted directly from research materials. The whole article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/books/12roma.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Romance+novelist+accused&oref=slogin (The best part is a link to blog called SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.com. I might like a blog by that name.)

And in her defense: "Ms. Edwards told an Associated Press reporter earlier this week that she did not know she was supposed to credit her sources. “When you write historical romances, you’re not asked to do that,” she said."

Okay, I've written historical, and of course I've done tons of research for my sf. I use the material, but I don't quote it. How boring would that be? This whole thing seems very odd to me, and I'm sure it will all blow over.

The part I can't get over is that the readers turned on her, like a pack of dogs chasing a rabbit! I don't know if I'm more stunned that they cared about the issue, or that romance readers found comparisons between a novel and a historical source. Maybe they really are SmartBitches. Bless 'em.