Adventures in a post-Gutenberg universe

The Hydra, the Chorus, the Geist, the Book: Chronicle of evolution in action.

2010-05-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I attended The Richard Hugo House's excellent event "Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century". Writers were encouraged to sign up for this two-day event filled with panels on a wide range of topics; blogging, self-marketing, social media, e-publishing, self-publishing, and more. The keynote speech on Friday night was inspiring. Matthew Stadler, of Publication Studio, interviewed 3 lecturers who presented on the publishing industry, past present and future. Barbara Sjoholm (past), Alan Rinzler (present), and Jeff Vandermeer (future) set a tone of empowerment and optimism that persisted throughout the weekend. I was there for a panel on self-publishing using the Espresso Book Machine, and also running a table in the Small Press Fair on the main floor of the house. It was there that I kept on having interesting conversations with aspiring (and published) authors on the nature of publishing. I feel the weekend was a success, and can't wait to participate next year. But all the while, in the back of my mind, an idea I'd mentioned 2 posts ago kept coming to the surface.

All this strife and consternation over e-book versus the physical book in newspapers and magazines and on blogs seems to me, to be chasing its tail. What needs to happen is a dramatic re-envisioning of the whole argument.

If we treat the book as an evolutionary marker for the transmission of narratives, rather than a beginning, and treat the e-book as a divergence from this relatively young 'species', the book, we begin to see some remarkable possibilities in the way we tell stories.

We begin with the Book, which for 500 years or so, has defined the relationship between storyteller and audience. The book overtook the oral tradition, codified the structure of language, and allowed the storyteller (writer) to acutely control the reader's experience. But it was still a participatory event, the words drifted off the page into the mind of the reader, where it then underwent transformation from abstract to 'concrete' in the mind's eye. Neil Gaiman and others have likened this as a form of telepathy, transmitted by the author, who is not in the room (or even alive in some cases). Over time, literary movements and tastes merged, split, and further evolved. By the 19th century, traditional narratives began to sit on shelves alongside experimental, and structure-shirking works. During these phases, the very essence of the book never wavered.

The Geist (otherwise known as the e-book, which is really a ghost of the book) began a transform the book's essence. At risk was the linearity, and according to some, the concept of a 'page'. Publishers have taken lazy swipes at defining the shape of the Geist, but for now it's mostly a electronic facsimile of a bound book, with page numbering, chapters, and covers. The format of the Geist might allow for interesting changes in form and function, and the way narratives work. Take away the page numbering, and the human mind begins to fall deeper into a narrative; there's no 'clock ticking' till page xx reveals the final sentence. Untethered from this subtle cue, readers figuratively drown in words, in story. Paragraphing changes may change the way we interpret stories-- I often joke with co-workers that I could spot a Jose Saramago book a mile off, because his paragraphs often last for pages. This may seem daunting to a reader, and yet, Saramago sells, and has a devoted following. Writers may begin to ask themselves why they write their paragraphs the way they do. Do they create short ones, to keep the readers from drifting off? Are writers themselves intimidated by the sheer bulk of a page-long paragraph? I'm just spinning ideas out there, but the Geist has some evolutionary potential that needs to be explored.

The Chorus is what is currently being described as an 'enhanced e-book', which is incorrect, because the Chorus offers a larger growth potential than the Geist. The very nature of the Chorus is social; with the advent of e-readers and wi-fi, we can begin to see the social aspect of reading. Whereas the Book and the Geist are solitary affairs, the Chorus offers readers a new way to experience a book. Social network sites like Goodreads and Librarything already show that readers want to connect with each other over what they read. The Chorus would allow readers with the appropriate App to chronicle their journey through a novel by tagging comments and notes on their e-reader, and through wi-fi, share them with friends and strangers. A Chorus reader would have the option of switching off this ever-fluid marginalia, to experience the story like a Geist. After, they could come back through the narrative with the marginalia switch on, and see what opinions appeared. The possibility for the urge for fan-fiction to directly overlap with a narrative creates interesting ideas; this is not the same as a collaborative novel, as the Chorus would be geared for a structured narrative with social network elements. Writers who are savvy to the Chorus' format might conceive of new ways to tell stories; perhaps purposely fractured narratives, perhaps literary Easter eggs/treasure hunts. The most important potential of the Chorus would be to engage society in a continual dialog about literature, and perhaps bring more reluctant readers into the fold.

The Hydra, offers the most profound evolution of narrative, as it would draw from two less-likely sources and one familiar: Art (as in Photography and illustration), audio and cinema. Early cinema used narratives borrowed from literature, but within 20 years, cinema evolved its own narrative language, introducing parallel stories, chronological shifts with ever-increasing frequency, the ability to disorient the viewer to temporarily convey emotional states (fear, joy, confusion, etc), and ultimately, the power of a single image to elicit a multitude of thoughts from the viewer. Some of these techniques eventually worked their way into the toolkit of late-20th century novelists. I call this format the Hydra (otherwise known as the multi-media book) because if one considers the idea that narrative/storytelling is the core, then this format allows multiple 'heads' or modes to convey a story. A Hydra will engage the reader/viewer in a multi-sensory manner; as one reads, sound effects may well up, then, at a vital moment in the story it might shift into a video clip, which might be overlaid with music or, audio narration of the text. The trend of creating 'book trailers' hints at the Hydra's possibilities. But let's make one thing clear: the Hydra is NOT a book. At least it shouldn't be. If publishers attempt to simply create what would amount to a book with Ads and some noise, then everyone loses out on new ways to tell stories.

Why the funny names? Well in the occult theory of magickal systems, to name a thing, gives it shape; it also gives one power over it. The current language circulating is clunky and badly thought out, and as such, does not allow the mind to strive for elegant solutions. Each format should be explored without the stigma of 'the Book format'. Humans crave stories, regardless of what David Shields says, and I believe that if we allow these other forms to evolve freely, the reward may be a deeper evolution of the human mind.

Updates, printings, recommendations Old-Skool style.

2010-05-27T18:13:00.000-07:00

~~It's been a while since I posted.~~ I say that all the time. Let's just get on with it shall we?

A bunch of printing and book designing has been going on, and hopefully I can give you a sufficient wrap up.

We've been printing copies of a book titled "The Northwest Collection of Music for the Scottish Highland Bagpipe" by John G. Dally; Reprinting copies of "Mountains of the Night" by Bruce Taylor; reprints of "HASH" (the Concept Proof edition) by Charles Cox; "Monsieur and His Art: a Serious Word to Germany's Riders" by Louis Seeger, translated & book designed by Cynthia Hodges; a novel, "Istanbul" by Gary Peters (with lovely scratch board illustrations and cover art by Janice Warren).

The three books I've uploaded images for are a great example of the diversity of projects coming through the Press. The Bagpipe book was designed by the author on WORD, while I manipulated his original cover concept into the final layout. My warning to authors who use Word is that it's a fickle mistress, and the conversion to PDF can produce irregularities, which then lengthens the pre-production time leading into the actual printing. The Horse Book was entirely designed by the translator, with advice from myself--this project turned around very fast; from first meeting to final printing it was no more than three weeks. I think Hodges did a smashing job. I hope she's proud of it. "Istanbul" was more of the traditional (7 months and now I can say 'tradition'? Ha!) model: I designed the interiors and cover for the author, using the images provided by his wife. This project was also rather smooth, taking about a month once I began interior layout.

We also had the pleasure of hosting Steve Almond for his latest book "Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life", but it was what he wrote about in this article that brought the Espresso Book Machine into the mix. Almond essentially has self-published his book, using the EBM that our friends at the Harvard Bookstore have, and we asked Steve if he'd like copies printed out for his event here at Third Place Books. He was eager and excited, and eventually suggested that he do a presentation with Ginger (our EBM) before his actual reading. We had a nice, attentive crowd for Steve's talk; Steve said some great things about the future of publishing and writing and how the EBM fit into this Brave New World. We recorded the event, and once I have the audio cleaned up I'll post it on here.

We finally cleaned up the PDF created from a scan of one of the few remaining physical copies of "Growing Up With Lake Forest Park, Volume 2" by Barbara L. Drake Bender. The volumes (of which the 1st is still in print) were quite popular here in the northern suburbs of Seattle. We conversed with the Shoreline Historical Museum, who now owned the rights to print the book, and I spent a couple of weeks cleaning up the final PDF. Our customers and the Museum are very excited about the project.

Finally, a customer requested with print a copy of a book called "Dogs of All Nations" by W. E. Mason; it was on archive.org and therefore technically not available from the EBM. But for an extra fee, I took the existing file, cleaned it up as best I could, and created a new cover for it. Originally, it was going to be a one-off, but as I looked through the material, I realized that there were probably dog-lovers out there that would want this highly informative treat from 1915, copiously illustrated with photographs of dozens of breeds, with small descriptions of each. So we printed extra copies for the store and now proudly sits in our Pets section.

Phew! That's a summary of books coming out of the Press.

And now for books coming out from the larger publishers:

I've eased back into reading, after a nine-month dry spell (though, during that time I read "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer, which is a beautiful, harrowing look at our eating habits--which is kind of a trend right now, yet Foer executes his book brilliantly so that all views are explored (with small essays from disparate sources--animal activist, big farming bio-chemist, sustainable farmer, to name but a few), and Foer doesn't flinch from reporting the realities of large-scale animal farming. He doesn't try to convince the reader to become a vegetarian; rather he arms you with the ability to make informed choices about alternatives to factory farming, about which Foer convincingly proves that it is the number one danger to our environment at large, even more than fossil fuel consumption.--Anyhow.) I've been reading some tremendous books lately and I wanted to share them with you.

"Hellhound on His trail" by Hampton Sides, tracks the stalking (and eventual murder) of Martin Luther King Jr. by James Earl Ray. It's amazingly written, meticulously researched, and utterly heartbreaking. Sides dispels the conspiracy myths surrounding the assassination by alternating Ray's adventures with King's mission in Memphis, at the height of the book, a grueling minute-by-minute account of both men's movements on the day of the murder made for some of the most terrifying reading I've ever experienced. Whether it was his intention or not, Sides also parallels the social and political landscape of 1968 with modern day--America in the middle of a war, hate-mongers stirring up citizens against a President that inherited a legacy of actions taken before his time, and more. If you read one non-fiction book this year, read this one.

"Extra lives: Why Video Games Matter" by Tom Bissell is an examination of video game culture, from the point of view of a gamer (himself, a self-admitted addict), and a writer (travelogue, memoir, and short story collection); each chapter looks at a different game that changed the nature of the industry. There are other door-stopper overviews of the Game Industry, but Bissell's is the most rewarding, because it attempts to convey to the lay reader what the obsession is for gamers, while also bringing a critical eye to structure, especially in the form of narratives. It's in this exploration where "Extra lives" transcends the subject and approaches deeply philosophical topics; the nature of reality, and the need in humans to experience Story. Alternately geeky and rigorously intellectual, Bissell's book contributes to the literature of technology, social-science, and narrative theory. It's the other non-fiction book you should read this year...

"How Did You Get This Number?" by Sloane Crosley, is the second collection of essays by this immensely talented and astute (and fucking funny) writer ("I Was Told There'd Be Cake" is her first book). In the Book blurbs, she's compared to many humorists, and even David Sedaris has a quote on the back. It's hard to describe Crosley's essays; they range from recalled youthful high-jinks, to a young woman trying (if a bit goofily) to assert her identity. She's smoothly self-deprecating, while at the same time being caustic like a guided missile about some of life's superficialities. She can be serious, though, and in several essays (the trip to Portugal, for one) she reveals thoughts that show a sensitivity to the world that often halts the reader in mid-laugh (that's a good thing). It's the final essay though, that really drives home Crosley's talents as a writer; profound honesty, gentle satire, and keen observation all come together to reveal her contribution to the art of letters. This is the third non-fiction book you should read this year, if...etc.

I'm currently reading "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" by David Mitchell. I mentioned in one of my very first posts how much I admire Mitchell, and this book builds on that admiration. Set in 1799 in Nagasaki, the novel brilliantly weaves through the clash of cultures as Dutch traders carefully work with the Xenophobic Japanese; Jacobe de Zoet is an accountant, whose tenure on Dejima--and island constructed in the Nagasaki bay so that no Westerner sets foot on Japanses soil-- is a cascade of small indignities, mixed with awe at the otherworldliness of the Japanese. There's more, but I'm not finished with the book yet, and besides, you can't read it till June, and I hate to be such a tease... A full report once I'm done.

Next time, I'll talk about the Hydra, the Chorus, and the Geist. Trust me. This next post is special.

Awards; a moment of Clarity; a declaration

2010-04-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post about all the SF & Fantasy related news I've come across.
Here goes.

Firstly, I attended NORWESCON (they currently have information up for 2011), the Northwest Science Fiction Convention where they announce the Philip K. Dick Award winner every year.
Now, contrary to the other major SF awards in the U.S., the Philip K. Dick Award is chosen by a small committee; the LOCUS award is voted on by the Magazine's readers, the HUGO Award is voted on by attendees of the World Science Fiction Convention (wherever it is held every year), and the NEBULA Award is chosen by members of the Science Fiction Writers of America. That's the first way this award is unique.

The second unique aspect is that it is an award given to paperback originals (trade or mass market). It's set up this way because during Philip K. Dick's lifetime, he was never published in hardback here in the U.S. (in Europe and England, where they 'got' his talent before we did, he had a healthy publishing history). Paperback originals have also traditionally been ignored by some of the more prestigious awards.
So because it is a small committee, voting on often overlooked books, the shortlist is a wonder to behold every year. The awards always surprises; it makes novels go up against short story collections and anthologies, and super-small presses are equally considered along with larger ones.

I was extremely happy in 2004 when a little known book, Life by Gwyneth Jones, published by a tiny local press Aqueduct Press, won the Award that year. The book deserved it, so did the publisher for taking a chance on an interesting topic.

The winner this year was BITTER ANGELS by C. L. Anderson... Nothing against the judges, or the winner, but I was pulling for Daryl Gregory's THE DEVIL'S ALPHABET (mainly because I loved his first novel, PANDEMONIUM so much).

The other major award announcements were the finalists for the Hugo Award:
Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
Wake, Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Penguin; Gollancz; Analog)
The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

and the Locus Magazine Award:

Science Fiction Novel
The Empress of Mars, Kage Baker (Subterranean; Tor)
Steal Across the Sky, Nancy Kress (Tor)
Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
Galileo's Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (HarperVoyager; Ballantine Spectra)
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)

Fantasy Novel
The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)
Drood, Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland)

There's some overlap in both awards, but it's exciting since all the authors are extremely talented and if a person were to use these lists as a reading guide, they would have a great time.

Also at Norwescon, I attended a panel titled "Impact of Digital media", which was set up to discuss many of the issues dogging publishers today; Amazon, e-book pricing, etc. During the panel a gentleman named Ben made a statement that blew my mind wide open, to look directly at something that had been simmering in my mind for a while: he was referring to e-books and 'multi-media' books (on the horizon, getting closer thanks to the ipad and some of the things it can do with books). What he said was:

"We need to think of these as different things."

And then it came to me: We do need to think of these things as different; a book, an e-book, a multi-media book, an audio book. It's obvious with audio, but is it really? It's someone reading aloud a book word-for-word, in other words, rather than visually delivering the text, it is being delivered aurally. So in essence, the audio book is like a regular book. It's more tricky with e-books and multi-media books (mmbooks, for convenience). Arguments are raging across the net and in magazines about e-books not being aesthetically designed like books, the idea of mmbooks terrifies fans of the traditional book, but what if, what if:

We started to view all of these permutations as evolutionary branch-off points, like Neanderthals and Homo sapiens?

But you say, 'things' can't evolve. Yes they can. Not on their own, but in concert with humanity. I read a book a long time ago called "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess" which had some startling and exciting theories about literature and human evolution ( I won't go into them here), but the lesson I took away from it was: Whatever humans make, in turn, remakes us. Be it a car, a fabric, a book, a cellphone.
If we start to look at the book problem from this angle, we can begin to separate the divergent 'species' and allow them to evolve in separate directions. Film narrative is a distinct, but no less connected, off-shoot of narratives forged in literature; decades later it evolved enough to create its own narrative devices, which in turn wove their way into the novels of the 20th century.
Let's talk about e-books. But let's truly look at them divorced from the idea of the book

All these mediums are evolutionary branching off points from a original, an Ur-medium; the art of pure story-telling, around fires; each step--cave painting, hieroglyph, abstract alphabet, clay, papyrus, paper, scroll, etc--represents a shift in how stories are told. The book was not borne, Athena-like from Gutenberg's forge; its history is large and its future is ever-changing.
Rather than call this era the end of the book, I declare it the Golden Age, where, challenged by various other forms of story-telling, the book finally comes into its own, solidifies what it means to us, to our future, to our evolution as a species.

Introducing HASH; Concept Proofs

2010-04-16T18:43:00.000-07:00

I first met Charles Cox through my co-worker Alicia, they'd just begun dating and she was very happy with him; when I met Charles, I understood why--an extremely gregarious, intelligent fellow and, as I was to find out, a man of many talents. Last year, as we set up the Press and The Espresso Book Machine, Charles and Alicia came by to see the new member of the Lake Forest Park community and to see how I was holding up. We fell into casual conversation about what the EBM means in terms of re-arranging the traditional publishing model, and Charles mentioned a book he'd written for NANOWRIMO and wondered idly if he should print a few copies. I didn't leap straight at him in excitement, but I began the conversation that, this past March, culminated in this:

HASH was written in November, but it had been years in gestation; Charles had been familiar with the characters for a while, and it showed-- as I read the book, I felt that the characters were, 'lived in', real. Designing HASH was a joy because Charles let me play with fonts (4 of them!) and certain 'flourishes' in layout; it was also a joy because HASH is very kinetic, harkening back to the days of William Gibson and before, when ideas didn't have to be door-stopper novels or be book x of a series. It's a smart, lean book; funny and thoughtful. And I felt it deserves to be published.
BUT.
Charles didn't want to self-publish (that can sometimes be a full-time job of its own), but he was curious about an idea I had-- self-produced manuscripts, which I later renamed CONCEPT PROOFS.

My thinking is this: In this landscape of publishers trimming down editors, swallowing up other publishers and imprints, and more and more agents looking for that 'next big thing' and being less patient to grow an authors' careers (I'm not saying all agents are like this, but there is a trend.), it's harder and harder to get a foot in the door.

Even once you've made it as far as an agent, and, into a publisher for consideration, your book could die on the phrase "I don't know how to market this." On the one hand, the reason is bunk, on the other, publishing is a business, so they have to think in those terms. An agent or an editor must look at a manuscript and/or query letter and visualize possibilities; the kind of book that might come out of this double-spaced gathering of text.

The Concept Proof is an option for authors who want to take the chance to visualize how their book might look from a publisher; they can determine whether it draws heavily on genre book design or other, 'mainstream' design aspects (a cross-over book like Niffenegger's "The Time-Traveler's Wife", for example). So this is why we made HASH; I took Charles' novel, decided how I wanted it to look on the inside, while the multi-talented Charles (I said so earlier, remember?) designed his own cover, and the photos show what came out of it. Our hope is that we've done some of the conceptualizing for the prospective agent or publisher, and they'll be more open to considering it.

All that said, we know that we can't be sending the physical copy to everyone under the sun; most agents and/or publishers only take digital submissions. But it's a cozy little world out there in Publishingland, and who knows who you might run into at a party or convention?

The Autumns of our Days; TAB, TAB, TAB, link, link, link

2010-04-08T14:07:00.000-07:00

Why is it that as the days go by I feel guilty if I don't post at least once a week? I mean, it's not like you're all perched on the edge of your seat, waiting for my next ramblings, like some lovelorn soul waiting for that 'call', are you?
Anyhow, once again the Press has been in full production mode, and a good chunk of my casual time during office hours has been to train the indefatigable Autumn, who is now my most able and very welcome assistant. She runs the machine while I work on design, talk to clients,etc. She also helps coordinate the Press, clean up after my messy self, and is a great sounding board for design ideas. It was interesting to train Autumn, as I've been running the Press solo since we set up on November last year. When the technician was here, I was the only one fully trained and it was necessary-- there's so much to watch for, so many variable, that if two people were to train neither one would've absorbed the totality of what it takes to run the machine-- the technician would've had to cater to more than one learning style, speed-- meaning that they would have to backtrack often. When we created the Press, we envisioned a time when it would be running seven days a week, but to do that we'd have to train people. And I didn't know exactly how the structure of training would look like. Fortunately, Autumn is a quick study, and didn't laugh at me when I'd say things like "I want you to watch every book closely. Every book. Watch every part of the machine as it moves. Ask yourself why that part does what it does. Again and again. So that eventually, you'll be able to turn your back on the machine and you'll hear when something goes awry." Like some deranged Jedi, me.
So now Autumn runs the Press on at least one weekend day, and sometimes, later in the evening. And so we can meet our client's print runs in a timely fashion. And besides, it's nice to have another human around sometimes. It gets a bit lonely in this glass menagerie...

As I go about my day here at the Press, I come across articles either sent to me or through blogs I follow, or, the Hyperspace of the internet otherwise known as Twitter. I open a new tab for each of these, digest the information, and if it might stimulate a topic for a blog post I leave it up.
I'm currently looking at over 20 tabs in 2 windows. And that's after some culling and one brief mishap with firefox (I'm now using Chrome to spur my forays into the digi-aether). Don't worry, I'm not going to dump them all on you (that is what Twitter is for). I'll have lots more to say about recent developments with the Press, the books we've published, and other book-related events and concerns. For now, I'll run through a few that are important to share.

I remember when news that "Hapworth 16, 1924" by J. D. Salinger, was to be published in book form. It was 1997, and I was still at The Elliott Bay Book Company; we had an ancient and cluttered computer inventory system, and all our special orders were carefully and copiously handwritten. I remember being shown the fistful of orders waiting for the book (which was originally printed in The New Yorker)--sadly, the book never came out, but those orders stayed active for years, symbol of blind hope. Now, the true story of the books (non) publication has been written by the man who tried to publish it. I'm sure he dutifully and respectfully waited until Salinger's death to write about it. It's fascinating, and heartbreaking, especially from the point of view of someone like me who loves to design books, and loves seeing them get printed, and loves scooping some unique project. You should read it.

The Unicorn has landed. Ok, not a real unicorn, but the iPad. Sure, you're sick of hearing about it by now, but I move at a snail's pace with the bloggery so you have to be patient with me. First, this excellent article by Stephen Fry, on interviewing Steve Jobs, and Fry's first moment with an iPad. What is unique about this article over the glut out there is he mentions the sorely-missed Douglas Adams, who was, more that a great novelist, an advocate of Apple from its inception, and fiercely curious about the potential of multi-media and technology in terms of storytelling possibilities (I fondly recall the Hitchhiker's text-based game)... And the very weekend of the iPad's release, this bit of 'performance art' --teens destroy an iPad in front of a Best Buy. On one level, it's a brilliant piece of social statement--about consumerism, about technology overwhelming our lives and becoming fetishized--but I was bothered by some of what one teen said: it's not that he wanted to 'do it first', but when asked whether he hated Apple, he responding by citing all the Apple machines his family owned already including 2 other iPads.... Cory Doctorow, author of the amazing "Little Brother", an outspoken proponent of open source philosophy, flexible copyright laws, has written about his distaste for the iPad & its 'closed system' and dumbing down of computer literacy in the masses. I'm not sure I entirely agree with his statements, but he's an agile thinker and always stimulates healthy debate.

E-madness! So Amazon continues to sulk, albeit more surreptitiously. Moby Lives blog writes about Amazon's latest move- blaming the price of an e-book in the publisher right on the webpage. I know Amazon's probably doing the "wha? me? huh?" shrug about the intentions of such a maneuver, but it's clear to me (and Moby Lives) that Amazon's attempting to cause a customer uprising. Take to the digital streets, rebels! Sing with me now: 'let Amazon run the publishing industry--er. Cheaper books now!'. yes Amazon. I'm watching you. ::does the fingers to eyes gesture:: ...This interesting post from Publishing Perspectives asks the question of bundling--e-book and physical book. You buy the physical book, you get a free (or at least highly reduced in price) download. All these arguments about e-book pricing would fade quickly if a bundling system was created. Say 'Book X' is 15.99, or 18.99 in a bundled edition. It works in the music industry where some albums are sold only as vinyl and come with a web-link and download code so you can get the digital versions of the songs. It's an idea worth resurrecting. Publishing industry, are you listening?... Over at the New York Times page, Randy Cohen, writing as The Ethicist has received flak over some advice about downloading a pirated version of a book they've already bought in physical form. Essentially, he didn't see an issue with downloading a copy of a book you've already paid for. The blogosphere is on fire about this, primarily because of the sensitive nature of the e-book industry right now, but John Scalzi has a beautifully apt post about the controversy from the author's perspective, and he's supporting Cohen's advice (so am I, see the 'bundled' link above), while carefully outlining the real issues at hand. I think the e-book debacle that's been growing is leading to the big elephant in the room: International Rights, and the growing awareness amongst authors about the minutiae in their contracts. Not everybody's happy with the control publishers have.

Retro in a Futuro way. So we run a Press, right? With this mechanical-thingy we've named 'Ginger' that makes insta-books. Physical books. eeeewwww! Ur bookz iz in my hans dirty! We should be hopping on this e-book bandwagon, yeah? And to top it off, we make broadsides to compliment the publication of certain books. Physical. Tangible. Using an actual letter press (independently run by Seattle Artist Amy Redmond). Argh! What are you, Luddites? I hear you scream. No. We just dig the spirit of creation that leads to writing books, to making them, to the art that goes on the covers, the tactile nature of the printed book. Over at the Third Place Books blog (New! Stop by and say hello!) there's a post about the most recent broadside for William Vollman's latest book "Kissing the Mask". I love the broadsides; running my hand lightly over the indentation of the text, the hand-made paper, the aesthetic elegance of the designs. While the purpose of broadsides is to get customers to buy the book from us, we hope that people also appreciate the quality and resonance of such an item in the daily life of a book lover. If you're ever at the store, check out our previous broadsides hanging on the walls of the Rare and Collectible area, and in some cases some of these pieces are still available for purchase (if you ask nicely).

My next post will be dedicated to the more SF&F side of things; the annual Seattle SF convention Norwescon, the Hugo Awards, and a special Third Place Press Project...

Books! Books! Books! Ahhhmazonnnnn. Again? The Twitter-blogo-wrangle

2010-03-12T19:02:00.000-08:00

Yep, another delay in blog posts, but with reason: Busy, busy making books, designing books, and coordinating the Press.

As the client list grows for Third Place Press, I'm having to farm out some services so that we can get our client's projects up and printing quickly. These past 2 weeks I've finalized the family Fictional memoir, "Ruby", by Wilma Wilson. Currently this is more of an intimate printing--family & acquaintances-- but it's a very large extended family, and the occasion for the book is that the author is turning 94! Her daughter corralled the whole project into shape and now her family is calling her up to order copies.

And just in time for The Emerald City Comicon, we unveil our super-secret book project:

We're pretty happy with the outcome-- Roberta Gregory's collection of her comic book narratives previously published in the "Naughty Bits" comic book series published by Fantagraphics Books, as well as some original pieces. The potential of the EBM is not limited to literature, the rise of the independent comic book artist on the web and the real world represents a fundamental shift in the way we used to tell our stories; I'm not saying grandiose or apocalyptic stuff like "Literature is Dead!" or "It's the End of the Novel!" I'm a firm believer in the healthy co-existence of all these forms of storytelling, and I'm hoping to get more comic book artists to see the potential of the machine in regards to their work-- the ease of production, low print runs, low costs. I know there are many artists out there right now who believe that publishing their work is either a pipe-dream or very far into the future.
I say the time is NOW.

Whimsy:
It appears that Ben Greeman writing at Mcsweeneys.net, via Galleycat, proposed a new savior for the Publishing Industry... No, it's now e-books, nor p-books (as all the techies are calling real books), nor is it the multi-media-predicted-by-Neal-Stephenson-in-The-Diamond-Age madness that's coming from publishers very soon. It's-- 3-D Type! Wooooooo! Apparently the twitter-sphere and blogo-verse went Code Red for a day or two before it was revealed that 3*TYPE was satire. I for one was relieved. I really think it would be crazy to set a Chuck Palahniuk book in 3-D type, to cite just one example...

And Amazon once again, acting like a dance partner with two left feet (one from a donkey, one from a gorilla), ended up stepping on the toes of Comic book fans and the publishers. The fiasco essentially involved another computer glitch (disgruntled employee, anyone?) that set the prices of high-end graphic novels to $14.99 across the board. Well, obviously the fans mobilized and ordered multiple items, often clocking in at over $100 dollars per person. Amazon back-pedaled, canceled most orders, then in what seemed like over-kill took the buy buttons away for several days. Which made creators & publishers mad, and created a chorus of "Now's the time to go to a brick and mortar comic store."...This all sounds familiar. And in two weeks people will be back to sheeping their way back to Amazon, and comic book stores will be back to struggling to compete. Sigh.

I love the New Scientist for its witty way of tweeting articles, here are some examples of the the treasures that clicking on their links will get you...

Two bits of delightful internet absurdity, first via Nick Harkaway, writer at large, and then by Paul Constant, Books Editor of The Stranger in Seattle.

Have a great weekend!

The Bionic Woman; Verne (Jules) in Reverse; I have a beef to pick with the end of the world

2010-02-17T18:59:00.000-08:00

Ginger is in the middle of getting upgrades (no, I won't make reference to cosmetic surgery), and I've taken to thinking of the process as what they did to Jaime Somers in the Bionic Woman. Fitter, Better, Smarter, Stronger. My preference is to think about the short-lived remake rather than the original (I have a thing for that Michelle Ryan-- rowrrr!).
I watched the technicians for a bit, dismantling plexi-glass, mountings... but when they pulled out the drills I had to leave. It was all a bit too intimate. Like watching major surgery on a relative. In just over 24 hours Ginger will be up and running again with new features and doo-hickeys (yes, that is a technical term) that hopefully won't take long to adjust to. It was odd to not have access to Ginger the whole day, like ghost limb syndrome or something. So I wandered over to the bookstore and did a thorough check on my only section (Graphica, which, due to the hectic nature of TPPress of late, I haven't taken care of properly). When I came back later in the afternoon, the Techs were gone, off to Village Books to help the operator fix a few glitches on her machine. This gave me an opportunity to quietly work on more book design projects, have a meeting with an author I'm excited to be working with (more details as they unfold), catch up on Twitter and find myself being followed (on Twitter, not in real life) by rising literary star Nick Harkaway . Cool.

Jules Verne. Several weeks ago I received an email from J. who politely asked me if I could print the book attached to the link below his sentence. I did and was very surprised by what was there: "Journey to the Center of the Earth". So what? you might say? It's in Hebrew. Printed in 1878. Published in Poland, rebound in the 1950s in Charlestown, Mass., ultimately residing in the Harvard University library. Wow. After several emails back and forth, I contacted Google, who O.K'd the one-off printing.
But I was feeling cocky. I told J. that not only would I make the book for him, I would print it in the Hebrew fashion (Hebrew is read from right to left). So after a couple of weeks of dabbling, I managed to make it. You'll notice two books in the photo below, and that's because during the process J. wanted me to print "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", in Hebrew, from 1878. The original scans were a tad spotty, the Hebrew type was a bit small, but for a scholar, easy access to a work like this more than makes up for the roughness of the PDF.

Post-apocalyptic this, Post-apocalyptic that.
O.K., great. another SF trope is being embraced on a large scale. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy is but one example of the hot new trend in literature: _____ - Apocalypse (Post-, Zombie-, Vampire-, Barbie-). And this article chronicles the increasing speed that YA publishers and their readers are eating up the books.

My problem is that most of these are not Post-Apocalyptic (dictionary: predicting or presaging imminent disaster and total or universal destruction.). Now I can see, growing up in the 1980s that Post-Apocalyptic referred to a Nuclear exchange, which would bring about the dictionary definition above, but the vast bulk of books being published don't fit the bill.
Ahhh! An EMP pulse destroys all electronics! Post-Apocalyptic!
An earthquake destroys most Californian cities! Post-Apocalyptic!
Vampires come out of the dark and battle humans! Post-Apocalyptic!...
Not really. Ok, maybe the last one is close. I think we need to refer to most of these books as Post-Society novels. The deconstruction of societal norms does not an Apocalypse make. Even global events don't neatly qualify as Apocalyptic conditions.
I'm a big believer in talking about writing in the correct way, and even scholars make the mistake of talking 'genre' when they should be talking 'technique.' It's a meme-thing: once 'genre' slips out of a person's mouth, the people in the room shift in their seats and develop walls (even at SF & Fantasy conventions this occurs); it becomes a 'which genre is better' dialogue and nobody ever learns anything.
The point I'm always making is that the hottest writers out there (including Mr. McCarthy) are hot because they are breaking the pre-established literary divisions by using any tool in the writer's kit-bag to tell their story. In the case of "The Road", McCarthy realized that he needed the elements of a 'dystopian/apocalyptic', dare I say it, Post-societal story, to get to the essence of the emotional reactions he needed from his characters, and to properly address the themes he was ruminating upon.
So here's to the flood of post-society novels! Long may they crumble... combust...devour...um....

Book-a-palooza; Makin' Da Books; Takin' Da Books Away; Google-gobble; Douchy Ads

2010-02-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

I know I keep saying this in almost every post, but dang, has it been busy lately!
That's a good thing, though. Unfortunately, it means less blog posts...
Or at least posts with the kitchen sink thrown in.

A wrap up of the steady flow of database books: French-language "Dangerous Liasons", a paranormal thriller "Blue Moon", the Libertarian classic from the 1990s "From Freedom to Slavery", "Studies on Fermentation" by Louis Pasteur (Beer is the mind-killer!), "The Charles Fort Reader" (the Fox Mulder of his day), "William Tyndale's Five Books of Moses" (big, big book... Moses apparently had a lot to say), "The Collected Articles of Frederic Douglass" (plus a second work)... The couple that I wrote about in December, came back for a massive Google order, Some Books on Boxing, theatre, "A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant: Embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian Slang, Pidgin English, Tinker's Jargon , and Other Irregular Phraseology" (2 Volumes), and several more.
My co-workers are also contributing to the variety of books discovered on Google: "Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins" was ordered by a Greg, who is a descendant of the Hawkins line and has of late discovered that his family history is littered with the fingerprints of adventurers and explorers. Lucky Sod. Mine were con-men and farmers... Adam, who lead me to write about the fate of an Alan Lomax book and the state of copyright, has been ordering books on early American Folk and Minstrelry, books buried in time, with vital clues for musicians like Adam (who plays in a duo called The Whiskey Swillers) who want to revive these songs. So much to discover yet!

I've been working furiously on several book designs for clients; a few are about to be finalized, while some are queued up next. I won't talk specifics but I will mention the dazzling variety in just these handful of authors: an Alternate History novel; a fiction about being a nurse and appreciating the fullness of life in middle age; a book on knife collecting with dozens of photos; a collection of hunting escapades; a fictionalized biography of a favored and adventurous family Aunt... Each one brings a unique design challenge, and I love working on each one equally... And as of this writing, I've done layout for 2 books (totaling 800 pages) just this week. Phew. And they keep coming.

I've been on Twitter several weeks now, and I find that while my time has been busy with running the press, Twitter offers me that brief moment to cast a thought, a link, into the universe. So while I may be silent on the blog, Twitter has a steady drizzle of errant thoughts flowing through it @3rdplacepress...

Amazon and Macmillan. That happened since my last post... The meeting between the two industry giants took place on the day Apple debuted its Unicorn. Amazon and Macmillan were at a stalemate over e-book pricing and the publisher walked away from the meeting feeling at an impasse. Amazon on the other hand, walked over to its wizz-bang-doodle Oz machine and hit a button (well, actually took it away) effectively neutering Macmillan's titles on the Amazon site. Such a sulky, bully thing to do. And John Scalzi had the best summary of the events and why Amazon was in the wrong, and why, even after events spun out of control, their media department's reaction was brutish at best. I certainly have my opinions of Amazon (which go waaaay back to 1996-7), so I won't rehash them here. Essentially, I know Amazon feels the heat over the announcement of Apples ibookstore in tandem with the Unicorn; I don't pity them, since, from day one, their Kindle strategy has been to be as proprietary as possible and totally dominate the emerging e-book market-- a Reader (Kindle) that only reads one format (Kindle format). Months later, people were still reading e-books (in various formats) on the iPhone, so a Kindle App was grudgingly released to the public. The second Kindle version came out, right when at least 10 other companies announced their own e-readers (including the god-awfully-named Vook from Barnes and Noble), most of which were open-format. Suddenly market control was slipping out of Amazon's hands and voila! that fateful meeting and the subsequent behavior and backlash. But to be fair, Amazon's not the only large company to flinch and overreact. Don't even get me started on the 'new' Facebook format (coincidentally widely released the day Google Buzz went live)...

Speaking of Google: they continue to expand the database of titles available, with Stanford recently agreeing to let Google list their titles. Regardless, Google is facing tough opposition to it's digitization program, which I'm on the fence about. On the one hand, I see the benefits of having access to those millions of forgotten, public domain titles; on the other hand, due to the blanket scanning of titles in libraries, Google now has access to digital editions of works by authors still alive. I know Google's created a nonprofit Book Rights Registry in order to clarify and alleviate many of the authors concerns. So, um. They're trying? A decent summary of events (including the dissenting authors and those who agreed) can be found here.

Whimsy: R.I.P (Rest in Public) J.D. Salinger. The world will soon be inundated with Salinger-fest. Though this film-maker's work will probably be the most genuine, least likely-to-cash-in-on-the-writer.

An awesome interview with a 'street' scientist with the brilliant quote: "I'm not a Rock Scientist. But then again, Rocket Science is just plumbing with math."

When I watched the Superbowl (the only time I watch NFL), the Dodge Ad that came on left me angry, and I'm a guy! The backlash from women was strong, and often funny. My main problem with this ad is that it preys on outdated gender stereotypes, like this horrendous humor book called "Porn for Women" which depicts men doing things like ironing, washing the dishes, vacuuming, being considerate. Har, Har, very funny. Let's tell women we'll only be neat and grown-up, and responsible because we want sex, or a new car. I like to iron (it relaxes me), I like to clean up after myself, and I'm considerate because it's what adults do. Regardless of gender. I know women who love to work on cars, climb rock walls, and playfully oggle men at bars... So what? Let us be what our inclinations guide us to be. Stuff it, Dodge (and the Mad Men at that Ad agency who thought it up)!

Finally, as the weekend approaches, all I have to say is: Kitchen Sink...

Haiti; the Unicorn; Librarians

2010-01-29T16:54:00.000-08:00

Catching up on the events of the past week, I need to mention that Third Place Press (along with the University of Washington Bookstore, Harvard Bookstore, and Schuler Books and Music) was commissioned by On Demand Books to contribute a unique piece of humanitarian aid:

Each of us was asked by a medical organization to contribute this book "Haitan Creole (Kreyol)-English Pocket medical dictionary" to redistribute to all the aid-workers and medical professionals helping save lives.The whole process to less that 5 days from the initial email requests!

It's and odd project; one that 5 years ago you wouldn't be able to wrap your mind around, but exciting nevertheless. To be able to print books through the EBM is a joy; to do so and help (in a small way) save the lives of others is astounding. I'm hoping the books get into the right hands. And I know that if they need more, we're ready.

The Apple iPad (heretofore dubbed 'the Unicorn' by me) caused quite a tizzy throughout the internet mid-week with Steve Jobs' presentation. I've been thinking about this device since the first rumors surfaced several years ago (relating to an order placed for 10 inch touch-screens from the Chinese manufacturer). When I saw the Unicorn unveiled, I wasn't surprised, wasn't disappointed, but was rather, quietly pleased. It's exactly as I'd imagined. No more, no less. And I know it'll evolve; all Apple products do. I know the main thing Apple did with its release was to force its competitors to rethink their concept of a netbook, much like they caused a philosophical shift in the evolution of smart phones.

The haters pounced immediately, whining about lack oh multi-tasking, this, and double-dipping wireless that-- which just made me roll my eyes. I remember the reactions when the iphone came out, I remember the reactions when the macbook Air debuted. Words were flowing viciously back and forth on the web, but I found Stephen Fry's post about seeing the Unicorn up close and personal, with his criticism of the knee-jerkers and haing a healthy skepticism as an Apple fan, to be the most rounded analysis. And best written. I can't wait to use the Brushes App on it... mmmm.

Hosted a small group of Librarians from Bainbridge Island, and it was fun. They watched Ginger go through her paces and thoroughly grilled me on the EBM's promise to books, retailing, and libraries. Unfortunately they ran out of time (it was quite a long way to travel!), and I could tell they had more to ask. They all have my card, so they know they can pepper me with questions whenever they like.

The week ends, with the promise of rest, and some mindless diversions.

Perhaps some sketching.

I hope it's a placid weekend for us all, a moment to recharge as we face the constantly mutating future beneath our every step...

The Whirlwind

2010-01-28T18:18:00.000-08:00

Another one of those weeks that seemed to have landed like that tornado that swept away Dorothy to OZ.
Beginning with The Everett Herald's article on Third Place Press, that exposed our endeavor to the upper northern suburbs. It was a great piece, though it was originally started in December (but not to gripe--I'd rather they take their time and fact-check than do a rush piece).

So most of the week was spent relying to emails, fielding phone calls, talking to curious bystanders. Most of it was in regards to self-publishing. It seems that with every new piece written about the EBM, more and more people are coming out of the wood work to try and publish some long-anguished, hidden manuscript; be it fiction, memoir, or, say, knife collecting. The publishing landscape, and the subjects published therein is getting interesting.

Finished the project with the estimable Bruce Taylor. "Mountains of the Night" just finished it's first batch printing today, and Bruce had sold a copy even before he left Lake Forest Park. The bookstore is doing a book event with Bruce on March 12th, so it'll be exciting to see the whole book writing-producing-marketing-touring cycle so intimately engaged.

We've also lined something up (details to be finalized) with Steve Almond. Partially based on his excellent essay about self-publishing with the EBM. I especially liked how he made the connection between small bands selling their own CDs on tour; that's a similar analogy I've made about the potential of the EBM to assist all writers, not just writers who can't get 'big publishing' contracts.

Kassia Krozser makes some great statements about the whole e-book 'revolution'. I'm not against e-books, but they are not the savior the publishing industry is looking for. Especially since the writer says that e-books themselves are sorely lacking in any kind of innovative thinking. Not gussying up an e-book with multi-media, but simple typographical choices, for starters.

For part of the week I was following the hullabaloo over at the Digital Book World twitter trend feed. Wish I could've been there to see what these free(er) thinkers on the publishing industry had to say.

A terrible week for the literary world, with JD Salinger, Howard Zinn and Louis Auchincloss moving on into larger spheres of the imagination. One commenter on Twitter said that while Salinger died, since he was 91, it wasn't that surprising, or shocking. But I think the point they are missing (especially coming from me, a person who has only read 1 Salinger short story--to the chagrin of many close friends. I do plan to change that, honestly I do) is that these writers wove tendrils of emotion into our lives and in passing, they get tugged, and we as a culture feel something, a loss, but also the collective memory of reading each author for the first time; of discussing their works with friends; of the joy when we convince someone we like to read these authors; how they all helped us become a tiny bit closer to the rest of the world. Even if one of them was one of the world's most famous literary recluses. Has anyone checked Pynchon's pulse lately?

Frivolities: Tiny Tiny Books; and not-so-frivolous: Book piracy.

I've more to write about, but the day has just imploded (in a good way). Onto and into another night, with another day of book making to follow it!

Biblio-deer; Mountainous; Google quirks; Starship Captains

2010-01-21T16:44:00.000-08:00

First off, a bit of fun:

Somewhere someone said (Joyce Carol Oates, maybe) " In books, as in life, we are often surprised by what others choose."

I'd like to officially congratulate Bruce Taylor for the publication (Landis Review Press) and printing (Third Place Press-- us!) of his newest book "Mountains of the Night".
Bruce came to us with his book and worked with me on the design of the cover and the interiors.He's had full input on every aspect of his book's production. I'm pretty proud of the final product and glad I can finally tell the world it's here.

So while the KOMO people filmed and asked questions, I posed in front of Ginger's console pretending to be 'book-making'. My default behavior is to search the database with a random word, in this case 'circus', and see what pops up. I looked intense, thoughtful, masterly, printerly...constipated?

Anyhow,

I came across "Fighting the Flying Circus" By Eddie Rickenbacker, a memoir by the WWI flying Ace. Reading parts, while KOMO went about its business, I found his prose to be quite warm and inviting, very down-to-earth. It could almost be read by Young Adults interested in personal accounts of the Great War.

Another gem was "Amateur Circus Life: a New Method of Physical Development for Boys and Girls, Based on the Ten Elements of Simple Tumbling and Adapted from the Practice of Professional Acrobats" by Ernest Berkeley Balch. It was, as the lengthy title suggests, a new exercise regimen for youth based on circus performers. I'm assuming that it was written at the height of the popularity of circuses.
Sort of like someone publishing a book called "The Survivor Diet: ways to lose weight and defeat your enemies, based on the hit reality series." I think someone has published a book like that...

As of this writing, our friends over at the University Bookstore, in the U-District, should be elbow-deep in the installation of their own EBM. Last week we hosted them here at Third Place Press for a tour and a chance to meet Ginger. It was interesting seeing how they processed watching Ginger go through her paces.
It was also nice to meet my counterpart who will be dealing with the subtle movements and moods of their EBM.
Days later I felt that we were part of an exclusive club; not elitist, but more like individuals who have seen and understood things few have.
Like Starship Captains.
Maybe with my counterparts across the US and the globe we'll form a special club, get badges, secret handshakes, meet once a year in a secret chalet in the Alps (or a moon orbiting a Gas Giant in some nearby galaxy)... One can dream right? Anyhow, I wish them luck and look forward to meeting their EBM, "_____".

Sketchy; Frenzy; Future Jobs; Video killed the paperback star.

2010-01-20T18:23:00.000-08:00

By accident, The Seattle Times' resident artist, Gabriel Campanario, wandered into the commons area of Lake Forest Park and spotted Ginger across the dance-floor. It was love at first sight... We no, not really, but he was curious and for the next 45 minutes grilled me on the ins-and-outs of the Espresso Book Machine, Third Place Press, and all things publishy (yes, I invented that word, got a problem?). During the discussion he had his moleskin open and sketched away. At the end he had a nice illustration:

It ran on his blog on Thursday, and the above image ended up in the Saturday edition of the Seattle Times.
He's also part of a blog collective that staggers the mind in its global scope: Urban Sketchers. They're like Joe Sacco; artists who also report on their environment.

Boy. Did we have a reaction!
All weekend customers came in wanting to see the machine, but unfortunately, Ginger's not awake on weekends, so many left disappointed. A special group, pre-arranged, received a private tour from me; all were publishing industry professionals: editors, writers, publishers, librarians (yes, they count). It was a heady evening. We had great discussions about the industry implications for the EBM, and came up with some cool ideas (Can't tell you-- I'm such a tease!). Afterwards, we had dinner at the delightful and filling Chiang's Gourmet in Lake City.

Getting people in the industry is paramount to getting the EBM to be successful. Sure, everybody's doing Self-publishing to make ends meet with their machines, but wouldn't it be great to change the paradigm as well? Especially in light of Amazon's latest unabashed Godzilla-stomping maneuvers, which I don't trust one bit and may serve to explain my dilemma in my previous post. And speaking of posts, Paul Constant's on The Stranger Blog, SLOG is insightful as to what this means to Indie bookstores.

We had several orders for books (which I've started chronicling on occasion at my Twitter feed), many more self-publishing queries--some from out of state!--, and curious onlookers. Our Tuesday open hours (4-6pm) saw a steady stream of people wandering in to take a peek. One of them had even worked for Xerox since the 1970s. Which gave me some perspective.

And I came across a great article talking about the job trends of the coming decades, like Nano-medic, Climate change reversal specialist, Social 'networking' worker, and Quarantine enforcer (that last one is pretty kick-ass. I wonder if it comes with a stun gun?). But I didn't see one for Literature Delivery Specialist... Hmmm.

Finally, this morning, A reporter from KOMO showed up (and me in t-shirt, no button up! Poo!), and filmed and interviewed me with Ginger. It was cool. It was weird. And should be airing on TV as I type these words. They told me that it'll be on their website in a few hours so you all can see exactly how (un)photogenic this paperback maker is.

Rare & Collectible Offcuts; Amazon, do I see your hand in the Cookie jar?; Googlicious

2010-01-13T18:53:00.000-08:00

So being a press, you generate excess paper, right? This I quickly picked up and I've been religiously setting aside pieces of cut paper for reuse as scrap paper at all the areas of the bookstore. We now have more paper than we can doodle on in 3 months.

But we also ended up with these weird remnants that were glued together. Within the first few days I thought they'd make a great little notepad for myself. I didn't think further than that because, frankly, I'm an odd duck and what pleases me doesn't necessarily please others... So weeks went by and one day this excited lady knocked on my glass door. I was thinking "yes m'am, the machine prints books, in blah, blah...", but when I opened the door she exclaimed "Where did you get that notepad!?" I laughed and gave her a free one, and she said "You should sell those, they'd be popular." And so I did; and so they are. And we have trouble keeping them in stock.

C'mon on people, order books so I can put more offcuts out for sale!

I'm not sure I'm ok with this. There are many things that should be looked at. Firstly, if I've already purchased, say 1984 (yes, that choice is on purpose), Amazon now says that I can 'upgrade' my physical copy to be used on the Amazon Online Reader. I can search it, I can annotate, I can print from it. Wow. And Amazon keeps track of all of that. For one thing, privacy is a thing of the past. Of course if I'm anal, it means I can keep all my first editions clear of marks and write up all my insights on my' UPbook' (and all that content will be mine to own, right?).
Secondly, is Amazon cutting the publisher and author into any of the '$3.99' fee? Surely they can't justify not paying royalties simply because the customer bought a physical copy. Because if that's the case I have some Kindle titles I'd like to 'downgrade' for my bookshelves. That should only cost me $4, right? Right? Is shipping extra?

An interesting day here in Ginger land, with an another round of Google editions: A Ex-Michgander's nostalgia for his home state had produced "Early Mackinac: an Historical and Descriptive Sketch" ; two university students shyly approached my office, and I asked them if they had questions. After a moment I discovered that they'd already searched the online database and wanted a book. I invited them in (during non-public hours-GASP!) and we found their book, which I printed before their very eyes. The book "The Iliad" edited by Walter Leaf, is over 400 pages of the epic in greek with copious english notations. It was pretty cool to flip through. It was even better to see the look on their eyes as Ginger worked her magic. Stuff like that will keep me from getting jaded. And finally, I actually printed a book for myself! In my non-Press downtime I do freelance design and illustration. One project is for a child's version of the Hindu Epic, The Ramayana, written by the delightful Janet Brown. In the process of creating the illustrations I've been researching the artistic history of the legend, and while I've found great images online and in books for costuming and design, I haven't found consistency about the weapons and armor used by warriors. Until now. "The Art of the Attack: Being a Study in the Development of Weapons and Appliances of Offence, From the Earliest Days to the Age of Gunpowder". It has lots of information and illustrations. Hooray for Google Editions!

Twit; the Afterlife of Journalism; I can see all the way to your underpants, Publishing Industry.

2010-01-12T15:42:00.000-08:00

Howdy.
So the Press now Twitters...and shudders & convulses. Visit @3rdplacepress for witty 140 character-or-less asides. Feel free to heckle.

This remarkable journalist, after pain-staking research and interviews, was rejected by various magazines, and in frustration took matters into her own hands. What I find fascinating is that in this era of the 'death' of newspapers, and preceding it, the 'death' of real journalism, here's a solution that benefits not Newspapers or the corporations that run them, but the reason why News matters: the journalist.

Freelancing is tough, and in this case the writer put a lot of her own money into the article, for potentially no return at all. So there is a wealth of writing that sits in the hard drives & desk drawers of journalists that the world can't read because some Magazine or Newspaper didn't think it had a broad enough appeal. But in this global age, there's no such thing as a piece of journalism that doesn't have an audience receptive to it. I salute this writer and hope that she makes all her money back and inspires a legion of journalists... or wait, would the grouping be a bullpen of journalists? Just like the grouping a conspiracy of booksellers...

Over at Galleycat they have a poll going for the publishing insider with the most accurate view for how publishing will change over the next 10 years.
It's fascinating. And I don't agree with some of the predictions, but there are some astute views:

"Most authors will be indie authors" (Mark Coker)
"...book publishing will (finally) be transformed from a business that chops down trees and puts returnable books into bookstores... into one that finds ideas, funds the writers that need it, and uses their (authors' and publishers') leverage and skills to promote those ideas to people willing to pay for them, in whatever format is the most efficient way to get that transaction to occur." (Seth Godin)
" Amazon, now a de facto publisher, would throw off the cloak and come out as a full competitor with traditional publishers." (Richard Curtis)
" Territory will become a bone of contention as e-readers and e-book smart phone apps become available more widely." (Jane Dystel)
"A new breed of author rises, buoyed on a cult of Internet celebrity, fueled by their ability to quickly churn out opinionated/compelling content on a consistent basis, stay in constant communication with fans, deliver custom pieces directly targeted to audience requests, and generate works consumable in brief bursts that fit better with readers' increasingly hectic lifestyles... I suspect we'll eventually see the rise of ultra-prolific penmen that take advantage of electronic publishing (the main costs being associated with researching, writing, laying out and possibly digitally delivering books - not dealing with physical goods, storage, distribution, ongoing overhead, sales staff, etc.) to - regardless of actual writing experience or talent - powerhouse players in the industry." (Scott Steinberg)
And I Link to the whole of Richard Nash's piece, because it just kicks ass.

I take issue with Jane Dystel's predictions, mostly because they are too Agent-centric. She's ok with divisions at publishing houses shrink, jettisoning editors, lines, consolidating--all things that have put the industry in this mess. Less quality control from the editorial staff and more from the marketing departments. " Outrageous advances for "big" names will get even larger while those for others will continue to decrease"-- what she's describing there is the Publishing Industry careening drunk off a cliff, and while it may be a prediction it shouldn't happen. Huge advances need to come down in order to save the industry.

From Scott Steinberg we have this gem: "Today's books are basically passive, one-way transfers of information in which the reader willingly digests an author's words and views with no expectation of having a say within the context of the given dialogue."-- which is essentially the most Corporate-Speak souless thing anybody has ever said about the intrinsic nature of the book. I'm less likely to pay attention to his other predictions for the book, since I don't feel he respects it.

Richard Curtis says ""1. First and foremost I predict that the size and price of Espresso print on demand will come down to the point where POD kiosks will be installed in non-bookstores like supermarkets, libraries, pharmacies and the like. Which means that...2. The grip of Barnes & Noble as the go-to bookseller will be loosened. You'll be able to buy a book at Publix, Duane Reade, or Starbucks. You'll have a selection of millions of titles, not just what can be packed into the shelves and tables of a brick and mortar bookstore." It already exists with the mass market racks at such non-book places. But what Curtis doesn't figure is that people buying books at those places don't want to browse, they don't want too many choices, so while the customer may have access to millions of titles, they'll only buy from the 10 books highlighted on the main screen. Bookstores exist for the browsing experience, the happy accident, the ability to take 2 books (about blogging, say) and compare them.

Mark Coker: "95% of all reading will be on screens." This from an ebook company owner. "There will be fewer bookstores, though books will be more plentiful than ever before." But will he be happy about it when indie bookstores merge ebook sales with the walk-in experience (hurry up ABA)?

Ultimately, it's an interesting array of predictions and, whether they end up being right or wrong, worth your time to explore them.

Live from Lake Forest Park; Gettin' Medieval on your food; Ginger saves Polar Bears...

2010-01-07T18:23:00.000-08:00

The above video was shot to quickly convey the elegance of Ginger's book-making and binding process. The hillbilly in the Video is now a little better manicured. Oy vey, looking at video of myself is weird.

Anyhow, enjoy and share with your friends.

--
A burst of orders out of the gate today ensured that half my day was spent happily making books and doing book layout. One customer requested two truly obscure cook books: "Forme of Cury: A Roll of Ancient English Cookery, Compiled about A.D. 1390, by the Master-Cooks of King Richard II, presented Afterwards to Queen Elizabeth, by Edward Lord Stafford, and now in the Possession of Gustavus Brander, Esq." (fourth from the top in the link); "Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books". Which made me think of a piece Jim Harrison wrote for the food issue of The New Yorker one year. A friend of his was a gourmand of gourmands: He organized a dinner, with over a dozen courses, from recipes drawn from 500 years of cook books. Jim Harrison thought he was going to die. It's brilliant and supremely funny.

Printed "The Jacobite Relics of Scotland" by James Hogg, for an old music enthusiast. I was informed that Hogg initially passed all the songs and verses as being of Jacobite origin, but eventually it was revealed he's written them all himself. Cheeky.

And during the open hours (Tuesdays 4-6pm; Thursdays 10am-noon) I printed a book for a walk-in customer from beginning to end, he was out of the store with his new book "A Presidential Energy Policy" by Michael Ruppert, whose publisher encouraged him to distribute his book via POD and Ondemandbooks; the book's printing is a direct testament to the contents of it: rescuing the environment in whatever manner we can. Through Ginger, we saved, fuel, paper, and electricity that otherwise would've gone into shipping the book to us. More publishers should do this.

Great News from Another Star; You Gotta Hustle; Enjoy the Silence

2010-01-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

My morning started out with 2 items of exquisite joy, both from the same link.

I'm a huge David Mitchell fan, and I was delighted to read his short story for The Guardian . It made me happy, reminding me of what a great writer he is; he can be funny, profound, complex, experimental, and simply direct. Some samples:

"When you're a guy, and a dad," I told Freddy's scarecrow, "and you have to ask your wife to put £5,000 of her bonus into the joint account so that the garage won't refuse your card, and all the jokes about being a Kept Man are worn away, the word is 'vasectomising'..."

We agreed, but the stove, when it arrived, had only half the depth of the fireplace. This would create a gap between the back of the stove and the bricks of the hearth, but with Rumsfeldian [bold italics, mine] clarity our builder assured us, If a thing can get in, a thing can get out.

I paid, put my purchases in a box, and left 1-Stop taking a last backward glance, which is why I failed to notice the BlackBerry-wielding meteor hurtling down the pavement until it was too late.

The other news was the immanent release of Mitchell's next book The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet in June. Such a fine start to the year...

In the January 4, 2010 issue of The New Yorker, there was a profile of the band Vampire Weekend. It was a sunny, entertaining profile, following them on their tour of California for their new album. What I found interesting was the following scene, wherein they are talking to Tom DeLonge of Blink-182 at his rehearsal studio (hand transcribing due to the Subscription wall):

After the interview, he led the band into a conference room with a flat-screen TV and launched into a long pitch for an Internet project he was working on--"a prepackaged Web site" for bands, called Modlife."I term it an 'operating system,'" DeLonge said. "You could sell advance tickets, you could do advertising, you could do authomate V.I.P. parties. We're gonna be putting live auctions, e-commerce." he continued, "We're doing it with the White Stripes." He said Vampire Weekend could do all of its business through Modlife, with the Web site taking twenty-five per cent of the profits. He demonstrated a video chat-room function by talking to a group of his fans: "Hey, everybody, I'm doing a demonstration with Vampire Weekend. If you want Vampire Weekend to join Modlife, say 'Yes!'" The Chat-room users started responding "Yes!" "Yes!" "Yes!" One wrote "No!"

A bit later:

DeLonge shook his head. "I don't want to be freaking on the money part," he said "But you guys know and I know that you're trying to live in an industry that's dying. And so Modlife is trying to give you the chance to survive."

And after:

The Band members seemed rattled. "I started thinking about all kinds of things while he was talking," Batmangli said. "Like what it means to be in a band. Tom DeLonge is not that old. He's thirty-three. Seven years older than me--that's crazy." Tomson said, "You gotta hustle." No one spoke for a while.

(all copyright is The New Yorker and Lizzie Widdicombe. And if you don't have a subscription to the magazine, you really should. It's amazing.)

The reason I quoted this article is that it speaks volumes about how the music industry is reinventing itself, so fast and varied, like an evolutionary spike, a pre-Cambrian explosion. Who's to say that Modlife won't be a hit? There are so many variables and serendipities that go into the success of businesses, especially on the Internet.
I feel the same thing is happening in the book industry, with the whole Google rights issues, the e-book debacle with Amazon, and beneath it all-- the Espresso Book Machine model. Another time I'll devote a post that solely adresses those ideas, but for now it's fascinating to see how everyone's hustling.

Finally: It's been a quiet few days with Ginger. not that many books, most of them Google editions; I've been emailing with several people about projects and obscure book queries. I've taken the slower pace to work on one of the two author projects I mentioned before; it's nice, book layout and design is oddly calming, very zen for me.
And so it goes...

Less Free, Punchy & Bookish

2010-01-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

I have to start off this post with this link.

Copyright is an elaborate beast that can be used by both sides of the argument to great effect. The link above talks about Public Domain, and the recent laws have extended the 'rights' of the creator of a work to 70 years after death. Think about it: That's almost 3 generations of a creative person's descendants controlling something they might not care about at all. At the link they argue against the new copyright laws from the point of view of how it affects culture, and that's an important issue to discuss.
They're not talking about pirating books, or taking your ownership of a creative work; free access to the thoughts and imaginations of those who helped shape our modern culture is paramount.

I mentioned in an earlier post about Alan Lomax and his books on music ethnography; well, all his books are out of print, and his estate may be having trouble republishing the books (or they might not care)-- our culture definitely needs access to his work, and if publishers aren't going to take a chance on it, how are we to explore his work without buying expensive out-of-print editions? And one generation from now, when the mantle is passed on, will the next generation care about keeping his books in print? If he were Stephen King, maybe, but an author with a limited (but active) readership, probably not. And yet his writings would be locked up in copyright for another 50 years, regardless.

Book production-wise, Ginger's printed out a couple of interesting ones "Punch and Judy" which is a history of the reviled/loved puppet character and archetype. With illustrations, and footnotes, like the one that quotes Milton saying that fame is "That last infirmity of the mind". Ha!

And in another batch of Google Editions, the delightfully titled "Walking: a fine art as practiced by Naturalists and explained by Original Contributions to this Volume, and by Quotations from the published works of those who Love to Dally Along Country Lanes". Why don't authors choose long titles like this anymore, there was a time when " title, or blah blah blah, etc. etc" was common-place. Nowadays books published have 1 word, or a combination like "archaeological mystery/artifact/scientific discovery blah blah". "The Derringer Gut-Punch", "The Icoseles Expedition", "The Quantum Slippers"...

And finally, I'm having a great time designing books for two authors I've known for long time, who want books published through Third Place Press & Ginger. I can't share details yet, but I'll talk more about the projects as they near completion.

Oh. And Happy New Year!

Hollow Earth Treasure, Victorian Pulp revisionism, & Self Determinism

2009-12-30T17:07:00.000-08:00

Printed a great book today: Etidorhpa by Llewellyn Drury. An unusual title (it's 'Aphrodite' backwards), and even zanier concept-- a man finds a stranger in his living room, who then hands him a manuscript detailing travels inside the earth. It has some neat illustrations detailing the old man's visit to the Hollow Earth, where he is guided by a being that is completely hairless, eyeless, sexless. Just look at the PDF to see what I mean.

The Hollow Earth idea was the 19th Century's "Kennedy Assassination" of its era; it spurred all sorts of literature, plays, actual Scientific expeditions to the Arctic to find an opening to the realm, all for naught. The Hollow Earth theory hasn't entirely died out; there have been books about lizard people and secret tunnel complexes running the length and breadth of the planet, and the rumors that there are some caves in Tibet in particular... See? It's easy to get drawn into Fringe archaeology. It's even easier now that Google Editions can let you print these seminal works...

I started reading a book from Black Coat Press, who appears to specialize in reprinting 19th century French fantasy, gothics, and science fiction, as well as more modern European SF works. This one is directly inspired by Alan Moore's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" retro-pastich, with it's own unique alternate history fantasy-steampunk elements. The core of the story is that the residents of Neverland materialized one day in the middle of the Royal Gardens in London-- pirate ship, lost boys, indians, and faerie folk -- as refugees, and only Peter Pan stayed behind, to become a meance to the British (Albion) Empire. "The League of Heroes" is Lord Kraven, a Victorian-era military Doc Savage, Phileas Fogg, Lord Greystoke, Sherlock Holmes, Steam-powered iron suits, and plenty of pulp-references and a delightful tongue in cheek attitude. And I printed a copy out and put it on the shelf in Science Fiction. It's that easy.

If that book interests you, you should head over to our online database at: www.thirdplacepress.com to do searches for books to print. You'll be amazed what you find. And when yo udo, call the store and we'll print them out for you.

Flurries, mishaps, & Calling All Steampunks!

2009-12-28T17:42:00.000-08:00

It's been busy 4 or 5 days. You wouldn't think so considering Christmas and all, but on Christmas Eve we received orders for more books than we had printed up until that point. The interesting thing was that they were all Google editions.

Unfortunately, around that time Ginger decided to get the Flu; I spent the next few days troubleshooting any and all issues that popped up (it was really like a virus; incessant and seemingly all-encompassing.) I won't go into it here, but with the help of support I managed to resolve all the problems by today. It's tough work. A machine as intricate as this doesn't easily reveal where the problem is; I felt a little like a physicist trying to put a super-collider together. I had to do a lot of thinking before taking a step (but Ginger won't punch a min-black hole into the earth's core, thankfully).

The bad news is that I wasn't able to complete the "Leaves of Grass" project due to time spent dealing with Ginger, and an unexpected roadblock: an incomplete Public Domain scan. It appears that the only version of Whitman's Death Bed Edition of "Leaves" is actually missing pages of text. It hampered my progress, but I used a secondary source to plug the gaps. I just simply ran out of time. I misjudged the complexity of cleaning up poetical texts, especially if the original PDF it came from had marginalia, which gets translated as gobbledygook into a text file. I still plan to finish "Leaves" off some day; it will be the only "Complete" death-bed edition this side of anything Big Publishing has to offer, so it's worth finishing off.

Anyhow, back to those Google Editions: The true gems came from one order; a customer wanted to print 8 books for his Girlfriend as a Christmas gift. He'd been eyeing these books for over a year. And they were all of a particular, shall we say, Steampunk quality.
Here's the List: To The Poles by Airship, Indian Club-Swinging, Around the World with a Magician and a Juggler, Aeroplanes & Dirigibles of War, Wilde vs Whistler (not Steampunkish, but fascinating. Oscar Wilde published his vitriolic correspondence with the famous painter.). The pick of the lot was clearly D'Orcy's Airship Manual .

What an odd shape (it challenged Ginger's parameters)! But what an interesting book; copiously illustrated with photographs and schematics, this book displays the largest variety of dirigibles I've ever seen.
Surely there's A Steampunker with a novel/Role-playing/Art idea in need of this resource material?

Last post I mentioned my passing obsession for Stage Conjuring, but now it's this and other airship treasures. Yum.

Phat books and passing obsessions.

2009-12-23T12:03:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest (literal) challenges of working with Ginger and the database of books, is the page-count limit. The specifications talk about an outer extent of 850 pages, and no less than 40. That's quite a variance, and 97% of all books fit into that spread.

This chunky puppy to the left (The Dictionary of Dates...etc..it's a very long title) clocked in at 723 pages. Which made me a tad bit nervous, because books of such girth can cause...problems. See the image below.

We had a great laugh when this "Soviet Literature" book failed the way it did; it was a learning experience, and we're prepared next time an order comes across our database (like the Dictionary above). These issues are ultimately, the limits of the machine's basic functions, but not the limits of our innovation and imagination. Slightly thinner paper, splitting a book into multiple volumes--these are just a few possibilities.

Every day I keep stumbling upon, not just obscure books, but whole fields of interest in the Google Editions, & I spend some time looking at these lost topics. The public's attention can wax and wane in the book industry (right now we can't get enough of "My Dog/cat/squirrel & I share a special bond" books, for example). As these topics fall behind demand, the books go out of print, and, as recently as 4 years ago, were only available as super-rare used books.

But that's all changed. A simple search on our database for 'Circus' brought up many delightful books on Circus life in the late 19th- early 20th century (for now you can do the equivalent search at Google Books). "Theatrical and Circus Life: or, Secrets of the Stage, Greenroom, and Sawdust Arenas" is a comprehensive tome with dozens of illustrations of what the titles suggests; "On the Road with a Circus" is a journalist's account of actually traveling with a circus in the U.S. What continued my obsession was the realization that the availability of these books is not mere whimsy; circuses don't really exist in the modern era any more (for good reason, as this news item can attest), and some have evolved to be smaller, mostly acrobatic troupes. Regardless, there's probably a wealth of tips and tricks that modern performers can draw upon.

My most recent obsession is Stage Magic, partly fueled by my love of "The Prestige" (book and movie), and I may post about it another time, but once again, Google Books is an excellent armchair adventure.

Finally: local press. The Stranger's Book Section spent a little time getting to know Ginger recently, and Paul Constant's article is here. "Cherubic, and excitable," ah, an economic and apt use of language indeed...

Final Edit: We've set up a searchable database on our website & it can be found here.

Busy, Busy Digital Bees...

2009-12-21T16:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy 4-5 days for Ginger and myself. There was some kind of sea-change; whether it was a coincidental need amongst our customers, of the availability of particular books on the EBM database, or the Third Place Press employees becoming more familiar with the times we switch to searching for a POD title--something definitely happened.

We've printed one book for a Self-Publishing customer (actually a small publisher that wanted to present her author with a 'quick' copy while the hardback print-run goes to another press), and several books.

A sampling of titles shows how diverse people's interests are: "American Nervousness", "Invisible Storytellers: Voice-over narration in American Fiction Film", "Cooking with Spices for Dummies", "Adventures of Piang The Moro Jungle Boy", "Education, Health Knowledge, and Child Health in Coastal Ghana", "Autobiography of a Super-Tramp". An even balance of Google Editions & in-print titles shows Google was onto something when they first started digitizing vast collections of books.

I'm printing another book as I write this, occasionally wrestling with Ginger when she acts up (as all technology does eventually"; helping out over at the store with the mad rush of Christmas shoppers; endeavoring to work on "Leaves of Grass" amid the madness.

It's an odd Christmas; I've hardly felt it--the usual retail stress-- a new kind of calmer stress, more like a manageable sense of pressure, suffuses my days at work. It's a change I very much prefer.

And another day ends, and another day begins...

The Lost Books of Alan Lomax & the Strugatsky brothers

2009-12-18T11:55:00.000-08:00

Immediately after we went 'live' with Ginger we started encountering some 'purgatory' books; books that were still in copyright (either the author was still alive, or their estate was in charge), but were completely out-of-print in the U.S. The whole issue of rights management suddenly became a part of what we now deal with as booksellers.

Before, we just assumed that if the book was in the store, it was sellable, either as a new book or a used copy. Now, what happens is that we get requests and we have to scrutinize whether we can print the book or not. Part of the complexity is our commitment to have as many books as possible accessible to our customers. Google Editions hasn't scanned every book every printed yet, and Project Gutenberg & Internet Archive have an a decade or more head start.

I've found several books that are public domain pdfs that are possibilities for turning into what we call Third Place Press Exclusive Editions. We create a cover to go around the cleaned-up pdf and print it for the customer, at a slightly higher price than a regular paperback. It's a one-off, but that's ok; that's what the EBM was created for. An example is a book called "The Devil's Picture Book: A History of Playing Cards" a fascinating little book about card games from around the world, including Tarot.

A customer sent me an email requesting several titles by different authors, and one was on our database, "Roughing it in the Bush", which I then printed; another was a Ted Hughes book that was obviously still in copyright, just out-of-print here in the U.S.; the final books were by Russian-born Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, classic writers of visionary Science Fiction in the 60s and 70s. I found several versions of the brothers' books online as downloadable pdfs and text files, but since Boris was still alive, I felt uncomfortable with creating a print edition. So I sent word to a literary agent-friend, and hopefully I hear the final word soon.

And then there's the case of Alan Lomax a brilliant musicologist, who recorded and interviewed musicians of all kinds, around the world, preserving their musical knowledge and skills for future generations. A co-worker of mine wanted to get a copy of "The Folk Songs of North America, in English", for his friend; apparently the book is exhaustively researched and contains many chapters with techniques that would be valuable to folk & bluegrass musicians (which he and his friend are). It turns out the copyright still stands (Lomax passed away in 2002), but unfortunately the book is currently out-of-print. That's a shame since a book like that would do well here in Seattle with the Folk community... So if the Lomax estate is listening out there: contact me, I'd like to bring that book back in print for you.

Really, it's that easy with the EBM technology. Back to "Leaves of Grass"...

Designing books & Osmosis

2009-12-17T11:05:00.000-08:00

Aside from being able to print all these books from publishers and Google, we're able to access the brilliant Internet Archive for even more out of print titles. It's where we found the first book we made & designed under Third Place Press-- Arthur A. Denny's "Pioneer Days On Puget Sound". I put that book together using the no-quite-clean text on the Archive site, in Indesign & tried to keep a similar feel to the 1908 edition I used as reference. Though we did use our own cover design (See left). This'll be the format for all our Public Domain "Special" editions.
As I was working thought the text I couldn't help but absorb Denny's memories of the founding of Seattle. It's a rather dry accounting, but fascinating nonetheless. For about a week I was learning about obscure settlers and the first "Battle in Seattle" between the settlers and the Natives. It was fun. And now I'm about to go though it again.

"Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman is the next project on the table and I'm already learning. I've never been much into poetry, let alone Whitman, but just in the indexing of his poem titles, I've found some interesting things. For starters, the obvious 'I Sing the Body Electric' stands out because it was the title to a Ray Bradbury story collection, but others 'One Hour to Madness and Joy', 'Recorders Ages Hence','City of Orgies','As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life', and so on. I can't wait to get to some of these poems and see what the titles hint at.
Another unexpected pleasure to an already pleasurable job printing and making books.

Who is that Papier-mache man?

2009-12-15T16:53:00.000-08:00

So.
Now that Ginger's been introduced, I should probably account for myself. And why I'm in a potentially scandalous partnership with a machine named Ginger.

Ok.

First and foremost I've been a bookseller most of my life, before that I was an obsessive SF & Fantasy & Comic nerd in the 80s (oops. I just reveled my 'use by' date). I worked at several bookstores in my career; a now-defunct book chain called Crown Books (remember them?); then a very long stint at the venerable Elliott Bay Book Company here in Seattle (and contrary to any rumors, opinions, EbbCo. is going to be around a looooong time); and now I'm here at Third Place Books.

Bookselling has always been an amazingly rigorous intellectual job; you're brain never shuts down--whether you're recommending books to customers, trading opinions with co-workers, or trying to figure out how to bring in more business to your Indie Bookstore. But I've been watching the Publishing industry slide into this weird Stockholm syndrome-in-a-Wal-Mart situation where the art of bookselling is sorely under-appreciated. Until Indies build up the next sleeper hit (too many examples to cite here, but trust me). So a solution to this down-slide was badly needed. I think the EBM is that solution (more later on that).

So what's a bookseller like me doing in a place like this? As lead publisher & designer of a small Press? Luck and timing, mainly. But there's also my extended relationship with Graphic Design, harkening back to this SF&F zine I published long ago called PRESCIENCE. The experience of putting together the zine (old school Word layout, cut & paste imagery, photocopy all) led to the purchase of my first computer, an Apple Performa. Running Photoshop 5 and Quarkexpress. That was in 1995-6. I've taught myself most aspects of design, picked up handy tips from talented individuals--all while working at bookstores. That's the answer for the design side of my experience.

Publishing? In 2001 a brief stint at a wacky online start-up called Publishing Online introduced me to the concept of e-books and, further, Print on Demand technology. The wheels in my mind started spinning: how can both of these book formats work towards helping the publishing industry and Indie Bookstores (not Big Box Chains, 'cause frankly they could all switch to selling shoes and their board members probably wouldn't care)? I spent many years (back at a bookstore job) pondering the idea, but I didn't like how these start-ups were treating e-book design (design was virtually non-existent, and when it was it was clumsy), and the POD examples I'd seen were atrocious. Worse that uncorrected proofs.

But as the years went on, I noticed the growing innovation with e-books (Cory Doctorow's efforts along with SF&F publisher Baen Books), and heard rumors about this...machine...a machine that could pop a book out in 15 minutes. It was like as if someone had told me they'd seen a minotaur walking down the street one night-- plausible, but beyond my understanding at the time.

I'm going to skip a few years ahead and get to where we are. Third Place Books is investing in a vision of the future of bookselling, & book publishing Big and Small. It's going to take some time to get the public's mind around the concept (it took some time for booksellers to understand it, and the big publishers have yet to recognize the potential).
Which is why I'm writing this, why I'll be back to pester the internet with my ruminations...

A beginning, an ending, a beginning.

2009-12-15T16:17:00.000-08:00

Hello world.
Meet Ginger.
Ginger's an Espresso Book Machine. Version 2.2. She joined the staff of Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, a neighborhood on the Northern outskirts of Seattle, on November 9th, 2009.
Her Parents (I guess it's an apt description) are a group of crafty individuals from a company called On Demand Books.

So the relationship is pretty fresh. For a machine of such mechanical intricacies, Ginger runs pretty smoothly, and for those out there who haven't gone to the link yet, Ginger prints and binds a book in 5- 10 minutes (depending on page size).
It's pretty amazing.
It's why I started this blog.

In the weeks I've spent getting to know the the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) system, and it's associated database of millions of titles, I've learned a great deal. From layman's understanding of brute mechanical functions, & paper consistencies, to the deep well of obscure titles available just from Google Editions (those books you find on Google Books with full-preview PDFs and no Copyright).

Intermittently, I'll be posting about all these things and more, some thoughts on the future of the publishing industry, the survival of the independent bookstore, and the kinds of things Ginger and I will be doing under the aegis of Third Place Press.

I hope y'all come along for the ride.