Paperback Writer? -- Guest Post from Karen Blumenthal

In the world of nonfiction for young people, California librarian Jonathan Hunt is one of my gurus. His reviews and essays are always incredibly insightful, and his latest article in Horn Book is no exception. 

His thoughtful look at readers of children’s and young adult nonfiction comes on the heels of two recent experiences, the Texas Library Association annual conference and the upcoming paperback publication of my book Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition.

I was at TLA because Bootleg is part of the new Spirit of Texas Middle School program, which recognizes authors with a Texas connection. In addition, my book Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different is on this year’s Lone Star list for middle-schoolers, and I had a chance to visit with some of the amazing librarians who devote their precious spare time to reading and picking books for these lists.

One of them surprised me with her description of her readers. Her middle school students are “insulted” by heavily illustrated nonfiction and almost shun them, she told me. Instead, they gravitate to smaller books like Steve Jobs because it’s neither too thick nor too thin, and it is sparingly illustrated.

Hunt said almost the same thing in his essay, noting that “too many photographs can rob author and reader alike of the opportunity to exercise their imagination.”

As an avid nonfiction reader who would appreciate more photos and relevant images in adult books, I always assumed illustrations brought a greater depth and visual dimension to a true story. But they have another side effect: To properly display images, nonfiction children’s books are somewhat larger than fiction books, which gives them the appearance of either picture books (babyish!) or coffee table books (and who wants to actually read those?)

In fact, Hunt makes the case for smaller “novelistic” book sizes for factual stories, saying that they circulate easily in his library, without any special selling from him.

That’s encouraging news for Bootleg, which is the first of my four books for young people to go from hardcover to trade paperback.  (Steve Jobs was published simultaneously in hardcover and paperback.)

Lauren Burniac, who oversees the paperback imprint Square Fish, says the Bootleg paperback, which will be out in late July, will be smaller in size than the original, which itself had a smaller trim size than many contemporary nonfiction books.

Paperback edition

While many young adult and children’s novels are published in paperback about a year after their hardcover publication, few nonfiction books make the leap. But with Common Core Standards calling for more students to read nonfiction and with school and library budgets tight, Burniac says that roughly a quarter of her paperback list is now nonfiction, up from just two or three titles before.

“We’re making a real effort to bring nonfiction into paperback,” she says, with the hope that a lower price will bring the books not just into libraries, but also into classrooms.  (And, I hope, maybe on to home bookshelves!)
            Will a paperback nonfiction book in a smaller size attract more buyers and more readers?

Or does that old publishing saw hold, that people choose fiction for the authors and nonfiction for the subject?

What do you think?

Why Do Books Publish on Tuesdays?

Why do books get published on Tuesdays? I have a book coming out in June, The Boy Who Loved Math, and yes, it's June 25th, a Tuesday. I looked back to when my novel Intentions pubbed--August 14th, a Tuesday. I didn't always know this; in fact I just found it out this past year.  I wish I could remember who told me. But the other day I was talking to Ziki, the man who sticks needles in me to make my back and leg pain go away. We made an appointment for the next week (tomorrow) and I told him that afterwards I would be going to a book party for my friend Marguerite's new book:

"But it's not a Tuesday," he said. I told him a book party doesn't have to be on the release date--but wait, how did he know that?  He wasn't sure, he just did. He said that albums always had a day to release (he thought Fridays, and maybe it used to be so, but now it seems CDs and DVDs of movies release on Tuesdays, too).

I asked a few people, and no one seemed to know. I posted my question on twitter and got these answers:

Tradition based on coverage in Sunday papers and getting books on shelves is my understanding.

I asked: 
Are they reviewed the Sunday before or after. 

The answer: 

Before. So that booksellers get to spend Monday explaining why people can't buy the books they just heard about.

Hah. 


Other people chimed in with links: 

http://www.verlakay.com/boards/index.php?topic=64015.msg754277#msg754277

http://www.themillions.com/2009/06/ask-book-question-73-tuesday-new_09.html

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/08/17/amazon-monthly-100/

And other answers: 

I've heard shipment was a factor--UPS boxes come Monday, scan & put out CDs, etc., Tue.

Probably a less busy day for most stores too. But no one seems to know for sure.


I'm 99.9% sure books are Tues b/c of Music release on Tues. So ? would be why music on Tues.

This might answer that question: 

http://rulefortytwo.com/secret-rock-knowledge/chapter-4/why-are-cds-released-on-tuesdays/ 


I read all of those (you don't have to) and it still seems to me that no one knows for sure... I asked some friends who are publishers and editors: nope. They didn't know.

And so I started thinking two things:

1. In the old days, I would have called a reference librarian. My old friend from the Doylestown library (where I used to live) would have found out for me, I know that for sure. So I decided to call the New York Public Library. Oops. I waited too long. It's Presidents' Day. Library closed. But it took me almost a week to remember that I used to talk to reference librarians for this sort of thing. Yes, kids, before the Internet. I used to go to the library, go up to the desk and say, "Jan, how do I find out the answer to this question?" And sometimes Jan would just find out for me, and sometimes she would teach me how to fish. I did this for a long time, even after there was The Internet, until it became more or less part of my right hand.

2.Will this change? Whatever is the cause, will Tuesdays as pub dates change if there are more ebooks and fewer bricks and mortar bookstores? Then will people release books willy nilly? Do people who self-publish books follow the Tuesday rule?

I'm really hoping that someone will post here and tell me... Why do books publish on Tuesday? I've just spent so much time on this... as so often happens when one (me) gets stuck on a research treadmill. I just want to know the answer!

Uh oh. Wait a minute. I just looked up Marguerite's book and it officially published YESTERDAY. Which was Monday. According to Amazon. And B & N. Her publisher just says February. Okay, now I'm really confused.

Jumping Through Hoops

Last February, while driving to Vermont, I received a phone call from a businessman friend, Mike Landau, who has watched the development of iNK Think Tank  with great interest.  He called to let me know that Apple had just released a new FREE program, iBooks Author,  that formats books for the iPad so they can be sold in the iTunes store.  iTunes saved the music industry by monetizing each song so people could create  individual playlists.  Wow!  What an opportunity!  iPads are the tablet of choice in schools.  The playing field has been leveled.  It’s now possible for our publishing company,  iNK Books & Media (we reserved the domain name as part of iNK Think Tank) to come into being.  Since we don’t have enough money to invest in our hiring someone, I could now learn to format books myself.

That afternoon, I downloaded iBooks Author.  (I learn by plunging in and making mistakes, so I never hesitate to try something new.)  It required a free upgraded operating system for my Mac, which meant I had to pay for an upgraded Microsoft Office for Macs, but hey—we were on our way.  One of the BIG issues for us children’s book creators is that other devices for ebooks are mostly for text only and don’t show art well (although that is now changing).  The iPad, with its backlighting and relatively large (7” x 9”) screen is a stunning way to display images.  I knew that I had to learn the program, but first I had to find a way to take apart a book and get it scanned.   You Tube has some videos for that but it still takes some skill to do a good job.  I took my first deconstructed book (with all rights reverted--an earlier battle) to my local Staples where my name on the book stopped them from questioning me about my right to get it copied.  (Now I have a relationship with all the copy folk so I can get any book copied.)  I enclosed a flash drive and had them make high res scans (600 dpi) in both the pdf and jpg formats.
I uploaded the images first into iPhoto to crop off ragged edges, enhance the color, and make small touch-ups and orientation corrections.  At first, I wasn't all that familiar with iPhoto so there was a learning curve for this step; but by April I was finally ready to try and create my first book with iBooks Author.  The program offers a lot of templates where you can design a book by dragging art and text into their boxes.  I have a feeling that they had their designers work with textbook people, who are fighting hard to maintain their hegemony in the school market, and then threw their text-booky-looking templates out there for us to play with.  With the help of an online support community, I learned I could use the blank page option as my template to drag, drop, and resize images to create our books.  But the hair-tearing-out aspects of learning iBook Author, pale in comparison to the other hurdles thrown my way.

            Rather than bore you with the countless frustrations let me itemize all the learning curves:        

• We had to become paid vendors in the iTunes Store.  Apple has a 32 page contract (enough said!)
•  Each book requires an ISBN number.  This means learning how to assign ISBNs to new titles and register them in the Bowker database so that Apple will recognize them.  (iNK now owns 100 ISBNs. We've used 14.  I'm optimistic about using them all. )
• After the book has been formatted, you have to create a "book package" for delivery into the iTunes store.  This means learning a totally different program called iTunes Producer for Books, which includes a lot of "metadata" about each book. (I’m lucky I’m not bald!)
•  Finally, each book package is sent to the iBookstore. At first, they don't make the cut and error messages abound.  But they have a help phone line.  ( I now know everyone in that office.) 
• After the books are uploaded, I have to wait for the iTunes book review committee to review each book and issue a ticket for infractions.  BTW, the iBooks people communicate with the iTunes people only by email.  There are no humans talking to humans.

By last week, I had successfully uploaded 14 books, of which 13 were on sale in 5 markets, the US, UK, Ireland, Australia and Canada.  The last book was not approved because it had “scanned text.”   They want the words laid into text boxes from a word-processing program so that they can use their new live dictionary and voice-over pronunciation function.  With the vague feeling that I was waking a sleeping dog, I spoke to an iBookstore person and sputtered, “But all of our books are scanned, and they were approved!”  Guess what!  I am now the proud possessor of 14 tickets and none of our books are in the market! Still fighting the good fight, I responded  to each of the 13 tickets with a highly articulate (possibly politically incorrect) letter about why we don’t need the dictionary look-up and that they were denying the bookstore superior works by well-established professional authors. No response so far from the anonymous powers-that-be at iTunes (the iBookstore people are sympathetic but relatively impotent).

After a few days, I bit the bullet.  For many of the books, the text (not fully copy-edited) exists in Word files.  This means that if I remove the text from the art with PhotoShop, I can reinsert the stripped art into iBooks Author and cut and paste text into text boxes—a LOT of tedious work.  But I’m a knitter and can handle it.  My new challenge is learning PhotoShop Elements so I can strip the text and match the background color.  I am now a one-trick-pony with that program but it was enough to get one of the scanned –and-banned books back into the iBookstore, where it is now awaiting approval.  (New error messages appeared on the other two books I prepared.)

This post is my long-winded explanation for why we haven’t triumphantly announced the opening of our publishing division, iNK Books & Media.  It’s also therapy for me. Thanks for reading this far. xxxo

Honor Thy Reader: The Making of a Nonfiction Picture Book

After the longest hiatus in my career, I have a book coming out early next year called This Place Is Cold.  Actually, it’s not a new book.  It is a revised version of a book originally published in 1989 that never went out-of-print.  But after a 24-year run (not bad!) I was asked to take a look at it and cut it so it wouldn’t look so “text heavy.”  (Subtext: today’s kids have shorter attention spans; it must look less wordy.)  I was also to update the relevant information, especially about global warming. The designer would give it a fresh new look but the fabulous art, by my dear friend Barbara Lavallee, still makes this a book anyone would want to pick up.

After spending the past three years writing more than ever for blogs, and emails, and other business related projects, the various stages of This Place Is Cold that required my review suddenly made me aware of how much attention goes into the making of a book product for children. It was in stark contrast to my current writing, which is read only by my eyes before it is published.  (Of course, we all know that online publications are only for the moment.  No one expects them to be perfect.)   

First, there was the editing—queries from my editor who worked on the revisions script.  Next came the copy-edited manuscript, where I had to respond to tiny details that I thought I had already answered.  For example, I wrote:

“It's no big deal to have a pilot's license in Alaska. One person in every sixty-one has one.”   (The original version said “One person in every seventy-six has one.”) I had to check on those figures twice for two different passes.

 

I was struck by the care that was taken and the sheer number of times this small book had been read by so many different people.  So I asked one of my editors, Mary Kate Castellani, if she could fill me in on the process.  How many times is a book read and corrected before it is released to the world?  Here’s her summation (my comments in black):

• ·         Author and editor work on manuscript [Who knows how many readings that involves!]
• ·         MS is copyedited and if a work of nonfiction, all the facts are checked against trusted sources. Any information that can’t be confirmed independently of the author will need to be sourced by the author. [copy editors read a manuscript several times]
• ·         Copy edited manuscript is sent to author for corrections. Then returned and checked [a couple of more readings]
• ·         Artwork is also turned in and checked for errors, inconsistencies and any other problems.  Once the art is corrected, it is sent to a printer in Far East to make hi-resolution scans for the book design.
• ·         MS is sent, along with cover copy and any additional information to the designer. [Designer reads ms.]
• ·         Designer creates design samples to share with editor to preview font choices, and general design elements.
• ·         Editor shares design samples with the author.
• ·         Once design samples are approved, designer sets entire book from start to finish using hi-res scans from printer.
• ·         A first pass set of mechanicals (initial layouts) is then routed in-house where editor, production editor, publisher, school and library marketing director, and art director all review. [Five more readings!]
• ·         Sets of mechs are simultaneously sent to author and illustrator to review for errors or any issues with layout. [2 more readings.]
• ·         All queries and comments are resolved, and mechs are sent back to designer to input all changes and make any design adjustments.  The designer then routes the second pass mechs to route in house again, this time only to the editor, productions editor and managing editor.  Any major changes may be shown to the author/illustrator once more. [another five readings]
• ·         Book closes for proofing and is sent to printers in Far East.
• ·         F&Gs (folded and gathered sheets) are pulled from the proofing stage.
• ·         Proofs are sent to New York office to be reviewed in house for any errors. Sets of proofs are sent to author and illustrator for one last review. At this point any changes cost money at the printer, so should be reserved for major changes/errors.
• ·         Art director and designer check proofs against original art to make sure the color is as it should be.  
• ·         Proofs are returned to printer for final printing.
• ·         Printer sends one last set of plotters to check for any last errors.
• ·         Plotters are approved and books are printed. 

With so many opportunities for the author/illustrator and the in-house editors to check the pages, the book is printed without mistakes.  While an error certainly does happen every once in a while, we always correct any mistakes if and when the book is reprinted.   In my time at Walker, there have been only a handful of errors—usually reported by readers, who do very careful reads of their own!

By my calculations, a thirty-two page picture book of 3,000 words (5 typewritten pages single spaced) is reviewed by at least seven people, each reading it an average of four times—25+ readings before it becomes a book.  Talk about dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s!  This much investment is a statement about honor and pride of workmanship but mostly it is a tribute to the ultimate user—children.  In the writer’s jargon of “show, don’t tell” my book shows them, “We’re giving you our very best.  It’s what you deserve.”   It is also designed to last and to be treasured.

New Hope for Old-Fashioned Books

Exactly one month ago I received an email from my friend and colleague (and fellow East Bay resident), Marissa Moss. It began almost apologetically:

“I know this probably comes out of thin air, but I've heard from so many talented writers and illustrators that they have problems getting contracts now from the major NY publishers who only want books with mass market appeal …”

Sounds like an understatement in these days of publishing uncertainty (aka “crisis”) but I was hooked. Marissa is a versatile writer and illustrator of both fiction and non-fiction, full of ambition and creativity, who has enjoyed considerable success. What was she up to?

“The golden age of picture books, when fine books were edited and published despite not being blockbusters, doesn’t have to be over,” she wrote.

Instead of lamenting the demise of publishing as we knew it, Marissa announced that she is going to turn the dearth of publishers seeking to put out beautiful books into an opportunity. She has found financial backers who share her values, and she is starting a new publishing house intended to turn back the clock by producing “quality books the old-fashioned way.” Golden Gate Books will make its mark with children’s fiction and non-fiction that book-lovers will want to hold, admire and read repeatedly.

This is actually the second recent blast of publishing news to gust my way. Our own INK is becoming a publisher of e-books, starting with the out-of-print titles of our members. I have four titles ready to go, as soon as I do the necessary scans and we work out the contract details to sell our books on the iTunes store and perhaps other e-marketplaces. This is exciting news not only because it gives authors a chance to immortalize our books and make them available at very low cost to interested readers, however many or few they may be. I am also thrilled because it is the impetus I need to enter this new world of publishing and experiment with its myriad possibilities.

While INK, for starters at least, will be e-publishing out-of-print titles (which, in the current reality of publishing, does not mean out-of-life or out-of-value titles), Golden Gate Books, despite valuing the paper-in-hand approach to reading, may also enter the e-realm by releasing all of its titles as e-books within months of their print debut.

Whether or not its titles have an e-life, Marissa is embracing web-based promotion and even fund-raising. Right now she has enough money committed to plan eight books during GGB’s first year, but if she can raise an additional $50,000 she will go for twelve with a larger marketing bang for all of them. She is using www.kickstarter.com, a fund-raising website that follows the NPR model to seek pledges from donors who receive premiums at different levels depending on how much they give. No pledges are actually collected unless the goal is achieved. In this case, it’s $50,000 in pledges by April 19, 2012. Check it out and please feel free to choose your premium:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/404352146/golden-gate-books-a-childrens-book-revival

Here is one piece of the pitch, where Marissa (writing from the future) summarizes the mind-set of today's typical publishers:

"Instead of taking risks on new voices or subjects, they focused on what had already sold well – one Harry Potter book led to a slew of imitators. One Twilight book created a wake of supernatural novels. Instead of looking for the great books of the future, they looked for books that were like great books of the past."

I would make one edit: change “great books of the past” to “successful books of the past.” I recall my appearance at the Texas Library Association conference in April, 2000, after my book If You Hopped Like a Frog had just come out with Scholastic. It put forth a new, enjoyable approach to proportional thinking in which human abilities were compared, proportionally, to those of animals. Proportion is an important concept in algebraic thinking, taught in various ways (most of them confusing, boring or both) throughout the upper elementary and middle school grades. The Scholastic team was out in force at TLA giving away, waving and wearing a plethora of promotional items in various shapes, sizes and levels of extravagance. Did even one of these marketing pieces reference my book or that of any other up-and-coming author? Not on your life! Every single one was about Harry Potter, whose third (or was it fourth?) installment was hitting the American market. Harry really needed the help, didn’t he?

On May 25, 2009, I wrote a blog post here called “Paen to a Publisher,” in which I paid tribute to one of my publishers, Tricycle Press, which (along with its parent company, Ten Speed Press) had just been bought by Random House. I wondered aloud whether the many uncommon practices that had made Tricycle my favorite, if smallest, publisher would be retained once it became part of the world’s largest media conglomerate. (For example, Tricycle ignored a near-universal convention in publishing by allowing an author to have a voice in selecting the illustrator for his or her book. Tricycle even allowed authors and illustrators to influence editing decisions and sometimes gave them the final say. Can you believe?)

I have never written a postscript to that discussion and here it is: in January, 2011, Random House announced that it was scuttling Tricycle Press. My favorite publisher is history. One of the many pieces of flotsam left adrift by the maelstrom of that decision was my manuscript I Rot: The Fall and Rise of a Halloween Pumpkin, which I described in my May 24, 2010, INK blog post called “Researching With Researchers.” Since then, I have been seeking a new publisher for my rotten manuscript (and the revolting photos by Dwight Kuhn that accompany it).

Along comes Golden Gate Book, seeking authors and illustrators with worthy manuscripts in search of a publisher, authors who have established relationships with booksellers and who effectively promote their own books through school visits and other appearances. . . Along comes Golden Gate Books, promising to give the creators of books an unusual amount of control over their projects. . . Along comes Golden Gate Books, “a company that cares about the magic that happens when a parent reads a picture book to a child.”

And I am now delighted to announce that the magic of a decomposing pumpkin (and it is magical in its own transformative, regenerative way) will be featured on Golden Gate Books’ first list in the Fall of 2013.

Have you ever waited at a bus stop? Waited and waited at a bus stop? You watch cabs rolling by, watch buses going the other way, watch your watch with increasing irritation. Finally your bus does come--with two or three other buses right behind it. A herd, a pod, a troup of buses. Very annoying, isn’t it?

A similar thing has happened to me in the publishing world, but I’m not sure whether it’s annoying or not. In 2004, I had five books come out in one year. And, up until a few months ago, I thought I would have four coming out in 2012.

How does this happen? I’ve never written four or five books in one year, so how do they get bunched up on the other end like buses? Good question. Some books go into production relatively quickly, while others take a long time to write. For example, I wrote a book called Skyscraper that chronicled the making of the Random House Building and I couldn’t write any faster than the construction. It had a four-year gestation period and came out in 2004 along with Choppers! that took about two years from research to release. Other reasons? Editors have babies. It can take a while to find the right illustrator or to wait for an illustrator to finish two other projects before starting yours or the illustrator goes on strike. The economy tanks and publishing houses thin their seasons and spread out the books so your pub date jumps a year or so into the future.

Let me be clear, I’m not complaining, really. I know having a bevy of books is an embarrassment of riches. It’s certainly better than no books at all, or a surfeit of buses traveling in a pack. But what are the pros and cons for the author—and the books?

In the old days, the perception was: bringing out more than one book a season or a year meant the author was competing against herself. Mark that down as a notch in the “con” section. Of course in the old days, most authors published with only one house so the publisher would be competing against itself too; they controlled supply and demand.

Today many children’s book authors work with several houses. We cannot act as traffic cops giving Simon & Schuster the green light for one season and putting Penguin on hold. Now publishers are competing against each other. Has that changed the model? Does it help or hurt the author? And given the increased avenues of media, does having multiple books out at the same time increase buzz? Advertising wisdom says the more consumers hear something, the more likely they will remember it, perhaps become interested and start word-of-mouth.

In 2004, I decided that if there was any time to hire a publicist, having five books come out was it. Susan Raab and I concentrated on three of them. Susan was great and responsible for a good deal of the media coverage they received. So having that many books in one year pushed me to hire a publicist. Having her work on three in one year was also cheaper than if I had hired her for each separately. Furthermore, it may have garnered more results. If a journalist wasn’t interested in one, Susan had an opportunity to mention two others that might be more tempting. Three checks for the “pro column.”

There is another serious con, however. Just as a band of buses assures someone is going to have to wait a long time before the next clutch arrives, if you have four or five books come out in one year, chances are, it will be a while before the next release date. And if it’s quite a while, you feel the effects. Without something new in the offing, your name isn’t as much in the public eye as a reminder of your whole body of work. You get fewer invitations to speak at conferences during the lull. You, or at least I ended up feeling de-energized, even though I knew I had “books in the bank.”

That’s why I was so easygoing when my editor called a few months ago to say we had to delay my fourth 2012 release, How Do You Burp in Space?, a kids’ tourist guide to space travel. I was gracious and calm in response to a conversation I’m sure she had dreaded having. After all, I’m an experienced professional who knows that these things happen.

And now I also have a book coming out in 2013!

Here's my 2012 line up: