Where Are We?

I think of myself as someone who really enjoys the written word. I used to be an avid reader but would not really consider myself much of one anymore. Why is that though? Is it because I am no disciplined enough, because I do not find myself as drawn to books anymore? I do not think has to do with either of those things. I think that reading has just managed to disappear from our culture a bit compared to the way that we used to see it. I wonder if I took a poll and people were really honest if they would be on my same page. Where will reading be in the future? Will we listen to books rather than read them? Will books become plot summaries instead of books or will we continue to lose ourselves and our imaginations to the classic novel? I think reading will always be around but I do wonder if there is going to be a large shift in some of the ways that we do read. There already is a bit of a shift, but it is minor in the grand scheme of things. What does everyone else think?

Publisher Interview

Here is my interview with ink brush publisher, Mr Craven... How did you get into publishing? Wow. Well, it goes back a long long ways. Back in the 70’s I started a literary magazine that published only poetry and published that for 7 or 8 years then I published a few collections of poetry through the publisher that was publishing the poetry journal for me. It was something that I had edited and put together and they put it out. Then when West TX A&M university joined the TX A&M university system and wanted to have a press series with the TX A&M university press the university president named me the series editor. I put out a book a year, nonfiction, dealing with topics of interest to people in West Texas and then I retired from teaching. I was an English professor. I’ve published some 25 books myself. After retirement from being a professor, I looked around the presses to publish some of the novels I’d written and discovered how difficult it was. It seemed nearly impossibly for writers of literary fiction or poetry to be published with the major presses. This was in about 2008. I started toying around with the idea of starting my own press. I realized that the publishing industry was changing very fast, learned what direction they were going in, discovered print on the mend was the coming thing and certainly the thing of the future. So I learned how to create books. I had to learn typeset, blank covers, how to upload to the appropriate printers etc. and then how to distribute books. I put out 3 or 4 books the first year and then 12-15 after that. What do you think the most important aspect of publishing is? For me, its getting really good books by fine writers into print so that those who would read them would have them accessible to them. Where do you think not only publishing but book culture as a whole will be in the future? Of course a lot of it is being taken over by electronic books. Amazon has sold huge numbers of books. I sold more eboooks than print books. Even though I keep hearing people say they’d rather read print than an ebook they all end up buying a tablet or something. Plus that technology is changing and improving so fast that a lot of people read books on their phones. Its possible for someone to have an ebook and read it on their phone then pick up their ebook reader and go from the same page as where they were reading on their phones. Its almost magical in term of whats available. Books will always continue to hold a fascination for people. Its how people get most of their information and get the most contact with our language. There will also be people who will also be interested in picking up a print copy of a book. With these new amazing printers, they can print a library quality book in about 4 minutes, I don’t think the print book will go anywhere. Print on the mend books, get reprocessed electronically and become e-books usually. Do you think that since people can self publish on the internet that it will make it more difficult for certain publishing houses? It does some. The self publishing industry has always been somewhat separate from publishing of really good literature and there are exceptions; Robert Frost published his own books initially. Ben Johnson in the 17th century published his own work and we call it the works of Ben Johnson and he was one of the great literary figures of his time. The ones who end up publishing their own work are really the owns who can’t write. The put down term for self publishing is Vanity Press because the fact is that these days anyone with money can put out a really nice looking book. Lulu.com, amazon.com etc. I mean A LOT of money. These people that fancy themselves as writers can self publish. Have you found sales on the internet to be especially beneficial? I’ve put some books on amazon as kindle books. I haven’t found that sales change on the internet vs. in a book store. I only know about one person as a publisher who makes the claim that they have made more money. Poetry, nonfiction, literary fiction- they sell to a light audience either in print or as electronic books. They will sell over a number of years. A fine writer such as AJ Bradely, who is one of the best poets I know, will have an audience that’s very small but after a 30/40 year span he will have a pretty large one just because people don’t read poetry in high numbers. Of the books that we see on your website that you have written and have been published which are your favorites? I started with poetry and I spent decades teaching myself to be a poet but after that started writing and publishing fiction. I like all genres, poetry is one that I tend to publish more of simply because there are a lot of good poets who cannot find a press. Most small presses have to make some kind of profit in order to stay in business and I don’t. The reason that I don’t is that I am retired and I figured out a way to publish and distribute books without costing me a whole lot. In fact, the poetry books that I have put out have pretty much paid for themselves and that is only because of the most recent technology in book production and I don’t take out a salary, I don’t need it. Were you always interested in the book and print culture? As a child I just read a lot. By the time I got to university I wanted to continue that and I wanted to continue reading good books and not knowing what to do with such an interest I got an English degree. Then I realized I had to make a living, went to graduate school and then became a professor. Finally, what has been the hardest part of publishing in recent years and the most rewarding? The hardest part was simply learning all of the things that I had to learn. I do it all from a very good computer system that I have at my desk but it requires that I know close to a dozen different compute programs. I have to know how to do cover design, book design. It all required a lot of imaging which is a bit unnatural to the way that I function. Its not terribly easy for me. The fun part was, after I mastered computer design, to discover that I was pretty good at designing book covers and I’ve taken to doing that for several book presses.

The following link is an article by David Sedaris written for the New Yorker in 2009. The piece is titled "Standing By". Its hilarious. http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=2010-08-09#folio=033 My thoughts; First of all, absolutely hilarious. Secondly, what is it about writing something funny? it seems much harder to really write something that will make a reader fall over with laughter. Are comedians smarter people? They certainly seem to be the unhappier of the bunch. Think about how many comedians have killed themselves. Anyway, thats besides the point. I just brought up this piece because I think its amusing, easy to read, but also seen in one of America's favorite, some would call it literary, magazines. The New Yorker is an American staple like TIME or LIFE- it is a part of the American newsstand, a part of our culture, a part of us. As times change and we begin to lose magazines on the newsstand and instead, they appear on our iphone stand, will it still be as much a part of our culture, a staple per se? Or will modernization change the good old American magazine?

reading to my children

When I’m older I wonder how I will read bedtime stories to my children, or if I will. Will I curl up in bed with them that first night that I read to them and crack the fresh spine of a new children’s book, or gently open up the first musty smelling page of one of my old books. Will they like my favorite stories of “Ferdinand the Bull” or of “Goodnight Moon”? Maybe culture, the world, will have changed so much that those books will no longer inspire the minds of young readers. Maybe they will already be born with different minds. What if babies came out reading? Not in our lifetime, but it is something to think about. No, I think our children will be raised on kindles and ipads and goodness knows what else. I think that books will begin to fade and they will become harder to find, they will become expensive. Only the rich kids in the private schools will have books and they will carry them around like some sort of status symbol in the fifth grade. The rest of them will be left to work with the bright screens that everyone else sees around them everywhere, all the time. Maybe there won’t even be a point in reading our children bedtime stories, I really hope that it isn’t the case but it’s such a mystery.

seriously?

Do do you think they mean "assistance"? It never ceases to amaze me. How can people honestly miss these VERY obvious mix ups? At the wedding that I had gone to last weekend I saw a few typos as well. The wedding was planned by a very well known party planner and had been perfectly set up for roughly 500 guests over the course of 3 days. There were multiple events that had been planned perfectly. There were cars and shuttles to move all 500 guests around. There was even a booklet in every bedroom of the hotel with a detailed description of how the weekend was to pan out; who needed to be where when, who needed to wear what, what there would be to eat at whatever time in whatever place. On the last page of this booklet the couple asked their guests to "Please refrian from posting photos on social media." I guess that not even the most well planned moment in time can be spelled correctly...

my grandmother's shelves

Old books, new books every kind of book. As our culture changes into a more modern one, driven by technology, we still find ourselves in love with the print on those musty pages. I was in south Texas last weekend for a wedding and stayed in my Grandmother’s house on our ranch. My aunts and uncles had just finished redoing the house for her and I was happy to sleep in a bedroom that did not have the smell of old age, but instead, newly painted walls. One morning, after breakfast, she took me into the storage room and asked me to help her sort through some boxes. She later explained that my Mother had paid for an archivist to sort through every book in the house and sort them all. Not only that, but each page of every book had been cleaned up as to preserve the old relics. I sat there thinking that my family had gone insane but also how neat it was that they were so willing to protect those old pages. My Grandmother pulled out a few copies of older books and showed me signatures of famous people that had written to her or my great Grandfather. There was even a copy of Huck Finn signed by Mark Twain (that’ll be worth something one day)! She explained that she wanted to preserve those books so that her grandchildren could always go to the shelves and find whatever they wanted in mint condition, whether it be an encyclopedia, a book on history, or a copy of Huck Finn. She really valued what these books had given her and wanted so many generations after her to feel the same way.

what writing is for me

Writing is a twitchy thing for me. I pay little to no attention to grammar. I disregard all the important things, really, that may put writing into the category of “high art”. Writing has just always been something that has been there for me, its always been a part of me. I don’t know if I’ve always been good at it, mediocre even, or if it’s just the one thing I’ve thoroughly enjoyed since I can remember. I love being able to sit down and feel some sick flood of inspiration come over me and just dilute every other sense. In those moments where I want to write, there is nothing else. All there is, the only important thing, is to write. I haven’t found a certain niche in writing yet. I’ve dabbled in short stories, fiction, poetry, manifestos etc. I don’t think I’d find myself writing for a living, not even as a critic or journalist. It’s the only thing I really do for me, which is maybe why I value it so much; that intimacy. I’m an incredibly open person, a “straight shooter” most would say and writing is the only thing I really have a problem sharing. It’s the root of the root of what I’m made up of, its not something I want to hand out to whoever or even those I love. The hold certain pieces have on me is bizarre. Writing is both something terrifying and self satisfying. It’s fertilizer, perhaps? It is such a fantastic feeling to read a book or a poem, anything, and find that one paragraph, sentence, word, minute moment in which it all clicks, and BOOM I find myself inspired. It is also so wonderful to find oneself going about our daily business when suddenly, there it is, that grand moment where all of those ideas suddenly string together and you get it! Its time to write this, this is what has had my mind racing for days, nights, months. On the other end of things, not writing…well, it stinks frankly. When I find myself without anything of importance to say or write I find that I am more bored with everything. With writing comes an understanding of ourselves, of our surroundings, and feeling as if we cannot write is almost as if we’ve lost touch with all of the concrete things that surround us every single day. All of that being said, all jumbled up, writing is a cataclysm of sorts. Its different for every person, its culmination of our darkest demons and lightest light. It can be simple or complex. It can be lost for years or right in front of us. Writing is the author.

Expectations

One of the best and worst things about reading is expectation. For instance, I think that most readers delve into whatever book or poem, anything, expecting to either walk away with a fulfilled mind or with nothing at all. When I am about to read a poem that I’ve read or that I know of, or that I’ve heard is good I go into it thinking I will read and then finish feeling inspired to think a different way, to write, or just leave with a new word that I like the sound of. When I read a novel I expect to lose myself in a story, I expect to escape reality. When I read something historical, autobiographical etc. I tend to expect that I will close the last page feeling smarter, like I’ve learned something about the world and those that have walked before me. When I read something from a new writer, I expect the unexpected. But all of the above I expect in PRINT. There is something about words on a screen that lower my expectations. If I find a book/article/poem/piece that I’ve read before on print and then read it online I find it less engaging. I don’t know if it may because the certain romance of the page is gone, or if the light on the screen is too bright, or if it has to do with the fact that I may have read the piece before. I find my senses dulled. I find my mind in other places. Its even worse when it comes to the “new”. There are thousands of blogs and websites designed for new writers just like there are thousands of libraries and bookshops all over the world but there is something daunting, sickening almost about the high volume of material on those sites. I sit there trying to decide what I ought to click on. I think, I think. How good can any of these really be? Self publishing online takes away a bit of the drive, a bit of the competition of who is actually GOOD and who is GREAT. Then of course, there are the really awful mixed up in the batch as well. But that’s the thing, why bother? If my mind seems to be hardwired to think that I am going to bore myself to death with one bright screened page after the next. We need to be able to sift better, to find the things that meet our expectations like all of our favorite books once did.

Author Questions

Author Questions 1. Who or what inspires you as an author? Ive just always written, there was never anyone I’ve ever read that I said gosh I want to do that. I have authors I like to read. I write cozies, mysteries. Its usually about a single woman. 2. Who or what motivates you as an author? Cause I’m not happy if I’m not writing. I just felt myself relax because I finished a novel. 3. What author[s] or book[s] influenced you as an author the most? Nothing really in particular because you don’t want to be derivative. But reading them, and because Ive written mysteries for so many years that I can now spot a poorly written one. 4. Most often, where, when, and how do you write? Since January its in the evening, 1000 words a night. I write and blog in the evening. I have my critique person, I call him my mentor, he was on the faculty for many years and hand carried me through my doctorate. Now that I’ve finished it, I’ll send it to him and I wont look at it again until I have his comments. 5. How is technology changing print culture, specifically regarding authors and readers? Well theres the whole ebook and pod business. Its overwhelming. I put two older books out to a company that does that. The publisher Im with now sells 10 ebooks for every print copy. The ebook comes out first and then the print, so you have to reformat. The last one, the ebook came out in August, but the print copy came out in December. I read on my ipad. 6. When you write, who is your intended audience? Anyone who reads cozy mysteries. Women almost exclusively. Usually older people. 7. How is the current technological revolution changing your audience? You have to have ebooks in genre writing. Its also, there’s no gatekeeper on the internet. Its harder to get an audience. 8. What do you think reading and authorship will look like fifty years from now? I have no idea. When I got into publishing in 1982 we were using typewriters. We’d get long galleys of what we had to read, and look where we are today. 9. How did you find a publisher, and how long did that process take? Mysteries are a whole different world. I used to write about the American list, I was published my Bantom in NY. When I started writing mysteries, I wrote to an agent I knew and he said “I liked it, but I didn’t love it”. Which is code for Im not going to publish you. I wrote an editor and then I finally found an agent who was so enthusiastic. Gradually, he got less and less enthusiastic. He sent it to 6 publishers in NY. The big houses already rejected it. So I sent it to a small press. I belong to sisters in crime, a writing organization, and they interviewed this woman from a press called turquoise morning and she said for me to send the manuscript. They called me back in February and said they’d publish it, and so that’s who I’ve been with. 10. How much did your manuscript change during your publisher’s editorial process? Not a lot. My mentor makes more changes. 11. Do you have a definite and specific organization and structure in mind as you begin writing? If so, how definite and specific is your outline? There are outliners, which I’m not. I’m a punster, I write by the seam of my pants. I think up a general one page idea when I start and that’s it and it often varies dramatically from when I start. One went a totally different direction and they made me change my synopsis. 12. How would you describe your writing process? On a computer. Sometimes, rarely these days, I’ll print it out and do some handwritten notes. 13. Do you have any writing habits or rituals that help your wiring process? I don’t like music playing, sometimes I have the TV low. 14. Do you write in multiple genres? I wrote about women of the American West and I’ve written quite a few children’s books both fiction and non fiction. 15. What was your first publication, and what do you think of this publication now? I like it. It was a book called “After Paul Was Shot”. When I wrote it I didn’t think I was writing a book for young adults, but I still like it. 16. Besides teaching and authorship, have you had any other jobs in the writing field? I haven’t really taught much. I was on TCU press. I’m not really comfortable teaching, but I could do workshops.

Author Questions

Author Questions 1. Who or what inspires you as an author? Ive just always written, there was never anyone I’ve ever read that I said gosh I want to do that. I have authors I like to read. I write cozies, mysteries. Its usually about a single woman. 2. Who or what motivates you as an author? Cause I’m not happy if I’m not writing. I just felt myself relax because I finished a novel. 3. What author[s] or book[s] influenced you as an author the most? Nothing really in particular because you don’t want to be derivative. But reading them, and because Ive written mysteries for so many years that I can now spot a poorly written one. 4. Most often, where, when, and how do you write? Since January its in the evening, 1000 words a night. I write and blog in the evening. I have my critique person, I call him my mentor, he was on the faculty for many years and hand carried me through my doctorate. Now that I’ve finished it, I’ll send it to him and I wont look at it again until I have his comments. 5. How is technology changing print culture, specifically regarding authors and readers? Well theres the whole ebook and pod business. Its overwhelming. I put two older books out to a company that does that. The publisher Im with now sells 10 ebooks for every print copy. The ebook comes out first and then the print, so you have to reformat. The last one, the ebook came out in August, but the print copy came out in December. I read on my ipad. 6. When you write, who is your intended audience? Anyone who reads cozy mysteries. Women almost exclusively. Usually older people. 7. How is the current technological revolution changing your audience? You have to have ebooks in genre writing. Its also, there’s no gatekeeper on the internet. Its harder to get an audience. 8. What do you think reading and authorship will look like fifty years from now? I have no idea. When I got into publishing in 1982 we were using typewriters. We’d get long galleys of what we had to read, and look where we are today. 9. How did you find a publisher, and how long did that process take? Mysteries are a whole different world. I used to write about the American list, I was published my Bantom in NY. When I started writing mysteries, I wrote to an agent I knew and he said “I liked it, but I didn’t love it”. Which is code for Im not going to publish you. I wrote an editor and then I finally found an agent who was so enthusiastic. Gradually, he got less and less enthusiastic. He sent it to 6 publishers in NY. The big houses already rejected it. So I sent it to a small press. I belong to sisters in crime, a writing organization, and they interviewed this woman from a press called turquoise morning and she said for me to send the manuscript. They called me back in February and said they’d publish it, and so that’s who I’ve been with. 10. How much did your manuscript change during your publisher’s editorial process? Not a lot. My mentor makes more changes. 11. Do you have a definite and specific organization and structure in mind as you begin writing? If so, how definite and specific is your outline? There are outliners, which I’m not. I’m a punster, I write by the seam of my pants. I think up a general one page idea when I start and that’s it and it often varies dramatically from when I start. One went a totally different direction and they made me change my synopsis. 12. How would you describe your writing process? On a computer. Sometimes, rarely these days, I’ll print it out and do some handwritten notes. 13. Do you have any writing habits or rituals that help your wiring process? I don’t like music playing, sometimes I have the TV low. 14. Do you write in multiple genres? I wrote about women of the American West and I’ve written quite a few children’s books both fiction and non fiction. 15. What was your first publication, and what do you think of this publication now? I like it. It was a book called “After Paul Was Shot”. When I wrote it I didn’t think I was writing a book for young adults, but I still like it. 16. Besides teaching and authorship, have you had any other jobs in the writing field? I haven’t really taught much. I was on TCU press. I’m not really comfortable teaching, but I could do workshops.

on interviews

I thought that I'd go into the reader interviews getting different results, but I was pleasantly surprised. I ended up having more people that read more than an hour a day and that knew quite a bit about literature. Maybe I got lucky and interviewed english students, or maybe there still is hope? I will say, though, that almost everyone spent a disgusting amount of time on their phones and messing around with social media.

Something on what I learned on the future of reading...

After we were all sent out to to find articles on the future of reading I came back having found one that said that we will still read but that our inability to deep read will forever hinder us. For some reason, which was not well explained in the article, there is something about reading on a computer screen or a tablet etc that does not allow us to deeply read.