Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Hot and chance of showers
One of the big assumptions we make in this new age of digital publishing is that we will have the power to make the technology work. I haven’t seen anybody addressing that issue, but it seems we should in this age of brown-outs and computer crashes and having to back up our writing “just in case.” I am reminded of the saying about what assumptions do to all of us.
What is your principal concern as we head full-scale into the age of electronic publishing? Here are three that come to mind for me: (more…)
By Etta Wilson on Jul 30, 2010 in Authors, Blog, Publishing News | 6 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville office
Weather: Low 90s and muggy
A sentence on page 20 in Publishers Weekly’s recent July 19 issue on children’s books for this fall caught my eye: “…It’s unclear whether parents will fork over the money for kids to use a $499 iPad that might easily fall into the toilet or sandbox.” I hadn’t thought of that!
It’s one thing for a child to leave a $14.95 hardcover or even a $6.95 paperback out in the rain or let the dog chew it, but it’s quite another for him/her to do the same with the expensive hardware needed for an electronic app, no matter how cheap the app. I should have thought of this because one of my young grandsons is not the most careful, and I bet lots of parents will have the same thoughts.
Regardless, it does seem clear that creators of content for children–that’s you authors–must at least try to think of interactive product. The closest we have come at this point is in lift-the-flap books, cut-outs with texture (think Pat the Bunny) and multi-novelty creations like Paul Zelinsky’s The Wheels on the Bus. Now, the emphasis seems to be on converting formerly published titles with sales vitality into something that “comes to life” through technology, puts children in the content and to some extent lets them have control over it.
The writing in the sand points to a reinvigoration of content for all readers, but not necessarily new content. Rick Riordan’s 39 Clues Series, launched in 2008, is telling in this regard. The series included books, cards and online games with a designated website. But the series, written by four different authors, all had some reference to historical characters. It was new technology applied to conveying existing knowledge. Incidentally the final book, Into the Gauntlet, will be published at the end of August with a print run of 750,000. I’d like to see the number of hits the website gets.
One more quote from the article: “Publishers will focus on producing the best possible stories–and then making them ‘discoverable.’” And we know who writes those stories, don’t we?
How do you feel about making the shift from writing for the page to writing for the screen?
By Etta Wilson on Jul 29, 2010 in Blog, Children's books | 7 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Hot and cloudy
Being a kids book’ advocate, I don’t think you can start little ones too early in grasping new experience from a book. Well, maybe I draw the line with prenatal reading, but I’ve had too many lovely experiences holding those six-month-old cherubs and sharing books with them not to think it’s valuable.
Of course the question comes to mind about their ability to absorb meaning from the page versus the feeling of being loved while wrapped in the arms of a caring adult. Does it really matter if the love a child feels at this stage carries over to a love of reading? The book and the love can become indistinguishable.
But what about all this talk and some evidence that kids of today have become adapted to and enamored with electronic formats? At what stage of a child’s life does that take place? (more…)
By Etta Wilson on Jul 28, 2010 in Blog, Children's books | 9 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Hot and muggy
A recent quote in Newsweek from Anna Quindlen caught my eye: “Well, what is a book really? Is it its body or its soul?” I think that was her way of asking the question many of us have about the relationship between content and format. The two have been considered one for so long. Reading automatically meant holding and turning bound pages, but that was before the digital age. This revolution is certainly noticeable in the area of kids’ publishing. (more…)
By Etta Wilson on Jul 27, 2010 in Blog, Children's books | 3 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Hot as you-know-what
The title for this post has a broader meaning than at first may come to mind. As I read the summer movie listings, review publishers’ offerings of games, and receive inquiries about film rights-all based on children’s books, I can’t help thinking what terrific influence authors of children’s books have.
Beverly Cleary’s classic books about Ramona Quimby have just hit the big screen in the full-length film, “Ramona and Beezus.” For an older audience, Stephanie Meyer’s third book and film, “Twilight Saga:Eclipse,” is playing, though it’s questionable whether the book or the film was birthed first. And if you think kids books include comics, you’ll want to know about ComicCon, the annual San Diego conference devoted to that format that took place last week. I heard it was awash with trailers for viewing. (more…)
By Etta Wilson on Jul 26, 2010 in Blog, Children's books | 21 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
It used to be that, for first-time writers, the best way to break into the publishing world was through writing nonfiction. Yet without a platform, today it’s difficult for writers to find traction in the market, and without a recognizable name, their personal stories, even if wonderful, are less likely to be purchased.
Let’s do an informal survey on nonfiction books.
- What are you interested in reading in the nonfiction realm?
- What have you liked in the past and why?
- What would you like to see published?
- What holes are out there, and what types of writers should fill them?
- How helpful has nonfiction been to your personal life?
By Michelle Ule on Jul 23, 2010 in Blog, Life, Nonfiction, Reading, Writing Life | 7 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
I’ve always loved memoirs. I’m interested in the personal, how and why people do things, and so a memoir provides me an opportunity to examine the writer’s life through his or her eyes. I even wrote a spiritual memoir several years ago and felt honored when one of my readers said, “I really appreciate how you just tell the story and let me draw my own conclusions.”
Testimonies have been a mainstay of Christian witnessing and publishing. Perhaps the most famous early book was Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, first published in 1563, which detailed the lives and deaths of the early Christians. More modern Christians made Elisabeth Elliot’s Through Gates of Splendor, the story of her husband’s martyrdom with four others in Ecuador, a best-seller in 1957. (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Jul 22, 2010 in Authors, Blog, Life, Reading, Writing Life | 9 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
When I was in high school, I attended the local Lutheran church to play volleyball on Friday nights. Soon they invited me to Bible study, presented the gospel and encouraged me to read about Christianity. One of the kids recommended I start with Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth. Midway through, I prayed the prayer of salvation. I didn’t buy it all, but I sure didn’t want to be left behind if everyone was raptured and armed conflict broke out in the Middle East.
The pastor later recommended Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, and I took a copy of that green paperback to Europe my second summer in college. From Bonhoeffer I learned what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and my life hasn’t been the same since.
Quite an extreme choice of books to read–and therein is the breadth of theological interest in the book-buying public. Guess which book has sold more copies? (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Jul 21, 2010 in Blog, Nonfiction, Reading | 5 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Most Christian nonfiction is about Christian living–self-help books, advice on a myriad of subjects, or a manuscript on how to apply the Bible to life. A cursory glance at Christianbooks.com’s website today shows ten of the twenty-five top sellers as nonfiction projects.
What makes a project attractive to the nonfiction reader? One that identifies a “felt need” and provides advice on how to live with that need. This can range over the gamut from Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World–how to live a more spiritually-focused life within the context of our frenzied society– to No More Christian Nice Guy–a clarion call for men to stick up for themselves even at church. While many of us would agree our lives are too busy and we really would prefer to be more like Mary who chose “what is better,” in Jesus’ words, Paul Coughlin’s title, No More Christian Nice Guy, probably piqued the curiosity of some of you. (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Jul 20, 2010 in Blog, Life, Nonfiction, Reading | 6 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Among the things our agents noted while at the International Christian Retail Show last month (and shared with me–so now I’m sharing with you) was some editors continue to struggle with what will sell in the Christian nonfiction market. I find that ironic since long ago Christian fiction was anathema; only polemical works and staid commentaries were ready sales to the churchgoing public.
About 50 years ago the Christian reading market, which was almost exclusively nonfiction, began to expand significantly. The pastor of our home church, Larry Christianson, was one of the first big sellers with his The Christian Family. For our wedding, Pastor Larry and his wife Nordis gave my husband and me an autographed copy of their then-latest best-seller: The Christian Marriage. It worked; my husband and I are still happily married 32 years later! :-)
Both these books would fall into the Marriage and Family category, along with a crucial book we took on our honeymoon: The Act of Marriage. (That one worked, too.)
Because I mainly read books from the public library, I didn’t see a lot of Christian-themed material again until we attended the military chapel at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. The Baptist chaplain understood the necessity of extra-source material and kept a box of books beside the Bible study door, free for the sharing. I read them all over the 15 months we were stationed at the sub base. (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Jul 19, 2010 in Blog, Life, Nonfiction, Reading | 9 Comments
