Can we afford to lose the value of the book as a symbol?

I’ve been following an interesting discussion thread on the Tools of Change for Publishing LinkedIn page. The topic, Losing the book as a symbol, was started by Paris-based Francois Joseph de Kermadec, a self-described “professional word-wrestler.”

The gist of his post is this: with the advent of digital technologies, books have changed from a “tangible, brick-shaped presence” to something fluid that can be poured into any device fit for reading. That much is obvious—when we now say “the book” we usually mean the text, not the physical object.

In doing so, argues de Kermadec, “this convenience comes at the cost of a grave loss: that of the book as symbol, as an artifact of leaning, wisdom and moral fortitude” – and yes, he does really write like that. Books, he says, have “talismanic” value and by losing them we lose a way to encapsulate and convey such things as status and “a reassuring promise of humanity.”

“A portrait of a man with his iPhone may evoke digital literacy or modernity, but it hardly conveys knowledge. Nor do we pile up Kindle Fires on our occasional tables to subtly hint at our learned civility.”

Hyperbole aside, he does have a point, and others agree that new symbols are needed, symbols adapted to the digital age.

Just as scrolls made way for the book (see the great video in my earlier post), so the book is disappearing. But need it? Surely old-time books are ideal formats for art books and other subjects where the feel – texture, weight, etc.-- of the object is almost as important as what is on the page. Many books are works of art in and of themselves .

I am particularly fond of pop-up books that unfold entire worlds on their pages. And while 3-D graphics can do much the same (and probably more), they fail to amaze me by their artistry, by what can be rendered in a fragile medium.

What do you think?

Getting your readers to read your content

In my social media class, we've focused on strategy development, monitoring and measurement. We've talked less about content itself, mainly because we're all  working on different blogs and sites, with a variety of topics, audiences, and objectives.

 

Any search about social media quickly reveals that "Content is king-- or queen", a trite but true claim. And the key is quality, we are told. A recent study from nRelate with Harris Interactive, reported in the January/February issue of EContent magazine, offers some pointers of how to get the content in front of your readers.

What they found:

• 76% of US adults clicked on links to related stories for more information-- these are links at the bottom of the story or in a sidebar, not embedded links. This beats out content links recommended by friends or social networks.
• 62% of people first look for traditional media news stories rather than images, videos, blogs, etc.
• After reading a story, more people click on a link to amother article rather than to a video (34% vs 15%).
• 39% are more likely to click on an article if there is an image associated with it.

Online consumers also defined what they meant by quality content:

• it is from a source already known in the offline world
• it includes images
• it includes an author image and byline
• it includes an embedded video.

They also said they read and click on content pushed to them via email newsleters from brands whose products and services they use.

Titled Behavior Shift: Getting Content in Front of Consumers, it's worth a read.

Canadian authors bare it all

Looks like Allegra Young, a classical music producer, and author Amanda Leduc finally saw Calendar Girls, a 2003 comedy about a Women's Institute chapter's fundraising effort for a local hospital by posing nude for a calendar. And they were inspired, as their photo below well shows.

This time, though, the monthly models are Canadian authors,  men and women, and the "fig leaves" are books. Pen Canada will benefit from the sales of the inaugural Bare It for Books calendar, reports today's National Post. "When you buy a Bare It For Books calendar, you’ll support the fight for free speech, and show solidarity with all writers, readers, and thinkers worldwide," says Pen's website.

Young and Leduc hatched the idea through tweets. They then recruited the models via email: Angie Abdou, Trevor Cole, Farzana Doctor, Dave Bidini, Miranda Hill, Daniel MacIvor, Yasuko Thanh, Terry Fallis, Sachiko Murakami, Vincent Lam, Saleema Nawaz and Yann Martel. You can pick out your favourite month on the Bare it for Books website.



Amanda Leduc and  Allegra  Young



"It’s a risky venture,” Leduc says. “A naked calendar isn’t something that you see everyday.” But it's something you see far too often in my view, with everyone from firefighters to Peterborough's octagenarians getting into the picture -- but I'm OK with the firefighters. After all, they do protect us.

The calendars go on sale in October. Remains to be seen if the books and authors being promoted make it onto next year's CBC Canada Reads list.

Read this book and call me in the morning

This may what British GPs may soon be telling patients with mental health issues. According to Hannah Furness, writing in The Telegraph, 30 books have been found effective against such conditions as anxiety, depression, and relationship problems—even bulimia.

And no, this initiative was not launched by the publishers of self-help books, but by the Reading Agency, a “charity whose mission is to give everyone an equal change in life, by helping people become confident and enthusiastic readers. Because everything changes when we read.” -- I’m not kidding here. -- They announced the Books on Prescription scheme on January 28: the books will be in special sections of libraries in May.

If it sounds a little, well, nutty, the scheme has the backing of the Royal Colleges of GPs, Nursing and Psychiatry, the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies and the Department of Health. Funding is being provided by the Arts Council England. The Society of Chief Librarians is in league, of course.

A little research shows this is not a first: biblotherapy programs exist all over the UK and have for some time. Warwickshire even put out a really boring video about it.

In addition to the 30 prescribed books, this year's program is also recommending “mood-busting books”—novels, poems, and short stories to cheer you up. Of course, not everyone is convinced of the medicinal efficacy of cheery books. Also writing in The Telegraph, online culture editor Martin Chilton ponders whether MDs would be better prescribing depressing books as a literary shock treatment: just so you know others have it worse than you. He provides a list of 20 bleak reads to get you started.

I’ve never read a self-help book, but am tempted to try a dieting book to see if I lose weight. Or maybe a book on exercise will tone me up. Can you recommend any titles?

I “like” dead authors

As a former English major and avid reader, I – like others—have noted that classics of English literature appear with increasing frequency on the front sales tables of my neighbourhood bookstores. I put it down to movie adaptations stirring up interest in authors like Jane Austen (yawn). I’m sure that Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Henry V turned my son (and most everyone else) into a Shakespeare fan, something school never did.

 But who would have guessed that many of the dead greats live on? No, not in endless re-editions of their works, but in social media. They have been reincarnated on the Web.

 Last January 11, author Julianna Baggott wrote in The New York Times that she “started obsessing over the Facebook “likes” of authors — living and dead.” In her search, she found that living authors like Stephen King, “is doing extremely well in the virtual world with, when I last checked, over four million likes […]. The Stephen King – Writer page also thrives, at 573,081 likes. Even “Steven king” had over 98,000 likes.”

 More interesting, she found that Jane Austen had 628,548 fans, while the “Texas-­twanged Jane Austin” had 37,499.

But, she says, “few can beat Shakespeare’s hefty 3.9 million likes.” He is beat, though by Maya Angelou at 4,046,225 Facebook likes (Have you ever read her? I haven’t). But not to outdone, Shakespeare has a second-tier page — “Infamous Poet and Playwright” — with 1.7 million fans.

 And these authors, and many other departed, also live on Twitter. Some have many alter-egos. Some are also podcasting!

 I find this quite creepy. I’m all for keeping literature alive, but, really? I can only imagine literary groupies holed up in their parents’ basements drafting tweets for “their” author.

 I do like a great many of these authors, but am limiting my following to the printed word—in hard copy, at that.

 

 

Happy Meal, Happy Reader?

In recent international news that didn’t make the front page in Ottawa: MacDonald’s in the UK is set to become that country’s biggest children’s book distributor. On January 9 it launched its Happy Reader campaign. The goal: to hand out 15 million books by the end of 2014. And it’s being sneaky about it: the books are the “prize” in every Happy Meal, replacing the usual much-coveted-but-soon-thrashed "collectible" toys. The initial campaign runs for 5 weeks, till February 12.

The spur was data compiled by Britain's National Literacy Trust, which showed that half of British kids didn’t really like reading and about a third didn’t own a book. Surprising from the land of Shakespeare, British children rank 25^th in world literacy tests. (The OECD ranking places Canada 6^th – above OECD average -- and the US 17^th .)

The first phase of this long-term campaign features non-fiction books, from DK Books' Amazing World Series, with categories of Stars and Planets, Big Cats, and Oceans, among others. The books also come with puzzles and stickers.

Want to read more? The meals also come with a voucher that children – given a payment of £1-- can redeem for a book of their choice at bookseller WH Smith. And throughout the year, new ‘Happy Readers’ book offers will be displayed on Happy Meal boxes, for redemption at WH Smith. And if your child is hungry for information rather than fries, MacDonald’s is also selling the books in its UK restaurants.

This campaign follows a successful pilot in 2012 that saw 9 million books given away.

But is the book giveaway a good thing? Obviously not every thinks so, pointing to the growing obesity crisis in the UK  and the high caloric value of Happy Meals?

As the grand-mother of a 5- and 8-year old who love books, I can only wish MacDonald’s exported this campaign to North America.

Books as true masterpieces

There’s a mystery in Scotland. No, not a new Ian Rankin or Alexander McCall Smith novel. But it does involve books – cut up, dissected, bent, and folded. And they’re all the more beautiful because of it.

This is the second year that wonderful paper sculptures made from books have been appearing throughout the country, in time for Book Week Scotland, which closed on December 2. Last year, there were 10 sculptures. This year there are five. Who is the artist? That’s the mystery. All that is known is that she is a woman.

 These sculptures are quite magical. You can see all of them on the Scottish Book Trust site.

My favourite this year is Peter Pan and Wendy ....

  ...  but then, I can’t go to London without visiting Peter’s statue in Kensington Gardens. 

Books used as an art medium is not a new thing, but it is to me. I came aware of it just a few weeks ago when media covered the unveiling of The Machine Gunners, more-than-life-sized replicas of toy soldiers made from recycled books on the topic of war, appropriately in time for Remembrance Day.

When I started researching this art form, I found sculptures made from children’s books, fantastical bas relief from carved out books, abstract art, landscapes, portraits, even pop-ups. Check out some of these creations on the Hongkiat website and on this Tumblr page. There’s even a Pinterest site for "altered books". Who knew?

I’m now looking at the overstuffed bookcases at home with a new eye. The ebook will  never look so good or inspiring.

Speak out now: Free expression in Canada

The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression want your input on how access to information could – and should -- be improved in Canada. For those who don’t know CJFE, it’s an independent Canadian organization that works to protect journalists, freedom of expression, and access to information in Canada and around the world. They’re good guys.

Tomorrow is the 2012 CJFE Gala “A Night to Honour Courageous Reporting.” The event is an opportunity to recognize the courage of those who stand up for free expression. This year they will be honouring Rami Jarrah (Syria) and Mae Azango (Liberia) with the International Press Freedom Awards. Daniel Henry (Canada) will be receiving the Vox Libera Award, and Radio-Canada's program Enquête (Canada) will be accepting the Tara Singh Hayer Award.

A note: Last year’s winner of the Vox Libera Award was Ron Haggart, honoured posthumously. His daughter—my colleague Kelly Haggart—has very recently published an ebook of her father’s writings, Cool Heads at Kingston Pen, his account of the 1971 riots at Kingston Penitentiary. Haggart was instrumental in mediating an end to the crisis.

Tomorrow CJFE also launch their new video on the current state of access to information in Canada.

If you don’t have time to watch it (it’s really short) the bottom line is this: Canada ranks 55th out of 93 countries surveyed for freedom of expression. The study was carried out by the Centre for Law and Democracy.

And so, CJFE asks your input into a submission for the Office of the Information Commissioner on the changes needed to update and improve the system. Help improve the state of access to information in Canada: complete the survey.

You pat my back and I’ll pat yours on LinkedIn

What do you think about LinkedIn endorsements? LinkedIn introduced these in September, as an easy way for you to recognize your contact’s skills and abilities. Sounds like a good idea at first blush, but do these click-recommendations really mean anything?

Many LinkedIn users think not and are annoyed by the feature, and they’ve been saying so on the site itself. Forbes refers to them as "The Stove Top Stuffing version of recommendations." The general impression is that these endorsements can’t be taken as serious recommendations and that, if you want to recognize someone’s abilities, you should take the time to pen—or type—a recommendation.

I started getting emails about people who had endorsed me some 3 or so weeks ago. Fortunately, these are from people I actually know and who know me professionally (well, almost all). I don’t have dozens of endorsements. And I admit I’ve fallen for the box that pops up when I log into my account, asking me to endorse some of my contacts—I’ve endorsed some, but by no means all -- only those I can vouch for and I would stand behind that endorsement. But then, I am only connected on LinkedIn to people I know and whose work is relevant to mine – apart for a very few exceptions who are friends rather than colleagues.

But some people are being endorsed by complete strangers, which is silly and meaningless.

As this light-recommendation mode gains further momentum, can one really ignore it? If you don't play the game will you be sidelined when it comes to finding a new job or contract? I’m still undecided.

The Divided States of America

“We are all Americans.” – whether Romney or Obama -- or both--proclaimed this, the US media coverage of last Tuesday’s elections seemed to put that to the lie. What we heard-- and what struck me-- from all commentators, on all networks, was not "American voters", or Florida, or Maine, or Utah voters, but white voters, black voters, African-American voters, Hispanic voters, Latino voters, women voters, youth voters. In the following days, analysts further divided these into Christians, Evangelicals, non-Christians.

The melting pot most definitely is not. And the media offered sheets of statistics to back that up.

The headlines on the Web in the days following the election pored over the new demographics.

• A Racially Polarized Country: White Men Lose One, claimed a blog on racismsreview.
• The New America: What the election teaches up about ourselves, said CNN Politics
• Presidential elections show we are far from being 'united' states, read analysis by AP on the pennlive.com site.
• And so on, and on, and on.

Nowhere, however, was the electorate parsed by income. The word "poverty" was not one of the factors examined. I'm willing to bet that the balkanized voters would seem a lot more homogeneous if the mean family-- or personal-- income was applied. Poorer people -- the hispanics/latinos and blacks among them-- more than likely voted for Obama. The rich white guys, well, they went the other way.


Back in 2008 journalist Bill Bishop wrote in The Big Sort that  you could tell how people would vote by their zip code. This was a somewhat sophisticated version of "birds of a feather flock together" theory.

Perhaps he was right. Certainly his thesis was picked up in The Tennessean where Chas Sisk analyzed voting patterns in Nashville. He quotes Marc Heatherington, a Vanderbilt University professor, who said:

"People aren't choosing to live because of their politics, but where they are choosing to live seems to be highly correlated to their politics."

I find this worrisome, not just for the US, but for Canada. Did we not see similar patterns start to raise their heads during the last elections when candidates and parties set out to win "the ethnic vote"?

Bullies 1, school board 0

The Ottawa media last week debated the pros and cons of the cancelled trip to Ohio by Catholic Orleans students. Was the trip partisan? Was it pro-choice? Why not hitch onto the Romney campaign instead? Why study American politics? Did the teacher have a hidden agenda?

There ensued learned discussions about the value of civics education, about experiential learning, about the need to keep politics out of schools, about Canadians messing in US elections.

Jeff Spooner of The Ottawa Citizen referred to the cancellation as “an illustration of everything that is wrong with the much-praised social media.” But social media had its up-sides: the day after the cancellation, students began a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #TeamSearle to clear the name of their teacher fingered as the culprit in planning the trip.

One point seems to have been overlooked in the numerous reports I read and heard: the school and the board caved in to bullies. After all, the cancellation resulted from anonymous comments reported in an article on a pro-life website. Isn’t that much like what the cyber bullies have been doing to school kids?

So instead of using the comments as a teachable moment about staying the course with your plans, defending your beliefs, ignoring the nay-sayers, the kids learned to give in whenever someone criticizes you, even anonymously. So when these schools teach kids to stand up to bullies, aren’t they being hypocritical?

What makes a really good kid's book?

I bought a novel today-- Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. And yes, I bought it for me. It came very highly recommended by my eight-year-old grand-daughter. And she's a pretty good judge of what makes a good story. Her opinion is backed-up by the Newberry folks who made it an honour book. It's also won many other awards. And it's been made into a film a few times already.

But I'll wait until I finish the book before seeing the film. As my grand-daughter recommends.

That raises the question of what makes a really good child's book. Or what makes a kids'
book great?

Speaking at an  inaugural children’s publishing conference last May 31, in New York City, Richard Robinson, President and CEO of Scholastic Inc, the kids' book empire, said that a great book is…

• One that contains a simple and original idea presented with clarity and great power.


• One that connects with the reader, asserting its world directly into the reader’s mind.


• One that makes the world seem larger and more interesting.


• One written with humor and a light touch.


• One that is a realization of a complete but very different world.

That could apply to books for all ages, not just kids. Kids interviewed in an un-named survey thought fun and funny were important, as well as a resemblance to their lives. That would explain the shelves full of Judy Blooms and similar authors. My grand-daughter did think the Junie B. books were funny when we read them together a couple of years back, but not great. She lost interest quite quickly, to the relief of her father who worried she may take lessons from the irrepressible Junie.

 

Certainly kids' lit is a booming business-- the Frankfurt book fair is testament to that. And one that has not yet shifted to digital in any big way. Can it be that the bulk of buyers are grand-parents who can't quite fathom snuggling down for a bedtime story on screen?

The Book is Dead. Long Live the Book!

Recent news of the book’s ailing health might lead one to think that the publishing industry was on its deathbed or close to it. Nothing seems to be further from the truth, if events like the Frankfurt book fair—more than 7,000 exhibitors strong—are any indication. There are dozens of book fairs each year around the world, from Albania to Zimbabwe. While some are sales events, many, like Frankfurt are trade fairs, where agents, authors, and publishers come to buy and sell rights and services.

If alive and well, the book is, however, suffering from a split personality. It still exists as the physical object we have long known, but increasingly it has a digital life. And the soaring popularity of e-readers and e-books is bringing fundamental changes to the publishing industry.

I work for a public organization that has been in the e-book business for more than 10 years – the International Development Research Centre. For decades we have published the results of research we fund – there’s not a large market share for this product, obviously. While we originally did our own publishing, since 2000 or so we have worked in collaboration with commercial and academic publishers around the world. The deal is simple: essentially our publishing partners have all rights to the printed book and sales; we share e-rights and the right to publish the ebook on our website, full-text, free of charge. We support the publication through buybacks of books to distribute to our key stakeholders. We also distribute the books through aggregators like Googlebooks, NetLibrary, and other vendors. Our motive is not profit, but to ensure that the results of valuable research are as widely disseminated as possible.

So far, this has worked well and we have many copublishing partners. But this past year or two, many of them have also entered the epublishing world and are selling ebooks themselves and through the same aggregators. You can see the problem. What is the solution?

On the positive side is that e-readers appear to be increasing, if not the market for books, at least readership generally. The Pew Research Centre reports that close to 30% of Americans own one of these devices. Those who do read an average of 7 more books a year than those who don’t have an e-reader.


. Long live the book!

Some fun facts about the Frankfurt Book Fair

Instructions for beginners:

1. Wear comfortable shoes.
2. Book your appointments ahead of time.
3. Drink lots of water.
4. Allow enough time between apointments to get to the other hall.
5. Wear comfortable shoes.
6. Do not leave your stand unattended.
7. Bring lots of business cards.
8. Wear comfortable shoes.

Security:
On the open days of the fair, Hall 8 is the only hall protected by guards at all doors who check all your packages every time you enter ("Oh, extra shoes-- just like a woman.") Perhaps being next to the World Bank and the IMF was not such a good idea after all...

But who are they kidding? The monstrous boxes and crates delivered over the two set-up days could have carried commando units, let alone little explosive devices.



There's always time for a touchup.

Saturday and Sunday, the fair is open to the public:
And if you're a teen-- or think like one-- you come dressed up as your favourite manga character or other beastie and get in free. Great fun. They mill around the square between halls 3 and 4. I'm sure I saw Howl, at least one of them.

Who is this? And why?

The book fair that was

Welcome to the fair.

Frankfurt 2012.

Day 1: October 8
At a fast clip it was a 20-minute hike from the entance of the Messe to Hall 8, home of English language countries and international organizations. Or as one blogger put it, so far that it deserved its own time zone. The moving walkways are not-- and when they later do, they move at a geriatric pace

Set up day was obvioulsy not for small players like IDRC, with a 2x2 m booth and two boxes of display stuff. The hall was crawling with high loaders shuffling huge black plastic wrapped packages. Booths the size of homes were being erected.Some have enough furniture for a banquet hall.

The scene at booth N910 was dismal. Pieces of lumber on the plastic-covered floor, the table and chairs shrink wrapped, the shelves as dusty as some at home. Clearly no one from the Commonwealth Secretariat, right in front of me, has come. The OECD stand next door is being erected and plastic flowers planted. The World Bank's domain is wrapped in yellow tape like a crime scene. At least we're in good company.

I unwrap the table, mount the shelves and decide that tomorrow will be soon enough to open the boxes. Maybe someone will have swept the floor.

Day 2: October 9
Nope, the floor has not been swept but there are fewer impassable aisles and the highloaders are retreating. More boxes and packages are being brought in through huge bays-- unbelievable what some publishers ship. I open my two boxes and set up our modest display. After all, I'm not here to sell books, but to meet with our copublishers and distributors. And my dance card for the next 3 days is very full.

IDRC's home: N910, Hall 8