Auld Lang Shah Rukh

Your correspondent would love to go back in time and give her 2009 self the following quiz.

1. You will live in the following countries in 2010:
a) India
b) England
c) USA
d) All of the above

2. You will have been present for various protests and/or riots in the following countries in 2010:
a) Thailand
b) Nepal
c) England
d) Ireland
e) All of the above

3. Your favorite dessert will be:
a) Laddoo
b) Eton mess
c) Scones
d) All of the above

4.  You will spend the last week of 2010 doing this:
a) Watching ice hockey and American football
b) Training for a Scottish marathon
c) Watching the Bollywood hit My Name is Khan while drinking Irish beer and eating Moroccan argon butter after a lovely dinner of caprese, curry, and baklava
d) All of the above

5.  None of this will be surprising to you by December 31, 2010
a) True
b) False

I bet I would get 100% correct.

Proof is in the Pudding

Your correspondent's younger sister was in charge of the dessert for our Christmas feast this year, but unfortunately she arrived from Boston on Christmas morning with a cold to kill a rhino and had to politely decline.  Undaunted, I stepped in to fill the dessert void with my personal favorite creation: pumpkin fluff.

It wasn't until I had gathered all of the ingredients when I realized what I had done.  I had made a classic mistake.  My Christmas pudding

Desserts

was literally pudding.

Pudding

Nevertheless, with a little pumpkin and spice thrown in it became more than just Jell-O and went deliciously on top of homemade ginger cookies.  And it was far superior, I might add, to fruitcake.

Recipe for an American Christmas

Step 1: Christmas Mass: midnight or otherwise.  (Some of us are jet-lagged.)
Step 2: Prepare turkey.
Step 3: A Christmas Story
Step 4: Watch snow. With dignity.  We're not England.
Step 5: Open presents
Step 6: A Christmas Story
Step 7: Destroy Watch home movies
Step 8: Die of shame  Apologize to boyfriend for being forced to watch home movies  Christmas Carols
Step 9: A Christmas Story
Step 10: Eat.
Step 11- 14: Eat
Step 15: A Christmas Story
Step 16: Eat
Step 17: A Christmas Story
Step 18: Destroy home movies

Parting Gift

Dragged myself out of bed to catch the 4 am bus to Heathrow, arrived at 5:15 am and nevertheless had to jostle with thousands of other travellers, finally got through the mess and found myself a Starbucks breakfast, only to discover -- BLAH! -- porridge is not the same thing as oatmeal.  Blah! Porridge!

That makes this semester's score: British Food 24, Your Correspondent 0.  Get me back to America!

Happy Birthday, Blog

It wasn't until I checked the profile of my blogger page that I realised: I've been writing for more than a year now.  Editing at Large turned one on 21 December.

I didn't exactly expect to be writing my one-year anniversary post from England, but then again life is full of surprises.  I head back to America tomorrow (weather permitting) and couldn't be more ready for College Bowl games, Trader Joe's, and the un-ironic use of the word "y'all".

In the meanwhile, I found a lovely article on The Economist's "Johnson" blog which stands up to a celebratory post.  You may or may not know that my own handle is a tribute to the usual way Economist writers self-refer.  I had never really known the semantics behind the practice, but now I do.

My bus to Heathrow leaves in twelve hours so while I'm airborne fingers are crossed there will be a Dunkin Donuts coffee waiting on the other side of the ocean, just for me.  My family and loved ones wouldn't hurt, either.

At Least the Snow is Good for One Thing

Snowball fights.

My pub's been pelted!

I'm Screaming of a White Christmas

Here's some culture shock from an unexpected quarter:

Snow.

Oh, please.

Six to eight inches of snow fell in Oxford yesterday.  Let me put this in perspective: there are places in my home state of Michigan which sit under several feet of snow most of the year.  In Boston, temperatures can hover around freezing sometimes into early May.  Snow doesn't phase me.

England, on the other hand, has closed its eyes, curled up in a little ball, and is now rocking slowly back and forth, muttering to itself.

It wasn't until this morning that I saw plows going through the streets or grit being spread on the roads.  The universities are closed and bus services were suspended.  Worse, Heathrow is closed.  All flights leaving the country, entering the country, carrying people to and from their Christmas holidays, are cancelled.  All flights meant to be leaving in the next few days will be packed to the gills with no room for the 400,000 folks who have just been misplaced.

I should be more sympathetic.  This little island doesn't usually see more than a few flakes, and if you don't own many plows you can only clear the roads so fast.

On the other hand, a little part of me is saying: It's snow.  I'm used to it.  Why aren't you?

This may be a sign it's time for me to go home.  I just hope I can.

Important Facts about English Christmas Parties I Wish I'd Known A Bit Earlier

- One traditional English treat is the mince pie.  Mince pies do not actually contain mincemeat.  Most grocery-store varieties are actually suitable for vegetarians.
- This does not mean mince pies are worth investigating.
- "Fancy dress" in America does not mean the same thing it does in England.  This is "fancy dress" in the US:

Formalwear

This is "fancy dress" in the UK:

Costume

This could lead to some awkwardness if your invitation isn't clarified.
- Treacle tarts probably aren't vegetarian but probably aren't worth investigating anyways.
- Don't tease men in kilts.  If he's wearing a traditional kilt there's a 50/50 chance he'll be carrying the traditional dagger.  At the very least he is packing a kilt pin.
- Puddings are not necessarily made of custard.  The term encompasses all desserts.
- Crackers are not food.  They are exploding party favors.  Probably not edible.  Do not investigate.
- Puddings are not necessarily dessert.  (See: Yorkshire pudding, Sunday Roast)
- Christmas pudding is a traditional English dessert.  When translated into American, the term is pronounced "grandma's fruitcake with cream on top" and by the by they are definitely not worth investigating.
- In fact, the one thing worth investigating is the drinks.  Happy Holidays!

The Semi-Alright Gatsby

During less studious moments I've been tearing through books on my new Kindle.  After seeing a large poster of the iconic The Great Gatsby cover in the shop window of Blackwell's, I downloaded the Amazon version for a winning one pound ninety, and e-enjoyed an old favorite.

As a student of books, and at the present moment taking a course on book design, I inherently appreciate the beauty of a printed tome.  I also grudgingly admit that though I'm enjoying the Kindle it could use some work in the aesthetic department.  It was only when I got to the last page of classic Fitzgerald when I was able to put a finger on why.

The famous last line is as follows:

"And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

It's a beautiful close to a beautiful novel, and I've read it many times before.

Unfortunately, the Kindle default page layout and font size renders the last line like so:

Page One

Page Two

I'm sorry.  I'm an editor.  I saw that last orphan and stared at it in dismay.  Really?  This is what you do to The Great Gatsby?  And of all lines to orphan, you orphan that one?

Those of you who doubt the endurance of printed books, look no further.  Until issues like this are sorted, at least some version of humanity's important literature needs to have been consciously designed and permanently stamped on paper.  (This hasn't even gotten me started on Project Gutenberg downloads.  Hanging indents!  No hanging indents!  Unnecessary line breaks!  Maybe I should watch some TV instead . . .)

London Calling

It's difficult to say how I feel about the student protests rippling through England right now.  Smaller, more peaceful demonstrations dot the main street of Oxford every day, but thank goodness no violence has been reported in these parts.  In London, on the other hand, the spectre of raised tuition fees has gotten the young'uns up in arms.

It's a foreign concept to me, really, because the numbers being thrown around by doomsday activists - sixteen thousand pounds for an education! - are actually standard American rates.  I almost blush to think how much a Notre Dame education cost my family. (Here's a hint: we're still paying.)  In contrast, English children have been going to university for only a few thousand pounds per year, usually softened with student loans and bursaries for the neediest candidates.

There's a difference, of course.  American parents start saving before their children are even born to afford those college tuitions.  If you're an English parent, and you haven't made such preparations, because there was no need to make such preparations, this is a huge blow.  If your savings are already stretched tight, that could rule out college entirely.  What will your children do now?

It's a difficult problem, and I don't envy the decisionmakers on this one.  As someone who knows what it's like to pay the full fee for an education -- like the full fee I pay for my MA course, the English subsidized rates not being available to me -- I know these choices are hard.  Just consider this: a big motivator for my decision to move abroad for continuing education was the fact that this same program in the US would cost twice as much and take twice as long.  You'd hope that there is a lesson in this for the powers that be.

'Murican, Abroad Y'all

"I think it's really funny that you say I have a British accent."

"Why?  Don't you?"

"No!  I have an English accent!  When you talk about Britain you mean the entire island!"

"Oh!  But . . . Oh.  We don't think like that.  We speak English."

"Sort of . . . But not English."

"What!? Well, then, what do we speak?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... y'all."

"Was that an American accent?  All you said was 'y'all'."

"Well, I'm, like, totally going to go to the mall later, and then, like, I'm going to call Becky, and we are, like, toooootally going to go shopping because, like,  this place is so whack."

This, my friends, is cultural exchange.

One for the Gipper

Adding to the stress of finals, we're getting close to decision time on our dissertation topics.  I've narrowed down my field of interest to educational publishing in emerging markets, particularly Latin America.  Most likely I'll be creating in-depth case studies of three countries: Chile, Mexico, and Brazil.

"Oh!" said a classmate, upon hearing my suggestion.  "Did you know I'm from Brazil?"

"Yes," I replied. "I've been meaning to ask you about the topic, and I'll definitely be taking you to lunch next semester to hear more about what you think."

"That's great," she said.  "Although I should warn you, I've lived in the States for the past fifteen years."

This time it was my turn to ask, "Did you know I'm from the States?  Where did you live?"

She replied, "South Bend, Indiana."

I could have jumped out of my skin. "That's incredible!  I went to Notre Dame."

Now she jumped.  "I used to work in the Hesburgh Library!  My husband got a PhD from Notre Dame."

For those of you keeping score at home, that means I've met fellow Domers in places ranging from Everest Base Camp in Nepal to my own MA in International Publishing course in Oxford (via Brazil).  It's not every day you find yourself reminiscing about Touchdown Jesus when you're supposed to be talking about the educational system of Chile.  Go Irish, indeed.

Moat Hockey, Anyone?

It's been another shamefully long time since I've posted, but for that blame the absurd amount of coursework I've been jamming through for the past week.  I find myself just as busy as I was during our most hectic busy season at the old custom textbook company, except this time I am paying someone else for the pleasure of dreaming in P&L spreadsheets.

It's also been snowing.  Nothing stifles the creative urge like a face full of snow.  Oxford's weather is some of the most frustrating I've seen -- it doesn't really snow, per se, but it doesn't ever really not snow, and then all of a sudden the fields are covered in white and you're freezing.

There is a bright side to this.  Look: you can now ice skate in front of the Tower of London.

Bright "Black Friday"

I've been a poor correspondent lately, due to having some company in town, but I hope that these photos from the streets of London on the start of the Christmas season will earn your forgiveness.

Picadilly Circus

Regent Street

Picadilly Circus

Oxford Street

Light the Night

The brightness of the lights almost makes up for the sharpness of the cold . . . Almost!

Maybe I *Will* See My Book in Stores (Which Isn't Good)

I mentioned how in India I was able to work as the development editor for a new B2B Marketing textbook adaptation due to be published in October 2010.  It's finished, and it's lovely, but I had guessed I would never see it sold in person because of territorial constraints between Indian publishers and the United States.  Since my company already published a version in the US -- and since the Indian version included a red bar on the cover which very clearly stipulated the territories where it could be sold -- the belief was that it would stay on the subcontinent for life.

It was with much interest, then, that I found this article on Inside Higher Education this morning.  Remember those cheap Indian editions we made of our US textbooks, appropriately priced to a developing market?  Right now, there's a case in the Supreme Court which may bring them flooding into American bookstores, at the expense of those pricey hardback editions.  As odd at it sounds, Costco's right to resell cheaply-bought Swiss Omega watches to global consumers could send vibrations through every multinational publisher on the market.

If I'm a multinational publisher -- and right now, sadly, I'm not -- this is a difficult decision point.  Publishing wasn't built to be global, and this is one more growing pain to add to the list.  The watch debate isn't as dramatic as the glamorous rise of the ebook, but it just might bring a louder tolling of the bell.

Today's Oxford Forecast

Did you have to rub it in?

Howdy, Stranger

It's always nice to have visitors in from overseas.  It's not always nice when, the first thing you have to do upon their arrival is scarper off to class.

In my defense, today's lecture was very important.  It was about paper.

Did I mention publishers are crazy?

---
Speaking of crazy, this is a wonderful new website I've been led to: a collection of the worst cover designs from sci-fi/fantasy novels.  [Good Show, Sir]  It will make you both sad and yet glad that you're not the editor who approved that particular cover design.  My personal favorite is Qhe! The Prophets of Evil.  Lovely stuff.

Playstations, Persia, and Publishing

At long last your correspondent found a reason to go to London, albeit for work instead of play.  This year's Society of Young Publisher's Conference boasted the theme "Publishing on the World's Stage", and offered a refreshing look at issues such as translation, international digital publishing, and the things we can learn from related industries like video games.

It was purposefully high-level stuff, for a very important reason: as the new generation coming into publishing, there is a good chance the bodies behind the industry's top desks are going to be nowhere near as comfortable with the digital revolution.  One bookseller told us about her former marketing manager, who used to respond to every email in person -- he didn't know how to type one himself.  Meanwhile, HarperCollins is teaming up with Nintendo to sell classic (read: out-of-copyright) literature on Nintendo's DS console.  Not exactly your mother's novel, but this is what readers are becoming comfortable with.

A certain publisher of Arabic literature even explained his use of the digital revolution in terms of international issues.  He showed a slide drawing a five-mile radius around a publishing house in Cairo.  "That," he explained, "is the distribution range of a book for this publisher."  How can that be?  Because the infrastructure isn't there.  Publishers in developed countries rely so heavily on sophisticated delivery and fulfilment mechanisms that they're almost taken for granted.  Now, thanks to the internet, even a publisher smack in the middle of the desert can send an ebook to anywhere in the world with the click of a button.  (Getting people to want that work is a different story, but . . . baby steps.  Baby steps.)

There was a lot more I could say about the conference, but what I took away from it was this:  books are a resilient commodity.  Now that the panic has died down, most people are agreed that paperbacks will never go away.  Most people are also agreed that we can't stop at paperbacks.  As publishing evolves to allow more writing to be read in more ways, our sector is becoming more and more a rights business.  Exploiting those rights, and getting an author's work out to as many people as possible in as many ways as possible, is the way forward.  There might be some technical difficulty getting from here to there, but unlike with Nintendo there is no reset button.

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go play some Super Mario . . . I mean . . . read Shakespeare.

Was It Something I Said?

A guest speaker came in to talk about running an independent bookstore, and began the conversation by describing the logic behind his logo.  "We wanted something a bit . . . naff," he concluded.

Yes, yes, of course, we all nodded, and wrote "naff" in our notebooks.

This isn't the first stumble I've had over British slang.  Most of the time, the context will help you navigate these expressions without too much confusion.  Reversing the dates (as in, writing 15-10-1983 for October 15) is a struggle when we're working on production schedules, but after staring blankly at a calendar it's usually pretty easy to figure out.

It's more complicated when I'm the one inadvertently slipping up.  Once, when describing Thanksgiving to a classmate, I demonstrated a trace-your-hand turkey drawing (sample below).

Little did I know, the same words we use to describe the noise a turkey makes are terribly rude on this side of the pond.  There was a bit of blushing and a bit of "Oh that's nice" and we quickly switched topics to sweet potato pie.

Maybe we should stick to dessert.  Er, um . . . pudding.

Internal Illogical

Your correspondent was lucky enough to have an opportunity to attend a dinner with a visiting academic come to speak to our publishing students.  He's been doing research on publishing culture in New York and London, and in the process has done hundreds of interviews with people from all ranges of the industry - agents, booksellers, editors, publishers, and even lowly assistants.  Over the course of the meal, he was asked: Who was the best interview subject you've had?

Surprisingly, he answered: the assistants.  They were the people who had the least exposure to the internal logic of publishing and who would actually notice when someone's actions were incongruous with everyday common sense.  'Why would you do that?' they'd ask.  'In what world does that make sense?'

To someone who was still an assistant a very short few years ago, this was the best observation yet heard on my MA course.  It's a hard day when you're told, instead of sitting by the fireside with your red pen and a bunch of manuscripts, you will live your life by market share spreadsheets.  You will be running profit and loss statements.  You will be doing something called the 4 P's and analysing target markets.  In fact, the closest you'll get to a fireside is the flaming pile of garbage your author calls 'writing', which he will sometimes send you with the intention of publishing.  It's a tough thing for a 21-year-old to take in.

It does get better.  That was the other great part about this academic's speech: I felt that, eventually, everything starts to make sense.  You start to play the game, and someday you get good at it, and someday you can fight battles against online retailers and chain store discounts and the commoditization of books knowing that matters just as much as the misplaced commas on page 17.

That doesn't mean editors don't seem crazy to everybody else.  That's probably why we still let people believe that whole red pen and fireside business.  Maybe if we spread the rumor enough, it will start to become true . . . Or maybe that's just publisher's logic again.

Guy Fawkes Night

A PLAY IN THREE ACTS

Act I
FIREWORKS:  Boom!

Act II
YOUR CORRESPONDENT: Ahh! It's a scary wicker woman!
CROWD: Ahh!  Scary!  Burn it!

Act III
YOUR CORRESPONDENT: That's an awful lot of burning.
CROWD:  Agh, too much fire!  Run away!

THE END

Firecracker, Firecracker, Sis Boom Bah!

In a happy coincidence, my friends in India are just celebrating Diwali just as we here in Britain are observing Guy Fawkes Day.  What do they have in common, you ask?  Firecrackers!

I don't know much about Guy Fawkes Day besides that it's mentioned in the movie V for Vendetta.  (You know, "Remember, remember, the 5th of November.") I asked a British classmate who Guy Fawkes was and got the simple explanation, "The guy who tried to blow up Parliament."

"Oh," I said.  "So you celebrate him?"

"No!" came the reply.  "We burn him!"

"Every year?"

"Well, he tried to blow up Parliament!"

Apparently, besides lighting firecrackers, they build a large wooden statue of this chap and light him on fire on a yearly basis.  The moral of the story is: don't p** off the British.

The festivities are planned for tomorrow night, and I'm certain to attend.  In the meantime, I've already written about what it's like to celebrate with fireworks in the US, so here's a challenge to my Indian readers:  if anyone has any great photos from Diwali that they'd like me to post (with proper crediting and a link to your own website, of course!) please do say so in the comments.  And whichever holiday you celebrate, I hope it's a good one!

The Unintended Consequences of Excellent Marketing

I've spent these past few weeks buried in my marketing coursework, which is helpful given that a major portion of my development editing experience has been spent servicing a market of one professor at a time.  (Market research: "Would you like us to fix your typos or leave them?")  The best way to learn about successful marketing is to look at successful books, and of course in any publishing course the number one example you hear mentioned day in and day out is good old Harry Potter.

The Boy Who Lived is popular in India too, it seems, because all of a sudden they're losing all their owls.  Either there is a disproportionate number of wizards in Delhi or there are too many silly Muggles about.  Hopefully the authorities will take notice and head off all those Harry Potter parties on their way to Bharatpur.

Taken while birdwatching last February . . . This guy doesn't look too keen on delivering your mail.

A Feast of Fiction

For anyone who treasures looking at beautiful, thoughtfully crafted books which would age gracefully on any bookshelf, check out Bespoke Editions.  They publish custom-made editions of classic titles, printed and handmade to order, and judging from the photos on their website these books are works of art in their own right. It looks like they're only selling to "selected customers" for the time being, but this is one spot worth watching.

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Though I had a lovely time running the marathon in Dublin last weekend, the sad consequence was a minor injury to my right foot.  Small price to pay, of course, but it makes the issue of getting to and from class a little difficult. Luckily, living in Oxford means there's an easy solution: the trusty bicycle.

I was really excited when I got back from India and noticed that Boston had installed new bike lanes.  Oxford is streets ahead on this one.  Not only are bike lanes present and accounted for on almost every road, they are put to heavy use by cyclists making the appropriate turn signals, obeying traffic lights, and generally sharing the road in a safe and efficient manner.  With the cost of owning a car (and parking!) so extraordinarily high, the bicycle--specifically, the "sit up and beg" model, as used above by the Wicked Witch of the West--is the preferred mode of transportation here in the Thames Valley.

This produces some strange results.  At 6 pm it's not uncommon to see women in dress skirts and men in suits happily pedalling away alongside students in clubwear.  It's also not uncommon for a Yankee on wheels to have heart palpitations as she navigates down what feels like the wrong side of the road.  What's a girl to do?  In this case, it's to take a lesson from my Indian friends.  If I'm not sure whether someone knows I'm coming . . .

. . . they will once they've heard my bell.  Tingalingalingalingalingalingaling...

The Kids Are Alright

Much is being made of this new survey conducted by Publisher's Weekly, which reveals that 74% of students surveyed prefer print textbooks over ebooks.  Even with flashy iPad apps like Theodore Gray's The Elements at their fingertips, good old pulp and binding is still the most comfortable way to learn.

I have to say I'm not surprised.  Even though my own library gives us the option of accessing our materials as ebooks from anywhere on- or off-campus, I found my own exploitation of this feature short-lived.  Last week I broke down and paid real pounds for a heap of books, knowing the money was better spent in the long run on hard copies rather than the antacids I would need when I discovered none of my hours of reading had sunk in.  There's only so many times you can switch between your textbook and facebook before your studies start to suffer.

Now, I do realize that this slightly contradicts what I said earlier about the iPad.  Funny what being a student will do.  I will, say, however, that publishers seem a lot more comfortable producing a hybrid model, where materials are available both online and in print form.  Some people are going to learn better from the computer -- think of all those young kids who grew up reading from a screen -- and some people will want paper.  There really is no reason not to service them both.  If done correctly, the result will be a bottom line of more readers, and how can a publisher argue with that?

But It's Good For You!

Fact:  when you complete the Dublin Marathon, they do not give you a free pint of Guinness at the finish line.

If I had known that, I wouldn't have been in such a hurry.

We had to find our own

It's Bad Enough We're Getting Rid of Paper

Now there's a blog post on The Bookseller's website (written by an agent) suggesting we get rid of editors.

Next month:  "Reading - should we even teach our kids?  A debate."

OK, so that might be an exaggeration.  I would be curious to see which publishing house would actually succeed by telling a brand-new author, "We'd love to publish your book.  Our marketing team really liked it.  We'll send it out to a few freelancers to see if it reads OK and then will get in touch once we need you for book tours.

"Wait, is there a problem?  Don't worry.  Your agent will call you as soon as he can."

And then they'll wonder why Lulu.com is suddenly doing so well.

One for the Authors

Phew!  That was two technical blog entries in a row.  I've clearly been studying too hard.  Time for a pleasant reminder of the real reason we edit:



I'd publish you, Sir Paul. . . . even if I may renegotiate that "thousand pages" part . . .

Get What You Pay For

The market for ebooks in the US is far more mature than the market for ebooks in the UK, so it's interesting to hear that just as I've gotten myself a gadget the pricing wars are suddenly erupting at Amazon.

Basically, the big players in the UK publishing industry--Penguin, Hachette, HarperCollins, MacMillan, and Simon & Schuster--have all decided that they will no longer allow Amazon to set the prices for their ebooks.  Previously, pricing had been set at a uniform $9.99 for all ebooks, which actually makes each ebook sale a loss-leader.  Though ebook sales are starting to outstrip sales of some versions of the printed book (i.e. hardbacks), Amazon was losing money on every purchase.

What do they gain from this?  More importantly, what does that say about books?  Let's say your technical handbook on book publishing retails at a brick-and-mortar for $34.99.  The ebook (should you make it available) is $9.99.  The paperback guide to getting your first job as an editor is probably only $12.99 in stores.  The ebook?  $9.99. That makes it slightly more difficult for Suzy College and Professor Pompous to discern which book is meant for whom.  They could go on the website and read the blurbs, or read the first chapter, but that's much more time and investment than the usual consumer will take when deciding to make a purchase.  Make no mistake: how publishers price books is very important to how publishers sell books.  Take away that lever, and you're removing a very powerful tool.

So, publishers understandably want to have a little bit more say on their own marketing mix.  Fine.  Amazon, of course, is unhappy, and sent UK Kindle owners a letter to prove it.  Their own lever has been removed--uniform, cheap pricing across the board.  With the iPad looming over the punchbowl with its own publisher-set price model, it seems Amazon would rather set their own terms and keep their loss-leader rather than cede marketing power.

This article from the Idea Logical Blog makes a great point, though.  Smaller publishers, or publishers who already focus on the ebook model, still stand to benefit from Amazon's one-size-fits-all pricing.  These publishers can't pay Barnes and Noble or Borders the same huge sums to get their books featured at the front of every store (if they can get their book into the store at all).  I especially like the point this writer makes that big publishers should be doing everything they can to keep brick-and-mortar booksellers in business, given Amazon's flattening of the marketplace.  Through customers may buy more books thanks to lowered prices, they also take away a lot of intangibles which bias the big powerhouses.  Amazon, after all, doesn't hold Harry Potter parties.

End of the Debate

It's been decided.  Thanks to a thoughtful choice of birthday gift from my significant other, I own a Kindle.

Welcome to the future!

It got me thinking.  If you want some background on international publishing rights and how my little Kindle will deal with them (tying in with my earlier visit to Frankfurt), look after the jump.  If you'd rather not, here's a pretty video from Nepal.

Pardon the silence.  My Google account was hacked last weekend, so for a short time I wasn't able to log on from my home computer.  The problem's been resolved now, thanks to my French computer-genius housemate, so with luck more posts should be up over the weekend.

One unintended consequence of the hack was the occasion to discover the odd things that happen when you move your crappy netbook from time zone to time zone.  For instance, in the corner of my Blogger text field, I have a little icon that looks like this:

It's a Hindi letter.  (Anyone know which one?)  That's what you get when you set up Blogger in India.

Meanwhile, whilst rummaging through the inner workings of my Google Chrome browser, I tried to navigate to the "Under the Hood" section to adjust my cookie-setting preferences.  I didn't find any such screen.  When I had deleted and reinstalled the program, I'd been given a new version containing this button instead:

Aww.  Now my browser speaks British.  It's like the United Nations on my hard drive.

Scenes from the Largest International Book Fair in the World

Guten tag!  It's been a pretty hectic few days, but your correspondent is back in Blighty nursing a pair of achy feet after touring the Frankfurter Buchmesse for two days.  The Buchmesse lived up to the hype about being a giant forum for the trading of international publishing rights - details of which I'll elaborate on in a further post.  In relation to publishing in general, I learned a few things which help to put some perspective on the industry.

The first hopeful statistic: there are 214 publishing companies in a 20-mile radius of Oxford, UK alone. This is 214 publishers in a town so small I'm liable to walk myself into a cow field if I miss a turn. Sure, some of these "publishers" are one woman and a dog, but that doesn't mean they aren't providing an important and crucial service for authors with something important to say.


At the same time, the large publishing conglomerates weren't above a little muscle-flexing. Look at the display booth for Cengage, a major educational publisher. It actually has two levels for conducting meetings.

Meetings seemed to be the order of the day. The more formidable the booth, the less likely an uninvited visitor was going to be able to walk in and browse. Every inch of space was dedicated to the international rights staff, who conducted back to back to back meetings with clients around the world, selling translation rights, co-publishing rights, territory rights, digital rights, you name it. It sounds boring until you realize, this is how the author writing from Skokie, Illinois, gets his words spread to audiences in Sweden, China, Kenya, and everywhere else in the world.


I was grateful that several publishers were kind enough to lend a rights manager or two to meet directly with small groups of students. I was also happy to see representatives from some of the smaller presses back home, traveling to Germany from as far as Sudbury, Massachusetts and Champaign, Illinois. As a rights manager from Oxford University Press reminded us,"Our most important mission is to spread knowledge".  By definition, publishing is a social enterprise, and it's the people - particularly, their variety and diversity - that make it important.

Gone Buchmesse-ing

No posts for a few days, as I'll be traveling to this year's Frankfurt Book Fair . . . or, as it's delightfully called in German: Buchmesse.  Photos of schnitzel, lager, and rights-trading to come when I return.

We All Scream For . . .

That is such a temptation, I thought when I noticed the pints of ice cream staring out of the freezer in the university-run Student Union shop.  If you're depressed about a class you can eat a whole Ben & Jerry's at the break.

It wasn't until I was up to the counter when I noticed what else loomed behind the till.  I guess if you're really depressed, you can buy handles of vodka or a liter of Strongbow cider.  In school.

Oh the differences of living in a country where the legal drinking age encompasses all university students, not just the senior class.

Out Of Sorts

In the madness of making life coherent these past few weeks, a delightful word has been coming to your correspondent's ears more often than usual: "sorted".  To sort is generally meant by Britons in loosely the same sense as Americans use to solve --- as in, "I'm glad I finally have this international wire transfer sorted because for a while my entire life savings disappeared into the ether."

Britons use sorted in a much stronger sense, as well.  Americans sort their mail (which usually means they haven't even opened it yet).  Britons sort global warming.

The result is almost a mistranslation, which to this American looks like it could be an insult. ("'Get sorted!' he screamed at his cheating ex-girlfriend.  'Sort this!' she howled in reply.")  Airing this confusion would probably do no good, however, though it's up for debate whether I could then be told to Sort Off.

The Most Frantic Corrigenda Ever

I just spent my last few days of summer finishing Jonathan Franzen's terrific novel The Corrections.  It seemed appropriate to walk into my neighborhood coffeeshop the next day and spot a Guardian headline announcing his latest, Freedom, needed some corrections of its own. [Link: Jonathan Franzen's 'book of the century' pulped over error.]

Luckily for Jonathan, the press keeps his book in the limelight just a little bit longer, something which will make chick-lit authors like Jennifer Weiner gnash their teeth in envy.  Just look at the headline, there.  Did you know he'd written the 'book of the century' when it first came out in August?  No?  Because here it's October, and you're aware now.  I smell a sales spike.

Not so lucky for the poor production assistant or manufacturing buyer who pulled the wrong book files and caused this mess.  At first, I clucked my tongue at the mistake, only guessing how much it costs to pulp and reprint 80,000 books.  But I can see exactly how the error could have happened, and I know I've seen this problem before.  As much as this correspondent hates to admit it . . . We've all been there.

Tra la-la, la-la

Posting may become a bit more sporadic in the near future, as full-time classes have just started up and frankly I'm terribly unused to being a student.  Listening to lectures is more tiring than I remember!

I will say, it's a hopeful sign that the first reading I'm assigned--the Wired article which defined the concept of the "Long Tail"--kicks off with a case study about the Joe Simpson book, Touching the Void.  It's a book about mountainclimbing (specifically, the near-fatal variety) I read several years ago on a recommendation from a fellow mountaineer.  "This is great!" I thought to myself.  "I  love mountainclimbing!  What a good sign!"

Then I remembered a key scene from the book, which was even better in the movie: Joe Simpson is dangling by a rope into a bottomless crevasse, possibly moments from plummeting to his death, when he tragically discovers that Boney M's horrible song "Brown Girl in the Ring" has gotten stuck in his head.

"This is terrible!" I thought to myself.  "I hate Boney M!  And now it's stuck in my head!"

Still, the case study was pretty interesting, and it's a good illustration of how internet buzz about one completely separate book can suddenly give a boost to half-forgotten titles on your backlist.  On the other hand, my guess is that the buzz about Touching the Void didn't have such a promotional effect on Boney M.  If you'd like to see for yourself why I think that way . . . Well, you've been warned.

Every Which Way

You'd think after living in India I wouldn't blink twice at British traffic.  They do drive on the opposite side of the road as us Yankees, but at certain crosswalks there are helpful "Look Right" and "Look Left" reminders, and anyways Brits insist it doesn't take long to get used to.

On the other hand, drivers in Oxford have this lovely habit of pulling up curbside on whichever side of the road they happen to want to park, whether or not they're facing the correct direction.  Mail trucks don't flinch at crossing an oncoming lane of traffic to deposit the postman at your doorstep.  Construction vehicles rumble into both lanes on their way to their worksite.  In fact, the larger the truck, the more likely you are to see it parked completely backwards.

All these cars driving American-style aren't doing much for my acclimatization.  As a result, that extra bit of hesitation just before I step in the street -- is the traffic to my right or my left? -- sometimes causes other, more confident members of the crowd to walk into me.  It might be a good idea to just look every direction several times before moving anywhere.  Or, better yet, just to shut my eyes and run.

More Oxford in Images

To save myself the trouble of going on a similar trip when guests start to arrive, I signed up yesterday afternoon for an Oxford City Sightseeing tour.  You know the type: the obnoxious big red buses with people leering from the upper level, cameras bristling.  It wasn't immensely helpful, and it didn't take very long - as I said before, Oxford is incredibly small - but I did get the opportunity for a few nice snaps.

Apparently, studying in Oxford is not a big deal, because everyone and their mother seems to have done so.  Our tour guide (pictured above) couldn't pass a single college without listing four or five famous attendees.  When his list began to include people like Bill Clinton and Kris Kristofferson, the American country singer, I felt like he was mistakenly reading from a copy of Who's Who in Every Cultural Sphere, Ever. I guess when you're the third-oldest university in Europe, you've got time to form a collection.

Speaking of collection, we drove past the famous Bodleian library (bookworm heaven, for which I will soon have a library card).  I knew it was large, but I didn't realize why: it's a copyright library.  That means every book published in the UK needs to send a copy to the Bodleian to ensure copyright protection.  So when they say "miles and miles of shelving", they mean it quite literally.

They do a lot of studying in Oxford, but never fear.  Parked in front of Trinity College, I noticed an advert which seemed to suggest they know how to have fun, too:

We remained fully clothed for my particular tour, but who knows?  It was cold that day.

A Scholar's Life

The only downside to completing the first week at a UK university is realizing that, just like they call the bottom level of a building the "ground floor" and say the "first floor" is up one flight of stairs, we have just finished "Week 0" and "Week 1" is barely on the horizon.  Sigh.

And what a week it's been, numbered or otherwise.  Between technology workshops, inductions, meetings with my professors, enrollments, banking appointments, and numerous trips to the grocery store, I've barely had time to sit and process my surroundings.  General consensus is that we haven't been given much new information, but having so much fed to us at once does create no small amount of stress.  Thank goodness our first out-of-class assignment has been probably the most pleasant part of the whole publishing experience: walking through a bookstore and looking at books.

Oxford University Press's dedicated store, right off of High Street.  Proof that textbooks can be pretty, too.

There is only one drawback: dirty, vile temptation.

If you can pay in coins, it feels like it's free!

By the time we'd finished browsing, I was glad not to be carrying any cash.  It's altogether too tiring to keep repeating to yourself, "Student budget, student budget, student budget, student budget . . ."

As Advertised

These past few days have been busy with the beginning of your correspondent's Master's in International Publishing coursework.  It's refreshing to be on the other side of the academic food chain again, although I'm sad to report that all of that time selling textbooks doesn't make me any more likely to buy new books from the campus bookstore.  Sorry!

It's been wonderful to meet my classmates and appreciate the diversity of my particular cohort.  Within only 75 students, we have representatives from 24 countries, including Chile, Lithuania, India, Iran, and more.  It's been amazing.  Even our getting-to-know-each-other, casual conversations sometimes break into learning something new about something we didn't know was unknown.  The specific kind of cold in Poland, "white nights" in Sweden, primary schools in the Netherlands . . . All these little undercurrents inform and shape a culture, but don't become apparent unless you stumble over them in conversation.  It's why you can't learn about Russia just by reading Dostoevsky.  A trip to his dingy basement apartment in St. Petersburg reveals more about the parts of his life he's not saying out loud.

Firmly at the center of the "unknown unknowns" category is the pleasure of being surrounded by such a great group.  I have something to learn from everyone.  Best of all, everyone wants to talk about publishing!  Sentence structure has never been so fun . . .

Or, maybe it has.

Merry Old England

My first impressions of Oxford, UK, are as follows:  These. Buildings. Are. Old.

I've had the luxury of time these past few days, and have used every second to wander through town exploring new backroads and alleys.  In fact, the whole city appears to be backroads and alleys, lined with cobblestones and flanked by high stone walls.

On one of my walks I stumbled upon the Christ Church complex, on the south side of town.  Christ Church is one of the oldest colleges of the University of Oxford, and the buildings have been standing since the 14th century.  Lucky students actually take classes here, have dorms here, and spend their formative years in the shadow of these great buildings.

Of course, this is all information I gleaned off of Wikipedia after I got home - at the time, I was just soaking in the scenery and wondering where I was.

I mostly viewed the college from afar, preferring to walk through the nearby Christ Church meadow.  Quickly, my attention was diverted by something a little more interesting, given my adventures the other day.  Once again, in the middle of the city, the grass was littered with cows.

Judging from the size of their horns, however, it doesn't look like this meadow is open for jogging.

This Always Happens To Me

Due to a momentary three-month lapse of reason, I've been training for the Dublin Marathon which falls on October 25 of this year.  It's not my first marathon, but it's the first I've attempted while in the middle of an intercontinental move.  As it turns out, I'm scheduled to run my 19- and 20- mile runs just as I've arrived in Oxford, with no knowledge of the city and its environs.

I set off this morning fully intending to find the Thames riverbank and just follow the water for eight or ten miles before turning back, completing a neat little loop.  I soon discovered that, although the map of Oxford looks quite large, Oxford itself is very small.  Compared to your typical sprawling American metropolis, you don't have to travel far to get from point to point.

What I'm trying to say is, I ran right past the river and not only did I fail to find my jogging path, but I ran myself straight out of town.

I doubled back and tried again to find the route.  It had all seemed so clear when I researched it on Google Earth.  I found something that approximated my desired cycling path, but which once again proved itself wrong.  Now I was running through a grand meadow, on something which signs reassured me was a "public footpath", but which clearly led me straight through a cow pasture.

After twelve miles, though, "clearly" is a relative term.  I was tired and only halfway paying attention to my surroundings.  I made the discovery by force: One moment I'm running, the next I have come face to face with a giant English milking cow.

This can't be right, I thought to myself, looking around.  Cows were surrounding me.  I assumed I had taken a wrong turn.  But, to my surprise, I saw there were English folks wandering all over the cow pasture just as I was.  There was even another runner, the first I've seen since arriving in England.  No one else seemed worried about the grazing livestock, and the animals seemed fairly unconcerned about them.

Meanwhile, the cow was chewing its cud and looking back at me blandly from the middle of my road.  I had not been expecting this.  I've been wrestling my instincts to over-domesticate loose cows since India, and again I felt the urge to find this cow's owner and let him know his animals were going wild.

That's it, I decided.  I've run far enough.  And next time, I'm going to need a map.

Around the World

Two more discoveries made immediately after exiting the pub yesterday:

1)  A nice little corner store, to remind me of corner store man.
2)  This corner store man, as should every corner store man, sells laddoo.  Including my favorite: besan laddoo.

This is how I simultaneously lose Pounds while gaining pounds: spending all my money on Cadbury and laddoo. It almost makes up for the fact that I can't get a decent jar of peanut butter to save my life.  Looks like I'll be heading straight for dessert . . .

Oxford

Yesterday I watched the sun rise over Canada hours before my plane left the US.  Today I watched the sun rise over Ireland hours before I landed in the UK.

Dear God I am so tired.

Navigating Oxford has been easier than anticipated.  The first person I ran into on campus was the very man I had been incessantly emailing with to arrange my housing.  Before I even realized it was him, he had correctly guessed my name and flat number and the keys were dangling from my hand.  It certainly helped ease the frustration of the following one-mile walk from campus to the flat, all the while carrying 100 pounds of gear.

Look at that backpack!  The bulges have bulges!

There's a silver lining even here, of course.  As my favorite travel companions will tell you (with some dismay), the more tired I am, the more efficient I become. I was home, unpacked, and had the furniture rearranged even before lunch.  Thanks, jet lag!

At the moment the only thing I haven't nailed down is the internet and a phone. I'm sure I'll have time to get those sorted in the morning, but for now I've solved the problem temporarily by discovering a happy hour and free Wifi at the neighboring pub.  Cheers!

Mind the Gap

All the anticipation invariably boils down to one fidgety eight-hour airplane ride.  I'm leaving America today and will arrive in London at what will feel like 3 a.m., then it's an hour's bus ride to my new life.  In other words: things are about to get interesting.

In true English style, your correspondent will keep a stiff upper lip and give you the grand finale of British Men Doing Silly Things.  I'm of the firm opinion that Genesis perform the best traveling music.  Conveniently, they've also written a song about books, which seems appropriate to the occasion.

Take it away, boys.  I'll see you from Blighty.

British Men Doing Silly Things: Part 3

Packing for India was a lot easier than packing for England.  Fewer sweaters to cram in.  Also, I didn't need quite so many coats.

There is also a lot more to be arranged in terms of paperwork, and that says a lot.  I'm just crossing my fingers that the little hanging details like, oh, the location of my passport, will be hammered out before I board my plane.  Everything is budget, plan, and petition.  Much like these very official British men doing silly things.

This American Life

If you had asked me on September 11, 2001 what I would be doing on the nine year anniversary of the tragedy, I wouldn't have known how to answer.  In these few months back in the USA between gigs abroad, I've thought long and hard about what it is to be American.  I sing along to country music and spent an evening in July dodging fireworks.  It's somehow appropriate that, on September 11, 2010, I was back at Notre Dame enjoying the most American of pastimes: college football.

If that sounds strange, consider what a college football game means.  At least once a year I travel across the country to meet up with my closest friends on the campus where we first met.  We reminisce about old times and eat and drink until we've probably done something stupid enough to reminisce about next year.  We cheer for the young men who represent this tradition on the field.  Win or lose, we end every game by putting our arms around each other and singing our Alma Mater.

This year, because of the anniversary, our marching band played "America the Beautiful" at halftime.  The background chatter died abruptly, and tens of thousands of people removed their hats and sang along.  I was awestruck.  The moment was a better tribute to our losses than anything words can express.

I thought about that later this evening, after detouring from my drive back to Detroit to visit a Delhi friend.  She had surprisingly moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, while I was re-acclimatizing in Boston.  We ate dal and chocolate, drank tea, and swapped stories of high altitude climbing between bouts of laughter.  I thought: Here I am celebrating one country, reminiscing about another, and about to move to a third in three days.  Would I have foreseen any of this nine years ago?

They say being an ex-pat is difficult because assimilating into a new culture can rip away your roots.  I don't know if that's true.  Everywhere I go I bump into memories of places I've called home, be it Indiana, Massachusetts, Detroit, Denver, or Delhi.  At the same time, no matter where I am, I was born American, and for better or for worse I represent my country to the rest of the world. That's the point behind going abroad in the first place: being able to sit down with a new friend and say, Let me tell you where I came from . . .

The drive through Indiana