Category Archives: controversy

July 31, 2012   John   advice, controversy, John, nonfiction  
4

It’s all over now, Baby Blue

Oh, Jonah…

I’m sure most of you saw the news yesterday that somewhat-discredited writer Jonah Lehrer is now fully discredited, having resigned from The New Yorker after admitting he fabricated some Bob Dylan quotes for his book Imagine and then lied about it. It’s a shame, because, while I haven’t read Imagine, I’ve been impressed by his writing on-line—he’s clearly a smart guy. But while I was willing to let it slide earlier when it seemed like he was self-plagiarizing due to feeling overwhelmed/over-committed, it’s a lot harder when he’s putting words in Bob Dylan’s mouth.

Anyway, I bring all this up just as a simple plea: if you’re writing nonfiction, don’t make stuff up!

I know, it seems self-evident, but there’s a long history of smart writers plagiarizing or fabricating material for a variety of reasons. And while publishers can protect themselves to an extent with the warranty clauses in their contracts, which place the burden of truth squarely on the author, as an agent all we really have is the author’s word. Yet if a problem arises, we certainly catch our share of the blame (witness the silence of Lehrer’s agent on this).

So, for my sake and yours, please don’t pull a Jonah—otherwise, to quote (accurately, I hope) the man in question, “a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…”

July 17, 2012   abby   Abby, authors, controversy, debate, digital publishing, e-books, Facebook, piracy  
5

eBook Piracy

In a digital publishing world, how do we deal with piracy? Authors and readers alike have strong opinions about piracy, DRM (a special kind of coding that is added to some eBooks so you can’t do things like copy and paste or print out an entire eBook), and how to stop eBooks from being stolen. And some have more creative solutions than others. The Guardian recently shared this piece about author Terry Goodkind and his own special brand of revenge. After finding a pirated copy of his self-published title THE FIRST CONFESSOR: THE LEGEND OF MAGDA available online, Terry took to his Facebook to out his pirate to fans and publicly shame him for stealing the eBook (including posting a photo of the alleged pirate).

And it worked.

The pirate removed all of his links to Goodkind’s book and Goodkind considers this a victory.

The question is: should we be castigating people who make pirated eBooks available? Or, as Paul Coelho believes, does piracy stir readers’ interest and sales? Goodkind believes it removes any incentive to legitimately purchase an author’s work. What do you think? Should authors put a lot of effort into combating piracy?

July 03, 2012   abby   Abby, controversy, digital publishing, e-books  
15

Big Brother is Watching You (Read)!

A really interesting article came out in the Wall Street Journal about eBooks and how readers read, giving a realistic peek into what readers want. The article talks about how retailers can now use eBook readers to mine data about how readers interact with their books—how long they read for, when they put a book down or what they read next. This kind of data opens up a whole new world to eBook retailers and publishers—data that was previous unavailable.

 Knowing when readers lose interest in a text or how many pages they are likely to read before walking away will help authors and publishers create eBooks that keep readers hooked and hopefully coming back for more. It could also be the first step in creating a truly interactive eBook, where readers get to leave feedback and interact (via the eBook) with authors and publishers.

 However, this new data also raises questions about privacy—reading, which was once a completely individual and solitary act, is now being shared and studied by big name companies and publishers. Devices such as the Kindle or Nook can now record exactly what it is you do while using your device. This information is then sent to eBook retailers for analysis. It’s not quite spying, but it is like having someone looking over your shoulder and taking notes about your reading habits.

 What do you think? Does it worry you that companies like Amazon and Barnes & Noble are now analyzing every word you read? Or does the lack of privacy get outweighed by the benefits that this data can provide? Do you think this kind of data will help publishers give readers a better experience?

June 20, 2012   Miriam   authors, controversy, culture, media, Miriam  
10

Content pressure

A friend of mine alerted me to this story about Jonah Lehrer’s self-plagiarism (which turned into a story of him plagiarizing others) and it made me sad.  This kind of thing keeps coming up (whether it’s plagiarizing or making things up, a la Frey and Mortenson) and it’s disappointing, sure, but it’s also puzzling.

Rather than opting for knee-jerk demonizing, I find myself wondering if it’s possible that these talented people are just cracking under the pressure to produce content at a speed that is unsustainable in order to catch the miniscule attention span of readers used to having 17 websites open at once and getting their information in McNugget bites.   Or, as in the case of those who “embellish,” if it’s the trying to make their stories bigger, shinier, funnier, more tragic, more more in order to grab your and my interest.

Is any of this excusable?  Are we collectively putting too much pressure on our writers and thinkers and pushing them over the edge into the ethical abyss?  What do you all think?

 

 

May 01, 2012   Brenna   Brenna, buzz, censorship, classics, controversy, culture, inspiration  
0

Revolution

It’s hard to think about anything else today besides the noise and excitement going on nine stories below. If you’re not in NY (particularly Union Square) or another major city today, Occupy Wall Street is having its May Day protest. Without delving into the politics of all that, let’s talk books.

Books have historically been vehicles for major revolutions, just think about Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Common Sense, and The Communist Manifesto.

So, what do you think the “Bibles” of OWS should be? What books have served to inspire you to make a drastic change?

April 18, 2012   Stacey   controversy, dead people, fiction, opinion, prizes, Stacey  
10

The Pulitzer, or lack thereof

There has been so much chatter the last couple of days about the Pulitzer judges not awarding a fiction (or editorial writing ) prize for the first time since 1977 that I thought it was worth a mention on our blog.

Whether you loved the nominated books or hated them, or never even heard of them, the reality is that historically the prize does help sales. In a market that’s changing so rapidly and with the shrinking number of retailers, most of us feel like we want every boost we can get for our books. A Pulitzer Prize certainly offers that.

Ann Patchett (one of my favorites, as you might know) sums it up beautifully in her New York Times op-ed piece. As she suggests, the Pulitzer is the literary version of the Oscar, and to not have a prize this year when we’re all craving good news is definitely disappointing. It is sad to think, as Patchett points out, that David Foster Wallace will not have another chance to win. So, we’ll sigh and move on.

What do you all think of this? Do you care about the Pulitzer for fiction or that one wasn’t awarded this year? Is it something that makes you go out and buy a book (I’ll admit I did buy Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad last year after it won the prize)? Curious minds want to know.

March 28, 2012   Miriam   controversy, dead people, digital publishing, fun, great books, Miriam, self-publishing  
8

Necessary losses

Most of us who work in publishing are passionate about books.  Duh.

We are also passionate about the written word in its myriad forms and about the primacy of the creative process.  Even when working with prima donna “authors,” celebrities who are barely literate, and writers of all stripes whose work should probably be hurled across the room in homage to the great Dorothy Parker, many of us are easily star struck.  All it takes is a brilliant turn of phrase, a well crafted, ambitious novel, a surprising and daring narrative gambit and we’re in love.

But, most of us in the business know with utter certainty that there are books that should be shelved, put in a drawer, sent through the shredder or, in the case of the truly great writers, consigned to footnotes in fawning biographies.  In this era of e-books and the voracious need for content, whatever its worth, it’s hard to defend the position that some books just should not be published.  And yet, some books should not be published.

Reading this short piece in the HuffPost about “lost” early efforts by renowned authors, later found and brought out under the guise of offering additional glimpses into those authors’ psyches, reinforces my opinion that not everything deserves to be in print.  My contention that someone should have told Shakespeare to put aside Titus Andronicus and turn his talents to somewhat less bloody family dramas has gotten me in trouble in literature classes as well as cocktail parties but really, would that have been such a loss?

I think all of us need to recognize, especially now when it’s so easy to self-publish, when something is not ready for public consumption and be able to move on to the next project with an eye to applying the lessons learned and producing something stronger, better…publishable.  What do you think?  As writers, can you make the call on your own work?  Can you make the call on other peoples’?  Should everything be published, the good, the bad, and the badly written?

 

March 28, 2012   John   controversy, John, opinion, parenting  
3

An agent’s responsibility

When I was first contemplating making the switch from editing to agenting, one of my concerns was the morality of the profession. Now, I’d worked with agents for years, and not once did I ever encounter the classic agent stereotype—you know, the fast-talking, cigar-chomping, ready-to-sell-his-mother-down-the-river-for-a-quick-buck shyster. And indeed, I’ve found that, at least here at DGLM, we make it a point of conducting our business as honestly and responsibly as possible.

Still, it’s with a bit of unease that I want to talk about yesterday’s kerfuffle over Dara Lynn-Reiss and her book deal for her Vogue article. If you haven’t read it, it’s basically about how she shamed her 7-year-old daughter into losing weight. As a parent, I found it to be a terrible story, and one that I frankly don’t want to read more about in book form. But as an agent I did find myself wondering about the sale, and whether I would have taken this project on myself.

Certainly, the article is controversial, and controversy sells. And I don’t necessarily have a problem with that—when I help a writer put together a proposal, say, for a narrative or a memoir, a key question is what “newsworthy” content (i.e. controversy) might be included. Moreover, if an agent’s primary role is to sell books, how much do I have to like or approve of the material?

But ultimately, I’d like to think I’d pass for the reason Mary Elizabeth Williams lays out so convincingly in Salon—it’s just a depressing way to sell books. It’s cynical and potentially exploitative—and even if it isn’t, I just don’t see how I would be proud of myself for repping this book. I’d like to think Lynn-Reiss’s agent had a different take on the material, and he’s certainly entitled to his opinion. But if his calculations lined up with Williams’ reading of the sale—well, color me depressed…

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this—both on Lynn-Reiss’ situation and where an agent should draw the line on what material to rep.

 

February 29, 2012   Miriam   Amazon, Apple, censorship, controversy, e-books, future of publishing, Miriam, news, retailers  
8

Censor censure

I’ve been on a bit of a Words With Friends kick lately (okay, more a debilitating obsession than a kick but no one’s kicked me off a plane yet) and one of the frustrating things I’ve found about the game is how it censors what it considers unacceptable words. Not sure what geniuses (or algorithms) decide what works and what doesn’t but when you’re behind by 15 points and you’ve got the letters to wipe your opponent out with a word you know is a word but that WWF won’t allow…well, it makes you a little short tempered.

Thing is, censorship is all around us and, by and large, we tend to overlook minor instances of it as long as the big freedoms aren’t compromised.   I can shake my head and keep playing WWF, say, because who cares about a silly app game.  But, is that the right attitude?  When you hear about Seth Godin’s experience with Apple refusing to carry one of his “manifestos” because there are links in it to the Amazon store, the whole Big Brother thing becomes a bit sinister.  This is censorship seasoned with monopolistic bullying, in my opinion.

How much freedom of speech can be guaranteed when behemoths like Apple and Amazon censor what is available to consumers for any reason other than that the work(s) in question poses a real physical threat to individuals?  Sure, a privately owned retailer may choose what goods and services it wants to offer, but when you have two or three entities responsible for the dissemination of vast amounts of information, it seems to me that it should not be morally, ethically, or legally okay for those entities to decide what consumers may or may not be able to buy.

Those of us in the publishing business have a rather bedeviled relationship with Apple, Amazon and B&N (especially the first two).  On the one hand, we need them in order to place our authors’ wares.  On the other, we are increasingly concerned with the practices of these soulless corporations whose only interest is the financial bottom line and for whom books and the entire publishing world are but a blip in their massive spreadsheets.  Is it time for the government to step in and regulate how content is served up?  What can we do as consumers (and book lovers) to safeguard our ability to buy any book (or story or manifesto) we want?  Should we be outraged or should we shrug our shoulders and lump this with the Word With Friends shenanigans?

What’s your take on all of this?  Am I over- or under-reacting?

December 08, 2011   Michael   Amazon, controversy, Michael, retailers  
0

Humor helps

This has been a week of major Amazon consternation here in publishing land. First, they bought the 450-title trade list of Marshall Cavendish, a small, independent publisher of high-quality books for children. The reaction from booksellers was quick, including one tweeting that she was looking forward to shipping back all the Marshall Cavendish titles. Agents were (and still are) very curious to hear from the publisher about just what this means for our authors. Then they announced a fun promotion in which they’re asking customers to go to brick-and-mortar retailers, find items they want, scan their barcode with Amazon’s app, then get $5 from Amazon for doing price research for them! While this program does not include books (because as Josie Leavitt points out, they already know how much their competitors charge for books–no research needed!), booksellers and some authors have been up in arms about Amazon’s audacity. It’s certainly a ballsy move to proactively promote such behavior, though the app (and others like it) have been around for some time.

But one bookseller, Roxanne J Coady, has a modest proposal for Amazon that could help even the playing field. I won’t spoil the fun by giving anything more away, but please do take a look. A little levity never hurts.

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