The Daily Bookmark

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It's unusual for a blog to make the national news, but it happened recently when Gawker Media was forced into bankruptcy by a whopping $140 million judgement in an invasion-of-privacy case brought by Hulk Hogan. Now there's a lot of interesting background to this event, including a shadowy billionaire with a grudge who was funding lawsuits against Gawker's owner, but the upshot is that Univision bought Gawker Media's seven websites at auction earlier this week. Six of them remain, but the flagship site, Gawker.com, has closed.

Why this run down of media business? Because I am SO bummed that one of my daily stops on the internet is gone! I'd check in with Gawker every day,usually briefly in the afternoon and reading in depth in the evening. Now it's not there, I struggle with this information-age, existential blankness that has no name. It's like walking down the street to discover a smouldering hole where your favorite cafe was. Or learning that your local library has been turned into a parking lot. Sic transit gloria interrētis.

Fortunately, I still have several must-reads every day. We subscribe to three newspapers online, The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Portland Press Herald. I tend to read the first for opinion and arts, the second for politics, and the third for the gloriously wacky local news (much of it thanks to our governor, who is a choleric nut job.) Of the remaining Gawker Media sites, I love Jezebel, subtitled "Celebrity, Sex Fashion for Women." It has everything from gossip about the Kardashians and Real Housewives to investigative reporting about women in politics, campus sexual assault and income inequality. It has a strong "third wave" feminist slant that keeps me - who absorbed feminism in the seventies and early eighties - on my toes.

Also on my personal blog roll? John Scalzi's WHATEVER, which is, as its name suggests about whatever the award-winning SF author has in mind: science fiction, politics, publishing, cat pictures, ukeleles...the list goes on, and is all entertainingly well-written. On the more frivolous side, I adore home decor/home improvement blogs (you all may recall my home is 200 years old, which means at any given time, something about it needs improving.) Decor, like fashion, is very much a matter of taste, which in my case means no matter how beautiful the pictures or how well-written the prose, I'm not going to be bookmarking anything that features a boho, apartment in Brooklyn, Scandinavian modern or minimalist aesthetic. Instead, my recent faves are all about a bright Southern more-is-more look. I'm particularly enjoying 702 Park Project, about a young couple bringing back his grandparents' 1902 North Carolina foursquare house, and The Pink Clutch, written by a woman who looks a lot like me ten years ago, and prominently features bar carts and cocktail recipes among the decorating advice. My kind of gal!

How about you, Reds? What do you read while drinking your first cup of coffee, or while skimming your tablet before bedtime? What are your must-visit stops on the internet - and have you ever lost one, ala Gawker?

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Oh, I read Gawker, too! So sad... for blogs I tend to go with home design—am a fan of Decor8, Domino, and Design*Sponge. I also follow a bunch of the perfume blogs, including NowSmellThis, Bois de Jasmin, and Perfume Posse. I love it when people write about perfume—it becomes poetry in the right hands....



JULIA: Susan, I confess I have never gotten the allure, but I know several other authors who love to read and write about perfume, including MJ Rose and Denise Hamilton. On the other hand, I enjoy opera and classical music reviews, despite the popular saying that writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

HALLIE EPHRON: I never followed Gawker so I won't be missing it. I do subscribe the Boston Globe, The New York Times, and only recently since I am obsessed with this election, the Washington Post. AND the New Yorker (they send nearly daily posts which are usually excellent reads). Also the Huffington Post, even though there's  never much there that isn't covered better elsewhere. For laughs I read Tom and Lorenzo, fashion bloggers. And I follow my kids on Facebook (does that count?)

In fact, it's amazing that I have time to do anything besides read what's on the web. It's a terrible time sink.



JULIA: I read TLo too, Hallie!


HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yeesh, this makes me feel out of it. We subscribe to papers: the Boston Globe, and the Boston Herald and The New York Times, which I read out loud to Jonathan the way to work. I get a fabulous email news briefing every day from the Washington Post, with great links, which I am addicted to, and the New Yorker daily posts.  I read TV Spy, about the news business.   And the RTNDA (radio television news directors association) daily newsletter. I follow the NYT, Wash Post and LA Times and The New Yorker and New York Magazine on Twitter, and that is surprisingly worthwhile. Hey, is Vogue on Twitter? Off to look.

JULIA: Yes it is!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I didn't read Gawker! Now I think I've missed something great. Damn. I do read The New York Times online everyday (and paper Friday-Sunday), and now the Washington Post, because I kept hitting my limit on the political stories. I get the Dallas Morning News on paper everyday because their online format is from the dark ages. I read mostly for local news, and the editorial page. And I get all kinds of things on Flipboard everyday. I subscribe to several cooking blogs but don't usually find time to read them, and just looking at my list so far makes me wonder how I ever get anything else done. Oh, and I try to check out the UK news everyday.

I'd really love the home decor blogs.  Hmm, wonder how I can squeeze a little more in...

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What would you recommend to us from your daily bookmarks?

Adventures in Self-Publishing

ROSEMARY HARRIS:  If anyone had told me five years ago - or even two  - that I would be self-pubbing a book, I would have said Absolutely Not! In fact, even a few years back there was still the faint whiff of disapproval or sympathy regarding self-pubbed authors.  And I was on the fringes of that camp.

I didn't come to my decision on a soapbox ranting about the evils of NY publishing.  I had - and still have - a great agent - and I've had four books traditionally published, including the one I have just self-pubbed in paperback. My first three books were hard/soft with MacMillan. Originally Slugfest, the fourth book in the series was to have been released in paperback by the hardcover publisher. There it was...listed on Amazon with a March 29, 2012 release date. My agent and editor confirmed it. I planned Spring 2012 accordingly.

And then, I got the news that they had changed their minds. O-kaaaayyyy. The reasons are varied and are best told at the bar at Bouchercon, but I didn't see why I shouldn't try my hand at self-publishing. All of the others had had some life as pbs. I wouldn't have the advantage of publishing the ebook, the original publisher had retained those rights, so I wouldn't be able to give my book away for free or sell it for .99 and then claim it was a bestseller. I was going the route that conventional wisdom said was a dead end - trade paperback publishing.

I investigated both Lightning Source and CreateSpace and truth be told their numbers, offers and potential were very similar. I chose CreateSpace because their website was slightly easier for me to negotiate, but that might not be the same for everyone.

They offered three cover design options which basically allow you to have as much or as little help designing your cover as you like. I took the middle road. I found the artwork, wrote the back cover copy and communicated via email with a designer who made numerous changes at my request. I'm pretty happy with the cover although if I had it to do over I might have made the title bigger (tough to do with an eight letter word but elongated type might have helped.)

Then I had to decide on price. If I wanted to avail myself of CS's Expanded Distribution (and not lose money on every book sold) I'd need a cover price of $11.99. Expanded distribution would enable me to be listed on Baker&Taylor's website and Ingram's. There was also the possibility of a sale to B&N. But no guarantees. And no salesperson except for me. And I'd be busy trying to let consumers know that the book was now available in paperback. If I said no to Expanded Distribution, I could go out with an $8.99 price point - more consumer friendly and more competitive with other cozy or light mystery titles - and it was trade, not mass market sized. So that's what I did. I felt it was a longshot that B&N was going to carry the reprint and most libraries that wanted the book had bought it in hardcover. I am sorry the book isn't going to be available through independent bookstores, but it wasn't going to be anyway (if I hadn't self-pubbed.)

The CreateSpace process was remarkable. Fast, easy and responsive to my frequent calls and emails. (There is a system in place that let's you click a button that says Call Me Now! and dang if someone doesn't call you about your book.)My out of pocket costs were about $500 - the lion's share of that being cover design, $350, so it could have been a lot less.

And it seemed to me that was a reasonable price to pay  to learn if any of the promotional activities, social media, mailings, etc. I was doing were generating sales or if it was all still about being on the front table at Barnes & Noble. Few things compare to getting that kind of exposure, but I'd only had that for one of my previous books anyway (Pushing Up Daisies) and over time the paperbacks had sold so why not try it for my self-pubbed book?

In the last two weeks since the book went live on Amazon, I've solicited reviews, written a few guest blogs, and sent out a newsletter and press release (cross your fingers that the fellow from the Washington Post likes it as much as he liked the first book which went into a second printing. And that Garrison Keillor actually reads it, likes it and chats it up!!)

I've also sent an email to about fifty writing pals asking for help in getting the word out. I confess that was a little awkward but I was absolutely heartened by the response I got (and I will flog forever books written by those authors who were kind enough to give me a shout-out!)

So that's where I am. I try not to obsessively check my CreateSpace or Amazon number but I am human. ;-) One interesting side note, sales of my first three books have seen a little spike since I started yakking about Slugfest. 

I have very realistic and modest sales expectations for the book.  If the shelf life of a traditionally released paperback is somewhere between milk and yogurt, I'm told a self-pubbed release is more like good scotch - but I certainly hope the book doesn't take 12-20 years to sell! I will make a determination on the success or failure of the project at the end of the year. And then we'll see. I still hope to have my WIP traditionally published, but I am keeping my options open.

 

So.. as Dr. Pangloss might say....any questions?