BookCampTO

This Saturday, Cheese and I (along with my friend Kevin) attended BookCampTO, a grassroots “unconference,” whose mandate was to have “A conversation about the future of books, writing, publishing, and the book business in the digital age.”

So, while I didn’t bring my laptop and tweet throughout the day, here are a few summaries, observations and memorable quotations for the day:

7:15 – Alarm goes off. Linger in bed out of resentment to be getting up at work time on a Saturday.

8:00 – Cheese arrives grumbling. Make her coffee and toast with nutella, and she is temporarily placated (the girl will do almost anything for nutella).

8:10 – My friend Kevin arrives. He is a brave soul who is not in publishing but is interested in books, digital media and pop culture in general, and who comes with non-nutella-induced enthusiasm.

8:52 – Arrive at the iSchool for registration, which runs as smoothly and quickly as at most regular conferences. Well done, BCTO team.

9:03 – Very quick opening remarks from Hugh McGuire. His vision of BookCampTO? Making the one-to-one hallway conversations from a regular conference the focus of this one.

9:15 – First session on DRM ends up being a throwdown by some of the female powerhouses of publishing. Try to get over exhilarating “fly on the wall” feeling. (As it turns out, DRM are three letters which can get people hot under the collar in just about any session throughout the day. Kev and I referred to it as the “DRM bomb”).

9:17 – The big question succinctly stated: how to achieve “freely disseminated information, but not for free.”

9:20 – Thanks to Morgan Cowie for important distinctions between DRM at a retail level and at a publisher level. Most seem to agree that it’s ridiculous at a retail level if it restricts use of content to only one device.

9:24 – Someone brings up the book industry/music industry comparison. Much eye rolling ensues, since of course, the comparison is quite faulty, especially when it is reasserted by a couple prominent publishers that nobody really wants to meet authors…and they don’t want to meet you.

9:33 – I struggle with the contention that people only break DRM and pirate out of frustration that content is encrypted in the first place.  I think this is an overly optimistic view of my generation’s sense of entitlement to free content.  Besides, one person breaking the code and posting it isn’t the entire problem, it’s that people don’t have any problem downloading it and using it.

9:40 – Someone suggests a micropayments idea, which in theory, I like, though how it would work, I’m not sure.

9:50 – Someone throws out the word “assholic.” I’m impressed not only by this adjective, but by the general heated involvement around the room.

9:52 – Sarah MacLachlan brings up Anansi’s success with their limited time offer of free ebooks this fall. It generated huge publicity and a sales increase. Sure, I’m behind that. Though of course that kind of thing still qualifies as unique and worthy of attention. If giving away free content was the norm, I imagine the increase in sales and publicity would be much lower.

10:15 – Second Session on the disappearance of the print review and the online review scene in general (Led/moderated by Q&Q staffer and blogger Steven Beattie, writer Claire Cameron and Ryan Nurwisah of the National Post)

10:17 -  Steven expresses his dismay that the deep long-form critical review is not widely available online (well, they are on his v. intelligent blog That Shakesperian Rag). I think it’s true, but the problem isn’t necessarily the reviewers, but rather the medium itself (a point Steven made as well). We are ctrl + tab readers online – constantly multitasking and jumping about the page (I have 4 tabs open right now). We chat, we tweet, we google, we follow hyperlinks. Aside from the misery of squinting at small text on a glowing screen, we haven’t been conditioned to read carefully onscreen, especially online. We’re skimmers and attention tramps, and sadly I don’t think that will change. Dismal? Maybe.

10:22 – Alexa Clark (the creator and organizer of the fantastic Mini Book Expo) doesn’t think it’s a huge problem. She’s all about the quick recommendation, and thinks that’s what’s most important. hnd this is probably what online reviewing does best. (Check out Erin Balser’s very cool Booksin140 reviews on twitter)

10:23 – Concern expressed over lowering Canadian critical discourse and canon formation. SB: “Doesn’t that downgrade the discourse? If you just rub against it and say, ‘Yeah, I liked it.’? ” Funny quip, though I’m not sure reviewers are entirely responsible for canon formation. I realize that they’re on the front lines, but academics also play a vital role in promoting Canadian literature and deciding which works are worthy of sustained critical attention and passing on to students. Granted, it’s an insulated community, but thousands of students pass through the ivory tower each year, or at least stand outside to listen for proclamations from above.

10:28 – Speaking of academics: “We’re not afraid of offending people, that’s the only way people remember who we are.” (As a former academic, I can assert this is true.)

10:35 -  Morgan Cowie wisely reminds all the alarmists in the room that the Globe coverage hasn’t disappeared, it’s moved online. (Now, whether people can absorb that coverage or privilege it in the same way is something else.)

10:40 – What will happen to the almighty cover blurb. “Ryan from GoodReads” is subject to a little snobbery, and Ryan (from the National Post) suggests that Demi Moore should be blurbing more books.

10:51 – My own starred review: Quote of the day from Jack Illingsworth: “I’ve seen starred reviews on Quill & Quire launch and sell nothing because the only people who read that review got a copy for free.”

11:00 – Someone articulates what I’d been tumbling around in my brain — the nature of online reviews being conversations that can continue indefinitely, whereas print reviews are far more like a lecture. (Perhaps even unconference vs. conference playing out on the review scene?)

11:10 – Basic conclusions that we can create opportunities for reviews to be read, but we can’t control how people read them.

11:15 – Small is Beautiful, with Alana Wilcox and the hastily recruited Jack Illingsworth

11:17 – Alana lists off many great advantages to working for a small press – focused lists, knowing readers, only guerilla marketing, agility, staff who are jacks of all trades, freedom and finishes it off with “we’ve never had money.”

11:19 – The lists of downsides mostly start with “no money.”

11:20 – A little general indignation that “small” can be derogative, and “independent” is suggested as a more suitable alternative.

11:25 – An CH author wrote a blog as a character in their novel? Wicked.

11:40 – Discussion on the necessity of engaging with readers instead of other publishers (which implies today might be more useful with more civilians in the crowd – thanks, Kev!)

11:50 – Someone from an American small press reveals that they use ebooks as a form of market testing — only printing the book if the ebook does well. But that seems based on pretty huge assumptions for me — mostly that a representative portion of your target audience are ebook buyers. I can see how this would (and I think has) worked for someone like Harlequin where readers have very specific tastes and offer lots of feedback, not to mention are big ebook consumers.  I remain unsold on this strategy for general trade books.

12:15 – It’s lunch! And it seems like there’s enough despite worries by organizers. Wonder what the actual attendance count was?

1:17 – Arrive back a couple minutes late from lunch (trying to cram in errands over lunch = unwise). I thought it would be ok,  but this is an unconference that runs on time. End up in the wrong session due to my hustle, but as it turns out “Listening to Readers” probably talked about many of the same things that “Stories from the trenches of online bookish communities” did.

1:25 – Questions of how to guide reader response/ when to censor — some publishers don’t allow negative comments, but I assert that these things tend to be self-correcting.

1:40 – Some very vocal Harlequin authors in the room, which is neat, but a very specific sort of writing. In any case, they’re very responsive to their readers — is there a romance storyline you always wanted to see? Write to them.

2:15  – “How to be a Digital Marketing Rockstar” with Mitch Joel of Twist Image.

2:17 – Joel starts with a provocation: Authors and publishers have to become marketers. No one seems too provoked (now if he had mentioned DRM…)

2:25 – Why are we infatuated with mass media models? Joel suggests we should be targeting much more specific audiences.

2:40 – Don’t give anything away for free! Now this is a bit of a provocation as it turns out, especially given that this is in contradiction to things said earlier. Joel suggests providing ancillary content — writing articles, etc, but giving away nothing of the book, since that devalues the actual object. However, it is wisely pointed out that this kind of extra content is much harder to provide with fiction.

2:41 – To clarify Joel’s earlier point: “Reviewers always think something sucks because they didn’t pay for it.”

2:53 – This has the least conversational feel of all the sessions today. A professional speaker, Joel seems to be a bit chafed by the restrictions of the unconference model — it’s mostly a Q &A sesssion.

3:13 – My brain is saturated and I’ve got a party to prepare to hostess this evening and many things still to do. So yes, I bail, and switch to soaking up sunshine instead of information.

But on the whole, I’d have to say BookCamp exceeded my expectations.The conference as well-organized as a regular conference.  I wasn’t sure that the discussion model would work, especially with a group this large, but it did. People were fairly respectful of one another, and though it was sometimes hard to get heard, the moderators did their best. It was great to hear established industry leaders discussing things with newcomers, authors, and media. I don’t know that any answers were reached, it was a really engaging conversation.

Check out more coverage of BookCampTO at the BookNet Blog, Torontoist, Quillblog,A Certain Bent Appeal, and for an list of the twitter feed and blog coverage, it’s all at IndexMB.

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From the focus on books to “Focus & Books”?

On Dec. 20th we had to say a sad goodbye to the stand-alone Books section of the Globe and Mail, something that was widely seen as a cause for anxiety and a sign of decreasing support of literature by the mainstream media. The Globe insisted that by amalgamating the Books and the Focus section, readership would increase, and that they would compensate for the loss of paper coverage with brand new online book coverage.

And so yesterday, with the relaunch of the books section, a comparison could finally be made. I’ll admit to being  little deflated at the 7 pages tacked on to the end of the Focus section. Gone was the intimacy of the small page, the prestige of a having a NY Times-style stand-alone section. It must be admitted it’s still longer than the 4 pages books get in the Ideas section of the Star on Sundays, but it seems like it would be all too easy for this half of the Focus section to shrivel inconspiculously, as the advertising revenue still fails to roll in.

As for the website expansion, I’ll admit, the initial showing is impressive. I’ll be following Marin Levin’s blog as well as In Other Words blog, and hopefully they will provide new, insightful sources of book commentary.  I’m intrigued by the concept of a new online review each day, which hopefully will allow more books to be reviewed, although I would imagine they’ll attract a much smaller audience. For there is a certain prestige to the ones in the  paper, they carry a symbolic and literal authority,  inspire closer reading, and often sit around on my coffee table for several days. My online reading, while considerable, is more of a skim, which perhaps merits a delicious bookmark.

That said, the new Globe Books site is ambitious and offers many things the paper wouldn’t. There are podcasts, frequent updates, author Q & As etc. , though as Mark from indexmb.com points out, the articles are really just the text from the paper reproduced without any considerations as to the potential of the blog/digital format. In any  case, it seems the Globe is using these changes as a way not only to reach out to books, but to the reading community. I was quite surprised, for example,  to see the new profile of book clubs in the print section. As a book club founder myself, it’s something of interest, though I found it perhaps more fitting web content, and I would have preferred to see the print space go to a review. But articles like this along with possibility for public comment that is inherent in the digital/blog medium means that perhaps the web section has more potential to stimulate increased interaction in the Canadian reading community.  I’m also impressed with how receptive they’ve been to comment and criticism – the In Other Words blog currently posts all of Mark’s suggestions/objections, and is responding to them with due consideration.

I’m pleased with the scope and ambition of the new website, although I am concerned about the Globe‘s ability to keep generating the promised content. I would expect Levin  is a busy man already, and adding a daily blog is a considerable increase to his workload, while I imagine other Globe staffers are spending an hugely increased amount of time scrambling to constantly generate new content. Not anything will do either, the Globe has a certain standard of journalism to uphold.

So it’s not all doom and gloom after all, and if the Globe pulls off their ambitious project, it may even be a change for the better, although it’s interesting (and perhaps telling), that once again, interacting with books is taking us further and further away from paper.

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Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters of Jack McClelland

There’s something delightfully voyeuristic about reading collections of other people’s letters, and when those letters are between most of the major players in Canadian writing and publishing of the 21st century, it’s a treat for any Can Lit fan, and an absolute delight for anyone interested in the history of Canadian publishing.

Jack McClelland was the head of McClelland and Stewart from the mid 40s to the mid 80s. Between supporting fledgling talents that went on to be some of Can Lit’s greatest authors and creating the New Canadian Library, McClelland is undeniably one of the founding fathers of the Canadian canon. Edited by Sam Solecki, Imagining Canadian Literature presents some of forthright, candid and often hilarious letters between McClelland and such major Canadian writers as Margaret Atwood, Earle Birney, Leonard Cohen, Robertson Davies, Margaret Laurence, Irving Layton, Hugh MacLEnnan, Farley Mowat, Michael Ondaatje, Al Purdy, Mordecai Richler, and Gabrielle Roy.

Arranged by decade with a brief introduction by Solecki to each section, one can gain remarkable insight into the development of the Canadian publishing industry. The same issues that plague publishers today pop up again and again – poor sales, high print costs, returns and remainders. (Perhaps my favourite part of the whole book was McClelland writing to Mordecai Richler of cold war worries and writing: “I am having an air raid shelter built on our property out of unsold books from our spring list. If it survives the first blast, I will have solved the remainder problem for the book trade. We will go into the air-raid-shelter business, become weathy and retire.”) On the author’s side, we see reoccuring complaints – insufficient publicity, lack of royalties and battles over artistic details. Some are memorable – for instance McClelland losing Margaret Atwood’s first manuscript for two years, or attempting to remove some of the potty mouth from Earle Birney’s Turvey. The letters also provide insight into the development of many canadian literary staples. For example,  we’re privy to McClelland’s early reactions to The Stone Angel. Although perhaps what offers the greatest thrill is the ordinary banter between McClelland and these figures of quasi-heroic status, who for once are just ordinary people. Take the beginning of McClelland’s letter to Mordecai Richler: “O.K. So I’ll get around to answering your letter of December 22nd. Don’t get snotty! It didn’t arrive here until after Christmas. That’s the drinking season, boy. One doesn’t have time to write letters.”

Not an editorial genius or a particularly talented businessman, what has distinguished McClelland in the history books is his single-minded dedication to Canadian literature and his trememdous interpersonal skills.  Though not universally loved, he was certainly respected. McClelland famously claimed to publish authors not books, and these letters are a fine testament to that claim.  As Leonard Cohen writes to him:

“You were the real Prime Minister of Canada. You still are. And even though it’s all gone down the tubes, the  country you govern will never fall apart.”

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