Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I also love bookstores, from clean and well-lit places with shiny new
bestsellers to musty dusty places full of old treasures.  But despite
my love of the physical book, I am finding e-books (read via the kindle
app for the iPhone or the stanza reader on the same platform mostly
for things available via project gutenberg) to be terrific.  

It's always there, ready to go, and I've read a lot more novels
recently that I would not have otherwise.  I have a long list of stuff
to try to find when I get to the library, but I don't get there often
enough these days.  And there are a lot of books that I would hardly
ever buy--hardback novels for $30 or nonfiction that I'm not likely to
reread or keep as a reference.  It doesn't have the seductive feel of a
well-made book, but it is easier and lighter than the well-made book
for reading in bed with the light off, and is always in my pocket for
when I encounter a long checkout line while shopping.  

And that's how I'll be reading The Enthusiast, which had to wait a bit
for a couple of other books to be finished before it could come to the
head of the kindle line...
  

    
debunix, that's the most tempting Kindle pitch I've heard yet. You
touch on another of its selling points -- our house is scarily overrun
with books, and no number of runs to donate them to the Friends of the
Library bookstore can cope with the surplus.

With all that's happening, there seems to be an abiding place for the
small, well-curated bookstore. Browser's Books in SF, with its clearly
hand-picked inventory, comes to mind, but there are lots of others.

Thanks for shedding light, and thanks very much for reading my book.
  

    
I was in a bookstore earlier this evening, and it was packed with 
customers -- Pendragon on College Ave. I know it's xmas shopping time, but 
still, the bustlingness there was happymaking.
  

    
>Maybe an audio book could be done with a third-party
>distributor...

I wonder if you can buy those rights back and do it yourself. THey're
not worth that much in general. Unless you're Stephen King.

>People in publishing are alarmed by the Kindle because if it becomes
>very popular, it may eventually enable Amazon to dictate pricing,
>margins, and other terms. 

Amazon already does this to a great extent. That's why the $9.99
kindle price was so upsetting to publishers, and why at least one big
publisehr (Simon and Shcuster) decided to delay kindle release for some
books this winter and spring. From an author's perspective, the kindle
wouldn't be so bad if the publishers weren't trying to impose the
print royalty structure on e-book sales. After all, the cost to the
publisher of the download is much less than the cost of a book---no
distribution or printing, etc. So they could conceivably pay a higher
royalty and still make the same per unit, and for the author, if you
get 25 percent of a 25.00 book, your royalty is the same as if you get
50 percent of a 10.00 download. 
  

    
My editor (a saint) answered my e-mail despite the holidays, and says
essentially what Gary's saying, that my agent can ask for the audio
rights back and I can record the book. That leaves the question of
distribution, which I will look into in the new year. (As is probably
apparent, this publishing-biz stuff is all new to me.)
  

    
Charlie, I had truly intended to be able to participate in this discussion
more, but my husband hijacked your book before i could get past chapter 2.
He tells me now that he is done and that it was the most enjoyable fiction
he has read in years.

I'd like to thank you so very much for joining us for the past two weeks.
We will be turning our attention to a new discussion this week.  You are
welcome (and urged) to stick around The WELL for as long as you like.  I'm
sure our members will continue talking about this very excellent book.
  

    
Lisa, thanks (and please thank your husband for his kind words).

I'll continue checking in here in case people have more questions or
comments about the book.

This has been a terrific experience... big thanks to Ed, Lisa, Gail,
David, and everyone who's written in!
  

    

Great having you here, Charlie.  And to all who are reading this who haven't
yer read "The Enthusiast": READ IT!  You will be glad you did.
  

    
I'd like to echo that, even if the damn thing is available on Kindle.
And now I'm looking forward to the next one, although it's probably not
going to be finished just yet. 
  

    
A very enjoyable discussion, thanks, and thanks for the excellent
novel. I'm just finishing it and dreading that. That's my highest
compliment for a book: that I dread finishing it because then I have to
try to find something as good to read. And I'm sure The Enthusiast
will be one that my wife Bev will enjoy, too. Oh, thanks for the link
to the notebook supplier. I soon will receive what should be a lifetime
supply unless I start writing novels (unlikely). Also enjoyed the
discussion of Kindle and the like, and the hilarious piece in the New
Yorker on book promotion. Happy New Year to all!
  

    
Strangest, thanks so much, and a very happy new year to you too!
  

    
So yesterday I was at this memorial event at Playland-Not-at-the-Beach, 
and there was a room with videos, and one was a maybe early 80s episode 
of Claim to Fame, with panelist Charlie Haas.

I was suspicious -- the panelists all seemed to arrive at the answer so 
quickly and unanimously. And everyone seemed so smooth and glossy. But 
in any case, it was very entertaining.

(I've never seen this show on TV, though I attended it live once when a 
friend of mine was a guest.)
  

    
fom, how funny that you ran into that. Had the memorialized person
been a guest on the show?

Being on that show (a local version of "I've Got a Secret" or "What's
My Line?") was one of the stranger things I've done, which is saying a
lot. My friend Bob Klein was then an exec producer at KRON and asked me
to do it. (Bob left TV a few years later when he and his wife Maggie
opened the restaurant Oliveto in Oakland.)

The quiz wasn't fixed, suspicious as it may have seemed. I sometimes
felt the clues were too easy. 

I remember being sent to Macy's with a few hundred dollars to spend on
loud, TV-appropriate sport coats. Straight to Goodwill in Oakland when
the thing ended. I wonder where they are today.
  

    
I saw this piece in yesterday's NY Times magazine and immediately
thought of a new magazine for the novel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/arts/television/04dragon.html?scp=4&sq=video
 %20game&st=cse
  

    
I think you're right... next edition. My wife read that NYT story at
breakfast this morning and, despite the fact that we're both 100%
computer / video game virgins, looked up and said, "Maybe we should get
this, although our arms would fall off." Not to mention our works in
progress.
  

    
On the other hand, things like that can help break mental blocks by
causing you to concentrate furiously on something else. 
  

    
I think you were wearing a sort of bright brown plaid sport coat!

The person being memorialized was Dave Warren, legendary character, 
proprietor of the Giant Camera (aka Camera Obscura) at the Cliff House, 
fire eater, magician, a founder of the Suicide Club and the Cacophany 
Society and the first person to ignite the first Man at the first Burning 
Man, or something like that. I am not a Burning Mannist but I knew Dave 
from the Cliff House and from the group Friends of Ocean Beach (formed to 
fight the condos, and after that attempt failed, to protect Parcel Four 
from further condos).

Have you been to Playland Not at the Beach? It's a very fine example of 
the crackpot museum genre.
  

    
Oh my gosh, I knew nothing about it, but just looked at their web
site: 

<http://www.playland-not-at-the-beach.org/> 

Pinball! Thirty pinball machines! Thank you!
  

    
Mr. Haas's publisher has just announced a six-month delay in
publication of his next novel due to what the author told him was
"in-depth research."
  

    
HA!
  

    
They have the best game ever, where you attempt to roll a 
bowling-ball-size ball along a track just fast enough to go over the hump 
but not to return. When you get it right, lights flash and bells clang.
There are three tracks in a row so you can compete with two other players.

They also have Fascination! It's an oldschool one from the Santa Cruz 
boardwalk.

They also have endless rooms full of cutesy miniature villages, and three 
genuine Laughing Sals, and tons and tons of other stuff. I believe there 
is an entire room full of Eartha Kitt memorabilia.
  

    
Good thing it's only open on weekends, or Ed's joke about my next book
being delayed 6 months wouldn't be so funny.
  

    
Where can I find a copy of The Enthusiast in the East Bay, tomorrow? Maybe 
Diesel? I tried Pegasus tonight. I need it for a gift. Does anyone know?
  

    
fom, thanks so much! I've recently spotted copies at Great Good Place
for Books in Montclair and Barnes & Noble in Emeryville. Less recent
sightings, but worth calling if more conveniently located for you, are
Moe's in Berkeley and Barnes & Noble at Jack London Square.

So nice of you.
  

    
Just remembered -- also sighted semi-recently at Books Inc. on 4th St.
in Berkeley.