People of the Book
A Blog about Book Publishing from a Catholic Perspective

Amy Welborn’s new book is out. It’s A Catholic Woman’s Book of Days — a Catholic “devotional.” You’ll find many books like this for evangelicals. This is the first of its kind for Catholics. The Anchoress loves it:

In 365 entries, Welborn doesn’t hit a false note or play fast-and-lose with her reader’s intelligence. Her entries are never bogged down; they are often very short and pithy, but those are the readings that, ironically, pack the greatest punch.

Readers love used books. Publishers worry about them. But no one has had much hard data to go on — until now. Data from one of the first real studies of the used book market was released yesterday in New York by the Book Industry Study Group. Here are some of the findings.

–the used book business grew 11 percent in 2004 over the previous year.
–college textbooks is the largest segment of the market, by far: $1.6 billion, representing 28 percent of college text sales.
–$589 million worth of trade books were sold used. This is about 3 percent of the total trade market. Fiction is the largest category.
–online sales are growing rapidly. $609 million worth of used books were sold online. $429 million of this was trade books.

Are used books cannibilizing new books? Some surely do. The study estimated that between a third and half of used books sold were books in print. The Times reports on the study here.

But it’s interesting anyway. A writer named Tom Evslin has launched the first “blook” — a book distributed on a blog. It’s a murder mystery set in the late 90s dot-com bubble and rubble years. Evslin has four answers to the question “why would anyone distribute a book on a blog?” and he explains how to read a blook. Answer: sequentially, from the beginning. This gets tricky on a blog. Take a look at hackoff.com.

In September our Catholic reading group got off the dull treadmill of O’Connor, Greene, and the other usual suspects and read “something different�? – just as several members said they wanted when they joined last summer. Our book was A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, a dour, funny, perplexing, uneven tale of the future history of mankind following a nuclear holocaust. The book was published in 1958, when fears of nuclear annihilation were very real. Ever since, it has been regarded as a classic of science fiction, but Christians cherish it as well because the Church is the central actor in man’s tragic story.

The story encompasses more than 1500 years and it takes place at the Abbey of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz somewhere in the arid North American southwest. The order was formed by a convert and onetime weapons engineer named Isaac Leibowitz with the mission of preserving what learning could be salvaged from the ruins of a twentieth century atomic war. This the order does in the first part of the story, just as the Church did during Europe’s Dark Ages. In the thirty-second century, the monks become deeply involved in the rebirth of secular learning. Five hundred years later, nuclear war breaks out again. As the bombs fall, a remnant of the Church escapes in a starship to human settlements beyond earth. “The starship is an act of hope. Hope for Man elsewhere. peace somewhere, if not here and now, then someplace.�?

Our group did not find this parable of a possible human future implausible. Bad weapons in the hands of terrorists, scientists tampering with stem cells and the human genome — something like this could happen. We don’t much believe in progress. Or, as one person put it, we have confidence only in Augustine’s idea of progress — the soul progressing to God. As Dom Paulo, one of the Leibowitz abbots, put it in the novel, “the Lord God had suffered the wise men to know the means by which the world might be destroyed. He also suffered them to know how it might be saved. And as always, let them choose for themselves.”

NOTE: Latin is sprinkled throughout Canticle. Writing in the 50s, Walter Miller could not foresee Vatican II, and Latin is the language of his future Church. For help with the Latin (and a little Hebrew) consult this study guide prepared by a professor at the University of Washington.

“Uncorrected errors — some big, some small — are far more common than most publishers admit,â€? announced the writer of the Essay in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. Is this a true statement? I don’t think so. The essayist, a Los Angeles writer named Nora Krug, didn’t produce any evidence of publishers’ denying that their books contained errors, or being unwilling to correct them when they were found. I certainly haven’t seen any such stonewalling in my years in Catholic publishing. Publishers I’ve worked for and with do their best to verify facts and they correct errors when found, if it is possible to make corrections. I suspect this is true in book publishing generally, with a few exceptions. But, for Ms. Krug, publishers are heedless and careless. They think so little of accuracy, she writes, that they “farm outâ€? fact-checking to freelancers. Note the condescension – mere freelancers! But freelance editors do excellent work, and they seldom get credit for it. We all know this. Too bad the TBR doesn’t. There. A little condescension in return.

Most of us have heard that 195,000 new titles were published in 2004 — a staggering 14 percent increase in one year. But most of those books don’t sell very well. According to Nielsen BookScan, 93 percent of those new books sell less than 1000 copies a year and account for only 13 percent of total book sales. Put another way, 7 percent of new books account for 87 percent of sales. The BookScan numbers are further evidence that the rapid increase in new titles is being driven by self-publishing through print-on-demand services, and not by conventional publishers expanding their lists. These Bookscan numbers were revealed at a Book Standard conference last week.

In the wake of the 100-minute Bible comes word (via the Anchoress) of the Outdoor Bible. The New Testament is printed in six foldout-map-style books on plastic-covered waterproof pages. No fooling with the text here. It’s the New American Standard translation with Jesus’ words printed in red. It’s the perfect gift for backpackers, canoers and kyackers, and people in hurricane zones. Check it out here.

A publisher in the UK has released The 100-Minute Bible, a 57-page, pocket-sized distillation of the Old and New Testaments, designed to be read in 1 hour and 40 minutes. The work was done by the Rev. Martin Hinton, who said forthrightly that “We have sacrificed poetry to clarity. Those who want a sense of the glorious poetry in the Bible will have to look elsewhere, but anyone who wants a sense of the story and the argument will find it here.â€? Indeed. Here’s how Rev. Hinton handles the Sermon on the Mount.

Reader Barbara KB, inspired by BustedHalo.com’s new favorite books feature, offers her own list of five books that have helped her on her spiritual journey.

These are in chronological order:

1) Gospel of Matthew
When I was only 13. I was so hungry for scripture…

2) Seven Storey Mountain by Merton
I was shocked to find out that you could convert to Catholicism

3) The Four Loves by Lewis
Our faith is all about love and Lewis does it best.

4) Inside Out by Crabb
Helped free me free from some bad spiritual formation in my life at the time.

5) A Prayer for Owen Meany by Irving
My favorite fiction Christ-figure. Go ahead and throw a baseball at me!

It’s an eclectic and stimulating list. Let’s hear from more of you. What five books have helped you most?

The AP has a useful piece on the controversy surrounding Google’s plans to scan the contents of millions of books and make the text fully searchable on the internet. The Authors Guild has sued to stop the program. Many publishers are wary of it. They say that Google should ask permission before it scans and they worry that digital copies of books, once made, will eventually be pirated. Google and its supporters say that in the near future, books won’t be read if they can’t be found online. Read the AP article here.

A new feature on BustedHalo.com asks writers, editors, and young adult leaders to list the five books that have helped them on their spiritual journey. The choices range from the Gospel of Luke to J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey.

From the Catholic Book Publishers Association:

HARDCOVER

1. The Rhythm of Life
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing/Fireside

2. Catechism of the Catholic Church
Doubleday/Our Sunday Visitor/USCCB Publishing.

3. Rediscovering Catholicism
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing

4. Blessed Among All Women
Robert Ellsberg. Crossroad Publishing

5. The Holy Longing
Ronald Rolheiser. Doubleday

6. John Paul II: A Marian Treasury
John Paul II. Pauline Books

7. The Book of Courage
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing

8. Paul of Tarsus
Len Sroka. ACTA Publications

9. Henri Nouwen Illuminated
Christopher Calderhead. Liturgical Press

10. Introduction to the New Testament
Raymond Brown. Doubleday

PAPERBACK

1. Waiting in Joyful Hope
Katherine L. Howard. Liturgical Press

2. Catechism of the Catholic Church
Doubleday/Our Sunday Visitor/USCCB Publishing

3. Handbook for Today’s Catholic
A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication. Liguori

4. The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living
Zmirak & Matychowiak. Crossroad

5. A Year of Sundays Gospel Reflections 2006
Upchurch & Yeary. Liturgical Press

6. National Directory for Catechesis
USCCB Publishing

7. The C. S. Lewis Chronicles
Colin Duriez. BlueBridge

8. RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict
Liturgical

9. The Little Monk
Madeleine Delbrel. Crossroad

10. Theology of the Body for Beginners
Christopher West. Ascension Press

Jim Curley of Requiem Press read something interesting on this blog a few weeks ago, and decided to act on it. It was a post quoting New York marketing guru M.J. Rose, “why don’t publishers test market covers?” Why indeed? So Jim put two covers for an upcoming book on his blog and asked for opinions. Look at the results here. Jim pronounces himself very pleased with the experiment.

Bookseller Jay Hochstedt, writing on bookweb:

It turns out that the portable, private form of the book, resting in the hands and cradled in the lap, continues to provide the ideal fulfillment of an essential human need. The hunger for stories is basic to being human, and so is recording and keeping the tales we tell. Books add a dimension to storytelling that no other medium can: the reader feels an expansion of time. The printed page is a sort of spell, which allows each reader to evoke a singularly unique image without assistance from any other instrument. No keyboard, no software is involved. While we seem to be going out of ourselves, entering the world of the writer’s mind and feelings, as readers we go more deeply into our own world. A child with a book has a different expression, more internal, more involved, than does a child seated in front of a computer screen.

Writing on Bookweb, Bookseller Jay Hochstedt explains why books won’t go away:

It turns out that the portable, private form of the book, resting in the hands and cradled in the lap, continues to provide the ideal fulfillment of an essential human need. The hunger for stories is basic to being human, and so is recording and keeping the tales we tell. Books add a dimension to storytelling that no other medium can: the reader feels an expansion of time. The printed page is a sort of spell, which allows each reader to evoke a singularly unique image without assistance from any other instrument. No keyboard, no software is involved. While we seem to be going out of ourselves, entering the world of the writer’s mind and feelings, as readers we go more deeply into our own world. A child with a book has a different expression, more internal, more involved, than does a child seated in front of a computer screen.

The USCCB has issued a cease-and-desist order to Brian Noe, who had been publishing podcasts of the daily scripture readings, using the New American Bible translation. The bishops insist that every use of the NAB be reviewed and approved by them. They also charge royalties to authors and publishers who use the NAB translation in books and other publications. In some cases, these royalties can be substantial. The effect of this is to discourage Catholic writers and publishers from using the official translation of the Bible if they can possibly avoid it. Amy Welborn has a good posting about the issue at Open Book.

The comments to Amy’s post are universally hostile to the bishops’ policy. I too think we would be well served by a more flexible policy, but it’s worth noting that the royalties for use of the NAB go to the Catholic Biblical Association, which did the translation.

The publishing conglomorate Holtzbrinck has begun to use podcasts to promote its publishers’ books. The podcasts are available on a new website. New ones will be posted every week. Holtzbrinck’s publishers include St. Martin’s Press, Henry Holt, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Picador, and Tor/Forge. Marketing guru M.J. Rose has some good ideas here about how publishers can use podcasts to promote books.

Valley of Bones by Michael Gruber is a thriller with a conventional thriller plot arc. On the first pages, a Sudanese businessman on a U.S. terrorist watch list is brutally murdered in Miami. A Miami cop, working outside the system (naturally), unravels the Byzantine murder conspiracy, and brings the killers to justice in a sanguinary denouement worthy of Hamlet. But inside this thriller wrapper is the extraordinary story of Emmylou Dideroff, an abused child turned prostitute, who becomes a Catholic nun with an endearing and profoundly literate faith. For a time, Emmylou is a suspect in the murder. Because she sees visions, she is confined to a psychiatric ward, where she writes down the story of her life. Her “confessions� form a large part of the novel, and they make Valley of Bones a book that no one with any liking at all for thrillers mixed with entirely convincing fictional conversion stories can afford to miss.

Here’s a confrontation between the Emmylou and the German prioress of the (fictional) Nursing Sisters of the Blood of Christ, which is sheltering her for a time. Emmylou talks about how she had been tortured, raped, abused. She tells of the terrible vengeance she has taken, and asks scornfully how anyone could find God in this. The prioress recounts how, at the end of World War II, Russian soldiers had gang-raped her, murdered her sister, and driven her mother to suicide:

Look you stupid child she shouted at me what do you think this is a joke, a fairy tale? I was crucified and I died and now I live in Christ, blessed be his name. And you! Don’t you see you are a corpse too after what was done to you and true life is waiting for you to pick it up. . . Forgive them now and you will be able to forgive yourself . . . and live again in God.

Emmylou picks up her life in Christ, joins the order, and has many adventures in Africa before getting entangled in the murder case in Miami. This brings her into delightful theological discussions with a thoroughly secular psychologist (the cop’s girlfriend), who is sent to the psych ward to figure this woman out. Says Emmylou: “I’m sorry, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a conversation with someone with no religious sensibility at all. O Lord, how can I express this so you’d understand.� She plunges in, quoting Simone Weil:

Say you have every good thing. Then you thank God for the honor of being able to serve the poor and wretched. Now say everything is taken away from you, you’re crushed like a bug. Simone calls it malheur, the last extremity, nothing left of your personhood at all, sociology has failed, medicine, economics, politics, all the usual dodges are futile, but on the other hand you are a tissue paper away from God. Lose everything, get everything and more, unimaginable graces. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You can’t lose.

You can’t lose with Valley of Bones.

Publicist Lynne Scanlon, writing in Publishers Weekly, thinks that publishers should stop dumping hundreds of copies of advance reading copies of books on booksellers, reviewers, and opinion-molders in the hope that a few of them might be interested. Instead, ask first. Send an email with a catchy subject line, a brief description of the book, and a jacket photo. “Reviewers who wanted the books asked for them, and delivered great coverage.”

When a reviewer or bookseller bites on a practical nonfiction title, try sending a few sample chapters and a synopsis via e-mail. If book editors can base their decision to publish a work on that much, a promo packet should be enough to convince anyone else to read the entire book.

A handful of novelists and at least one writer of non-fiction have begun to release their books in serialized form via podcast – a kind of do-it-yourself radio that is distributed over the internet. Five writers are podcasting their books through Podiobooks.com, which wants to become the go-to site for this new method of publishing. Book Standard.com reports on podiobooks here. Go here for a primer on podcasting.

An entrepreneur in England has launched the world’s first online cooperative library, My Book Your Book. Readers pay an annual fee and pledge to share 10 of their own paperbacks, in return for access to the titles owned by the rest of the community. A member finds a book on the community website and sends the owner a stamped, self-addressed envelope to the book’s owner. The owner mails the book to the new reader, who can keep it for five weeks before passing it along to a new reader.

Another online community that promotes sharing books is Bookcrossing.com, which encourages readers to leave books in public places for other readers to find them. Bookcrossing.com is non-profit. The people behind My Book Your Book hope to make money on their idea.