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

Terry Teachout and Rick Brookheiser debate the future of e-books. Advantage Brookheiser, I’d say.

John Allen weighs in on the controversy over copyrights for the Pope’s words. The policy isn’t new, Allen says. The Vatican made the same claims for John Paul II’s words. But now the copyrights are being enforced. Allen comments:

From the very beginning, there have been two impulses in the church that often rest in uneasy tension. The first is the evangelical desire to give without asking anything in return, since that’s the nature of grace; the second is the institutional reality that churches too have to pay the light bill. This appears to be one of those cases where the right balance is tough to strike.

From the Catholic Book Publishers Association

Hardcover

1. Mother Angelica
Raymond Arroyo. Doubleday

2. The Seven Levels of Intimacy
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing/Fireside

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

4. Rediscovering Catholicism
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing

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

6. Gospels and Acts: The Saint John’s Bible
Donald Jackson. Liturgical Press

7. The Book of Courage
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing

8. Heavenly City: The Architectural Tradition of Catholic Chicago
Denis R. McNamara & James Morris. Liturgy Training Publications

9. The Holy Longing
Ronald Rolheiser. Doubleday

10. The Rise of Benedict XVI
John Allen. Doubleday

Paperback

1. Not By Bread Alone: Daily Reflections for Lent 2006
Angela Ashwin. Liturgical Press

2. A Guide to Narnia: 100 Questions About the Chronicles of Narnia
Matt Pinto & Mark Shea. Ascension Press

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

4. Good News About Sex & Marriage
Christopher West. Servant Books

5. Theology of the Body
John Paul II. Pauline Books

6. The Joy of Priesthood
Stephen Rossetti. Ave Maria Press

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

8. Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord
USCCB Publishing

9. Watch for the Light
Johann Christoph Arnold. Orbis Books

10. Return of the Prodigal Son
Henri J.M. Nouwen. Doubleday

Catholic News Service reports that publishers whose books reprint papal texts will be required to pay a royalty of 3 to 5 percent of the book’s cover price, says the Vatican publishing house, which owns the copyright of every speech and document that Pope Benedict XVI writes. To make its point, Libreria Editrice Vaticana sent a bill for $18,000 to an Italian publisher who issued an unauthorized 124-page book of the Pope’s writings. The Vatican’s publisher says that newspapers, magazines and bishops’ conferences may publish papal texts without paying royalties as long as the texts are not changed and a line is included saying the text has been copyrighted by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Terry Teachout, my favorite arts critic, thinks that e-book technology, when it finally matures, will change writing as well as reading.

The existence of the e-book will cause the authors of the 21st century to go about their business very differently than did their 20th-century predecessors. Many of these differences will arise from the way in which the e-book encourages self-publishing. Best-selling novelists, for instance, will soon be in a position to “publish” their own books, pocketing all the profits — but so will niche-market authors whose books don’t sell in large enough quantities to interest major publishers.

Publishers Weekly writes about the Loyola Classics and the announcement of the company’s first original work of fiction. Loyola’s Joe Durepos, senior acquisitions editor, says that he has been impressed by the success evangelical publishers have had with fiction: “Publishers like Tyndale, Zondervan, and Baker are focused, they know what they are doing, they’re meeting their customers’ needs, they’re enjoying enormous economic success publishing Christian fiction. We want to imitate them by publishing fiction that really comes from the mission and values of the company.”

Eric Major, publisher of Doubleday’s religion division from 1996-2002, died January 14 at his home at Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England. Major, a Catholic, took the Doubleday position after a long and successful publisher career in the UK and strengthened the program’s traditional emphasis in Catholicism while broadening it to include evangelical Christian books, through the WaterBrook Press unit. In 2002, following cancer treatment that sent the disease into remission, Major retired from Doubleday and returned to England. Said Doubleday head Steve Rubin, “Eric became a beloved elder statesman. There was nothing pretentious or stuffy about him—he was wise, dear, sweet and funny. The reaction to his death has been as if everyone lost a member of their own family.” Go here for Major’s obituary in the Independent (UK).

Galleycat quotes Kathy Pories, an editor at Algonquin Books, expressing something that I suspect many editors think:

There are so many writers and so many books being published, and being published at such a furious rate, that I think many books are starting to sound like others already out there, and so when I read someone who stakes their own territory, I’m immediately hooked. Plus, how fast they hook me goes a long way. I want to be pulled in immediately, even if it feels foreign in some way. I think we have such a proliferation of well-trained and well-schooled writers these days who write beautiful sentences and scenes and create believable characters, but don’t write with urgency or a sense of tension and movement. Though I favor literary fiction, I’m put off by manuscripts that seem to be all about being literary with little sense of plot, with little feeling that this is something I must keep reading. I don’t want to be reading something that is making me conscious of the literary skill of the writer; I want to be in that story, and have their literary skill be what’s making it work.

The Guardian UK publishes a useful piece that pulls together all the major technology-will-change-everything-in-book-publishing themes that have been bruited about lately. A good, portable e-book reader is just around the corner, and it will do for books what the Apple iPod did for music. Print-on-demand kiosks in bookstores will replace shelves of inventory. Digitization of libraries and publishers’ backlists will transform the way we find and use information. One British publisher is quoted as saying that within seven to ten years half of all book sales will be downloads.

I think that a lot of this is frothy hype, particularly the supposed impact of the e-book reader. Very clever people may one day invent an e-book reader that is as good as, or almost as good as, a printed book. But it won’t be better, at least in most respects. In a tie, printed books win. But not all this technology talk is hype. Self-publishing, print-on-demand, and online retailing has already had an impact on publishers. And even small changes, such as a modest increase in the popularity of e-books, can have large effects, particularly on small publishers. We need to pay keen attention to technology.

Two soon-to-be-published spring books look at life inside Catholic seminaries, and both do so by following five men in their journey toward the priesthood. The Collar by Jonathan Englert follows five five men in training at Sacred Heart Seminary in Milwaukee, which specializes in older “second career” priests. An Infinity of Little Hours by Nancy Maguire starts in 1960 and follows five men in training for the Carthusians, a contemplative monastic order. Four of the five monks dropped out before final vows, as did two of the five Milwaukee seminarians.

The two bestselling guides to Catholicism approach their subject differently, and the authors have recently aired their differences publicly. Fr. John Trigilio, co-author of Catholicism for Dummies, says he wrote the book in part to counter The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Catholicism. “We were not happy with the slant that was given there,” Father Trigilio told the Dallas Morning News. “We wanted ours to be conforming to the official teaching of the church.” Bob O’Gorman, co-author of the Idiot’s Guide, shot back, calling the Dummies book “the party line book.” But O’Gorman also insisted that the Idiot’s Guide accurately represented the teaching of the church.

Fr. Trigilio says he often hears complaints from Catholics who are offended by his book’s title. He points out that Paul called believers “fools for Christ.” “The actual word in the Greek, if you translate it literally, means ‘morons.’ Nobody gets bent out of shape that St. Paul is calling them a moron.”

Publisher’s Weekly has given one of its coveted starred reviews to My Life with the Saints, by Fr. James Martin, SJ, an editor of America magazine. From the review:

Martin, a Jesuit priest and associate editor of America magazine, takes a splendid idea and develops it masterfully by weaving stories from his life into those of his favorite saints. Leading off with St. Jude, whom he affectionately dubs “the saint of the sock drawer” (where his statue of the saint of impossible causes took up residence after the author entered high school), Martin relates how he discovered various “saints” and how each has affected his life. Martin’s personal experiences of befriending saints provide convincing testimony to their efficacy as role models. . . . Martin’s animated style and wide-ranging experiences make this a book readers of diverse backgrounds will enjoy.

The book will be published in March.

The potential market for audio books is huge. More than 30 million Americans own an MP3 listening device. People readily load them up with music: Apple sold 100 million songs through its iTunes site last year. Why, then, are audio books still a marginal business? Author and book marketing maven MJ Rose blames the high prices: “why is my iPod still bookless two weeks post Christmas? I won’t pay the price that’s being asked. I won’t pay hardcover prices for a digital file. I won’t even pay trade paperback prices. I believe that a digital book should cost about the same as a paperback.” Read her post for some interesting ideas about ways to make audio books more popular.

Benedict XVI, on surveying the remodeled papal apartments:

“I really like my new library, with that antique ceiling. For me it’s like being surrounded by friends, now that there are books on the shelf.”

The Pope made the comment last week to the 200 architects, engineers, and workers who had completed a three-month renovation.

Nielsen BookScan has released its list of the 200 bestselling books of 2005. BookScan numbers are “hard” numbers — books actually sold in stores. Other bestseller lists rely on reports from a relatively small number of stores, or on publisher reports of books shipped. Harry Potter topped the chart for 2005. Books by Rick Warren and Joel Osteen were the only Christian books in the top 25.

From the Catholic Book Publishers Association:

Hardcover

1. Mother Angelica
Raymond Arroyo, Doubleday

2. The Seven Levels of Intimacy
Matthew Kelly, Beacon Publishing/Fireside

3. The Rhythm of Life
Matthew Kelly, Beacon Publishing/Fireside

4. Rediscovering Catholicism
Matthew Kelly, Beacon Publishing

5. The Poetry of John Paul II
John Paul II, USCCB Publishing

6. The Book of Courage
Matthew Kelly, Beacon Publishing

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

8. Gospels and Acts The Saint John’s Bible
Donald Jackson, Liturgical Press

9. Way of the Cross
Benedict XVI, Pauline Books

10. A Marian Treasury
John Paul II, Pauline Books

Paperback

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

2. Waiting in Joyful Hope
Katherine L. Howard, Liturgical Press

3. A Guide to Narnia
Pinto & Shea, Ascension Press

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

5. The Joy of Priesthood
Stephen Rossetti, Ave Maria Press

6. Watch For the Light
Johann Christoph Arnold, Orbis Books

7. Handbook for Today’s Catholic
A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication, Liguori Publications

8. Return of the Prodigal Son
Henri J. M. Nouwen, Doubleday

9. The Knitting Way
Skolnik & MacDaniels, SkyLight Paths

10. Advent and Christmas Wisdom
from Henri J. M. Nouwen
A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication, Liguori Publications

Sony is expected to unveil a new portable e-reader at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week that it hopes will do for books what Apple’s iPod did for music. According to Business Week, Sony has deals with three major publishers to sell digital downloads of books through its Sony Connect online store. Sony’s new gadget will use an innovative technology called E Ink to create a more comfortable reading experience than the e-readers that failed several years ago:

E Ink forms text by electronically arranging thousands of tiny black and white capsules, creating an experience remarkably similar to reading a printed page. Unlike the liquid-crystal display screens used in personal digital assistants, there is no backlight to strain readers’ eyes, and characters show up sharp and clear, even in full sunlight. And since the gadget requires power only to “turn” pages, users should be able to read more than 15 books between charges.

The new device will reportedly cost between $300 and $500. One of the publishers teaming up with Sony is HarperCollins. CEO Jane Friedman says that the company will digitize its entire frontlist and backlist and offer the books for sale through Sony Connect.

The Wall Street Journal looks at Project Gutenberg, the program to digitize classic books and make them available freely on the internet. Gutenberg began in 1971 with volunteers typing books by hand. Most of the books are now scanned, but the work is still done by volunteers. More than 17,000 classic books are available on the project’s web site, and about a million copies are downloaded each week. Founder Michael Hart, who still runs the project, lists some of the favorites:

We get a lot of Thackeray downloads, a lot of James Joyce, a lot of Dickens. “Pride and Prejudice” is always up there. Sherlock Holmes is always up there. … There are always some you don’t expect, like “Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages, and During the Renaissance Period” by Paul Lacroix. …We also have reference material, which most people probably wouldn’t think of — like Roget’s Thesaurus. Plus, the Koran, along with the Bible.

Amazon has begun to host author blogs on its book pages through a new program that one observer calls “the online equivalent of an author book signing.” The program, called Amazon Connect, posts the author’s comments on the Amazon pages that describe their books. Readers will see new posts from authors of books they have purchased on their Amazon home page. Here is an example: the Amazon page for Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent. Scroll down a bit for the author’s blog posts.

A Times piece notes that Amazon Connect is yet another effort to give authors more visibility and get them more involved in the marketing of their books:

Most publishers have extensive author information on their Web sites, and a number of authors maintain their own sites, some quite elaborate. HarperCollins recently started a speakers bureau, and Random House announced an agreement with a lecture agency to promote public appearances by its authors. Barnes & Noble operates an online book club that enables authors to discuss their works and to answer questions from readers online.