books
The Books That Made Us Readers
February 29, 2012
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by Carly Willsie
This month marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Madeleine L’Engle’s iconic A Wrinkle In Time. The anniversary is being celebrated with a commemorative printing of the book and a number of celebrations across the country, including one held at the Symphony Space in New York, which featured YA authors R.L. Stine, Lois Lowry, Katherine Paterson, and Rebecca Stead.
Aside from its great achievement of teaching kids around the world what, exactly, the word “tesseract” means, A Wrinkle in Time is being celebrated for its profound influence on young adult reading. The book’s success in inspiring lifelong fans helped turn a generation of kids into readers, and had a great impact on the science fiction genre in particular.
Do you remember any of the first chapter books you read? What book(s) made you into a lifelong reader?
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Favorite Halloween Reads
October 31, 2011
by Carly Willsie
Happy Halloween, fellow book nerds!
In the spirit of spookiness, we’ve been on the search for some truly great Halloween reads. In fact, our monthly staff book club last week was dedicated to anything scary, creepy, evil, or just plain weird. Below are some of our staff’s favorites.
Tanya—“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe
Bryan C.—Evil by Rennie Sparks
Matt—Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery by Deborah and James Howe
Alan—House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Carly—“Lusus Naturae” by Margaret Atwood and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving
Jessica M.—Clifford’s Halloween by Norman Bridwell
Natalie—The Witches by Roald Dahl
Corrin— “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Premature Burial,” and the “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe
Need more spook? NPR also suggests three cerebral Halloween reads, Kirkus Reviews listed its favorites, and Readers Digest has nine scary books for kids. Of course, if you’re not in the mood for staying in and reading by candlelight, you can take your nerdiness to the streets with a literary Halloween costume.
Let us know your picks with a comment, or via Twitter and Facebook!
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Phillip Camden
from Phillip Camden on Fri, 2011-12-09 16:40Thanks so much for the blog article. Really Great.
Louis Templin
from Louis Templin on Fri, 2011-11-25 23:47Thanks again for the article post. Really Great.
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Greenleaf’s Required Reading: Books to Get You Out of Your Summer Slump
August 30, 2011
by Carly Willsie
As students around the country head back to school, backpacks are rapidly stuffed with laptops, pens, notebooks, and heavy textbooks. Amid the scramble to finish class assignments and complete mandatory chapters, leisure reading gets relegated to winter break. Reading personal books during the school year, however, can be fun, stimulating, and stress-relieving. And for those of us who are long-graduated, we can get behind in our reading just as easily, falling into a summer slump of all work, no play. In the spirit of reading for fun, we’ve rounded up links to our favorite reading lists from the past month or so. Let us know what books are on your to-read list this fall!
Online College Courses shares the fifty best novels for business majors; their list encompasses themes ranging from “Big Bad Businesses” (including Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley) to “Classics” (including the requisite Atlas Shrugged) to “Worker’s Rights” (featuring Pietro di Donato’s Christ in Concrete), and more. There are some great selections featured here for an often-ignored reading group—aspiring businesspeople.
If you’re lucky enough to be enjoying a late summer vacation, NPR listed five new “Heady, Not Heavy” books that masterfully blend smart themes and sophisticated plots with entertainment. All of the featured books would make great beach or barbecue-side reads.
Feeling adventurous? You can always try to hunt down 2011’s most sought-after out-of-print books. BookFinder.com lists the top one hundred on their site this week. Sex by Madonna tops the list, followed by titles by Stephen King, Nora Roberts, Johnny Cash, and Norman Mailer. We all want what we can’t have, don’t we?
In the spirit of a Harry Potter and G.R.R. Martin–filled summer, Flavorwire lists Lev Grossman’s top ten must-read fantasy novels. (Yes, both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and A Game of Thrones are on the list).
If you’re suffering through the Texas drought with us here at Greenleaf, reading one of the books on The Daily Beast’s Irene-inspired “Hurricane Lit” list just might convince you that clouds do indeed exist.
Not enough? Check out TheBrowser’s “FiveBooks” section. The site regularly interviews distinguished writers and critics on the best books in their field. Find out Woody Allen’s picks for “Inspiration,” Darren Aronofsky’s for “Making Movies,” and Sophie Kinsella’s for “Chick Lit.”
When you’re done reading all these books, you can test your literature IQ over at Sporcle.com. Publishers Weekly rounded up some great book quizzes this week on that site. (For the record: Yes, this is a challenge.)
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Titling Tidbits: The Essential Elements of a Book Title
July 19, 2011
by Roxanne Heuschkel
Trying to sell a book with an uninteresting title is like trying to sell a homely pre-owned car—the buyer is probably going to browse right over the rusted ‘99 Saturn to check out the pristinely waxed Honda parked next door. Although the interior looks great, and the gas tank is full, the Saturn’s dullness holds no ground against the Armor-All tires of its competitor.
Your book’s title serves as the deal breaker for your target consumers. Take a lesson from the used-car analogy and don’t let a dull or overused phrase ruin a book’s selling potential. A title should attract the intended audience, communicate the promise of the book, and differentiate the book in the market. Pick a title with purpose! Here we’ll discuss how to make that purpose come to life with brainstorming techniques, essential titling elements, and some no-no’s to avoid when narrowing down your title.
If your having trouble getting those creative juices flowing, it’s time to spice up your brainstorming session with a few key ingredients:
Summarize the core message and promise of your book: The title should detail the book’s fundamental message and give a clear picture of the author’s narrative style.
Market differentiation: It is of utmost importance to do your research. Study market trends within the genre and decipher what makes your book unique. How is this book relatable, who will it appeal to, and why?
Reflect sales goals: Create a mission statement for the audience you are trying to reach. What are your sales goals? For example, “Retail appeal for inspirational business readers, sold at point of sale or given as gifts.” Analyze how your offer will be useful to the audience buying your book. This brainstorming tip will help keep you focused on appropriate language to incorporate into your title.
Your title needs essence. Give it a soul with these pointers:
Be original: Avoid overused phrases and strive to be one of a kind. We’re all tired of seeing The 7 Habits of So and So and How To Do This and That.
Be intriguing to your audience: Entice your target consumer with clever narrative skills. Use interesting turns of phrases, play on words, alliteration, and other techniques to bring creativity into your title. Witty examples include Tongue Fu, Snakes in Suits, and The Myth of War.
Be pithy: A title that is concise and eloquent in its expression will foreshadow its meaningful content.
Here are some no no’s to avoid in your title:
Lengthy words: Long words are distracting in a cover design, while short words allow for larger typeface and a clearer message.
Jargon: There is a time and a place for colloquialisms, and that should not be in the title of your book. Steer clear of buzzwords.
Made-up words: What would you do if you saw Griftopia written on the cover of anything but a fantasy novel? Probably, walk away. On top of often sounding hokey, word mash-ups make a book difficult to search for in inventory systems.
Negativity: The negativity strategy works in politics and for Dr. Laura, but unless your book’s content is intentionally provocative, not everyone likes a confrontational message. Something like Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free is appropriate for the subject matter, but otherwise keep your title’s language on a more positive note. You’re selling a solution, not the problem.
Copycat syndrome: Avoid legal troubles—check, check, and check again for trademark or copyright issues. Stay original.
We all judge a book by its title, so choose wisely! Although the selection process may take time, be patient, do your research, and give your book the name it deserves.
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iPhone Book Application for Children
June 7, 2010
by Shennandoah Diaz
The digital world of books is changing fast, and the tools available are growing by the minute. One cool tool we recently came across is a concept from Japan that turns an iPhone into an interactive reading experience for children. The video below demonstrates this new concept of an interactive device inside a physical book.
This application is available on Amazon.co.jp and a couple of other stores such as Rakuten and 7netshopping. The application sells for about $30 and as of now is only available in Japan. It actually debuted last year, but only recently hit the market. It may take several more months for it to reach American stores.
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When Books Get the Hook: What Happens to Unsold and Extra Books
November 2, 2007
by Tanya Hall
Ever wonder what happens to the unsold books sitting in the major publishers’ warehouses across the country once that publisher decides to call it quits on a title? In short, they get the hook. This hook isn’t the one that a roomful of people spend weeks devising to convince the media and public to pay attention to the title in the first place; it’s the one that unceremoniously pulls our featured performer offstage.
In the interest of making sense of all of this, let’s clarify the difference between “books” and “titles”. In the publishing industry, a “title” refers to an individual work of intellectual property. “Books” refers to multiple reproductions of the “title”. So we may say that a certain title has 20,000 books in print.
Publishing is as unpredictable as the tastes of its master, the public. If any publisher knew the secret formula to a locked-in bestseller at the consumer level, he or she would be a gazillionaire. The reality is that creators of media are at the mercy of a lot of factors beyond their control.
A publisher may look at a potential new addition to their line and consider the quality of the work, the performance of comparable titles (“comp titles” in industry speak), the author’s ability to reach the masses, marketing budget, initial feedback from sales reps, and the current buzz on the subject matter to determine whether or not to take the plunge on a new title. If all signs say go, the publisher engages their editorial staff for improvements, finalizes a marketing strategy, and goes to press for a significant quantity of books. So far, so good.
Unfortunately, the public and the marketplace can be fickle. Public opinion on the subject of a biography or an issue may turn, an unexpected competing title may be issued around the same time, or the title just may never hit with the media and/or public. It’s a guessing game to some degree, and we all guess incorrectly here and there.
When a publishing house has a surplus of inventory and a lack of sales momentum, remaindering the books is an option to at least recover a portion of production costs. Remainders are “overstock” units of a title that may be sold in large quantities through a bid list to bargain book wholesalers. The wholesalers then resell them to retailers. These books may also be sold directly to retailers in smaller quantities in what is referred to as a “white sale.” In general, remainders bids come in at less than 10% of retail price under an exclusive buy arrangement. The market skews heavily towards the soccer mom demographic---gardening, travel, cooking, kids, etc. A remaindered title will generally be taken out of print and/or have its barcode punched in an effort to safeguard against returns to wholesalers and retailers at the full price.
When making a decision on how to proceed in publishing your title, this information is important in a couple of ways. First, to give your title more time to sell, consider holding onto your rights and publishing outside of the major houses so that you may have more control over how long your title stays in print. Second, remember that it’s a crowded marketplace. Hone the value, uniqueness, and quality of your product and invest in marketing support---you’ve got a lot of competition. Third, realize that these remaindered titles are competing on the same turf as your new book at a fraction of your cover price and then reread the second point. Do your homework and plan carefully up front to give your title its best shot at a successful launch and a long, profitable backlist life.
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