Forgotten And Lost

I was reading this frustrating report on Melville House this morning, entitled "Absolutely nothing will enter the public domain in 2013"

What could have entered the public domain in 2013 - screen shot from Center for the Study of Public Domain

The reason it is frustrating is due to the revisions made to US copyright law that pushes certain works from coming into the public domain today until 2052.

Sigh.

When it is public domain it allows people the ability to those books into other languages, create Braille or audio versions for visually impaired readers, create interesting new enhanced versions of the books, or adapt them for film.

The article quotes an interesting note from the Center for the Study of Public Domain:

“Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the current copyright term is that in most cases, the cultural harm is not offset by any benefit to an author or rights holder. Unlike the famous works highlighted here, the vast majority of works from 1956 do not retain commercial value. This means that no one is benefiting from continued copyright, while the works remain both commercially unavailable and culturally off limits. The public loses the possibility of meaningful access for no good reason.”

The cultural ham is not offset by any benefit to an author or rights holder.

Then why.  Why?  Why?

Sigh. Oh wait, I already said that.

McMaster Celebrates Terry Fallis

Late this afternoon, I am very proud that Titles Bookstore and the McMaster Library are joining together to host a special evening with McMaster Alumnus Terry Fallis.  From 4:30 to 6:00 PM today a gathering and celebration of this innovative and landscape-changing author will be held on the 4th floor of the Mills Library in the Lyons New Media Centre as he launches his novel The High Road.

What better place than a "new media centre" to celebrate a McMaster graduate who broke the mold by venturing into the land of published author a whole new way, by boldly charting a course not before seen in Canada and by helping one of Canada's oldest publishers journey into a whole new frontier for publishing.

It was in 2005 when Fallis, who calls himself a "serial procrastinator" finally wrote a novel he'd wanted to write since 1978.  It was called The Best Laid Plans and was about a burned-out political strategist plan to get out of politics by managing an unelectable candidate in a federal election in order to kill his credibility -- except the plan goes awry when the candidate, a grumpy old professor, becomes unexpectedly popular with the voters.

In 2006 he started sending it out to agents and publishers but wasn't getting any response. So he decided to build an audience for the book and self-publish it.

Starting in January 2007 he podcast the novel, chapter by chapter for free and an audience of thousands of people from all over the world started listening. His audience continued to grow and the self-published book was released in September 2007.  The book was stocked by several different forward-thinking bookstores (ahem, like Titles Bookstore McMaster University) and a launch for the book was held at McMaster.

In March of 2008, everything changed, as The Best Laid Plans was nominated for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

Within a week, Fallis had an agent, and shortly after winning the award on April 30th, 2008, he had a publishing contract with McClelland and Stewart.  The Best Laid Plans was published and relaunched under the M&S imprint and the sequel, The High Road was released in September 2010.

Fallis and McClelland and Stewart made publishing history when the publisher allowed him to begin podcasting the entire novel, again for free, chapter by chapter, in the summer of 2010.


And now Terry is touring with his new novel, which people are buying in boatloads and proving that the traditional publishing world doesn't have to be stagnant and old, and that even a 100 year old publisher can take a bold risk, embrace new technology and new media and be successful.

Of course, the bottom line, IMHO, for why this is successful isn't the technology, nor the "hey that's neat" factor.  Yes, it's how Fallis initially got the attention of readers and publishers alike.  But just getting attention isn't enough.  First, your novel has to be GOOD.

And the fact is that Fallis is a solid writer. His novels are well-written and hilarious, with just the right injection of sentimentality when you least expect it. When I first started reading The Best Laid Plans I was struck with similarities between Fallis and John Irving. There are bizarrely humorous moments in both of his novels that actually made me laugh out loud. And there are beautifully written passages that I've stopped to re-read and then read aloud.  (I call that John Irving-syndrome because Irving was the first author whose prose made me do that when I discovered the phenomenal novel A Prayer for Owen Meany all those years ago)

I can't wait for today's event at McMaster, the very special announcement from the library regarding Fallis, and I'm revelling in watching Terry's amazing success.

Doing It Right Digitally

I complain a lot about the broken textbook industry and how things continue to spiral out of control in a "chicken and egg" battle involving bookstores, publishers and students. The price of textbooks goes up -- sales go down. Prices go higher. Sales plummet further. It's a vicious cycle.

Everyone is pointing the finger at everyone else with very few parties actually looking for real solutions.

But sometimes there is good news -- a glimmer of light among the gathering storm cloud. Sometimes one or more of the groups out there tries something a bit different in an attempt to break the vicious and maddening cycle.

Not that many days ago, I blogged about a university department working with a publisher to offer a workable and very promising solution that I believe was good for the publisher, I know was good for the bookstore, and which I also believe was beneficial for students. A wonderful three way win situation.

And here is some hope in the world of digital books/ebooks that I'm quite delighted with.

First off, I'm very proud to be a member of the CCRA (Canadian Campus Retail Associates) and to know that the time and money we're investing in working together to come up with solutions like this that can actually benefit students and save them money on their textbooks.

Campus E-Bookstore is an initiative to allow for ePub format books to be downloaded by students. The initial offering, or phase one of the platform is a selection of the most popular public domain titles being used most often in North American campuses being offered for free. Full details can be seen on a NACS press release announcing the partnership between CCRA and NACS Media Solutions.

The idea is to help individual campus stores be able to provide easy links to these texts for those students looking for an alternative or compliment to existing course materials. With the ability to create dynamic links and an easy way to get a decent DSV (or Digital Study Version) copy downloaded with as little hassle as possible. These study versions have been produced in the EPUB format, enabling them to be viewed on most mobile reading devices, such as the Sony Reader.

I believe that a project like this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Just to reiterate -- a group of campus stores paid money to create digital material to be given out to students for free.

My own experience having access to POD technology in my bookstore has continued to demonstrate that even when students can get a public domain or open access textbook for free (via Project Gutenberg, etc), they will likely purchase a hard copy of the book if it is a REASONABLE PRICE. I use upper case for the words "reasonable price" because reasonable means different things to different people. But I have seen the positive effect of giving something away for free and offering a low-cost alternative hard copy. Those who wish not to or cannot afford to purchase the product but still access the content are happy -- those who want a hard copy for a decent price are happy. And sales of the reasonably priced hard copy typically increase.

Of course, FlatWorld Knowledge is another entity out there that has the right idea -- in a similar fashion, they offer free online versions of textbooks and reasonably priced hard copies available for sale.

There is a fantastic interview from CBC's Spark with Nora Young that you can download and listen to where Eric Frank explains the concept of Open Textbooks.

At the end of the day, I'm delighted to see another glimmer of hope in these two wonderful efforts to put a stop to the madness.