Okay, to be honest, sales of books are not like movie ticket sales that actually announce totals to promote. If you want to know how well a book is really doing you need to pay 60 grand for access to that type of info. Why? Because a literary award winning book might only sell 500 copies. Compared to that, a crap novel that sells 2000 copies can be considered a BEST SELLER. Anyway, waiting for a self published to go number one. Obviously, e-readers have lessened expectations of downloaders. There are spelling mistakes/ fact errors in these books, so hire an editor. And a jacket cover artist. The book industry vultures may also be pushing these selfies into the list just to push e readers. Who cares? Writers there is hope. You can make 70 percent to amazon's 30 percent. F agents. On another note, you male teacher/professor types that read outdated shist, you annoy me. Don't give students Shakespeare if a students goal is to be relevant today. Sure, there is a lot to learn about symbolism and foreshadowing, but a degree doesn't matter to an agency, so stop fooling aspiring folk. If you are one of the long winded, long sentence lovers, what modern stuff can you introduce? Bret Easton Ellis? Chuck Palahniuk. Fans of these authors generally only read these authors. And yet, they are awesome. If you are a male writer, not gay, do you cater to mid age women, big question? The smell of books, love it. But ******** it. Experiment. Let language do what automatic movie images cant. And yeah, hire an editor, cheapo. Romance doesn't haven't to be about lovers, it can be about community coming together. Rant almost over. Okay, now it's done.
Wow, a book forum troll. That's the first in recent memory. Are you saying that only male teacher/professors assign Shakespeare?
No, not only male teachers/professors do this. However male teachers should be more concerned with the lack of interest young males have in reading and writing. Moby Dick just won't cut it. An English Degree won't get a person published, if that is their intention. But writing and reading comprehension can serve a person throughout life, not to be tossed to the side for computer classes, logic, math, science, ect. Drop the nostalgia for old longwinded novels, and find the best modern stuff around, even if it happens to be edgy and you must fight your department to get it into the lesson plans. Have male students read American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis or Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. Both Satires. It would upset parents, but the alternative is young males choosing to play video games instead. Sorry for the trolling aspect. ,
And in turn upset parents would mean upset board members and upset board members would mean upset administrators. Even if you feel that students have no responsibility to play a role in their own education (by striving to learn things that don't necessarily hold their interest at the moment), teachers don't have total (or even partial, in some cases) control over the material they assign to students. You're going to have to start higher up the food chain if you want changes like this.
perhaps consider the "Random Thoughts About Books" thread next time you feel an attack of random thoughts about books coming on.
The education system is just poor in my estimation. I cant really argue against what you just posted. Nobody seems to care that women are the only target market for reading. And these stories shape our culture. I wouldn't mind being a teacher myself, but having no control over reading assignments would be a deal breaker for me. Now I know why languages go extinct, as well as the knowledge contained within those languages.
self published books don't 'go number one'. and not only because 99% of them are shit. you see, if a self published title actually starts getting traction, big publishing houses are going to come calling, and with their vastly superior production/distribution abilities, they're going to get their fingers in it, get their cut, and make bigger money for not only themselves, but for the author, as well. exhibit A: fifty shades of grey. as to whether this example provides any meaningful insight into the value of self- v house-publishing, or ... well, anything, i'm somewhat skeptical. scratch that ... very skeptical. and as to this bit ... ... holy hell, there are spelling mistake/factual errors in damn near every book that rolls off the presses these days. the quality control in american publishing houses is so staggeringly shit i can't get my head around it. i mean, it's they're only fooking job, innit? give it a nice cover, get the pages in the right order, get it on the truck, and, oh yeah, spell the words right. unless you want to see a proper book rant, don't get me started on this shit. ... or this shit ... crikey, i feel a right starchy grump coming on. i believe i'll step outside for a breath of fresh air.
You obviously don't check the best sellers every week like I do. Self published books via Amazon digital services have already entered the top ten, many more in the top 100. If you think publishing houses will pick up a self published book, then they are going to have to compete with Amazon's 70/30 split. A struggling industry will now have to pay an author more. Yes, most of the self published books ARE shit. So are professionally published ones. A lot of the recent self published books ARE like fifty shades of grade, straight up inspired by the success, despite what we both may agree amounts to trash. But now the creative artist type does not have to deal with a risk adverse industry. They can just put anything out there and let it fly or fall where it may. In the past, if you submitted something experimental to a tall stuffy building in New York, you don't get in the door. Self publishing doesn't even have walls. You don't know what you are talking about and/ or cling to the past. E-readers are keeping novel length stories alive. And a digital version seems professional enough to look at the first page of almost anything and not judge it for production. My only point about spelling errors was that self published authors should pay a proof reader/editor, usually at two dollars a page. Its called advice, not a call to perfection. I hope the outdoor air served you well.
i try to sneak a glance as i'm putting putting up displays of them every monday in my bookstore. fair shout. i do talk my share of nonsense, i'll concede; but i've a fairly good grasp on this shit, actually. as to the last bit, i'll plead 'no contest'. better. cheers.
Let me finally get around to the point of your thread. You seem to be complaining, mostly, about the quality of the reading selections for students, esp males. While I agree with you on Moby Dick, I doubt that is being assigned much anymore. Admittedly my daughter goes to a pretty pathetic high school, but Melville's opus is not on the reading list for any class. I've read American Psycho, or rather tried to, and gave up within about 100 pages. It's utter drivel IMHO, and I haven't read Fight Club, so no opinions there. But the solution to your problem is not going to be solved by having these two books on any high school reading list, since at the minimum, they'd be junior-senior level reading. Kids, or boys, who don't like reading by the time their 17 aren't going to have any epiphanies reading those two works. Now, I don't have any answers to the concern you posit, just because getting my son to read has been the hardest task I've had as a parent. And this coming amidst a family of readers. And given the huge array of dramatic, stunning, edgy and well written juvenile and young adult fiction that is available nowadays. I agree that high school curricula seem a little more... hidebound, but I can assure you that even in a crappy school district like my own, the middle school teachers are much more inventive. If you peruse the what-have-you-read-lately thread, you can see that I do read a lot of YA fiction, but I am coming back 180 degrees in my thinking with my son. He has enjoyed the YA standards of My Son, Sam, is Dead and Where the Lilies Bloom, both books that I didn't care for at all when I was his age. He could do without the "edge" of The Hunger Games, say. Part of the problem with coming up with more attractive reading options is that everything is so much politicized these days, and I could well imagine the fights getting American Psycho approved. Well, scratch that, we've had brusing fights in this country over other works, so it's probably not that generational at all.
The point of my thread was to highlight the new promise of self publishing. I mentioned the poor reading selection in schools as a side note and people have focused on that. If you are a woman I can see why you didn't like American Psycho. That book was protested by women even before publication and had to switch publishing houses. Now, does a woman know what is best for a young male to read? No. They think do, because they read more, but boys don't want safe subject matter, trust me. You might want that for them. However, that is like saying you don't want them to read into their adulthood. The epiphanies teens will have if they read books similar to what I suggested, is that books don't have to be boring. They can cover topics that they might visually see in a movie or a video game through the use of language and style. You're right, everything is controversial these days about what the young can read. The matter is settled by young males losing interest in reading at all. I didn't like reading until I was 17. I fell in love with the Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye. So good job schools. However, everything I read in college was so boring, I would have given up reading if I wasn't interested in writing. Then I found Bret Easton Ellis. And Chuck Palahniuk. Young males want transgressive fiction. Not the love stories their mothers read. And yet the mothers have the biggest say over reading assignments. So, hello video games with visual explosions. If you are not a woman, my mistake.
OK, first thing, I am NOT female. But I most certainly do not think gender has anything to do with what we recommend for young men. So, you lost me there. Not that we should avoid works that offend some groups, but I as a guy disliked what I read about American Psycho and would think we can up with a lot better fiction before we have to turn to that to save "inquiring" minds. If you were mostly ranting about/on self publishing or lack of editing in such, well it got mixed up. I don't read dreck, just no time for it anymore with two kids and a foster kid, and I fear I will find a lot more with self-published work. I, myself, am hard at work on two books, one a cozy murder mystery and the other a non-fiction book for kids. But I won't be self-publishing. I think the process of editorship is a good thing, and if I'm not good enough to be published, then I'm probably not good enough to be read. But, back to your other point. You say you enjoyed Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye. Both of those were among my least favorite HS reading selections, so I think we've got enough to read that are not just love stories. What were you assigned in college anyway?
Sorry for the female assumption. I really only choose American Psycho as an extreme example because getting something half as controversial for young males would be surprisingly difficult, so I shot for the crude moon. One thing I can already tell about our different reading preferences, is I appreciate style while you maybe after something more concrete, like plot. Which is better? Who knows? It'd be great to have both. Good luck going the traditional route in publishing. Just know this, if doesn't get published, it does not mean it was not good enough to get published. Editors don't know what will sell. They try to copy what has worked before, which changes in a flash. They pass up on many projects that eventually go big. Writing is different than selling your writing, summing it up in a page for some busy someone who only cares about the profit of such a summary. If you have the stomach for that potential judgement, potential rejection, go hard. Just know this, it won't make it more official. Readers care a lot less about where their stories are coming from, how it got there, than writers. It all looks the same on an E-reader. But if you want to convince an agent, to convince an editor, to convince a subdivision of great big dying dinosaur, hey, they might put some money into marketing a full page ad in a dying newspaper. Or you can skip all that, and go straight to your downloading audience. And none of those other people get a cut. The true success is not getting published, it will come from your audience, whether popular or cult.
So I protest a little . . . you think's. Within da top 100 this week, self published books on USAtoday's best selling list: # 11 23 28 29 (Digital rights retained, apart from publishing industry contract. Score one for the Author.) 47 63 65 89 98 And to the bookseller above, I invite you to read an essay by Mark Twain called, Corn Pone Opinions.
something to the effect of 'tell me where a fella gits his cornpone, and i'll tell ya what his 'pinions be' ... or some charming homespun country wisdom close enough to it. i'm familiar. i'm also familiar with my biases. i'd've thought maybe even more than you are - but you're certainly welcome to tell me otherwise. for what it's worth, though, you should know that my employer would like very much for me to be pushing the hell out of e-readers (of a specific brand, of course) and digital content. in fact, how well i do so is on my official reviews, and determines my weekly 'pone allotment. i hope, going forward, that you find that helpful in telling me what my 'pinions be.
'pone allotment, haha. No man can afford an opinion that goes against his bread and butter. Yeah, that. Anyway, good luck. I don't hate book stores and was only trying to encourage other writers, as well as myself. Go on with your 'pinions.