C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

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02/08/2011 • 11:03 PM 3

Writers: The short form is roaring back

Image by gharness via Flickr

I met The Fab Rebecca Senese (I think of her as TFRS at all times) at the Writers’ Union symposium. We went to Tims and went through that excited decompression phase. You know the one. It’s where you are packed with new information to mesh and meld with your old data and you talk fast to get it all out and solidify new, useful neuropathways.

She made an observation that really got my attention:

Amid the hubbub, TFRS said that e-books were a sure opportunity for the short form to make a strong comeback. Got a short flight or need a distraction over lunch? Read a short story or two. If you just want to gulp down a tale but don’t have time for a whole book, enjoy a novella after work.

Makes sense to me. I love short fiction. For instance, it’s a mystery to me why people say they love Ernest Hemingway‘s books, but I do like some of his short stories very much.

Short stories have been relegated to the back of the bus (read: unread literary journals.)

Until recently people have been buying books by weight, so publishers laughed at their puniness and demanded big doorstops they could sell. Length is an issue with paper, constrained as it is by the strictures of the printing press and bookstore manager’s expectations.

Novellas are ignored by many professional critics who often don’t take it seriously because they think the short punch packs less heft behind it. As if we all feel that way all the time.

A good short story takes talent to write and in some ways is a different skill set from the novel. (These critics must be those same twits who scoff at Twitter just because they can’t put together one clever coherent thought in less than 140 characters.)

Now with e-books, the answers to those objections are: Who needs publishers for that? What’s a professional critic and what is this “newspaper” thing you’re babbling about? And lit journals? What’s that? Is all this stuff available online?

Click this link to see Rebecca Senese’s short fiction.

Please do take a look.

Death of a Short Story (writeanything.wordpress.com)
The Art of A Short Story (writeanything.wordpress.com)
The Story Problem: 10 Thoughts on Academia’s Novel Crisis (themillions.com)
The Danger of Writing Flash Fiction (writinghood.com)
Writers: Are you skeptical about self-publishing? (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)

Filed under: authors, blogs & blogging, Books, ebooks, self-publishing, short stories, Twitter, Writers, Arts, book, E-book, Ernest Hemingway, fiction, Literature, Online Writing, Rebecca Senese, self-publishing, short stories, short story, Twitter, writer, Writers Resources

02/08/2011 • 7:05 AM 7

Writers: Are you skeptical about self-publishing?

Image by atmasphere via Flickr

As you can see from a couple of posts ago, I was very enthused with the symposium put on by The Writer’s Union of Canada. I still am. However, there was so much useful information for writers (especially if you’re interested in self-publishing) that I can’t do it all in just one post. It’s worthy of many posts, and not all of them are mine. For instance, as you may have gathered, it’s official, I have a man crush on Ross Laird’s brain.

When someone else makes a great argument, I feel pretty stupid piling on with nothing else to add. (Hold on to your shorts. I still have plenty to say, but we’re going to jump to one of Ross Laird’s links in a moment.)

Why? Because the essential question before I follow up with anything else is this:

**Is this the right time for you to jump to self-publishing?**

Is traditional publishing so damaged it might even be crazy not to self-publish?

Now you need to click here to read Ross Laird’s short essay over at A Newbies Guide to Publishing for the answer.

I know when to shut up and let someone else make a brilliant summation to the jury.

Writers: Dump your preconceptions (and your word processor) (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Writers: Self-publishing resources (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Writers: Why self-publishing sucks (and what you can do about it) (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Writers: How I edit (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Editing: How to take advice (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)

Filed under: self-publishing, Useful writing links, Writers, Writing Conferences, Publish, self-publish, self-publishing, writer

02/08/2011 • 1:11 AM 0

Book Distribution Company Bankruptcy

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One-hundred and twenty-five employees are out of a job at HB Fenn, a major Canadian book distributor. It’s cold in Toronto and those rents are killer. Best of luck to all those employees.

I’ve worked for a publisher as they began to collapse. I was working at Lester & Orpen Dennys just before they went under. It was okay for me. When I came in, I knew I was hired for a short-term job. I was one of the lucky ones in that I bounced on to another publishing job at Cannon Books. The people who stayed longer had to face looking for work in publishing just as everyone else at the company was looking for work. It must have been a terrible situation for some.

For those who missed the details: HB Fenn, declared bankruptcy late last week. Until recently they distributed more than 50,000 titles including MacMillan, Whitecap Books and American sci-fi heavyweight, Tor.

According to The National Post, this marks “the largest collapse of a Canadian publishing company since General Distribution Services/Stoddart Publishing went under in August 2002.”

Publishers have to try to get skids of books back but that may be very difficult while the company deals with paying off creditors. Authors will get it in the shorts as bookstores wait for cartons of books to arrive that never shall. This is a bad blow to Canadian book publishing, especially since, increasingly, publishers have less to offer but could still pride themselves on their bookstore access and distribution system.

HB Fenn once had controlling interest in the now-defunct Key Porter books, as well. Key Porter was once a major player in Canadian publishing.One company’s death would be enough of a bad sign. Two companies might be a bald symptom of the trend down we’ve been seeing.

NEXT POST: THE PROMISED BLOG-O-RAMA—ONE OF MANY TO COME—ABOUT THE WRITERS’ UNION OF CANADA SYMPOSIUM ON THE STATE OF PUBLISHING. (Yes, this post is a clue.)

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