Fun with Press Releases, or, the latest on the Harry Potter leaks

The Good Ship Harry Potter Information Lockdown continues to spring holes and take on water; now U.S. customers and media outlets have obtained actual physical copies of the book, and a couple — such as The New York Times and the Baltimore Sun – have already posted reviews. It’s worth noting here that neither review contained anything in the way of spoiler content. Nonetheless, as Reuters reports, J.K. Rowling is furious and her British publisher, Bloomsbury, is “very sad.” Aw. And here’s the latest from Canada’s own Raincoast Books:

IMPORTANT NEWS FROM RAINCOAST BOOKS

(Vancouver , July 19, 2007) It has now been confirmed by Scholastic Inc, the U.S. publisher of Harry Potter that there have been early sales in the United States of a small number of copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

In light of this highly regrettable situation, Raincoast Books, the Canadian publisher, would like to take this opportunity to assure Canadian fans that books in Canada remain strictly embargoed. We at Raincoast, along with our partners in 93 other countries, re-affirm our commitment to robustly support the embargo time of one minute past midnight local time on July 21, in order to preserve the magic for the children and adult readers of Harry Potter.

We would like to thank our customers and suppliers again for their full support given in so many different ways. We would also like to thank the media for their own observance of, and strict policing of, the embargo to preserve the secrecy of the plot for the readers of Harry Potter.

JK Rowling said today, ‘I am staggered that some American newspapers have decided to publish purported spoilers in the form of reviews in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children, who wanted to reach Harry’s final destination by themselves, in their own time. I am incredibly grateful to all those newspapers, booksellers and others who have chosen not to attempt to spoil Harry’s last adventure for fans.”

Jamie Broadhurst
VP Marketing, Raincoast Books

Maybe it’s just Quillblog, but the line thanking us media types for our own “strict policing of the embargo” gives us the willies. We happen not to be interested in posting spoilers, but we don’t remember being deputized.

The future of bookchat

In The New York Times, arts reporter Motoko Rich uses the recent contraction of mainstream book review coverage as a springboard to discuss ye olde Blogs vs Newspapers debate.

There follows the expected back and forth, with litblogger Ed Champion arguing that blogs counter “the ‘often stodgy and pretentious tone’ of traditional reviews,” while National Book Critics Circle president John Freeman says, “We have a lot of opinions in our world. What we need is more mediation and reflection, which is why newspapers and literary journals are so important.”

One prominent litblogger, Maud Newton, gives the Times a welcome sense of perspective:

“I find it kind of naïve and misguided to be a triumphalist blogger,” Ms. Newton said. “But I also find it kind of silly when people in the print media bash blogs as a general category, because I think the people are doing very, very different things.”

And while it’s not mentioned in the article, this very funny cartoon also offers some perspective on the bookchat wars.

Supreme Court sends Robertson and the Globe back to court

Author and writer Heather Robertson’s long-running class-action lawsuit against The Globe and Mail took one more step on Thursday toward — well, toward something.

Ten years ago, Robertson took the Globe to court because the paper was making money off of electronic databases of its archives without getting clearance from — or offering compensation to — freelancers. Now the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that (in the words of, er, Globe and Mail reporter Kirk Makin) databases “compiled by newspapers and other publishers cannot simply reproduce freelance work without the specific agreement of writers, photographers and illustrators.”

It was a close one, though: a 5-4 decision. And because the decision concerned a pretrial motion only, Robertson must still actually take the case to trial. Makin provides a preview of the Globe‘s courtroom strategy: “A central argument at trial will be whether, in selling their work to the newspaper, freelancers presumed that it could end up being used in any way the newspaper desired.” Quillblog’s no expert on the law nor yoga, but that argument seems like a mighty stretch.

Related links:
Click here for the Globe story about the Supreme Court ruling
Click here for commentary from the Creators’ Copyright Coalition
Click here for the official ruling summary
Click here for the full decision

To sell or not to sell: the now-non-existent question?

The Dallas Morning News contains an article by Jerome Weeks that stresses the need for authors to know how to promote their work. And he doesn’t mean the bare-bones basics of not getting drunk at readings (although that can have its own special charm) and putting in time at every little earnest litfest that pops up nearby. Weeks says that one needs to come to the table with a fully-blown top-drawer marketing plan in place with the cherry on top of a doozy of a gimmick.

Or at least some super-targeted marketing. He mentions one author who penned a birdwatching tome. Knowing his publisher’s marketing staff wouldn’t exactly be clawing each other’s eyes out over who got the glory of shilling this read, he came prepared with the relatively cheap and no-muss-no-fuss option of sending him to a selection of Audubon Societies around the country, and he’d chip in on the roadtrips on the side to hit as many as possible.

A friend of Weeks’s does this chap one better by recruiting the possible market for her own book — dance workshops, flamenco instructors and guitarists — not only to read her work, but to perform at other more pedestrian readings to get the juices going … and the wallets opening.

Weeks then muses on the nature of the beast: “Not every novel lends itself to this, of course. And serious book lovers may wonder what live dance has to do with the art of literature. But just as America has turned into a “sink or swim” society, publishers keep abandoning worthy authors to a marketplace stacked against them. And they do this while newspapers and electronic media are ditching arts coverage. In such a world, a little barnstorming self-promotion is a basic survival skill. And doing it with some flamenco flair is just smart.”

Related links:
Read the The Dallas Morning News piece here

Gormless

Quillblog doesn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but there is an Ann Coulter plagiarism scandal brewing. Last Sunday, shortly after the release of her new book, Godless, the New York Post, a newspaper that has carried Coulter’s columns, published an article that quoted John Barrie, who created a “plagiarism-recognition system,” as saying that her new bestseller featured at least three instances of plagiarism and there were many more in her syndicated column. Two of the passages from the book were allegedly lifted from other newspapers and the third was taken directly from — wait for it — a Planned Parenthood brochure. That Planned Parenthood passage was actually used in a chapter on Bill Clinton.

But, seriously … the so-called liberal media that has provided Coulter with so much fodder over her seemingly interminable career in punditry is all over this story. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann (whom Quillblog has admired since his days anchoring ESPN’s Sportscenter) has had Barrie on Countdown. (Check out the video on Raw Story.) And the Muckraker spinoff of Joshua Micah Marshall’s Talking Points Memo blog has been following this very closely, providing updates a few times a day.

For her part, Coulter has responded by ripping the Post in her latest column, reports Editor & Publisher. “How crappy a newspaper is the Post?” asks Coulter. “Let me put it this way: It’s New York’s second-crappiest paper.”

Related links:
Click here for the original New York Post article
Click here for the Raw Story item, with the Olbermann video
Click here for TPM Muckraker
Click here for the Editor & Publisher story

James Frey updates at the top and bottom of every hour on In Other Media

The controversy continues over allegations that James Frey invented/embellished chunks of his Oprah-sanctioned bestselling memoir, A Million Little Pieces. The latest bit of news is that the next printing of Frey’s book will include a note from the author that will address this. As Hillel Italie of The Associated Press reports, however, it is unclear what Frey will write in his author’s note: “Doubleday spokeswoman Alison Rich declined to offer details about the note or to comment on why it was being added. She would not say if the note was an acknowledgment often found in memoirs but not in A Million Little Pieces that names and events had been altered.” In Other Media is sincerely hoping that the author’s note addresses beard-trimming techniques. (Was it just me or did his beard look a little mangy on Larry King Live?)

The story broke last Sunday on The Smoking Gun, so, just in time for the weekend newspapers, readers should be girding themselves for think pieces and other related fare, like this list on the CBC Arts website of the top 10 literary hoaxes, which includes everything from Ern Malley (the inspiration for Peter Carey’s My Life as a Fake) to David Solway’s creation, Andreas Karavis.

One of the best articles on the controversy so far is on Slate, where journalist Seth Mnookin, who has dealt with his own addiction problems, says that Frey’s fabrications are typical of the insecurity that he often encountered in rehab: “Based on all the evidence, it seems Frey’s weird, macho fear of seeing himself as a ‘victim’ led him to fabricate a life that was painful and extreme enough so as to explain the sadness and despair he felt.” Mnookin goes on to point out, however, that Frey’s fabrications are significant because of the simplistic message about addiction that the book reinforces.

Related links:
Click here for the AP story
Click here for the CBC Arts
Click here for the Slate article

Dowd, illustrated

If you’ve just emerged from a month in your panic room — or, to borrow a Conan O’Brien line, a “spaz closet” for those of us in a lower tax bracket — New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is promoting a new book, Are Men Necessary? Dowd has been interviewed, it seems, by half of the daily newspapers in North America, and she’s been rehashing the same points. On the New York blog called The Minor Fall, The Major Lift, the blog’s author (who is not named on the site, but is journalist Alex Balk) compiles an illustrated compendium of her most commonly repeated quotes, such as, “[I]t’s like that quiz show where you try to put as many things in your supermarket basket as you can in 30 seconds.”

Related links:
Click here for the item from TMFTML

Scott Young dies at 87

Scott Young, legend of Canadian print media, prolific author of 45 books, and father of musician Neil Young, has died this week in Kingston, ON. He reported on sports and news for newspapers and magazines across the country, including The Globe and Mail and Maclean’s, in a journalism career that spanned more than 40 years. He reported on the Second World War from London, then spent years covering major sporting events like the Olympics and the Stanley Cup. His books include the autobiographical Neil and Me, Arctic thrillers Murder in a Cold Climate and The Shaman’s Knife, and YA titles like Boy on Defence and A Boy at the Leafs’ Camp.

Related links:
Click here for the story in the Toronto Star

Potter hype gets hairy

Harry Potter excitement has reached a fever pitch this week with the arrests of two men who attempted to sell a stolen copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to British tabloids The Sun and The Daily Mirror. According to the CBC’s website, journalists from the newspapers met with the two men outside London on Friday. When the Sun journalist attempted to leave with the book, “one of the suspects drew a handgun next to his head and fired a shot over the journalist’s shoulder.” The journalist was not harmed, but the two men were arrested before being released on bail.

Related links:
Click here for the article on CBC Arts

Somebody’s still reading

There have been a plethora of articles and op-ed pieces commenting on a recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts that concluded that the average American is reading less than they did 20 years ago. An article in The Boston Globe summarizes the reaction of the American publishing and academic communities, focusing on what many see as the study’s most disturbing conclusion: fewer than half of Americans older than 18 read novels, plays, poetry, or short stories. When asked by the Globe why anyone outside the book world should care about this stat, NEA chairman and poet Dana Gioia said: “Reading a novel puts you in the mind of another person. It develops your ability to imagine the world from another perspective.”

Jon Talton, in a column for The Arizona Republic, goes so far as to equate the reading of literature with the survival of democracy: “The electors of a self-governing society are cultivated by a liberal education, which means extensive reading. Reading is not passive; a reader engages with the author, wrestles with ideas, imagines new worlds. Reading teaches critical thinking.”

Charles McGrath, in an op-ed piece for The New York Times, takes a more skeptical view of the study, arguing that just because people are reading less “literature” they are not necessarily reading less: “(The study) doesn’t consider magazines, it doesn’t consider newspapers and it doesn’t consider the Internet, except to imply that it steals time people used to spend with books. But when people surf the Web what they are doing, for the most part, is reading. To judge from the number of hits on sites like Google, they are gobbling up written information in ever-growing numbers.”

Related links:
Read the Boston Globe article
Read Jon Talton’s column in The Arizona Republic
Read Charles McGrath’s op-ed piece in The New York Times