For the Love of Books

A couple of days back I was interviewed by Shazmin Shamsuddin on BFM89.9 The Business Station - and how nice, the podcast has appeared online! :

If you want to write - just do it!



Editing Malaysian writers



Book blogging and how it takes over your life! :

Blog Content Theft

It is deeply upsetting when you find that someone is stealing the content from your blog without having asked your permission, and even more upsetting when you know that they are harvesting that content continually using a bot so that they can make money from advertising.

It happened to me before and I managed to resolve it though it wasn't pleasant to have to have a ding-dong match with an Irish bozo who laughed at me for being stupid enough to have a Creative Commons License. (I changed the kind of license.)

Now it's happened again. This is the blog and although I haven't checked very far back, every single post I've put up here has appeared there. Other bloggers from elsewhere are getting ripped off too. And none of their work is being credited to them.

This post will no doubt be swept up and put there too, which is why I'm writing it!!!

I only discovered by accident this time that my posts were appearing elsewhere since his blog is hidden from Technorati. I strongly advise other bloggers to do regular checks by googling keywords from their posts.

Update :

A response from Tushar Mathur ... who says he is not the person stealing from my blog, but a victim too :

Everything Finance said...

Hi Sharon,

This is Tushar Mathur.

The website http:goodpfbooks.com is NOT my site.

A few months ago I was approached by the owner of that site via email asking for a link exchange. I agreed to that.

Now I see that he doesn't even have my link anymore. So I have also removed his link from my blog.

I have also sent him an email about removing your content.

Can I please request you to remove your post about me? Since its not true.

I'm a credible Personal Finance blogger and well respected.

My content gets stolen all the time. But now I have put mechanisms in place so that every post automatically gets my website link and copyright info.
Many big Financial companies contact me to review their products.

Thanks for listening,

Tushar Mathur

March 24, 2009 9:32 PM

Update (25/3/09) :

My content has been taken off the blog, which I'm relieved about. The perp (whoever it is) still continues to scrape posts from other blogs, and I'm sure there will be other unscrupulous people along doing the same.

Nother Update :

The owners of the Book Lovers Guide blog have realised that their work is being scraped by the same person. (Thanks Chet for spotting this.)

Blog- eautiful!

Here's me in Her World this month in a feature about women bloggers. It was fun to do all the hair and makeup bit and have my pic taken ...

I was disappointed though that most of what I wrote as response to the questions I was sent got chopped, and maybe I'll post the whole thing another day.

Malwebolence!

Does free speech tend to move toward the truth or away from it? When does it evolve into a better collective understanding? When does it collapse into the Babel of trolling, the pointless and eristic game of talking the other guy into crying “uncle”? Is the effort to control what’s said always a form of censorship, or might certain rules be compatible with our notions of free speech?

I can't decide if this post is "off topic", but those who frequent the comments on this blog will find it interesting. (One of them sent me this link so something rang a bell here.) Mattathias Schwartz in The New York Times analyses "malwebolence" (great term, huh?) - the hurt and discord that "trolls" sew in comments and/or, of course, on their own blogs. (The article is several months old, but the content still fascinating.)

This rang true (and I know there are some of you who will nod with recognition of the truth) :

The willingness of trolling “victims” to be hurt by words, he argued, makes them complicit, and trolling will end as soon as we all get over it. Ultimately ... trolling will stop only when its audience stops taking trolls seriously.

Discuss, with reference to a blog near you and your own participation.

Malay Mail Grabs the Blogger Authors!

Although initially the reason was to talk about my books, my present aims are much wider than that. I highlight conservation issues for a start. I hope in some little way to increase awareness of Malaysia’s stunning biodiversity and its importance. If you want to see photographs of anything from the Imbak Valley or a pill millipede – come to my blog.

I also cater for fans and readers of science fiction and fantasy, and for would-be authors of those kind of books. I post on things like how to get published or how to write a fantasy novel or how to improve your writing. I tell fans about what’s coming out next of mine, and will happily answer questions about my books, past and up-andcoming.

Occasionally I blog about social issues, especially when I feel a grave injustice is being done, or when authorities try to take away our rights on the flimsiest of excuses. I like to point out ironies and idiocies and bigotry. (There is so much material here for a fantasy writer…and of course, I use that material in my books. What writer wouldn’t?)

It's been a lovely surprise over the last couple of days to see a couple more writing friends who are also bloggers featured in the Malay Mail. Yesterday it was conservationist/fantasy author Glenda Larke who blogs at Tropic Temper. (And thanks so much, Glenda for naming me your favourite blogger! Guess we're in each other's fanclubs now.)

Today it's the turn of short story writer Robert Raymer, who blogs as BorneoExpatWriter which is a must-read for everyone interested in learning about the craft of writing.

In the article he says :

Blogging hasn’t changed my life, just my writing life, or how I view writing. Before, I would write or pitch articles for publications, but now I write posts on writing to help inspire other writers. Then later, I think some of these would make pretty good articles, so I would rewrite them and submit them for publication. This is a recent development, but so far one has already been published. So blogging in this sense serves a new purpose for me, it gets me to write articles that I may not have written in the first place, plus they become fodder for paying articles and workshops.

It’s also nice when readers of my stories and former writing students stumble across my website or blog and contact me. Also the website/blog is invaluable for editors, agents, publishers and reviewers to get more information about me and to read samples of my writing. So far I’ve got one US$500 writing assignment from the US, one full page interview and book review ( Borneo Post ), and one workshop presentation (in Miri) from strangers who came across my website.

So you see, blogging is a mighty useful thing!

(Sorry for being away from you all for so long. My computer is repaired and has a whole lot of new parts inserted and I'm really happy with it now. All my troubles have made blogging more effortful than it should have been, and it's a real pleasure to be back to normal.)

Orwell the Blogger

Give a big welcome to a new blogger - a British author by the name of George Orwell who wrote, among much else, Animal Farm and 1984.

Well yes, I know that he actually died in 1950, but the clever folks who set up the Orwell Prize for political writing seem to have brought him back to life again by publishing his diaries online, at the rate of one blog post a day.

According to the BBC Tadio 4 website (where you can find podcasts of Orwell's son Richard Blair reading extracts) :

The diaries, written from 1938, cover the descent of Europe into war, as well as Orwell's travels in Morocco, following his sojourn in Catalonia, fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

But Orwell wrote about other issues beside politics :

... (he) was also interested in travel, food - and even slugs. ... he even includes newspaper clippings of sloe gin recipes.

Another famous dead author blog you might enjoy is that of the famous C17th diarist, Samuel Pepys, which I think is great enhanced by the use of hyperlinks to explain all the references. (This is, I think an example of digital literature working far better than the print version.)

These diaries seem to suit the medium so well that I have no doubts that if these guys were around today, both would have been happily blogging away!

Cybergranny Signs off

Blogging may appear to be the province of the young and tech-savvy, but one centarian who embraced the medium enthusiastically was Australian Olive Riley who has just died aged 108, and was the world's oldest blogger. (She's also, incidentally, the world's oldest YouTube star!)

Her original blog is down at the moment, probably because of the number of hits, but a temporary site was set up for her here. And what a joy she sounds! The news agency says:

Riley had posted more than 70 entries on her blog from Woy Woy on the east coast since February last year, sharing her thoughts on modern life and her experiences living through the entire 20th century. ... Born in the outback town of Broken Hill on October 20 1899, she lived through two world wars and raised three children while doing various jobs, including ranch cook and barmaid.

How many family stories do we lose because we never helped our parents and grandparents to tell them for us and future generations? Perhaps you have old folks in your own family who might enjoy blogging and need a little encouragment.

(Thanks Twan Eng for sending the link.)

E-Fiction is Eli

It was a nice surprise to see that my blog buddy Eli James was grabbed for interview by Sheila Rahman today. Eli as you know is the amazing (don't blush, Eli!) young chap from Sarawak behind Novelr pioneering, as Sheila says, the interface between fiction and the digital world.

It’s really only through community that you can raise the bar of quality in a medium.

says Eli (and that strikes me as a very wise observation). And he talks about why he started the blog :

I originally wanted to explore the medium of blog storytelling. There are actually people who blog their novels first, gain reader feedback, and then publish them through Printing-On-Demand publishers like Lulu. There are others still who blog and are then approached by publishing houses to turn their blogs into books. I found this interesting. I’d done a blook before so I leveraged Novelr to be a starting platform for new authors looking for an alternative to the traditional publishing industry.

We need blooks of significant literary merit so now Novelr has a forum. I also encourage and help set up quality filters for online fiction, plus whenever I can, highlight works of merit.

And how has blogging changed his life? :

My work in Novelr has put me in contact with a lot of really amazing professionals – SharonBakar, who writes Bibliobibuli for instance*. I’m mostly gobsmacked to be even in touch with these people.

I’ve also met a number of writers and editors.

A few of the ideas and the articles in Novelr have also been referenced in a PhD thesis on blog fiction – which was really very flattering. I suppose blogging has done wonders for my analytical ability.

I’m being quoted now, so I better make sure each and every post I write is well thought-out, well argued, and clearly presented… or else!

His immediate plans? :

Sometime next year, I’m starting up a digital publishing house (for want of a better name) – where we promote, redesign and highlight online fiction. ... I’ve started prelim discussions with several other writers, editors and programmers.

You see just what you start when young people get internet access and start communicating with others across the world?

* Nope, it's me who'd humbled, Eli. I believe you are going to go very far, and if there is anyone who has a spare scholarship to a top-notch university hidden about their person, please send it Eli's way.

Hands Off Our Writing!

Ellyn Whyte, who writes the delightful columns Katz Tales and A Dog's Life for Star Weekender has a feature on a topic very close to my heart - the theft of online content, where one's newspaper articles or blog/ website posts are swiped wholesale.

As the article points out, many journalists may want to sell their articles on elsewhere, or, as in Ellen's case, may be planning to use them for a book and the reproduction of their work in this way immediately lessens its value.

Freelancers get paid very badly for that appears under their names in the papers (it certainly isn't recompense for the wear and tear on the brain and the amount of ink expended) so they are usually writing for the love of it and with a personal project in view. (For me the journalism is an extension of what I do on this blog, feeding into it and out of it, but of course I have my book projects too.)

My little burst of indignation at the guy who was helping himself to every single one of my blog posts to generate income on his own is recorded in the article, as is my solution :

“I sort of had the last laugh because I stalked him (the thief) back, know where he lives and learned an awful lot about his life!” Sharon says, adding meditatively, “I might put him in a piece of fiction, sad little man.”

But yes what can you do? Legally, you don't have much recourse, although the paper today lists some very sensible measures you can take to protect yourself. The ultimate protection is not allowing your work to be put up online, but that would be really very sad. We write because we want people to read us. We want everyone in the whole goddamn world to read us. We just don't want to be ripped off.

Shaming the perps into taking down the material is one recourse, and often the thieves are naive little bloggers too lazy to put up their own content and nourished in an academic environment where plagiarism too often goes undetected and unpunished, and where pirated videos are available on every street corner. These guys at least are easily shamed into taking the post down.

But funnily enough it appears that government departments are among the worst content thieves! Does no-one teach these civil servants about the morality of the cyber-world? Among the baddies that emerge in this piece are Pejabat Majlis Daerah Lenggong* who have lifted material from Jan Stuivenberg's waterfallsofmalaysia and the Perak Veterinary Department who are nicking Ellen's content. You may remember also that Caving Liz was having a long and frustrating battle some time back with an Indian travel agent who stole her stuff to sell package tours to Malaysia on her website.

There is though I think a real need to clarify and tighten laws regarding the use of content, as well as generally raise awareness about the issue, and I hope Ellen's article opens up the discussion about what is and what isn't legitimate use of material.

Meanwhile, if you think that you would like to use something that is on a website or on a blog - ask first! I usually do give permission for others to use my material, but I want to be consulted , and I want to hold on to the right to say no.

(*I wonder if this protest has worked already because the site has suddenly been taken down?)

Blogspotted by the Malay Mail

Haha! Fame is mine if not the fortune.

Sheila Rahman writes about me in the Malay Mail today and says some very kind things which have me well and truly blushing away.

I am much tickled by being described as "indefatigable" for the second time in the space of a week (the first was on Eric's blog). If only these folks could see what an indolent, lazy bum I am.

(On second thoughts, it's just as well they can't.)

My Blog Content - Stolen

There's a total w****** out there stealing my blog content everyday and posting it to his own blog. I'm not sure if it is a human being or a bot doing the swiping. I suspect the later as I saw this line in his page code:

<meta name="ROBOTS" content="INDEX,FOLLOW"/>

It looks as if stuff has been lifted from other blogs too.

The main purpose is to attract advertising revenue ... the page is stuff full of ads. There is of course no identity of the "blogger" or contact details and I will have to work backwards from his IP.

I have given no permission, of course for the use of my material and my work is protected by a Creative Commons license. I am prepared to take action against this person, particularly as money is involved. Google Adsense incidentally make it very difficult for complaints to brought against rogue advertisers - I've tried before.

I feel very used and cheated, especially as I do not blog for my own profit.

Maybe this is the answer?

Postscript :

Well, with some help from Chet, we've tracked the guy down.

His name is Aubrey Hall and he lives in Dublin. This is the crap he's posted on another blog about stealing content:

Technophobiac.com is part of Technophobiac Networks aggregation network. Technophobiac.com is intended to be a resource for techies. We do not claim any copyright over syndicated contributed content and although the content has being retrieved via xml & rss feeds the authors always have the right to request removal by e-mailing aubhall [at] yahoo [dot] com.

"Syndicated contributed content"? Oh I'm laughing at the sheer squalid cheek And why isn't his email on his blogs if "authors have the right to request"?

Okay, let's make this clear, Aubrey Hall. Before you take anything at all from my blog that's longer than a single quotation, you must ask me.

Postscript 2

Yeah, that's they guy. He admits it. Believes my creative Commons License gives him the freedom just to take my stuff. (That little tag on my blog is my attempt at signaling that I care about who swipes my content, but it clearly doesn't protect me much.)

Postscript 3 :

My material has been taken off his blog. I feel much better.

But I am still confused about how best to protect from this happening again.

Writers' Blogs

After learning that one Australian publishers is asking its authors to keep a blog, Jane Sullivan in the Age looks whether it's such a hot idea. The pitfalls course include the drain of creative energy which could be directed towards the next book; and the strain of finding something new and interesting to say all the time.

And Sullivan notes that :

There's nothing more annoying than an author banging on about their latest launch or tour or reviews and trying to be entertaining, when you know they just want you to follow the links and order their books.

She goes alone to a blogging workshop and learns that what readers really want is :

... an insight into the blogger's life as a writer, but that doesn't necessarily mean they want a blow-by-blow diary entry about the writer's day. The most popular bloggers take a creative approach.

Some of the Australian authors who have the knack, she reckons, are Penni Russon, Jaclyn Moriarty, Maureen Johnson, while the ultimate blogging author is British author Neil Gaiman (1.6 million hits a day!)

There is no doubt that blogging helps an author build a fan base. Many authors also find blogging a very useful way of getting feedback on content before they publish. (You might like to check out this very interesting piece by Tania Ralli which appeared in The New York Times some time back.)

Of course, closer to home we have some very good blogging authors ... check out the Biblioscribblio links in the sidebar!

(BTW any passing authors who don't have a blog but might like to guest blog a piece here, are very welcome to contact me!)

Bloggers, Writers and the Information Minister

Nisah Haron was one of the panelists at Saturday night's Writers and Blogs: The Current Trend forum at Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka along with Pak Adib (The Reader), Saiee Driss, Puan Aizan (head of the PDM), Nisah, Jiwarasa, Shamsudin Othman, and Fauzi. She gives a very interesting account of the meeting here, and talks about how blogs can promote writing in Malaysia. I'm glad though that they had an opportunity to put across this very positive aspect of blogging.

The focus of course got shifted a little with new Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek who talked about the government's willingness to recognise the role played by the cyber community in shaping public opinion in the country. That's very welcome news, and if any bloggers seem cynical ... well, sorry, cynicism has to be a blogger's default mode.

I wish I could have attended the forum but I had a wedding dinner to go to (traditional Malay affair with Scottish bagpipers and the father of the groom's speech half in Japanese!). But how sad to miss meeting some blogfriends I have only met online.

Blogs Help Develop Writers

People say lots of things about bloggers, most of them uncomplimentary, but I’m very upset about that. ... Blogs are very special tools for honing your writing skills or to get you started on writing, and I used my blog as my notebook, for rough notes which would one day form the substance for this book.

Wan Ahmad Hulaimi a.k.a. Awang Goneng is interviewed by Meera Murugesan in today's Malay Mail about the writing of nation-wide bestseller Growing up in Terengganu.

Bloggers in Malaysia have suffered every kind of insult (what were we called? liars? monkeys?* bored housewives?) and it's lovely to see someone provide the evidence for the likes of Tourism minister Tunku Adnan that blogs are a very positive force, which the government should be supporting and embracing rather than denigrating.

Pak Awang says that the most important lesson about writing he's learning is this:

Do not worry about what you’re writing. Do the best you can at that moment. Go on with it and then come back to it if you have a fresher insight.

On the local literary scene he says that many local authors rarely, if ever, get support despite their talent:

I blame the local infrastructure, the publishers, distributors and editors for not promoting local books. Many good local writers are being ignored. They’re simply not being given the exposure they deserve and yet, when such authors thrive overseas, we want to hail them back and claim them as our own. There’s something wrong here and those responsible have a lot to answer for.

I missed the links to last week's coverage of the book launch in the New Straits Times, so here's Su Aziz's very nice piece.

You're feeling like a superstar yet, Pak Awang?

*It's worth noting that Hulaimi's wife, Zahara Othman (who blogs as Kak Teh) was singled out by Khairy Jamalludin as one of the monkeys. It shows how much (or rather how little) not-too-clued up son-in-law-in -waiting actually understands about blogs and the people who write them.

** Hulaimi was quite amused by the fact that one politician who has been most vociferous in his condemnation of bloggers was right at the front of the queue to get his copy of GUiT signed at the launch!

The Rise and Fall of the Blog Book?

Is the blook on the way out?

Perhaps, says Karen Warner on the amNewYork website, talking about how publishers are beginning to realise that the transition from website to blook doesn't necessarily translate into great sales figures and plenty of examples to prove it.

Motoko Rich in the New York Times, while acknowledging that:

... there is no clear alchemy that turns a popular Web site into a best seller, and several books based on blogs or other Internet material have flopped ...

points to some impressive web-to-book success stories, including that of Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney, a children's novel illustrated with cartoons. It can be read online for free but it has sold 147,000 copies in its printed form and spent 33 weeks on the top of the New York Times best seller list.

That a book derived from free online content has sold so well may allay some fears that giving something away means nobody will want to pay for it. It also encourages publishers who increasingly scour the Internet for talent, hoping to capitalize on the audiences that a popular Web site can deliver.

This is a message about blogging still being one of the best ways for writers to get noticed comes through in Warner's piece too. She quotes Chuck Shelton, an editor for Kirkus Reviews and The Book Standard:

(Blogs are) visible to agents and publishers, therefore their online popularity is easy to gauge, the quality of their writing is evident, and checking them out is easier than slogging through the slush pile.

Blogging Buddies

A round-up of lit-related posts on other local blogs which I have enjoyed ...

Glenda Larke is shortlisted for a fantasy award (biggest congrats!) and finds herself featured in a beautiful HarperCollins diary.

Robert Raymer (below) has an interesting (and inspiring) piece on networking with others: He offers this insight:

Two things need to happen when you network. One is you have to listen. We can all talk and share our ideas with others – that’s the easy part. But how well do we listen? How well do we act upon what we hear? That’s the second part of network­ing, the most critical part, too – action. Or as Jim Rohn, the success guru for an entire generation of world class speakers and self-help motivators would say, “take massive action”. Ideas are as common as clichés about ideas, starting with “they’re a dime a dozen”. But without action, they’re just that – ideas that can sit on the back burner of your life and follow you to your grave.

And talks about how networking both in "real" life and via the blogs helped him plan a new book project.

The subject of how well films made from novels match up to the original book is one that comes up regularly on this blog and movie buff Guo Shao-Hao steps into the frey:

I've always maintained that one shouldn't be comparing apples and oranges, or mee rebus and spaghetti, when it comes to film adaptations of written works. First and foremost, they are two different mediums, and secondly, film audiences and book lovers are different targets.

He talks about the adaptations of the Richard Matheson's modern vampire story I Am Legend (Eyeris reviews the graphic novel adaptation of the book here) and Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta, as well as the recently released film version of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass.

Ted reviews the film and isn't too impressed. (And neither is Daphne Lee.)

Elsewhere, Ted picks up a great story about a perfectly readable novel written entirely by computer software! And also the very sad announcement that the much-loved Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld novels has Alzheimer's disease.

Dari Jiwa Rasa gets the latest consignment of publications from Dewan Bahasa (left) and reports on the award winning Malay novels for the Hadiah Sayembara Mengarang Sempena Perayaan Jubli Emas DBP.

Eric Forbes has a lengthy list of best reads of 2007 but looking at it it gives me a sicky feeling in my tum because I know I've barely scratched the surface of all the good stuff that's been on offer. (Actually I want Eric to come clean about how many he's actually read, how many he's just dipped into, and how many he's merely heard about. Maybe then I will stop feeling incredibly inconsolably guilty.)

Novelr points out that while it's all well and good putting your writing online, but asks what's going to happen to it all after youre dead? It seems he has the solution!

Adib the Reader discovers to his cost that buying too many books is not the only perilous temptation of the new Times Bookshop at The Pavillion and adds an inch or two to his waist.

Tunku Halim discovers the benefits of writing standing up. I believe Hemingway did too.

Getting the word out about our blogs is always important, and I owe big thanks to Luke Razzell and his friends who have tweaked the BlogFriends application on Facebook to make it an excellent way of discovering new voices and getting your own work read. Beats throwing sheep any day!

I thank too the team at Malaysia's Daily Voices. I'm dead chuffed that I've made it into the top 20 blogs a couple of times, particularly as most of the other top blogs are talking about the issues that should be talked about in the face of an entirely toothless press.

Blog advertising company Nuffnang introduced aggregator Innit, which I am also grateful for and I think has potential.

If I have missed anything else interesting please feel free to post a link in the comments.

Guardianed

This blog post was featured in the Guardian on Saturday (for the third time!) and Rob was kind enough to scan the cutting for me (as this column is not online)*. Am mighty flattered and very happy. (But I'm sure all the other folks featured in this column over the weeks are a lot cooler about it than I am!)

* Oh yes, it is!!

Singapore Stories Part 1

Singapore ... a little country that gets its priorities right! :

Arrived there Friday afternoon and went straight to the hotel to meet David Davidar (below) for the interview. He's one of the great heroes of the publishing world, putting Penguin India firmly on the world map, working with some of the greatest writers of our time, and now a novelist in his own right with The House of Blue Mangoes and now The Solitude of Emperors.

David also introduced me to Jo Lusby, general manager of Penguin in China, and what began as an interview relaxed into a fascinating chat about favourite authors, the Man Asia prize and the future of publishing.

You'll get to hear more when I've transcribed my tape and got the article written!

On the Saturday morning I made my way to the Arts House where the Singapore Writers Festival was being held and what was the old parliament building makes a stunning venue.

I went to hear Indian author, Anita Nair (above), whose novel Ladies' Coupe (a kind of updated and feminist Canterbury Tales set on a train) I thoroughly enjoyed.

Anita talked about her love of mindless violent films, making the decision to break with her advertising career, and her writing process.

I then caught David Davidar in two sessions back to back. The first moderated (very well) by novelist Meira Chand, and the second with him in conversation with Kunal Basu (below left) who manages to combine being an author of several highly acclaimed novels (The Opium Clerk, The Minaturist, and Racists) with an impressive academic career (just take a look at his CV!). He's heading for Malaysia in April so you may get a chance to meet him then.

In the afternoon it was time for our panel on litblogging - one of a series of discussions about different aspects for blogging. For me it was a chance to reconnect with my Singaporean blogging friends in "real life". Deepika Shetty (a.k.a. read@peace) was as always a skilled moderator (below), and the other panelists were Zafar Anjum (Dream Ink) blog ...

and Rambling Librarian, Ivan Chew (below far left, with me looking terribly enthused!).


There was so much to talk about, and a lot of passion for what we do, and the hour fairly whizzed past. I was sad that I didn't get a chance to chat a bit more to Ivan, whom I hadn't met before, but hope we get to connect again.

It was great also to talk to a Singaporean audience as I really would love more of them to drop by this blog and pass me book gossip from down there. (If you're from Singapore and reading this give me a wave!!)

(More pictures and stories to come!)

Postscript

Zafar captures the day very well indeed.

Trengganu - Blooked!

I predicted way back that with some of the freshest, most interesting Malaysian writing emerging on the blogs, and it was only a matter of time before publishers noticed.

Biggest congratulations to Awang Goneng whose forthcoming Growing Up in Trengganu (due to be released in a couple of weeks) is Malaysia's first blook (book based on a blog). Congrats to to Philip Tatham of Monsoon Books in Singapore for being so proactive and not waiting for printed manuscripts to hit his desk.

Pak Awang writes:

The book has been my top secret project this year, and even my better half Kak Teh only knew about it when the editing work was nearly done. My regular readers will know that Growing Up has been a regular and eccentric feature in my blog and if numbers are to be believed, the series has gone through many hundred thousand parts. But fear not, it is not coming out in many volumes but in just one small collection with cover design by a talented lady in Ireland, published by a small but reputable (and no doubt talented) publishing house in Singapore, and a cartoon of me on the writer's bio page was drawn by a talented but no small cartoonist called Lat; and it is even embellished with photographs sent in by readers from as far away as New York and Canada. I am, needless to say, over the moon.

The idea of Growing Up in Trengganu being snuggled between covers was one that never really seriously crossed my mind, though I did — once or twice, in moments of fanciful thought — toy with publishing it myself. And then Monsoon books came in with an email asking if there's a book there: and of course there was, and so it now is.

And I can't wait to have a copy.

Postscript:

Cheryl Hagedorn of the excellent blog Blooking Central has put up an excellent post about this book/blook. Amazing that such a buzz is created even before the book is out.

The Blog Book Tour

Dina sent me this link to a New York Times article by Karl Jessella about how savvy publicists and authors are doing tours of blogs rather than tours of bookshops and other live venues:

Bloggers have written about books since, well, the beginning of blogging. But a blog book tour usually requires an author or publicist to take the initiative, reaching out to bloggers as if they were booksellers and asking them to be the host for a writer’s online visit. Sometimes bloggers invite authors on their own. In an age of budget-conscious publishers and readers who are as likely to discover books from a Google search as from browsing at a bookstore, the blog book tour makes sense. Although a few high-profile authors have had their books sent to bloggers — James Patterson recently promoted a young-adult book this way — most of the authors are lesser-known and less likely to be reviewed in the mainstream press. ...

Felicia Sullivan, senior online marketing manager of Collins is quoted as saying:

If I had to choose, I’d rather have an author promote themselves online. ... You can reach at least a few hundred people on a blog, and save time, money and the fear of being a loser when no one shows up to your reading.

The article also says that some blog-tour producers have even paid (shock horror!) bloggers to review books.

An author tour on my blog does seem an interesting idea, provided that the guest-blogged content is relevant and interesting to my readers in Malaysia (who make up two-thirds of my readership). I offer my space.

One Booker long-listed author has already taken up my offer.

I am approached all the time by authors and publishers from the UK and US. Sometimes I'm happy to put up a note about a book, if it is one that I think will interest my Malaysian readers. I would not want to write for money though ... I blog for love and not to be bought. I want to read what I want to read (or what's the point?).

But it would be nice to run some more competitions with book prizes if anyone is interested in sponsoring that!

(Photo from NYT shows author Amy Cohen making a guest-appearance on blogs.)