Welcome to Literary Ashland

Follow

On May 12, 2012 Julie Bosman of the New York Times reports on the rise of technology influencing (negatively) hard copy books.  What exactly does this mean?  With electronic book sales increasing rapidly, making book-lovers’ favorite pastime more convenient, hard-copy books are not necessary to lug around.  Pages do not need to be physically flipped, nor does a book-lover need an over-sized bag to carry multiple books at once: just in case one isn’t enough.

Kindle and Nook sales increased over 100% in 2011 to about $969 million.  Also in 2011, total book sales – electronic books, scholarly books, etc. – rose to about $11.6 billion.  Meanwhile pocket books decreased by about 36%.  They appear to be a category fading out and replaced by quality paperbacks or e-books.  According to Julie Bosman, “[Authors] are trying to satisfy impatient readers who have become used to downloading any e-book they want at the touch of a button, and the publishers who are nudging them toward greater productivity in the belief that the more their authors’ names are out in public, the bigger stars they will become.”  On a chain of readers to books, books to authors, and authors to publishers, technology/e-books has reduced the love in this chain and replaced love with convenience and stardom.

Although technology has significantly decreased book sales, it also provides benefits for e-readers: social media.  As Bosman suggests, the Internet allows readers to develop a more intimate relationship with their favorite authors, who they can follow through blogging, Twitter, and Facebook websites.  Also despite the stardom, which seems to be the main goal of authors, many authors do not just write digital-only stories for the money.  However the disproportional amount of revenue that authors do receive does cause some authors like Steve Berry, a popular thriller writer, “It does sap away some of your energy.  You don’t ever want to get into a situation where your worth is being judged by the amount of your productivity.”

Follow

the Oregon Encyclopedia

Last week I attended the celebration for the Oregon Encyclopedia’s 1,000th entry (on Joseph Meek). And with recently added material, the encyclopedia is up to 1,041 entries written by over 600 authors.

What’s the Oregon Encyclopedia, you ask? It’s an online compendium of all things Oregon—from agriculture, architecture, tand the arts to sports, transportation and technology. When I mention the Oregon Encyclopedia to people, they sometimes respond—“Oh, it’s an Oregon Wikipedia.” But it’s not. The articles are peer-reviewed, fact-checked in advance, and edited by a professional editorial team.

The OE, as it is known, is a partnership among Portland State University, the Oregon Council of Teachers of English, and the Oregon Historical Society, which also hosted the editorial board meeting and celebration last week. The idea of the Oregon Encyclopedia came about as part of the Oregon sesquicentennial and was announced on Feb. 14, 2008, the state’s 149th birthday.

Now there are over a thousand short entries—250-1000 words—on significant people, events, places, institutions in Oregon, from Bobby the Wonder Dog to the Roseburg Blast. And there are longer essays on some topics that run through Oregon’s history, along with hundreds of images, documents, and maps and special material for teachers and students. The response has been phenomenal. In the last six months, the OE website has been accessed by 118,439 users. Outreach efforts have included history night presentaions, special research initiatives, writing workshops, and today the OE has over fifty community partners around the state.

Portland State University historian Bill Lang is the Executive Editor of the Oregon Encyclopedia and, along with three senior editors, Ulrich Hardt, Linda Tamura, and Jeff LaLande, and a terrific staff—Marianne Keddington-Lang, Tania Hyatt-Evenson, and Amy Platt.

There is plenty of Ashland, literary and otherwise, in the OE too, with entries on Lawson Inada, Jerry Turner, Vladimir Nabokov in Ashland, Betty Laduke, Mary Perry Stone, Lenn Hannon, Dean Ing, and Les Aucoin, as well as the city of Ashland, Southern Oregon University, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Lithia Park, Jefferson Public Radio, Blackstone Audio, Cycle Oregon, the Ashland Independent Film Festival, the State of Jefferson, and the Schneider Museum of Art.

Ashland is well-represented among the authors too. Entries have been published by Kit Leary, Teresa Montomgery, Vince Wixon, Alan Armstong, Ed Battistella, Mary Gardiner, Joe Peterson, Aurora King, Paul Pavlich, Dennis Powers, Kevin Talbert, Mark Tveskov, Tom Nash, Don Reynolds, Phyllis Reynolds, Maryann Mason, Maureen Flanagan, Frank Lang, Stewart Janes, George Kramer, Ron Kramer, Mitzi Loftus, Jeff LaLande, Jamie Vener and McNair Scholars Kristi Russell, Tiffany McCormack, Jeff Proulx, and Danielle Mann.

For a writer, working with the OE is a great experience–you are forced to be concise, encouraged to be interesting, thoroughly fact-checked, and gently edited. What more can an writer ask?

The Oregon Encyclopedia is turning out be be one of the most innovative state encyclopedias around and if you are researching anything about the state it’s an invaluable resource. One of my students is doing a capstone project on Oregon literature and she’s using the OE extensively. Check out the Oregon Encyclopedia. There’s something for everyone.

Follow

Apple is in a legal case filed against them over e-book pricing.  On April 12, 2012 Nick Wingfield of the New York Times explains why Apple is most likely not to be the loser in this battle with Amazon.  This legal case began by the Justice Department on Apple; the Department set up lawsuits against Apple and five other publishers who attempted to use e-books to reduce Amazon’s success in digital media and devices with the Kindle.

In regards to e-books, Apple versus Amazon’s main product battle is between the Kindle (and other e-books) versus Apple’s iPad.  Contrary to what the lawsuit may have proposed for Apple, iPad appeal and popularity did not decrease even as e-book sales continue to increase.  In fact the iPad is even more appealing/beneficial for Apple according to James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, who says, “his company indicated that games, Web browsing, Facebook and other applications are bigger parts of the appeal of the iPad than e-books.”  The Justice Department did not hurt Apple the way they had hoped.

Book publishers are worried that, with the lawsuit potentially favoring Apple, low pricing by Amazon may drive them out of business.  Local book publishing president for White Cloud Press Steve Scholl also gave a lecture to the History of Publishing class about the “Perils of Publishing.”  Steve explained the process which a printed book goes through, going from the publisher to distributors/wholesales, bookstores, and consumers loses much money – the publishing company, if it is small, does not profit much from a few books.  Similar to the Apple versus Amazon e-book sales, Steve also discussed how the rise and popularity of electronic books decreases sales of printed books.

Nicholas Economides, a professor of economics at New York University thinks the lawsuit is a “strong case.”  Book publishers are worrying that returns of low pricing by Amazon will drive them out of business, similar concerns of White Cloud Press president Steve Scholl.  Still, so many are in favor of Apple’s win – or if not win, not giving up easily.  Mark Lemley, a law professor at Stanford University says “Apple has a history of being fairly aggressive in litigation.”