The Book Award Conspiracy, The Value of Publishers, and More Occupying

This week, Laura Miller argued that the National Book Awards made themselves irrelevant by passing over widely praised novels, and many books written by men. She wrote:

“Although the judges for the NBAs change every year, the sense that the fiction jury is locked in a frustrating impasse with the press and the public is eternal... Whatever policy each panel of judges embraces, over the years, the impression has arisen that already-successful titles are automatically sidelined in favor of books that the judges feel deserve an extra boost of attention.”

BookPeople’s Brian C. responded with a blog post that, while agreeing with some of Miller’s points, questioned the reasoning behind what she seems to think is a conspiracy. He said:

“What bothers me most about Miller’s essay is when she calls y’all stupid. I’ve worked in a book store for my entire adult life, and I’ve come away with a little knowledge about the people who walk through the doors. Here’s the dirty little secret: BookPeople customers are as well read as BookPeople employees, and the employees here read a lot. Our society is incredibly literate. Miller argues that the NBA is trying to force feed the larger reading public books that exhibit a poetic prose style, elliptical or fragmented storytelling, and that those books don’t matter that much to nonprofessional readers, or even put them off.”

New York Magazine spoke to Joan Didion about Blue Nights, her most recent memoir, which is about the loss of her daughter just one year after her husband’s death (the subject of her previous memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking). In the piece, Didion heartbreakingly admits to the struggles she had as a parent, and that she will “always be sad.”

In a response to Monday’s New York Times piece examining how Amazon is “writing publishers out of the deal,” Brian DeFiore, who’s on the Board of the Association of Authors Reps, took exception: “There is enormous value to writers—and to readers—in the professional job that publishers do: the selection, editorial development, packaging, distribution, publicity and marketing of books. Those are the things that turn manuscripts into the prize winners and bestsellers that we all hear about and want to read.” DeFiore called the NYT piece “misleading at best and damaging at worst.”

He continued, “There is something much more interesting and complex going on than the one-dimensional article in the Times would indicate. It’s unfortunate that people outside our industry got such an incomplete and misleading view of things.”

How’s your book proposal coming along? Before going forward, you might want to check out The Chronicle of Higher Education’s  “The Less-Obvious Elements of an Effective Book Proposal.” Bottom line: Get involved, make sure you’re sending to the right publisher, and revise.

As the occupying of Wall Street and other locales around the country continues, on the Huffington Post Amy Edelman listed “7 Great Indie Books to Read While You Occupy Wall Street,” all of which are “self-published and speak to the power of the individual.” Lemony Snicket offered 13 observations made by watching Occupy Wall Street from a discreet distance.

Thinking about trying out the “geek” lifestyle? Here’s a start: Wired’s “9 Essential Geek Books You Must Read Right Now.”