Book Marks: Little Fires, Malaysian Book News

In the States, the house is on fire as we'd say it, what with white supremacists openly advertising book burnings, "woke" books being pulled off library shelves, and that tangerine tyrant pursuing whistleblowers. How long will it be before widespread censorship takes place across all US-based online publishing platforms like this?

That Meta, a tech megafirm, is training its AI model on stolen books is infuriating enough. But as reported by Vanity Fair, Meta's lawyers argued it's no big deal, using that cache of pirated books because "the countless books that the company used to train its multibillion-dollar language models ... are actually worthless. (emphasis mine)" That evaluation was based on how little improvement the books' data made to the LLM, "a meaningless change no different from noise." Also, it seems that "Meta employees stripped the copyright pages from the downloaded books." That's more than enough to make one seethe and pray for magma to erupt in the middle of Zuckerberg's Hawai'i compound.

Nevertheless, little fires of resistance burn here and there, while people flock to oases of literature, holding out for better days, which can't come soon enough. Book clubs are becoming surprisingly hip as a younger generation is "driven by a renewed love of reading and a growing desire for off-screen connection."

Professor and novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen invites us to look at the role of literature in promoting American soft power, and poet Tiana Clarke exhorts us to stay free within our imaginations. Clarke takes us back to the time of the first African American poet Phillis Wheatley Peters and offers comfort in the words of James Baldwin: "For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become."

Amen. But for now I'll focus more on positive news about publishing stateside – no need to give book burnings and book burners any oxygen. Books are being published and authors are doing their thing, in spite of the turbulent state of affairs.


In other news:

• Cartoonist Ernest Ng serialised his takes on Malaysian life during the COVID pandemic lockdown, resulting in the nine(!)-volume If Malaysia Was Anime: Covidball Z comic collection. However, Ng feels it's time to move on. "I was just trying to find the happiness and the lighter side of things and entertain people," he told The Star. "Moving forward, I will still draw about Malaysia, but I will cover only the really massive news right now."
• The Ipoh Alternative Book Fest is happening on 3 and 4 May at "Level 1 of Moody Cafe, Jalan Raja Musa Aziz. The event, taking its lead from the KL Alternative Book Fest, is jointly organised by Projek Rabak, Moody Cafe dan Projek Rebel," The Star reports. "Matahari Books (a Buku Fixi imprint) is the main sponsor, alongside support from Buku Fixi and Ipoh's P.O.R.T. (People of Remarkable Talents)."
• The Streisand effect is working its magic on two books by US-based scholar Ahmed T. Kuru, which are getting more attention after "the National Council for Islamic Religious Affairs and the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (JAKIM) had recommended that the two books be banned," Free Malaysia Today reported. Publisher Lestari Hikmah told FMT that the ban helped generate buzz for the two books, Islam, Autoritarianisme dan Kemunduran Bangsa and Perikatan Ulama-Negara: Punca Autoritarianisme dan Kemunduran Dunia Muslim. These two titles are still legal for now, as the Home Ministry hasn't banned them yet (go to the last page of the list).
• Crowdfunding publisher Unbound, founded in 2011, has gone into administration after difficulties in paying its writers and releasing some titles. The publisher has since been acquired by the newly formed Boundless Publishing Group, which will be taking over many of Unbound's projects, reports the Guardian. Unbound's unveiling caught my attention way back when. Though (more than a little) sceptical, I thought it had promise. While it seemed to work in the beginning, reality caught up. Plus, potentially bad news for those who backed the projects dropped by Unbound because, according to The BookSeller, they're not getting refunds.
• Books aren't targeted by tariffs, but the global trade war seems to be having an effect on the book trade. In Canada, bookstores and printers are catching the chill as a book export market shrinks and parts and raw materials such as paper become harder to source. How long before these headwinds reach our neck of the woods?
• Julia Orlova, CEO of Vivat Publishing based in Kharkiv, Ukraine, shares the latest trends in the besieged country's publishing sector. "Despite the war, Ukrainians continue to read, and publishers continue to publish books," Orlova tells Publishing Perspectives. "Although the total number of new titles decreased by 18 percent, the total circulation increased by 6 percent and reached 26 million copies. This indicates that the market is changing: publishers are betting on mass genres and bestsellers."
• How do journalists find time to write book in lieu of their other work, which is arguably more taxing? Several journalists will be sharing tips at a Poynter workshop, but for those who can't go, they offer a few titbits that can be boiled down to discipline, hard work, and don't be a perfectionist. Nothing to it, right?
• Is extended reality (XR) what the publishing industry needs? This World Economic Forum article states, "Through XR technology, books would not necessarily have to be static text on a page. AR, VR and mixed reality technology could provide layering and interactive narratives. Readers could navigate through a virtual space in which things happen in front of them, interact with characters, or uncover divergent storylines that deepen their knowledge of the story." In other words... massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs)?
• What Bill Bryson said about self-publishing has ticked off this self-published author, who responded with far too many words, I feel, to comments from a dated mindset. Which is why instead of writing my own rebuttal, let me present Richard Godwin's more eloquent and thorough take on the matter. There will always be too many books for one to read, and an "anonymous" writer's life, however mundane to some, may be of interest to others.
• Making a living as an author is hard in many places, and Poland is no exception. A bestselling Polish author is taking a publishing house to court over royalties and the news has touched off an avalanche of comments over how little authors there make. No matter the justifications, giving an author "less than 1.5% of profits from sales" is grossly criminal.
• "As a diehard cat lover, I will pretty much buy anything and everything emblazoned with a cute cat design—household items ... So, I cannot stress how disappointing it is to purchase a new book with an adorable cat on the cover, only to find out there are no actual cats in the story." Like Before We Say Goodbye, probably? Hence, Tanya Guerrero has put together a list of titles that have cats, often playing a key role.

Book Marks: Livid Over LibGen, TikTok To The Rescue

Much has happened since the last time I last posted here. Too much, some would say. I think few want to write about what's been happening since that guy returned to power. So I'm limiting the things to track or highlight and I'll post whenever I can.

Starting off is another whirlpool of AI-related outrage as Meta, the company behind Facebook, was found to have used LibGen, a database of pirated books, to train its AI model Llama. Authors are rightly pissed, including ours as works by Hanna Alkaf (all of them, apparently), Syed Hussein Alatas, Tun Dr Mahathir, Farish A. Noor and Tash Aw were also found in LibGen. Anyone in the business of words ought to be pissed.

AI has also not been good for websites such as the World History Encyclopedia. Google's AI Overviews, which you might have noticed while googling the web, has been summarising content from websites with articles to give you and other users the answers you want. Alex Kantrowitz at CMSWire asks a bunch of questions as to where all this might lead, not least being the future of online content and whether it's better to train AI models to write articles rather than have humans do that.

And if your first book on a publishing platform was a success, would you let that platform turn it into a series, with AI-assisted ghostwriting? That's what Berlin-based Inkitt is doing and it seems to be taking off. But isn't this just another writing factory a la James Patterson with more tech? Would the authors involved even want to be in this long-term? Will the end result be, yes, authors and ghostwriters training AI to write in their stead? Who'd be down with that, especially when current AI tech is largely based on stolen intellectual property?

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Much can be said of TikTok, but few would doubt this reach. The video platform has come tothe rescue of many authors, and aong the latest is Jonathan Stanley, who wrote Purposeful Performance: The Secret Mix of Connecting, Leading, and Succeeding. A video of him being neglected as he sat in a Barnes & Noble with a pile of his books went viral and sent Purposeful Performance up the charts.

But BookTok - US BookTok, at least - is also discussing the impacts of the latest changes to US policy over books and immigration, concerned that their next reads will become pricier or difficult to import from outside the States and doubting the safety of writers travelling into the country for events will be assured.

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Excited about Sarah Wynn-Williams new book, Careless People? Not if Meta gets in the way? The company, formerly known as Facebook, is "attempting to halt any 'disparaging, critical or otherwise detrimental comments' about Facebook by Wynn-Williams through legal arbitration," reports the American River Current, American River College's student newspaper.

In the book, Wynn-Williams discusses, among other things, "how Facebook software became a propaganda tool for the military junta in Myanmar, how the company shares information with the Chinese Communist Party upon request and how Facebook sold the advertisement space that allowed misinformation to dominate the pages of American Facebook users going into the 2016 U.S. presidential election." She also testified to Facebook's connivances with China's government before a Senate committee on 9 April – testimony that Meta may have tried to prevent.

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Publishing in the UK is now less accessible to Black authors than it was before 2020. From the Guardian report, the apparent boom in Black authorship looks like a trend on the way to petering out, which it shouldn't be. Boosting the work of minorities in a predominantly White arena is a long-term mission, not a marketing gimmick that you cut back when the ROI isn't ideal.

One factor contributing to the fatigue in pushing diversity in publishing - not just in the UK - could be what Naomi Day at Literary Hub calls diversity syndrome, "a cultural condition where the 'otherness' of an author is elevated over the impact of their work, to the detriment of the author, their work, and their audiences." Authors are more than their ethnicity, and their lived experiences are shared to a certain degree by others outside that. That sort of pigeonholing by marketers limits discussions of the authors and their works and how far the works travel.


Elsewhere:

• At The Verge, Kevin Nguyen outlines how he uses apps in his writing process. "In addition to my work at The Verge, I write novels ... and while I admire Murakami's commitment to an immovable schedule, I've found that I produce my best work when I'm constantly rethinking routines, processes, and, mostly, how I'm writing. In the modern age, that means what software I'm using."
• "Several years ago, I was telling a friend about my career spent working with Mario Batali, Tony Bourdain, and all the male magazine editors. She said, 'My gosh, you've really made a career out of the care and feeding of difficult men.' It resonated with me." Laurie Woolever speaks to Vogue about "cultivating her own voice, the state of food media, grieving a pop culture figure, and getting honest on the page about addiction."
• The week before Hari Raya, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur overturned the ban on Boey Cheeming's When I Was a Kid 3. The book was banned two years ago after an Indonesian NGO protested against how an Indonesian domestic helper was depicted in one chapter. The book is being sold again, at least at the recent Popular Bookfest. The author is relieved but wary, as the government still has time to appeal the decision.
• Have changes to publishing led to a surge in author numbers but dwindling readers? Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta thinks so, adding that "this may be good news for book lovers." Gupta cites the rise of digital tools that have democratised publishing, which may include the alternatives to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) highlighted by SlashGear.
• At Electric Literature Samuel Ashworth highlights several of what he feels are the greatest cooks in fiction and wonders why aren't novels being written about chefs at the rate TV and streaming churns out cooking shows. "While there are a handful of recent novels about the restaurant industry, almost none of them are set in the kitchen. So to make this piece work I wound up expanding the frame to include the greatest cooks in literature—but don't worry. They include, as with any decent restaurant, a bunch of absolute freaks."
• "The publishing industry is willing to embrace the disruptive power of AI, an anti-sentient pretender that uses an inordinate number of natural resources—water and mined minerals—produces large amounts of electric waste, and will induce job loss for writers and designers. Yet, the self-same industry remains infuriatingly unwilling to make the sustainable changes that can and must be made in the production and distribution of books." Lucy Kogler believes the publishing industry has a serious waste problem that has to be remedied.
• China's cross-border obsession with quashing dissent continues with the sentencing of an editor for "inciting separatism". According to The Telegraph (of Alton, Illinois, not the UK), "Li Yanhe is a Chinese citizen who had been living in Taiwan, according to Taiwanese media. He was detained two years ago during a trip to China, and Taiwanese media reported last week that he had been tried and sentenced by a court in Shanghai but gave no details."
• Mallary Tenore Tarpley recounts the editing process for her book, SLIP: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery, after securing a publisher for it. Even for a journalism and writing professor at the University of Texas, this stage of the publishing life cycle can be a slog. "It's both exhausting and energizing; it requires the humility to accept most edits and the confidence to speak up when you disagree with others; it demands time, undivided attention and an openness to change — all in service of making your book as good as it can be before it goes out into the world."
• "My book The Serpent Called Mercy, with its monster-fighting arena premise, must’ve been crafted with the desire to replicate the same electric thrill of encountering a beast in the PlayStation-rendered wild and analysing how to defeat it." Give it up for Roanne Lau, who went on sci-fi bigwig John Scalzi's blog to talk about her Big Idea for this new novel. The book looks interesting but I heard that the big distributors have no plans to (BOO!) bring it in to Malaysia. That may change as her profile keeps rising, however.
• "This line from Anna Karenina is mentioned often, because it might be the best one: 'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Leo Tolstoy dropped the mic in 1878." Min Jin Lee takes Elle's literary survey and recommends some books. Ah, if only more of us are well-read enough to contribute to segments like this...
• Anu Khosla sits down with Vauhini Vara, author of Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age, "to discuss AI and its impact on our culture." Vara wrote an essay with the help of an early version of ChatGPT, and she's putting it to work (a little) on this book.
• Publishers Weekly is apparently charging money for review submissions. Anyone who wants to submit their book for review consideration will have to fork out US$25, but reviews are not guaranteed. Jeff O'Neal, writing at Book Riot, thinks it's a good idea, as another source of income and a way to slash the number of submissions. Nor is he concerned if others get into the act. "...maybe a few of those Meta dollars or Amazon ad dollars will need to come out of those marketing budgets and flow into media outlets that actively participate in and are interested in furthering the book making and reading business."

A Bookseller's Lament And A Culture Of Xcess

BookXcess at KL East Mall is closing and they're giving away free books. Happy news all around, except for a local author and bookseller who seemed to be having a bad day. "Queuing up for free books but not support a bookstore when it was open? Can't give up your little luxuries to help the local book industry?"

Ooh, the sodium, the vinegar. If he had to rail against the apathy of those who love free books but would spend lots on other stuff and afterwards proclaim the doom of society if people kept hankering for free books, that salt and vinegar must have seeped into his bones. Then, someone who retweeted screenshots of the Facebook post seemed to concur and wondered why locally published books aren't popular despite being cheaper and rich in variety.

News of the BookXcess giveaway tickled me. Some time back, MPH Bookstores impersonators ran online scams pretending to give away free books. BookXcess's offer is legit, but perhaps they can dispose of their stock that way.


Remainders of the day
BookXcess, the ones behind the Big Bad Wolf book sales, primarily sells remaindered stock - unsold copies written off by bookstores and publishers that would have been pulped otherwise. That's why BookXcess can sell for much cheaper but as far as I know, none of the proceeds go to authors or publishers, which may be why some don't feel comfortable with the business model.

Besides bargain hunters, BookXcess also attracts bookworms in the lower-income bracket who want to read but can't afford market prices. Authors and publishers may not be benefiting directly, but at least the books aren't being junked. With concerns over waste in the book industry, we should do what we can.

Even if Salty Bookseller's rant is directed at those who'd rather splurge on luxuries such as hipster coffees, fancy meals, and the latest gadgets instead of locally published books (not all of whom are "denizens of X/Twitter"), calling those lining up for free books "stingy" or "pleasure-seeking" addresses nothing.


Too atas, or too mahal?
Books have always been expensive and are becoming more so. Even BookXcess books are priced higher these days. Being choosy and going with recommendations is safe, which is probably why books of certain genres seem popular and, as a response, are being published. I believe some bookworms have their favourite genres and build a collection of the same, rarely venturing beyond.

Money is also why most readers and publishers don't want to gamble on new names, so such titles slip through the cracks. While it's a shame, one shouldn't associate "weird" or badly written and produced books with "edgy", "indie", or "avant garde". That's another conceit and almost as iffy.

Oversaturation is also present in the local industry. See how many titles in the same genres crop up, many with synopses that read like film trailers. Don't get me started on suspicious titles shelved under "general reading". But such is our market, and the influx of titles coming out of Wattpad of late means some publishers are banking on the online crowd paying for what they used to read for free, to support their favs.

Though some may seem too snobbish to read local, I wouldn't use the s-word to describe Malaysian bookworms. They're keen to back local, but flag-waving or cheaper prices can only go so far. The dearth of support, sadly, applies more to loftier strata of local literature – academic, literary, and intellectual works, and poetry – rather than the mass-market segment.

While kinks in locally published stuff – bad writing, factual errors, typographical snafus and such – are generally tolerated, some of us are more sensitive to that and react accordingly. Disproportionately, some might say. To the latter: Have you had to slay such demons for a living for years? Supporting local authors doesn't include turning a blind eye to what makes a work bad – how would anything improve?


A troubled ecosystem
Whatever ails our local book industry – or some segments of it – I think we're aware that it isn't well supported. We don't have a nurturing, ethical book culture. The arts are looked down upon, seen more as a bohemian pursuit rather than a real career. Many creators are paid peanuts. We don't pay advances to authors, and the royalty rates suck.

In Malaysia where so much is politicised, literature is hobbled by censorship and Triassic mindsets. Creative freedom is tenuous, made worse by self-appointed art and language police. Books can be banned years after they hit the shelves because no one seems to be vetting materials before they are brought in. Post-ban recalls can be costly and troublesome, as not all suppliers will reimburse you for returned stock.

(Along with the looming threat of unregulated generative AI, a fair bit can also be said about the involvement of the authorities, vested interests, and "concerned citizens" in the arts. The same names are boosted, often at the expense of other talents who don't fit a certain mould.)

Without intervention, our publishing sector will remain trapped within a vicious cycle. No oxygen for local publishing means no incentive to write, innovate, or improve; no new works that excite readers, same stuff gets released, readers look elsewhere, ad infinitum.

Bookstores and book festivals, meanwhile, get little respect from some patrons. Water bottles and paper cups find their way onto the shelves. Remember the instances of vandalism at Tsutaya Bukit Jalil? That theft at Books n Bobs in Taman Desa, which sells second-hand books? And I still remember that one lady who took snapshots of the pages of a remaindered cookbook at a Big Bad Wolf sale.

Without education and awareness, many will treat books and bookstores like they do, not knowing how much time, effort and money go into them.


Cheap thrill or lifeline?
These days, other worries take centre stage. Books are reportedly exempt from the new US tariffs, but one can't say the same for everything else in the supply chain. We should expect the book sector to be affected if those tariffs kick in.

Even in tough times, people find comfort in little luxuries, and that includes books – took me long enough to arrive here! Those who can indulge in or work with books are fortunate or privileged enough to, like those who open bookstores. Lost between the bindings, we may have forgotten that books remain out of reach for some.

As reality intrudes – market forces, changing reading habits, industry developments and so on – our reading and book-buying habits, along with any romantic notions we have about books and writing, need to be tempered. What does it say when bookstores give stock away rather than sell it?

Tough times also mean more people reading to escape, and platforms such as Wattpad excel here because it costs almost nothing, though some works should stay on Wattpad. The likes of BookXcess and Books n Bobs, book corners, and book exchanges help in their own ways. Bookstores do not have a monopoly on reading materials.

Whatever we feel about certain books, non-book frivolities or "cheap entertainment", we have to acknowledge that people will spend money and effort on things that bring them joy or satisfaction, however fleeting. Let these things tide them over until they can reach a better place, where they feel comfortable enough to reach for a book, or read beyond their personal preferences.