Book Marks: BookTok's Future, Graphic Novels, Publishers

As the ban on TikTok looms in the United States, several BookTokers speak to the media about what the ban could mean for them, BookTok, and the publishing industry. At the very least, BookTokers could migrate to another platform, and existing video platforms could make some changes to accommodate the expected exodus.

Rachel Ulatowski weighs in on the issue at The Mary Sue, voicing concerns that some authors would potentially lose a vital lifeline that helps their livelihoods, skipping past hurdles in traditional publishing routes. "Many authors have turned to TikTok because it’s their only option to be able to do the work they love in a flawed industry."

Publishers are in no apparent rush to adapt, noting that the ban is scheduled to go into effect on 2025. As for portability, The Washington Post's director of video, Micah Gelman, noted that "The videos ... are transferable from TikTok to YouTube Shorts." Will the community rebrand as "BookShort" or "BookTube" though?

In the end, it doesn't matter where the community migrates to. BookTok is apparently here to stay and it'll continue doing its thing, as always. Meanwhile, TikTok has filed a suit to block the law that would ban the app in the US. What's next? Staying tuned.

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Graphic novels and comics appear to be getting kids to read in Australia. The growth in the graphic genre hints at its growing popularity, but it's not just because the pictures are pretty.

Comic creator and illustrator Marcelo Baez, considers comics and graphic novels "the gateway to literacy", adding that "I talk to parents ... of the kids that I teach in the workshops ... and it's comics that gets them interested in reading," he told Cairns Post.

The portal also quotes Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) CEO Cathie Warburton: "At a time when the number of people reading for pleasure in Australia is declining, and when the health and wellbeing benefits are proven, getting kids excited by reading is more important than ever."

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"The article ['No One Buys Books' by Elle Griffin] paints a nearly apocalyptic portrait of traditional publishing, in which nothing works, few make money, nobody reads, and the whole industry might go poof at any moment. ... The only problem is, the picture isn't true." Lincoln Michel at Slate unpacks Griffin's viral article and provides some facts to counter some of the claims in it.

I think this article was (also) mentioned by someone writing in Daily Kos. The data Griffin uses comes from a court trial regarding Penguin Random House's merger with Simon & Schuster, where PRH tried to justify the move. "The problem is, [Griffin] is relying on bad data and a mindset from a trial where it was in the publishers' best interests to downplay their market power."

Publishing is tough, but perhaps not as tough for the likes of PRH and the other major international publishers. They're less vulnerable to market forces compared to smaller publishers. Still, wouldn't operating costs for behemoth corporations that arise from mergers be astronomical? Especially when the suits at the helm are more concerned with P&L than the quality of the output and the welfare and well-being of authors and employees? Perhaps putting more emphasis on the latter two would be better for the industry than shareholder-pleasing moves that tend to end up gutting the enterprise.


Also:

• "Ultimately, The Last Man seems to celebrate the notion of life itself as worthy, whatever form it takes. Of course, we should attempt to reverse the damage we've wrought on the planet. But it might also behoove us to practice humility in the face of nature's awesome forces." What lessons can a novel by English author Mary Shelley teach us about our impact on and our relationship with Earth?
• "I often have thoughts like why can't we have a prettier subway logo? Why are our government websites so cheap looking? Why do 'Ah Bengs' like changing LED lights so much?" Graphic designer Jun Kit's Ugly Malaysiana catalogues and champions Malaysian kitsch as a celebration of "the underdogs, the undocumented, the unimpressive, and of course, laughing about the craziness of it all."
• Daryl Yeap, great-granddaughter of businessman and philanthropist Yeap Chor Ee and author of the book about him, returns with the story of three women and their ties to Java's sugar tycoon, Oei Tiong Ham. The book, As Equals: The Oei Women Of Java, "begins in the late 1880s in Semarang, Java, the year that Tiong Ham's daughter Oei Hui Lan was born – an auspicious year for Tiong Ham, who made his first million that same year," reports The Star.
• National libraries across Europe have been pillaged of antique books written by renowned authors, which have found their way to auction houses in Russia, the Guardian reports. This gang had pilfered at least 170 books in what amounted to an international operation. "The books were stolen in 2022 and 2023 from national and historical libraries in France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Switzerland."
• The Lion Above the Door, a children's book by Onjali Rauf, was inspired by a Singaporean World War II pilot who flew with the British RAF. The author was recently in Singapore for speaking engagements in several schools and expressed a wish to meet the airman's family "so that they know what he means to not only her, but also to the thousands of children now learning and wanting to find out more about his story," reports the Straits Times. Rauf got her wish.
• "For my own writing, I always choose authenticity over commercial stuff. I tell my agent I don't want to hear any sales numbers or reviews. I don't want to let external factors beyond my control affect my creative mindset. I wouldn't fault anyone for doing so though – I don't consider it selling out. At the end of the day, writing is work." A profile of Singaporean author Kyla Zhao in Her World. She also gives a good piece of writing advice: "... it's never going to be a good time. So you should just start now."
• Who'd guess that Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, and The Valley of Amazement, among others, would write, illustrate(!) and publish her nature journal about birds in her backyard? The illustrations alone are enough to send one into another valley of amazement. As with many, she seems to have picked up the hobby and drawing skills during the pandemic lockdowns.
• "There is no proper form or proper time for grief. There is no need to be hard on ourselves if our grieving process doesn't match what other people expect. Grieving feels different for different people, and there are infinite permutations for what it might look like." Grief and sibling relationships are among the topics explored in Malaysian-born author Yeoh Jo-Ann's novel, Deplorable Conversations with Cats and Other Distractions.
• Some tips on writing and storytelling for journalists and writers of narrative non-fiction, from the book Truth Is The Arrow, Mercy Is The Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories by author and essayist Steve Almond and an interview with the author.
• "Over the last few years, Indian publishers have taken a cue from their counterparts in the West as they increasingly consult social media influencers to create a buzz around the latest releases. But what we are now seeing are influencers trying out the role of author themselves and often creating bestsellers." In India, influencers are diving into authorship, with encouraging results. Having a reputation and substantial viewer base helps.
• Say "hi" to the world of private book collections and learn what motivates collectors, what makes for a rare book, and the future of the hobby. This article is too brief for a deep dive into the subject, and it doesn't seem to address or acknowledge how some of these rare books in collections might have been stolen from elsewhere. Many reasons compel one to collect, and for many private collectors proud of their efforts, caretaking is usually the goal, as rare-books collector Tom Lecky states in the article.
• "Once a dream, [author Lauren] Groff's vision of a bookshop with purpose acquired new urgency as she observed what she calls 'authoritarian creep.' Florida led the country in attempted book bans last year, with 2,672 challenges, the American Library Association reported." Groff may not be from the Sunshine State, but she seems determined that her bookstore The Lynx be a stronghold against the wave of authoritarian bans on books and restrictions on what can be taught at schools and institutions of learning.
• "Why is Tan Twan Eng in the running for all the prizes?" some might ask when they get wind of his inclusion in the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Which, admittedly, he qualifies for and has won in 2013 for The Garden of Evening Mists. "Why does Tan Twan Eng win all the prizes?" some might ask when they hear about the latter. Here's my take on that. TL;DR: no, he does not win nor qualify for "all the prizes".

Finally, something that's not about books: a piece about powder supplements by novelist Rachel Khong who subjected herself to some of the remedies she wrote about. She also weaved some history and family stories into it, making it more compelling.

(Interestingly, Khong has Malaysian roots, and the book tour that stressed her out enough for her to try ashwagandha was for her first novel, Goodbye, Vitamin. Funny, how things fall into place.)

Dodgy-looking and -sounding supplements aren't exclusively American – plenty has been said and written about their healthcare system, so one shouldn't be surprised Americans are turning to alternatives. We have these here too in Malaysia and in some instances, consumption has had dire consequences. Man, the lengths we go – from an apple a day to expensive mystery powders – to stay healthy.

Book Marks: Author Angst, Pondering Publishing

Blockbusting authors aside, most authors tend to be paid peanuts in comparison. This guy Ian Winwood, writing in The Telegraph, seems to have realised that being number one in an Amazon subcategory or rave reviews doesn't boost sales, and how the publishing sector treats authors (and its employees) needs to be improved. Is an authorpocalypse looming ahead?

I'd like to think this piece is more than just an ad for Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World by Dorian Lynskey, a book about doomsday tropes and the stories based on them. After all, Winwood isn't the only author who has things to say about, for instance, how advances are paid in instalments that leave one a bit short on cash for an amount of time.

But as long as suits are more concerned with shareholder equity than making good content and taking care of employees and authors, little will change for authors, if at all. One silver lining is that we will keep telling stories all the way to the end.

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"Books don't sell"? "Everyone would be better off on Substack or similar platforms"? Not entirely true, apparently. Publishing is difficult, but the writer of that piece seems to believe publishers are good at their jobs but are downplaying their capabilities so they don't need to make the changes they need to get better.

This is in relation to the Penguin Random House–Simon and Schuster monopoly trial, where I think the two companies are trying to justify the merger by claiming it will make them work better. Do big firms have to do a merger every time they feel they're not performing? Can't they just, well, change? In the words of the writer: "Change, however, is only possible if we don’t just accept that self-interested words of people who were trying to get paid in a big merger."


Elsewhere:

• Considering how bookworms tend to grow their to-be-read piles, is it okay to throw away books when it's time to? Michelle Cyca seems to think that's fine, and has no problems using a book until it falls apart because books are, well, books. "At the end of the day, a book is just paper and ink and glue. Its soul is something else entirely, less tangible but more enduring than an object on a shelf."
• "Other than as a cautionary tale about hubristic zealotry, I doubt many people want to relive the reign of Mad Queen Liz and even fewer will want to hear her rant to them that none of it was her fault. So who on earth is this book intended for?" This review of former British prime minister Liz Truss's book will make you wonder how she managed to last as long as she did. Lettuce not do that again, please.
• "A 2023 study, published in the journal Psychological Medicine, of more than 10,000 young adolescents in the U.S. concluded that children who start reading for pleasure from an early age tended to fare better in cognitive testing and had better mental health in their adolescent years." A dad featured on Newsweek may not have heard of this study, but his practice of giving books to his kid instead of a phone seems to be paying dividends.
• Publishers may be fighting back on book bans, but I'd say it's more to do with optics than it is about doing the right thing, although a bit of the latter is a plus. More diverse points of view means more stuff to sell, and publishers seem to be aware that bookworms tend to be more interested in diverse material. Only a handful are pushing for books to be banned across the US, and shame on conservative figureheads riding high on this ripple sparked by frivolous reasons.
• "The Malaysian Indian community is central in a lot of my stories because that is my community, my voice. If I have other voices I want to write about, I take it upon myself to research and get input from members of that community. What's important is that we debunk the myths and misconceptions we have of one another." Malachi Edwin Vethamani has something to tell you in his new collection of stories.
• "Whenever I travel abroad, I am invariably introduced as China’s most controversial and most censored author. I neither agree nor disagree with this characterization—I’m not bothered by it, but neither do I feel particularly honored by it." Read an excerpt from Sound and Silence: My Experience with China and Literature by Yan Lianke, where he talks about state censorship, artistic integrity, and the market forces behind publishing.
• According to journalist and author Tracie McMillan, the advantages of being White all her life (thus far) came up to US$371,934.30. CNN interviews her, where she speaks about how she benefitted from "policies and practices that have systematically hurt Black Americans" – a topic she tackles in her book, The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America.
• Kristen Arnett at Literary Hub answers questions about what to do when someone sends you unsolicited writing for comment, putting summaries of books in book reviews, and paying for blurbs. Useful advice.
• "It's not the first time I've gotten irritated at book recommendations on social media," writes Danika Ellis on Book Riot. Someone will ask for recommendations for a very particular kind of book and receive replies recommending books that have no relevance to the original request. ... TikTok, Reddit, X/Twitter, and other social media are notorious for recommending the same books over and over again, regardless of whether they're relevant to the request. " So who does Ellis recommend for book recommendations?
• "The book preview list is a highly imperfect form of coverage that seems to be, along with best-of the year lists, the most widely used kind of book reportage in media. With overall book coverage being pared down at most outlets, such lists have grown widely outsized in importance for authors and publishers and readers, as well as the writers who contribute punchy blurbs to them." So how does Maris Kreizman put together a preview list of "titles to look out for"?
• "His reaction to The Magic Eye showed Kubrick's image-control obsessions taken to extremes. He didn't just make edits – he erased the entire project. Now, almost 55 years after Neil Hornick completed it, readers can finally make their own judgments about the book Kubrick was so implacably determined to keep from public view." The book Stanley Kubrick didn't want published will be released at the end of April. What's a film director who can't handle criticism?
• Since 2018, a schoolteacher in India has been issuing a call for book donations ahead of World Book Day on 23 April for the school's library. But his efforts don't stop at cultivating the reading habit among students. "Following his efforts to collect books for students and cultivate a reading habit in them, students have even begun writing their own stories," reports The Times of India.

Felines And Farewells

Beware the cat, dear reader. Though it may be a relentless killer of small animals, its antics feed an appetite starving for cute cuddly things, and its yowls can rend even the hardest of cat-hating hearts. What is behind the spell this creature casts upon us?

If you're looking for answers in The Goodbye Cat by Hiro Arikawa, author of The Travelling Cat Chronicles, you may be disappointed. What you'll find instead are more examples of the magic that cats weave into the lives of those who adopt them.


The full review can be found here.

How Much Tech Should Be Involved In Books?

...The CEO of a major international publishing house expressed hope that AI will help boost book production and keep the number of hires low. Tech-assisted spelling and grammar correction, plagiarism detection, and perhaps marketing tagline generation would be great.

But heaven forbid that algorithms will learn to write so well, their words will pluck at our heartstrings like the fingers of a practised harpist. Also, enough of making it so that we can download books into our brains...


Read the full piece here.

Book Marks: Closures, Employee Welfare

"...book publishing should be more than a vehicle for Dr. Phil or Tony Robbins or even the bestselling books that rightly deserve their place on the list. It doesn't mean that everyone should get to have their book published—but rather that there should be more room for more perspectives and less gatekeeping or curating the trends and landscapes that dictate what sells and what sinks." Kristen McGuiness is all for more diverse voices in publishing, and independent publishers are helping out.

Sadly, one independent bookstore won't be part of that effort. Mount Zero in Hong Kong closed down "after weekly government inspections spurred by anonymous complaints forced it to put up the shutters." Things haven't been well for the territory's cultural sector since Beijing imposed a national security law and bookstores and other establishments have had to toe the line.

Meanwhile in Orange County, California, the sudden closure of a book distributor has left a bunch of independent presses and authors wondering how to move forward. Some of these appear to be writers and publishers of titles that aren't considered mainstream, and with this distributor folding, these titles may now be even harder to source, unless an alternative is found.

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As BookTok makes waves in reading and publishing, some feel that the community could use their pull to make life better for authors and people in the publishing industry. The Gateway, the University of Alberta's official student newspaper, argues that if BookTok could get a certain book out just months after its predecessor, surely it could demand that publishers treat their workers and authors right.

Employee welfare is also the focus of Maris Kreizman's piece in Literary Hub, where she says there are too many books out there being pushed by major publishers, and the people working on these books can't keep up with the schedules. Volume doesn't necessarily mean productive or profitable, not when quality has to be sacrificed. "What a remarkable change it would be if corporations would allow their employees to do the best job they can with each book that the company has chosen to buy, rather than allowing them to flail."


Right, what else is up?

• "At the age of 29, I was anxious just like many others. When you turn 30, you feel like you really have to become an adult. So what should I do with my life? I didn't have an answer, but I knew that was not the way to live." Hwang Bo-reum, author of the bestselling Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, talks to the media about her writing and journey to publication, and how she found herself in a similar situation as the book's protagonist. A review of the book can be found here.
• "Evelyn Waugh once wrote, 'We possess nothing certainly except the past.' But how do you write about the past when the common ground we stand on isn't settled, and history keeps intruding on the present?" For author Peter Blauner, writing historical fiction is like treading on constantly shifting sands. Writers have to be mindful of the context of the times they write about and how some things might be triggering. But seems he's here to write, not to coddle readers.
• "... [Australian crime author Garry] Disher says there was 'a kind of cultural cringe that if it is Australian, it can’t be good enough and if it is crime, it is therefore junk fiction.'" Enjoy this snapshot of Disher's decades-long career from the Guardian.
• "Crouching over piles of books in a market stall in Cairo one day in the fall of 1993, Iman Mersal stumbled upon a slim volume with a gray cover and a catchy title: 'Love and Silence.'" What Mersal read sparked a years-long quest to learn about this novel's author, Enayat al-Zayyat, who battled depression for most of her life and ultimately committed suicide in 1963. The result was Traces of Enayat, translated by Robin Moger and published in April.
• "One big mistake that we make is believing that if we are writing for children, we need to dumb it down. We don't. It actually has to be a lot smarter when you are writing for children. Because you not only need to ensure that you're holding their attention with every single word, but also bring the message across without being too verbose." A Q&A with author Abhishek Talwar on his writing career and writing for children.
• "The trend towards apps that summarise books so that you can 'think better' is likely to have the opposite effect – if we don't use our minds to reflect deeply, we may lose our ability to think critically at all." So says writer Susie Alegre in the Guardian, regarding the use of book summary apps, especially those powered by AI. Summarising key points in big books, particularly non-fiction, may provide an easy way out for busy people, but it may backfire, making our brains lazy and messing up our ability to absorb, process, and retain information and knowledge. Eventually, we may forget how to read and think.
• On the subject of AI: Kester Brewin wrote an AI transparency statement for his book, God-like: A 500-Year History of Artificial Intelligence in Myths, Machines, Monsters, even though he wasn't asked to. Brewin included it in his book to promote discussion on what tools authors are using in their craft, "partly because research shows that a lot of generative AI use is hidden." It's not perfect but as there's yet no reliable way to screen AI content, "we at least need a means by which writers build trust in their work by being transparent about the tools they have used," writes Brewin.
• In The Washington Post, several super readers share tips on how to read more. These people's reading capacity is incredible. Between 150 and 400 books a year! And they tell you how they manage.

Book Marks: FanFic, Banned Book Club

Quite a few things going on. So let's get to it...

• "If someone wanted to nourish a child into loving literature, you could hardly do better than the Folletts. Wilson was a Harvard graduate who worked in publishing, first at Yale University Press and later Alfred A. Knopf, all while finding time to contribute to The Atlantic. His wife, Helen, was a former teacher and Wellesley graduate who gave up her career for their children." The story of child novelist Barbara Newhall Follett, who vanished into thin air.
• Meet Natalia Cheong, the teen author of The Cat on the Bridge. Not just an author but also the manager of a virtual book club and a host of her own online talk show. And the book? It's about "Toby the cat navigating the Rainbow Bridge – a realm for departed animals. Natalia weaves themes of pet loss, human-animal bonds, and personal insecurities, drawing from her own experiences as a teen."
• "...fanfiction is some of the best writing out there, excelling at hooking readers and keeping them enthralled. Given that this is the goal for any writer who wants to gather and grow an audience, studying fanfiction and how it pulls off this particular magic trick can help unlock the secrets to telling a story that captivates fans." Author Laura R. Samotin makes the case for fanfic and what the writing community can learn from it to transform publishing.
• Books that can't be published in Russia are being released elsewhere. Get acquainted with the practices of tamizdat and samizdat, which are returning as Vlad the Impaler's regime tightens its grip. I know few governments who'd literally poison people who write books they don't like, whose thoughts they can't control. Shudder.
• Free Malaysia Today spoke with Malaysian-born poets Malachi Edwin Vethamani and Shirley Geok-lin Lim for World Poetry Day on 21 March. More recently, FMT reported that the national book policy will be reviewed, an exercise that hasn't been conducted "since the policy was introduced 39 years ago on Nov 27, 1985."
• Australian author and journalist Paul Malone pays tribute to the forgotten and unsung World War II heroes from Sarawak with a book titled Forgotten Heroes. The book was was launched in Bario "in conjunction with the 79th anniversary of the landing of eight paratroopers under the Z Special Unit of the Allied Forces ... led by Tom Harrison on March 25, 1945 in the Kelabit homeland of Bario," Borneo Post Online reported.
• "I'd wanted to quit copywriting for years, hated office jobs, felt my time, abilities, and soul were being wasted in them. I'd felt secure as a single, independent woman with no want for children because Mom was there to call on when I felt alone. In her absence, I was unmoored; I needed a change." After her mother passed away, Mickie Meinhardt moved back home and opened a book-and-wine shop. Reminded of Hwang Bo-reum's Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, but sadder.
• The shortlist for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award is out and our nominee, Hades by Aishah Zainal, didn't make the cut. Ah well, this batch has some serious contenders, and to choose six out of 70 titles? The winner will be announced on 23 May, during the International Literature Festival Dublin.
• Get acquainted with the genre known as fabulism, which "fights against being placed in a neatly wrapped box," according to Lyndsie Manusos at Book Riot. "When fabulism is at play in a work, it often resists the why. Fabulism does not explain the magic system or fantastical elements. It doesn’t go into why a character suddenly sprouts branches as limbs, or why a character is back from the dead. It — the fantastical, the magical, the weird — just is."
• A graphic novel about books being banned in Korea is facing the heat from the book-banning fever in the United States. Banned Book Club is set during the 1980-87 military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan and depicts the situation in Korea during that time. "The book is based partly on co-author Kim [Hyun-sook]'s own experiences growing up in 1980s Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province," reports The Korea Times. "[Co-author Ryan] Estrada says it was researched thoroughly via first-hand memories, interviews with the real people who experienced similar events, primary documents and historical documents."
• "Despite possessing the talent and capability to write, many women find themselves confined to the role of homemakers due to the lack of conducive environments for reading and writing at home. ... For many of us, the time dedicated to creating art is stolen time, squeezed in between household chores and employment." An interview with author Manisha Gauchan in The Kathmandu Post, on her writing and the lack of support for women writers in Nepal.
• "The best kinds of books are the ones with attributes that are unquantifiable, which is a big reason why people are so much better at recommendations than algorithms are. ... What is unquantifiable is horrifying to the corporate overlords, of course, but it's the magic that connects readers with particular books." Lo, the seven types of book recommendations asked of Maris Kreizman at Literary Hub, and her replies.
• A Latinx reimagining of classics such as Frankenstein, Hamlet, and The Great Gatsby? From The Sacramento Bee: "These stories are among the classics reworked in a new book to ensure more youth read stories by and about Latinos. West Sacramento author Sandra Proudman, 35, spearheaded the effort, recruiting more than a dozen diverse Latino writers to each produce their own contemporary twist on canonical tales." Hell, why not?
• Were enslaved people employed to write the Bible and spread Christianity around the Roman empire? Theology professor Candida Moss says "yes" in her book, God's Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible. Among her aims is to highlight the contributions enslaved workers made to the Bible and the religion. "The writing, the editing, the copying, the movement of those early Christian texts – what you might call 'missionary activity' – all of that’s being done by enslaved workers."
• "I think the rise of romantasy is certainly in part because people do have the vocabulary of fantasy. Romance is one of the biggest genres in the world, so of course people want to see, or are able to read, fantasy romances in a way that might not have been true before." Holly Black speaks about, among other things, the romantasy boom, BookTok, and making hooves sexy. Whut.

Finally, something to make the skin crawl: Harvard has removed the human-skin binding of a book in its library. AFP reports that "A copy of the 19th-century book Des Destinées de l’Ame — or Destinies of the Soul, a meditation on life after death — was found in 2014 to be bound in the skin of a deceased woman." Apparently, anthropodermic bibliopegy – what the practice is called – used to be a thing, until it wasn't.

At This Cafe, Coffee Comes With A Second Chance

If you could return to the past, what would you change?

Tales premised around time travel have been told ever since the concept gained a foothold in the public imagination, and it often stems from lingering desires (changing the past) or unbridled curiosity (what lies in the future).

But what some may find remarkable about Toshikazu Kawaguchi's Before We Say Goodbye, about a café that serves a trip to the past along with a cuppa is how anime it feels. A good anime, that stays with you long after you leave the cinema hall or switch off YouTube.


Full review here.